#and also that i did not give her the notes voluntarily

[tardis--dreams]

Ok i reported her after she sent me two more emails. It's not gonna do anything but i just really wanted my lecturer to know so-

[qqueenofhades]

I got political whiplash on Threads. First, everyone was screaming, “All is lost!” I came back an hour later, and everyone was screaming, “We Ride at Dawn!”

The right-wingers are in panic mode. Steven Miller was practically screaming on Feckless news. 🤣

I mean. The right-wingers' entire mentality, the fuel for the January 6 attempted coup, the recent SCOTUS President God-King Immunity ruling, and all the rest, is premised on the simple fact that the president is indeed, Almighty God King who serves for life and will never, ever willingly give up his power. So that's how I can guarantee that the GOP, because they are short-sighted fascist morons, did not plan for this. Their entire strategy was built around attacking Biden, because they hate him. Like, really hate him. He defeated Trump the first time and there was still a good chance that he could do it again. Trump got impeached the first time for trying to extort Zelenskyy for dirt on Biden, because he didn't want to face him. That's why they went after Hunter on largely bogus charges, tossed around the idea of impeaching Biden, actually (uselessly) impeached Mayorkas, etc.

And yet, because Biden (even if he was forced to do it) decided to step away and voluntarily give up his presidential power instead of wrecking American democracy to hold onto it, that has broken their little shriveled fascist brains. They literally can't comprehend it, and I can guarantee they're now shit scared about having to face Kamala, a brown woman, who is the epitome of everything their tiny evil brains hate. As noted by those bangin' fundraising numbers, there is also a lot of excitement around her. And suddenly, after MONTHS of "this election is a referendum on which old and mentally declining man you hate more," that has been removed as a factor. (Watch the media suddenly forget all about age and/or mental competency as a factor now that Biden is out. Does it apply to Trump, you ask? CRICKETS.)

Kamala is going to mop the f'n floor with Trump at the next presidential debate, and I guarantee that the GOP knows that too. Because yes, if Biden had another bad debate, or if he has a bad case of COVID that might end up giving him long-covid symptoms or keeping him off the trail for days or weeks, that would have been very, very hard to recover from. Now the GOP is the one stuck with an old, mentally baffled, virulently hated presidential candidate and the most pro-Russia, anti-woman, demonstrable-sellout whitebread VP pick imaginable, that they had to choose because Trump nearly got the last one killed and he wasn't interested in the job again, for some weird reason. And as we have pointed out before, this is the last-chance saloon for Trump in any number of ways, and he has been demonstrably overconfident the last few weeks as the media was consumed with discussion of Biden's stumbles rather than Trump's manifold unfitness, treason, felonies, and all the rest.

I don't agree with Biden on everything he has ever done in his long career in public service, but I will say that I don't think he would have actually done this if he wasn't eventually convinced, for whatever reason that might be, that it was the right decision. And my one big fear about him stepping down was that the party would instantly fracture, people would start flogging unrealistic Magical White Boy replacements, and otherwise insist on an "open mini-primary!" or some other fucking bullshit. Now, there are still a few idiots trying that, but by and large, the Democratic power apparatus has instantly thrown its weight behind Kamala. That doesn't excuse them for the weeks of wibbling Anonymous Sources self-sabotage beforehand, and I still vote that we destroy the billionaires at our next opportunity, but if we can stick with that and keep up those mongo fundraising numbers, we might indeed actually have a better chance than before, and that was what this was all about.

As I noted yesterday, Black women have been disproportionately influential in taking Trump down (think Leticia James, Fani Willis, etc) and there is undoubtedly a huge, HUGE amount of poetic justice if Kamala can be the one to stick the knife in his greasy orange gut once and for all. I can likewise guarantee the GOP is well aware of that, and the fact that while they can yell even louder and trot out the same old racist, sexist, misogynist fearmongering dirtbag attacks they used on HRC, that is a strategy with demonstrably diminishing returns (it sure as hell isn't going to help them win any more female or suburban or black voters or anyone else we always hear about how they're Making Inroads with). And we're not going to talk about how it's Obvious that America would never elect a black female president. Obama won two terms. Even with all that weight of frothing misogyny and DECADES of Republican smear machines, HRC won the popular vote and was ratfucked out of the Electoral College by the slimmest of margins, after a massive interference campaign by the Russians. It is fucking possible, we are going to do it, and the Republicans are so, SO FUCKING SCARED of having to live in an America run by a brown woman, that can only be for the good.

Kamala Harris 2024. Let's go.

[jnnul]

nouvelle vague

a/n: i've been in a fever dream writing this fic, honestly. i kinda just needed to write it. it means so much to me that i did though because it's something that i wish that i had learned earlier and i just love this fic so much please love her like i have. and a huge HUGE thank you to xixi and soph for beta reading! couldn't have made this fic possible without you <3 quick note: feedback, comments, etc. GREATLY encourage writers! if you felt any sort of way (in a good or bad way!) about this fic, pls leave feedback!

word count: 13.3k

tags: college au!, confusing love, y/n who can't get her life together, self-destructive mc x perfect donghyun with a sprinkle of best boy dongmin, so many good friends and so many lessons to be learned

warnings: explicit detail of sex (oral, foreplay, angry sex, unprotected sex...) underage drinking, and general college shenanigans! also heavy detailing of unhealthy relationships with stress, and academic pressures :(

playlist: nouvelle vague - wave to earth, fairy of shampoo - dosii, she - jannabi, 0310 - yerin baek

THERE WERE LOTS OF THINGS THAT YOU KNEW NOT TO DO.

don't leave the gas on, don't let sanghyeok lee cook anything, and don't get into pointless arguments with dongmin han that he gets overly competitive about winning.

"...which is why you've got to trust me when i say that mbti is a science that you can actually trust!"

"i don't know, min, i just think mbti is stupid. it's a pseudoscience at best, and that too is a complete overstatement," you say off-handedly, more preoccupied with finding the book you needed to write your essay on. dongmin scoffs, pressing a steepled hand to his chest in offense as he pulls down the book you were look for with the other.

"that sounds like something an intj would say," he counters, withholding the book from you. you stare at him unimpressed, arms folded over your chest.

"it sounds like something a logical person would say," you retort, waiting for him to relent and return your book. this behavior (much to your dismay) was nothing new and you knew your best friend well enough to just wait out his tantrums for you to be able to move on with your life.

dongmin looks at you expectantly and you sigh, hanging your head. "alright, alright, i'm not a logical person; i've just got a stick up my ass. are you happy now?"

your best friend harrumphs proudly and touches the book to both of your shoulders, as though he were knighting you. you roll your eyes and snatch the book from him, hugging it close to your chest for fear that he might steal it from you again.

"maybe if you actually had a stick up your ass once in a while, you wouldn't be such a killjoy all the time," dongmin snorts, narrowly dodging you when you wind up to smack him with the book (read: weapon) in your hand.

"alright so now since i haven't had sex in a while, i'm a killjoy?" you say as the both of you make your way back to the study room that you'd reserved in hopes that you'd actually get some work done today. although, you should've been wise enough to give up on such nonsensical ideas the moment dongmin texted/warned you that he would be gracing you with his presence.

"i still can't believe you won't tell me who you had sex with last. and besides, i don't think you're a killjoy," dongmin clarifies, opening the door for you to walk through. "but everyone else does."

"because i'm voluntarily celibate?"

"because you never go out anymore! you used to be so much fun, y/n. you used to be the girl that would have crazy stories from when she would party until five in the morning. the one who'd have boy after boy lining up in front of her door just to see if they would get a chance with you. not to mention the fact that you used be able to drink us all to shame. i still think you're an awesome and fun person without doing any of those things but i miss you sometimes, you know? i just can't help but wonder where that girl went and that's why everyone else can't understand why a person like you and i can be best friends when they see us now. because they don't know what you used to be like."

you sigh, tucking your hood over your shoulder as you begin to analyze the work in front of you.

"i didn't go anywhere, min and you know that. i don't care what other people think as long as my best friend knows the truth. and besides, that lifestyle was never going to be a sustainable one. i just decided that i wanted more out of life than just parties and bad grades," you explain patiently, eyes never leaving the neatly organized papers in front of you.

dongmin huffs and leans backwards into the booth, but he knows it's the truth. while he'd become friends with you because of your rambunctious and adventurous spirit back in freshman year, he'd chosen to remain best friends with you even later on because you were a good person - an ambitious person who wanted to make something out of their life.

"you can have both, you know," he mumbles and you smile gently at him before looking back down at your book.

"i know. you can have both because you were smart and made sure your grades never slipped. i didn't do that and now i'm paying the price," you remind him, and you can sense dongmin's protest about your self-deprecating statement bubbling up but he's interrupted when the study room door opens and a series of people begin to file in.

"hey, so sorry to have to kick you out but we have the room reser - wait. dongmin? what are you doing in a study room, man?" one of the men who'd walked in says.

you don't pay attention to the people walking in as you begin to gather your materials, leaving the socializing to your much more extroverted best friend. you check your watch, cursing under your breath when you realize that you'd spent too much time looking for the book and dongmin’s antics. you were supposed to switch from this study room to the one next door, because that one was available for a long period of time but only opened up right as the current one was going to be occupied.

"eh, i just came to bother y/n," dongmin says with a bored tone that everyone in the room knows is a front. "what are you guys doing here? don't you have a musty basement to throw a rager in?"

this leads all of the men and women who walked in to snicker, pointing at the poor soul who'd decided to take it up with dongmin today.

"you're basically in the frat too," the man protests and you finally register him to be jeongwoo park, one of dongmin's heaps of friends in the tsr frat.

"yeah but you have to pay to drink your own alcohol with your own dues," dongmin points out, snickering at jeongwoo. "i drink your alcohol for free."

"i say we ban this kid from our parties," another voice, hyunwoo kim pipes up, and a chorus of 'yeah's' and 'shut up jeongwoo' rise up simultaneously from both sides of the conversation. you fail to keep in your giggle as you watch dongmin get banned from the tsr frat in realtime (that you know he's going to charm his way out of somehow anyway), causing some of the people to turn their attention to you.

"y/n! how are you babe? it feels like it's been a century since we've last seen you!" one of the girls, jihyo han, says warmly and you give her a shy smile.

"i'm doing alright. swamped with projects," you say, lifting your arms up to showcase the number of books and papers you were balancing and doyeon coos sympathetically.

"that's what double majoring in english literature and architecture does to you but the woman doesn't listen to me," dongmin says, jostling you jestfully. you turn to chide him for pushing you when you accidentally lose grip of all of your work, causing it to tumble to the ground in what feels like slow-motion into heaps of unorganized messes.

"dongmin!" you hear hyunwoo scold as you swoop down to gather everything into your arms once more. another figure joins you on the ground, scooping papers into a neat stack with nimble fingers and strong arms. you look up to make eye contact with donghyun kim, immediately averting your eyes when you do, afraid of what he might find in them if he kept looking at you for too long.

"thanks," you mumble when donghyun hands you the papers he's collected and he just offers you a soft smile.

"it does feel like it's been a while since we've seen you around, y/n. even sanghyeok complains that he hasn't seen you at their place lately," donghyun says gently and you're left to shrug helplessly as you adjust to grasp at the stray pages more carefully.

"ah. yeah. i haven't really gone over to dongmin and sanghyeok's place lately because i've been in the library most of the time," you say and donghyun nods, silent as he watches you with that knowing gaze that sets your every nerve on fire.

sometimes, you wonder if donghyun knows how much of an impact he has on those around him just by the way he looks at them.

you don't have feelings for donghyun - at least no feelings worth discussing with anyone and none that you were ever willing to recall - but you're sure that pretty any one with a pair of eyes and a functioning heart could acknowledge just how attractive he was.

you were almost 99.99% sure that even if what had happened between you and donghyun hadn't happened, anyone's heart would skip at least once when they talked to him.

"i'm gonna go to the other study room," you announce hurriedly to no one in particular and dongmin takes it as his cue to bid his friends farewell as the two of you make your way to the study room.

"feel free to come to our room if it gets too loud or crowded in here!" dongmin yells over his shoulder, much to your dismay and to the chagrin of the librarian sitting at her desk a few yards away.

"sorry!" he exclaims, equally as loud, and the librarian just rolls her eyes with a forgiving smirk tugging at her lips. of course dongmin had managed to charm her too. you'd be surprised if your best friend left anyone with two legs and a heartbeat on this campus without at least an attempt to get into their pants.

or vice versa. mostly vice versa.

"oh that reminds me. sanghyeok asked me if you wanted to come to movie night this friday. you've skipped out on the last three because of work and exams but you're finally gonna be submitting all the big ones by this thursday so i don't want to hear any excuses on why you can't come to movie night. alright? alright. besides, all of the guys from our - your freshman year are gonna be there. and also, sanghyeok is gonna bring his girlfriend too so you won't be the only girl," dongmin says, his words firing out of his mouth in rapid succession.

you just nod in understanding, knowing that this shouldn't be the hill that you died on when it came to dongmin's antics.

"and i also may or may not have promised that you'd come to jaehyun's party on saturday," dongmin adds sheepishly and this finally catches your attention.

"movie night is one thing but a party is another thing, dongmin! is it a frat party or a clubbing type event? how long is the event? do you need me to send a present for him or something? isn't it his birthday soon?" you interrogate and dongmin just throws a pencil at you and puts his index finger to his lips to shush you.

"woman, do you ever shut up?" he sasses, immediately raising his hands in surrender when your eyebrows lift so high, they disappear into your hairline. "what i mean is, jaehyun said that he would give me the number of that cute girl from your structural design class that you won't give me if you come to his party."

"how does he know her? and what does that have to do with my attendance at his party?" you ask and dongmin shrugs, leaning over the table.

"it's jaehyun. he knows everything about everyone," dongmin reminds you and you have to concede to that. "and i'm not kidding when i say that people miss you y/n. you're still that fun person when you're away from your work and people haven't seen that side of you in so long. you've gotta oblige jaehyun on his birthday, don't you think?"

"...i'll think about it," you say with a sigh after a few beats of contemplation. "as long it's not a 'rager in a musty basement' like jeongwoo's parties."

dongmin lifts three fingers solemnly. "scout's honor. it's not going to be a rager in a musty basement. now please. finish your work! i'm hungry and sanghyeok promised ramen from the ramen bar."

+++

to dongmin's credit, the movie night was actually a breath of fresh air from your constant cycle of work, school, and stress. sanghyeok's girlfriend, jayoon sim, was the sweetest girl you'd ever met in your life, back when you'd met her at the beginning of the year. she was very similar to sanghyeok in the fact that she was outgoing and on the louder side but it was heartwarming to see sanghyeok start to mellow out to balance her spark.

it wasn't as though sanghyeok was toning down his personality for her - if anything, the two of them were even more chaotic together - but he seemed to like riding the backseat of the conversation more often as jayoon went on some tangent or another of the plot of the movie.

which led to lots of moments where the movie was paused by one of the five boys present at movie night (more often than not, it was sungho park, who was more intrigued by jayoon's tangents than the movie itself) and lots of popcorn being eaten in those breaks.

and that was how you found yourself standing in sanghyeok's kitchen, popping another bag of popcorn - the fourth bag in the past hour. sanghyeok had offered but you knew from personal experience that sanghyeok plus any form of cooking equals fire.

you personally thought it was a talent to be that talentless at cooking but dongmin, sanghyeok's roommate and the unfortunate soul who had to put out said fires, was not nearly as amused as you were.

"do you need any help?" you hear a voice ask behind you. you turn to make eye contact with donghyun, standing in the space that separated the kitchen from the foyer where you could faintly hear jaehyun myung and dongmin get into yet another argument about the logistics of whether or not batman could feasibly buy the mona lisa.

"it's just popping a bag of popcorn," you answer. donghyun laughs, taking another step forward into the kitchen.

"and yet sanghyeok manages to destroy the bag and the popcorn every single time," donghyun reminds you and you shrug, slipping your phone into your pocket.

"it's hard to do. you have to give him that," you admit and he laughs again, shaking his head.

"touché."

there's a blanket of silence that falls over the conversation, the argument in the other room providing background noise so it doesn't grow awkward.

you knew donghyun wasn't much of a talker but at this point, you just didn't know what to say to him anymore. he wasn't a stranger to you - he was close to dongmin, and prior to that, you had been pretty close to the five boys. they'd been the boys that you'd gone out with most of the time during the second half of freshman year and the beginning of sophomore year.

donghyun had seen you in a number of embarrassing situations; granted, most of them were while you were blackout drunk, but the number of times that you were in asaid state during the first half of your college education was embarrassing enough.

and he'd seen you...he'd seen all of you. he'd seen too much of yourself and it made you want to stuff yourself deep underground so you could escape his knowing gaze.

so while donghyun kim was no stranger to you, this new version of you was a stranger to him.

it was an odd feeling: having the knowledge of a shared past that neither of you could fully relate to any longer, and having mentalities that extended in distinctly different directions in the present.

donghyun was the prime example of being able to have it all. from what you knew about him from the past three years of tentatively close friendship, you knew that he was a strong academic who would skip out on a party here and there to make sure he could study the next morning but could be convinced into having a good time pretty much anywhere.

you've heard of a good many adventures from dongmin just this year about how the five of them had found themselves in abandoned malls or parties at the college neighboring yours, which was infamous for its ability to throw a rager for pretty much any reason.

if anything, the strongest feeling that you felt towards donghyun kim was sheer, unadulterated, pure jealousy. how could one person be so well-balanced while it felt like you were fighting an uphill battle everyday just to get everything done?

that jealousy was what had landed you in the situation you were in now: filled to the brim with stress and ready to pop at any moment. it was also that envy which had led to that mistake at the beginning of sophomore year between you and donghyun.

"y/n? are you okay?" donghyun asks, waving a hand in front of your face. you blink, turning belatedly to open the microwave door, only to see that donghyun had already done it for you.

"sorry. i spaced out for a second," you mumble, and busy yourself by searching for a new bowl, seeing as the one in the foyer was still somewhat filled with popcorn.

"you really need to take breaks more often, y/n. i feel like the stress of constantly being on the go is getting you," donghyun echoes from behind you and for some reason, the concern in his voice makes you ashamed and angry more than anything else.

easy for you to say donghyun, you want to say. everything comes easy to you. you didn't fuck up like i did. you don't have to fight everyday to make sure that you actually have a future worth living for because you weren't young and stupid.

but all you actually say is, "yeah, you're definitely right."

you avoid donghyun's heavy gaze as you pour the popcorn into the bowl, silently willing him to go back to the foyer so you could simmer in your embarrassment in peace but to your dismay, he doesn't leave.

"you're incredibly intelligent and hard-working. but if you don't give yourself a break sometimes, you're just going to burn out. i wish you'd come back to us sometimes. you can't ruin your present for your future," he says softly, and suddenly everything is just too much.

his words strike a chord in your mind somewhere and you can feel your strong front start to crumble.

you want to yell at him, scream that he had no right to tell you how to live your life and that you were going to lay in the pile of sins that you'd committed. but for some reason, all you can do is try and fight back tears.

it makes you feel so incredibly embarrassed that you'd worked so hard for the past two years to ensure that you'd never slip up. that your mistakes from freshman year and the first half of sophomore year wouldn't catch up to you.

you'd worked on yourself, working on controlling your lust for going out and having fun. on not getting affected by when people would ask you to come out with them, only to reject them for fear of what would happen to your academics. you'd worked on not showing any signs of being tired or scared of your future.

just to cry. just to cry here in front of donghyun in sanghyeok's kitchen. not in the privacy of your home where no one could see you. but the exact place in front of the exact person that you didn't want to see you cry at all.

you hastily wipe at your tears, willing them to stay in the confinement of your eyes before you could let them fall in a place that would deliver such a blow to your ego or your social standing.

donghyun is taken aback, you can tell by the way that his usually impassive face has a hint of worry written into the lines of his forehead that crinkle as he watches you try to put yourself together.

"can you give this popcorn to the others? i just need to use the restroom really quickly," you whisper hoarsely, not daring to look at donghyun in the eyes as you rush out of the kitchen, trying your best to look alright and conceal the fact that you were crying in front of the five other people in the foyer.

you know you're unsuccessful though when you hear footsteps growing louder and louder as they approached the bathroom and it takes every ounce of your strength to keep from crying harder.

"y/n? you okay? you looked kinda hurried going into the bathroom." it's dongmin, and you contemplate for a moment before slowly opening the bathroom door, pulling him in and he immediately wraps you into a hug as soon as he sees your tear-streaked face.

"i'm okay. i just really need a hug right now," you manage to warble out, and dongmin's arms just get tighter around your shoulders. you try to come down, steadying your breathing as you try to keep fresh tears from falling down your cheeks when a knock sounds at the door.

"it's me," donghyun says and you want to curse him out. you want to tell him to leave you alone. that you didn't want to talk to him and that you wanted him to stop judging you and your choices. instead, you lean over, breaking away from dongmin, to click open the bathroom door.

"i'm so sorry," he says softly and you shake your head, giving him a mirthless smile.

"i've just been super high-tension for the past couple of days with all of the submissions and i just - i just kinda fell apart. sorry you had to see that."

donghyun steps forward, and dongmin steps back, letting go of where his arm was resting on your shoulder.

"i didn't mean to make you feel bad, y/n. i was just worried about you. i know what it's like to feel that kind of pressure and i just hated to see one of my...friends in that level of stress," he continues, glancing at dongmin when he says the word friend, and dongmin steps around you in the tiny bathroom to reach the door.

"i'm gonna leave you two alone. don't do anything i would do," he warns with a stupid grin and despite the situation, you find yourself laughing, threatening to throw the toothpaste at him.

"he's so dumb," you say under your breath and donghyun watches you carefully.

"he's a good friend," he remarks and you nod, pulling at the toilet paper to wipe your tears away.

"he's the best friend i could ever ask for," you agree and donghyun's expression doesn't change but his demeanor grows a little more hesitant.

"we all thought you guys were gonna start dating, you know. i mean, he's the one person who stuck by you through everything," he confesses and you immediately shake your head, the very thought of it making you want to gag.

"dongmin and i? no way. he's my best friend but i could never see him as my boyfriend. we're more like siblings than any sort of romantic relation; i'd fax his soul directly to satan if he asked me for my fries but i'd give my kidney to him," you explain and donghyun relaxes a bit, leaning against the wall behind him as he watches you clean yourself up.

"he hasn't talked to you about how much stress you're putting on yourself?"

"i'm doing fine, donghyun. i really do appreciate that you have my best interests in mind but dongmin's the one who's been there for every single step i've made. if he doesn't think that there's an extreme cause for concern, no offense, but i really don't see why you do."

donghyun has nothing to say to that, and although he probably should, he doesn't feel hurt at all. you were right. donghyun knew you as an outsider, compared to dongmin and even sanghyeok, and didn't know how much stress (or lack thereof) there really was in your life.

but he couldn't explain why he was so worried or why he missed your old troublemaking tendencies so much. or why he missed your strange ideas of a good time or unnecessary dialogues during movie nights. he couldn't explain why he missed the heat of your body on cold nights or why he replayed that fateful night in his mind over and over again.

this was the first movie night that you'd been to in a while from donghyun's knowledge but what did he know? he was only at this movie night because dongmin invited the old freshman/sophomore year gang to start their friday movie nights tradition once more instead of them just being sanghyeok, you, and dongmin.

so when you slip past him, not only does donghyun find himself at a loss for words, but he also finds himself more confused than he had been before your conversation.

at least he could figure it (whatever it was) at jaehyun's party tomorrow.

+++

the one redeeming factor of your attendance of jaehyun's party in exchange for dongmin's sexcapades, in your opinion, was that it was not in fact hosted in a musty basement.

jaehyun had taken it upon himself to host his party in the penthouse of his apartment (rich people had the strangest ways of spending their money), which was definitely a step up from what you were expected.

unfortunately, the sheer number of people in that party who were present, on top of the number of people who were surprised at your presence was more than a little bit overwhelming.

you'd forgotten just how loud these parties got, and if you weren't already over the legal drinking age, you'd be extremely worried about being caught dead near this many drunk people.

not that you hadn't done your fair share of illegal consumption of ethanol but that was something you chose not to dwell upon.

"Y/N! I'M SO HAPPY YOU'RE HERE! I MISSED YOU SO MUCH SINCE YESTERDAY!" you hear someone scream over the obnoxiously loud music, and immediately, your vision goes black as jaehyun bearhugs you, clearly too drunk to be fully present in the situation at hand.

"jaehyun! happy birthday!" you manage to squeak out, hitting dongmin in the arm to pry jaehyun off of you. you'd convinced dongmin to stick with you the whole time during the party in exchange for you actually showing up and he'd declared that he'd serve as your bodyguard during jaehyun's party for times like these.

"alright bud, i don't think she's ever gonna come back to a party if you squeeze her to death," dongmin warns jaehyun, peeling the energetic boy off of you. jaehyun pouts, not looking unlike his dog (the cutest golden retriever named juno) as he shakes his head stubbornly.

"no! she has to come back! she's so much fun! she's the life of the party!" he exclaims, searching through the throng of people for a cup of whatever nasty concoction you were sure sungho had come up with.

you should've known better than to come to this party, you lament. any of jaehyun's parties always turned into ragers from the absolutely insane number of people that he knew.

but soon enough, jaehyun is shoving a cup into your hand, the suspicious liquid in it sloshing around dangerously as he teeters backward into a tall figure.

"careful, dude. you don't want to end up in the emergency room on your birthday again," the figure says, catching jaehyun's body in his arm.

you internally groan. donghyun.

"ugh no. i hated going to the emergency room last year for my birthday," jaehyun whines with a strong tone of sheer pout staining his words.

"that's what i thought. where's sungho?" donghyun asks, and you figure that sungho must've been put on jaehyun duty for the night, as the man was a total lightweight and was known for endangering himself more than anyone else whenever he had a single drop of alcohol in his system.

"sungho! OH MY GOD SUNGHO!" jaehyun yells, slipping out of donghyun's grasp in search of his more than likely tired friend.

"that guy needs a girlfriend," dongmin sighs and you roll your eyes.

"why? so some poor girl can get tasked with dealing with jaehyun's mess every time he gets drunk?"

"nah. every time jaehyun gets a girlfriend, he turns into such a clean drunk it's crazy. i think he subconsciously feels bad that his girlfriend has to take care of him so he does it on purpose," donghyun explains and you hum, examining the substance in your cup with a critical eye.

you never knew that jaehyun had had a girlfriend. or more than one girlfriend at that. you were pretty close with jaehyun once upon a time. why hadn't he told you when he started dating someone? had you really become that out of touch with your friends?

all because you decided that you didn't want to party anymore?

no. that wasn't it. your friends weren't people like that. it was probably because you declined every single invitation that they'd extended to you to hang out with them.

a guilty weight settles in your chest as you start thinking about just how many times your friends had invited you to do things with them over the past year and a half. in the moment, you'd always had something that you needed to do. something to submit, something to do for extra credit, something to do to get better grades.

but now that you looked back on the past year and a half, you could only remember the events they'd invited you to, and just a handful of truly important assignments you'd needed to submit.

"you don't need to drink that," donghyun says, extending his hand for you to deposit the drink into. dongmin looks between you and donghyun, confused by the sudden offer. donghyun never went black knight for anyone else - much less women he wasn't all that close to.

even when you were a well integrated member of their friend group, you had never been particularly close to donghyun, from what dongmin remembered. the two of you were close enough to embark on drunken adventures separate from the group maybe once or twice but definitely not close enough to mention those adventures to dongmin in explicit detail.

not close enough for donghyun to drink a drink for you.

it's clear that you think the same thing (for different reason, however) when you lift the cup to your lips, staring at donghyun straight in the eyes as you tip your head back, drinking all of the contents of the cup in one straight go.

donghyun smirks, watching you drink the whole cup, aware that you were proving a point to him.

you don't need to keep trying to worry for me. i can handle myself.

the message is clear in your eyes as you lock eyes with him, wiping the excess liquid on your lips with the back of your hand, the challenge explicit in the way you look at him.

"too much pride is no good for you," donghyun quips and you roll your eyes.

"it's not pride. i just know that i can handle my alcohol. i don't need you to worry about me or worry about whether i can or not," you retort. "you worry about me when i study too much. you worry about me when i party. when are you not worried about me donghyun? why are you even so worried in the first place?"

"because we used to be good friends," donghyun counters but his argument isn't all that strong, by the way his voice wavers when you step a step too close to him - so close that he can smell the cinnamon of your perfume.

"were we? we were friends, sure. but were we good friends, donghyun? we just went out together. we hung out with the group but we weren't all that close. not...not until... not close enough for you to be suddenly popping back into my life with advice that i don't need and i didn't ask for!" you can't help but raise your voice, searching blindly for dongmin's arm and dragging him with you, chest heaving in anger as you storm away from donghyun.

"what the hell?" dongmin is left to ponder. "has the alcohol already kicked in?"

+++

"don't talk to me right now," you seethed, pushing at donghyun's chest as you walked faster towards the rest of your friends, somewhere further up the street, laughing and shoving each other.

"i don't even know what i did!" donghyun exclaimed, using those stupidly long legs so that he was walking backwards, face to face with you. "why are you so fucking mad at me?"

"you seriously don't know?" you yelled, and you saw dongmin turn around to see what was taking the two of you so long, unaware of the bomb he'd dropped, but he's turned back around just as fast by sungho, who had an extremely drunk jaehyun on his back and clearly needed dongmin's help carrying their lightweight friend who was a heavyweight in body weight when drunk.

"i seriously don't know!" donghyun repeated, his arms flying up to show you how frustrated he was. of course he didn't know. there was no way that he could know just how upset you were with his perfection. of course dongmin had to mention that donghyun had a 4.0 gpa. of course he could come out every night with you and your friends and still maintain that gpa.

of course he didn't have to worry about whether he would even get a job in the future because he'd failed a class or two. of course he could go out every night. of course he could drink his weight in alcohol and still function the next day. of course he could get any girl he wanted just by looking at them for a second too long.

"i hate you," you whispered, almost as if the words had escaped the dark recesses of your mind against your own will.

"what?" donghyun asked incredulously, swooping down to catch the noxious words falling from your painted lips.

"i said, i hate you." your eyes were fierce, shining with a dangerous light that donghyun had never expected from you and had never seen before. you looked like the picture of peril, a knife poised at his throat, threatening to draw blood.

it was an emotion that was so raw that donghyun found himself leaning even closer, absolutely intoxicated by the reckless way that you refuse to hide the challenge in your eyes.

"are you guys coming or what?" sanghyeok call out from where the rest of your friends were, some ten yards ahead of you. donghyun waved him off, his stare never leaving yours.

"we're going back to my place. i've gotta show y/n something," donghyun yelled back and you can't help the sneer that draws upon your lips and if donghyun weren't beyond turned on, he was sure that he would find it a little concerning.

it wasn't everyday, after all, that one of your good friends mentions that she despises you. especially not a good friend that you found incredibly attractive.

the rest of them turned back around, leaving you and donghyun to simmer in this strange energy. competition, charged with something else much more primal - anger and lust.

the entire walk to donghyun's place is silent. it was just a five minute walk from where you'd split from your friends but those five minutes feel excruciating as you feel a dark sense of excitement sit deep in your core, making you feel split in two directions.

the first direction was much more logical: you were jealous of donghyun's ability to handle it all and you wanted to just yell at him and scream until your throat went hoarse.

the second direction was stronger and much less logical: you were incredibly drawn to donghyun and you wanted him to fuck your throat until it went hoarse.

same end goal, but different ways of pursuit.

the second direction ends up winning out when you found yourself pressed up against donghyun's door the second you step out of the elevator and into his studio apartment, donghyun walking you backwards so that you shut the door with the movement.

his lips stayed tantalizingly close to yours as he reached up to lock the door, his hand falling down so that it was cupping your cheek and his eyes search yours, looking for any sign of discomfort.

"look, are you going to fuck me or not?" you whispered harshly and he barks out a laugh, his other hand moving from where it was resting by his side to caress your waist.

"you've got so much anger in you, y/n. what did i do for you to hate me so much?"

"does it matter? i'm telling you to fuck me. either i leave without a heart to heart and you can jerk yourself off or i leave without a heart to heart but you cum inside a pussy tonight instead of your hand," you bit back.

donghyun's breath was shallow as he assessed you, making sure that you were in the right mind and could make decisions for yourself. if you really knew what you were asking for.

the thought of it pissed you off.

"i just don't know if this is a good idea," he admitted and you straightened up, hand reaching next to you to turn the doorknob. you didn't need someone who was going to be so apprehensive. so now you weren't even good enough to fuck?

"i'm leaving then," you said donghyun's hand immediately covered your own, pulling it back and over his shoulder so that one of your hands was resting at the nape of his neck.

you circled the other one to link your arms around his neck, forcing him to bend even further so that he was eye level with you now, lips so close that he can practically taste the flavor of your lip gloss.

"do you want me to leave donghyun? do you think this a bad idea?" you asked, purposefully letting the venom of all of your emotions drip into your voice. you're being unfair, you knew that, but it doesn't matter. it doesn't matter when he was so close and yet so far from you and you couldn't even think straight.

"fuck you." his voice ghosted over your lips, and the two of you stayed like that for a moment, equally proud and unwilling to be the one to give in and kiss in the other.

but donghyun's patience clearly wasn’t as strong as your ego when his lips pressed against yours, too gentle for your taste. you wrapped your arms a little tighter around him, letting him rest his hands low on your back, still too careful.

"i said i hated you and this is the best retaliation you've got?" you whispered, and it's like a switch turns on in donghyun's brain. his hands leave their position on your back to cup your cheeks harshly, tilting your head up so he could kiss you deeper.

you sigh against his lips, a smirk tugging at your own as you finally achieve the level of animosity you were looking for. you didn't want to have sex with donghyun. you didn't want to make love with him.

you wanted to be fucked. ruined. unable to think straight.

which was why you let him kiss you stupid, your lips swollen from the force of his own. it was as though the two of you were inseparable; his hands roamed your body freely, claiming every square inch of it for himself.

he tugged you forward harshly, lips never detaching from yours, hands reaching lower and lower until they finally settled on your ass, and you couldn't help the shallow gasp that left your mouth when he squeezed experimentally, a cocky grin melting into your kiss when he hears the soft noise.

he turned the two of you so that you were walking backwards as donghyun walked you into his bedroom, finally pulling away when your knees buckled as they hit the bed, making you fall backwards onto it.

he didn't even give you a moment to think as his lips descended on you once more, even more insistent and rough than before as he let you slip his leather jacket off his body.

his lips left yours, descending further down your body until they reached the hem of your strapless top, leaving wet kisses and blooming bruises in a heady rush.

"y/n, you have to tell me if you want me to stop." donghyun's voice came out strained and you knew that he was exercising every bit of self control to keep from fucking you stupid.

unfortunately, that was exactly what you wanted from him.

"donghyun. i'm not going to say it again. fuck me stupid."

that was all he needed before he was practically ripping at your top, pulling it off of you harshly before diving in to suck hickeys down your chest, unbuttoning your jeans at the same time.

he tugged them off in one motion, leaving you in nothing but a bandeau bra and your underwear.

"thought you were gonna get lucky tonight?" he asked with an eyebrow raised as he looked at your panties - which were fortunately, and unfortunately, the sexiest ones that you owned. lacy and thin and everything.

"yeah. thought i was gonna finally fuck sunghoon park again. that man knows how to fuck a girl into the headboard," you retorted and you could tell that you'd gotten under your skin by the way that he reached forward to pull at the strap of your panties, letting the elastic snap against your waist with a painful sting.

"you're such a little brat. you need someone to fuck that attitude out of you. didn't know you had such a fucking dirty mouth on you," donghyun growls, and you would've come up with some equally as brutal response when donghyun pulled his shirt over his head with one hand.

you'd seen donghyun shirtless before. multiple times, honestly, with the number of times dongmin tries to pull you guys into random bodies of water whenever he got drunk. but seeing him in that moment felt like your blood was made of lava that was coursing through your body, rushing to settle in your core.

"you're so pretty but you're so bitchy sometimes, you know that?" donghyun taunted, hovering over you so that his gold necklace hit the bridge of his nose as he leaned over, pushing you up the bed so that your head hit the pillows.

"heard someone was gonna fuck the attitude out of me?"

donghyun smiled a wolfish smile, and pulled your underwear down, almost painfully slow as he watched you squirm, clearly unhappy with his pace.

he threw them behind him somewhere that you knew you were going to have to search for in the morning but it didn't matter in that moment.

no. all that mattered was that donghyun's lips were on your core, licking an experimental stripe, grinning proudly when he saw you shiver. he dove back in, enthused by the groans leaving your lips.

his lips were unrelenting, his tongue darting out to dip into your pussy, leaving you at his mercy. your hands reached out to tug on donghyun's hair insistently, incredibly overwhelmed by just how good he was making you feel.

"fuck. pull harder," he groaned, his hot breath fanning over your pussy, causing goosebumps to run up your spine.

you giggle, a sound that sounds out of place in such a situation, but you didn't care and obliged, pulling on his hair even harder. he groaned, leaning in to eat you out with even more vigor, his hands on your clit and rubbing at it in just the right motion. you'd laugh at his conflict if you weren't otherwise preoccupied with the hot ball of pleasure growing in your core.

donghyun watched you carefully as he pulled away, instead replacing his tongue with just one finger, waiting to see if you'd show any signs of discomfort. when you didn't, he moved his finger in and out slowly, adding another when he noticed you started to get impatient with his ministrations.

"trust me, there's nothing i want to do more than to fuck you dumb. but i can't do that if i can't be convinced that i'm not to break you in half with my cock," he whispered.

"i don't think you're big enough for that," you snarked back and donghyun just offered you a shit-eating grin and added another finger, watching for any sign that you might tap out. holy fuck. was he actually that fucking big?

he picked up the pace, fucking you faster and rougher, his fingers slipping out for just a moment as he adjusted himself so that he was laying next to you before continuing again at an even more brutal pace.

"fuck!" you can't help but yelp, one of your hands finding one of donghyun's, as his fingers move at almost mind-numbing speeds.

"i told you someone needed to fuck the attitude out of you. now look what you've done to yourself," he crowed almost condescendingly. if you weren't so blinded by the sheer pleasure of his fingers, you'd probably cuss him out.

"fuck, fuck, fuck! fuck donghyun i think i'm gonna cum!" you cried out.donghyun simply nodded at you, and you took that as a sign to cum. but just as you start to feel yourself topple over the edge of the cliff you were standing on into the pit of pleasure, donghyun rips your pleasure away from you.

he pulled his fingers out of your pussy, watching you squirm and convulse as your hips bucked pathetically, searching for some way to taste the pleasure you were so close to attaining.

"baby doll, you should've known better than to assume that i'd let you cum for the first time on my fingers rather than my cock," donghyun preened mockingly, kicking his own jeans off in the same motion as his briefs.

"fuck you, donghyun." it was all you managed to conjure up through your tears as you tried to catch your breath, only to have to wind knocked out of you once more when you caught sight of donghyun's cock.

"oh hell no, that's not going inside my pussy," you gasped, and donghyun smiled despite himself, and ran his fingers over your hair gently.

"it's big but that's why i prepped you so much, isn't it?" his tone makes it clear that there's no real question in his words. you were the one who'd said you wanted to be fucked stupid. donghyun was the one to make good on that wish.

"just go slow," you grumbled and donghyun nodded, lining up at your entrance carefully.

"can't promise that i'll go slow for too long - fuck!" donghyun cut himself off as he slipped the tip of his dick into your hot core and immediately, both of you let out a groan.

if just his tip was enough to make you feel a stretch after he ate you out and fingered you, you had no idea how you were going to fit the rest of him inside you.

if just the entrance of your pussy was enough to have donghyun's head spinning, he had no idea how he was going to fit the rest of him inside you without immediately coming.

he slid in slowly, forearms resting on either side of your face for stability, that stupid gold chain smacking you in the face with his every slight movement.

it would feel degrading if you weren't turned on beyond belief, you were pretty sure.

"god," you let out softly and donghyun couldn't help but agree as he sheathed himself completely inside you. if donghyun would be allowed to see the pearly gates of heaven, he was vaguely sure that it would feel a lot like this.

"tell me when i can move," he grit out, exercising his self-control to the fullest he's ever had to.

"you can move," you whimpered, equally close to losing your mind.

he pulled out so that just the tip was in your pussy before snapping his hips forward, knocking the breath out of you with the motion. he continued that agonizingly slow  until both of you got fed up, and finally picked up the pace.

"your pussy is perfect, you know that?" he growled, fucking into you with fluid and quick motions that make you feel as though you've established permanent residence on cloud nine.

"you're not too bad yourself," you huffed out and a short breath leaves donghyun as his movements grow harsher.

"clearly i'm not doing a good job of fucking you stupid if you can respond to me," he said.

he made good on his promise that night, fucking into you deep and rough until you both came in a symphony of moans, chests heaving as he collapsed next to you, utterly spent.

maybe if you'd said something other than what you did in that moment, things wouldn't have turned out this way. but the reality was that it was those words that ultimately dug you into your grave.

you finally spoke some ten minutes later, when your brain wasn't so fuzzy you didn't know where to pick words from.

"i wish you weren't so fucking perfect, donghyun. i just can't...just forget this happened. please. it's not like we're going to get into a relationship because of this. and i don't want to face our friends right now. so just forget any of this happened."

you'd gathered your clothes and dashed out of his apartment, the buzz from earlier in the night completely gone, along with any chance of donghyun ever figuring out why from that day onwards, you'd started completely avoiding your friends and your past, running towards a future you so desperately wanted to grasp, even if you didn't know how to.

and as he fell back against his sheets, facing the ceiling, donghyun realized just one thing: something in you had changed. but was it for the better or for the worse?

+++

dongmin lets out a low whistle, followed by a crinkle of his nose.

"you could've let out the explicit details, you know," he bemoans, pressing his hands over his ears, as though he could reverse time and delete the story you'd revealed to him from his mind by doing so.

"you said you wanted to the whole truth on why i was being so bitchy to dongmin," you point out and dongmin inclines his head towards you, pulling his knees a little closer to his chest.

"you were kinda unnecessarily bitchy, though, you have to admit. but what i really asked was why donghyun decided to go all black knight on you, to which i still haven't received a proper explanation.," dongmin corrects and you shrug, accepting the packet of gummy bears that dongmin had produced from his back pocket.

in freshman year, you'd become infamous for chasing your shots of vodka (the only alcohol you chose to drink, other than whiskey) with candy and ever since then, at least one of your friends would always carry a packet of some sort of sweet candy on them for you.

"you brought gummy bears for me?" you ask, touched as you rip the packet open, the perfect level of fuzziness buzzing through your head.

"sungho brought gummy bears for you," dongmin says softly and you look at him surprisedly. "when i told him you were coming to jaehyun's party, he told me that he needed to be prepared. they all miss hanging out with you and going out with you, you know."

"they miss hanging out with who i used to be. i don't think that they'd want to hang out with me now," you snort and dongmin immediately slaps your knee, shaking his head.

"you've gotta stop doing that."

"doing what?"

"doing the whole 'woe is me' act when you just grew up. we all grew up, y/n. maybe you haven't seen it because you've been so busy in your own world, trying to make up for the past but we've all grown up right besides you," dongmin rants, getting up from where he was sitting on your balcony, starting to pace back and forth.

"when you pulled away from us, you know how confused we all were? it was like one day, you were laughing and making jokes with us and the next day, you suddenly hated us. you stopped coming to our hangouts, stopped initiating plans, fuck, you didn't even come to sungho's birthday last year!

"we thought that we did something to piss you off. we interrogated donghyun for weeks but he was just as confused as the rest of us. and then i realized just how lonely you were by yourself. you think i didn't notice how you'd watch us hangout in the library without you? about how you left that stupid neck pillow for sanghyeok when you saw him staying up late studying? or when you paid for jaehyun's coffee when you knew he was having a bad day?

"i was the only one who saw all that. so when everyone asked me when i didn't drop you like you dropped us, i didn't know how to explain that you didn't drop us, but you were just going the wrong way about chasing after your future. i didn't want to out you and make you feel as though you needed to stop taking care of everyone behind their backs because i still wanted you to be with us.

"we all cared about you so much. that's why i've been here the whole time. i've been the only one in front of you but the same way that you've been taking care of everyone else, everyone has been taking care of you. who do you think lends me his car whenever i need to come to your place because you're having a bad day and need a shoulder to cry on? sanghyeok. who always keeps the pantry stocked with your favorite snacks in case you might come around one day? sungho.

"who always points out clothing whenever we go shopping and says 'y/n would love this shirt!', just to get upset when he realized you weren't there to respond? jaehyun. who would always nudge me to go and check on you because he was worried that you were putting too much stress on yourself? donghyun. even jihyo and jayoon ask about you and keep asking us if maybe you'd come over more often since there were more girls hanging out with us now.

"i'm not telling you all this because i want you to feel bad. i just needed to tell you because we've all been caring about you this whole time but you've just never let us in, when we've been knocking at the door, just waiting for you to finally open the door. and you just won't because you're so scared of coming back to us!" his chest is heaving at the end of his rant and you can't help it, leaping to your feet as you let your voice grow louder and louder, scratchy with emotion.

"i am scared dongmin! i'm so fucking scared, i can't even think straight! i miss all of you so much and i'm so scared that i'll fall into the trap of loving you all so much that that's all i spend my time doing and i'll neglect all of the hard work i've been putting in for so long to reverse the mistakes of my past!" you scream and dongmin steps even closer, clearly not backing down from this fight.

"and what kind of future are you going to have when you turn around and see that we've all moved on without you? i can't fucking move on without you because you're like my sister; i can't imagine a life without you but what about everyone else? how long do you think everyone's gonna be waiting for you?"

"i didn't ask them to wait for me!" you shout and dongmin runs his hand through his hair frustratedly, turning so that you wouldn't see the anger on his face.

"BUT THEY DID! THEY ALL DID! they all waited for you because they - we all love you, you stubborn piece of shit! all you had to do was tell us you were feeling this way! all you had to fucking do was talk to us and ask for help. but you pushed us away when you needed us most and now look!" dongmin points at the empty space around you, forcing himself to overlook your watery eyes. "look at who's here besides me? you know jaehyun would've wrapped you in a hug, that sungho would've immediately offered to study with you. that sanghyeok would've stayed up with you, even if he didn't need to. that i would sneak food into the library with you! that donghyun would literally sit down and tutor you if you needed him to."

he swallows when you finally break down, sobs wracking your body as your fists clench into balls at your sides, stubbornly refusing to take the one step you would need to for dongmin to wrap you into a safe hug, like the ones that jaehyun always gave you.

but it's okay, because dongmin takes that step for you, wrapping you in a tight hug that makes you finally feel like you can take a breath through the tears that feel like are choking you from inside out.

"i just wanted to be good enough for all of you. i wanted to come back when i was good enough and i thought i could be someone everyone wanted to be around if i was good enough," you sob and dongmin can feel his heart break as his embrace grows tighter.

"you're good enough the way that you are, y/n. you know how much you've inspired everyone? i've even started studying for tests the day before the test, instead of the hour before!" dongmin exclaims, feeling a little more relaxed when he hears you laugh through your sobs.

"that's not much better," you warble and dongmin just shrugs, never letting go of you.

"it's better than the hour before the test."

"dongmin? for the record, i don't think that i'm the only one who grew up. i know that everyone grew up. i just..."

"i know."

"i wish you were my actual brother."

"if i was your actual brother, i probably would've spit on you by now."

"what the hell."

+++

you wait nervously in dongmin's room as you hear people begin to file into the apartment, a jumble of familiar voices as jihyo and jaehyun begin bickering once again about something or another.

it was just a matter of time before the two of them started dating, you figured.

dongmin was betting on three weeks and you were betting on three months. something about the slow-burn of it all was appealing to you. dongmin insisted that fanfiction was just rotting your brain.

you let out a breath of air and dongmin flicks you on the side of your head, and you fix him with a mean glare as you rub the spot that he'd hit.

"they're just your friends, y/n. you don't need to be that nervous. you've been looking forward to this all week," he reminds you and you just nod, still rubbing the spot.

after the emotional conversation/argument with dongmin last week, you'd asked to come to the next movie night, wanting to start spending more time with your friends. and although you knew that it wouldn't be the exact same as it once was, it would never be and that was a good thing.

balance was a good thing.

"dongmin? where are you, motherfucker? i can't believe you made me buy you three different types of sour gummies, fatass!" you hear sanghyeok yell from the other room and dongmin takes this as his cue to drag you into the room with him.

"i only wanted one type. y/n wanted the other two. still wanna call me a fatass?"

dongmin doesn't get an answer to his question because no sooner has he said the words do jihyo and jaehyun bound over to you (not looking too much unlike juno) and wrapping you into nearly bone-crushing hugs.

"dongmin told us that you were going to be more available to hang out with us more and more and these two - " sungho cuts himself off to grab jaehyun by the scruff and jihyo by the collar of her shirt. " - have been a little too excited since he said so."

"we've missed you so much!" jihyo exclaims.

"you saw her last week," jaehyun mutters, groaning when jihyo smacks him upside the head.

"so did you but that didn't stop you either, now did it?"

"you're such a little bi - "

"alright. let's stop while we're ahead and just be happy that y/n's back with us, how about that?" dongmin proposes, the voice of reason for once in his life. jihyo and jaehyun exchange a dirty look (albeit, a very childish one) before the two of them sit down, leaving just you and dongmin standing awkwardly, as though you were about to give a presentation.

"uh. thanks for having me back guys. i kinda don't know what to say other than the fact that i'm sorry for leaving so abruptly. i struggled with hanging out with you guys and balancing a good gpa on top of that so i made some really stupid choices but i promise that i won't hide those stupid choices from you guys anymore. i just - i've just really missed you guys." your little speech clearly moves more than one person to tears but before jaehyun can try to deliver death by hug once more, sanghyeok claps his hands, pulling up some streaming platform or another on the television.

"thanks for that touching speech, y/n. now if you could get the fuck out of the way, we need to vote on a movie. your vote only counts as half a vote since you've missed more than two movie nights but you're welcome to rally for full membership after attendance of two more movie nights," sanghyeok announces and you roll your eyes, before looking for a spot.

dongmin's caught up in some conversation about that girl from your class with jayoon (undoubtedly doing some background research; as if he could find out anything that would make him actually keep it in his pants) and everyone else's spot is taken, leaving just an empty space next to donghyun.

i'm a big girl. i don't need to sit next to dongmin for everything. donghyun is still your friend at the end of the day. that you fucked. and was the last time that you had sex. and was also the best sex you'd ever had. but just a friend! haha. just a friend.

not the best dialogue to be running through one's mind during their re-debut into civil society (read: friend group) but you manage to divert your mind before it delves into dangerous territory.

"we're still friends," donghyun murmurs from beside you and you turn, despite your common sense telling you otherwise, to see him looking at you with the most genuine and twinkly eyes that you have to swallow and force yourself to turn once more to face the television set.

"yeah. friends," you repeat, softer than he'd said it and you can feel his stupidly sweet gaze on the side of your face.

+++

spending more time with your friends was nothing like how you thought it would be. for starters, it turned out that your friends themselves didn't have too much time to use as expendable time to just fuck around, like you used to in freshman year.

as juniors and seniors, most of your friends were occupied with their classes and their work, as opposed to the lighter coursework in earlier years. on top of that, many of them were either in relationships or were pursuing someone (or many someones, in dongmin's case) so there was more time eaten up by that as well.

but the time that all of you did spend together was much more domestic. equally as chaotic, as you'd discovered when you'd gone grocery shopping with just jaehyun and jihyo and no adult supervision from sungho (who'd trusted you to be the adult supervision), but less shenanigans than before.

instead of finding street signs to steal off the road to stash in dorm rooms, the friendship that had developed between your friends had gotten much more real, and there were more nights that you can count where at least one of you was staying up late to finish something so the rest of you were stuck helping them.

even staying up late to finish projects was more comforting with the presence of your friends, though, and you were so grateful that you'd come back to them. that they'd accepted you with open arms.

you'd had conversations with each of them one on one at some point or another, detailing why you'd left them so abruptly and asking for forgiveness but more often than not, you'd just gotten scolded for ever thinking that they wouldn't give you a chance to explain yourself.

"you were such a good friend to us for so long," sanghyeok had said. "you don't think we would just drop you when you're going through a rough patch, right?"

of course, that had led to another round of tears (which jayoon witnessed and went ham on sanghyeok for making you cry, which made you cry even harder because god, what country had sanghyeok saved for such an amazing girlfriend) but that was besides the point.

in fact, you'd made amends with pretty much everyone except for donghyun. you could see him waiting for you - waiting for you to reach out to him and explain yourself like you'd done so with everyone else, but for some reason, you just couldn't.

partly out of guilt, but also partly out of shame. you just couldn't help but avoid him.

it was easy to do so when it was all of you, since you could always rely on dongmin and sanghyeok to keep your attention otherwise occupied. but when it was just the two of you, after everyone has left the library to do things other than study for their innumerable tests, you can always feel the apology bubbling in your chest, threatening to break free.

but it never does. it never does and you know you're going to regret it.

you didn't have romantic feelings for donghyun, no. but he was someone that you could develop romantic feelings for and someone like that didn't deserve to think that you just hated him for no reason. because just going off of what had happened last year, donghyun really had no reason to think that you felt any emotion towards him other than hatred. and your actions prior to making amends with your friends didn't do much to dissuade that thought either.

which is why you didn't understand why he was still treating you with so much kindness. you were fairly sure that he wasn't head over heels in love with you or anything (especially since he's also had a good many girlfriends ever since your encounter) but you also couldn't come up with any other reason for his understanding.

he'd been the first one out of everyone to come and actually talk to you, four months ago in that study room, even at the risk of you pushing him away once more. he was the one that was most likely to be pushed away and he still looked after you, cared for you, and worried for you.

"you don't have feelings for me, do you?" you blurt out, immediately slapping a palm over your own mouth. donghyun looks up from the tablet his taking notes on with furrowed eyebrows.

"what?" he asks incredulously and you furiously shake your head, looking rather comical with your hand still covering your mouth.

"nothing. forget i said anything." you wince as you look back down at your book, ensuring that the references lined up with direct quotations as you mentally bash yourself. stupid, stupid, stupid. so you won't say that you're sorry but you'll do this? just be grateful no one else is here to see this catastrophe.

"i don't have feelings for you," he clarifies and you nod, unable to meet his eyes. of course he didn't have feelings for you. that would be so dumb. when you didn't have feelings for him, why should he have feelings for you? right?

so why did your heart just feel the tiniest bit tight in your chest?

"i don't have feelings for you but i used to search for you in every single party. even before we...we did whatever we did that night. i used to always look for you first. and i always used feel so happy just looking at you smile," he says. you look up, confused by his statement now. donghyun's looking right at you with those horribly confusing, glittery eyes and you feel your breath catch in your throat for a split second.

"what?"

"i said i don't have feelings for you. but when you pulled away from all of us, i just couldn't help but think if i did something wrong. if i did something to push you away. and i realized that i would rather have you hate me, i would rather have you push me away every time i come close, or even use me to vent your stress however you need rather than have you walk away once and for all," he continues and you feel that same tightness in your chest as he speaks, heat rising up your spine as it sits uncomfortably in your cheeks.

"i just wish you'd stayed that night. i could've convinced you to tell me all your fears and all your worries and i could've just gotten rid of them for you instead of you holding onto them for so long in your own mind," he finishes and you sit there in silence, unable to piece together any thoughts.

"so, uh, you don't have any feelings for me?" you confirm and donghyun rolls his eyes, and for just a split-second you see the dangerous glint that you remember from that night.

"you're an english lit major and you can't tell that i'm telling you that i have feelings for you?" donghyun teases and you just stare at him dumbly.

"i thought you said that you didn't have feelings?"

"and you said that you hated me."

"i don't hate you."

"i know."

and that's all the confirmation you need to spring forward from your seat, pressing a kiss to donghyun's lips. just as soft and as perfect as you'd remembered.

he reaches forward to cup your cheek, molding his lips against yours gently as you try to pour every single emotion you can into a single kiss.

"i don't hate you," you whisper, leaning your forehead against his, still standing up somewhat awkwardly due to the desk in between the two of you.

"i know," he repeats. "and i know that you don't feel the same way as i do. not as strongly as i do, at least. and i just want you to know that i'll wait."

"you'll wait for me?" you assure and donghyun nods, his hand reaching up to pat your head gently.

"i'll wait for you to take me back as a friend first and then we can figure out the rest."

"what if i'm never ready to put a label on our relationship?"

"then i'll just be here with you. i don't need a label for my feelings."

+++

it's not perfect. for all his perfection, donghyun kim had heaps of flaws. he was surprisingly 'needy' and felt anxious when you weren't with him for extended periods of time.

and when jaehyun, sanghyeok, and sungho graduated, you realized that it extended to far more than just you. for someone so stoic and poised, it turned out that donghyun was extremely soft-hearted and could care for nothing more than to have his loved ones around him for as long as he could hold onto them for.

it proved to be a little difficult, given that after your departure from your friend group, you'd gotten used to a certain level of independence and affinity for your own personal space that donghyun just didn't understand sometimes. but the two of you worked on it, because you loved each other even as just friends too much to not work on it.

there'd been points where you were sure that the two of you would just have to be friends and move on with life because of how hard it all was. you could never let go of donghyun fully; all of you were just too great of friends to ever be able to keep out of each other's lives completely.

but all's well that ends well, and you and donghyun learned to work through those issues. your affinity for running away when things got rough and donghyun's tendency to latch on harder every time you guys faced an issue was something that took months of serious discussion and communication to get through.

dongmin was the mediator more than once whenever the two of you got into arguments (you exploding at donghyun and donghyun just sitting quietly, making you even more upset before the two of you calmed down and worked things out) and it helped to have him around.

the one good thing was that your relationship, however imperfect it was, spurred dongmin to start to settle down and look for a girlfriend himself.

much to your happiness, and dongmin's chagrin, there weren't many girls on campus willing to date someone with such a reputation but that just meant that dongmin put in more effort to convince them that he was a changed man.

it was a good look on him, you'd told donghyun one day. dongmin suited having someone in his life that he had to work to please and someone who liked him regardless of his clumsy attempts at love and cared for him fully.

the three (four, when dongmin met his girlfriend) of you stuck together throughout the rest of college. there were still uncountable numbers of allnighters trying to make sure that you were maintaining your grades but it turns out, you could balance both having fun and being academically strong.

you could spend time with your friends and your boyfriend without having to worry about whether you'd be able to secure a job after college because of your gpa. it was nice, not feeling like there was a huge demon breathing down your neck every time you needed to sit down and study.

it'd taken you a long time to get there, but like all good things, with the help of your loved ones and with some self-work, you developed a healthy relationship with studying and a work-life balance.

oh! and you did end up getting a job. your dream job. right out of college. everyone had been so proud, just like you knew they'd be.

and just like that, years had passed by in the blink of an eye.

the five of you made it a point to reunite at least twice a year, since most of you were in the same country (other than sanghyeok and jayoon, who'd relocated back to south korea to take care of their parents after they got married). even five to six years later, when all of you were reaching the end of your twenties and entering the next phase of life, nothing changed.

"JAEHYUN MYUNG, IF YOU DON'T GIVE ME BACK THE TV REMOTE!" jihyo screams from downstairs, and you hear loud footsteps as jaehyun undoubtedly keeps the remote withheld from her.

"i can't believe they're the parents to two children," you snort, blowing on your nails to dry them quicker.

"i can. all that fighting energy has to go somewhere," donghyun retorts and you roll your eyes. he had a point.

"you've got a point. we've been on vacation for three days and they're already in their fourth argument. well. i guess it's just flirting to them," you contemplate, extending your hand to examine your handiwork.

"you thought that fighting was flirting back in college too," donghyun reminds you and you shake your head, looking at donghyun. and just like usual, he's already looking at you, head tucked into his fist as he lies on the bed that the two of you had slept in together for the past five years (vacation was hosted by your family this year).

"it clearly worked on you," you fire back and donghyun smiles a giddy smile.

"you're my weakness. anything you give me works on me," he says in a lovestruck voice and the laugh that escapes you is a real, full-bellied one.

"god. you're such a dork; i love you so much," you sigh, getting up and walking over to where he's lying, climbing onto the bed to wrap your arms around him.

"yeah? wanna channel our energy into making a few babies?" he teases with a greasy tone of voice and squiggly eyebrows.

"you're incorrigible."

"you love it."

"i love it," you agree, leaning forward to press a sweet kiss to his lips. you'd liked the darker sides of donghyun and there would always be a side of you that got giddy whenever you saw that side of him.

but you'd always love this more. soft, reassuring, and unconditional love. from him to you and you to him. neither of you needed perfection. you just needed each other. husband and wife. you didn't need those labels, and you'd believed donghyun when he said that he didn't need them for his love either. but it was nice, having everyone know that you had each other for life.

"ARE YOU WHORES COMING OR NOT? WE'RE GONNA START WATCHING WITHOUT YOU!" dongmin yells from downstairs, and you can vaguely hear his fiancée slapping him on the chest and knowing her, she was definitely telling him to shut up and let the two of you make her a niece or nephew.

you laugh, grabbing your husband's hand and leading him downstairs to plop down next to your friends. someone shoves a bucket of popcorn into your arms and you realize how grateful you were for all of the people in your life.

and how glad you were that you'd decided to forge a new path for yourself with your loved ones and with your newfound confidence in yourself.

love and life are always easier with friends and family, after all.

[heelluring]

— his regrets... • l.hs

wherein the sinner was once again hit by guilt but he guessed, it hurts the most when it hit the second time around [ part 1 ]

author's note ~ ! hi! so, i decided to write this since there are a lot of requests. i dont know if i ever gave the story any justice, i just hope i was able to deliver what i want to write. anyways, here you go. happy reading!

Heeseung stands outside the restaurant that both of you frequently visits. in the past, he'll drive to the restaurant while u're the one entertaining him through the passenger's seat. he'll call u pretty and will watch as a soft blush stain ur cheeks together with a subtle hit on his arms in attempt to hide your shyness. Both of you were happy that time, heeseung was happy, you were happy— when did everything go wrong?

oh, right. he cheated. he did the very same thing he promised he wouldn't do when you said yes to him. cheating with her older sister at that. what is he thinking, right? Heeseung also, didn't know.

And as much as he regret it, it wouldn't change a thing. He'll never feel your presence in his arms, again or feel how your lips fit so well in his.

It's been years since he saw even your shadows but you're still the one haunting his mind. After getting caught with his affair, he immediately ran after you but was failed. Came running to your apartment, but no one was there. Your landlord assured him though, he was told that your things are still in the apartment and that made him hope, maybe this will be a passing tumbles? Maybe he can still fix this?

He was definitely wrong. It was all but a delusion. You never came even if he waited for almost a week in that apartment just leaving whenever he had to go to work. But, you successfully avoided him. The next time he came, your apartment was wide open, your things were gone including you, and workers from the complex are now starting to clean the unit for the new potential buyers.

You successfully vanished through his life, didn't even get him a chance to see you before completely walking out of his life. The same time you left, so is heeseung's life started to crumble. He was called by the HR department one day, saying he's just there to talk. Though the way they have every evidence of his infidelity and disgusting rendezvous with Rina told him otherwise. That's just like a punch for him. Your crying and pained face draws on his mind, he can't think about anything but how hurt you were the day you found out. He was a jerk, a sinful man that doesn't deserve any forgiveness. If all, it just made another salt that was rubbed on his wounds. He was so stupid. How could he do that?

After all the things you did for him, this is what he decided to give back and thus, karma's out for him. Things happened so fast that when he came into realization, the company already sent a letter making him choose if they'll forcefully fire him or he'll just voluntarily resign. It doesn't matter anyways. His business was all the employees could talk about for the past few weeks, even if he gets fired or resigned, doesn't matter because people knew what he did and that goes the same with Rina. With no stable income, life was hard. Heeseung had a hard time applying in a new position. No one's accepting him, in the end, he became content with jobs that had nothing to do with his past career. Being a janitor or a delivery guy, he did everything and anything just to survive.

"Heeseung? what are you doing there? There's a lot of people since dinner already started, we need you at the back" Even being a waiter in your favorite restaurant was one of the things he did just to put food in his mouth. But he knew it wasn't just because of that. Heeseung wanted to be able to hold at least one small fragment of your memory that was still enclosed in this restaurant. Because, every time he sees that one special corner, he was able to be happy at least for a short period of time.

"Serve the new guests, it's on table 15" Heeseung nodded at that taking the menus on his arm before walking towards the table. It was a couple, the man was the only one he could see while the woman's back was facing him. A certain feeling took over his system. The woman looks familiar but that's impossible. Heeseung shook his head and his doubt, before putting on a smile.

"Good evening, and welcome to Chaconne. My name is Evan, and I would be your server for the night. Here's our—" His tongue was cut off when the woman looked at him. It was you, it was really you. Heeseung wanted to cry, to just get on his knees and say all the things he couldn't get to say all these years. But, who is he fooling? He knew that what he really wanted to do was to hide in shame and guilt. He always wanted to appear in front of you as a successful and strong person but instead, you saw this side of him. The one who's currently paying his dues with karma. You didn't say anything, just looking at him with sadness in eyes. He can't read that sadness as something different though. He knew that it was accompanied with pity, pity with someone you're just acquainted with.

"Sir? Are you alright?" The guy you're with asked. "Ah.. ah— yes. Yes, I am. I'm sorry for that, Sir. So here's our menu..." It was smooth, he was able to calm down. He needs to be professional, he can't afford losing this job and he also can't afford to make you uncomfortable. After a while, the guy who he knew called Jay called him again to take the orders. It was an understatement when we say heeseung can't take his eyes off of you that whole night. You look beautiful as ever, the only difference is that you look happier. Jay said something to you, and that made your eyes widen in bliss before giggling, hitting him softly with your hands. As a man, heeseung knew how Jay loves you. The way he looks at you, how he softly caresses your hand on his, drawing small shapes on its surface in process, how he smiles just to you was all he needed to know. Besides, it's the same look he's given to you. You look so happy, you might as well be glowing when you're with him. Heeseung on the other hand, can't do anything but be happy for you. You now feel at peace and secured, it's a long way from how miserable you have been with him and heeseung can't help but thank the one above for that. Even when you two finally finished your dinner, leaving gracefully with your chivarious man supporting you, heeseung can't help but to follow you with his eyes.

Oh how he wished, he was that man. Heeseung was not a saint. Of course, on top of being happy for you, he also felt bitterness creeping up his system. But it's all in vain.

"Hey, heeseung." One of his co-workers called when it was closing time handing him a dark blue colored envelope. "Remember the couple you served earlier? The woman told me to give this to you." His eyes widened, taking the envelope before saying his goodbyes to the other workers. He was in the park when he decided to open it. A can of beer, and a cup of ramen placed hastily on his side as he took the envelope out. It was elegant and sealed, he flipped it twice before carefully ripping through it when he made sure there were no written words outside.

Hey, heeseung. It's been awhile, years even. I know things didn't end well between us. I don't know if you're angry at me for the things I also did just to get back at you, and I won't blame you if you are. It doesn't matter though, I will still say sorry for those things. I was driven by my anger and pain, and because of that you lose your means to support yourself. I'm sorry Heeseung... for everything. For me, those moments were nothing but a memory, just a painful part of my past. I was able to move on and I hope that goes the same with you. You don't need to suffer, give yourself a chance again. Forgive yourself.

It's nice to see you again, Heeseung. You might not believe this but I hope you'll be happy, I am hoping for your best.

Heeseung didn't know he was crying until a tear stains the paper, the next thing he knew, his vision was blurry. "You were still saying sorry to me even though we knew I deserved it? Even wishing me happiness when I'm the one who took that away from you in the past. Y/n... how can you be so cruel?" His thumb brush on your signed name, as he whispers those words. How come, after all these years, you're still the one who can make himself feel understood. His whole system was numb, can't feel anything aside from pain. Is this the kind of pain you felt that night? Heeseung's happiness was with you but now, yours was nowhere with him. He feels relieved, yet there's a bittersweet feeling because this just means that he has to let you go, that this will be the last night he'll have a touch on your memories.

"Thank you... thank you so much... and i love you..."

heelluring, 2024

likes, reblogs, and comments are deeply appreciated ❤️

[lostintransist]

Liaison Part 4 Winning This Bet Will Be Easy

Part 1 can be found here. Up to chapter 32 over on AO3.

Kate could, arguably, be the person you know the best in the 141. You had her number saved in your work phone and also your personal. She took you to lunch at least once a week to confirm you weren’t having any problems. This lunch felt a bit special since you had been at your job for six months.

Kate seemed to treat these meals like an informal progress report. She also checked that Ghost wasn’t giving you any more problems. Seems word got around to all the teams that you and he did not get along. Any week you saw him you reported what offense he handed out like a challenge coin and how you responded. The week you told her about the hair pulling she shot beer through her nose.

Coughing, Kate grabbed a napkin. She pressed it against her beer-leaking nose.

“You said what to him?”

“I told him that hair pulling is kinky and asked him if he would follow up on his offer.” Shoving a bite of pasta in your mouth you watch Kate clean up the mess on her face.

“God I wish I could have seen that. Ghost isn’t always a right bastard but when he is it’s hard for anyone beyond Soap to take him to task. Why do you two hate each other so much?”

“I can’t say why on his end but I don’t respond well to demands. First thing he asked of me, ‘scuse me, demanded of me happened on a bad day was to confirm a contract and I could not respond in any way that wouldn’t cause problems. Seems no one else stands up to him so I have become his favorite wall to ram his head into.”

“You’ve been here six months now, how do you feel like you’re fitting in?”

“I’m not.”

Kate paused, looking you over. “Tell me more about that.”

“There isn’t much to say, I am chained to the computer and the phone. I took over this portion of the job from you, you know how much work this is.”

“And I will never be able to thank you enough for that, believe me,” Kate reaches across the table to squeeze your hand once before sitting back up.

“I think the only person I could say I have had a non-work related conversation with is Roach.”

“Roach? Really?”

Kate’s confusion is understandable. Roach is voluntarily mute. You tend to forget he is in the room when you yell at your computer until he sends you a cheeky message about keeping it down over there. It never comes across as high-handed or rude. The man has quick fingers and a quicker wit. The odd back and forth of talking to him and his responses rolling in over chat doesn’t bother you. It’s no different than a voice note in a text conversation.

“Some of the guys are in town tonight and we are hitting the local pub, why don’t you come and get to know them better?” Kate’s offer sounds genuine.

“Will you be there? I would hate for you to miss another epic loss for Ghost,” you tip your beer toward her, brow raised.

The laughter bubbles out of her, “I hadn’t planned on it but if you are going to be there I would love to watch a match up with Ghost.”

“Well, I will meet you in the lobby tonight for drinks. Hopefully, the sparks that fly will show how well Ghost and I don’t get along.”

❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈❈

No one questioned you or Kate when you appeared in the lobby, standing close to her side. Nearly twenty people filled the small space, some of whom you had no name for. You were positive you had a file on them just no idea which name belonged to which face. When the men moved forward through the door you followed, chatting with Kate the whole time.

The group ended up at a pub no less than a five-minute walk from the building. A cozy space with dark wood paneling and an air that the pub had been around exactly as it was long before the Romans came to conquer.

You end up sitting straight across from Ghost because of course, you do. At the table with you are Ghost, Kate, Price, Soap, and a yet unnamed man with a sad smile. Someone with a name tag appeared at the table once everyone had sat. Price passed over his card to cover the costs of the dinner for the few tables they took up. The woman took everyone’s order with an efficiency that spoke of experience.

The fries, chips, you ordered arrive hot at the table with the drinks. Listening as everyone else talks gives you a better sense of who they are. The man you had no name for goes by Reb, his file noted he was a sniper. He tells good stories, and everyone laughs at the experience he shares of trying to outrun a bull when he accidentally set up a nest on the wrong side of a hill.

Everyone notes when someone enters the bar, quick glances and assessments without breaking the conversation. Even you notice when a gorgeous redhead steps into the room. She settles at the bar. Large, loose curls drift down her back and her freckled face is clear from where you sit.

Over the next hour, you watch three different members of the 141 from different tables try and talk to her. Each gets shut down hard within thirty seconds. After the third man slinks back to his table Soap comments.

“Poor bastards, I doubt anyone could take her home tonight.”

“I could,” you pop another fry into your mouth.

You pause chewing when the table goes silent.

“What? She hasn’t given any of the men an iota of attention. Look at how she’s dressed, her outfit screams lesbian.”

All eyes focus on the woman at the bar. She doesn’t turn but shifts on her stool.

“Prove it then.” The challenge comes from Ghost.

“Wanna bet on it Gengar?”

Kate’s eyes go wide and connect with Price’s who smirks at the whole interaction.

“Oh, Jesus save us,” Soap takes a large swallow of his drink.

“£1,000,” Ghost snarls.

“Done, winning this bet will be easy.” Pulling a stack of sticky notes and a pen from your backpack you write down your Venmo.

Peeling off the top layer you slap the paper on the center of the table.

“I’ll give you ten minutes to get the money together after I leave with her. Kate, thanks for the invite. I’ll see you in the morning.” Sending nods around the table, you give Ghost a wink instead.

A fourth man is leaving, tail between his legs, when you slide onto the stool next to the beauty.

“Hi, I know you probably came here to just have a drink alone but could I interest you in helping me win a bet?”

She sends you a heavy side eye as she sips at her drink.

“What kind of bet?”

Leaning heavily onto the bar you point toward Ghost.

“You see that scary motherfucker over there?” She turns, eyes him, and turns back to you. You continue, “See I don’t get along with him. Quite frankly I think he is a bastard and would love to win £1,000 off him. The task that will win me that money is getting you to leave with me.”

A surprised little laugh drifts to you.

“That is quite a tall order.”

“I agree, and the least I could do is tell you what is going on and ask for a bit of help.” Sticking your hand out for a shake you give a name, “You can call me L.”

“L,” she looks you up and down, more interested, “You can call me Clare.”

“Hi Clare, wanna help me win a bet? I would love to take you to dinner for your trouble.”

Her tongue plays with the edge of her canine as she thinks.

“Why not, where would you take me?” She turns from the bar to face you fully.

The scraping of chair legs against the wooden floor tells you someone is unhappy to be losing. An angry murmur follows and you trust that Price or Soap will handle Ghost.

“I’m new in the area, I would take you wherever you wanted. You know the max budget for the date,” you flirt with her.

Her hand moves to rest on your arm as she leans closer.

“And if I did,” she pauses, “want to go home with you?”

“Well I’ve never had a chance to bed a beautiful and savvy woman like yourself but I’m a quick study,” you lean forward, tipping your head to the side ever so slightly.

Clare takes the invitation and initiates a small kiss. You match her effort, pulling away with a smile.

“Let’s get out of here Clare, I owe you dinner,” you breathe the words against her lips.

She lips from her stool, dropping a small purse on a long chain over one shoulder. You signal for the bartender.

“Can you put her drink on Price’s tab? He will approve it. If not I will pay you for it the next time I come by.”

The woman nods, “I’ll hold you to it.”

“I would hope so.”

Clare heads toward the front door, and you follow behind. Before you leave the building you turn and find Ghost staring at you, eyes hard.

Lifting all your fingers you mouth ‘ten minutes’ at him before you follow your date for the night into the dark.

Your phone dings before you can hail a cab.

Part 3 | Part 5

Masterlist

@nicroyal02 Chapter 32 is up on AO3.

[d1ana-m0nd]

╭─► ❝The Servant: Umbrella Academy's Servant❞

Five Hargreeves × Female! Reader || Written by Diana (d1ana-m0nd)

➢ Description : A Q&A video with Y/R/N and Aidan Ghallagher.

➢ Word Count : 1,750

➢ Links : Masterlist && Character Profile

➢ Note : Not gonna lie, I am uncomfortable about writing a real person 😭, well, real people in general. That's why in this fanfic, Mr. Gallagher may come off as OOC. So please don't be surprised that I focused more on the reader's chaotic energy to contrast with Mr. Gallagher's tame personality. For the record, Y/R/N means your real name. Also please comment or let me know if you want a part 2 but with your questions instead.

Q&A with The Umbrella Academy cast ft. Aidan Gallagher and Y/R/N

"Hello everyone! As promised I promised to you guys, I brought over Y/R/N who plays Number Zero of the Umbrella Academy, for today's video." Aidan Ghallagher introduced the girl beside him who wore a large cardigan and an unamused look on her face. 

"Are you for real?" Y/R/N asked, not humoured by Adian’s introduction but the actor looked amused by his fellow co-star’s reaction.

"Is that all you have to say I mean? You don't have a catchphrase or introduction for your channel?" She added but the brunette actor ignored her words knowing she’s just jesting for the video. 

"Anywho, we will be answering some of your questions and we will be providing our answers to the best of our abilities."

The (your hair color) actor huffs and pretends to be hurt by being ignored. 

"Oh yeah, I just wanted to double check Y/R/N, are you okay with answering the questions-"

"Of course I am, if I wasn't I wouldn't be here."

"You've been in my channel for 15 seconds and your already acting like it's yours."

The actress dramatically flips her hair then bats her lashes at the camera making Aidan laugh, "It's my job to make this entertaining. I know you can't possibly handle the weight of being the only star."

The boy smiles, clearly entertained by her actions but, managed to stifle his laughter. "We might as well start with the questions before this becomes her channel."

"So the first question is from, moe-moe-kyunette, I uh, did I say that right?" Aidan looked doubtful once he said the username then looked at Y/RN to help him out.

"Ship it and clip it everyone! You've tricked him into saying the thing!" The actress laughed as she slammed her fist against the table while holding her stomach, knowing the internet user just tricked Aidan into saying a meme.

"Wait, is it something bad?"

"Not a bad thing, it's like a japanese meme, an anime meme to be exact, about an idol girl trying to be cute so she says that."

"I see," As the actor was about to resume with the video but Y/R/N stopped him, "Wait, before you start, can you do the 'moe moe kyun' meme with the hand gestures?"

Aidan shook his head whilst smiling then resumed, "Well, they asked you the most important question. Have you ever listened to my music?"

The actress stiffened, "Did my manager really agree with the questions you picked?"

"Yes, yes, she did." He looks at her with a raised brow and an amused look then gestured to the camera, "Well, we are waiting Y/R/N."

"I-" She looks away flustered, "I'm sorry but I haven't listened to your music yet- I know I promised to listen to them but have not had the time to listen to them…"

"And why is that?" The brunette crosses his arms the look still on his face.

She nervously looks down at her feet, "It's just...I haven't been able to make time yet." He gives her a knowing look then gestures to the camera, "Well, I guess we'll just have to wait and see, won't we?"

"I just, I just- I just think that we should move on now! How about I read the next question?" She then nears the monitor, and Aidan is silently laughing. 

"So Aidan and Y/R/N, is it true you guys fought on set?" The girl quickly hides her face in her cardigan from the camera. " I should have never read the question voluntarily!"

The boy beside her chuckles, "But, to answer your question, we have never fought on set, some people just misinterpreted that we had a fight because she hit the back of my head."

The actress hides herself with the cardigan she wore, "Look! That's how I greet my friends. I know that's not how other conventionally greet others that's why I only did it to people I was close with."

"Let me," She takes in a deep breath, then removes the cardigan from her face. "Let me add some context to the story first, so I mistook Aidan for my friend Astrid without her wig on, and yes, I didn't notice he was wearing his costume!"

"So like, I greeted him by slapping the back of his head. He turned to me confused why I just did that and I ran away out of instinct and never explained it until he had the chance to corner me." 

Aidan was laughing so hard, "I had to corner her because I didn't want our scenes to become awkward than they already were. When I found out the reasoning I just forgave her but told her that she really shouldn't have ran away."

"It was instinct okay! That was not the first thing I thought of when I processed I just hit you. It didn't help either that we weren't friends yet, so I thought my whole career was ruined at that moment." The (your hair color) actress covered the half of her face. 

The boy smiled though it was his way of attempting to stop himself from laughing anymore at his fellow co-star’s flustered state. "Gajh1098 asked, what is that one trait we like about our character at the same time hate?"

Y/R/N gestures for Aidan to start first, "You can start first."

He nodded then prompted his chin on his hand, "I would have to say, I hate how Five is confident in himself to the point it comes off as arrogance. Being confident is not bad but if you have seen Y/R/N here-"

She jumped then exclaimed loudly, "What's that supposed to mean?!"

"She acts too confident on camera but we all know - especially the other casts members - that she's actually tamed. You can see on our interviews as a cast, that she's like that one cousin in the corner, that doesn't know what to say so she hides behind her other cousins."

The girl cringed, "Oh, god, you saw those memes? I was hoping you wouldn't." 

"I was literally there to witness it," The actor laughed then, added on. "Anywho, Y/R/N acts confident but it doesn't come off arrogant. She knows her limits but Five doesn't because he thinks he can do everything by himself that he ends up not recognizing that he can't do everything himself."

Y/R/N nods, "Yeah that's kinda toxic in a way. It's kinda like how in group works. You lead the group and end up doing everything yourself, because you don't trust your teammates. I can see why you wouldn't trust them but, you shouldn't push yourself to the point where you crash down."

Aidan nods then gestures at the girl, "Your turn to answer the question."

"So the one trait I dislike and like about Y/N is that she's flexible with handling people. She is very understanding, too understanding! She knows how to interact with them very well. It's a good trait in hindsight - especially in work places - but, it's not a good trait if you become so malleable that people take advantage of it." 

The actor nodded along agreeing with her words.

The actress then abruptly sat up shouting, "MY TURN! I wanna read the next question! Oh yeah, do we have to mention the usernames? Or are you going to show them on screen?" 

"I usually mention them because I feel like it makes them happy-"

"Well too bad! I'm going to make their day miserable." Y/R/N cheekily grinned. "This person asked why I always hide behind other people or hold onto their clothes like a child… Can we skip this?"

The boy chuckled, "No."

"Seriously, I feel like you and my manager are trying to humiliate me for the video.” She muttered under her breath, narrowing her eyes at Aidan suspiciously, “Anyways, I'm still getting used to cameras and it's kinda instinctual for me to do that I suppose? I'm not used to cameras since I have been used to working with microphones being a voice actor first and foremost."

His hazel's eyes light up, "Oh yeah, I recall you saying you were a VA, why did you audition for the show to begin with?"

The actress scratched her nape with a wry smile, "I thought it was a voice acting job not acting. I didn't even know until I was picked that it was an acting job. I scrambled to research on acting and kept asking the others if they could give me advice on acting."

He face palmed, smiling, "Did you not read what you were screening for?"

"To be fair, it was my manager who read it out loud, I just butted in and just said yes mindlessly because I saw the character designs and thought they were cool, I'm referring to the comics by the way."

"Next question from is from wbip8581, they asked how we become close?" The brunette male read the question outloud.

"Since Aidan and I got a lot of scenes together, I asked if we could work on them - like rehearse with each other so he could give me pointers on how to deliver my character."

"We hung out but, it was more on watching reality TV shows to examine and decipher how an angry person acts or how someone similar to Y/N acts." He added onto the girl’s explanation to which she nodded along.

"I think because of him, I got into watching Hell's kitchen," Both the actress and actor laughed at how true the statement was.

The brunette male then decided to move, "For now, this is the last question since I know the video is probably going to be long with how much Y/R/N rambles-"

"HEY!" The girl pretended to look offended by putting a hand over her heart.

Aidan chuckled, "So, the last question is from Immpotato10, do you two plan to make more videos together? Assuming that the Q&A does well."

"That depends really… although I like talking to Mr. Gallagher." She says his last name mockingly which made him roll his eyes, "I don't wanna overstay my time here in his channel, and if he has good video ideas then I will probably reconsider."

“Well, I suppose that’s goodbye for now!” Aidan bid his farewell to his audience followed by Y/R/N waving her two hands at the camera like a child. 

➢ Taglist : @igotanidea @incapableofanything @kumioon @buuhsworld @stray-npc @sunsunhe @instabull @theredvelvetbitch @yoashh @keowthedino @danis-stuff-is-here @sol3chu @cxlynv @d-a-r-k-s-w-a-n @supernova25 @venuseuripedis

➢ Note : If your username is highlighted blue that means I cannot tag your blog. I suggest you either follow my blog and turn on your notifications or you turn on your subscription to the masterlist. Also, "Reblog to support your favorite writer" divider belongs to @/benkeibear

[silleegob]

HxH - Dodgeball Scene

Note: This isn't really an analysis but more of a rant, hence it being messy, haha .. (^^ ;) Everything is based on my own opinion too, so I don't guarantee it would satisfy everyone. But anyway, enjoy ur read! :3

(Chapter 166, episode 70.)

If someone asks me which HxH scene is the most misunderstood one, I would say it's this:

I've seen almost EVERYONE in this fandom say that this scene was very "selfish" and "insensitive" of Gon. But dude, c'mon. Do you really think Gon wouldn't give a flying fuck about Killua getting hurt just for his own benefit? He isn't that type of friend. In fact, he literally hates it when Killua willingly hurts himself, like he gets so mad and bothered.

Take this scene for example:

But what piqued my interest was how he still kept this moment in mind after a bunch of chapters later:

It shows how he still didn't forget about that situation, and thought about this self-destructive trait of Killua carefully. Pretty ironic for getting mad at Killua for being like this when Gon himself is also self-destructive, haha. It's like it's indicating that Gon knows how it feels like being self-destructive, so he's trying to stop Killua from feeling that aswell. Keep that in mind though, I'll be talking about it later on. :3

In the mean time, I think it's important to look carefully on to details even if it's tiny. I noticed a few things about this panel too:

Only Gon is drawn with a 💢, and he's also doing a ❌️ finger sign (it's so funny.) I get it probably doesn't have any deeper meaning but the fact that it's like that shows how much he dislikes it if u ask me. 😭😭 I mean, bisky just looks disappointed, not mad. Why not add a 💢 on her too? That's 'cause she's not THAT bothered by it, and it's implying the difference of how they take this trait. And well, Gon takes it SERIOUSLY. So point is, he's not insensitive when it comes to Killua intentionally hurting himself as we see him clearly despising it.

Anyway, remember how I told u to keep that one thing in mind? Yeah, Gon knowing how it feels like being self-destructive and all. We all know that the reason he does this is because he feels weak, and so he has this need to prove himself strong and useful to feel better, right? Well.. I feel like as time goes by, Gon thinks that Killua is also doing this because of the same reason. He notices how far Killua goes just to prove himself worthy too. So when he voluntarily decides to take painful hits in the dodgeball game, Gon encourages it instead. He knows how it feels to be seen as weak, not useful, and not needed. Taking risks for something, but people don't encourage that. They just tell you to stop, not knowing that it would just make you feel even more useless, making you feel like you did all of that for nothing because it was never enough. Gon is aware of that, so he does the opposite to Killua. Don't you guys get it? If he told Killua to just stop, Killua would feel unworthy and not good enough. He's going out of his way to help Gon, he free-willingly decides to take those hits. If Gon told him to stop, it would feel like rejection–that Gon didn't appreciate all that effort, and is techincally telling Killua that his help meant nothing. You can see how Killua was so desperate, he was so pushy with the "I can take one more hit!!! Gon, let me do it!!" and now imagine if Gon said no💀 That would be rejecting his help/an act out of love (platonic or romantic idc.) THAT would be the one that's ACTUALLY insensitive to Killua.

So Gon shows appreciation and encouragement instead, letting Killua's effort not be in vain. Saying stuff like how he NEEDS Killua to be the one that holds the ball for him, how he can't focus if it's not Killua–he needs Killua's help and Killua himself. All of that, is definitely what Killua needed to know too. It literally made him smile and felt more upbeat after, how could people say it was insensitive and would hurt Killua's feelings? 😭 He's happy to know that Gon does care about his efforts for him after all. ᵔᴗᵔ ♡

One thing I'd like to say though is that; That was still unhealthy for both of them. They think self-destructing is the only way they'll feel loved. 🙁 Of course I agree that it was most definitely bad, and it's not a good thing that Gon just fueled up Killua's self-destructive tendencies even more..😭🙏 BUT the point here is that, it wasn't insensitive and selfish of Gon in that moment, okay!?!? They both saw it in a positive light, even though.. it was definitely bad... but uhm anyways yeah, everyone should stop being so upset with this scene. You all are misunderstanding it and it's painful. 😔

But hooray thanks for listening!

[7hrsh]

𝑴𝒐𝒐𝒏 𝑺𝒕𝒓𝒖𝒄𝒌 | 𝑷𝒓𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒖𝒆

Pairing: Lucifer Morningstar x Angel!OC

(note: this story was inspired by @saturncodedstarlette 's lucifer drabbles)

Whenever a human soul is born on earth, they are automatically assigned an angel to guide and guard them throughout their lives. A guardian angel can only guide them in choosing the right decision to be on the correct path in life but of course, not every human can pick the best choice for themselves. Guardian angels are present to record and witness how a human chooses to control their lives, with this they will be able to put them under divine judgment to see if they are to be put in heaven or hell.

Unknown to the humans of today’s earth, the angel who was tasked to guide the first man and woman, failed and had to face consequences.

There’s only a handful of angels that God himself acknowledges, most of them being seraphims. One of his sons, Lucifer, is a seraphim himself. An angel with an explosive personality, beloved by fellow residents in their realm. His love for animals is as big as his heart, passionately telling and teaching the angelic residents how amazing those creatures are, especially his favorite, which are adorable winged birds, one he cannot seem to avoid talking about. Lucifer indeed is a charming lad no matter what he does. He has his way of enchanting people to listen to him.

With this, most of the angelic residents know of Lucifer. Another one of the seraphim, Yvaine was captivated by his natural charm. An Angel beloved by many, one who is also acknowledged by God due to her kindness and how the heaven-born residents can rely on her most of the time. The two of them met through mutual connections which is by Sera, being close in age and as two of the youngest seraphim, the both of them instantly clicked and became friends.

The two of them spent most of their time together as they talked about how the earth probably has different kinds of creatures.

“Thank you for watching over the little ones, Yvaine. They seem to be very fond of you and enjoy your presence.” one of the heaven-born elders flashed Yvaine a smile as the children ran around the place. It seems as if Yvaine voluntarily goes to this facility to teach the little ones about heaven and the goodness of oneself. “It’s no problem, I like taking care of these little angels. They are very attentive listeners despite being an energetic bunch,” she answered as she knelt down to match the little one’s eye level while pinching their cheeks and patting their head making the little angel giggle. “Will we be able to see you again, the next day, miss?” The little one asked, Yvaine looked at them, shook her head, and gave them a sad smile. “I won’t be able to visit you all the next few days, unfortunately, I have to work on some of my duties but don’t worry I’ll visit you once I get free time.” she smiled.

“Oh, it seems that my friend is here. I have to go now, I’ll see you soon!” She looks at the entrance of the place and sees Lucifer standing there patiently as he waits for her. The little angel waved goodbye to Yvaine as she sauntered towards her friend. “Lucifer, you’re just on time. I see that you have your book with you. Did you teach them about the winged creatures on Earth?” she asked, chuckling and showing him an adorable smile. “Well, It seems that there are more unknown creatures on earth that fly and crawl around it. So, I had to check it out with my magic.” Lucifer replied, giving his book a tap as he lifted it up to face her.

“Really now? Why don't you talk to me about it as we go on our way?” She asked, looking at her friend who's eyes sparkled and grin growing bigger than ever. He's always been a curious one, fascinated by the beauty and mystery of such creatures that marvel on earth. Never has he not talked about them without any hint of passion in his voice, he adored them clearly.

Eons passed and their bond remained stronger than ever, some even thought of them as a couple seeing as they were glued to the hip. Even God himself found it intriguing, witnessing the blossoming relationship between the two.

A perfect obedient angel with his son Lucifer, he pondered at the thought of the two being together. He knows that Lucifer is often going out and about all his creations on earth, learning and teaching fellow angels about its inhabitants and the peaceful life there is at present. While there is Yvaine, one who is willing to listen to Lucifer's ramblings indulging in his fascination with such mere creatures. An angel who is able to keep up with him and keep him in check. A perfect match, God thought.

Hence, why he decided to put matters into his own hands. Grabbing his quilt, God began to write down a letter to pass on Sera who shall break the news contained in the scroll to both of the younger seraphim.

[eleanork-28]

Post s3e6 what happens now?

I am begining to write an 'after' fic which has brought up a lot of questions and speculation that I'd like to share. Yes willmon is endgame but also where do they go from here?

Class 

Money (what are the Erikssons doing with their money from August?) 

The rift between Wille’s elitist upbringing and Simon’s economical and political beliefs 

Wille needs to learn and figure out what he wants his relationship with politics and money to be 

Abdication 

Wille is giving up the crown but he now has to go through that process 

Official meetings 

What is his new title going to be 

What money does he have not has Crown Prince 

The official statement of abdication and handing the duty to August 

Figuring out the PR strategy for this as well 

Wille isn’t free automatically he is going to price for a little while longer while they introduce August more prominently to the public so that the crown isn’t handed off to seemingly a stranger 

They also have to figure out a way to make sure it is clear that this is a choice Wille made for himself rather than because of his very publicised relationship 

Making sure there won’t be speculation that he is leaving voluntarily because the Swedish monarchy doesn’t want a queer monarchy because that would be a media shitstorm 

School 

Where is Wille going to school? And Simon? 

Even with abdication he is still a part of the Swedish aristocracy would he go to another posh school? 

I think not with everything that happened at Hilerska but its also the thing he knows, so how does he figure that out? 

Where does Simon go? He wouldn’t want to go to another rich kid school

Will they go to school together? 

If so what interest will their classmates take in them, how would they maintain their privacy 

Even apart what would their privacy look like 

What would their relationship look like if they do decide to not go to school together? 

Same questions for Felice and Sara because they also have to go to school they are all children and education is very important lol

Familial relations 

Wille and his parents need to repair their relationship 

Do Simon and Sara start working on a better relationship Micke? 

I want Wille to get to meet Micke I think that interaction would be great

Public relations 

Yes they are free but sadly the public doesn’t entirely care 

Luckily on an international scale the Swedish monarchy doesn’t hold much attention but maybe that has changed since Wille’s scandals and then open queer relationship? This is never addressed in the show 

But amongst Swedes especially after abdication people will have a vested interest 

Think Harry and Megan (obvs the UK royals are a much bigger scale but the point stands) 

Like people still really care what they're up to, and Megan and Simon have those similar experiences of being a poc partner of a european royal family member, the harassment doesn’t suddenly stop once you've left the direct limelight of royal life

Platonic relationships 

What is Wille’s relationship with Rosh and Ayub? 

They have witnessed every thing that Simon has gone through because of his relationship with Wille and now they are back together again 

They do respect him because of his choice to leave the monarchy, they are maybe not even surprised because they did witness the “I could be free with you” speech

But do they trust him? 

On that note does Linda? She definitely cares for Wille but she also knows how this has affected her son.

Does Wille have to prove his intentions and himself? 

Can he Rosh and Ayub truly form a friendship? How will that happen 

Simon, Wille, Sara, and Felice have forged their own kind of found family through shared traumas and love for one another, how to Rosh and Ayub fit into that new dynamic? Will there be conflict because of this? 

What does a friend group consisting of all of them look like? 

Other than mega gay

[lotties-ashwagandha]

Hey! Can you please do where somebody is acting violent and aggressive at Lottie's compound towards her, and maybe she is just stunt to do anything because of trauma when Shauna beat her, but female reader (Lottie's girlfriend) is immediately there and she shields Lottie with her body and protects?

NEW ARRIVALS

pairing: lottie matthews x fem!reader

word count: 1174

notes and warnings: ok so hot take i feel like adult lottie would be more apt to smack a bitch that went after her (thinking of that scene w travis where she got rlly triggered and shoved his ass against a wall lmao) so i deviated from the original request a little but we still get tons of drama and big strong reader ok ,,, also this is not proofread

You loved running the wellness center with Lottie. It was fulfilling to help other people heal, to see them blossom in a way they only could in trusting themselves, trusting you.

But new arrivals to the compound, more often than not, caused more trouble than they were worth. Even though their arrivals were usually voluntary, the new residents always carried the same suspicions, the same emotional guards. It was more difficult than you would’ve liked to get them settled in, get them to trust you, especially with what was known of Lottie’s past.

Sooner or later, however, all of them submitted — almost all of them.

There was one woman, in her early 20s, you thought, who simply wouldn’t relent. She had been pressured into joining the wellness center by her sister, and ever since you’d taken away her phone and her belongings she had spiraled. She was erratic in her behavior and moods, and you never knew what to expect from her. One day she would be making progress, the next she would be worse than when she came to the compound.

Lottie had placed her in a meditation class that she taught, and at the end of the class was a healing circle, a place where those who wished to could talk about their struggles, about conflicts they were having with others inside or outside the compound, and could resolve them.

To put it lightly, the woman in question, Dana, never did well with healing circles.

In any case, you thought you were making progress with her — you had a private session scheduled with her every Tuesday after her meditation class, and you usually showed up five or ten minutes early to watch the healing circle. You needed to see what mood she was in that day, and besides that, you wouldn’t give up an opportunity to see Lottie.

But that day, everything had gone awry. You and Lottie had woken up late, both a bit hungover from the night before, one of the rare occasions the two of you had broken and allowed yourselves some fun. You’d been half an hour late to teach a yoga class, and Lottie had been meant to teach a seminar that had to be canceled and rescheduled.

The whole day had put both of you in an exceedingly irritable mood, and when the time came for the meditation class’s healing circle, everything escalated.

Dana — the new, ill-tempered arrival — was in one of her moods. She hardly complied with anything Lottie was teaching, and every time someone in the healing circle would share something vulnerable she would interrupt them with some crude or hostile remark.

Lottie was reaching the end of her rope, you could sense it. The looks she gave the woman, daggers sharpening her gaze, was tell enough. But you knew her, knew that despite how much she wanted to, she would never act on the urges unless she was provoked.

At last, it was Dana’s turn in the healing circle.

“Dana,” Lottie asked, “is there anything you would like to share? You’ve been quite active today in the stories of others.”

“Sure,” she said, perking up, and you dreaded whatever would come next. “I think this place is a piece of shit, and all of you sitting here listening to this bullshit are fucking stupid.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way, but you voluntarily signed yourself up for four months here.”

Dana stood, gesturing to Lottie as she addressed the rest of the compound. “I don’t think all of you fully understand that this bitch is clinically insane! She spent fucking years in Switzerland traumatized from shit she did with her team out in the wilderness! Haven’t you heard the theories, what everyone’s saying? They think this bitch fucking ate people!”

Dana lunged forward, and before you could stop her she had shoved Lottie, and the whole compound was engulfed in silence.

You reached to stop her but in the speed of a moment Lottie was on top of the woman, slamming her into the wall. A look of terror overcame Dana’s features, and though you couldn’t hear her exact words you could hear Lottie whispering to her, justifications of her actions, threats you knew she would deliver on if given the opportunity.

You rushed towards the two of them, weaving your way in between them. “Lottie,” you hissed, “back up.”

“Did you hear-?”

“I know what she said, but you have to back up.”

After a moment she relented, backing away. Her expression was oddly blank as she watched the woman still against the wall.

Dana moved to rush towards her again, but you stopped her, slamming her back. “Get the fuck out. We’ll have your shit sent to you, but if we ever see you again, we’ll have you fucking arrested.”

She nodded, slightly stunned, and you let her go.

The whole room was silent, every set of eyes plastered to the three of you.

Calmly, though a bit angrily, you dismissed the meditation class.

Once you were alone, Lottie began to pace, and you allowed yourself your anger.

“Lottie, you can’t do that shit!” You half-shouted, the whole situation having shocked you. “I heard what she said and it was fucking terrible but all of these people look up to you, they’re paying you to make them as spiritual and leveled as you are.”

She only nodded, and while she was silent you could sense her becoming more and more frantic, her breathing becoming erratic.

You moved towards her, saw how she was near tears. You softened, sighing, thinking over everything Dana had said. It wasn’t often that Lottie chose to relive or talk about anything that happened out in the wilderness, or about any of her time in Switzerland — to have it all sprung on her at once in such a way, you supposed, she probably handled it better than most would have.

“Lottie,” you said softly, “come here.”

She let you pull her into you, her arms looping around you in an embrace, and finally her breathing became more level. Gently you ran your hands up and down her back, trying to comfort her as much as you could, though you knew most of your efforts would be in vain.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice hoarse, and you shook your head.

“It’s okay. I get it,” you promised. “But next time if you go off at someone, at least get in a good punch or two.”

She laughed softly, as you’d hoped, and you smiled. It was everything to you, just to know you could give her even the tiniest bit of joy when she needed it.

“We could teach a boxing class and use Dana as the punching bag.”

“I would definitely sign up for that,” you agreed, and to see her smile brought you the entirety of the heavens.

“Also… Are you going to ask me about what she said about the, uh, eating people?”

“Honestly, I don’t want to know.”

-

-

-

Taglist: @cartoonpeoples @thedeconstructionist @traumatisedfangirl @cordeliass @christies-fleur @paulsonsratched @goodeday2u

[stuffyflowers]

Ok payback for last one I'm gonna pay you to yap now

Sans/Toriel, Ceroba/Alphys, Starlo/Dalv (Because I'm evil)

Oh, and Sona/Ceroba. I'll give you some respite after throwing in the one I know you hate :3c

Finally back from touching sand and playing with friends I can answer these

Sans and toriel is like staroba to me I honestly don’t care if it’s romantic or not I just think they’re so important to each other regardless of how you personally see em. So makes sense n compels me. Don’t have much more to say honestly no notes. um shoutout to that moment in the pacifist ending where sans steals her phone and pretends to be her im thinkin abt it again,, they’re so cute guys ]: )

Ceroba and alphys is the definition of makes no damn sense but compels me. Like the chances of either of them voluntarily being in the same room as each other for any amount of time is sooo unlikely but ‘women who project their self loathing onto each other bc they recognise their own faults and mistakes in them’ is my favourite ship dynamic right now it’s so good. Obviously alphyne and cerobas friendship with starlo is the healthiest outcome for each of them in their respective pacifist endings but what if they just made each other worse forever and ever actually 💖 Be each others outlet for their own guilt, drag each other further down into a self destructive pit, forever believing they are rotten to the core and no one could ever forgive or understand them… um!

🌽 yaoi booooooo 🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅boooooooo🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅utdr fans we need to set higher yaoi standards there’s so much we could be cooking here but the one we’re latching onto is ‘guys who spoke to each other exactly once and have absolutely nothing interesting going on’ yaoi bc haha funny name + only (shippable) men in the main uty cast let’s be real here. Random thing that makes me lol when I think abt it is they’re literally standing as far away from each other as possible at all times in the one scene they’re actually in together like bros…….. there is nothing here. Sorry + no sense + not compelling + go ship starlo/el bailador or something instead im begging

Sonaroba obviously very similar boat to alphys and ceroba. My beloved trio of women who make mistakes that hurt people while trying to help/protect them. Sonaroba is even more interesting to me bc sona is essentially a worse-case-scenario ceroba: she never had that community to pull her out of her spiralling and grow as a person, she controls almost everyone. Staying this stagnant for as long as she has also means she’s even more stubborn than ceroba, too: ceroba is able to see the error in her thinking as soon as martlet is actually given the chance to reason with her, meanwhile sona in the imperfect endings doubles down on her initial perception of the monsters even when she acknowledges beforehand that she was wrong. She just can’t accept it. There’s so much to dig into 4 kcy. How would sona react to finding out what ceroba did, and how similar it is to her situation? Is there a mutual understanding that forms between them after they come clean to each other or does ceroba just become sonas scapegoat, “See? Monsters can’t be trusted! They will lie to and deceive you just to get what they want!” Would ceroba try to save her after the truth comes out by reasoning with her, even in the imperfect ending where she turns all of her friends into humans against their will?? What’s the limit for how far she’s willing to go to save a fucked up reflection of herself? Augh. Anyway. It’s a “kind of makes sense in the context of kissy cutie where the entire plot revolves around getting monsters to date frisks shitty racist aunt but probably not in any other context + COMPELS ME‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️”

[hatingfromacrackedscreen]

One of my favorite things about the Animorphs rotating pov is how you get to see character development happening so subtly but from so many different angles. One of my favorite examples is with Cassie & Marco’s relationship, from when she left the team to the David Arc (books 19-22), and how it explains so much of their dynamic for the rest of the series.

Marco and Cassie have one of the most interesting dynamics out of the Animorphs because of how often they disagree over conflicts/strategy, but also because of the fact that they usually end up being the de facto strategists of the team (They also both are like, in love with Jake, which also leads to really interesting moments but this isn’t about that). Naturally this puts them at odds with each other often, especially during Book #19. Cassie quits the team and voluntarily infests herself so she doesn’t have to kill Karen, something that Marco doesn’t understand and also is upset about, because now he may have to kill Cassie. After book’s end Cassie makes it back to the team and Aftran begins the peace movement. There’s a lot of threads that contribute to spiral from the book, and Cassie and Marco’s relationship is one of the subtler ones. What’s important to note is that the next book, book #20, is a Marco pov. We get to see his thoughts, and all is not forgiven. He reminisces about the recent Cassie-related events, and says something along the lines of “yeah I’m not really chill with her after the shit she pulled with Aftran.” Which I support Cassie fully, but fair enough! Not only did Cassie voluntarily cause their biggest security breach at the moment, but also he thought he, a 14 year old, was now going to have to kill his friend, another 14 year old. I would be pissed too. (Also this is another great subtle narrative thread leading into the David Arc, which derives its most central tension from this same dilemma)

However the culmination of the Cassie Marco tension comes not from either of their own pov, but from the next book, book 21 which is a Jake pov. The Animorphs all morph bugs to break into a hotel that has a Yeerk conspiracy involved, and they come close to the 2 hour limit. They all morph back successfully except Marco (the weakest morpher) who is stuck as a several foot tall giant grotesque flea. Everyone’s freaking out, but it’s Cassie who’s comes forward, places a hand on Marco, and soothingly guides him through his sheer panic, and into demorphing back to his human self. After Marco breaks down and sobs on Cassie, and Jake even notes he’s never seen Marco cry like that. Which is significant since Jake has known Marco grieving through his mother “dying”. Jake doesn’t note it, because it’s a situation he doesn’t even know about, but in this moment Marco forgives Cassie. Marco never gives her shit for the Aftran situation again, either in his narration or in others. And I love that it’s something that’s not explicitly said by Jake in this book, or Marco or Cassie in later ones, but all of the resolution of that tension between them beautify resolves in a book that’s not either of their povs and doesn’t even explicitly mention it.

Not only is that a knack to Animorphs’ character writing, but it sets the foundation for their relationship going forward. It’s why Cassie still goes to talk to Marco in Book #35 through his issues with his dad remarrying, and he ridicules her a bit but hears her out. And then by series end, when Cassie gives the morphing cube away to the Yeerks, and Jake tells everyone. Is Mr. Marco “ruthless bright line from A to B” pissed at her? No he’s over it and back to being chums with her. Because that’s Cassie his bestie now❤️ And I love that no matter how often they’re at conflict later in the series, after the flea incident it never gets as serious in Marcos narration as it was to him before, in book #20. Animorphs’ character writing amongst multiple povs is just so so soo good.

[butterflydm]

wot reread: a memory of light (chapters 24-31)

spoilers for a memory of light, the final book.

Everything that Tuon thinks about her life really does sound like it's going to make Mat so miserable. All the obligatory pomp and circumstance, even in private (because you're never in private when you have slaves!). But, hey, he'll get rewarded with sex every time he saves Tuon's life, so who needs happiness? (/sarcasm)

Given how many truths about the Seanchan have been withheld from Mat in order to get him to this point, I wonder how many of those truths it would take for him to abandon ship?

Note: I am going to be questioning and interrogating Mat's actions, words, and behaviors a LOT going forward and not taking much at face value. And that kinda extends to people talking about him: what do they know and believe about him, etc? Whose PoV are we in when certain things are said or revealed, etc? This is mostly for two reasons: a. I am sussing out how much wiggle room there is for writing fic about Mat in this time period and b. I want to try to not make assumptions based on my first thoughts when I'm reading each PoV.

2. Beslan says that Mat has changed and "I don't know what to make of him any more." Beslan is all-in on the slavers now, which makes him a very great disappointment to me. I guess we can't be that surprised. He enabled his mom being a serial rapist, so I guess it shouldn't be a shock that he's willing to enable slavery as well. What Beslan says about Mat is... hmm. How well did Beslan ever know Mat, I guess is the question that immediately springs to mind. Beslan was the son of Mat's rapist, who allowed that his mom was maybe going too far with Mat but still was basically a momma's boy despite the rape. And the last time Mat saw Beslan, he was a revolutionary who was willing to stand up against the Seanchan even when his mother was not, so I suspect that he would also not be certain what to make of you, Beslan. Honestly, given that Beslan's last experience of Mat was "wants to escape Ebou Dar no matter what", the most surprising thing for him should be that Mat voluntarily returned to Ebou Dar.

But everything that Tuon thinks here about how Beslan and the Altaran people have been "properly tamed" does give me that gross feeling that she (and many of the Darkfriends in the series) gives me in her PoV chapters. If Mat could actually see her thought processes, all his fantasies about how she's Not Like the Other Seanchan would go up in smoke.

3. Selucia slightly shades Tuon on how she hasn't broken Mat to fully proper behavior yet (he's cursing at some news they've received) and Tuon immediately decides that she needs a new Truthspeaker so that Selucia can go back to being only her Voice (and not speak any opinions that aren't exactly your own, Tuon?).

An Empress must be "crafty", "strong", and "skilled" to sit on the Crystal Throne, Tuon thinks.

Ah, I guess that's why she died pretty quickly in Aviendha's alternate future. Tuon doesn't have any of those qualities. It is interesting to think about how Tuon pumps herself here up with an impossible goal: that she be strong enough to live forever (as the Empress is meant to do and yet how every single Empress has failed to do) so that she can bring 'order' to the world. Just as Fortuona is not living up to the fictional Tuon in Mat's head, she can't possibly live up to the Empress that she believes that she needs to be.

There really are hints, here and there, of the interesting character that Tuon could have been. She just needed so much more character work. I do think she's been more interesting under Sanderson so far, though, at least than she was in CoT & KoD.

4. At this moment in time, Tuon is regretting her marriage. Mat's fancy Seanchan uniform keeps snagging on everything that he passes and her other generals find him baffling. She married "chaos itself". This feels like another place where we're being told one thing and shown another. What has Mat actually DONE that is chaotic to Tuon's plans? He saved her life and advised that she not be stupid enough to actively try to sabotage Rand saving the world, but he didn't challenge her on anything or fight her on anything.

This really does show the all-or-nothing attitude of the Seanchan: Mat has bent so much to accommodate Tuon that he's practically unrecognizable to who he used to be but that's still not enough for her. Nothing but complete and eternal submission is enough for her. He can do everything she asks but if he doesn't have the right attitude about it, then she's still unhappy with him.

5. Oh, "the Prince of Ravens" thinks that they're joining the battle too late? MAYBE he shouldn't have deserted on the eve of the fucking Last Battle then? Sanderson suddenly inserting a feeling of urgency in Mat about getting to the Last Battle feels so ridiculous. Mat didn't give a shit about the Last Battle a couple of chapters ago. He ran away so that he could have some drinks in slaver town. The Last Battle has been happening for at least a week at this point.

Mat being someone who is creating urgency and rushing would make so much more sense if he'd gone to the Seanchan as a negotiator and not as a deserter.

We do get confirmation here that Mat is now the second-highest ranking member of the High Blood, after Tuon herself. And the mere fact that Tuon thinks here that he would "never be a rival" makes me feel like narrative irony would have insisted on him being the one who topples her from her throne.

6. This is when Tuon renames Mat as "bringer of destruction" (aka Knotai aka I am not using that name in this reread ever again). Mat deciding that he likes being dubbed a "bringer of destruction" is another thing that feels bizarrely out of character but I will note that this is all in Tuon PoV, so we don't know how Mat actually feels about the name (I'm pretty sure he doesn't start calling himself that in his head at any point). And we've seen that Tuon has a very difficult time reading Mat, so if he was giving off any tells that he was lying, she would certainly never pick up on it. She glares at him after the renaming and wills him not to argue with it, so his response might be Mat picking up on her cues and responding.

"The Pattern had placed [Mat] before her, had shoved him into her arms." It sure fucking did and it was so incredibly annoying to read.

Tuon also does (internally) note here that Rand was 100% correct about how fragile her rule here is.

Haha, after Selucia uses their handtalk to call Tuon out on the risks she's taking, Tuon thinks again that she needs to replace Selucia as a Truthspeaker so that Selucia can go back to being a good little parrot and stop having opinions (this is a mild paraphrase of her thoughts).

7. Ah, this moment is in Tuon's PoV but it actually does still manage to be pretty clear exactly how much she is disappointing Mat when she considers the idea of going back on her word and swooping down on the Aes Sedai to capture them all as damane rather than going to aid them as allies. That's the moment of Actual Fortuona failing to live up to the Fictional Tuon in Mat's head that I was remembering. Back during either TGS or ToM, Mat realizes that it was likely that Tuon didn't stay in CoT & KoD because she was being honorable and keeping her word but instead was staying because of the prophecy about him she'd gotten, but he kinda just ignored the implications of that realization.

The mere fact that Tuon considers the idea of breaking her word here would remind Mat that her word is meaningless (and Mat has developed, as we have established, a fey-like obsession with keeping his word). It is interesting how Tuon thinks of herself as the embodiment of order and yet so easily considers throwing away a treaty and going back on her word; yet she considers Mat the embodiment of chaos when he does his best to always live by his word no matter what the personal cost. Mat probably would push it away again here (she does make the right choice when it comes down to it) but it's another place where Actual Fortuona would be a disappointment when compared to Fictional Tuon in Mat's head.

Ultimately, when Tuon decides to keep her word, it isn't out of honor but due to the omens telling her to bet on Mat.

I will note at this point in time that Mat is still being informal and using "Tuon" freely.

8. We get a glimpse of how pressed things are on Lan's part of the battlefield before shifting over to Elayne's. Birgitte tries to keep Elayne in the command tent and Elayne finally snaps, telling her that if Birgitte can't follow her orders like all the other soldiers are willing to do, then she will release their bond. I'm sure Elayne gets hate for this, because she gets hate for everything, but I found it very cathartic after how much Birgitte has been getting on my nerves in this book. And Elayne's right that she's more useful out there doing things -- she is an extremely powerful channeler. It is a waste of her talents for her to sit in a tent.

9. Hmm, yeah, as Rand enters Shayol Ghul itself, he notes that time is affecting him differently. He can tell that one of the women that he's bonded to is in pain but he can't tell who it is and he worries over Elayne and Aviendha.

Though the knife worked to shield Rand from the Dark One's eyes, Moridin is still waiting for him there. I wonder how long he's just been kneeling there. So, yeah, before Rand can get to the Dark One, he has to take care of Moridin.

Anyway, we learned in Siuan's PoV just before this that Min was sent to the Aes Sedai camp with the message "The Seanchan fight the Shadow." You know, I like that message because it doesn't overpromise anything and it doesn't set up expectations that the Seanchan won't be absolute douchebags, as they certainly will be.

10. Luc Mantear and Isam Mandragoran's story as Slayer really could have been heartbreaking and fascinating if Jordan had ever actually leaned into the implications of it. They're both essentially collateral damage -- Isam was left behind when the Blight swallowed up Malkier; Luc was sent off into the Blight to 'seek glory' in order to help wedge an opening for the Mantears to be pushed off the throne of Andor. But the books never explore that.

As it is, Slayer is just... this disconnected assassin who shows up once in a blue moon, and there's not really any substance there to hook onto.

After a... really long battle involving Slayer and the red-veiled Aiel channelers, Perrin fails to kill Slayer and Slayer ends up escaping. Lanfear shows up to heal Perrin and she continues to seem vaguely irritated that she's interacting with him ("You can be such a child"). He sets the dreamspike up inside the cavern to protect Rand and asks the wolves to guard the outside of the cavern (this is all in TAR).

11. Egwene feels so gross as she heads towards the meeting that she is about to have with the Seanchan, because she knows that the Seanchan fighting means damane fighting, which means forcing slaves into battle.

Tuon sits on her mobile throne, with a train being held by eight slaves in transparent robes. Literally every time Tuon's lifestyle is described, it just sounds like something that is going to make Mat so incredibly miserable.

lol, the narrative tries to convince us that Tuon is "calculating" and "discerning" through Egwene's description of her eyes. I've been in the girl's head. I'll grant you "manipulative" and "can spot an obvious clue when it's shoved under her nose" but that's as far as I'll go. Egwene, you were absolutely right when you assumed that Tuon would be coddled and spoiled. I speak as someone who was forced through two long books of "a brat goes on a circus tour and throws several tantrums".

12. Anyway, both Egwene and Tuon feel contempt for each other -- Tuon for what Egwene inherently is as a person (a channeler) and Egwene for the person that Tuon chooses to be (a slaver).

Which we can see in the way they talk to each other -- Tuon calls Egwene an animal, while Egwene calls Tuon a criminal who would be at home with murderers and rapists. Tuon sees what Egwene is as the problem with her, while Egwene sees who Tuon is as the issue with her. These are not the same as each other.

13. So here on page 471 (hardback version), Mat has finally shown up to the Last Battle. Over halfway into the book! Literally makes me want to stab a wall that Mat spent half the book just fucking around with slavers instead of helping with the Last Battle. I assume we're supposed to feel like the Seanchan coming to help would be impossible without Mat, because he shamed Tuon into actually keeping her word, but there were better roads of getting Mat there that didn't make him a deserter and a defector. But I'm guessing making Mat those things was the point of his impossible teleportation logistics between books.

Just. Ugh.

14. The reason that Egwene realizes that Mat is here, among the collection of "frozen Blood in various poses" around Tuon, is because Tuon turns to berate him for not telling her that Egwene was once captured as damane and thus making her show her ass in public when she tried to argue that Egwene would understand how great being a slave is if only she'd tried it.

The question I have here is: are we supposed to believe Mat when he claims that he only didn't tell Tuon about Egwene having been captured as damane because he 'didn't think on it too long' that Egwene's captivity had happened. It's in Egwene's PoV so we are, once again, not in Mat's head. The main good quality that Mat has been able to hold onto when he's been around the Seanchan has been keeping his friends' secrets. tbh it seems more likely to me that he just didn't think it was Tuon's business (it would have been a pretty big betrayal of Egwene's privacy for him to confide that in Tuon, imo?). But, yeah, Tuon explicitly says here that she is going to have a "not pleasant" conversation with Mat about him holding back information on her. And it pretty clearly comes across as a threat.

Yikes.

15. Egwene does seem to believe here that Tuon has made a grave mistake by marrying Mat... but it's explicitly because Mat is ta'veren and Tuon has trapped herself into his web. And it amuses her because she assumes it can't mean anything good for Tuon or the Seanchan in the long term. (I mean, given that Mat has gotten hundreds of thousands of people killed on the Westlands side... yeah, it does seem like a lot of dead Seanchan are in the future on Tuon's side, and Mat might never even realize he was the enabling factor). So this is the one time that I'll allow for a character to be amused that Mat has married a slaver -- Egwene clearly sees this as Tuon having screwed herself over in the future without realizing it.

Though Mat does throw out a "may she live forever" (eyeroll), he is also still calling her 'Tuon', despite the threat of execution. And note that Mat is still of the opinion that "being ta'veren has never gotten me much" so he doesn't seem particularly happy about being married.

16. Yeah, Tuon also makes it very clear that the new clothes and the new name are deliberate attempts to separate Mat away from his past connections and make it clear that Tuon owns him now. "He serves the Seanchan, the Crystal Throne, and the Empress."

She is isolating him from his previous friends and making it clear that he belongs to her. Egwene is 100% right in her instincts that he needs to be saved from Tuon, even if Mat himself doesn't realize it (or, potentially, does realize it but isn't willing to admit to it).

17. So Egwene has to renegotiate with Tuon because now that Rand is gone, Tuon is forcing everyone to start from page one with her again, because she is a coddled and spoiled brat who wants to eke out more concessions if she can get them.

But the results of Tuon attempting to re-negotiate with Egwene now that Rand is off on his mission actually ends up backfiring on Tuon overall, I think! -- Egwene gets Tuon to agree to leave Tremalking alone (because they haven't found a compliant Sea Folk leader along the lines of Beslan to lend them legitimacy) and Egwene makes a spirited attempt to get Tuon to agree to allow women who have just been discovered but not yet collared the opportunity to choose to go the White Tower instead, leaning on Tuon's stated belief that marath'damane want to be slaves so it's no big deal to offer them the option of freedom.

But Tuon does balk at this idea, unfortunately, because she gets scared when Egwene mentions that all sul'dam are marath'damane.

18. Egwene, because she actually is discerning and calculating, picked up on what Tuon said about having trained damane herself and says, in front of the Blood, that as a sul'dam, Tuon is capable of channeling. Which Tuon already knows -- she learned this in KoD -- but she calls Egwene a liar because living in denial is the only way she can keep her power base and nothing matters more to Tuon than sucking up all the power in the world. It really does suck so much that we came up to the brink of Something Actually Happening with the Seanchan storyline and then backed away like cowards. There will never be any outriggers! Pull off the damn bandaid while the books are still running!

We don't get any mention of the Blood or the various damane & sul'dam who are around reacting to this bit of information either, but they do hear Egwene call ~their Empress~ out on being a liar, and call their Empire out on being a machine of cruelty that tortures women into fates worse than death. Will that matter? Who the fuck knows. Maybe one or two of the Blood here will feel a pang of conscience, as Leilwin née Egeanin did, and begin the slow and painful process of changing. Or maybe not.

And it is satisfying to get to see someone calling Tuon out on what a hypocrite she is -- she's all for preaching that other people should get put into the collar because they're just ~meant~ to be slaves but of course she wouldn't do it to herself. Of course she wouldn't. The idea terrifies her to death, I'm sure. Which also shows how deeply in denial she is when she claims that marath'damane just naturally want to be collared and anything other than that is a weird outlier. She knows damn well that it isn't true, because she doesn't long for the collar herself. But if she stuffs her fingers in her ears and just shouts that she's not marath'damane loudly enough, she can make herself believe it.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that Tuon did not go into this conversation looking to be publicly accused of being marath'damane herself, especially not in front of a crowd of Blood, so I feel like this one was a win for Egwene.

19. When things get to be really heated between Egwene & Tuon, with Egwene embracing the Power, Mat intercedes. What Mat says here is gross and demeaning; and I think we can all agree on that (a threat to take them over "over his knee" as if that would even be possible in this situation), but Egwene doesn't take it seriously for a second because she can see that Mat is trying to deflect her and Tuon away from each other and onto him (also frustrating though, because I really wanted something to Actually Happen with Tuon).

Also, we get a reminder that Tuon is a big ol' liar about not being jealous over Mat and other women, because she stares at where Mat's hand is touching Egwene's chest until he lowers his hand.

It also leads to another threat from Tuon about how she and Mat will have "many words" tonight, but they do both back down. But, wow, Tuon is so jealous over Egwene here, which is hilarious from the perspective of actually knowing anything about Egwene and Mat's friendship.

(sadly, I must take away Egwene's right to be amused at Mat's marriage at this point in the conversation, when she bizarrely attempts to commiserate ??? with Tuon over Mat's foul language)

Also, I will note that Egwene offers to help free him from the Seanchan, Mat doesn't tell her that he doesn't need to be freed, he tells her that he can handle it on his own. Slightly different things. Do you have an exit strategy, Mat?

Egwene is still determined to help Mat get free of the Seanchan somehow. AU idea where she does!

So, Mat leaves with Tuon and we know that she plans to have a 'not pleasant' conversation with him. So I will mark that in my notes to keep in mind the next time we see Mat.

20. As we've been going through the various battlefields, the 'great captains' have continued to make bone-headed mistakes. As we return to Elayne, it seems like this is coming to a head, as Tam confronts Bashere.

(and, no, she doesn't think about how Tam is Rand's dad and will be her kid's grandfather. Why would she, apparently?)

Tam accuses Bashere of not using scouts and falsifying scouting reports instead, saying that Bashere is to blame for the bad tactics that have happened in the recent battles. After considering how badly they've been trapped by the Shadowspawn, Elayne orders Bashere relieved from duty and has Talmanes take him away with the Band's Redarms.

And now Elayne is the one leading the army here, not Bashere.

21. Bryne gets one right for calling Tuon "that Imperial monster of a Seanchan leader". I have to admit, so far, there is less of the "let's hold hands with the Seanchan" vibe that I remembered and more "ugh, fuck, I guess we gotta hold our noses and deal with the Seanchan" vibe, at least in most chapters. It's really Mat's bizarro-world PoVs that tend to throw everything else off, and Mat has been kept ignorant of the Seanchan's recent actions under Tuon's guidance.

Bryne actually made Min do some real work by having her clerk for one of his people! Okay, Bryne has two rights. This is the first time Min has done any real work in what feels like forever. Being away from Rand is already doing her some good. But now the tent she was working in has been destroyed, so he puts her to work as a messenger (Min actually volunteers, which is definitely better than how she behaved when she was with Rand).

I kinda feel like my own opinion of the romances in WoT does hinge pretty strongly on "do they become less interesting characters when they are spending time with [love interest]?" but also on "what else do they have going on besides being [main character]'s love interest?".

ex. I liked Min best in TSR and once she starts really one-note obsessing over Rand in TFoH and onward, my interest in her nosedives because it feels like she has zero interests or drives outside of Rand. Get a hobby, Min! One that isn't about Rand (so the interest in 'philosophy' doesn't count). There's this incredibly depressing scene in, I think it was TFOH but it might have been the very start of LoC, where Elayne wants to talk to Min about something other than Rand and Min is just completely incapable of turning off the Rand-obsession long enough to think of a single good thing that doesn't revolve around Rand-Rand-Rand (the scene was not meant to be depressing but it definitely made me go 'yikes, Min, please get literally anything in your life that isn't about Rand').

22. So Min is off to the "Seanchan Empress" to tell her to send cavalry to the battlefield. Because Tuon is currently doing her best to hold back as many of her forces as she can and is negotiating them out piece-meal.

When she arrives at the Seanchan camp, Min notes how many forces are just lazing around doing nothing when they could be helping in the Last Battle. Min thinks for a moment that she wishes that she could have gone with Rand to Shayol Ghul but she has finally realized that she's only a liability to him in situations like that. Finally. I do note that apparently Rand had to 'forbid' her from going, though, so if he'd let her, she would have happily been a liability to him.

Anyway, Min was told by Rand to keep an eye on Fortuona, so I'll keep that in mind.

23. "Speak what criticism one would about the Seanchan -- and Min had a number of things she could add to that conversation -- they certainly were organized."

I really wish that Sanderson actually let Min think some of her specific criticisms about the Seanchan here rather than the narration veiling it. Because the way this is written ends up praising without critique, because the criticism remains politely unvoiced. One must always be polite about the slavers who want to dehumanize your friends and your lover, I guess.

Min was in Falme with Egwene! She actually saw Egwene being punished! She was even blamed for some of Egwene's punishments (which were all Renna's fault, of course, and not Min's) and she listened to Egwene scream and cry out in agony.

Let Min actually remember some of that in the text here rather than sweeping it all under the rug! She knows that the da'covale are slaves, for example, because she was in Falme. But instead of calling them slaves, she calls them "immodestly-dressed young women". Let Min actually have a thought here about how she disapproves of slavery! Put that on the record!

And Min thinking here that the Seanchan "couldn't possibly be as prickly as the Aiel". You... you literally listened to Egwene weeping in pain while she was being tortured for such crimes as "wanting to keep her own name" and "not wanting to be a slave" and "letting her friend visit her". wtf, Min.

24. Min has never seen Mat's hat before, but she thinks here that he has topped his new silken Seanchan outfit with his "familiar hat". I really do wonder if there was a draft of AMoL where Mat was in Merrilor, because then Min and Mat would have had a chance to meet back when Mat was in his old clothes and it would make sense for her to recognize his hat here. Because as it is, that's literally a nonsense thing for Min to think. The last time she saw Mat was at the end of book 2. Mat got his hat during book 4.

Min and Mat reunite like old buddies. They barely know each other. Let's tot up the times that they've met:

off-the-page in-between TGH and TDR, while Mat was dying from the dagger, in the handful of days that Mat was there before Verin took him & Elayne, Egwene, & Nynaeve off to the White Tower

That's it. That's the only entry. Mat didn't meet her in Baerlon -- Rand told him about her afterward. Apart from that, their only possible knowledge of each other comes from what Rand might have passed along. It is genuinely bizarre that they are behaving like old friends. They met once, almost two years ago, when one of them was dying. Mat has seen her having sex with Rand from time to time in his color swirl visions, but Min doesn't have access to that. They missed seeing each other in Caemlyn by four days, because Rand sends Mat off to Salidar before Min shows up with the embassy. They are the next best thing to complete strangers to each other, except that Mat has unintentionally seen Min naked several times.

It's Min and Perrin who have a friendship. It's funny, how Sanderson buffed up Perrin's friendships with Rand & Mat, but erased Perrin's friendship with Min. Perrin and Min, per canon, spent a lot of time talking to each other in between TGH & TDR (more time than either of them spent with Rand, who spent most of his time either brooding alone or arguing with Moiraine).

This is definitely "writing to the epilogue" convenience. But it could have made sense if Mat and Min had met back in the early chapters of the book while Mat was in Merrilor after he'd returned with Moiraine & Thom.

25. Mat tries to press Min for any new viewings about him. That's... interesting. Someone wants a new fate? I'm feeling curious about how Mat and Tuon's 'not pleasant' conversation went. Min deflects the conversation to viewings about the Seanchan general and I really don't care. Except to note that, sadly, Galgan probably won't try to kill Tuon because Mat is now the next one in the line of succession.

26. Why in the world would Min bow to Tuon? Seriously, girl, wtf. This is what I mean about how the narrative itself feels like it tiptoes around Tuon. Why would Min care so much about respecting Seanchan titles and nobility? She thinks here that she doesn't care about any other nobility but somehow the word 'Empress' triggers the worship reflex in her hindbrain or something? wtf. "It was only proper to show respect to Fortuona". Literally why? Why is the emphasis in Min's chapter about being polite to the slavers? Why is that the overriding vibe of this section -- Min's desire to make a good impression on the slavers? She didn't try this hard (or at all) with the Aiel. It's things like this that make me feel like Tuon must be ta'veren, because that feels like a thought that Tuon just plopped into Min's brain without permission.

Also, after Tuon enters literally just as Mat has mentioned her to Min, Mat then quotes "Say the name of Darkness, and his eye is upon you". Um. Yeah. So I feel like that 'not pleasant' conversation didn't go very well. (*whispers* he just compared his wife to the Dark One */whispers*).

He is also still using "Tuon" in casual conversation. And he doesn't get down on the floor, even though everyone else (including Min, for whatever reason) does.

27. And Mat is straight-up baiting Tuon in this conversation, or at least it feels that way (and using Min as a weapon while he does it). Yeah, I get the feeling that 'not pleasant' conversation went extremely poorly (was telling Tuon that Min is "the Dragon Reborn's woman" his way of trying to protect her from being poached by Tuon but Min didn't pick up on it? or was it his way of assuaging Tuon's raging jealousy issues by letting her know that Min is 'taken' and Mat doesn't plan on screwing her?)

I almost wonder if he's testing Tuon here -- seeing if her threats have any teeth? She told him that she could have him killed if he kept using the name 'Tuon' and he has not stopped, not even after the 'not pleasant' conversation. Kinda interesting that Mat seems considerably more combative with Tuon after their 'not pleasant' private discussion than he ever has been before. Wish we'd gotten to see that conversation (important moments, etc.).

Mat warns Min that Tuon snatches people up and doesn't let them go -- Min here thinks that Mat sounds "almost proud" but tbh I don't give Min much credit for her insight into people so I will take that with a grain of salt -- and yet Min (who can never resist blabbing about her viewings to everyone in sight) immediately spills about a viewing that someone is going to try to kill Tuon.

Literally why in the world would she bother to say anything? Why would she do this to herself? Rand said nothing about going out of her way to save the head slaver's life.

Min does have the habit of being swept up by people who have stronger personalities than she does -- Moiraine, then Siuan, then Rand, then Cadsuane, and now Tuon, I guess.

I do have to crack up at Min lying to herself and saying that she hasn't accidentally blabbed a viewing in years. Even if she doesn't remember blabbing Elayne's pregnancy to the entire royal palace of Caemlyn, she sleepily blabbed out Melaine's pregnancy without thinking about it too and we know she remembers that one because it was the whole basis for why the Wise Ones treated her as an ~honorary Wise One~ for, like, two books.

If Min didn't already have an established habit of constantly talking about her viewings, I would chalk this up to Tuon being ta'veren as well but... she does.

28. Tuon just goes up and touches Min's face without permission. Probably thinking about checking her teeth. Anyway, she pronounces Min a 'Doomseer' and Min has just screwed herself for the foreseeable future.

Tuon views Min as a "gift" that Mat has given her to "pay your penance" (presumably for not volunteering information about Egwene) so... yeah, that gives us some insight into the 'not pleasant' conversation. I wonder if Mat will think back to it at all in the next PoV we get from him. Probably not. I feel like I would remember that.

Tuon names Min as her new Truthspeaker, probably thrilled that she can now shove Selucia back into the box of not having any opinions that Tuon hasn't told her to have. Her emotional support slave was having too many independent thoughts and we can't have that.

Anyway, Min's viewings never really helped Rand, so she probably won't actually help Tuon much either, so I guess that's a relief.

But, yeah, not a fun situation for Min. Though I guess Mat now has company in his hellhole of a prison, so there's that.

...okay, now I've got "Two Lost Souls" from Damn Yankees in my head.

29. Just as Tam picked up on how Bashere's 'tactical mistakes' keep helping the Shadowspawn in the last section, Lan has picked out the same when it comes to his own 'great captain' -- two reserve forces were both sent to shore up the same hole in the lines, resulting in confusion and also the ranks being too thin in other places.

30. So, yeah, the set-up continues for Team Light to be forced to trust the General of the Slavers with the armies despite his recent horrible life choices. We note here that it has been 'weeks' for Lan now.

Lan countermands Agelmar's latest order, as he's realized how badly it would expose part of their army and compromise any potential retreat, so Lan has de facto taken over the army here, just as Elayne has over in the Cairhien/Caemlyn section of the battle.

31. Mat lets us know here Min has also been re-dressed in fancy Seanchan clothes. Apparently without any attempt to stick in her own clothes? She's an 'honored holy woman' per Tuon, so you would imagine means she has leverage to wear her own clothes if she wants. (of course, if it doesn't give her any leverage, then that would be useful information for the reader to have)

Anyway, we are back in Mat's head, for the first time since his disappointing reunion scene with Rand. We've seen him from the outside a few times since then -- in Tuon, Egwene, and finally Min's eyes.

Mat announces that he needs to go out and look at the actual battlefield. He thinks in his head that it's because the maps are "too simplistic" but I wonder if part of his motivation is taking a chance and getting some fresh air while his ~slaver bride~ is off doing "some empressly duty". I'm still curious about that 'not pleasant' conversation of 'many words' that they had after Tuon and Egwene met. He also yanks off part of his 'Seanchan uniform' here, leaving himself in his scarf, medallion, and breeches. He'd rather walk around shirtless than wear the fancy Seanchan duds, it seems.

(this life is going to make him so miserable)

32. Yeah, Min is now wearing a dress, with no apparent protest. Mat notes that she's pretty and then additionally notes that he needs to be careful with smiles around women now because his wife might stab him if he smiles too much at other women. So, yeah, I'm thinking part of the 'not pleasant' conversation was Tuon making her jealousy issues very very clear to Mat. But despite Mat's protests that hooking up with Rand means that Min is "practically his sister", his narration does make it clear that he's attracted to her.

(this life is going to make him so miserable)

"Mat had always considered Min on the boyish side" - you met her one time! During the foggy period of your memory when you were dying! The narration really is behaving like Perrin and Mat's friendships have been swapped around in this book -- Perrin is the one who has the stronger friendships with Rand and Elayne now; while Mat now has the stronger friendship with Min. Before this book, the opposite was true of all of those things. I guess we can assume that this is about Rand & Min screwing in the color swirls but Min would have been at least partly naked for a lot of those.

33. Anyway, Mat had his own clothes hidden away and changes into them now, when Tuon isn't here to protest, and then sneaks off to look at the battlefield before she can come back to berate him again. Lessons learned from his time with Tylin?

(Min does say here that she's tempted to strip off too, but she keeps wearing the Seanchan clothes for whatever reason)

We do also learn here the very important information that the Seanchan guards respond to bribes (Mat bribed them into keeping and hiding his clothes for him here). Though Mat also notes that it's only the free guards and not the slaves.

34. It's so sad here that Mat has to feel grateful that Tuon "understood that [Mat] needed" the foxhead medallion and returned it to him. He's grateful that he's allowed to use his own personal items and that she didn't permanently keep what she'd stolen from him.

(this life is going to make him so miserable)

...hmm. I'm going to keep an eye on the medallions. Because technically Mat has two right now (his original and a copy that Elayne made), but he hasn't mentioned the second one at all.

35. Sadly, going for Pips means that "unfortunately, someone had time to alert" Tuon that Mat was slipping away, and so she comes to confront him (so I was right about part of the reason behind him bailing on the command tent was trying to get away from Tuon).

Mat once again warns Min that it's very dangerous here: "they know how to treat a fellow, as long as they don't behead him. I'm still trying to figure out how to prevent that from happening."

Hmm, Mat gives Min the "sell" on staying with the Seanchan... he says that it would help Rand because she can attempt to mislead Tuon about her 'omens' to try to guide Tuon onto a less-awful path. I imagine that's how Mat is justifying his own choices too but we saw that when he actually had a chance to try to guide Tuon onto a better path, he froze and said nothing while Rand did all the negotiating. But Mat does make it clear here that he still disapproves of what the Seanchan are doing; he's just... sticking around and helping anyway for whatever reason.

But, yeah, "lie to Tuon to try to subtly direct her choices" being part of Mat's advice to Min is... illuminating, to be sure. Did Mat lie to/mislead Tuon during their recent 'not pleasant' private discussion?

36. Yeah, we see here very directly that Mat doesn't always mean what he says around Tuon, when he pretends to be happy that she's coming along with him to survey the battlefield while "groaning inside". This is what I was talking about back when I was questioning all of the other character's interpretations of Mat's behavior in the previous few chapters -- most of the characters in the books are not very good at reading Mat. Tuon has failed to accurately judge him on multiple occasions, Egwene will always at least partly see him as the troublemaker from her hometown, and Min barely knows him.

Also, Mat was expecting to be berated for changing his clothes but Tuon says nothing about it at this time. Hey, Min, maybe you should take the opportunity to change yours too?

It is good to see Mat attempting to push back on Tuon, even if it's on relatively minor things.

It really is the decision to make Mat a deserter that screwed his characterization over so hard in this book. If Mat had gone to Merrilor and then gone to Ebou Dar, pretty much everything would make more sense. There's only a couple of scenes so far that have 'needed' Mat to be a willing traitor in order to play out the way that they did (mostly just Egwene's shock at seeing him hanging out with the Seanchan) and almost everything else would make more sense if Mat had gone back to Ebou Dar as a negotiator on behalf of the Westlands.

37. On the minus side, we have some really weird stuff here where Mat dehumanizes one of the Seanchan generals for the crime of being a woman that he doesn't want to fuck. While Mat did start basically thinking about every woman that he met in terms of fuckability back around... A Crown of Swords, I want to say... he didn't act like 'not being fuckable' made women unpeople and he's kinda going that way here and it's super gross.

38. On her own front in the battlefield, Egwene sees a huge tactical blunder by Bryne that leaves one of their flanks wide-open to the enemy and vulnerable, and now she is also going to go question him, as it looked distinctly like he set up a trap that benefited the Shadowspawn. So that's all of the fronts except Ituralde (who is just outside of Shayol Ghul).

After questioning Agelmar, Lan suspects it is Compulsion that is behind his recent poor battle decisions, and Lan has him relieved from duty. Also, Tenobia conveniently gets killed on the battlefield and brings Faile one step closer to ruling Saldaea.

39. Back with Mat, Tuon, Min, and Selucia. Poor Selucia. She got half a book of being allowed to have her own opinions but now she's just Tuon's Voice/bodyguard again and gets to speak no words but Tuon's.

Min is obediently telling Tuon all her viewings and her interpretations of them, just like she always does when she's under the thumb of someone with a more forceful personality than her own. This is kinda why I feel like Mat's hope that she will lead Tuon onto better paths is likely not going to pan out -- because Min's viewings do not have a moral component, not that we're aware of, and she is spilling them all out indiscriminately.

And Tuon will likely continue to be her own horrible self, no matter what viewings Min has. But I guess we'll see how that relationship plays out.

Min has not only told Tuon all the viewings she had about Tuon but also her viewings about Mat, over Mat's protests. Min likes to claim that she doesn't do things like that, but wow, she does it all the time. It does feel like fandom doesn't really acknowledge that both Min & Perrin lie about themselves in their own heads just as much as Mat or Nynaeve do. Min believes that she's discreet about her viewings, when she's a blabbermouth most of the time, and Perrin believes that he thinks things through before he acts, when he's actually wildly reckless and impulsive pretty frequently.

40. It's interesting that Min and Mat greeted each other like old friends yet are now essentially working at cross-purposes -- Mat suggested to Min that ('for Rand') she mislead Tuon in order to craft a narrative that would make Tuon soften towards Aes Sedai (and also more minor things like "try to get her to stop wanting to get rid of my hat") but Min, like Galad, wants to be rigidly honest and is telling Tuon everything, not giving a care that she's telling Tuon other people's secrets (and we know she's telling real secrets, because she's now told Tuon all of Mat's old viewings that we know from before, against Mat's express wishes). So Min is essentially unintentionally teaching Mat that she is not an ally to him and that she will sell him out to Tuon if he confides in her. Which means that Mat is, once again, all alone in the middle of an enemy camp that he feels obligated to stay in (now matter how unhappy it makes him) Because Wife.

Mat and Tuon really is peak "enforced heterosexual monogamy" culture. They explicitly are married due not to their own desires but to external pressures (the prophecies) and feel obligated to stick it out even though, on Tuon's side, she feels like she has a wildly chaotic husband that she doesn't know how to control and, on Mat's side, everything about the situation is constantly making him miserable. I believe he thinks at one point (in some future chapter?) that he could be happy if it was just him and Tuon in a life far away from the Seanchan but... that really is him picturing himself and his Fictional Tuon character (not cold, not possessive, Not Like The Other Seanchan) rather than himself and Actual Fortuona. I'm sure Mat and his fake Tuon could find happiness running away from the throne, but fake Tuon doesn't exist so... yeah.

41. Mat is able to get "five minutes" by himself and rides down to talk to Perrin's slaver BFF Tylee. Much like Egwene had just realized, Mat learns here from Tylee that Bryne is making bad calls that are compromising his army.

*sigh*

Mat stuffs himself into Seanchan armor at this point. Well, he had a spine about wearing his own clothing for, like, five minutes. Maybe that's all we can hope for out of him these days. It is at least real 'on the field' armor rather than the ceremonial silk this time.

Also: Tuon's desire to constantly be keeping an eye on Mat vs Mat's desire to have some breathing room seems like a fight in their marriage that is going to reoccur a lot.

42. Anyway, Mat goes to personally take a unit out to relieve Bryne's soldiers because it looks like they've gotten very bad orders and he needs to correct them personally. I... don't have an issue with this apart from the whole "ugh, Seanchan" thing? Mat can see that the battle is going extremely poorly and wants to investigate from the inside because from what he can see, it looks like the general in charge is deliberately ordering bad tactics. That's not something that Mat can fix simply by sending contrary orders because he is not the main general of this battlefield. Bryne is. So Mat going out to take direct control of a specific part so that he can, essentially, undermine Bryne's bad orders before he goes to deal with the root of the issue makes sense because this is a time-sensitive situation.

Tylee tries to give Mat some damane slaves for the battle and he refuses.

Once again, like it did in Min's PoV, the narrative has yet another character praise the Seanchan's sense of organization while implying that the character has critiques about the Seanchan but not mentioning the specific issues that they have. Actually let Mat share his critiques about the Seanchan with the reader! Stop veiling the critiques behind "oh, I have some issues but I won't say what they are".

43. Mat is really really attracted to the enemy Sharan channeler. Until she tries to kill him but, yeah, he literally stops and stares at the channeler on the opposing side. Though that doesn't stop him from knocking her out with his spear when her weaves fail on him and he's able to get close.

*resigned sigh*

After this battle, Mat is now willing to throw damane slaves at the enemy.

Mat has also really really impressed the Ever Victorious Army. Something to keep in mind for post-canon 'Mat conducts a coup' thoughts. Between Egwene feeling like Tuon has accidentally gotten herself trapped in Mat's ta'veren web, Tuon's own "[Mat] would never be a rival" thoughts, how swiftly Mat is winning over the officers, and Mat's own words to Min about how she should craft a narrative to deceive Tuon into behaving the way she wants her to behave... there are some interesting puzzle pieces here for a post-canon "Mat deposes Tuon and takes over the Seanchan Empire" or "Mat tricks Tuon into thinking she's in charge while he's the real power in the Empire" storyline.

I really wish that Sanderson & Team Jordan hadn't made Mat a deserter at the start of the book; it really did start Mat off on such a bad foot, narratively-speaking, by weighting him so heavily on the side of the slavers without any kind of narrative justification for the choice (we still don't know how Mat got to Ebou Dar originally -- Sanderson really was like "okay, it makes no sense, so I'll just let readers fill in a reason that they can justify to themselves"). But even with that massive off-the-page weighting on the side of the slavers, Mat is listing back towards the Westlands side of things (as he has done time and time again). Over and over, Mat gets forcibly yanked over towards the Seanchan and then starts drifting away from them again (requiring another heavy-handed course-correction from the Authors).

44. Mat does change back into his "Two Rivers" coat here. ...wait, Mat's coat is a "Two Rivers" coat? When did that happen? When did Mat go back to the Two Rivers to get a coat? Or did he get it from Perrin's army? Anyway, he did change back into his own clothes after the battle.

Oh! Oh, this must be a coat that Elayne's person picked out for him (as per his request in ToM)! Elayne's person found him a Two Rivers coat? She really is magic. I love her.

Mat does realize here that the Sharan channeler that he captured is almost certainly going to end up damane. Should have just killed her.

45. Tuon is currently so pissed at Mat that she's only speaking to him through Selucia (now back in her role as Tuon's opinionless Voice). Mat notes this as a 'bad sign' but he also does keep calling her Tuon. Maybe he doesn't back down and start referring to her formally as she told him to do; maybe that was something that my memory was incorrect on, which would be nice.

"Your life is no longer your own," Tuon tells him through Selucia. I wonder if that's also part of the reason that Mat went out on the battlefield -- a way of declaring that his life is his own, even if that means potentially throwing it away.

Mat references Nynaeve here -- I'm not sure whether or not Tuon got Nynaeve's name in the conversation she had with Rand and Nynaeve back in TGS. I'll go check.

Yep, Rand says Nynaeve's name when she chastises him for trying to pretend that he doesn't care about Mat in front of Tuon. So Tuon knows that Mat is talking about a channeler here.

46. Yikes. Tuon 'gives' the Sharan channeler that Mat captured to him as his own personal damane slave. He tries to give her back to Tuon (also gross and yikes) but Tuon won't let him. Mat does refer to her as a channeler and not marath'damane but... ugh. But this is the continuation of Tuon's campaign to brainwash and integrate Mat into being fully-Seanchan, so her actions here are no surprise.

Mat is now given control of the Seanchan armies over Galgan, and they send Min back to Egwene to tell her that Bryne is helping the Shadow with how he's behaving with the army.

47. So things are incredibly dire and yet there have been no thoughts of "wow wish Mat were here to blow the Horn of Valere". It's so bizarre that everyone is just completely chill with a powerful artifact that is literally meant for the Last Battle to be just hanging out unusable!

Anyway, the Black Tower Asha'man show up here to relieve Elayne's people, who are sorely pressed.

Here's my thought: I think Sanderson was too much in love with the whole "on the very edge of being broken, the cavalry shows up" idea aka Gandalf coming to save the day at Minas Tirith. Not everything needs to be last second like that. If everything is dramatic then nothing is truly dramatic. In real life, you wouldn't wait until after the point of hope to blow the horn that brings a magic army to fight on your side. You would want to do it as soon as it looks like your own forces aren't going to be enough.

48. Min stayed dressed in all her Seanchan finery to go deliver her message to Egwene. Min's conversation with Egwene is so bizarrely tone-deaf on Min's side of things? She complains about being ~pampered~ by the Seanchan and that their rich food isn't to her taste and when Egwene ~reminds her~ that Egwene has 'enjoyed' Seanchan 'hospitality', Min is basically just "Oops, yeah, my bad, oh well, back to business."

Wow, Min's lack of empathy for the horrific trauma that she witnessed Egwene going through is kinda shocking.

For your consideration, Min in Falme:

When Min asks Egwene not to kill herself out of despair, Egwene tells her that she physically can't. That she can't use anything that she thinks of as a weapon.

She tells Min:

"A few weeks ago I considered hitting Renna over the head with that pitcher, and I could not pour wash water for three days. Once I'd thought of it that way, I not only had to stop thinking about hitting her with it, I had to convince myself I would never, under any circumstances, hit her with it before I could touch it again. She knew what had happened, told me what I had to do, and would not let me wash anywhere except with that pitcher and bowl. You are lucky it happened between your visiting days. Renna made sure I spent those days sweating from the time I woke to the time I fell asleep, exhausted. I am trying to fight them, but they are training me as surely as they’re training Pura.” She clapped a hand to her mouth, moaning through her teeth. “Her name is Ryma. I have to remember her name, not the name they've put on her. She's Ryma, and she's Yellow Ajah, and she has fought them as long and as hard as she could. It is no fault of hers that she hasn't the strength left to fight any longer. I wish I knew who the other sister is that Ryma mentioned. I wish I knew her name. Remember us both, Min. Ryma, of the Yellow Ajah, and Egwene al'Vere. Not Egwene the damane; Egwene al'Vere of Edmond's Field.' "

...

The door swung open, and Renna stepped in.

Egwene jumped to her feet and bowed sharply, as did Min. The tiny room was crowded for bowing, but Seanchan insisted on protocol before comfort.

"Your visiting day, is it?" Renna said. "I had forgotten. Well, there is training to be done even on visiting days."

...

Renna puts on the bracelet and senses that Egwene was channeling without permission:

"You have been channeling." Renna's voice was deceptively mild; there was a spark of anger in her eyes. "You know that is forbidden except when we are complete." Egwene wet her lips. "Perhaps I have been too lenient with you. Perhaps you believe that because you are valuable now, you will be allowed license. I think I made a mistake in letting you keep your old name. I had a kitten name Tuli when I was a child. From now on, your name is Tuli. You will go now, Min. Your visiting day with Tuli is ended."

Min hesitated only long enough for one anguished look at Egwene before leaving.

...

Then, in Min's PoV right after she leaves the room:

Outside in the low-ceilinged hallway, Min dug her nails into her palms at the first piercing cry from the room. She took a step towards the door before she could stop herself, and when she did stop, tears sprang up in her eyes. Light help me, all I can do is make it worse. Egwene, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Feeling worse than useless, she picked up her skirts and ran, and Egwene's screams pursued her. She could not make herself stay, and leaving made her feel a coward. Half blind with weeping, she found herself in the street before she knew it. She had intended to go back to her room, but now she could not do it. She could not stand the thought that Egwene was being hurt while she sat warm and safe under the next roof. Scrubbing the tears from her eyes, she swept her cloak around her shoulders and started down the street. Every time she cleared her eyes, new tears began trickling along her cheeks. She was not accustomed to weeping openly, but then she was not accustomed to feeling so helpless, so useless. She did not know where she was going, only that it had to be as far as she could reach from Egwene's cries.

Compare all that to Min right now: wearing Seanchan silks and whining about how their fanciest food isn't to her liking.

Anyway, she delivers her message from Mat, and Egwene says that she'll take it under consideration.

49. In Ituralde's PoV, we learn about the kinds of nightmares that Graendal has been putting in their heads, and the kinds of thoughts. Three separate times, Ituralde has almost given an order for his men to engage in a direct assault against the Shadowspawn but then been able to pull back again before he gave the Graendal-influenced order, so he's doing better than the other captains. I wonder if his experience in getting all those confusing messages from 'his king' (but actually Graendal) is helping him here. We see him fighting the urge to give one of those bad orders now and he's fighting it extremely hard and then Perrin shows up before he gives in and says it. And Ituralde is so relieved to give up his command because he can tell that something is wonky with his own thinking!

50. Egwene notices that Gawyn doesn't seem tired but he does seem 'strangely pale'. :-(

Thinking about Mat makes Egwene feel "strangely sick". That is such the mood when talking about post-WH Mat, yeah. We are twinsies in this feeling, Egwene. But after thinking it through and remembering the times when Mat has come through when needed, she decides that she is going to trust him, though it makes her feel like she's a fool for doing it. "Mat could be wrong. He was often wrong. But when he was right, he saved lives." and "[Mat] was a scoundrel and a fool but she trusted him. Light help her, but she did. She trusted him with her life."

Not sure Mat deserves that right now, tbh, but it's a sweet thought from Egwene.

And maybe he does.

I'm thinking about 'a ribbon that felt like a chain'. Thinking about Mat considering his father's advice for dealing with cheats during a trade. Thinking about Mat telling Min to pick and choose between her viewings to attempt to guide Tuon onto a better path. Thinking about Mat putting on a Two Rivers coat during the Last Battle.

Maybe he does.

I guess we'll see.

The ultimate factor, once Egwene realizes that Bryne was Compelled, is that she knows that Mat cannot be touched by saidar or saidin, so he is the only general they can trust not to be corrupted by the Forsaken.

[badblood-lesmis]

i am quite obsessed with Enjolras' mother & the trope of going voluntarily insane to escape but this is just a small thing for now

He would like to have said that he hasn’t spoken to his mother in years. He would also like to have said that he never knew his mother. Both of those things would be true and not true at the same time. He did, of course, speak to his mother, although that often felt like an overstatement. He nodded to his mother when he saw her coming down the stairs, he sometimes asked her something mundane just to remember what her voice sounded like. If she had slept well. If she would like something to drink. She had this way of turning her head towards him and giving him a long cloudy stare which always made him want to seize her by the shoulders and shake her and scream hello i am your son the one you gave birth to and it would really be nice sometimes if you didn’t look like you were trying to remember what my name is or who i am every single time you look at me. He never did, of course, and she eventually seemed to settle on some sort of conclusion of who he was, because she would arrange her mouth in a smile and say

“Fine, darling. Thank you.”

This was his only indicator that he is somehow different from the servants, that she actually knew the difference. Servants were dears, not darlings, but the guests were also darlings sometimes so in this there could be no certainty. Eventually he almost stopped doing that too — only if he was angry and wanted to make himself even angrier. He really really wanted to be angry. The angrier, the better, until he was so consumed by rage he saw red. Sometimes he wished she was dead, it would make it much easier. Dead people are more convenient when they are actually dead, not when they are walking around the house in a haze of madness and laudanum.

Sometimes he thought her madness was of the same nature as his rage. A carefully constructed and meticulously supported structure, allowing her to survive her husband and this house for sixteen years. Where Enjolras have chosen red, she chose no colour at all. For all intents and purposes, it wouldn’t make much of a difference had she been a ghost. Perhaps she would even be happier as one.

** *

Window glass rattled loudly like it was trying to be pushed out of the frame, a heavy beak knocking on it with insistence. A raven with glistening eyes stared inside the boys bedroom where his addressee was fast asleep along with two other boys. He knocked on the glass again, this time waking one of them. A messy head of hair rose from the pillow, looking around for the source of the noise. He knocked again, stirring, eager to get away from the freezing January air. Eager to get back to his own family, to fulfil his part of the deal, a crumpled piece of paper burning his leg.

The boy took his time, incredulously opening the window to let him in. The raven hopped inside, perching himself on the frame of one of the boys’ bed. The one he needed was still sleeping, not even the cold air waking him up.

“Who’re you then?” Asked the one who let him in. “Who uses ravens now, anyway?”

The raven thought poorly of owls. Undignified creatures, too much brawn, not enough brain, but he said nothing to that remark. Instead he bent his head down and slipped a small knot with his beak, letting a crumpled piece of paper fall on a nightstand, shook his feathers a bit and in a business-like manner proceeded back to the window. His family waited for him and he didn’t have time to wait for the boy to wake up. He considered his part of the deal done. Sealed and delivered.

“Weirdo.” Commented the boy when letting him back out. He was going to return to his own bed, when his curiosity got the better of him. Quietly, he snuck to Enjolras’ bedside table and unwrapped a small square of paper. In a very thin and shaky handwriting it said

Darling. You’ve done better than me. Never dare to return.

The boy stared at the note for a moment and folded it back before placing it on the nightstand again. “Cryptic weirdo,” he muttered to himself, getting into his bed. “Bloody dark wizards, his lot.”

[beemers-hell]

what's shindas, ikutes and fumeis' relationship dynamic like? i love the polyam rep I wanna know more Abt em!!

RUBS MY HANDS EVILY

lol get ready for an essay and a half

Ok so the first thing you gotta know about the mob poly is that they have been best friends since they were in kindergarten. They have been ride or dies for each other since they were literally in elementary school. They have been through every high and low of each others lives together, so already they have a really tight bong just through that.

Fumei was the first to make any moves, which was with Shinda, they're high school sweethearts that were just meant to be. Both Fumei and Shinda would confide in Ikute about their feelings for each other, and when they did start dating they'd still chat with Ikute about their feelings and how much they loved the other and how how hot the other one is and date plans and all that junk. And Ikute was chill with it cause those were his besties, however he did start to get a little tortured by Those Feelings after a while cause he realized he liked Fumei, but didn't act on it cause Duh he's already dating Shinda. But Shinda is really fucking good at reading people so she eventually kinda pushed him until he told her what was up, and she didn't even have a problem with it she was like "bitch shoot your shot anyway were already super close to each other i trust you to not take him from me" and like, it didn't happen immediately cause Ikute is just reserved like that. But eventually thr two had a particularly Gay ass moment with each other and he folded and spilled about his feelings for Fumei, and Fumei's an absolute sweetheart with too much love for his poor little heart anyway so he was like "I like you alot too the way I like Shinda alot I can make this work cause I want it alot" so then the poly was formed like, near the end of high school.

And now they're in their 30s and still together so obviously they got their shit figured out!

Firstly, Fumei, since he's the connecting point: Like I said, he's a massive sweetheart! When he loves someone he LOVES them; it can be a little overbearing sometimes but he knows Shinda and Ikute's boundaries and limits with everything like he knows the back of his hand so he rarely ever has problems with overdoing it with them specifically. He's very much a heart on the sleeve kind of dude and does everything in his power to make sure his partners know how much he loves and cares for them. He's out voluntarily getting up before everyone else to make full course meals for breakfast, he's hiding little sticky notes with disgustingly cutesy love letters written on them in their belongings, he's taking care of their aches and pains when they complain, he's very much a very selfless guy that gives his all to his partners. He does have to Show His Love differently between them because they aren't the same person of course, but the point is he gives his all.

Hes also being kinda fruity with one of the Mob Poly's friends, Lucius, a side character guy I haven't mentioned like, Ever Lol, but they're more of a fwb kinda deal rn. Shinda and Ikute are cool with it cause they think he's tight anyway lol

Shinda's more relaxed about it, she shows her love more through small gestures, she's not as showy about it as Fumei is. Like she will make sure you know you're loved by her, but she's content with just chilling and not worrying about it 24/7. She' s a really good counter balance to Fumei, cause she loves the fact that he dotes on her (and Ikute, obvs) all the time and treats her like royalty, and he loves the fact that she's so casual and chill about it. They're like, almost opposites, but yanno the saying!

Ikute, like I said, is very reserved, so he rarely engages in outwardly obvious acts of love and all that gay shit, but Fumei (and Shinda, by extension) knows damn well how much that dude loves him. Cause Ikute doesn't open up about his feelings and struggles as easily as he does with them, or talk for hours on end about whatever subject he's fixated on with anyone thr way he does them, or accept any physical touch as normal the same way he does them. Ikute doesn't regularly do very big showy grandiose acts of love like Fumei, nor does he engage in smaller acts like Shinda does...it's kind of random whether or not he'll surprise them with something big or do something smaller, its mainly dependent on his mood. The point is, Ikute doesn't act the same way with the whole rest of the world the way he acts with Fumei (and Shinda), there's like a flip thats switched when he knows he's alone with them and feels far more comfortable. That's how they know!

And, the important thing to note is, Shinda and Ikute don't love each other the same way they love Fumei. Cause like, yanno, Ikute is a gay man, and Shinda obvs respects that, he's not attracted to her like he is Fumei. However, they still are so very close to each other, and trust each other like no other, hell they are physically affectionate with one another, its just different from how they trust and love Fumei. I guess it's kinda complicated to explain? Not in like a negative way, they just have a more complex relationship than friendship, but isn't romance either? They're like "You feel like an extension of me you understand me like nobody else does I would do everything in thr world for you" but not in like a soulmates-who-complete-each-other kinda way. They're not just the type of romance web that's like "were dating the same guy and not each other but were cool" its a little deeper than that. I'd like to say they're on some 70s queer "fuck it we ball" kinda shit but I'm not sure how to explain it. I think a queer platonic relationship is how you'd describe them? Like I said its complicated lmao

Point is: These bitches can fit SOOO much gay shit into them

[lostintransist]

Liaison | Part 4 | Winning This Bet Will Be Easy

The plot will start plotting here soon, check out tags over here on AO3. Up to chapter 31 over there as of this post.

Kate could, arguably, be the person you know the best in the 141. You had her number saved in your work phone and also your personal. She took you to lunch at least once a week to confirm you weren’t having any problems. This lunch felt a bit special since you had been at your job for six months.

Kate seemed to treat these meals like an informal progress report. She also checked that Ghost wasn’t giving you any more problems. Seems word got around to all the teams that you and he did not get along. Any week you saw him you reported what offense he handed out like a challenge coin and how you responded. The week you told her about the hair pulling she shot beer through her nose.

Coughing, Kate grabbed a napkin. She pressed it against her beer-leaking nose.

“You said what to him?”

“I told him that hair pulling is kinky and asked him if he would follow up on his offer.” Shoving a bite of pasta in your mouth you watch Kate clean up the mess on her face.

“God I wish I could have seen that. Ghost isn’t always a right bastard but when he is it’s hard for anyone beyond Soap to take him to task. Why do you two hate each other so much?”

“I can’t say why on his end but I don’t respond well to demands. First thing he asked of me, ‘scuse me, demanded of me happened on a bad day was to confirm a contract and I could not respond in any way that wouldn’t cause problems. Seems no one else stands up to him so I have become his favorite wall to ram his head into.”

“You’ve been here six months now, how do you feel like you’re fitting in?”

“I’m not.”

Kate paused, looking you over. “Tell me more about that.”

“There isn’t much to say, I am chained to the computer and the phone. I took over this portion of the job from you, you know how much work this is.”

“And I will never be able to thank you enough for that, believe me,” Kate reaches across the table to squeeze your hand once before sitting back up.

“I think the only person I could say I have had a non-work related conversation with is Roach.”

“Roach? Really?”

Kate’s confusion is understandable. Roach is voluntarily mute. You tend to forget he is in the room when you yell at your computer until he sends you a cheeky message about keeping it down over there. It never comes across as high-handed or rude. The man has quick fingers and a quicker wit. The odd back and forth of talking to him and his responses rolling in over chat doesn’t bother you. It’s no different than a voice note in a text conversation.

“Some of the guys are in town tonight and we are hitting the local pub, why don’t you come and get to know them better?” Kate’s offer sounds genuine.

“Will you be there? I would hate for you to miss another epic loss for Ghost,” you tip your beer toward her, brow raised.

The laughter bubbles out of her, “I hadn’t planned on it but if you are going to be there I would love to watch a match up with Ghost.”

“Well, I will meet you in the lobby tonight for drinks. Hopefully, the sparks that fly will show how well Ghost and I don’t get along.”

❈❈❈

No one questioned you or Kate when you appeared in the lobby, standing close to her side. Nearly twenty people filled the small space, some of whom you had no name for. You were positive you had a file on them just no idea which name belonged to which face. When the men moved forward through the door you followed, chatting with Kate the whole time.

The group ended up at a pub no less than a five-minute walk from the building. A cozy space with dark wood paneling and an air that the pub had been around exactly as it was long before the Romans came to conquer.

You end up sitting straight across from Ghost because of course, you do. At the table with you are Ghost, Kate, Price, Soap, and a yet unnamed man with a sad smile. Someone with a name tag appeared at the table once everyone had sat. Price passed over his card to cover the costs of the dinner for the few tables they took up. The woman took everyone’s order with an efficiency that spoke of experience.

The fries, chips, you ordered arrive hot at the table with the drinks. Listening as everyone else talks gives you a better sense of who they are. The man you had no name for goes by Reb, his file noted he was a sniper. He tells good stories, and everyone laughs at the experience he shares of trying to outrun a bull when he accidentally set up a nest on the wrong side of a hill.

Everyone notes when someone enters the bar, quick glances and assessments without breaking the conversation. Even you notice when a gorgeous redhead steps into the room. She settles at the bar. Large, loose curls drift down her back and her freckled face is clear from where you sit.

Over the next hour, you watch three different members of the 141 from different tables try and talk to her. Each gets shut down hard within thirty seconds. After the third man slinks back to his table Soap comments.

“Poor bastards, I doubt anyone could take her home tonight.”

“I could,” you pop another fry into your mouth.

You pause chewing when the table goes silent.

“What? She hasn’t given any of the men an iota of attention. Look at how she’s dressed, her outfit screams lesbian.”

All eyes focus on the woman at the bar. She doesn’t turn but shifts on her stool.

“Prove it then.” The challenge comes from Ghost.

“Wanna bet on it Gengar?”

Kate’s eyes go wide and connect with Price’s who smirks at the whole interaction.

“Oh, Jesus save us,” Soap takes a large swallow of his drink.

“£1,000,” Ghost snarls.

“Done, winning this bet will be easy.” Pulling a stack of sticky notes and a pen from your backpack you write down your Venmo.

Peeling off the top layer you slap the paper on the center of the table.

“I’ll give you ten minutes to get the money together after I leave with her. Kate, thanks for the invite. I’ll see you in the morning.” Sending nods around the table, you give Ghost a wink instead.

A fourth man is leaving, tail between his legs, when you slide onto the stool next to the beauty.

“Hi, I know you probably came here to just have a drink alone but could I interest you in helping me win a bet?”

She sends you a heavy side eye as she sips at her drink.

“What kind of bet?”

Leaning heavily onto the bar you point toward Ghost.

“You see that scary motherfucker over there?” She turns, eyes him, and turns back to you. You continue, “See I don’t get along with him. Quite frankly I think he is a bastard and would love to win £1,000 off him. The task that will win me that money is getting you to leave with me.”

A surprised little laugh drifts to you.

“That is quite a tall order.”

“I agree, and the least I could do is tell you what is going on and ask for a bit of help.” Sticking your hand out for a shake you give a name, “You can call me L.”

“L,” she looks you up and down, more interested, “You can call me Clare.”

“Hi Clare, wanna help me win a bet? I would love to take you to dinner for your trouble.”

Her tongue plays with the edge of her canine as she thinks.

“Why not, where would you take me?” She turns from the bar to face you fully.

The scraping of chair legs against the wooden floor tells you someone is unhappy to be losing. An angry murmur follows and you trust that Price or Soap will handle Ghost.

“I’m new in the area, I would take you wherever you wanted. You know the max budget for the date,” you flirt with her.

Her hand moves to rest on your arm as she leans closer.

“And if I did,” she pauses, “want to go home with you?”

“Well I’ve never had a chance to bed a beautiful and savvy woman like yourself but I’m a quick study,” you lean forward, tipping your head to the side ever so slightly.

Clare takes the invitation and initiates a small kiss. You match her effort, pulling away with a smile.

“Let’s get out of here Clare, I owe you dinner,” you breathe the words against her lips.

She slips from her stool, dropping a small purse on a long chain over one shoulder. You signal for the bartender.

“Can you put her drink on Price’s tab? He will approve it. If not I will pay you for it the next time I come by.”

The woman nods, “I’ll hold you to it.”

“I would hope so.”

Clare heads toward the front door, and you follow behind. Before you leave the building you turn and find Ghost staring at you, eyes hard.

Lifting all your fingers you mouth ‘ten minutes’ at him before you follow your date for the night into the dark.

Your phone dings before you can hail a cab.

Part 3 | AO3

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