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ichika27 · 3 years ago

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TWEWY 12

Grande Finale already!

I felt the same nervousness and excitement I felt when I watched the first episode while watching the last one. I’m excited, half knowing what I’d see but not knowing what else to expect.

Can’t believe we finally got to this point. I took so many screenshots... I had to limit myself cause they’re not all gonna fit in one tumblr post.

Also I don’t have to give a spoiler warning anymore. Length warning though cause this is super long!(longer than the usual posts I made for this series at least).

Kitaniji transforms into a three-headed monster and unlike in the game, he doesn’t capture any of Neku’s partners nor use Josh’s power to do so. I’m not sure what explanation there is as to how he got more than one noise form but I guess he’s the Conductor so maybe it’s part of his powers here.

Shiki and Beat awaken in the middle of Neku’s fight and help out. The trio then forms some kind of three-way pact (four if Rhyme actually counted although now completely sure?) and continue battling Kitaniji. The fight scene was pretty cool especially Beat’s attack with the chains. It just sucks the fight ended too fast. I guess all of TWEWY anime’s boss fights end kinda fast even though they’re uh, boss fights.

Final attack beam like in the game! It was too fast and I couldn’t get a good shot of the white version this transforms into (which looks like the one in the game). They have an explanation later as to why it looks different at first but they’ll talk about it later.

It’s sad Joshua isn’t part of this. This is supposed to be the four-way fusion attack. (;-;)

They defeat Kitaniji who disappears, sad that he was unable to protect Shibuya. Joshua never showed up in this boss battle so Kitaniji never got to talk to Joshua for the last time. In the game he at least dies happy in a way - he lost but he gave it his all and his Composer praised his efforts. He was also able to tell Neku that the rest is up to him now. Here in the anime, he just... he lost and felt bad. I wish they had Josh show up here but they had other ideas.

A new door opens and Neku braced himself as he knows the fight isn’t over cause there’s still one last guy on top.

They find themselves in this room/hallway (is this supposed to be the Trail of the Judged?) filled with CAT murals. This somewhat confirms the “CAT = Composer” theory and Neku has now accepted it, calling out Mr. Hanekoma to show himself.

And yeah, the last episode’s title is the show’s title as well “It’s a Wonderful World”.

Someone else showed up instead. Joshua finally makes his reappearance!

Boy, have I been waiting for you! I wish you were with them in the final battle earlier so you guys could be a team (and you could be one of Neku’s partners) one last time.

Neku is surprised but happy to see Joshua again. He thanks Joshua for saving him before and is glad that he’s okay.

In the game, this never happened cause Josh appears in the middle of a fight. Things were too hectic and when the battle with Kitaniji finally ended, he and Josh talked about their own game and so after Kitaniji disappears, what’s left is questioning what was happening. Since Josh didn’t show up earlier, they were able to reunite in a more peaceful way and Neku had no suspicion until Joshua himself brought it up.

And I guess that’s why I was so nervous when I watched this. It’s a bit too peaceful. I know what’s gonna happen next but not exactly how they’d adapt it.

Joshua finally explains the truth to Neku and his friends.

This felt more... awful to watch. Like we had both Joshua and Kitaniji giving bits and pieces of the truth in the game via their conversation so there’s two people to focus on. Here it’s just Joshua. But in a way, I guess this works cause there’s no one else there to soften the blow and Joshua could make the revelation hurt more if he wishes so. It also kinda feels worse cause you see Neku happy to see Joshua earlier before the reveal happens. Kinda heartbreaking.

“I’m the Composer of Shibuya.”

He finally says it clearly to a confused and surprised Neku.

We get a flashback of Joshua and Kitaniji talking about Shibuya’s impending destruction, why it must happen, and Kitaniji making a deal to try and save it. He has a month to change things for the better and if it works out, he wins. If not, Joshua continues the destruction plan.

Joshua’s Composer form is more vague here. It’s human shaped but you don’t see his face and the outline glows like this so you don’t properly see the shape. I think this is better cause there’s no way you can tell who the Composer is like this and he looks less human.

Beat gets angry at the revelation and tries to attack Joshua which he couldn’t do because of Joshua’s powers. I wasn’t able to get a screenshot of this but Josh is twirling his hair after this while Beat struggles to try and punch him. He’s cute and I know this is kind of inappropriate to say in this situation given he legitimately made someone mad and he deserves that punch to his pretty face.

Joshua uses his powers to freeze the others (and later renders them unconscious to keep them quiet). Neku is worried about his friends and is mad.

Joshua tells him he won’t hurt Neku’s friends. He then explains about how he found his proxy. Which is Neku much to his horror at what this meant.

I just had to get this with the subtitles on. I replayed the scene several times to hear if there was no error. Joshua says “Daiji na Neku-kun no tomodachi...” and I google translated it. It says “daiji” means “important”. So yeah, he definitely called Neku “important” to him. It’s surprising although this wouldn’t be out of place in the original game since they had more moments to just talk on there.

Yeah, I know I focused on this a little but I’m a nekujosh/joshneku shipper so forgive me for latching onto this.

Neku slowly sees the bigger picture as Joshua continues to explain himself. As a reward for getting this far, Joshua returns Neku’s memories.

He really had to get that close while saying Neku’s name, didn’t he?

Neku’s death flashback. The scene plays almost similar to the game right down to the censored guns (is this a creative decision to make it faithful to the game or are they really just not allowed to draw actual guns?). I was gonna make a joke about how Joshua stopped Minamimoto’s bullets using an AT field but the shot was different and the bullets just looked like they froze midair and not stopped by some kinda force field like in the game.

Neku ends up getting shot by Joshua complete with bleeding unlike in the game. I just have to wonder if I was the one who got it wrong cause in the game, Joshua looks like he’s aiming for Neku’s head and here, Neku gets shot on the chest. Did they change it cause a headshot would be too much or has it always been a shot to the chest?

Neku angrily walks over to Josh and grabs him by the collar. Joshua stops Neku with his powers as he continues to explain about what happened regarding the death scene and Minamimoto. Joshua then materializes two guns out of thin air and places one on Neku’s hand as he tells him the rules of their final duel: just shoot and if Neku wins, he could save his friends and he becomes Composer and do what he wants. What stood out with how he said it is that he didn’t exactly go “If you don’t beat me, Shibuya is destroyed.” and instead went “If you win, these are what you get to be Composer and whatever else you’d like! Sounds good, right?”. As if saying killing him has a lot of perks.

It feels weird seeing Josh physically placing the gun on Neku’s hand cause in the game, the gun was by Neku’s feet and Neku had to pick it up on his own accord. Anyways, I like the effect they used to materialize the gun cause it’s the same effect for the names of the routes when they show them on screen. Like graffiti or something.

At this point Neku’s crying. The shot didn’t feel as dramatic as in the game in my personal opinion. Neku is tearing up here but he looks tired and was about to sob in the game. Joshua meanwhile, counts down from ten.

Before Joshua’s count hits three, Neku hears a somewhat distorted voice (which we know is just Mr. H) saying “Trust your Partner”. This reminded Neku how he got to where he is: by trusting his partners. (I have something to say about this later)

In a very shocking turn of events, instead of just lowering the gun and letting himself be shot like in the game, Neku drops his gun and with a hand outstretched tells Joshua “I’ll trust you”. Oh my god... they really did it. I love this change not gonna lie. I think they might have added this cause they didn’t adapt Neku’s ending monologue where he does say he trusts Joshua. It’s less dramatic than the game though since Neku doesn’t say anything while Joshua is counting down. In the game, he was crying and saying how he thought Joshua was his friend and how all of this really hurt him. Guess we take what we can get and they gave us this.

Joshua smiles as he shoots but as Neku falls, the smile on Joshua’s face disappears.

Mr. H didn’t show up at the end here either so Neku didn’t get to see him.

Neku wakes up in the middle of Scramble Crossing like usual but he bumps into people and so he realizes that he’s alive now. He doesn’t scream after the very stressful crap he went to like in the game. Might not be entirely the same but Joshua still left him lying down in the middle of the street. Nice.

We then see a short timelapse from above Shibuya which is probably supposed to show a week has passed. Neku’s monologue wasn’t added in and no ending music as well. I’m disappointed “A Lullaby for You” wasn’t used. Here I was hoping for a miracle.

By the way, Shooter, Yammer, and I think Makoto all passed him by the scramble. They really didn’t get much screentime but at least they made cameos.

Neku finally meets up with the Bito siblings like at the game’s epilogue! The shot they did was almost the same as with the game, too. They have dialogue here instead of just stills with Neku showing how happy he was to see his friends alive again, too. I’m happy the anime version showed him smiling more at the end cause he needed that after everything. It’s nice to see him smile.

RG! Shiki is here! With the same shot as in the game! They really aren’t gonna show us her face, huh? Also, all of the shots with Shiki on them has her back towards us. Like there are scenes where Neku and the rest are looking forward and she’s in front of them with her back turned on us. Why? They could’ve used the lighting on her glasses to obscure her eyes, too. So her bangs are a secret as well then?

They show Eri later, too enjoying a concert, by the way. I was hoping to see a reunion between her and Shiki as well and them finally talking after the stuff from before. Oh well.

Neku takes off his headphones and he and Shiki do a proper introduction with each other with Shiki being herself this time. (Is Shiki the same height as Neku? It looks like that from this angle.)

Anyways, this was a nice way to adapt Neku taking off his headphones since they can’t do it like in the game.

They adapted the secret ending but expanded it to add stuff from the secret reports to explain other lore stuff which would’ve been missed by the anime-only watchers since those are part of bonus game contents. Mr. Hanekoma and Joshua talk about the events of the long game and Joshua says he knew it was Mr. H whose responsible for Minamimoto.

They also talk about the Red Skull Pins and how Mr. H made it for Kitaniji. Mr. H says the pins imprints Kitaniji’s will on people and that he himself (Mr. H) doesn’t need that cause he could do so with all the graffiti he left all over town.

Which brings me to earlier in the duel: Neku hears a voice, clearly (to us) is Mr. Hanekoma’s and it’s in a place filled to the brim with CAT graffiti. Did he imprint the words “Trust your partner�� to Neku?

Meanwhile, Beat wonders how they were able to pull off the final attack. Neku says it was probably the pin Hanekoma gave them (the keypin looking thing). I guess they needed an explanation for the last attack but they didn’t have the fusion pin so they used this keypin instead. It’s why the attack looked different in the beginning when the attack was powering up.

There’s apparently a new CAT graffiti at Udagawa and of course, CAT-fanboy Neku has to see it. On the way, they meet Sota and Nao who are now alive! I’m so happy!! Joshua brought them back, too! I always felt bad about what happened to them in the game. I’m glad they got a happy ending in the anime.

Def March, 777′s band, are back as well and look... they got their winged mic back! It makes me wonder if they found it later on or if Joshua gave that to them back the same time when he brought them back lol. I’m just really happy for all of them.

Joshua’s wings!! This is, unfortunately, the best shot I could get since they never really zoom in on this. In the game he is in his Composer form in the secret ending and turns into a ball of light when he leaves. Here, we see his wings. It’s smaller than the one he has in KH:DDD. At least we canonically see it here.

I can now use the term “Joshua Maji Tenshi” and be accurate!

Mr. H points out that Joshua looks lonely and is in denial and Josh just leaves. Mr. H also shows his wings and leaves afterwards, too. I didn’t take a pic of it since we see it in the game’s secret ending anyways. His wings also seem smaller than in the game.

Final shot of the new CAT graffiti. I was so close to crying the entire ending and this nearly tipped me over but it didn’t. If “A Lullaby for You” was playing, I’d have probably bawled my eyes out. This graffiti is beautiful. I want a sticker of it.

Also, I just noticed but CAT’s old graffiti at Udagawa had mostly darker colors. This new one is brighter and is more colorful.

First of all, I wanted to thank tumblr for not giving me an error for posting more than 15 images like I usually did. I was bracing myself for the error pop up and was gonna make a part 2 instead but there was some kind of miracle and I got more than 20 pictures on here.

I have a lot of melodramatic things to say about the anime but I’ll save it all for later. For now, I’ll say something else. I’m sad they didn’t adapt Neku’s monologue. Those words from Neku still hits me in the feels to this day. Him saying that the entire ordeal really affected him in more ways than one and it wasn’t all good even though he’s happy about changing and what he learned from the experience. His line about how he can’t forgive Joshua but trusts him was cut along with it and it would’ve been nice to have to know what he thought of Joshua.

The thing I missed the most was the “I have friends now. We’re meeting each other for the first time in a week. See you there?” lines. It shows how happy Neku is that he now has people to call his friends which is super heartwarming and the line implies that he counts Joshua as one of those friends, too (which is properly confirmed in KH: DDD which I’d probably make a post about later if I get the motivation to do so). That would’ve also made the last scene with Josh hit harder. In the game, knowing Josh wanted to be with them and is sad he couldn’t already makes me sad but also knowing Neku is waiting for him makes it much worse (and I still feel pain thinking about it even after all these years).

Maybe we’d see them get reunited in NTWEWY. Hopefully. I really do hope so.

The anime isn’t perfect but it did what it could with the limited amount of time it had. The show would’ve been better if they had more episodes but we don’t know why it ended up with just 12 so we can’t really say anything else. They did it and it wasn’t as bad as I was fearing in a way. Would I recommend it? I’d probably rec the game first, to be honest. I was only okay with watching cause I have played the game and could fill in the missing stuff but the anime-only fans couldn’t and the thought that they won’t be able to fully appreciate the entire story of twewy is kinda sad. It was a nice watch though and I’d miss waiting for it every week.

I wonder if they’d make “A New Day” OVA since the anime is supposed to help the ones who haven’t/couldn’t play the first game but would go play NTWEWY and that scenario has story stuff that’s connected to the sequel.

Anyways, thanks for reading this far if you did! I’ll be watching gameplays of NTWEWY when it comes out in full (since I don’t have the money nor the console for it).

#Subarashiki Kono Sekai #the world ends with you #twewy #subaseka #sana_post #joshneku #nekujosh

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clumsyclifford · 4 years ago

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Yay prompts! I like “Is this really the time for jokes?” for mashton

based on actual events aka my roommate and i read our required readings to each other also can you tell i wrote this fic instead of catching up on my astronomy textbook readings <3

Michael’s on the floor when Ashton returns to their dorm. This isn’t uncommon in and of itself, but there’s a book on the floor in front of him, and he seems to be making absolutely no effort to read it. The air conditioning unit is blasting on high, but Michael is shivering; his knees are drawn to his chest as if to trap the warmth. His arms are wrapped around them, and he’s scrolling on his phone, and looks as if he’s been scrolling for awhile.

“Hi,” Ashton says uncertainly. Michael looks up at him through bleary eyes and clicks his phone screen off.

“Hi,” he says. “Can you turn the air down?”

Ashton had intended to do that anyway — it’s freezing in the room — so he crosses to the A/C and turns it off. “What’s up?”

“Oh, you know,” Michael says. “Just trying to convince myself to read this.”

“Read what?”

Michael picks up the book and hands it to Ashton, who sits down across from him on the area rug (lifted directly from Michael’s bedroom). “Hamlet,” he says. “How much do you have to read?”

“First two acts,” Michael sighs. “For tomorrow. And then once I do that, I have to read a whole chapter of my psych textbook, which is fucking exhausting. And then I have to answer all these questions about it. And then I have to throw myself out the window.”

“Well, let’s not do that,” Ashton says. He opens the book; the spine cracks. “Is the psych stuff also for tomorrow?”

“The psych stuff was for yesterday,” Michael says grimly. “It may surprise you to learn that I am very behind on work.”

“Well, don’t psych yourself out,” Ashton can’t help but say. Michael glares.

“Is this really the time for jokes?” he says, although Ashton can see a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, a concession that that was funny, even if it’s the wrong moment for it. Ashton’s main crisis response is to create laughter, so it really is the time for jokes.

“Okay,” he acquiesces anyway, because he’s not going to get Michael to admit that was funny. “Well, I don’t know how much I can help with the psych reading, but if you need to turn in the questions, I can probably help with answering them. I took psych in high school.”

“No, that’s okay. I just need to read it. But I need to read this first.” Michael gestures wearily at the play still in Ashton’s hands. “It just keeps getting later, and I keep sitting here on Instagram, watching those fucking timelapse videos of people making food. Like, I’m thinking to myself, turn off your phone and open the book, and it’s just not happening.”

Ashton hums. He’s been there before. It’s incredibly difficult to motivate himself to read stuff he doesn’t feel like reading, and Ashton’s never been the type to enjoy reading for class. Plus, this is Shakespeare. Ashton knows all about Shakespeare. They’re old enemies.

“Okay,” Ashton says. “Give me your phone.”

Michael looks confused. “What?”

“Give it to me.” Ashton holds out a hand. “I won’t give it back until you’ve finished your work.”

Michael stares at him, but after a moment he hands his phone to Ashton. Ashton turns on do not disturb and sets it on the floor next to him, then flips open Hamlet to the first scene. “Alright. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, act one, scene one. Elsinore. A platform before the castle.”

“You don’t need to do this,” Michael says, and Ashton just shakes his head.

“I’m happy to do it,” he says. “Anyway, if I don’t you won’t read it. And I’ve finished my work for tonight.”

Michael huffs a short laugh. “I guess.”

“Elsinore,” Ashton repeats, grinning. “A platform before the castle. Francisco at his post. Enter to him Bernardo.”

Michael leans back against the chest of drawers underneath his bed, stretching his legs out until his feet are beside Ashton’s thighs, silly mismatched socks on full display. Ashton reads the whole first act, pausing only to drink from the water bottle Michael retrieves for him from his desk. Either Michael’s never read Hamlet or his memory is just really bad, because he seems to enjoy it as if for the first time, rolling his eyes at Claudius, laughing at Polonius, raising his eyebrows at the Ghost. He seems to enjoy it. Ashton wonders how much of that is the writing and how much is Ashton’s ridiculous repertoire of character voices. When they reach the end of act one, Ashton pauses, setting the book down in his lap.

Michael is smiling. “You should do my reading out loud more often,” he says lightly. “Far more productive.”

“Happy to help,” Ashton says good-naturedly, and he is. Anyway, he doesn’t mind reading aloud. It’s kind of fun to do the voices. “Are you following? Need me to explain anything? Ready for act two?”

“I’m good,” Michael says. “You know you don’t have to read it to me, though.”

“Seriously, Mike, it’s all good. I’m enjoying myself.”

Michael smiles indulgently. “Okay then.”

So Ashton carries on, reading through act two with the same gusto with which he’d read act one. When he gets to Polonius reading the letter from Hamlet he smiles to himself. Glancing up, he sees Michael smiling too, and feels himself blush. Never doubt I love, indeed. Ashton wouldn’t sit on the floor reading Hamlet at nine o’clock at night for just anyone.

“I like Hamlet,” Michael decides when Ashton’s finally finished act two.

“The play or the guy?”

“The guy,” Michael says, “although the play’s pretty good. He seems to be under a lot of pressure. And he’s only a college student, so. Relatable.”

Ashton laughs. “That’s great. You should put that in whatever paper you write about this. Hamlet may be plotting to murder his uncle, but in his defense, he’s in college, and if you’ve ever been in college you’d know that’s not actually that extreme.”

Michael snickers. Then his expression softens. “Hey, thanks for reading that to me.”

“Anytime,” Ashton says, and means it. “Now do your psych reading.”

Michael sighs long-sufferingly. “Or I could not.”

“Mike.”

“Okay, alright. Fine.”

Ashton pushes himself to his feet, then holds out a hand to Michael to help him up. “You got this,” he says. “And I have Doritos if you need sustenance while you do.”

“What would I do without you?” Michael jokes, but there’s something so sincere in his tone and in the grateful smile he gives Ashton. Ashton ruffles his hair, and Michael ducks his head.

“Throw yourself out the window, I imagine,” he says, and Michael grins.

#mashton angst followed SWIFTLY by mashton fluff maggie how u doin tonight #HNDKGNDSHKG #michael clifford #ashton irwin #mashton #mashton fic #5sos #5sos fic #fic #my fic #the way i wrote about being behind on reading INSTEAD OF DOING THE READINGGGGG #projection baby im all about it peace sign emoji #deadass tho yesterday my roommate read the first two acts of oedipus to me #nearly fell asleep bc i was so dead tired i owe her my life #and i will usually do my readings out loud to myself #otherwise i just. dont absorb <3 #calumsclifford #ask #answered

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zmediaoutlet · 4 years ago

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Hey I'm super intrigued by your halmanverse stuff (just finished reading your most recent mpreg fic and also timelapse and also the omegaverse explanation post) but I'm still kinda confused, maybe because I'm in general already overthinking gender like 95% of the time. I have a lot of questions but mainly I was wondering what specific differences you imagine between halman Dean and male Dean? Mostly physical/presentation-wise, but also in terms of personality/emotion/emotional expression/etc?

oh wow, I’m glad you’re interested! (and even went back to that ancient post! bro!) I related to the overthinking part--I’m not that interested in gender qua gender but I am super interested in trying to figure out how a three-sexed civilization might actually work, and what gender expression results from there, etc etc. It’s a conundrum! My friend can attest to the hours I’ve spent moaning and flailing over how tf fashion would even work, much less everything else. But--it’s easier to think about if we start from a few basic premises:

1. I don’t want to write it as a dystopia; 2. I want it to feel semi-familiar as a setting; 3. I want Dean still to feel as much like himself as possible; 4. I want things to feel as naturalistic and realistic as possible.

All of which are kind of connected. I didn’t want to write it as a sex-crazed ultramating fuck-ciety, so heats get calmed down and ‘omegas’ (halmen) aren’t wee sex dolls who pump out seventy puppies per litter. (What do they even do with all those babies in omegaverse fics? Eat them??) The fact that I’m still using “he” pronouns means that halmen are still mostly masculine-presenting, but there are tells that mean that everyone can recognize a halman vs a man vs a woman (unless, of course, there’s some passing activity going on--much like in our own culture, where you can pretty much get a sense at a glance how someone is operating, and it’s exceptional if someone says, ‘actually, my gender identity is [x].’)

Still, halmen are, for lack of a better word, baby carriers. So, while they’re stronger/bigger/taller than women for the most part, they’re also given a slightly feminized role just by virtue of how this culture treats baby carriers. That translates into job choice, fashion, expected behavior. To delineate, halman!Dean:

Basic physical stuff: - he’s about 5′10, which is a little taller than average for a halman (much as real!Dean is a little taller than average for a man) - slightly rounder features, to go along with enticing mates to treat you well -- still very recognizable as Dean (esp with his lips and eyes already being Like That), but a very slightly softer jaw, probably. - high testosterone gives him good muscle structure and broad shoulders; high estrogen gives a soft subcutaneous layer of fat (which, ahem, Jensen already has) and less body hair; wider more feminine hips; flat chest (until pregnancy). So, the silhouette is a little different--sort of an hourglass, sort of an upside down triangle. - downstairs, you’re getting a very large clitoris (small penis-sized -- think of hyenas), which is also where the ureter is; no testicles, obviously; anus/birth canal hybrid, because that’s just fun tbh -- probably translates into that area being cleaner than usual, but let’s be honest, babies get poop on them half the time anyway, so. - heats are twice-yearly, ish (I think I said 25 weeks in one fic?) -- no crazy compulsion, no one’s gonna die if they don’t get fucked, but an actual body temp increase and definite horniness, and this is pretty much the only time all year that halmen can get pregnant. The hormones they’re putting out are also what triggers men to knot, so. It’s a special time. :)

Fashion: - Hair could be really anything (much like women can get away with most anything), but a pretty classic hairstyle would be something akin to Sam’s prettier bob haircuts. Dean keeps it above his shoulders, but not long enough that it could have a ponytail, probably. Side part, tuck behind the ears, done. - Makeup is minimal--halmen wear just as much as women if they feel like it, and in professional settings some effort is expected. Dean tends to stick to just eyeliner, but playing FBI might include a small amount of lip color. - Clothes -- THIS KILLED ME, but I came up with some options. Again, like 21st century women, they can kinda get away with anything, but they don’t mess with cleavage-baring (since they don’t have any, until they have a kid) and instead go with bare backs and shoulders to be sexy. (Why? Nice muscley backs, that’s why.) A very traditional outfit would be a tunic-length top (to cover the minimal bump from the big clit) paired with slim pants or tights. Short skirts over tights is also a really common look. Half the time, Dean’s going to be wearing a loose plaid shirt, a tank that dips just low enough to look halman-y, tight ass-hugging jeans, and boots.

Cultural stuff: - Sexuality: Dean vastly prefers men, because he’s pretty conformist when it comes right down to it. He probably experimented with a halman or a woman in his early twenties, but let’s face it, he likes dick. - Halmen could always get physical “men’s jobs” -- farming, factory work, mechanic, etc -- but the intellectual “men’s jobs” -- doctor, lawyer, head chef -- weren’t as common. They would’ve had a similarly hard time to women, breaking into those categories. So, while Dean can fake being an FBI agent just fine, sexist people will probably defer to Sam as the ‘senior’ agent. - Hustling pool: still likely, but Dean’s going to change up his style a little. He can probably take any of these trucker men in a fight, but it’s easier to flirt his way through it, and with that ass--yeah, he can get away with it. - Hooking: definitely possible too, but his client base wouldn’t be weird closeted dudes like real!Dean, it’d be people who’d expect to treat him more like a female sex worker might be treated. More dangerous, in its way, but at least he almost certainly wouldn’t get knocked up.

Personality/emotional expression: So, this is the big one. A large part of it is that, as a more female-typed caregiver, John’s expectations for how his Dean should act aren’t as subversive as in canon. Halman!Dean cooking/cleaning/taking care of his little brother--that’s what daughters are expected to do, after all, and Dean isn’t that far off from a daughter in this treatment. But that also means that the weird ways that, in canon, Dean is a little... overly macho, how he acts too butch, etc, those don’t really come into it. As a halman, he’s completely fitting into the role society/culture expect of him, and he doesn’t need to pretend otherwise. His issues, then, would be less of canon!Dean’s insistence on being a Cool Steve McQueen Dude, and more in the ‘there are certain cultural markers I’m missing by being a transient hunter, and I regret them.’ This gets touched on in ‘timelapse’ when he reflects about how he’s never been on a date with a nice boy before Mark-from-Blockbuster -- and I think we get a sense of wistfulness, wishing that maybe nice boys would ask him out more than the other guys like to finger him under the bleachers -- and again in the recent fffr fill, where of course he wanted to have kids, but knew that was never an option. He wants to hold babies, man. He just wants to really, really badly.

Related to that--in just his day-to-day, especially with Sam, he can afford to be... a little softer. Obviously he still gives his little brother a hard time, because that’s his job, but he also probably kept giving Sam good-night kisses until he was like 8--they probably argued a little less, because Dean didn’t feel the need to be a hardass just to emulate their dad--John was probably a little more soft with him, but Dean’s obedience would also be completely expected. I bet that there wasn’t ever one of those moments per canon where John would “send Dean away” for arguing too much, because I bet Dean didn’t argue that much.

The nurture of it all is so much of what shapes Dean--and he’s still loyal to a fault, of course, and still cracks jokes, and still loves his brother more than anything. But it’s the little softened edges that interest me--the places that canon!Dean fights against, that halman!Dean can just accept and be. Distinct from a Deanna, though, even if the changes are incremental. It’s just these little tweaks.

That... got really long, haha. Still, I hope it was helpful. Also, as a bonus:

I mean, the hair’s too long, but honestly, it... doesn’t take much imagination, haha.

#Anonymous #my writing #halmanverse

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skythealmighty · 5 years ago

Text

A girl in a spider costume zooms through the sky on webs strung from her hand, whooping. A narration cuts in of a sassy teenage girl.

“All right, let’s get this part over with. I’m not the first, and I’m certainly not the last. Cut to backstory!” she said, then snapped. The scene changed.

The girl, outside her costume, is eating a bagel. She has blond-brown hair in a messy bob, blue-green eyes, and pale skin. She’s wearing simple clothes. “My name is Skye King. In my universe, I’m one of two spider-people, though I’m the only Spider-Girl. Spider-Man is in New York. My business is in Seattle. One day, during summer break, I was bitten by a radioactive spider after my 15th birthday. You get the jist, right? Then I had spider powers, yadda yadda yadda. We’ve all heard it before. Well, the thing is, not really. That spider was from another universe (at least I'm 99% sure).” While she said all that, in the cutscene, a spider bit her on the hand and she threw it outside. “I could tell something was wrong, so I decided to cancel my hangout with my friend the next day, telling her I was sick. I couldn’t have been more wrong, but it was a good call. I absolutely trashed my room that day.” It showed Skye in her room, sticking to the bedcovers and the ceiling and her books. “Needless to say, my parents were kinda, okay super mad. Oh well, small price for a little superpower! I discovered during the next few days that I could create portals with my webs, and the first one led to the universe with the graffiti Spider-Man, Miles Morales.” Another scene showed her fistbumping with Miles, masks down on their spider costumes as they sat on top of a building. “There, I officially got my suit from Aunt May with some help. I wanted a little piece of everyone I met, so I asked Miles to decorate my costume a bit. He got the left arm, and I gotta say, it looked pretty sweet! Over the next week, I visited other universes and added to my suit a little at a time. You name them from Miles’s movie, I’ve probably visited them. Peni Parker (got a robotics upgrade from her), Noir (the guns were cool, but he also got a bit of space on my mask), Gwen (I stole her hoodie idea and went to gymnastics), Peter B. (not much, his suit’s the same as the original), and even Peter Porker (got a cartoon hammer, I love Looney Tunes)! They were all really cool, but my story isn’t about meeting them. Way too cliche, and probably done before, too. This little mini story takes place in the universe where that spider came from. So why don’t we finally get started, now that you know who I am?” The scene returned to Spider-Girl swinging from the Seattle Space Needle. She winked at the camera, and the screen turned black.

Skye yawned, sitting up in bed as her alarm went off. “Hey Google, alarm off,” she said tiredly, getting out of bed and getting dressed off-camera. She ate her breakfast, said hi to her family, packed up her backpack (not forgetting her Spider Suit), and jogged out the door to her bus stop. She napped on the bus until it arrived at school, where she was woken up by her Spidey senses. She got off the bus. “Hello again, Edison High,” she sighed, walking into the cafeteria and sitting down at a table full of older students. The narration starts. “This is my average, everyday high school, Edison High. These are my art club friends, Olivia, Jack, Darth, and.. well, they’re important to me, but maybe not to you. My other friends are Sofia, Haylie, Mitchell, AJ, and Micheal. At my high school, nobody apart from Sofia, AJ, and Haylie know I’m Spider-Girl, even though she’s the main topic of gossip. School’s boring, so I’ma skip it.”

The scene of a high school day is fast forwarded until the very end, where she goes to the bathroom. “I’ve long since made a secret exit, and most girls don’t check the bathroom mirror, so I get dressed in my onesie there. It’s really not that hard, and I have a drone get my backpack home. That does mean I have to do my homework in class, but I’m pretty smart, so I can do it most of the time.” Skye, in her Spider-Girl suit, exits the stall and opens the mirror like a door, walking inside. She drops her backpack into a carrier drone, then opens a secret door from the inside and webs to the top of the school. “All in all, a pretty normal day. No crime at the moment, so I decided to visit another universe again. I mean, why not?” She spun her web in a circle, creating a portal, which she swung into. “I wanted a little something to add to my outfit. But that day? Fate didn’t like me one bit.” She looked around at the other portals, which had markings on them, the logos of the different Spider-Men she’d met. One of the portals was unmarked, and that was the one she swung into. As soon as she did, she attempted to make another web, but failed. “Aw, what? Talk about bad timing..” the Skye in the scene said, before yelling and slamming into the ground. “I think I’ll stop the narration now, so you can focus on the story.”

The screen was black, but then Skye opened her eyes. In front of her was a rainbow Spider-Man, upside down in front of her. She yelped and scrambled backwards in surprise, bonking her head. “Ow..” she muttered, rubbing her head. She flicked her wrist, trying to spin her web. Nothing happened. “Damnit!” she cursed.

“You okay?” the rainbow Spider-Man asked, letting go of his web (which was unsurprisingly rainbow as well) and landing on the ground. “You hit your head pretty hard.”

Skye grinned under the mask. “I’ve had worse. I mean, when you’re Spider-Girl, you gotta be able to take a few hits, right?” She got up, standing in front of the walking rainbow and looking him up and down. “I like the sugar glider wings,” she complimented. “I bet those come in handy a lot, huh?”

He smiled too (though only shown with the eyes of his mask). “Yeah, they do. So, how’d you get here anyway? Super collider?”

She shook her head. “Nah, got here on my own. Part of my powers include going to other universes, weirdly enough. My webs aren’t working, though,” she flicked her hand for emphasis, “so I’m stuck here for the moment. I don’t think that’ll last for more than a couple days, so no need to worry.”

He sighed in relief. “Good, I’m already taking care of four Spider-Children, so I don’t need more.. why are you looking at me like that?” he asked, after seeing her starstruck expression.

“There’s more!?” she said, sort of high-pitched. She covered her mouth. “Oops. Um, basically, when I run into another Spider-Person, I want a way of remembering, so I add to my outfit.. I was looking to upgrade mine for a while, so this is perfect!”

He laughed. “Alright, I’ll take you to them. Be warned though, they’re all pretty extra in their own way.” The scene cut to him swinging her up to an apartment, setting her down.

“Thanks for that,” she said, embarrassed. “If I had my webs, I wouldn’t need you to do that, though..”

“Nah, it’s fine!” He took off his mask, grinning. “I don’t mind. I’m Thomas.” He held out his hand.

“Skye,” she said, taking it after pulling her own mask off. “Now if you don’t mind, you got some thread and needles?” He pointed her to a room. “Sweet!” she said, running in. “I’ll be back!”

After a few minutes, she came out with the same sugar glider extensions he had, but they were the bi flag instead of the gay flag. “Ta-daa!”

“Nice,” he nodded in approval. “There’s some spare clothes in the closet if you don’t mind sweats and t-shirts.”

She grinned. “That’s what I usually wear anyway!”

The screen showed a Spongebob ‘one hour later’ cutscene, then showed Thomas and Skye watching a movie. She was wearing a blue t-shirt and purple sweats. There was a knock on the door. “Come in, guys,” Thomas said, not taking his eyes off the movie. Skye, however, looked towards the door to see four different Spider-Men come through. One wore a royal outfit with flowers, hair uncovered, one wore a pink outfit with hearts and a baseball cap, one wore an outfit similar to Gwen’s with a V, and the last one wore a blue outfit that had a tie design on it and four robotic spider legs on his back. Her eyes widened.

“Okay, now I definitely need to update my outfit again!” She grinned, dashing into the room she’d been in before where her suit was. The others looked at her.

“Uh… who was that?” the one in the royal outfit asked, looking perplexed.

“You’ll see,” Thomas answered.

After a half hour, while everyone was on the couch with masks down, she came out with the suit on and mask up. The hoodie was up, and on top of it, there was a gray V like the Gwen lookalike’s mask. One of the legs had pink hearts and red flowers, and the other had the same design as the tie design but only up to below the knee. She was grinning, until she realized something. “Oh, right, I never introduced myself. I’m Skye, Spider-Girl!” she said, pulling her mask down and bowing.

“Virgil,” said the Gwen lookalike.

“Roman!” introduced the royal one.

“Hi, I’m Patton!” grinned the pink one.

“Salutations, my name is Logan,” said the one in the tie.

“Nice to meet all of you!” said Skye, grinning and sitting down with the rest.

A timelapse showed the day going by, nothing super interesting. The timelapse stopped at the next day during lunch, because that’s where the action is. Besides, this is supposed to be a short story, so I won’t bore you too much.

Everyone was having pizza. “Mm, they do not make pizza like this in Seattle, let me tell you,” Skye said after finishing her first slice. “I almost wish they did, but then I’d never cook for myself!”

Suddenly, everyone froze, Spidey senses going off. “Oh no, why in the middle of lunch?” Roman groaned, setting down his slice and going into one of the stalls in the corner. Everyone but Skye followed him, her going into the suit touch up room. One by one, they all emerged in their Spider suits. Thomas and his gang swung out, while Skye took a deep breath and glided after them using the addition she’d just added yesterday, since she still couldn’t use her webs. They arrived in Times Square to see the Scorpion causing trouble with the Tinkerer, again.

“Peter always has to deal with these guys, why don’t they ever quit?” Skye asked, perched next to the others on top of a building.

“Evil never rests?” Logan offered.

“Nah, these guys are just really annoying,” Thomas sighed.

They all jumped down, standing in front of either the Tinkerer or the Scorpion. Virgil, Logan, and Skye were in front of the Tinkerer, while Thomas, Patton, and Roman were in front of the Scorpion. “Time to kick some ass!” Skye said, crawling up a building and launching herself at the Tinkerer. Soon after, Virgil and Logan swung at him in turn, Logan knocking the Tinkerer out of his own vehicle and taking control, which he then used to stun the Tinkerer while Virgil tied him up. Thomas swung and glided onto the Scorpion’s face, blinding him. Patton and Roman tied the Scorpion up, then Thomas kicked the Scorpion over and over in the face, temporarily stunning him. As if it was second nature for her, Skye swung using her webs and tied the Scorpion up some more, knowing her webs were stronger than the others’ by nature. As she landed on the ground, she looked at her hands and smiled. “Looks like I can go home now,” she grinned to the others. “Sorry for overstaying my welcome.”

“Nah, you’re fun to hang around with. Come back anytime,” Thomas said, waving goodbye. She nodded and made a portal, swinging through as it closed behind her. She hung in place in the middle of all the universes, making five webs above the top of the portal she just came in from. The middle one was a rainbow spider, and the other four were a gray V, a red rose, a pink heart, and a blue tie. She grinned and swung through the portal labeled ‘home’, swinging above the city. She was lucky it was Saturday, so she didn’t miss any school. But how would she explain it to her parents? She shook her head to clear her thoughts as she spotted a robbery. Good never sleeps, she thought, webbing one of the criminals with a sigh. The scene faded to black.

“Hey, don't get mad, I told you it’d be short. Cut!”

@ask-spiderverse-virgil

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filippoinzaghi · 4 years ago

Note

1, 2, and 4 pls!

1.Tell us about your current project(s) – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it?

So I have four main projects at the moment. I have others but they are just embryos, a couple lines written down somewhere so as to not forget about them and work them later on like brioche dough.

That Carraville cuddles prompt

You sent me this one months ago now I think but I’m getting there!!

Progress : It’s about three fourth done, I’m just trying to find a nice transition scene to link what I have so far and the last scene I have written some time ago already.

What I love about it : it’s totally self-indulgent in the setting/context. I don’t want to spoil too much as I want it to be a surprise but the drabble is set in an AU-ish sort when Carraville (and others familiar faces) take part into a TV game show about teams of two having to hitchhike to reach their given destination with barely any money and having to complete different challenges along the race.

“Uncle Beom-pal” Project

What was intended as a drabble and will probably finish at 4/5k words qzsedrcftgybh. A fic about Cho Beom-pal, himbo extraordinaire from Kingdom, a korean original Netflix show about zombies in the early Joseon era.

Progress : I’d say I’m about halfway done. The more I write and think about this WIP, the more I think about scenes I could add or change, the more I can see the construction of the story, almost like a storyboard. I do have a clear-cut vision of how it will be now so I think it won’t change too much from what I have in mind.

What I love about it : I decided to set the story during the timelapse that happens at the end of season 2 so it allows me a certain form of freedom to imagine what may have happened during the seven years timelapse (the fic is set a year before the story resumes). It also gives me the opportunity to develop further Beom-pal’s layers that we see in season 2 (honestly the best character arc of the whole show) and to speculate on his relationship with the new king who happens to be his young nephew. To give you an idea of Beom-pal’s situation at the end of season 2 : he’s alone. His friends are not with him anymore, his family is all gone. Except for his nephew. Who also happens to be the king. Whom he also happens to be the prime advisor. I try to explore the complex relationship this situation creates because of protocols and royal duties in contrast to the king being just a child and he and Beom-pal basically being the only family they have left. As you can see I’m very invested in this project haha ^^’

The “Ceci predicted an actual scene of the show in fic” project

This WIP has been going on since August while I was watching Miss Korea (a truly beautiful show and criminally underrated).

Progress : it’s been a slow progress but I’m almost there.

What I love about it : the characters, who are the secondary couple in the show but who, imo, steals the spotlight. During an episode at the end of the first half of the show, there was a scene that made me wonder what happened after and I just expanded it trying to tie it with the character’s traits and depictions. Find me wheezing four episodes later when like... 85% of what I had in mind ACTUALLY HAPPENED in the show aqzsedrftgyhuji. Anyway, I’ll go through with it even though it is a bit of a canon divergence. What I like about this WIP is that I make the characters “see” one another for the first time and not just a glimpse (which happened some episodes earlier). They are more vulnerable, especially Teacher Jung (his name truly means Teacher so I just call him that) who is your typical petty thug but with some moral code and a good heart underneath.

The “5+1 times Nam Ju-ri x Lee Sang-in” project

Lots of projects about korean dramas at the moment but I have watched a lot of them lately so I guess it’s only fair. And it’s also because I can’t find any fics focusing on my favourite characters (usually supportive characters) so I guess I want to be the change I want to see in the world.

Progress : very early stage of the fic, I wrote bits of paragraphs or dialogue for different chapters at the same time, it’s kind of all over the place at the moment.

What I love about it : there are no fics focusing on these two who had a cute, individual, development of their character and who have a blossoming relationship. They are both losers who cares and I just love themn, they deserve more love. This is truly a self-indulgent fic and that’s just nice in and of itself.

2. Tell us about what you’re most looking forward to writing – in your current project, or a future project

Re : the Uncle Beom-pal project.

There are two scenes that appeared to me after I began writing but which gave me so much feels just thinking about it that they had to be there.

The plot of this WIP is basically the young king, on the eve of the day in remembrance of all the victims of the “great plague” (he doesn’t know it was a zombie epidemic, everyone tries to protect him and not tell him what truly happened), asking Beom-pal to tell him a story before going to sleep. The ceremonies planned the next day weighs on his mind and makes him think about his friends and, especially about Seo-bi : a nurse who saved his life and to whom he is truly devoted like a lost puppy. And thus, he tells the king what happened without really telling him. By turning it into a story, not mentioning names but using nouns or adjectives (”The Healer”, “The Warrior” or, for himself, “The Fool”) and just being vague about “monsters” in a far away place, a long time ago. As he goes on with the story, past and present mix together as Beom-pal remembers his and his friend’s journey.

The two scenes are flashback scenes between Beom-pal and Seo-bi right after the last big “battle” against the zombies. One flashback she tends to his wounds and there’s a sort of silent reverence as if she finally realises he’s not just a useless and coward nobleman. And he, on the other hand understands what is probably to come (her leaving with two other characters, their friends) and how he wishes he could go with them or keep her with him but either solution is simply impossible. And the other is their goodbye (they won’t see one another for, AT LEAST, seven years and the guy is still yearning, can you believe). And again, it’s mostly silent, sentences cut short because they understand and they don’t need to say all of it. He’s not being talkative and a lost puppy following her every move anymore and she lets herself be more relaxed, lets her guard down a bit with him to show just how far they have come personally and in their feelings towards one another. Truly cannot wait to make myself cry and for my friend to threaten me to call the police on me zserdtfygh

4. Share a sentence or paragraph from your writing that you’re really proud of (explain why, if you like)

He was tired, tired of pretending, of wearing a mask when nothing seemed bright anymore in his life. He felt the salty tears brush his lips before he realized he had begun to cry. He put the barbell back in its place, before it threatened to fall from his soon trembling hands, and he sat on the bench, completely consumed by uncontrollable sobs.

Failure, fraud, failure, fraud, failure, fraud… His mind did not leave him any rest.

From and I’ll only need to hold you (go back to sleep and dream) – Chapter 4

More than that paragraph, it was the whole chapter that I was happy with. It came from a rather personal place and it wasn’t always easy to write it but when I was done, I felt a bit better and I was happy with the result. The paragraph above is the beginning of my favourite scene in the chapter which is when two then-not-old Italians have a confrontation. Well… More like Rino confronting Gigi after the latter has isolated himself for some time. And it’s in the dark. Ever since I’ve read Long Day’s Journey Into Night and studied it, I’ve been fascinated by the trope of dark/night setting = when the characters are the most honest, the most vulnerable and the most true to themselves. And that’s what happened in that scene. I was happy with how I wrote it out and the vibes it gives off.

#thank you!!!#and sorry for taking so long #Answers #Ask stuff #My Fics

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wincore · 6 years ago

Text

troublemaker | liu yangyang

pairing: yangyang x reader

words: 6.9k

prompt: anonymous sent: hello! Could I request with an au with either bad boy yangyang or jaemin thank you so much !!!

genre: ‘bad boy’!au, fluff

warnings: mild language and mentions of a bunch of juvenile things, possible character inaccuracies

a/n: as these aus go, he’s not really a bad person he just.......does a lot of.....questionable things.......and he’s............pretty annoying.........

and this got weirdly long, but enjoy!

Your first mistake was to assume Liu Yangyang is just shy.

When he walked into the classroom, with a smile you perceived as nervous but still as wide and sweet as can be, you thought he’d be pleasant to deal with. Looking past the dark clothing and a peek of a tattoo on his neck (you never really believed in judging books by the cover), you thought he was funny even, the way he spoke and the way he stood. You might have even thought he was cute. He didn’t talk much the first day, barely any polite conversation either, and that was what led you to believe that Yangyang is just shy, or introverted. But you were quite wrong, you figured out eventually.

New kids don’t make a reputation as fast as Liu Yangyang did. He found friends in the troublemakers at the back of the class, sooner or later unravelling what you would label as an obnoxious personality; and now he walks boldly through the halls, says whatever comes to his mind, and overall, he’s as tame as a wild horse. His smile, which you might have thought was cute at some point of time, now looks more of a devilish grin to you, only making an appearance when he’s making a joke at your expense, talking back to people he shouldn’t be talking back to, and all the other things that make him unpleasant. He lets his tattoos show in full view, and while you find the vines curling up his neck fascinating, you’d rather be dead than caught staring.

Despite Yangyang’s obvious connections with the devil, everybody adores him. Every time he walks through the hallways, you can almost hear your fellow classmates sigh out ‘ooh’s and ‘ahh’s. It’s embarrassing to you, the way he’s allowed to have his way when he obviously doesn’t deserve it. He’s the very epitome of bad influence, and wherever he goes, trouble follows. It’s not uncommon for him and his gang to get into fights, as you’ve noticed them running through the alleyways at the dead of night from dangerous looking thugs, their laughter disrupting the quiet neighbourhood. (It’s confirmed when he shows up to class with bandages wrapped around his bleeding knuckles and bruises blooming along his jaw.) Vandalizing isn’t off their to-do list either and the one time you caught Yangyang spray-painting a yellow rose on the school wall, he pulled you into a quiet corner, putting a finger over his lips before you could say anything. He left with a wink, not a word of explanation escaping his lips.

You especially hate the way Yangyang treats you. You don’t know what you’ve ever done to him, in the year and a half you’ve known him, but he’s taken it upon himself to be the bane of your existence. Every time you see the sadistic little shit, you resist the urge to turn around and skip the class altogether. And you would have, if it weren’t for your fear of failing the class.

“Hey!” you’re greeted with widest grin from someone who shouldn’t be sitting in your place.

“That’s my place,” you state bluntly.

Yangyang clicks his tongue, but he doesn’t move, leaning further onto the chair, resting his chin upon his arms on the headrest.

“I know that,” he says, tilting his head.

“Get off,” you say, absolutely unprepared to deal with this right in the morning. You can already feel a headache creeping onto you, as if the one in front of you isn’t enough already.

But he doesn’t move, no, and he has the audacity to smile and command you to “say please!”

You groan, and by this time the rest of your class have already turned their heads to focus on the two of you—a daily source of entertainment they probably won’t lose very soon.

“Yangyang,” you begin, “please get off.”

Yangyang frowns. Perhaps he was expecting you to flare up as usual, keep up the squabble. Whatever he thought, it doesn’t matter now when you’re too tired to deal with everything, especially him. He gets up reluctantly, and mumbles something your ears aren’t tuned enough to catch, and when you look at him, he’s not really looking your way. Whatever, you tell yourself. At least it’s a more peaceful morning than usual.

But it’s also strange to not have his voice, a tad too cheery, dangerously close to getting you riled up. He likes interrupting when you speak, full of useless opinions, doesn’t let you leave class without at least one stupid comment on how you look, making you feel a little sick in the stomach sometimes at how awkward he makes you look, and the purpose of his existence seems to be heaven’s way of testing you. When you asked him once, by the corridor long after classes had ended just what exactly his problem is, he seemed at a loss for words (highly unusual) and pretended to think, dramatically placing his fingers under his chin.

“Because I think you’re neat,” he said with a cheeky grin before turning and leaving with a wave.

You never really understood what he meant, and you’re still trying to figure it out. Maybe he needs someone to pick on, and even if he doesn’t do anything dangerously harmful to you, there are times when he just gets on your nerves. He doesn’t have to blow up your test tube in the chemistry lab, or throw shredded paper bits at you in the corridors, but he does anyway. He doesn’t have to tell you, you look like a seal when you arrive late and disgruntled to class, but he does. He doesn’t have to yell ‘catch!’ with barely a second for you to react before hitting you in the face with a basketball, he doesn’t have to suppress his laughter at you for getting tears in your eyes after getting hurt, but he does. You might have even forgiven him for all these things if he were your friend, but he’s not and that’s the whole point.

Despite everything, Yangyang still holds his childlike innocence. A trouble child, is how you’d describe him—only doing these things, these socially unacceptable things, for attention, for fun, or just to act out, and not to be mean in particular. Even in his appearance, his teasing, his movement, there’s something outrageously innocent. Maybe it’s his bright smile, the genuine one, that reminds of you of sunflowers, not cigarettes or motorbikes, or the tint of his cheeks in winter proving him wrong when he’s adamant on not getting a sweater because he doesn’t need it. Maybe it’s how he looks like a boy laying on the grass in the nearby park all alone with his eyes closed, letting the afternoon sunlight play with his hair and lashes. (You totally weren’t staring, and you totally didn’t run away when he noticed you.)

You didn’t mean for your daydreams to progress into thoughts about a guy hellbent on ruining your days, but when you snap back to reality, class is already over. You catch yourself sighing at yet another wastage of class time when you promised yourself you’ll focus on the subject more. You get up sluggishly, but you’re met with Yangyang staring intently at you. You’re sure nothing of worth is going to escape his mouth—he talks too much sometimes, and you need to get to the next class.

“Wait,” Yangyang scrambles after you, while the rest of his group snickers.

“I’m going to be late,” you tell him and excuse yourself, barely sparing him a glance. It’s not unusual for you to ignore him, but you know he’s going to be extra annoying the next day.

You think it’s just your luck to trip down the stairs, and scrape your knees right after all the classes are over. Thankfully, there was no one around and while your knees burn like crazy, you get home just fine. The blue skies harbouring dainty afternoon clouds and the cool breeze are a little too upbeat, and you feel yourself anticipating summer break with a sigh of relief.

Your afternoon nap has you revaluating your life choices, and you greet the reds and purples of the sky with a feeling of regret. Your to-do list for yet another day has been thrown into jeopardy. You probably won’t be able to sleep tonight until it’s too late and your sleep schedule is going to be off for the entire week, not to mention the dark circles you’ll end up with. As you feel yourself getting worked up, an uncomfortable feeling rising in the pit of your stomach, you end up wasting some more time much to your aggravation.

Most of the days, you don’t even know where your time goes. It’s like you’re not you, you’re not the same person during the day or the night or any hour you have in your grasp. It feels like watching a timelapse video of a person who’s not you, and being forced to accept that it is, in fact, you and you’re not very happy with that, to say the least.

By the time you begrudgingly take out your notebooks to prepare for your upcoming tests, a task far too daunting for a poor soul like you, it’s already the dark hours of night. You grimace at the topics you don’t understand, and consider procrastinating some more—maybe you should check the newer memes your friends sent you, or fall into the never-ending spiral of videos, or finally start the books that you purchased left unread on your shelf. But no, your fear of failure won’t allow you to, and neither will the sense of responsibility you might even have come to pride yourself on.

Neither of your two qualities, however, prepared you for a sudden turn of events. When the neighbourhood should be asleep, you hear rapid knocks on your windows and you whip your head around to face it. The curtains are drawn, and fear creeps in—what if it’s a murderer? A thief? A grotesque monster to bring back your childhood fears?

You take hesitant steps towards the window when the knocking gets violently loud. You’re afraid that whatever is out there might shatter your glass, calling for your neighbours’ attention. Before you can regret it, you draw the curtains to find a frantic Yangyang, whose eyes widen at your appearance. He turns his head around once to check something and looks back at you, gesturing wildly for you to open the latch. You gulp and do as he says, and he immediately climbs in. His footsteps are a little heavy and he closes the windows again, before reaching for the light switches and plunging your room to darkness. He glances outside the window once again, possibly noticing something as he pushes you against the wall beside the window, his hand over your mouth to ensure you don’t spill the obvious questions, or a scream. You stay like that for a few minutes, a few agonizing minutes that you spend glaring at him.

Yangyang peeks through the window once again and sighs in relief, falling to the floor with his head in his hands. You gape at him, a little dazed from this sudden appearance while he rests on the floor of your bedroom.

“Uh,” you start wisely.

Yangyang whips his head towards you, finally remembering your presence and the fact that this is your bedroom.

“Uh,” he responds, springing back up and moving his arms to accompany his explanation. “Sorry about this. Really sorry. I didn’t even know this was your house! I—”

“Yangyang,” you rub your temples. “Get to the point.”

“Well. We…kind of got into trouble, and I’m pretty sure those thugs had knives and I didn’t want to die today, so.”

“What?” your eyes widen. You move to the window, and reach for the curtains but Yangyang grips you by the arm.

“What are you doing?!” he whisper-yells. “Do you want to die?”

You realize the situation and gently tug your hand back.

“Oh,” you say, “well what about- what about the rest of your friends?”

“It was just me and Renjun,” Yangyang explains, “and he’s pretty good at hiding so I’m not too concerned.”

“Okay,” you nod, absolutely not comprehending the odd circumstances.

“Really?” he asks with a sudden half-smile, “Aren’t you even a little bit worried about me?”

Yangyang takes a seat in your chair, arms sprawling over the armrest. You furrow your brows at the return of Yangyang from school, and wonder how he’s the least bit concerned that he could have been seriously wounded, or even died today.

“Are you serious?” you say before rolling your eyes and turning on the lights.

Yangyang laughs, a sweet tone contrasting his black sweatshirt and ripped jeans, as he leans further back onto your cushioned chair.

“Get off my chair,” you scowl.

“Oh, come on. We’re not at school.”

Yangyang crosses his legs and throws his head back to further his exaggerated comfort, and it does nothing to help your deepening frown.

“Alright, get out of my room,” you tell him as calmly as possible.

He sits back up straight with wide eyes. “What? You want me to go out there- out there and risk my life?”

You put your head against your palms and sigh. You can’t actually kick him out—he’s right, it could be very dangerous and it just doesn’t settle right with your conscience to do such a thing.

“Now, you don’t have to be dramatic,” Yangyang says, a playful note in his voice.

You sit on your bed facing him and unable to do anything else, you just glare. Yangyang smiles at you, like you’re holding his favourite candy or something of the sort, before he glances down and his lips are suddenly pulled into a frown.

“Did you scrape your knees?” he asks, furrowing his brows.

You look down, a little surprised, and nod at him with an awkward ‘yeah’.

“And you didn’t even clean it?” he chides.

You don’t think Yangyang is in any position to be scolding you, but you can’t come up with a response either. To your surprise, he rushes to the washroom despite your protests and brings in a wet handkerchief to gently dab at your knees. You hiss softly at the initial contact and he stops to look at you before getting to clean it again.

“You do not want an infection, trust me,” he says, “I ended up with a fever.”

You giggle at his foul expression, and he seems to light up, a smile quirking the corners of his lips.

When he’s done, he stands back up and feels his pockets before taking out a bunch of Spiderman band-aids. He notices you staring at him a little too intently and tilts his head.

“What?” he asks, “I get scratched up a lot.”

“No,” you say, “Spiderman.”

“Well…I’m not judging you on the ridiculous amount of soft toys you have but go off I guess.”

You let out an amused laugh and he stares at you momentarily before his face breaks into a bright grin. He remembers the band-aids with an ‘ah’ and gingerly places them on your wounds.

You’re a little caught off guard at his sudden display of kindness and you end up staring at him, following the movement of his lips as he proceeds to talk about how he’d got into the mess in the first place. He keeps oscillating between different topics, frequently getting distracted to describe the one cat he seems to be enamoured with or how he’s still mad at Renjun for being able to run faster, and you can’t comprehend how normal your relation with him suddenly seems.

“You’re being nice,” you note out loud, and realize a bit too late, your ears and cheeks turning pink.

Yangyang tilts his head, a little confused but responds nonetheless, “Well, it’s not like I have anything better to do. Besides, I owe you.”

He shrugs and you smile back, letting yourself accept everything for once. He shoots off about some vague topic once more, and you wonder how you ever thought this boy was shy, too quiet even. You don’t know why he’s suddenly so friendly with you either, why he’s talking to you so much, without any hint of teasing or malice—maybe he just needs someone to tell all these things to, and you’re the only one around. But Yangyang has a way of making you feel somewhat important, even if you think you’re not. You can hardly pay attention to his words when you’re so engrossed in taking in his details—the honey hair brushing his eyelids, the curious curl of the tattooed vine at the base of his neck poking from behind his jacket and the very noticeable bruise on his jaw, the way he keeps jerking his head to the side when he needs to rethink and how he does have a cute nose, like what the girls in your class say. For a moment you try to stop thinking about it, noticing all these things—after all, he’s the sort of person you don’t think can ever bring good news. But at the same time, he’s a different person when he’s talking like this, a rather positive, happy one when he has no prying eyes or hushed whispers surrounding him. It makes you rethink a bit.

Yangyang leaves by dawn, having eaten away the better of your time. But he leaves you feeling a little different, that perhaps you had misjudged him, despite believing that you’re not someone to do so. It makes you a little uneasy but relieved all the same. That perhaps the universe isn’t all that cruel even if it did just horribly destroy your sleep schedule.

“You know, just because I let you in once doesn’t mean you can come in any time uninvited.”

You look at the boy sitting at the ledge of your window, with no obvious intentions of leaving. Yangyang pouts but he isn’t able to contain a smile, and he swings his leg over the ledge to enter properly and stand in front of you.

“I have something to show you,” he says, his words merging with each other.

“Now? At midnight?”

You’re a little unsure as to where this is going, but Yangyang has been popping in at random for the past few weeks in spite of your various displays of annoyance. Sometimes, it’s to ask you for help in physics (“Why do you need my help?” “I don’t know why you expect me to be good at physics.” “I wouldn’t if you didn’t yell the answers from the back of the class.” “…whatever.”), sometimes it’s to display his generosity by treating you to ice cream (he likes making fun of your taste for some reason, saying it’s childish) and sometimes, he just talks—in sudden bursts of words, but he talks.

“Yes!” his vocal inflection makes him sound desperate, and you know you’ll have to give in.

Yangyang grins at your defeated ‘alright’ and climbs out the window, telling you to get ready as quick as you can.

“Why do we have to go out the window?” you complain.

“Are your parents okay with you going out at midnight with a boy with tattoos?” he remarks.

You shut up and follow, carefully feeling your footing and balancing yourself before landing on the pavement with a soft thud, Yangyang gripping your waist to steady you. The contact makes you blush involuntarily, and you look anywhere but at him to avoid any comments.

Yangyang seems to be in a rush as he runs ahead of you, jogging in one place to show his impatience. He looks like a child, not the least bit intimidating like tries to be, especially towards the freshmen with his glare and all. You wonder if this the real Yangyang, the one he only lets his closest friends see.

“I hope you’re not dragging me into doing something illegal,” you call out.

Yangyang shakes his head, knitting his brows together, “Of course not!”

He doesn’t let time slip away though as he grabs your arm and starts running at an inhumane pace, with you struggling to keep up.

“The place closes at one, we have to hurry!” he notifies.

And you won’t admit but you think you enjoyed it. How long has it been since you’ve felt the wind in your lungs? Or been reckless like this? How long has it been since you’ve felt the prickle of the cold night, or race time itself? You don’t know, but you end up smiling after stopping to regain your breath.

You look at the vivid blue exterior of what seems to be a coffee shop, but the dried flowers lining the door make you reconsider.

“It’s pretty, isn’t it?” Yangyang smiles at you.

“Why did you want to bring me here?” As much as a part of you wants to think of Yangyang as a friend, his reputation and past experiences precede him.

“I thought you’d like it,” Yangyang frowns.

After a pause, you softly say, “I do.”

He immediately seems to brighten, and opens the door a little too loudly, the ‘BANG!’ making you cringe. There are barely any customers, but it does draw the attention of the man behind the counter.

“Two drip coffees!” Yangyang says, upbeat despite the disdainful expression on the man’s face.

He pulls you into a seat, and starts talking again, this time about his old dog and the times before he became rather juvenile—painting on cars and private property, getting into fights with people three times his size or just straight up pissing off the police only to run from them. You don’t know what he does them for, what he likes to act out for and it’s hard to believe the boy in front of you, talking brightly can be the same person your school adores and fears at the same time.

“You know,” Yangyang says, his voice suddenly growing soft, “Thanks for listening.”

“Huh?” you look at him inquisitively.

“People don’t like me talking,” he says, glancing down at his fingers with a nervous laugh. “And I’m sorry. If I was ever too mean to you.”

You think out of all the things he says, he doesn’t actually say anything. It’s just incidents and events, never really feelings or what he thinks. You feel a little guilty too for resenting him so much if all he wanted was a companion, a chance to show what’s beneath the painted exterior.

Coffee tastes delicious at around one in the morning, but it also means you won’t catch a wink of sleep tonight.

“Do we have to walk?” you complain, out in the barely lit streets of the city.

“What’s wrong with walking?” he says, turning towards you and walking backwards.

“It’s making me tired. Don’t you have a motorbike or something?”

“Are you stereotyping me?” he asks, quirking an eyebrow and pointing at the racecar tattoo on his wrist.

Your shoulders shake with laughter as he breaks into another grin.

“Let’s go to Walt’s,” he suggests after a few minutes of aimless walking.

“I don’t drink,” you say, grimacing at the idea of bars and drunk people and throw up, and whatever else you knew from movies.

“Me neither,” he shrugs, “I just wanna dance.”

“Really? Of all the crimes you commit, you decide to leave out underage drinking?” you ask, amused.

“I don’t like the taste,” he defends, “Are you stereotyping me again?”

You suppress a smile and follow him to the bar, which you really feel you should regret. But you don’t, and when you’re greeted with the purple and blue neon lights at the entrance, you’re admittedly curious as to what it’s like inside. It’s not surprising that Yangyang knows where the secret entrance is, or that he knows a few of the bartenders, who he seems to have charmed already.

But the noise through the speakers is really blown out of proportion as you try to make out the gibberish people talk around you. You hold onto Yangyang’s jacket, for fear of getting lost in the dense crowd and you wonder how people make time at this hour and come all the way to drink and dance. The flashing blue lights illuminate Yangyang’s face occasionally as he pulls you through narrow gaps to a relatively quiet corner, with less people cramped in.

“There’s also a ballpit in the basement but I almost broke my arm there,” he says. “And I never really asked if you like dancing before bringing you here. Do you like dancing?”

You take a moment to decipher his quick words and shake your head, saying you’ve never really tried.

“Never tried dancing?” he repeats incredulously, “Everybody has tried dancing.”

“I don’t think dancing in my room counts.”

“That’s exactly what counts,” he says before grabbing your hand and rushing to the dance floor.

“Like this!” he yells over the music when he notices your stiffness. He proceeds to do the silliest dance move you’ve ever seen, raising an arm upwards and the other at a right angle, legs going anywhere they want. You end up laughing too hard, clutching your stomach as he tries another pose.

It’s not about looking cool here, it’s about enjoying wholeheartedly despite being swallowed inside a crowd. It’s about looking at yourself and being able to laugh off your insecurities, and you think maybe this is why Yangyang does the things he does—to laugh, to make memories to laugh about. It possibly runs deeper than that, but it’s all you can think of at the moment, grinning and laughing like friends do.

Yangyang drops you home, in your room, safely, when you become too sleepy to continue, even offering you a piggyback ride.

You can only mumble a ‘thanks’ as he makes his way to your window, turning at your voice.

“Thanks,” he tells you too before leaving with a wave.

It’s a little odd to not have quarrels with Yangyang at school (although there’s still the occasional ones where he starts it on purpose) and your classmates are a little in awe at the casual conversation you manage to have with him, even smiling at each other.

“Are you sure you’re not hiding anything?” your friend narrows her eyes at you. “Maybe about the thing between you and Mr Troublemaker?”

“There’s no thing,” you glare at her. “Is it that unbelievable that we can speak normally?”

“Obviously,” she responds, “why else would everyone be ogling you?”

You groan and place your face in your hands. This is not the reputation you’re aiming for, but a rather obscure, perhaps ugly part of you isn’t upset, it’s glad even. You suppress the feeling and scowl at nothing in particular, hoping the rest of the day passes quickly enough.

It’s terribly unusual to be greeted by Jaemin at the school gates, eyes twinkling like he knows something you don’t. You’ve no idea of what he’s like except he’s Yangyang’s friend and a flirt, and you’re bound to get your heart broken if you ever find yourself catching feelings. You quirk an eyebrow when he calls your name and smiles sweetly.

“Hey,” he greets.

“Hi…” you drawl out. “Do you have anything to say?”

Jaemin pouts. “Can’t I just start a conversation?”

“You can, uh,” you say, a little unsure.

“You know you’re going to be in trouble if you get too involved, yeah?” he says, focusing on his fingers and stretching them, getting to his point rather quickly.

“Sorry?” you ask, a little taken aback.

“I’m guessing Yangyang hasn’t said anything yet?”

“Said what?” you ask, genuinely curious.

Jaemin shakes his head, a shadow of a frown threatening to take over his pleasant expression.

“Just warning,” he says, “You shouldn’t bite off more than you can chew.”

“What’s up?” a voice interrupts, and Yangyang appears by your side, his dark red t-shirt glowing under the sunlight. You’re weirdly relieved to see his face, not sure why.

Jaemin doesn’t delight him with a response, and instead laughs and pats him on the back. It’s a little strange to see Mr Troublemaker and Mr Heartbreaker (as your school has regrettably nicknamed them) in one place, although they’re part of the same group of friends. As far as you remember, they’d got off at the wrong foot in the beginning, but eventually warmed up, getting closer than ever.

“Enjoy your date,” Jaemin teases, and waves.

Before you can protest that you weren’t exactly notified about a date with anyone, Yangyang puts an arm around your shoulder, obviously displeased and mutters a ‘whatever’ guiding you far from the school entrance.

“Uh, Yangyang?” you ask, stumbling over your steps.

He stops for a few brief seconds and asks, “did he say something weird?”

“I don’t think so?” you say, unsure and trying to replay the rushed conversation you had with Jaemin.

Yangyang shakes his head, a little antsy, and starts walking, expecting you to follow.

“Where are we going?” you ask, before the word ‘date’ flashes across your mind and you blush a brilliant red, trying to make the thought dissipate as quickly as possible.

“I don’t really know,” Yangyang says, pausing to think, “Do you have anything else to do?”

“Even if I did, would you let me go?” you cross your arms.

Yangyang grins and gets back to walking without a sound, you trailing behind him.

“The arcade?” you crane your neck to read the dull red letters above the entrance.

“It might not look like it but it’s actually one of the best,” he says, signalling you with a thumbs-up.

You should’ve known it was a bad idea when Yangyang decides that hitting your head with the little basketball is more fun than hitting the target.

You clutch the back of your head, glaring at him while he laughs at your expression. You were already disappointed with neither of you being able to get the plushie at the claw machine, having wasted enough money on the retries. And Yangyang thinks it’s funny how you look like an ancient Chinese warrior when you’re focused. He’s incredibly good at the racing game, and you knew you’d lose in the few starting seconds. But you did score incredibly well at the shooting game, perhaps your best achievement of the day. The basketball game, however, Yangyang seems to take as a joke, more focused on throwing you off course than his own score.

Yangyang freezes mid-laughter when he glances behind you. You turn your head to find a burly man, painted head to toe in ink, and just looking very dangerous in general, especially with the glare he keeps.

“Oh crap,” Yangyang breathes, “No, no, no.”

“What?” you ask.

“Wait for me outside a bit,” he instructs.

“Why?"

He scratches the back of his head. “Just…like that? I’ll be out in a minute, please.”

You comply in a daze, simply because he’s said the word ‘please’. For someone who talks a lot, he doesn’t exchange polite words very often, he didn’t even explicitly thank you for letting him into your room that night, instead opting to show you gratefulness through treating you at random (when you say random, you mean random).

You kick a non-existent stone, leaning on the wall beside the entrance. It’s been quite a few minutes and you’re getting worried if Yangyang actually had something to do with scary mountain of a man. You wouldn’t put it past him, the fights and all, but really, is this the time?

As you chew the inside of your mouth, a sudden dash of red appears in front of you, grabbing you by the hand and sprinting off. Yangyang looks back at you for a fraction of a second, and you see him almost smiling. The gruff voices behind you accelerate the rapid beating of your heart and you run faster, not entirely focused on your steps. The pavement proves difficult to run on, but it’s the burning in your lungs that causes you to stop in an obscure alleyway. The daylight seeps in through the crack between the two massive grey buildings, and you breathe heavily behind the steps to the fire exit of one of the buildings. Yangyang peeks through the corner and runs back to you, steps as nimble as a cat’s.

“You’re not gonna like this,” he bends to face you doubled over, still trying to breathe. You don’t comment on the busted lip, or the scratches across his jaw as he explains that you’re going to have to climb the building right now and also hurry before you get into serious trouble.

The stairs end one storey below the roof and Yangyang jumps to get a hold on the edge, and you’re sure the roughness of the concrete is going to leave scratches on his palm. Once he’s up, he spares a quick glance to the side, and grits his teeth before bending to grab your arms and pulls you up with much difficulty. You trip a little when your foot hits the edge of the rooftop, making the both of you lose balance and you land beside him on your knees, while he does so in a sitting position. You make eye contact, and Yangyang can’t help the smile stretching across his face, although he flinches a little. Before either of you can erupt into laughter, he presses his hand against your mouth, effectively stifling any noise and manages to keep himself from laughing. You lie flat on the roof, his nose a few inches from yours as you wait for the shuffling and shouting noises from below to dissipate.

You breathe out a sigh of relief in sync with Yangyang, glad you’re finally rid of your pursuers.

“Are you going to explain to me what just happened?” you ask, sitting up.

Yangyang sits up beside you, bending a little, making his hair fall over his eyes. He manages a half-grin while your concern shifts to his bleeding lower lip, and you involuntarily reach for your handkerchief.

“You don’t have to,” he says, shying away from your hand. “I didn’t mean to…uh…bring you into this.”

He looks at his fingers, and you notice the red scratch lines on his palm.

“It’s okay,” you tell him, “It was fun.”

“Right?” he whips head towards you. “No one believes me when I tell them I like doing these just for fun!”

You giggle before gently dabbing at his lip, greeted with a sour expression.

“What was up with those guys?” you ask, focused on applying the correct amount of pressure to swipe.

“I…we…uh, kind of used to play here without paying. And he’s related to the owner, so…”

Your expression turns into a displeased one, and he sheepishly smiles, promising you he paid this time and will pay at wherever you want to go. Your cheeks start getting hot at how casually he talks about taking you places, like they’re actual dates. You tell you should head home and apply some antiseptic to his lip, before it gets worse.

“It’s alright,” he says when you’re done cleaning the wound, “I’m used to it. I don’t really wanna leave right now.”

He gestures towards the sky, which has started to merge reds and blues at a purple middle. It eventually fades to orange and dimming yellow, and you can see the sun start to dip towards the buildings in the horizon.

“I like it here,” he says, dipping his head towards the side.

You glance at the warmth spreading across the sky for only a few moments, before you’re distracted by the boy beside you. The sunlight brings out the pools of honey in his eyes, and you suddenly can’t deny the secretly growing affections for the boy, or whatever it is that you feel. The mole on his left cheek calls for attention as the lighting makes his skin glow, although the scratches disturb its softness. The curious vines peek from behind his shirt again, and it looks like a sort of companion of Yangyang’s, enjoying the sunset with him.

“Did it hurt?” you ask, distractedly.

“Huh?” he turns to you, raising an eyebrow. “I actually get punched pretty often so no- wait- gosh, that was embarrassing to say. I just mean—”

“No, I mean the tattoo,” you clarify.

He forms an ‘o’ with his mouth. “Not really. I mean, kind of? Less than what I thought it would, to be honest. People always ask me this, but I can’t really answer it, you know?”

You nod, trying your best to understand.

“I got this one with my friends,” he brings down the collar to display the full tattoo, which covers most of his collarbone and shoulders in pretty curls and windings of grapevines.

“And this one, I got first,” he says, pulling his sleeve up to show the racecar tattoo once again. “Mum was so mad, but she accepted it eventually.”

“Oh?” you smile.

“Yeah, she’s always been a little, I don’t know, strict? She believes that life should be lived through rules and following them, just caging yourself in blind beliefs—I mean what’s the point of that?”

Yangyang sounds irked, so you just hum along.

“Living blindly, delusionally—it’s better to be reckless,” he scrunches his eyebrows, looking you in the eye as if he expects some response as his words flow out bitterly.

“Is that why you do that? To feel?” you ask, genuinely curious.

Yangyang chuckles and lies down on the floor of the roof, resting his head on his folded arms while his hair parts to show his forehead. He looks very relaxed, more so than at school or anywhere else, really.

“I’m sure,” he starts, “that on the last day of my life, when I think of all that’s happened, I’ll have a lot of things to think about.”

“Didn’t know you thought that far ahead,” you interject.

“It makes me feel at ease,” he half-grins at you.

That’s when it strikes you. Life has never been about staying alive to Yangyang, while you have trouble distinguishing between the blurred lines of today and tomorrow. He’s not that difficult a person—just an extremist at worst, and simply a boy overall. He makes himself out to be tough to handle, lets himself be reckless, and of course, reckless attracts trouble. He wants something whole from a broken universe, and maybe you did guess right—he wants a friend, someone to listen to him. It doesn’t change the fact that he’s horribly optimistic, in fact you’re drawn to it in a way you can’t explain. He’s starting to make sense and you can’t contain the bubbling excitement in your chest at the development.

“Yangyang,” you call, softly.

“Yeah?”

“Why do you like telling me these? These things about you.”

“Feeling special?” he jokes.

You slap his shoulder gently, saying, “Come on, tell me.”

“You look like someone who listens,” Yangyang says, eyes following yours. “And I thought I was obvious…”

His voice trails off and he looks down at your lips, before tilting his head at an angle and leaning just right so your noses don’t bump into each other. You can only shut your eyes in panic, the beating in your heart getting louder when his breath falls on you, the smell like peppermint. The moment your lips touch, a soft feeling momentarily settling in, he winces back and both of you are suddenly aware of his injury. You blink once before bursting into an amused laughter, and you can see the corners of lips into a familiar feline smile.

“You are so stupid,” you remark.

“There’s just no pleasing you, is there?”

“Tell me why you think getting your lip busted would please me.”

“…That wasn’t part of the plan.”

He scoots closer to you till your shoulders touch, and you hardly pay attention to the setting sun and the calls of the homeward birds. He tilts his head too, to gently let it touch yours and you feel him smiling.

“In my defence, you’re terribly dense.”

“Me? Dense? How?” You turn your head and cross your arms.

“I took you on like three dates and you didn’t get the hint!”

“What date?!”

“I took you to my favourite coffee shop!” he says, shoulders hunching up. “And the bar, and the dog park, and the arcade!”

“You never said they were dates,” you grumble.

“See? Dense.”

You hit his shoulder again, but he laughs, not even flinching now.

“Fine,” he says, “Will you go on a date with me tomorrow? At the amusement park. 11am sharp.”

“As long as you fix that busted lip,” you chide.

“Why? You wanna make out?”

Your cheeks flare scarlet and you can almost see his ego swell with the smugness that shows up all across his face. Even so, you’re satisfied how you really did find your way to the core of him, and more so to be pleasantly surprised. Night falls, and the stars come out to play, but Yangyang makes sure to keep his focus on you.

“I knew it,” your friend remarks as she eyes your fingers intertwined with Yangyang’s.

“Don’t start again,” you groan, taking your place while Yangyang smiles smugly.

“Hope you know how to play with fire, darling,” Jaemin calls from the back only to be greeted with a smack across his shoulder by Yangyang.

Fire, wind, whatever Yangyang is—you don’t mind. Because every day is different from the other, and memories remain even after the day ends, especially if the memories were this troublesome to make, and fun to experience.

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somnolent-snufkin · 5 years ago

Text

Spring Flowers

TW: Heavy gore, emotional sh!t

Disclaimer: This story was inspired by the Undertale fandom's beautiful AU FlowerFell and the story "Overgrowth" by SociopathicArchangel. However, I would like to keep the two things separate. I was INSPIRED by it and wanted to make my own story based off the idea of a character having flowers grow over their body over a period of time.

You can read the prequel here: Roses with the Amber Hue

Previous Chapter

Chapter Six

The morning following the alarming events that took place the night before felt nearly dull. Not that Moomintroll and Snufkin would want any more awful things to happen to them. It had been quite rough already.

Moomintroll was the first to wake up, of course. His movements were soft and quiet, trying to be gentle with the supposedly still body he held. But his whole body froze when the mumrik managed to move on his own. It was just a simple hand twitch, however.

"Snufkin?" Moomintroll asked, voice faint and small. No words came back. A couple of tears fell. Then a few more. Then plenty of tears came running down Moomin's face. But something made the moomin pause.

One of the daffodils that sprouted below Snufkin's eye turned into a chestnut brown and crumbled off of Snufkin's face. Then a few more copied it, turning into dead dust. Eventually, the snowdrop and daisy diminished. All of these taking less than a minute to perish completely; it was like watching a timelapse.

Moomintroll could feel a sliver of hope rise. Was Snufkin going to be ok? Was he alive? Snufkin remained silent, still not moving.

"Oh Snufkin.." Moomintroll buried his face in the mumrik's chest, crying yet again. A moment of silence passes by, short muffled sobs being the only sound heard.

"..emotions are strong, aren't they?" Snufkin hummed weakly. Moomintroll's ears perked up as he sat up swiftly.

"Snufkin!" Moomintroll cried out with relief. For this one time, he completely forgot about boundaries and pressed his nose against the mumrik's; a moomin kiss.

Snufkin would look surprised, but his energy had been depleted. Instead, he just smiled softly. Moomintroll pulled away and his face turned a crimson red.

"S-Sorry! I'm sorry for not giving you any space and forcing a k-kiss on you-"

"Moomin, it's fine.." Snufkin kept a frail smile on. "I love you.. I feel it should be perfectly fine to kiss..." Snufkin lifted his hand up and Moomin nuzzled it. They both smiled, full of genuine love for each other. This was real. This was all genuine affection.

Roughly half an hour goes by, Snufkin now laying in Moomintroll's bed. Moomin sat on the edge of the bed, gazing at his sleeping boyfriend. He thought about how long the mumrik was holding in emotions. Realistically, he must of been bottling up love for a least a few years. Maybe more... He'd have to ask that some other time. For now, the two of them should stay close together and get some rest...

Unfortunately the universe has other plans.

"MOOMIN! WHAT'S TAKING YOU SO LONG TO WAKE UP? MOOMINMAMA MADE BREAKFAST NEARLY TEN MINUTES AGO!" Little My shouted from down the hall. It sounded as if she was coming to the door.

Moomintroll panicked and covered his sleeping boyfriend with the rest of the blanket without hesitation. He did not need Little My asking questions about this situation. The whole thing was stressful enough already.

Little My slammed the door open. Raising an eyebrow when she saw Moomin look worried.

"What are you doing?" The short mymble grinned.

"Oh, nothing! Just woke up, that's all." Moomintroll wasn't the greatest liar.

"Right.." She stepped forward, curious as to what the bump under the blanket was. Since it definitely wasn't Moomintroll.

"Haven't you got.. anyone else to bother today..?"

"Not really."

As if he knew his sister was there, Snufkin sat up slowly. He didn't notice My right away.

"Why did you cover my face with the blanket, Moomin?" Snufkin asked, a certain joking feeling to his tone. Little My began cackling hysterically. She was certainly confused as all hell but she was pretty amused, apparently. The mumrik sighed in silent frustration when he saw his sibling run off.

"Great, now she's going to tell our friends about this." Moomintroll grumbled.

"Hey Moomin?"

"Hmm?"

"Can I tell you something that I've noticed?"

"Sure."

"Last night felt really over dramatic. I felt like I was being a bit too emotional. Do you think that?"

"Well, we're young adults. And there was quite literally a flower coming out of your eye! You had every right to be emotional!"

"I guess that's true. Anyways.. we should probably go explAiN tO- Owww!" Snufkin tried stepping out of bed, only to fall onto the floor. His whole body was still very weak from fighting the Blomst and dealing with the decaying flowers.

"Snufkin! Please be careful!" Moomintroll ran over to help him sit up. "I think you should stay in bed."

"Alright. Fine. I'll stay here." Snufkin said as he laid back down on the bed.

Then there was a knock on the door. Moomintroll opened the door.

"You've got a lot of explaining to do!"

Next Chapter

#moomins #moomin fanfic #moomin fanfiction #springdove #Spring Flowers #flower language #flower gore #flowers #snufkin #snufmin #moominvalley #moomin #little my

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voltron-band · 5 years ago

Text

Pitch & Signature

(Interview)

Albums In Depth: today we talk to Voltron about their first and only album Sashimi.

Opening the album is the song Firefighter, also the title of your first ever release, an EP, and one of your more popular songs. Tell us what the song is about.

Hunk: Keith wrote this one.

Keith: I don’t want to talk about it.

Lance: Come on Keith, you gotta answer the question!

Keith: No.

Alright then, let’s move on. The next song is a track called To Bloom, what’s that all about?

Pidge: I’ll answer this if you don’t mind. This is a song I myself wrote, and its about growth. I was browsing the internet one day and I found this video where someone had timelapsed the growth of fungus and it really caught my imagination, y’know. So I went to my keyboard, hooked it up to my iPad and just started playing around while I was on the inspiration high. Then I wrote the lyrics and showed the rest of the band what I’d been working on. That’s how To Bloom was born.

Could you tell us a little more about the lyrics?

Pidge: I’d rather leave the lyrics up to interpretation, but again the song is about growth.

Nasty is the next song on the album and has quite the chaotic sound to it.

Keith: I was angry. I just wanted to vent and make as much noise as possible; thats a song now.

Next on the tracklist is Bright Blue, could you give a little insight into this song?

Lance: This one was mostly me. I don’t really know how to explain the song, it kind of just came to me and used my body as a vessel. That happens sometimes.

Moving on to the title track Sashimi. First, however, Is there a reason why your album is called Sashimi?

Hunk: We actually named it as an ode to Shiro.

Lance: His favourite food is sashimi, so we figured, why not name it that?

Pidge: The song is also about Shiro, its one of the only songs we really worked together on.

Hunk: Probably because we all love Shiro.

Lance: Right you are.

In The Forest is the only instrumental song on your album, and is quite different from the more acoustic feel of the album. Could you shed a bit more light on this?

Pidge: I’m proud to say I wrote this entire song myself after taking a walk through the bush. I’m not normally one to do that sort of thing but it was raining and I had nothing else to do. I surprisingly enjoyed that walk. Anyway I think the fresh air helped my creative spirit or something cause next thing I know Ive written a song.

The next song on the album is Take It Out.

Lance: Another McClain song! I actually wrote this one quite a while ago after my mom told me to take out the rubbish. The song tells the story of a young person living in the modern day. I don’t know how my mom telling me to take out the rubbish inspired a song, but the world works in mysterious ways I guess.

Pidge: Yeah but did you take out the rubbish?

Lance: Wh- of course I did! I’m not rude.

Disconcerting is next on the list. Input?

Lance: ‘Why does this feel so...’

Hunk: *mimics drum roll*

Lance: ‘Disconcerting!’

Keith: Output.

We’re almost there. Spaceship is the next track.

Lance: Ahh yes. I like to call this one the Keith Has An Existential Song.

Keith: Shut up.

Pidge: In this house we love and appreciate space.

The second last track is Underwater, and describes a scene at a beach.

Lance: I just really love the ocean. Mind you I don’t love it so much that I’d encourage Global warming. I do love it though. I had an image in my head of this beach I always used to go to when I was little that owns a special place in my heart.

Last but not least; Sweet. Why’d you choose to close with this song?

Hunk: I thought it would be nice to finish with something, well, nicer. Not that the other songs aren’t nice, its just that this one is less... unhappy.

Keith: And we agreed with Hunk. End of story.

That was Voltron on their album Sashimi.

#voltron #voltron band #voltron band au #vld #keith #keith kogane #hunk #hunk garret #pidge #pidge gunderson #lance #lance mcclain #voltron au

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beyards · 5 years ago

Note

Plance cashier au where Lance is the cashier and Pidge is the one customer who walks in at closing to get one item

Closing Shift

pidge/lance

1478 words

gen audience

support it on ao3

fic requests are open!

It was 9:51:47 PM, which meant Lance had exactly 8 minutes and 13 seconds before he could officially lock the doors. Unfortunately, someone else was having just as long a night as he was.

Lance slumped over the counter, staring ahead at the sugary rainbow of check out candy neatly stacked and ordered. Within an hour of opening tomorrow they were sure to be a mess, but he was kind of proud of how hard he’d worked to make them look nice. It was one of the few things he actually got joy out of in this miserable job, miserable life really.

It was 9:14:47 PM, which meant Lance had exactly 8 minutes and 13 seconds before he could officially lock the doors. Everything was accounted for, every other register closed out, everything cleaned up, but he couldn’t leave until exactly 10 PM. Damn corporate policy. Nobody was even going to come in the damn store. He’d worked closing for the past 4 days and hardly anybody ever came in after 9:45. That might have something to do with Keith shutting off the lights that spelled out the store name at that time, but still. Finally, Lance caved. Fuck it. It was only a minute or two until 10, and it’s not like Shiro was going to write him up for that, he was a pretty chill manager.

Suddenly the door chimed, signaling somebody entering the store.

Lance, figuring it was pretty much 10 PM anyways said “Sorry, we’re closed-”

“No you’re not, it’s 9:54.” Snapped a voice.

Internally, Lance groaned, not even bothering to look up. He didn’t have the patience to deal with any more bullshit today. He already had that one lady try to cuss him out when she accidentally put the card reader in Spanish and couldn’t figure out how to change it back. She said that it was a damn shame that now she couldn’t even get groceries without ‘witnessing the assault of American culture by the gangs and rapists from Mexico’ and told him Trump was going to deport his whole family. He didn’t have the heart to tell her he was Cuban.

Lance flipped his light back on and rebooted up his register, grumbling the entire time. He couldn’t even punish her by faking a register problem or faking a need to call management. He wanted to go home. He’d just have to rely on karma to get this entitled customer in line.

To his surprise, he heard footsteps rounding into his lane and put something on his counter by 9:57. As he thoughtlessly reached for the big ass chocolate bar this cretin was purchasing, he heard a sniffle. It was faint, and if the muzak that usually played hadn’t been shut off a few minutes ago he surely would have missed it. At first Lance waved it off as allergies as he passed the first item over the scanner, but then on a whim he actually looked up.

Her eyes were red and puffy, a tear slipping down her reddened face. He froze, unsure what to do. He was trained to handle all sorts of situations like active shooter, robberies, fake IDs, suspected human traffiking, and mislabeled merchandise, but Lance had never been through a course on how to comfort a crying customer.

“Uh,” Lance said, setting down the item in a bag, “are you okay?”

She wiped her eyes and shot him a glare. It would’ve been petrifying if it wasn’t for the fact more tears were spilling out already. Realizing what she was doing wasn’t working she looked away.

“I’m fi-ine.” She huffed out, the declaration punctuated by another sniffle.

“You’re crying in a grocery store at 10 PM,” Lance pointed out bluntly, “I think that’s like, the opposite of fine.”

“Well,” she tried wiping her eyes again, and this time Lance noticed little mascara smudges and a hint of a shimmery powder on her lids, “it’s closing and you probably have a girlfriend to get home to.”

It was almost like she was just throwing the words haphazardly at Lance. There was an edge of bitterness, but for the most part it was just sadness and maybe a hint of jealousy behind it. He took another look at her appearance. She was wearing sort of nice clothes, nothing formal or fancy, but really cute he had to admit. It was nice shorts with an off the shoulder top. Her hair was in soft ringlets, probably looser now than they’d been earlier, so clearly there was some effort put into it. All that combined with the makeup pointed at the strong possibility that she’d just been burned by Cupid.

Lance snorted, starting to ring her up. “Nah, I’ve been single for nearly a year now. I found out my last girlfriend of 3 years had been cheating on me literally the day I was going to propose.”

He flushed, realizing that he didn’t know why he’d just told her that. It wasn’t any of her business, and in fact Lance had told 3 people the truth about why he and Nyma weren’t together anymore. Maybe he just felt bad for her.

“Oh shoot,” the girl mumbled, “I’m sorry, that sucks.”

“Yeah, but don’t feel too bad for me,” Lance added dully, “I’d caught her cheating the month before but she promised it was a mistake and that she was so sorry. So I forgave her. It really shouldn’t have been a surprise when I walked into our bedroom and saw her being fucked by two guys at once. I should’ve known she didn’t just stop, I was the ultimate cuck.”

The customer cringed, but chuckled a bit. “Oh god, and I thought I was having it bad.”

“Well, whatever you’re going through,” he sighed, finalizing the sale with the cash she gave him, “I’m sure it’s not as bad as getting cucked.”

“Probably not,” she mumbled, accepting her change, “I just got stood up by guy who was dared to ask me out as part of his fraternity rush.”

Lance shut off his register as the lights in the back of the store went out. “Wait, you knew he was a frat boy and you still accepted?”

“He was my bio partner,” she explained, following him as he made his way over to the time clock, “and I didn’t know he was joining a frat. It’s not like he mentioned it to me and I don’t talk to people on campus who are part of that crowd, so I just didn’t know.”

You didn’t look this guy up on social media or anything?” Lance asked, raising an eyebrow. The pair made their way towards the exit. “That’s rule one of dating in college.”

She folded her arms over her chest. “I don’t really know those rules. It’s not like anyone ever told me about them.”

“Okay, fair,” Lance said, leading them over to a park bench so they could talk some more, “so this guy asked you out and you said yes.”

“I guess- I mean, yeah.” The girl sat down next to him, jiggling her foot, “he’s always been super sweet, talks to me in the hallways, and we would text a lot too. He’d ask for pictures of my dog like every day.”

“Ah, animal loving,” Lance whistled, “that’s how they get ya.”

She glowered at him, but continued anyways. “I agreed to meet him for a milkshake, and I waited 3 hours but he never showed up. Finally one of my friends texted me saying there was a timelapse of me sitting at the diner barstool for the first two hours taken from a security camera up on social media. I guess one of the fraternity members works there…”

Her bottom lip trembled and Lance’s heart really hurt for her. “Wow, that’s just… wow.”

“Yeah,” she let out a shuddery breath.

They sat there in silence for a bit, the cool night breeze playing with her curls. He couldn’t help but steal glances at her every now and then. He felt really, really bad for her. He’d been the victim of some cruel pranks in the past too, and he knew what it was like for someone to just toy with your feelings. He bit his lip, hesitant to offer this. Was he even ready?

“Hey,” Lance said, after a few moments, “do you still wanna get that milkshake?”

She looked up at him and he could see she’d been crying again.

“Only if you want to,” he added hastily, feeling his face heat up, “and it can just be as a friend thing, or well, not a friend thing, I’m just your cashier but like, hey, I don’t want this asshole to ruin your night, you know?”

She gave him a small smile. “Actually, I think I’d like that.” She got to her feet, offering her hand. “I’m Pidge, by the way.”

“Lance,” he grinned, accepting her handshake before getting to his own feet. “Let’s go bring all the boys to the yard.”

(like the story? reblog it! let me know if you want a sequel!)

#plance #pidgance #ellis writes #pidge #lance #lance vld #pidge vld #vld pidge #vld lance #vld #voltron #ask ellis #Anonymous

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hindbodes · 6 years ago

Photo

The Floods: Lost ...its structural integrity somewhere back there

Colin Thompson has been a great illustrator for children’s books, and occasionally a very neat author. But don’t let that cloud your judgement, because this novel is exactly as bad as it looks. The illustrations here certainly aren’t his best work, but lately they have been his only work, as his art style has morphed into this flat, computer-generated collage of photos and gritty rubber humans.

By the time it was over, this book put into me more than four instances of something in the narrative being overpowered, at least one pretty big continuity error, numerous typos, and even that thing the author sometimes does where he uses the wrong name to address a character. It also, of course, had the usual Belgian racism, because Colin Thompson still hates Belgian people for some reason.

If you’re not familiar with The Floods, it’s a gross children’s novel series about these morally dubious witches and wizards - a family - who do gross and sometimes epic shit, with very few reality-limitations put in place. I’ve been following it for quite some time.

Within the first two pages of the main story of Lost, Colin Thompson abruptly establishes that two of the main characters - and I’ll get back to you on how “main characters” is a weird concept in this series - got married and had a kid, who not only was very developed for a baby, but could literally talk in every word of the English language within a month of birth. Which is something that I expect by the next book to become another thing Colin Thompson completely forgets.

The book is about two women, Edna and Maldegard, keeping themselves occupied by traveling all over the country of Transylvania Waters and giving streets, towns, and mountains their own names. Because there weren’t any before. Which concerns me. I don’t recall the third-book-prequel having no names for anything, and I hope I just didn’t notice. In short, they’re mapping Transylvania Waters for the first time.

One thing I’m quite grateful for is that sometimes Colin Thomspon does designate things that The Floods are incapable of. The list is short, but the things that are on it really help. One of them is this thing in The Floods: Lost where Winchflat is super powerful at creating technology and can make a machine for anything, but there’s a really bizarre shack in the middle of a courtyard that he can’t penetrate or even use X-rays to look into. It’s one of the more Douglas Adamsian parts of CT’s bibliography. One time a paper booklet in a library told me that if you’re looking for more authors like Douglas Adams, try Eoin Colfer or Colin Thompson. The way I see it is more “Eoin Colfer is the poor man’s Douglas Adams, and Colin Thompson is the very poor man’s Eoin Colfer. Colin Thompson is also a very rich man’s surreal weirdo and therefore quite often worth it”.

Colin Thompson has a serious problem with “show, don’t tell”. I know that sounds crazy, because of how this is a book and “that’s how books work”, but I assure you that Colin Thompson still manages to abuse saying what happened instead of describing events like they’re actually happening. The last four Colin Thompson novels I read felt like almost the entire thing was a timelapse of seasons passing, and things end up being incredibly dialogue-driven.

100 pages of saying what happened later, interesting events in the story start to happen. There seem to be a number of villains in this sequel, and an asshole shapeshifter who’s in the form of a house, with a downright cannibalistic monster wife of his who he wants freed from prison, is the first one to make an appearance.

I don’t want to spoil how they take this man down, but it’s partly redundancies in writing and partly some pretty funny ideas that didn’t end up fully-fledged in my opinion. It sounds like a spoiler that I reveal he’s disguised as a house, but don’t worry, the book makes it incredibly obvious before telling the audience the reveal about four paragraphs later.

While that’s going on, there’s this subplot about how Mordonna and Nerlin, the parents, are trying to set up parliament in Transylvania Waters, to give the illusion to tourists that the country is a democracy or something. They live as kings and queens in a castle, and it’s not, but that will become clearer soon.

For some reason, CT goes ahead and chooses nerds as the acceptable target for narrator’s abuse, and the minor characters for the role of trying to set up a political party of the people.

Colin Thompson makes a pretty good point about how parliament sucks, especially when he says it’s because one party spends 3 or 6 years doing one thing, and then somebody else gets voted in and spends the same amount of time doing the opposite, but I don’t think the scene where Mordonna’s seven grotesque children suddenly walk in and get rollcalled just to form a bigger political party - The Royal Party - than the nerds’ one so that the nerds don’t get to have any say, sets a better precedent for the future. These characters? Well, the Floods are a pretty established large family, but they only used to get the spotlight. Nowadays, Colin Thompson always pushes his original main characters out of the spotlight, and other characters become “main” characters, purely as a freak accident. The book doesn’t give a single line to Valla or Merlinmary.

After the shapeshifter thing is resolved, the next villains are all Winchflat’s fault. Using a bunch of bones they found, this overpowered joke of a scientist character uses his cloning machines to bring fossilized creatures back from the extinction of time. Somehow, they are developed and aware enough to function in this new world quite quickly, not going into shock from the changes made to the world or having to relearn the alphabet.

First, Winchflat brings back an intelligent chicken, who starts a conversation with Winchflat. Of course this means Colin Thompson is gonna throw down that Ethel reference, because he sure loves his Chicken Named Ethel. He also brought back a whole bunch of regular chickens, oddly enough.

Basically, the chicken Ethel has delusions of grandeur and wants to be the rightful leader of everything in sight. This is a pretty funny prospect, but if the joke was handled right, it would still be spoiled by the overdose of characters-finding-it-funny-themselves-and-laughing. So I guess it wasn’t handled right then...

Naturally, the chicken gets totally dominated by The Floods, because of course it did. That’s how it works. Winchflat’s next mistake is to bring a four headed accountant - homo calculus - back to life, which actually ends up being a lot scarier than one would expect.

Good Stuff, Bad Stuff

This book isn’t perfect, but there’s at least one thing in there that considerably had an effect on me when I read it. I’ve already said a lot of bad stuff about this book. There is good stuff in it. I will tell you that thing.

As it turns out, that four-headed accountant from the pre-historic ages that Winchflat reanimated wasn’t just a joke about how “accountants suck” but actually something quite sinister, even bringing up a few dark implications about how the world used to be.

The creature’s name is Fiscal Matters, or just Fiscal. He has four bald heads, a cut moustache on each one, and pairs of glasses. Kinda looks like a caveman. His complusion is to count things, regardless of the value of what he’s counting. All homo calculus do that, and earlier on it’s said that many species went extinct because this behaviour bored them to death.

Winchflat talks to Fiscal for a bit, and then some pretty scary revelations happen. First, Fiscal thinks Winchflat is a servant to him, because apparently in the past, all witches and wizards were servants to his race. You can only wonder what kind of batshit insane forces were powerful enough to subdue the race that Winchflat comes from, but anyway...

Fiscal, second, wants Winchflat to open the strange room in the middle of the courtyard. You know, the weird one that Winchflat can’t open. Winchflat tells him about that, but then Fiscal says “I know how to open it.” So whatever’s in that crazy fucking shed, Fiscal knows what it is and wants to get in. It’s made worse by the fact that Fiscal Matters is getting increasingly aggressive with his “servant”.

The last one is that inside the weird room is a thing called The Ark of the Incontinent. The book never reveals exactly what it is, what it looks like, or how it got its name, but Fiscal wants to go in there so he can contact the rest of his species in outer space. They’re still alive and out there.

The resolution to this arc is pretty anticlimactic, but still unsettling. Basically, after Winchflat tells Fiscal to stay there and not open the door so he can walk away and consult his family, he gets back to find Fiscal counting stones on the shack. Counting how many stones are in the wall is the only way to access The Ark of the Incontinent, and Fiscal can’t, because the amount of stones changed over time and there’s no longer as many in the wall as there are supposed to be.

By the end of the book, Fiscal is still there. He’s still counting, and still hasn’t got into the shack. The Flood family just leaves him to his own devices, and feels perfectly secure about letting somebody with membership of an advanced, dangerous race keep trying to open the one doorway to contacting that race and unleashing war on the planet. Mordonna messes with Fiscal by changing the amount of stones in the walls randomly every now and then, but I think you can imagine how eventually that might turn out to be a bad idea. The probability involved sounds very dangerously high to me.

Lost

Guys... I don’t know. I have been reading this book series for a very long time, and wonder sometimes why I put so much effort into it. I always tell myself “this book will be the last one I read” but it never sticks. I guess I just still think there’s something in there that’s entertaining for me, and maybe there is. I don’t know if I want to continue reading until the very last book or not.

Bottom line is, it’s SBIG. SBIG at best, really. You read what I said up there, you know what’s wrong with it. And I think previous Floods books were better. But lately, as I finished reading this book, I’ve felt more interested in reading the next one. Colin Thompson finally gave continuity nods to things like The Knights Intolerant, which is a really big step forward for this series and means future books might have something I want to read. Read the book if you must, but I’ve been down the path of reading a sequel book before reading its pre-books. It doesn’t go well.

Your alternative is to read 9 big-text-novels until your quest to read the comedically-bad Lost pays off, but I think you have to be a pretty big Colin Thompson fanperson to want to do that. You either read one book in the middle and feel confused, or you read all of them in order and feel disappointed.

You know, fuck it. I’ve been told that books will set you free, and my eyesight and quota-for-consuming-fiction aren’t getting any better - I should just borrow the next book. I should borrow The Floods 11 and do something with my time that involves entering a weird and fantastical story. No more days of nothing but videogames, browser feeds and let’s plays...

#Colin Thompson #The Floods #The Floods Lost #talking about a book #full version of this post (in the notes) has amusing pictures from inside the book

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