#based off a conversation I had when I was 15 that is imprinted on my brain | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

kpopisthereasonihavenolife · 4 years ago

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k.taehyung/reader

genre: arist!taehyung, painting!reader, parallel/horror universe

warning(s): violence, mannequins+paintings coming to life (bc ppl are scared of that), blood- but like red paint instead, horror/dread/action elements (i tried okay), bittersweet

words: 20.3k

One-shot | Two-shot | Series | Drabble | [Rated: Pg:15]

Loosely based on Ib, an RPG Horror/Adventure game + Leia (Vocaloid)

synopsis: Taehyung, a freelance, abstract artist is in the middle of one of the worst art blocks known to mankind. In an act of possible inspiration, he drags his best friend, Namjoon, to a new art gallery just opened. Only, he didn’t know that his visit would result in him getting separated from his friend and thrust into a new gallery. One he wasn’t familiar with in the slightest. Along with this mysterious new gallery, a collection of strange creatures lurking around every corner came with the unsettling territory.

a/n: i literally started this in March of 2019.... I have no excuse for the wait other than my bad. Regardless, Colorblind is FINALLY done and out! It’s obvs waayyy longer than I intended it to be back in 2019 when I could only pump out like 9k at max- it’s over double that now LOL. But that hopefully aint gonna stop y’all (pls, lmk what you thought/thnk, i’m so anxious about this one alsdjf)

“Here you are, gentlemen. Enjoy your visit to the gallery,” the receptionist at the counter smiled as she would to anyone. Handing over two pamphlets to the two men who stood in front of her. One was dressed in white track pants, two stripes running down the legs. A white, collared, button-up shirt with a tie exceptionally loose around his neck with a blue, track jacket with red and white stripes down the sleeve, matching his track pants.

The other man wore loose black pants around his hips. A black and white vertical striped, sleeveless jersey with three buttons on the collar with a red cap placed backward on his faded orange-haired head.

These two men were two Kim’s. Taehyung and Namjoon. Taehyung works as a self-employed, freelance artist; throwing and brushing paint over a canvas in random ways and creating objects and places for his mind to be free in abstract ways. Namjoon is a humbled journalist for a local news blog for his exceptional wording and phrasing on all sorts of topics.

Taehyung had come to the new gallery opening not too far from his home in search of inspiration. He had been in a bit of a slump lately, and with nothing to do and nothing worthwhile happening, he was desperate. Namjoon tagged along because he was tasked with the job of writing a review of the new establishment and creating a small article to include in the next online publication.

“Welcome to the grand opening of The Gallery of Leia!”

Taehyung mumbled to himself as he read the title of the pamphlet given to him. “Why Gallery of Leia?” He questioned the name as the receptionist answered promptly.

“Leia is the one surviving piece of an artist from way back when that survived a brutal fire. In honor of its survival, the gallery was named as such.” She said with a smile as Taehyung nodded and nudged Namjoon’s arm, who stood next to him.

“Let’s go,” he said as he walked inside, not trying to stick around for more conversation and holding up the line of people also trying to gain entry inside. Namjoon following him as he quickly scanned a the front of the pamphlet.

The gallery was two stories in a decent squared size building. It was quite the exercise trip in Taehyung’s opinion. Sculptures were placed against walls or out in the open for rotational viewing pleasure. Paintings and sketches were hanging, littering the walls for guests to see clearly. All the different pieces from all sort of artists featured here was amazing, such a wide variety as Taehyung’s eyes scanned the names. Some familiar, some not.

“Wow, this place is pretty busy,” Namjoon said as he looked around. Namjoon had pulled out a tablet from his side bag, turning on the large touch screen as he took the pen attached to the side of it and opened up a program for taking notes as he started scribbling. Taehyung peeked over his shoulder.

“You haven’t even seen any art yet. Why are you already jotting stuff down?”

“It’s always good to start an article with how packed or how empty a place is. The more people there, the more popular or interesting to the masses it is, which normally leads to more pros than cons. It’s like a first look into how interesting it may or may not be.” He rambled off like he’s answered the question a million times. Taehyung nodded with pouted lips.

“You’re such a workaholic.” Namjoon rolled his eyes at the remark, placing the pen between his fingers as he held his tablet and lowered it to his side.

“Let’s go look around.” The gallery itself, aside from the art pieces inside it, was stark white. White ceilings to match the white walls and tiled flooring in yet more, polished white. The lights weren’t as strong as one would think for a gallery, but if they were any brighter the receptionist would need to hand out complimentary sunglasses along with pamphlets because of all the lights bouncing off and around from the white interior.

Namjoon was busy looking at a large-scale sculpture of a red rose as Taehyung wandered around not too far from him. He turned down a hall that was surprisingly void of any warm bodies. He was surprised to find an area that hadn’t been cluttered with people yet. Though, he assumed it wasn’t all that odd considering the early morning hour.

Along the left wall was a large, long canvas, easily engulfing a vast majority of the wall itself. It also happened to be the only piece in this dead-end corridor.

Taehyung stood in front of the painting as he looked over it. Trying to see each and every detail. He was in awe of the detail and how much time it must have taken to even complete such a large painting. The dedication and time served to it was admirable.

The painting gave off an eerie vibe. A dark background with what seemed to be the space of a studio, a spacey and wide studio with canvas’s on walls, frames hanging, paints and easels littering the space leaking into a greater mass of a space with even more dark, distorted art. As he continued to look at it, he stopped to blink, reset his eyes and rub at them so he didn’t go crosseyed and get dizzy.

As Taehyung gazed at the whole of the masterpiece, Namjoon strode up to him. He whistled lowly in an impressed awe.

“Damn. That's one dedicated, dead painter.” He walked to the plaque underneath the frame, kneeling so he could read the title of the particular piece aloud. “Parallel Reality. Painted in 1996 by-” he couldn’t finish because the hall suddenly darkened. Namjoon and Taehyung both looked at the ceiling and the flickering lights before they blacked out completely. Leaving the room dark and quiet.

“A blackout?” Taehyung questioned. Namjoon stood up, walking back over to his friend.

“We should go back to the front desk.” Taehyung nodded as the two of them began the journey back, stepping carefully and squinting to make sure they wouldn’t run into any sculptures or walls. All the while, never once running into another person. In fact, the entire gallery was completely silent besides their footsteps.

“Where is everyone?” Taehyung asked, his eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness.

“I’m sure they’ve all gathered outside. No point in staying in a dark gallery.” The two made it to the front glass doors. “It’s… dark outside?” Taehyung looked out through the glass doors. “It was just noon?” Namjoon shook his head, pulling on the door, but the door refused to open. “It’s locked!” He grunted, yanking again, pushing and pulling on the door. Nothing. Namjoon sighed as he turned to Taehyung. “Go look around, maybe someone is still here. In the meantime, I’m going to try and get this door open.”

Taehyung nodded before he turned and walked back into the gallery. The halls still dark, every window showing nothing but a dark, deep navy outside. He walked to a window to look outside, maybe get a glimpse of what was going on. But, nothing.

He turned and walked away, but jumped when he heard someone banging on the glass of the window he had just left. Running back, he could just barely make out the imprint of a wide handprint on the outside of the glass. It made a chill run up Taehyung’s back.

For a moment, he assumed it was Namjoon who had gotten out and was getting his attention to run to the front and get out. So, he did, dashing to the entrance and when he didn’t see Namjon around any longer, he tried the door. Still locked.

He hissed as he whipped back around and went back to the window before he shook his head. As he walked around the gallery further, his eyes began adjusting to the darkness and eventually he was even able to make out some of the art pieces again.

A painting of a black cat. One of a man hanging upside down by his ankles. A basket of fruit that he swore use to have an apple included in the basket. The back of a woman dressed in nothing but red.

He felt like he was walking in circles. More than ready to head back to just sit at the front until someone came- since someone had to at some point, he heard another set of footsteps. At first he thought it may be Namjoon coming back to find him; however, the footsteps were too light to be his friends- he always was a bit of a heavy stomper. Taehyung turned and headed towards the steps as they seemed to move further from him instead of towards him.

“Hey!” He called into the echoey halls of the dark gallery. The steps halting momentarily before they started running. So, Taehyung sprinted after them. “Where are you going?!” He yelled as he ran into an open, large venue. He looked around as he ran, seeing no one around. “Where are you?!” He shouted before he stepped in a puddle. No, not a puddle. A puddle would only be an inch or two deep. It surely wouldn’t be enough to engulf him entirely.

Now, Taehyung was sinking. Drowning slowly into the Abyss of the Deep before the lights flicked back on and the murmurs of people resumed.

-x-x-x-

When Taehyung woke up, his head was throbbing, his mind was fuzzy and his conscience more than a little confused. Laying on his chest on the floor like a jersey-dressed starfish, he groaned as he pushed himself up to support his torso on his elbows. His hair was messier than before as his bangs threatened to poke his eyes. Looking back and forth, he was in a hallway. The corridor was dark, a hint of purple and indigo surrounding the entire room. Walls, carpet, ceiling everything was the same shade of purple.

Obviously, the polar opposite than the pure white of everything previously.

Rolling onto his back and pushing himself to stand, he wobbled as he held his head and tried to will away the headache that was beginning to slowly lessen.

Going backward before trying to even round the corner down the way, he found a single wooden door at the dead-end of the hall. Twisting the knob, he entered the small room. The room was square, red and on the back wall was a single large painting of a woman. Her eyes were closed and her face was blank. Her hair was somehow painted off the canvas, down past the frame and onto the wall like it was real hair falling out of the portrait.

In front of that portrait was a single small wooden table with a vase. In that vase was a single, blue rose. A rose with 10 large, vibrant petals and a vine that lacked thorns. Taehyung had never seen a blue rose before- well, not a real, authentic one anyways. Everyone’s seen the fake, painted blue, red, pink, yellow, purple and whatever other color roses in dollar stores before. Thinking it was manmade, he examined it further, putting his hands on the table to close inspect. He became far more interested in the flower the more he looked at it.

It drew him in. The color captivated him and the aura around it seemed almost important and he felt the slightest urge to pick it up. Maybe he should, maybe it would be fine. Reaching out slowly, he drew the rose from the vase and something akin to a jolt of electricity ignited his fingertips. It felt like he had somehow forged an instant connection with this flower as soon as the end of the vine left the crystal clear water of the vase.

Call him crazy, but he almost felt fearful of putting it back and leaving it behind.

The vase on the table cracked as Taehyung’s attention shifted to it from the rose. Crack after crack spread on the vase before it burst into pieces. Taehyung hunched backward to shield his face with his arms from the exploded glass. Shards of glass sat on the table and fell to the floor as the water pooled around the wooden surface and continued to spread as it began to drip off the table’s edge onto the carpet.

“I guess, I’ll take it along.” He muttered to himself as he turned his back. As he exited the room, he failed to notice the woman’s portrait shift. Her eyes opened wide- almost insane- as she smiled. PItch black paint writing appearing under her frame in smeared text.

WHEN THE ROSE WILTS, SO TOO WILL YOU WILT AWAY

Taehyung left the room and the hallway he returned to had changed from what he last remembered. There were random letters on the ceiling and floor, spelling something that Taehyung couldn’t make out in the dark hall. At his feet, he felt himself kick at something when he moved to step forward. Picking it up, he held a small blue key in his palm.

Going further down the hall, he came to a forked path. He could continue going down the hall or take the staircase he that presented itself to him. The stairs lead up higher than he could see with two paintings on either side of the entrance. Two landscapes of a mountain range; one normal and the other an identical copy, only negative scaled. Coming to a decision, he took the hall just to cover the ground floor. Coming to just another dead end, he returned and took to the stairs up.

At the top of the stairs was a door. Trying it, it was locked.

“Naturally,” he huffed. Trying the key he had kicked with his shoe and picked up not too long ago, it fit perfectly and unlocked the door as he stepped through it. The door slammed shut and locked on it’s own behind him. The key becoming useless since their was no keyhole on this side of the door. He dropped it, leaving it behind.

He was in a library now. It was a small room, maybe not even considered a library. Just a room with bookshelves and books. Like a compact study without a desk.

He didn’t recognize a lot of the books- which was surprising considering he did have a liking for reading. He stopped scanning his fingers over the spines of books when among all the thick, sophisticated books was a tiny, thin spine of a bright red children's book.

Pulling it out from it’s snug place on the shelf, he held it in his hands. It was a short, wide book with a picture colored very messily in what he could only assume was crayon on the cover of it. Sitting on the ground, his back against the bookcase, he opened it’s thick, card-stock, wobbly pages.

The book was about a painter. He had been painting his whole life, so long in fact that he started to blend his world with reality. He would give his paintings ‘life’ and he’d treat them like they were truly alive. In his mind, they were his friends.

A painting of a lion toy no bigger than the size of a book, stills of sentient objects like a fan, and even paint brushes contained souls with a conscience and mind to this painter. Even a can of pressurized air that would ‘bully’ or tease the others when they least expected it was ‘alive’, leaving the painter to rip that painting of air up for it’s rotten behavior.

It ends with the painter creating a portrait of someone, something he wasn’t familiar with painting. People weren’t his strong suit and as such, he was left in isolation for most of his life. His devotion to painting left him alone in reality because he ‘saw’ nothing else. Thus, he created his own friend in a painting of a woman that didn't exist. When she ‘came alive’ he even grew to fall in love with her. The last few pages of the story were torn out, so Taehyung would never know the ending.

“Who would fall in love with something they knew was fake? Something painted would never come alive,” he muttered. Considering the painter in the story to be an utter fool.

Taehyung suddenly jumped, children’s book sliding off his legs and snapping shut as the door to his left unlocked with a loud clack. He slowly got up, picking the book back up taking it with him as he put it back on the shelf. The door that unlocked started to whine. The handle was rusty sounding as something from the outside started turning it.

In a very logical fit of panic, Taehyung rushed and grabbed the thickest book he could find and held it at the ready. Absolutely ready to whack whatever weirdo came into this room, knock them out (with luck), restrain them and then question where the hell he was. That, or a hit and run would work too. He’d figure out which suggestion when the time came in a few moments.

The turning of the knob halted. Stopped for so long that Taehyung thought whatever it was had gone away. Lowering his book, he squinted his eyes at the door. It was quiet, all he could hear was his breathing with the occasional nervous gulp of his.

There was only but another beat of silence before chaos erupted.

The door busted open, nearly ripping off it’s handles. Taehyung, with a short, shocked scream, stumbled back as two things threw themselves into the room. One was a woman, or rather half a woman. Long brown hair cascaded down her head and her torso was decked in a red turtleneck. Her face had a twisted demeanor etched into what would probably be a beautiful face otherwise. From her waist down was nothing but a picture frame. Her lower half didn’t exist and was replaced with a black void background and frame with gold edges. It was like some horror effect that dragged around behind her everywhere she crawled.

The second was an actual woman. Legs, arms, chest and all. Dressed in ruined overalls, a long sleeved white shirt with yellow stripes up the arms. Tacky, torn brown boots on her feet as she stomped and kicked away at the woman in the frame. She was wielding... a stick? Or what looked like what may be part of what was once another picture frame. End jagged and just asking for someone to get a nasty splinter.

The woman in the frame hissed at her like a dog as her clawed hands moved to drag her across the floor towards the actual woman’s legs. The framed lady moved faster than Taehyung imagined was possible. Dragging her half body across the floor and slithering with an absurd amount of grace like a snake.

The lady in the frame latched onto the woman’s leg causing her to in turn repeatedly kick at the frame’s head with her opposite foot. The frame screamed as she was kicked against a bookshelf. Books fell, toppling onto the frame as she screeched. However, her insistent screeching silenced when the real woman took the jagged end of the broken frame she wielded and thrust it into the frames exposed and vulnerable head.

Red ‘paint’ erupted from the frame like a fountain before it became completely limp. The woman shook the frame piece around, whipping it like a sword after a battle to remove the blood of the slain. Then, the woman looked over her shoulder at Taehyung. He froze in place, his shoulders jumping at him finally being noticed.

Your eyes widened as they locked onto Taehyung’s. Shocked to see him there. Your eyes were an unusually bright colored abyss with such a dull contrasting look in them. He wasn’t sure if he could even see his reflection if he were standing right in front of you.

You gasped lightly as if being hit with some sort of realization before turning to face him fully. Even if you were a good 10 feet from him he flinched. More than a little bit intimidated with you still holding your broken frame piece and witnessing you pretty much kill what he would label a Feminine Frame Monster.

“You’re the one everyone is looking for…” You muttered to herself. There was a commotion beyond the door that was hanging pathetically onto its frame. From down the hall, scraping and screeching were heard in a humming echo. You looked over your shoulder before you moved towards Taehyung, looking at him and grabbing his bicep with little hesitation. You yanked his arm to signal that you were clearly going to be ordering him around.

Taehyung felt like a doll being pulled around by a child. You were shorter than he expected for someone who just took out a monster as he peered over your head, like a child standing as high as possible to peek out a window. Your grasp on him loosened as you moved to grab his wrist instead. You pulled him slightly again, snapping him out of whatever daze he was in as he finally looked at you again.

“We need to go. More of them are coming, and unless you want to end up painting fodder, you’ll follow me.” He looked down at you as you finally noticed the rose peeking out of his jacket pocket. You gasped, pointing at it with your other hand that whipped around the red stained frame piece. “Hide that!” You seethed as Taehyung’s hand immediately shoved itself into his pocket to cover the rose before she began to run out of the room, Taehyung in tow; against his will, might he add.

The halls he was being dragged through were inconsistent and almost gave him a headache. First running through purple halls, then red filled with empty black picture frames. Zooming through green halls that had arms shooting out of them, claws skimming over Taehyung’s jacket and reaching for his rose. He pulled it from his pocket and held it to his chest to keep it safe from anyone- thing- trying to grab it. Finally, your running came to a stop as you swung open a door before shoving him by his shoulder. You slammed the door securely shut before locked it.

When the door was shut, Taehyung took a moment or two to look around as he tried to regain his breath.

He was in a blue room now. Two bookshelves with almost nothing on them and a small table next to a violet couch. The table held a cerulean vase on it with water filled inside almost to the point it overflowed. On the back wall was only one giant frame with a pure white puzzle glued one the inside of it.

“A milk puzzle?” He questioned more to himself than anything else. You sighed when it was quiet and then collapsed onto the blue carpeted floor. Catching Taehyung’s attention, he panicked as he ran to your side, kneeling beside you and debating on whether or not he should put his hand on your shoulder. You panted and pushed your forehead against the door. Hair hiding your face as it hung, falling off your heaving shoulders. “Are you.. Alright?” Taehyung asked slowly- cautiously.

You only nodded as you finally caught your breath. Sitting up straighter, taking one last breath to even your breathing before you finally looked up at Taehyung. He knelt higher than your head level as he confirmed that he indeed couldn’t find his reflection in your eyes he stared into.

“You’re the intruder that everyone is looking for in the Gallery, aren’t you?” She questioned. He blinked in confusion.

“Intruder?”

“You don’t belong here and you need to get out of here as soon as you can. This isn’t a place for someone like you.” Taehyung wasn’t understanding anything. You held your hand out towards him, almost asking for something. “Your rose. You still have it right?” He nodded as he showed the rose he still held cradled to his chest. He was thankful the vine was thornless, or else his palm would have been riddled with small, painful punctures.

For some reason, he felt like his rose would be safe with you, so he easily handed it over. You took it and looked over it’s petals. Admiring the shade of blue, you shifted her gaze to look from beautiful azure petals and into Taehyung’s eyes. “What’s your name?” You asked.

“Taehyung,” he answered instinctively. You nodded at the sound of it, committing it to memory. “Yours?”

“I’m Y/n,” you curtly told him as you lifted the rose back into the conversation. “Do you know how important this rose is?” He shook his head. You sighed as you moved to face him fully, sat relaxed on the floor. Lifting your arm to bring you opposite hand to touch one of the petals your fingertips dusted around a single soft petal. You held it with delicacy before your grip changed and your nails gripped and plucked it off the stem.

Taehyung gasped, a pain shooting through his chest as his hand flew up to grip his shirt. His one-knee kneeling position changed as both knees hit the carpet.

It felt like his heart just skipped a beat and almost seemed to stall for a moment. Shaken up, he wasn’t sure why, but it felt almost harder to breathe? Air came more difficult to take and his energy felt zapped. The one petal you had pulled off fluttering to the ground at his knees.

You plucked another one, the second petal fluttering to the floor to join the first. More pain shot through him again as he found himself bracing himself forward, the hand that wasn’t clenching around the front of his shirt, falling in front of him to join his knees on the carpet. It felt like someone was wrapping a rope around his chest and squeezing the life out of him. Crushing his ribs and lungs suffocating him.

“What,” he gasped, “are you doing... to me?” He sputtered as he coughed. He heard you move before you were at his back, picking him up and bringing him weakly to his feet. You practically dragged him to the couch, his feet dragging on the carpet the whole way before he fell into the cushions.

As you stood over him, you pluck another two petals off and he let out small, silent coughs of protest. Whatever you were doing, he was ready for you to stop. He really thought he was dying.

“Watch,” you told him as the dark bags under his eyes materialized. You walked to the crystal water-filled vase. Taking his rose that had lost four petals already, you placed the stem over top of the vase and dropped it inside. The stem hit the water and immediately Taehyung’s eyes widened as he watched the petals regrow right before his eyes.

The rose seemed to glow with a calming, almost reassuring, blue hue for but a moment before the pain in his body stopped. The pangs of hurt disappeared from within his eyes as he let go of his chest and the pain faded. It was like the pain was just a hallucination. You slowly withdrew the rose from the vase and handed it back to him as you move to stand in front of him. He had moved from laying in pain on the couch to sitting himself up properly.

Taehyung gently took the rose from you. “When the rose wilts,” you start.

“So too will I…” Taehyung finishes, unsure on how he knew how to finish the phrase. It was like it was just engraved on his tongue as he said it. The dawning realization that this flower was tied to his life grew into his mind as he spun it between his thumb and forefinger. “But, I-I don’t understand.” He shook his head. You moved to sit beside him, ready to answer whatever questions he has. “What’s going on? Where the hell am I?”

“You’re in the gallery.”

“No,” he denied curtly, lifting his hand in denial. “I was in the gallery. Now, I’m here.”

“You were in the real gallery. Somehow, you got sucked into this one. The gallery you were in isn’t where you are now and frankly I don’t know how you got here. This is a fabricated reality created from a man’s paintbrush. A human shouldn’t be able to come here.” You got up and grabbed a small, face down picture frame from the top one of the small, dusty, bookshelves. Bringing it back with you to the couch, you handed it to him.

Taehyung recognized the man in the photo. “I know this artist. He died a long time ago.” Though his name escaped the young artist.

“Guena. That’s the pen name he used in his profession.” You looked around at the small room. “This room, and all the other rooms too. Every painting and creature here was created by him and his desire to create souls for his non-living creations,” you told him. “But, things are different now. Everything is distorted,” you scowled.

Just like the picture book he found. The creations were given life by the hands of the creator then the creator died, leaving all of his ‘lives’ behind. If that were so, then it would be no wonder why everything would begin to fall apart. It was akin to a circus without a Ring Master. Taehyung furrowed his brows before he placed the photo beside him on the cushions.

He looked up to you, into your dull eyes that somehow held the most breathtaking color.

“How long have you been here?” He asked.

“I’ve been here since the beginning and I will remain here until the end.”

“Do you have a rose, like I do?” He felt like he knew the answer, but nonetheless less you shook your head. He knew what he wanted to really ask, but he didn’t know how to ask it- what words should he use? To you, who he had just met in the most fictional turn of events that he still can’t wrap his head around. You were nothing like him and he knew that.

“I’m a painting, Taehyung.”

When you told him the truth he was already beginning to suspect, it wouldn’t be too far fetched to say he still internally panicked. Something that looks so human, yet wasn’t at all. You were nothing but brush strokes and shapes somehow given life. You probably crawled straight out of a frame too.

You saw the emotion flash through his eyes and you were almost jealous of how his eyes could change. Unlike yours that were stuck, his could tell you a whole story without the use of words. Anyone in this place could tell immediately he was human because of those eyes.

In respect to him and his unease, you made sure to keep your distance. You truly weren’t a threat. All you wanted was for him to get out, and to get out safely. You’ve been watching your world fall apart since Guena died. Every creature that was alive was losing their ‘mind’ and it was only a matter of time before it started to infect you too. It was a disease that humans didn’t need to get involved in.

“I’m going to be your escort out of here. With your lack of reaction when in the face of danger, you’d probably get yourself killed in an instant.” You moved back to the door where you sat on the floor, you're back against the wood as you looked at him across the room on the couch. “You rest for now and make sure to keep your rose safe with you. This room is safe, so you don’t need to worry about something happening.”

Then, you stopped talking. Taehyung almost felt guilty. You were a painting, and you couldn’t show all the emotions that the could. You weren’t actually real after all, so it was normal to assume you had a expressional limit. He watched as you sat against the door completely silent and still with closed eyes. He was unsure if you were really sleeping or if you even could.

He looked at the rose in his hands. This rose is so important and he didn’t know how to fathom what the hell was going on. It all happened too fast and he couldn’t begin to process it all.

He missed Namjoon as he knew that he was probably still wandering around the real gallery looking for him. He wondered if Namjoon managed to get out since he wasn’t at the front or if the lights kicked back on and he was alright. He lifted and looked at the photo of Guena beside him again.

It was odd. That was the man who somehow created this world and he was also the same painter who created Leia. The painting that gave the real gallery it’s name. Taehyung never got to see that painting in the gallery- not that he was able too see much to begin with, and he’s not so sure he wanted to at the moment.

Taehyung was a sympathetic and empathetic person- always had been and probably always will be. The line between the two blurred in his case. So, when he looked at you, he felt a sense of guilt as you kept away from him. You spoke curtly, yet kindly. You didn’t seem to have an ulterior motive and you seemed trustworthy enough; especially compared to that framed lady from before.

You brought him here after all. A secluded room and you didn’t attack him or take his rose. You plucked four petals off his rose, but then turned around and healed him. You even returned it, he knew it was all to prove the point of its importance. You weren’t going to hurt him and he believed that with his whole heavy-beating heart.

“Y/n? Are you sleeping?”

Your eyes remained closed, but you answered. “No. I can’t. I’m a painting, remember?”

“Okay. Then, I have a question,” he said as you slid your eyes open. Looking at him from your place by the door. “That thing you killed?” Did you kill it? Could paintings die? “What was it?”

“They’re called, The Ladies.”

“They? There’s more?” Taehyung’s voice slightly quivered at the idea of more hissing, hacking, floor-crawling, psycho half ladies being out there.

You nodded. “What you saw was only one of many Ladies. She was a Lady in Red. There are also Ladies in Green and Ladies in Blue. They’re more common than most. About as common as mannequins.”

“Excuse me? Mannequins?” You looked at him as a shiver ran up his body. Goosebumps littered his covered skin. “I fucking hate mannquins,” he seethed unconsciously to himself. The look he put on his face was that of disgust and pure anguish and yet somehow twisted into an almost comical look. You almost smirked at his foul language and facial cues.

Your smirk twisted and soon you burst out into laughter at his face that just seemed so comical to you. A face someone like you couldn’t pull off because you were fake. He looked at you as you laughed at him. The tension that was in the air seemed to be shattered like a nail being driven into a pane of glass. Soon, Taehyung was laughing at you laughing at him. Your fit ended as you smiled and shook your head, calming down.

Taehyung was more than happy to try and get a small nap in now that he knew that you weren’t completely devoid of emotion. Someone, fake or not, who can laugh and smile like that surely wasn’t a bad person.

-x-x-x-

Taehyung was startled from his small rest when a tremor shook the room. Panicking as he sat straight, rim-rod up, you were already on your feet and looking at the door. You half expected something to charge inside, even when this place was supposed to be somewhere to rest up and be away from any sort of harm. Taehyung flung his legs off the sofa and stood up so quickly he had a wave of dizziness hit him as he held his head and staggered. Shaking it off, he was at your side, standing just a step behind you.

“What the hell is that?” He lightly asked, like if he was too loud something would hear him. You just flexed your arm, the hand around the hardened piece of art frame you kept continuing to wield tightening. “It feels like the ground is moving,” he looked down at his feet. Like the carpet beneath him was beating in microbursts.

“It’s a distortion wave. This happens the weaker this world gets and that means it’s only going to get that much worse outside.” You looked at him. “I hope you have some strength in those arms of yours, because you might have to use it.” Taehyung hated the thought of violence, even if it was against figuratively inanimate objects that weren’t supposed to exist . They weren’t alive, but they were still able to die. His toes curled at the thought of it. You saw the unease in his eyes before looked back at the door, rotating your wrist and twisting around your weapon. “Just stick close to me and run like your life depends on it.”

The lack of an additional ‘because it will’ was an approved choice on Taehyung’s ears.

You opened the door and outside it was a madhouse. Even more paintings coming alive. Some stuck in their frames as they clawed at the air and hissed. Distorted in sharp and blurred strokes as they swiped. Ghastly hands and objects plunged from walls and hung from the ceiling. Mannequins moved far faster than previously and he could hear the hissing and scraping of frames on the floor from the Ladies as they drug themselves across the floor like lethal roaches.

You bolted out of the safe room, Taehyung hot on your heels as he stayed immediately behind you. You dashed down halls, staying in the center away from the walls and anything reaching for you. You kept Taehyung at your side, pulling him to and fro away from anything that could harm him if he got too close. You rounded corners in rushed steps or slides as Taehyung occasionally grabbed the back of your overalls to keep you from skidding into the walls from your unstoppable momentum. You swung and hacked at anything that came close and kept them at bay the best you could with your frame.

Taehyung pointed ahead of you, a set of doors ahead.

“Go into one of those!” He wasn’t sure where he got off telling you where to go. Especially since he was literally the worse qualified person to do so. You didn’t seem to argue back though, so he continued. “The, uh, the yellow one!” He yelled over the chaos. You just looked back at him slightly over your shoulder, brows creased.

“Which one is the yellow one?!” You shouted as he slightly stumbled before he grabbed your wrist and took off, running faster and ahead of you before he stopped at a door of brilliant yellow, pulled it open and pushed you inside, slamming it closed. The room was empty save for a single mirror on the back wall. Thankfully, yellow seemed to be a pretty safe choice.

Taehyung could always trust yellow.

“Y/n,” he called as he still held your wrist in his hand and you were hunched over. You weren’t alive, but you seemed unwell. “What’s wrong?” He looked at the skin under his hand that showed with the fabric of your long sleeve pushed up your wrist. He gasped silently when he saw it’s complexion shift into a distortion of ugly, muddle colors before vanishing as quickly as it came. “What was that?” He shook his head. “No, hold on. Different question. Can you not see color?”

“No, I can’t.” You stood back up, yanking your wrist out of his grip. You looked at your skin as you hissed. The distortion was starting to hit you and the stages would eventually progress into a problem- but he didn’t need to know that. “I was painted as portrait by a lonely, selfish painters. He didn’t think to give me the ability to see color so, I can’t see colors or tell them apart.” You shook your wrist out. “Is that a problem?”

Taehyung jolted. You were clearly touchy on the topic. He cleared his throat as he rubbed the back of his neck.

“Uh, well not really . I guess if you have me, I can point out colors for the both of us. Why didn’t you tell me you were colorblind though? It would’ve been pretty useful to know before we started running for our lives through some fucked-up haunted house reality check.”

“I didn’t think it was relevant.” You sighed. You had made it this far without relying on the colors you couldn’t tell apart. Why would now be any different? You couldn’t even see the color your body or clothes were- if they had color to them at all. For all you knew, you were all black and white and grey. You walked to the back wall and stood in front of the mirror there, frowning as Taehyung came up behind you. He was as black and white as you were in your eyes.

“So, you can’t see any color?” He touched his shirt, opened his jacket and pulled his headband. He pulled your hair up dramatically and motioned to yourself as a whole in the mirrors reflection. “Nothing at all?”

“Nothing at all,” you confirmed. “I can conceive the idea of colors, but I’ve never had a proper need to see or tell them apart. I know when something is a threat and I know when something is not. That’s all that really matters here.” Your indifference was something Taehyung- a painter- couldn’t comprehend. What kind of painting can’t see their own colors? Wouldn’t that be painful or frustrating at the very least?

“Your shirt is yellow and white,” Taehyung spoke. You looked at his reflection with raised brows. “Your overalls are faded and nearly ruined, but they’re dark blue and your boots are brown. Your hair is really pretty and your eyes are too.” He described your outfit to you like you were a child, but he meant well.

Just saying the color of your clothes didn’t help you grasp the concept of what it really looked like aside from the range of grey and white and black you saw through your eyes. “Maybe that doesn’t matter, but I thought you’d like to at least now,” he muttered.

“Thanks,” you told him quickly as you pulled at your sleeves, fixing and adjusting them to cover your arms properly again. So, that light shade of grey- nearly white- was yellow? “I've never actually learned what color is what to my eyes,” you told him. “It’s nice knowing at least one color,” you whispered more to yourself than anything.

So, it did bother you. Taehyung felt something swell like pride in his chest as he was acting the role of teacher.

If it were any other situation and if you were a person instead of a painting, he’d be glad to teach you all the colors he could. He felt it was his duty as an artist- freelance or not- to educate those about all the corners of art. However, you weren’t real and he wasn’t at home in his studio, but in a haunted gallery of danger.

Taehyung stepped away from you as he made his way back to the front of the room and the yellow door. He put his ear to the door, not hearing much of anything outside anymore. He hoped that you and he were able to give them the slip- as obvious as a tactic as that was. When he tried the doorknob, however, it didn not twist. Jammed or locked, he knocked his forehead against the yellow wood in frustration.

“Of course,” he groaned before he turned to see you still standing in front of the mirror in the back of the room. “Y/n, the door is locked. Unless we have another way out, we’re stuck in here.” He announced, making his way back to you as you seemed to finally break out of your own reflection and look around.

“There’s got to be something we can trigger to open the door or another way out. Just look around,” you told him. You started wandering the room, but Taehyung only stood still, crippling his chin in thought and tapping his toes. The room was completely empty, what could he possibly miss if nothing was in the room except a single, wall mounted mirror?

He thought of all the cheesy cliches like a floor tile trigger or a secret compartment in one of the four walls of ht boxed room. However, he wasn’t sure if he had the patience to test out those ideas.

Taehyung stood in front of the mirror, looking at his own reflection that scowled back towards him in thought. He scurried away from the mirror in a haste as he yelped when the glass cracked. Splitting down the center in crooked, ugly cracks and small splinters of glass falling from the mirror. Your ear picked up on the continuous cracking of the mirror’s glass, unlike Taehyung and before he knew what was happening, you were yanking on his shirt and jacket collar. He choked slightly at you pulling him away from it completely as it shattered.

Bursting from the inside out, glass shot forward before raining down to the hard tile of the room. What was left behind wasn’t the wall behind the mirror, but a matte black door with a sign hanging on the center of it.

‘PASSAGE’

“Is that our way out?” He asked skeptically as he stood back up and brushed off his clothes of any stray shards that clung to him. Looking back, the yellow door you both had rushed through had disappeared. Nothing, but this black door and the walls remained. He huffed. “Guess that answers that, huh. Wha- hey!” He called as you had already started opening the black door to enter it. “What if it’s dangerous in there?!”

“There’s no other option,” you told him, pushing the door open before stepping into the same, thick blackness the door represented. “Stay here if you’re so scared,” you sarcastically teased as you stepped inside. Unsurprisingly, the artist was hot on your tail inside.

The two of you walked through the black hall that stretched from the door you both entered, Taehyung behind you as he grew in more in nerves. There were no lights and the light front he doorway was long gone behind his back. He couldn’t see his hand in front of his face and he felt like he was losing his mind.

He could only hear your footsteps, his footsteps and the sound of your sharpened frame weapon dragging across the ground that you had taken from your belt loop as soon as the darkness became thick enough to warrant a twinge worry.

The air in the ever stretching corridor became so thick it was hard to catch his breath as he moved to grab your wrist for guidance. Then, giggling began echoing from every direction. Bouncing off what might be a nearby walls and drilling directly into his head. Giggling that mimicked creepy doll sound effects in horror movies, only so much worse. You, unsurprisingly, weren’t phased by the verbal taunts- Taehyung, however, was.

You could feel the trembles in his fingers around the wrist of yours he held so tightly. You twisted your wrist, freeing it from his grasp for a moment and you could physically feel his panic the moment his fingertips left your skin. He was quick to calm down when you shot your arm back and grabbed around his hand instead.

Taehyung only grew more and more nervous as the darkness didn’t seem to end. There was nothing in front of him or behind him to act as a beacon of any sort of hope that it would eventually come to a brightly lit finish. Not even your presence he knew was there was any comfort to him. It felt like the darkness was ebbing away at his sanity and choking him.

In the midst of his silent anxiety, he thought he felt something whisper along the back of his neck. He let out a small, strangled noise of startled protest as he unconsciously ripped his hand away and out of yours. His panic set in tenfold now that he had no idea where you were anymore.

He reached out in front of him in a frenzied panic as he waved his arms around in front of himself like a crazy person. He was sure if he was in light or if someone could see him, they’d think him completely bat-shit insane. No matter where he reached or how hard he searched, he couldn’t find you. He couldn’t even hear you anymore.

Your footsteps were gone along with the frame dragging and he couldn’t hear anything aside from his own hiccuped gasps of air. A horrible humming filled his ears and he quickly brought his palms up to the sides of his head, covering his ears to try and block out the noise. It only seemed to intensify though, as if he had cupped around the humming and shoved it directly against his eardrums.

His knees wobbled and his footing staggered before his knees finally hit the ground. The hard ground that was below his feet changed the moment his knees collided with it.

Water was running along the hard ground that now felt like tile. If he ran his fingers along the floor, he would be able to trace the groves of cement and glue holding the pieces of breakable flooring together. He wasn’t able to properly process it in the overwhelming state of mind he was currently becoming more and more trapped in.

The water that seeped into his pants drew higher and higher before engulfing his knees, thighs and eventually coming to reach his waist. His hands stayed covered over his ears as he shuttered and shook his head back and forth- trying to chalk it all up as another nightmare. He’d wake up on another couch any moment in a room that you had taken him too. This was just his mind playing trick on him- wasn’t it?

The humming grew louder and louder before it went completely silent. The shift in noise to nothing was too sudden; uncomfortably sudden. He should be relieved that the horrible, horrible sound that drilled into his head had stopped, but he was only accompanied by the newfound silence with a chill running up his spine and staying in the base of his neck .

Taehyung couldn’t move. He shook and trembled, waist deep in cold water.

Was this what insanity felt like? Was he really losing his mind?

Then he remembered. He was finally able to move again when he remembered his rose. The flower that was somehow keeping him up and kicking. He moved his hands from his ears and began to frantically pat around his body. His chest, his hips and thighs. In and out of pockets. He couldn’t find it. He thought he had already reached his maximum panic level, but he was oh so wrong.

He lost his rose and he felt like he was near his breaking point. He hated that it affected him so much in both a mental and physical sense. Taehyung had normally defined himself as a more or less tough person to break down in more cases.

He hardly had time to adjust to the life threatening new world he found himself in with art coming to life to kill him. Not to mention that his life was tied to a blue flower and he was dependent on a painting for safety.

Taehyung was literally walking through his own personal nightmare. Who wouldn’t start losing their marbles after all that?

His ducked down head shot up when he thought he heard something drop into the flooded flooring. He swore he heard the water ripple as it sounded like someone was walking, or dragging their feet through the water. The sound of moving water echoed and he couldn’t pinpoint from which direction whatever was around him was moving. Then the water pushed up his legs like something pushed the water towards him and he froze again.

He felt a breath blow against his forehead, his hair blowing in small, annoying strands that tickled his eyebrows and forehead. Whatever was wading in the water beforehand, was now right in front of him.

His mouth opened like he was going to scream, but nothing came out before the room erupted in bright lights. He flinched under the extreme difference, the humming coming back to drill into his skull as fluorescent lights lined the ceiling above him.

When he was able to pry his eyes open, they glued themselves open at the sight of the creature in front of him. It was… he couldn’t even begin to explain what it was.

It looked like it had the basic shape of a person, but the limbs were far too long and lanky and it was engulfed in a thick looking, black tar that oozed and dripped from it’s appendages. It’s head was also shaped like a humans, but turned completely sideways. The side of it’s head parallel with the floor as that same, thick blackness dripped from it’s chin that pointed directly to the left. The mouth was nothing but a white circle in the middle of its face with black dripping between it’s ‘lips’ like jail bars.

Whatever it was, it was horribly ugly and Taehyung thought his mind was distorting. The space around the creature seemed crackly- like tv static.

The artist couldn’t move, he couldn’t speak, couldn’t flee. He couldn’t even scream. But it could. It could move, it could groan and moan, it could scream. And it did.

The mouth opened further into an elongated oval and a set of eyes showed themselves in small, crescents with the ends pointing to the left towards their chin on their crooked head. The shrill shriek it let out made Taehyung’s bones rattle under his skin, like someone had just run a xylophone stick across his ribs.

It had brought it’s long, thin, dripping arms up as it seemed to ready lunge at the young, fear-stricken artist. It screeched once more before it began to lunge, but it was immediately stopped in it’s tracks before it could do any sort of physical harm.

The screech was cut short, as the head- in fact- the entire torso of the creature was pushed down by something. It fell face first into the water at Taehyung’s knees as a long, golden strip of a picture frame stuck out of the back of it’s head.

Red paint leaked out of the creatures head as it lay still and motionless in the water, dying the flooded area a shade of crystal pink. The smell wasn’t what he expected- what he expected to smell like iron, blood and death instead smelt of a flower shop, honey and lemonade. The monster with a frame in the back of it’s head smelt like summer.

Was it… dead?

Then he heard more footsteps, however with the lights on and eyes properly adjusted now, he could see exactly where they were coming from and who. It turns out that somehow he had made it into a room- a small cube area that had no windows and only one door that was now thrown open. Through that door, your body was slouched against the frame out of breath- once again ironic since you weren’t alive- and dripping blue drops of paint from your chin.

He was speechless- no longer from fear, but from shock.

You wadded through the pink water to stand in front of him. You turned to the creature you had just taken down by hurling your frame piece at it and quickly pulled the frame out. Red spurt from the wound like a pathetic, paint-filled fountain. Before long, it was simply oozing and rolling off the skull of the creature into the water before it started to completely fade away like ash.

You looked back to Taehyung who had disappeared previously from your grasp and you knelt in front of him. Waving your hand in front of his face, he didn’t respond. You looked down and around him to see his hand stuck on the inside of his jacket- like he had stopped looking for something mid-search.

“Tae-”

“Rose,” he whispered urgently, interrupting you. You gently dug into the small pouch you had on your side- where you got that, he wasn’t sure- and before a moment longer passed, blue petals were shown in his line of sight. That seemed to finally start to snap him out of it. “That’s my,” he whispered, the rest of his words dying on his tongue.

“You dropped it earlier when you let go of my hand,” you told him. You gently took his hand from the inside of his jacket and placed the flower delicately inside his palm. “You need to take better care of that if you want to get out of here.”

One, small tear fell from his eye before he was throwing his arms around your shoulders and pulling you towards him. Your face fell into his shoulder as you felt him shake around you. You raised your arms tentatively and started to pat at his back awkwardly.

“Don’t worry,” you shushed, as you stared at the back wall. You could hear the ashy pieces of the creature disengerate behind your back as his tremors quelled to shivers and soon he was still and his breath wasn’t ragged anymore. He had calmed himself down as he squeezed you against his chest.

“Thank you,” he breathed.

-x-x-x-

Once Taehyung was able to move again without shaking or fearing for his safety and he had properly calmed down, you led him out of the room he had been trapped in. Going down another long hall with nothing but lights lining the walls, he briefly stopped at a plaque on the wall next to another door. This door wasn’t colorful or odd- it looked so ordinary it stood out among the bright purple hall he stood in.

“Gallery ahead,” he muttered, reading aloud as the sighed at the plaque that had an arrow pointing ahead beyond the door.

Opening the door, there was no noise and all was quiet. Taehyung followed you as he looked around.

True to the plaque, it really was just another portion of the gallery. Proper paintings on the walls with names below it, statues sectioned off with rope and dividers, mantles with busts- it too looked like an authentic, ordinary gallery. The door you both passed through shut with a soft click as he looked behind at it still jumpy from earlier on. He was thankful it didn’t slam at least.

The floors were tile and shining like they had just been cleaned and waxed. The walls were covered in a boring, but oddly suiting wallpaper fit for an aged art gallery while chandeliers hung along the ceiling lighting the place in a soft, glowing light.

“This is a nice break from the rest of the place,” Taehyung told you, catching up to your back as you were making your way through the place. He came to walk beside you, looking at your eyes that couldn’t see any color.

“It is a section of the world that hasn’t been touched too badly by the distortion. If anything is alive here, it shouldn’t be a threat,” you assured him. The fact you had put away your makeshift weapon put him further at ease. He looked back and forth at the walls lined with art.

This was what he was hoping to experience coming into the real gallery today.

Just browsing around to try and spark something in him to create something new. To inspire him- not threatening his very life after sucking him into an actual nightmare world. He briefly jumped when a painting of a black cat blinked before it stretched and jumped right out of it’s canvas. He meowed up at him as he rubbed against his leg before scampering off somewhere else. His padding paw steps disappearing down the hall.

Taehyung almost smiled at that.

The two of you walked in silence, the only sound in the gallery was the sound of both of your footsteps and the occasional sound of harmless art brought to life. Taehyung stared at your back as you walked ahead of him and he began to wonder. He wondered about a lot.

He wondered what would happen to you when he managed to get out of this place. What would happen if he tried to maybe take you with him? Could you survive outside this place since you weren’t really born? Would this gallery even exist when he leaves it or would it cease to be?

He stopped in his tracks he he caught himself. Why was he even thinking about taking you with him?

The young artist was ripped from his thoughts when he saw your body jerk forward before you were staggering on your feet then falling to your knees on the tiled floors of the peaceful part of the gallery.

“Shit,” he cursed under his breath as he jogged up behind you. He placed his hand on the middle of your back as he knelt beside you and dipped his head down to try and catch a glimpse of your face. “Y/n, hey!” He called as your body shook and heaved like you were a living breathing person in the midst of a breathing fit. You were a painting with a soul, but not really alive so did you breathe? He found himself asking that to himself way too often.

He shook his head- that wasn’t the thought he needed to overthink right now. “What’s wrong? Talk to me,” he tried coaxing you.

You just shook your hand towards him; whether to shut him up or shoo him away he wasn’t sure, but he didn’t move from your side regardless. When your arm raised, he saw beneath your sleeve a sort of discoloration. It was just like what he saw earlier in the mirror room.

He took your wrist in his hand as he pushed your sleeve up when you suddenly fell into him. He jolted as he rolled you to lay on your side- your head lolling off in a way that looked uncomfortable with your shoulder pushing into the ground. He lifted your head, putting it on his leg to try and help you at least a bit.

You twitched as he examined your skin. It looked like your arm was covered in a horrific bruise. Ugly splotches of black, blue, purples, greens and yellows engulfed your arm like a tattoo sleeve gone horribly wrong. His brows dipped as he looked at the rest of your arm before he looked at the other. It was the same thing, but not nearly as severe in terms of color and blotches. It was like it was spreading.

“What the hell?” He murmured as you seemed to be calming down. You pushed yourself of his leg to lay on your back on the ground as your chest stopped heaving and you stopped twitching. You closed your eyes, focusing on coming back down from whatever attack had ailed you and before too much longer, you were forcing yourself to sit up again.

Taehyung sat beside you, slowly drawing his hand back and away from you as you pushed your sleeve back down to cover your ruined skin. He narrowed his eyes at you as you looked back at him. For someone who wasn’t really alive, you seemed to have bags under your eyes. Something was straining you and you weren’t telling him about it.

“So?” He asked with a sharp tone as you just returned his word with a sigh as an answer. He wanted an explanation and he wanted it sooner rather than later.

“It’s not-”

“Tell me or I’m gonna annoy you continuously until you give in. We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

You ticked your eyebrow up at him. “You’re threatening me? You realized I’m the one who’s been taking down everything that has attacked us so far, right?”

“It’s not a threat,” he promised as he crossed his arms sitting on the floor. He looked like a child. In the end you let out another defeated sigh. There would be no point in arguing with him. He’d probably run you in verbal circles until he got his way anyway.

“You know how the rest of the gallery is corrupted, you’ve seen it. Everything in this world that is art is affected.” You grabbed the sleeve of your arm as you sat more comfortably. “Just because I’m fighting against it now, doesn’t mean I’m uneffected. It’s a distortion that affects the arts- good or bad- and we can’t do anything about it. I’m just stubborn.”

Taehyung sat for a moment before opening his mouth again.

“So, you’re going to turn bad too?” He asked timidly.

“It’s unfortunate, but inevitable.”

“That’s crazy,” he whispered to the floors when his chin dipped down. He groaned as he brought his hand up to ruffle his lightly colored hair. You had been protecting him ever since you found him and now there’s a chance you could turn against him too? That was just crazy. You wouldn’t just turn on him like that, right? It’d be gradual and not just flipping a switch from sane to insane, right?

He was pulled from his thoughts again when you moved to stand and he quickly mirrored your actions to stand in front of you. His arms hovered around your waist and back in order to catch you if you happened to fall again.

“Whatever happens, we just need to get you out of here as soon as possible. If we find the exit quickly, we can get you out before I completely lose it.” You turned, ready to start walking off again to explore further when Taehyung shot his hand out and caught your arm.

“Wait!” He shouted, the echoes of his voice bouncing off the white walls adorned with art that wasn’t malicious. “Will you be okay?” He asked even though he really knew the answer. You had just told him that you were going to eventually turn from who you are now to someone else- one way or the other.

You smiled at him, trying your best to reassure him but didn’t offer him a verbal answer. You slowly pulled his hand off you before you were telling him to follow you. His arm dropped back to his side slowly as he looked at your back with sad eyes.

He didn't know what hurt worse; the fact that you basically just told him ‘no’ or the fact that you didn’t say anything for him to understand because even if your eyes are just strokes of paint, they held so much in them and it twisted his gut.

Taehyung wasn’t very fond of the idea that he had to leave the peaceful atmosphere of the white gallery and go back out into the one that actively tried to kill him. His rose was safe in the zipped pocket inside his jacket as opposed to the outside pockets at his sides. He watched before he began to follow you once again.

The drastic difference between the white, bright gallery and the dark, dim, purple backlight one just from passing through a door still through him for a loop each time he went through another passageway. He stopped trying to guess what kind of room he’d be going into, because he’d probably guess wrong every time if he did.

You stayed on guard with your picture frame piece and he stood beside you-more ready to throw down with a sculpture than before- even if he still didn’t want to. He’d tell you what colors were where and lead you in directions if you asked if a certain color was around.

He briefly wondered how you managed to get around before he got there with your inability to see color, but then he stopped thinking about it because if you just went into a room that was filled with a problem- you probably just got rid of it. You were more than capable, you’ve proved that more than enough by this point.

“Taehyung,” you called from ahead of him. He had been so lost in thought his steps had slowed down and he was further back away from you than he knew. “Don’t lag behind.”

“Oh, right,” he called before he was jogging back to your side. Following you through a doorway, he wasn’t as shocked as he should have been to see a room that was dark with only a trunk inside of it. Walking in, you stepped up to it before you tapped it with your frame piece to see if something was inside.

There was only silence before the lid of it burst open.

You jolted, stepping in front of Taehyung as he raised his hand instinctively to maybe try and throw a punch at whatever might leap out of it, but nothing came out. The lid bounced against the back of the trunks frame. The inside of it looked like a pink cloud- it wasn’t empty, just unsettlingly pink. It was like cotton candy or maybe something thicker like thread that could trap you if you touched it.

“What-,” you started before you were yelping into direct fight or flight. The still pinkness in the trunk jolted before it shot out like sentient strings and separated into long, thick arms of darkened red that wrapped around you and Taehyung’s bodies.

Your backs were forced together and to your misfortune, your frame was knocked from your hand and clattered to the ground. The thick strands of red wrapped tightly around your midsections and squeezed as it entangled around your legs and arms and even around your forehead to keep you completely still. Immobilizing the two of you, it then started to slowly reel you in.

Your feet dragged across the ground and your toes lifted up and off the ground at some point as Taehyung was left to keep fumbling over his own feet. He wouldn’t fall no matter how tangled his feet got since he was bound and tied so tightly.

The pair of you were stopped in front of the trunk that seemed to bulge in size- like it was taking into account the size of two people before you were swallowed into the cloud of pink turned red. The sound of the trunks lid slammed above you both boomed like thunder before you were falling.

It felt weightless, but you could feel the wind rushing past you as you were sure you were coming closer to hitting the ground.

It was pitch black all around, but you felt Taehyung reach for you- now freed from the strands of red thread that had encased you both. You felt him wrap his arms around your shoulders from in front of you. His chest pushed against yours before his weight overcame your own and he was falling first in front of you.

The fall wasn’t long and it didn’t feel like enough to particularly kill a person, but when the two of you hit the ground with Taehyung bracing the fall you were quick to shoot up from his chest as he groaned laying on his back.

“Are you stupid?!” You scolded as he winced both from your shrieks and the pain of the fall. He sat up, rubbing his back as he just weakly laughed.

“Yeah, so?” Your eye twitched at his lame excuse for a joke at a time like this. As he recovered from his fall and came back to his senses that weren’t cloaked in sensitive fall-stricken shock, you looked around to where exactly you two fell.

It looked like you were pulled into a child’s coloring book. Scratchy, uneven lines of what looked to be crayon or oil chalks were used to make up houses, roads and not too far from you both was a mass of uneven, patchy blue chalk that you assumed was a lake of sorts from its size. It was dark, but it was lit with small patchy lights lining walls or suspending overhead like floating light bulbs.

You made it to your feet after you helped Taehyung, grabbing his hand and offering your shoulder for him to lean on. He graciously took it and you were quick to ask if his rose was alright. He dug it out of the inside pocket of his jacket and showed it to you. A petal or two were missing, but you assumed it was caused from the fall.

No wonder he hurt so much, you mentally noted with an eye roll; his rose was damaged.

You looked around and peered over the chalked created houses. Maybe if you investigated inside one of them, you’d find a vase for him to use to restore his rose petals. You hiked his arm over your shoulder for a more firm grasp on his body's weight on you.

“Alright, first things first,” you started as you got his attention. “We need to find a vase with water to get your rose to grow. That should take the pain away.” He muttered in agreement before both of you walked- ambled- off.

Walking with a body hanging off you was a lot harder than you initially though it would be. He would walk the best he could, but the injury and loss of his petals were obviously affecting him more than he was willing to let on.

The first house you both entered was a small one outlined in pink chalk and inside was just one big open room with a drawn, blue couch, a table and a coat rack. On the table was a vase, but it was empty. If it wasn’t all black and white to you, maybe you would have found the place almost charming in it’s own way- but it was just dull.

You quickly moved Taehyung to the couch and told him to stay put. Taking the vase you left the house and quickly moved down the chalked, dirt road down the lake you saw. Maybe you could put some of the fake water into the vase and just somehow make it work, who knows.

Making it to the lake, you knelt and dipped the vase into the mass of blue as it filled the vase. Your arm twitched before it was jerked and convulsed with it’s own corruption again and the vase slipped from your fingers for just a moment- but that moment was enough to lose it in the chalky blue mass of scribbles.

Without much thought, you dove into the water, quickly snatched it back and as fast as possible swam and pulled yourself out of the mass before anything that could possibly be in the lake even thought about grabbing you.

You huffed in annoyance as your clothes were dusted with chalk and even though it wasn’t real water- you felt damp. You shook out your sleeves before you got to your feet and went back to Taehyung who was waiting in the house you left him laying on the couch with heavy breaths.

When he saw you, his eyebrow quirked.

“What’re you covered in? Dust?” He asked as you just shook your head, kneeling at the couch side and replacing the vase filled with vibrant blue on the table again.

“Forget about it. Give me your rose, please.” your hand was outstretched and waiting as he quickly pulled it out and handed it to you. You hesitantly placed the stem into the water and let it sink as the blooms of the petals rested against the rim of the vase. You heard Taehyung sigh as if his pain was floating away and to your relief, two petals grew once again. “Thank goodness that actually worked,” you sighed.

Taehyung chuckled beside you. “Yeah, no kidding. That was all assumption- if that had taken more petals off, I think I would’ve passed out or something.”

“You mangled to take four petals of damager before,” you told him. “Besides, you weren’t that injured,” you told him as you took the rose back out of the vase and handed it to him to replace in his jacket. “You just don’t know how to take a fall.”

“Excuse me,” he scoffed in disbelief. “Who was the one who took the brunt of that fall, huh?” He sat up and crossed his arms like a child pouting. “A thank you would be nice to hear, you know.”

Your lips tilted in a smile as you moved to stand up and stretched your arms across your chest. You felt helpless without your frame piece that you had lost before you wound up here with the young, human artist. Looking at him like this, you wouldn’t think he’d be in as much danger as he is. He was in a whole different dimension with enemies at his back almost constantly, but here he was pouting for a ‘thank you’. You chuckled.

“Thank you, Taehyung,” you told him. You weren’t sure if it was the dim lights or maybe your vision going because of your own distorting body, but you thought you saw the blank shade of his skin to your eyes darken. Like color had possibly bloomed over his cheeks.

He cleared his throat before you could ask and he was getting up off the couch, walking to the door of the house. He was ready to leave, but stopped short. You came up behind him and opened your mouth to ask him what the problem was when he spun around and shushed you. He pushed you back and led you behind the couch, crouching down and covering you with himself as you both hid.

You had no idea what he thought he heard, but you kept quiet before you heard the door of the house you both were in squeak open. You looked at Taehyung as he looked up, focusing on listening for any indication of someone coming closer to your hiding place.

You racked your brain trying to think of what or who could be following you both. Had someone been inside the trunk before you and had seen you at the lake? You weren’t sure. You heard them pad into the house before they stopped and then a crash sounded through the walls of the room. The footsteps then walked back out of the room and the door slammed shut.

Taehyung and you stared at each other, still remaining silent for a few more moments before determining you were safe. He let out a breath as he peeked over the couch first and scanned the room. There was no one.

“It’s clear,” he whispered as he stood up and moved away from you as you stood up next to him. Your brows dipped as you saw the vase you had just used to heal Taehyung’s rose shattered into pieces with splashes of blue- grey to your eyes- dusted around the table top and blew onto the floor.

You looked at the door with a narrowed gaze. Just what was that? Could something you didn’t know about be wandering around? Then again, even you didn’t know everything there is to know about this gallery.

“I think we need to hurry,” you muttered, Taehyung quickly agreed as you both scurried out of the house. The two of you walked along the dusty, chalk paths before you were stepping up a set of stairs back into a proper gallery. It led to a section that you recognized. You started walking with ease, knowing what was where in this section and Taehyung took notice of that.

“Do you know where we are? I mean, you’ve known a good part of where we’ve been, but I mean-”

“This is my section of the gallery. My frame is hanging around here, so yes I know it.” You told him, interrupting his rambling for an answer to his question.

“Your frame?”

“Yes. You know I’m just a painting. The frame I was placed in and the frame I came out of is around here.”

“Can I see it?” He asked without much thinking before you stopped and turned to him. He almost slapped a hand over his mouth to keep himself from saying anything else without a filter before you turned on your heel and started off around a corner. “Y/n! Wait!”

“You wanted to see my frame, didn’t you?” You popped your head back around the corner to motion him to follow after you and he did so. He trailed you- just as he had been- and eventually you took him to a deadend hall. At the end of it, on the wall facing the rest of the narrow corridor, was an empty frame. “This is it,” you told him, motioning to it with as little care as you would as if you were showing off a bag of dog food.

The frame was silver and engraved with all sorts of weaves across it. It was sturdy and not undamaged. The glass of the frame was broken; however it must’ve been broken from the inside if the evidence of the glass at his feet was anything to go by. You must have burst from the inside out and created the glass mess in front of it. The plaque under the frame read ‘Leia’ as the young artist looked back to you with wide eyes.

“You’re Leia?” He asked. At the discovery he had a pang of small guilt in his stomach from thinking earlier on that he didn’t even want to see the painting since the rest of the gallery was out for his blood. You blinked at him as you nodded simply.

“That was my title when I was created, but I was given a new name because I was granted a soul and free will within this dimension.” You crossed your arms. “Why does it matter what my art piece name is?”

“It's just that the gallery I came from was named after you,” he told you. “I guess I just never expected you to be the last piece of art from someone- not that it’s a bad thing!” He defended at the unimpressed look in your painted eyes. “It was the discovery of that painting that gave my gallery the name it has. You’re like the main centerpiece of everything.”

You looked blankly at your empty frame.

“I doubt that the ‘Leia’ in the real gallery is like me. I may be ‘Leia’, but I’m more Y/n. It sounds ridiculous, but that painting isn’t me.” You softly traced the silver frame with your fingers before you were turning around again. “Come on, we’ve wasted enough time. No more detours.”

Taehyung was quick to chase after you but he couldn’t think of a thing to say to you. He wanted to talk to fill the silence that gaped between the two of you. Taehyung kept telling himself that he had no reason to try and figure you out, you were a painting for God’s sake. What could he possibly want to know?

Other than everything.

He wondered about a great many things and couldn’t help but overthink what you may or may not have been through. How did you feel about this world? Did you consider it home or maybe a sort of prison you were unfortunately born into. How did this world look to your colorless eyes? Just how did it feel being a painting exactly?

When you were ‘born’ and thrust into a world that was already starting to collapse, how did you survive? Did you fight from the beginning, or not? He wanted to ask all these questions, but he knew that he wouldn’t. It wasn’t his place to ask anyway- this world isn’t his and you weren’t even human.

Taehyung followed behind you as a feeling in his gut started to bloom. He raised his hand to his stomach and palmed it through his shirt as his steps slowed and he watched you ever so slowly get further ahead of him. He felt like he couldn’t do this without answers. So, he acted idiotically and moronically and selfishly.

Without you realizing, you got separated from Taehyung once again- only this time on purpose. The next time you turned around to check on why he was so silent, you stopped in your tracks not seeing him around you.

“Dammit,” you seethed.

-x-x-x-

Taehyung had back tracked all the way to your empty portrait frame. He stood in front of it once more as his fingers traced the letters of your plaque. The letters spelling out ‘Leia’ in fine script before he was tracing the frame itself.

He felt selfish for wanting to know about you- a painting- and keeping himself here in a world that actively tried to kill him longer than he needed to be. He scoffed at himself, his mind remembering how he had judged the artist in the book he had read before and how the artist got attached to something like a painting.

“Talk about the pot calling the kettle black,” he chided to himself.

He needed to go home and although he understood that, he wanted to know more about the living painting that had been protecting him up until this point. The same painting who was slowly getting infected with some weird, paint disease that could turn you against him at the drop of a pen.

He knew he was pressed for time. Time was precious, but he couldn’t help but feel like you were too.

Taehyung inspected the black emptiness of the frame that you had come from and reached his hand out. His hand jerked back when the pads of his fingers weren’t met with the sturdy wall that the frame hung on. Instead, the blackness encased by the silver frame rippled like murky water. It was like a pool of ink as he reached out to it again and started to sink his hand into it further.

He wondered how deep that ink went, how far could he reach inside before it stopped him. Could he be able to submerge himself fully into it, or maybe crawl into the frame like a painting himself.

“But then, what would that accomplish?” He questioned himself with a half-sarcastic attitude. However, even if he knew it was more than likely fruitless, he started to climb inside anyways. The frame was big, so he had no problem with grabbing the edges of the frame, lifting his leg over the bottom ledge of it and heaving himself inside the blackness.

He braced himself, feeling like it would feel like that monster from before that encased him in terror as it threatened his very life. However, this blackness wasn’t like before. It was dark and felt endless, but it lacked the deep pit of dread that the monster had. It felt like something- but he couldn’t place exactly what.

Loneliness maybe? Or perhaps a bittersweet sort of feeling; like being free, yet not being as free as a true human being. He walked around aimlessly in the blackness, feeling less and less like he was walking on the floor. He started feeling weightless, like he was walking on air.

There was clearly no end where he was, and he wasn’t so sure if he really wanted there to be. A light at the end of the tunnel? That wouldn’t apply in this situation and he knew that perfectly well. Or, he thought that would be the case. From behind him, he started to feel something close by, like the feeling of someone standing directly behind your back.

Whirling around, he saw nothing, felt no one and squinted his eyes as his ears started to pick up on some noise around. It sounded like it was echoing around from every direction, but he was still able to follow it- maybe it was because wherever he was in your frame was a directionless void.

It was nowhere and everywhere all at once.

As he walked, the blackness started to slowly light up from a greyscale and before long he was standing in a room. Like, a real room, but in this room he couldn’t touch anything. He was in a studio- covered in easels, paints, canvases, stains and tarps and cloth and everything in between.

However, if he even tried to touch something, his hand would just phase right through the object he wanted to grasp. He walked around the studio before the door to the room opened and hobbled in was an older man whose face he couldn’t see. His face wasn’t even that, it was just black scribbles where the features should have been. Static echoed around the room as he assumed that the old man was trying to speak, but the words didn’t reach Taehyung’s ears.

He walked to an easel that was covered with a white cloth before he set up his area and sat on a stool. He cleaned up some brushes, cleaned his palette and rearranged his paints to suit his needs and wants.

Taehyung watched in silence as the old man began to paint and even though there was clearly a passing of some sort of warped time, in the moment it all felt timeless. The end result was none other than your own portrait. He shouldn’t have been shocked to see your spitting image in your portrait, but he couldn’t help it.

Then the old man just turned his back, his fake face seemingly looking right at the young artist before he pointed at you. More specifically, he pointed to the white space of your canvas and Taehyung could have sworn he saw it ripple like water.

The setting of the studio began to suddenly fade out as he started hearing murmuring in the distance echoing around him. It sounded unbearably loud as he covered his ears and the studio brushed away in flakes like eraser debris.

“-yung! -hyung!” He felt like his head was about to burst as he felt something grab the back of his jacket and yank him backward. He was then tumbling out of your frame, out of the void and onto the floor of the demented gallery. “Taehyung!” Someone shouted his name above him as his eyes were blurry and he rubbed at them to try and get them to regain their focus. He blinked as his brows shot up when his eyes shot open wide.

“Namjoon?” There, above him, hovered his best friend. Taehyung quickly whipped around to his stomach before pushing off the ground and looking up to the blog journalist. “What? What are you doing here?”

“I should be asking you that.”

Taehyung was sure he was the only one who happened to fall into this sketched out dangerous gallery. Namjoon wasn’t even where he was left when Taehyung looked for him. He looked his friend over.

“How have you made it this far?” Taehyung was impressed. Aside from the disheveled state of his clothes with wrinkles and small beads of sweat on his brow and temple, he seemed fine.

“It wasn’t easy, I’ll tell you that.” Namjoon groaned as he pulled the artist off the floor and straightened out his jacket, brushing him off. “I’ve been running around like crazy for hours looking for you.”

Taehyung was shocked and honestly glad to see a familiar face. Then you came to mind. He wondered if you were looking for him after he just decided to pull that disappearing act on you. He felt guilty about it now that his actions settled in. For all he knew, you thought he got himself caught in another dangerous situation when he was really as safe as he could be in the moment.

“Did you happen to pass by a girl? Like, our age but wearing outdated clothing.”

“Someone else? No, I didn’t. Is someone else here?”

Taehyung shook his head. “No, she’s not a person, she’s a painting and- argh forget it! It’s a long story and from the look you’re giving me, you don’t believe me in the first place.”

“How hard did you hit your head when I pulled you out of that thing?” Namjoon asked as he used his thumb to lazily point to your empty frame. Taehyung squeezed his eyes shut as he rubbed at his temples. He remembered the way his head spun when Namjoon started calling him before he was dragged out by the man. His head had pounded just like how it did when he was in the room with the tar monster from earlier.

He tried thinking back to the man in the studio he witness and tried putting together anything that could be used as a clue on how to get home. He seemed to obviously be pointing to something, something Taehyung couldn’t help but feel was important. “Whatever you saw,” Namjoon called his attention, “forget it. It’s probably a trap or something. You can’t trust the things here.”

“Not everything is dangerous,” Taehyung countered with you in mind. “Y/n isn’t.”

Namjoon sighed annoyed. “You don’t know that. You said ‘she’ was a painting, right? You can’t trust something like that thing.”

“Don’t call her a thing,” Taehyung growled. “She’s kept me safe up until this point. Like it or not, I trust her. We need to find her before we get attacked by something.”

“Taehyung-”

“I’m not arguing about this. Finding Y/n takes first priority.” Normally, Taehyung was more than obedient when it came to Namjoon. Not only was he older, but the sense of leadership the older held made it easy to listen. However, Taehyung didn’t feel that air of ‘need to follow’ right now around him.

“What about leaving? What about that priority?”

“She can help us. Y/n comes first,” he finalized before he was turning on his heel and going off into the direction he had fled from your side. Namjoon clicked his tongue as he reluctantly followed behind.

Logically, even Taehyung knew that you’d probably be agitated for prioritizing your location over his freedom and escape out of this place. But, the nagging in his head didn’t let him argue the topic, even with himself. He wasn’t going to just find a way to escape and not tell you goodbye at the very least.

You had done nothing but help and protect him, the least he could do was tell you thank you properly before he left. It was the right thing to do, even if a little bit foolish. He knew that.

To his luck, it didn’t take nearly all that long for him to catch a glimpse of you rushing around a corner. You were jogging around, looking to and fro for something- he knew it was him- and he was quick to start shouting at you with his arm raised in the dark halls. Namjoon stood behind his shoulder, still unhappy.

“Y/n!” He watched your head whip around as you started running towards him. As you didn’t slow down in your approach, the closer you got the more nervous he became before you skit to an abrupt halt at his toes and got up into his face, grabbing his jacket collar.

“Stop going off on your own! Are you stupid or do you want to get attacked again that badly, huh?!” You shouted in rightful anger as he felt sweat gather on his neck. He raised his hands in defense as he slightly pushed your shoulders down to gain some distance away from your rage.

“I know, I shouldn’t have run off.” You slowly released his jacket. “That was my bad and I apologize, but,” he stepped away from you and twisted to show Namjoon. “I managed to find my friend. He was in the gallery with me before I got here. This is Namjoon.”

Taehyung introduced the two of you as you just stared at the man and he stared back in a silent competition that Taehyung definitely picked up on. Clearly, there wasn’t much hope of friendship on the horizon- but he figured you’d cooperate with him so that they could get out safely. You were that kind of person- cooperative if not a bit on the stubborn side.

“You found him, huh? Where?”

“Oh, I went back to your frame and he was there.” Taehyung easily answered, deciding to keep the fact that he crawled into the frame and saw what looked like memories to himself. What if it stirred something up with you? Your mood was already foul enough, he didn’t want to risk it.

He wasn’t one to stir the pot, so to speak.

Your brow twitched at his seemingly carefree manner at his ditching stunt. You groaned as you whacked him on the arm before pointing your finger at his face in a warning manner, making him go cross eyed momentarily.

“You run off like that again, and I’ll tie your wrist to mine. Got it?”

“Promise?” He teased as you just threw your hands in the air in defeat and started walking off. He wasn’t planning on running when your back was turned again. Just that one time was enough. Now that he was with Namjoon too, he couldn’t risk being as careless. “We’re going. Come on.”

“At your beck and call, Leader,” Taehyung chided, still trying to get your spirits higher from the mood he put you in. Namjoon followed behind silently with skeptical eyes as Taehyung chatted with you like he’d known you all his life.

-x-x-x-

Taehyung had since stopped his yammering as you lead the charge of three through halls and told them when to be silent and when to be cautious. You kept a close eye on Namjoon, something about the friend of Taehyung’s rubbing you the wrong way. You couldn’t say whether or not you were a good judge of character since Taehyung was the first human you ever met, but you still felt something off. His cold glare made your artificial skin crawl.

You had just walked through an archway before Taehyung made a noise of recognition as you turned to him. He looked around with wide eyes.

“What is it?”

“I feel like I’ve been in this area before.”

“Really?” You questioned. You’d never really gone into this portion of the gallery. It was always too dark to see and you were always put off by how quiet it was. It was like there was something on the other side of the walls that irked you. “Maybe you passed by here before I found you. I’ve never been in this part before.”

“You haven’t been here? I thought you had been everywhere.” Taehyung wasn’t accusing you, he was just curious. He wanted to know why you hadn’t been here.

“I had no reason to be,” you told him. “Besides, I don’t think a creature like me who’s slowly corrupting belongs in a tranquil part of this place.”

“So,” Namjoon finally intervened from behind the two of you. You both turned to look at his cross-armed figure, still glaring and fuming with some odd sense of presence you hated. “You admit you’re dangerous?”

Your brows furrowed. “Excuse me?”

“You said you’re corrupting. So? That sounds like a red-flag if I’ve ever heard one.”

“I’m sorry,” you scoff in disbelief, “has it been you getting Taehyung through this place in one piece? Or maybe it was you who has been taking down threats left and right and going on wild goose chases when things go south. No?”

“Guys-” Taehyung tried dispersing the stifling air, but Namjoon’s ire interrupted him. You both went back and forth and before long you were at Namjoon’s toes, arguing with him face to face- quite literally. Taehyung watched as he tried to think of a way to calm you both down. The last thing he wanted was to both waste time and have the two sides of his trust arguing against each other.

Taehyung was going to open his mouth and shout or something, just to break the string of tension, but his jaw had just dropped when you had stopped mid-sentence. Your hand was raised, an accusatory finger pointed at his best friend’s chin when it started to drop just a fraction to his chest.

“Y/n?” Taehyung called. He shrieked when your hand came to grip his chin, squeezing his jaw as you yanked Namjoon’s face down to look into his eyes. “Woah! Y/n, c-calm down!” You narrowed your eyes before you shoved him away, making his feet stumble back a handful of steps to keep himself upright. Taehyung came to your side as you shook your hand as if it was contaminated. He looked you over and noticed the uneasy look on your face. “What��s-”

“Why are you sticking to that painting like glue?” Namjoon called to Taehyung as he rubbed his jaw. “I’m your friend here, not that.” Taehyung looked up and towards the journalist with confliction.

“T-that’s true, but-”

“But nothing. That thing just grabbed and shoved me, but you’re at it’s side like I did something wrong. You should be checking on me, not fawning over that.” He pointed at you, his eyes grew small in anger as you just shot back at him a silent glare.

Taehyung was less than pleased to keep hearing Namjoon refer to you as ‘it’ or a ‘thing’. Painting or not, you were still alive and, dammit, Namjoon needed to accept that already. He was ready to tell him off, defend you when you spoke first in a low tone.

“Do you trust me?” You asked. You were looking dead at Namjoon, but the artist knew you were addressing him. You repeat the question when you’re met with only silence. Taehyung immedately nodded when the question was repeated.

“Yeah, of course I do.”

“WHY?!” He jumped from Namjoon’s shriek across from the two of you. Your shoulders squared and the action didn’t go unnoticed. “Why trust something you just met?! Who is admitting to killing things and slowing losing its mind?!” His brought his hands to his chest, gesturing to himself. “You should be trusting me!”

“What is wrong with you,” Taehyung whispered in concern, wondering what happened to his best friend. He was normally the type to roll with anything, even in stressful situations he always tried to take it with a grain of salt. He was an optimist, or at least he always tried to be. No matter the dark tunnel, there’s always a light; it was basically Namjoon’s life motto. “Did something happen? Stop accusing Y/n and just talk to-” he gasped when he felt your hand grasp his. Your face was downcast as you squeezed his palm. “Y/n?”

You whipped your head up and looked at him dead in the eyes. “We have to run.” Taehyung jolted back. Run? From what? You looked back at Namjoon, your colorblind eyes slowly unveiling just who and what that best friend of Taehyung’s was. “We need to get away from him as soon as possible. He’s dangerous.”

“What?” Taehyung was in instant denial. Namjoon? Dangerous? The same Namjoon who would cry if one of his plants died or would lay on the floor, staring at the ceiling if someone asked him what his favorite brand of pen is for the hundredth time? “That’s not true, he’s-” Taehyung looked at his best friend to defend him, but stopped short.

Something about him was off. Taehyung had noticed it since the beginning, but dismissed it all. Now, it looked like some veil of black was hovering around his friend’s body as he glared at you. Namjoon didn’t look like himself. He looked fake and at that, Taehyung’s eyes widened.

He looked artificial- just like how you did to his human eyes.

You must have seen it in his eyes, that’s why you grabbed his chin to inspect him further. That’s why you shoved him away and that’s why you wanted Taehyung to flee.

Your hand dropped his as you caught sight of the thing disguised as Taehyung’s friend moving just slightly. You stepped in front of the artist before you took off before ‘it’ could. It lunged and you were quick to react. You lifted your foot and slammed it into it’s stomach as it leaned forward- not at the lack of air, but the force you put into your stomping. You locked your arm around the back of its neck as you tucked it’s head under your arm and held it in place in a lock.

You groaned as you felt your arms burn with contamination again and your grip almost loosened at the paintings thrashing because of it. You planted your feet as firmly as you could, even if the thrashing made you teeterd from your heels to your toes and skid an inch back or forward here and there.

You weren’t sure how long you’d be able to keep the thing under your arm contained and although you had just told Taehyung not to leave your side again, you were ready to tell him to run off and hide somewhere until you could find him.

The moment you turned your head on your shoulders to shout for him to do so, you halted to see him literally at your back already. His large hands had planted themselves one on your back to steady you and the only ensnared in the fake Namjoon’s clothed back, gripping it’s clothes firmly. Even the fabric felt like paint under his nails as he started to rip the thing away from you.

Taehyung caught sight of the fake’s face and what used to be identical to Namjoon had muddled away to show a white tar surface with no sense of expression. He sneered as he took your place of taking it on before he was shoving it backward.

Although he wasn’t a fighter, Taehyung was no push over. He could hold his own if he really ended up needing to and at the moment, he did. He pushed the fake as it stumbled on it’s own clumsy feet before it started to go after him again. Taehyung swung his elbow out, cathing the fake in the whiteness of it’s face before it hit the ground.

He backed up away from the thing he just put on the ground, turning to you and snatching your hand in his again.

Taehyung’s hand squeezed yours and when he did, you spun on your heels and took off, fleeing with the young artist beside you. You both heard ‘Namjoon’ scream behind your backs as Taehyung looked back to see it still laying on the floor, skriming.

Taehyung was terrified, more terrified than he was before. He was terrified on how it gained his trust so easily- a thought that almost made him angry. He felt stupid as he held onto your hand like a linelife as you weaved through the halls and soon came to a staircase.

You stopped as you looked over your shoulder as Taehyung buckled to his knees and heaved after sprinting for so long. He used the wall to support himself as you looked at him trying to gather his breath.

You looked at your hand in his and attempted to pull it away from him, but he just squeezed tighter onto you and tugged it back.

“A little longer,” he whispered. After a few minutes of him gathering himself and you making sure you both weren't followed, he stood back to his height and continued to hold you hand. “Hey,” he called with a tight throat. “If we run into anyone else, if you don’t trust them, tell me and I won’t either.” You didn’t say a word to try and deter him from using your judgement as his own, you simply nodded in agreement.

If all worked out, he wouldn’t need to use your opinions for much longer. You were going to get him out.

The two of you ascended the staircase before you and when you reached the top, Taehyung looked around to see the spitting image of the original gallery.

The white walls and matching floors and ceilings. The chandeliers that weren’t on with the power out and the windows all greyed out as if they were blocked by cement. The front doors were locked as if there was no escape. Trying a switch, he wasn’t shocked to see the lights not working.

“Can you lead from here,” you asked him, just trying to get him to talk again. “I don’t know my way around.” He only nodded before he was walking off, tugging you in tow as you thought of ways to make his voice come out again. You felt oddly uneasy when he was silent. The previous incident with the fake friend of his obviously taking a mental toll on him. It was to be expected, but it still hurt your chest.

If you had a beating heart, you’d call this feeling heartache.

It was when you passed by a rather mundane looking couch that was suclupted in a strange, wavey shape when you figured out a way to get him to talk. You stopped and your hand in his anchored him when he looked over his shoulder. When he looked at you, you pointed to the sofa surrounded in rope dividers.

“What colors is that?” You asked when you looked back at him. Your actions and unspoken desire to get his voice to come out didn’t go unnoticed-

He smiled. “It’s red,” he told you.

-Nor did it go unappreciated.

From that, he would tell you the colors of whatever you pointed at that you passed and before he knew it he had come to a deadend with only one, giant painting on the wall- taking up the entire space of it. His mouth opened as his hand dropped from yours as he looked at it.

“That’s,” he looked at it as his eyes ran over every edge. “That looks like the gallery. The real one,” he smiled as he gazed at it. This was it, his way out. He felt in his bones that this was his exit. His hand reached to touch the canvas, but gasped when his hand just phased right through. It was just like how your frame was. He could climb into this and be somewhere else.

Then he felt a chill run down his spine and a heavy feeling fall in his gut. He pulled his hand back as he turned around and looked at you. You were well behind him against the back wall, your hands behind your back as you watched him.

“What?” You asked. This was his way out and you both knew it. You expected him to jump on through and finally be free of this hellscape, but instead he made his way back to you and away from his exit door disguised as a painting. He stood in front of you, toe to toe as he looked at you.

Taehyung gazed at you, his eyes began to sting as they felt misty. This was ridiculous, he felt ridiculous. How could he cry about leaving you behind when he just met you? You didn’t belong in his world and he knew that just as much as you. Yet, the feeling of parting ways with you made his throat tight.

“I’m leaving,” he told you. “And I won’t ever see you again,” he choked. You were shocked to see the first tear run down his face. You wondered if tears were blue. You brushed it away with the back of your hand as more just kept coming. He could see the distortion on your skin under your sleeve from the angle of you wiping his tears and he just wanted to cry more.

His mind started becoming delusional.

If he chose not to leave and stayed put with you, would you hurt him? Would you hunt him down in time and kill him like the others had before? Would he lose his humanity even? Turn into a painting and spend the rest of his time with you. You wouldn’t be alone if he did. What if he tried to take you back with him? Would you just disintegrate into paint splotches because you had no physical body to speak of?

So many hypotheticals and you wouldn’t allow any of them to come to fruition.

“Go home, Taehyung,” you told him softly with a smile, the hand you placed on his cheek rubbed his skin before letting it softly fall. You urged him, not commanded him and he knew he had to go. He sniffled as he grabbed your hands and held them again. “What, you want a hug goodbye or something?” You teased but when he didn’t reply, you rolled your eyes. “You do, don't you?”

“And? What about it,” he sniffed as he pouted. You pulled your hands away from his, even if he chased after them when you did. You swatted at his hands that tried grabbing yours once more.

“Do you want me to hug you or not?” You asked in impatience while he nodded like a child. “Then let my hands go.” He immediately abandoned your hands and wrapped his arms under your own and pulled you to your toes against his chest. You felt your chest hit his with a dull thud as he held you like you were dying.

Well, you sort of were, but he didn’t need the finer details repeated on your unavoidable fate.

He started swaying you on your toes as he found a home on your shoulder. One of your hands was on his head, shushing him and the other pat his back between his shoulders. He really was like a giant child. Was this what a goodbye hug felt like? It felt nothing like the hug he gave you when he was attacked previously and reunited with him. This one felt much more sad- desperate even.

“Teahyung,” you whispered as you felt him hum against your shoulder. “You need to go.”

“I know,” he admitted before he started to pull away from you when your hands moved to land on his shoulders to push him softly. His eyes looked swollen and wondered what color the skin around his eyes were. It looked darker to your black and white vision. “I think- I think I’m going to miss you. A lot.”

You brought a hand to his cheek again, stroking it as you smiled at him.

“You’ll forget a painting like me in no time,” you eased. He frowned at that, wanting to hug you again, but you just pushed him away. Turning him by his shoulders, you started to push him from behind to the frame before you came to his side. You gestured towards it. “Home is waiting for you.”

He swallowed another large lump in his throat. He curled his lips over his teeth to keep from crying anymore. He was so overly emotional and he was annoying himself because of it. He could only imagine how you felt watching his waterworks.

“What’s going to happen to you?”

“I’m going back to my frame,” you told him. “I’ll go back to my home too,” you smiled. He felt a small sliver of relief at your answer. “We’ll both go back to where we belong, just as he should. It’ll be okay.” You pat his back. “I promise.” You felt bad, lying straight to his face like that.

He nodded before he grabbed the inside of the frame, and began to hull himself over. He had one knee resting on the frame edge and the other still hanging out when he turned and looked down at you hovering above you on the wall. He reached in his jacket and pulled out his rose before he handed it to you. It was a silent agreement as he passed it onto you- he knew he wouldn’t need it anymore. You’d keep it safe even if he wasn’t there anymore and he knew you would.

He put on his brightest smile, “see you around, Y/n,” before he jumped completely through.

As his body faded into the stretched, painted fabric of the canvas and the frame seemed to close like a locked portal that you couldn’t ever even think about passing through, you fell to the ground, screaming as your body felt like it was on fire.

You laughed bitterly as you were just relieved that the one precious person you managed to meet in your miserable existence as a painting without a future was someone as kind and warm as Taehyung.

-x-x-x-

Taehyung felt dazed.

He was staring at a plaque as his eyes were bleary like he had just woken up from a long nap. He felt like yawning before he felt a shake on his shoulder. He lifted his head, rubbing his eyes.

“Hey,” Namjoon called with concern written on his face, “what’s with you? You zoned out for like two minutes.”

“I dunno,” he replied. He moved to look at the giant painting of a black location with messy brushes of what looked like some haunted locations. “I feel like I just woke up from a really nap.” He yawned as he read the name of the painting loud to himself. “Parallel Reality,” the words read and they sounded familiar to him. “I feel like I'm forgetting something,” he frowned. “Didn’t the lights go out a little while ago or something?”

“Dude,” Namjoon’s hand fell from his friend’s shoulder. “You really need to get some proper sleep if you’re taking micro-naps, standing up, around this many people and dreaming about power-outages.” It was only then that the artist was aware of all the sounds around him- buzzing from every corner of the building.

“I don’t wanna hear that from the reigning champ of disarranged sleep schedules.”

The journalist and young, free-lance artist continued walking around the blinding white gallery. People crowded the place and the murmur of them all talking in whispers comforted Taehyung for a reason he couldn’t exactly explain.

He and Namjoon had started down the final hall they had left to view. The sme hall that happened to contain the naming right to the gallery in the first place. At the end of the hall, hanging on the dead-end wall was the one painting called ‘Leia’. The piece Taehyung came to see specifically to see if he could be sprung out of his art-block.

As he stood in front of the painting, he inspected it.

It was a young woman dressed in dated clothes with her eyes looking off to almost mimic looking off the canvas. Her legs were coiled in thorns and she looked like she was running from something, but with a protective sense and not a fearful one. She held a blue rose in her hand as the silver, engraved frame encased the painting.

The piece wasn’t what he was expecting, but somehow looking at the piece, he felt calm despite the action set formed in brush strokes. As the tour guide in charge of 'Leia’ began to explain how it was the artist’s last piece, Taehyung began to zone out again, while Namjoon scribbled down notes beside him.

As she yammered on and on, Namjoon soon caught sight of his friend’s face. He stopped his writing as he lifted his pen up and lowered his arm to tuck it away in his pocket,. When his hand was free of any writing utensil, he placed it on Taehyung’s back.

“Hey,” he whispered softly to not gain attention from the other’s standing around them. “Why are you crying?”

Taehyung jolted as he quickly brought his hands to his face.

He was crying.

When did he start and why? He wiped them away only for more to follow through. He was soon silently hunched over sobbing. Why did he feel this way by looking at a painting? Art had always given him a sense of emotion- but he hadn’t felt such sorrow before.

“I don’t know,” he whimpered as Namjoon took him to some place less crowded. As Taehyung calmed down, he felt oddly refreshed.

“You okay now? I’ve got enough notes for an entry if you want to leave.”

“Yeah,” he replied. “I want to go home and paint,” he announced as Namjoon smiled, happy to see a spark behind Taehyung’s eyes return. The spark of an artist that had finally overcome his art-block.

“Alright, then let’s get going.” As the two men walked out, reception bidding them farewell, Namjoon started making conversation. “So, what do you want to paint?”

“I’m not sure, but maybe a blue rose garden or something. Paired with something old fashioned, like outdated clothing or old picture books. I’ll figure it out when I get to my studio.”

He didn’t voice it, but he knew he’d be back to view ‘Leia’ again, and this time he wouldn’t cry. The calmness he felt from the painting- regardless of his tears- was like being reunited with an old friend.

What kind of man would Taehyung be if he cried in front of a friend?

-END-

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youralternantpersonality · 4 years ago

Text

Falling For You

OC x Reader then Embry x Reader

Warning: Nothing.

Part 1: “Gaslight” by Snow Tha Product

Part 2: “New Me” by Ella Eyre

Part 3: “Falling for You” by Tamia

***

I was getting ready for a bonfire that Embry and the guys invited me to. Everyone and some of the elders were going to be there. I heard a knock at the door, then heard my foster father answer it.

“Y/n, Embry’s here!” Said Andre, my foster dad.

“Okay! Almost ready! Give me 5 minutes.” I yelled back.

“She’ll be done in 15. Have a seat…” they walk off somewhere in the house. I continue to do my makeup before slipping on my yoga pants and converse. I opt for a regular black sweater to match the excitement. Black is a happy color.

Could I be falling for you? Is this a fantasy come true? Is this a dream that I've waited for? Am I the one that you adore?

Whoa, whoa I think I'm falling for you Whoa, whoa, whoa What am I supposed to do? 'Cause you make me feel Like I'm falling in love (am I falling for you?)

When we get to the bonfire, I notice Kim and Clair are here. We run-up to each other and they show me the way to the table of food. I say hello to everyone and sit with Leah and Emily talking about random shit, allowing the guys to play soccer and wrestle with one another. After some time, I felt someone’s eyes on me, and I turn to look to see its Embry. He was talking to Paul and Sam when I caught his eyes. I smiled, as did he, and turned my attention back to the girls.

“Aww, look at the love birds,” Clair says, laughing into her aunt Emily.

“Embry and Y/n, sitting in a tree..” sang Leah and Kim,

“K-I-S-S-I-N-G.” Emily. I can feel my face heating up and I start laughing a little.

“First comes love,” Kim sang,

“Then comes marriage.” Clair sang,

“Then comes a baby in a baby carriage.” Leah followed through.

“That’s not all, that’s not all,” Jared joined randomly,

“Then here comes the alcohol!” they sang together. Laughing and falling over.

“I hate, all of you.” I laugh along with them. Although I have my suspicion that Embry likes me as I do him, I’m not 100% sure. I shake my head at my friends and get up to get a bottle of water. As I turn back around to head back where everyone else was, I run into Embry.

“Oh shit, my bad Em,” I say looking up at him. He smiles at me and shakes it off.

“I hope they’re not bothering you. I know they can get a little…”

“Too much? Psychotic? Mentally deranged? Irritating?” He laughs and nods his head.

“Yeah, something like that.”

“Well, no worries. I know that they were just joking.” His smile falls a little and he makes a face as if he was debating to ask me something.

“Uh oh, I know that look. What’s wrong?” He looks everywhere but my eyes,

“What if they weren’t joking...” my heart damn nearly skipped a beat. No, it skipped the bottom two steps.

“What do you-” I was cut off by Sue Clearwater.

“Okay, guys! We’re getting started!”

Could it be love, tell me, boy, Is it true? I get a rush when I think about you

Lose control from my body and my soul And when you hold me I don't want to let go (You give me reason) you give me reason Every reason just to love you babe (babe) Everything that you do is so amazing I can't believe what your body makes me wanna do I'm having visions of me all over you

Whoa, whoa I think I'm falling for you Whoa, whoa, whoa What am I supposed to do? 'Cause you make me feel Like I'm falling in love (am I falling for you?)

I sat in between Embry and Paul. Both knowing that not only am I an anemic, but I get sick way too easily. I always questioned by their body temperature was unnaturally high and why they were a walking, talking furnace. I never got a decent answer. After the third perverted joke that Jared and Paul would make, I stop bothering to ask. As Billy was telling their tribal story, I leaned into Embry without even thinking about it. I was so engaged in the story that I didn’t even realize he wrapped his arm around me and rested his chin on my head.

Being around Em was just…natural. It didn’t take long for me to come to terms with my emotions with him. This feeling I feel for him was something that Isaac could never give me. They weren’t even on the same level. Isaac couldn’t even reach Embry’s ankles (Ankles by Jesse Reyes is bomb; listen to it). Where Isaac failed, Embry achieved. And even if Isaac achieved, Embry went above and beyond. I’m not comparing the two, but Embry didn’t have to try anything. Him just being himself was, no, is enough to make me excited. Based on my calculation, I have concluded one thing.

I am falling for Embry Call. Hard and fast.

You must have known though I try to disguise The way I feel, was there fire in my eyes On that night when our bodies intertwined? I knew right then and there that you will be mine

Could I be falling for you Is this a fantasy come true? Is this a dream that I've waited for Am I the one that you adore (adore, tell me)

Whoa, whoa I think I'm falling for you Whoa, whoa, whoa What am I supposed to do? 'Cause you make me feel Like I'm falling in love (am I falling for you?)

Whoa, whoa I think I'm falling for you (falling for you) Whoa, whoa, whoa What am I supposed to do (what am I supposed to do?) 'Cause you make me feel Like I'm falling in love Am I falling for you?

“Walk with me?” Embry asked after Billy was finished. I nodded and got up to follow him down the beach towards some driftwood and out of hearing range.

“Oh shit, this is it, isn’t it? You finally snapped and you’re going to kill me with that stick?” I say smiling. Bringing the smile I loved upon his face.

“No, not yet. I was close to last week, but I changed my mind when you said you’d make pralines.” He says nonchalantly thinking as if that was a valid reason. It is, and I’m lucky.

“Noted.” I nod my head and look at him waiting to see what he wanted to talk about.

“I wanted to ask what you thought about everything?” He suddenly got shy. I leaned in closer to him for his warmth.

“I thought it was badass. I liked it. Why?” He closed his eyes and dramatically took a deep breath then turned towards me.

“Because…it’s true. All of it.” He looked at me dead in the eyes. I didn’t have to search for a sight of joking in his beautiful orbs. I could tell he was serious. I turned towards him and asked,

“When you say everything…you mean. The human to wolf changing?” he nods his head. A sight of fright is placed on his face. I nod my head and take a moment. I shrug my shoulders and look up at him.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” I said. I was curious, to say the least. “But, I need you to prove it, hun.” He smiles slightly and nods his head. He stands up and backs a distance from me and starts stripping in front of me. I don’t shy away from it, I’ve seen this man without a shirt, so that doesn’t catch me off guard. What does, however, was when he reached for his pants. My eyebrows raise as I go from his waist to his eyes. the man had the audacity to shoot me a cocky grin and bite his lips a little before taking them off. I refused to turn away. If I'm gonna have this one chance to see this, I'm going to take full advantage. Plus, he wasn’t so shy as he normally is about it.

After passing me his clothes, he steps back more, starts shaking, and not 3 seconds afterward, I see a giant ass wolf where he’s at. I instantly stood and the look of shock portrayed on my face. We stayed staring at one another for a minute before Embry looked over my shoulders. He rolls his eyes and trots off to the woods.

“Y/n! Are you okay!?” Sam calls from behind me. I turn and the look of shock is still on my face.

“Huh?”

“Are you okay? He didn’t get to close did he?” he said angrily.

“What? Oh, no. Am I on drugs, or did Embry change into a wolf? I swear I’ve never taken LSD…” I say, trying to lessen the tension and make sure Sam doesn’t go ape shit on Embry. Paul, Jared, and Quil start laughing at my joke. Sam chuckles and shakes his head.

“Yes, he shifted. We all can.” He nods towards the guys. Clair’s hyper ass points to Leah to make it clear that she can also. I nod my head and turn back to Embry who has finished putting on his pants. My smile deflates instantly. Damn, I missed my chance.

“Embry! You know you should have waited until we came over here.” Sam said roughly towards him. Embry stood there with his hands in his pockets and a blank look on his face.

“Let's get back.” Sam turns away and Embry brakes out a smile, walks up to me, and grabs my hand. Cue the adrenaline rush to my heart and stomach.

Every day You seem to find a way to make me go crazy I just can't understand But let me tell you one thing You make me wanna sing, do, do, do, oh

Whoa, whoa I think I'm falling for you Whoa, whoa, whoa What am I supposed to do? 'Cause you make me feel Like I'm falling in love, am I falling for you? Do, do, do, oh

Whoa, whoa I think I'm falling for you Whoa, whoa, whoa What am I supposed to do? 'Cause you make me feel Like I'm falling in love Am I falling for you? Do, do, do, do, do, do Do, do, do, oh

After that night, Embry and I got closer. Not close, close, but close enough that when we were on the beach one day, he randomly decided to blurt out I was his imprint.

“What’s that?” Thus, him going into detail about how I was basically his soulmate and that he’s stuck with my crazy ass forever. I smiled at the thought of that and had no problem expressing my emotion. Doing so, resulted in me pulled against his chest, his strong hand softly grasping my head, and our lips connecting instantly when I expressed my mutual feelings for him. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders to deepen the kiss.

In a distance, we can hear howling coming from the assholes of a friend we have. Instead of disconnecting our lips, we lift our middle fingers at them and smile into the kiss. When we pull back, Embry is then tackled to the ground by the guys, Sam moving me out of the way just in time. I go stand next to the girls and we watch in amazement at the lack of brain cells that continue to show.

“So, I take it that you guys are their imprints?” I asked Kim and Clair. They nod while looking at their boyfriends.

“So it’s official Clair. Quil is your baby daddy.” She looks at me and smiles,

“Damn straight. AIN'T THAT RIGHT BABE!” She yells to Quil, who randomly looks up and smiles. Before he could agree, Seth tackles him.

“I still can't believe I have to deal with them as wolfs,” Leah says resting her arm on Emily’s shoulder.

“You love us!” Jared says before Sam decided to join in and tackles him. I look at the girls and ask,

“You guys want to go get something to eat?”

“Sure.” Leah and Kim say.

“Cool, I’ll drive. Let's keep them here.” We all nodded, got into Emily’s truck, with Leah and me in the bed, and drove to the diner.

Back at the beach.

“Hey! Wait! Where did the girls go!?” Seth asks, curiously looking around. Shrugs passed around the group.

“Maybe back at the house?” Embry asked. There was a pause before Sam shouted,

“LAST ONE THERE HAS TO CLEAN THE DISHES!” And they all ran in the opposite direction of the girls.

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toho-literature · 4 years ago

Text

Curiosities of Lotus Asia - Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Gensokyo’s Shrine Maiden and the Fifteen Fascinating Books - Part 1

Gensokyo, blanketed in winter's silver snow.

Rinnosuke, the owner of an antique store by the name of Kourindou, receives a visit from a shrine maiden once again.

Rinnosuke takes up her request to mend her clothes.

However, he is deeply intrigued by the three books in her possession as well...

An original story based on the Touhou series has finally begun!

Gensokyo's Shrine Maiden and the Fifteen Fascinating Volumes (First Half)

Gensokyo shines with silver in the early afternoon.

Pristine snow gently falls, covering the earth and transforming Gensokyo into a magnificent spectacle. The only thing that could be heard were the cries of youkai far off in the distance.

The road was blanketed in fresh snow, without the imprint of a single footprint. Humans seldom travel through this path.

Beyond this pathless road, a mysterious building stands. While the owner absorbs heat from a nearby stove originating from the outside world, there is no doubt he is reading an incomprehensible book. It seems he has plenty of time on his hands, for this is a common occurrence.

There is an abundance of goods and items from the outside world in this shop. Gensokyo is in what the outside world would call the Meiji Era (1868-1912), but there are many items here that belong in subsequent times. The purposes of most of these items are unknown.

"Kourindou" is written on the shop's sign. This is where the antique store, Kourindou, stands.

"Mr. Rinnosuke?"

It appears that the store has a visitor for the first time in a while. I wanted to continue reading, but "customers are gods", so I couldn't just pretend to be out.

"You're in there, aren't you?"

The goddess dressed in red had no need to bother preventing my potential ruse as she was already behind me.

"Oh, it's just you, Reimu. Don't I always tell you not to just walk into my living room uninvited?"

"Forget that, just listen to me. I ran into a bit of trouble, so..."

This is her. The girl in red before my eyes who doesn't listen to a word anyone says. Her name is Reimu Hakurei. She's the only shrine maiden in Gensokyo, but from her actions one would doubt whether she's truly a shrine maiden or not. Pardon the late introduction, but I'm Rinnosuke Morichika. I run this antique store. As Reimu brushed the snow off her shoulders she started chattering away.

"I went out to the village to shop today. For what? I was running out of tea, so I figured I should buy some before the lack of tea gets bad enough to kill me. Well, I won't die, but-- Hey, are you listening to me?"

"You don't listen to me, so I'm not listening to you," is what I wanted to say but, "Yeah, I'm listening," is what came out.

"But, you know, there wasn't any good tea... oh, this doesn't have anything to do with it but the traveler's guardian deity in the village was completely covered in snow, I mean, who the heck was in charge of the umbrella? Wait, which god was it anyway?"

Well, it looks like if I don't give her a little push in the right direction, the conversation will diverge off into discussing the first emperor of Japan.

"The God of Harm, who prevents catastrophe from occurring in the village. You said you ran into trouble, so what happened?"

"Well, I finished shopping without anything really happening."

Without anything happening, huh?

"But then on the way back, a youkai was just sitting there minding its own business. And it was enjoying a book, too!"

I tried to say "Isn't that all right? It's not a big deal," but I was ignored.

"I tried to exterminate it with a surprise attack, but it retaliated! It was pretty cocky and kind of strong. I let my guard down, so I didn't expect shots to come from behind..."

One can only think that the youkai was the unfortunate one. But I wonder what happened, if she was the one who did the surprise attack yet let her guard down.

"Mr. Rinnosuke, are you listening?"

"Yeah, I'm not."

"...Well, anyway, I beat the stuffing out of it and then came here."

Seems that no matter how I replied, I'd get the same response. Reimu turned her back to me and said, "See!" and puffed her cheeks.

"And I just got this skirt, too..."

"That's quite a tear. I see very well why you want me to fix it."

"Right now."

Yes, ma'am. Reimu seemed cold, so I made space for one more beside the stove.

"I can't possibly mend it that fast. Just sit here for..."

*Footsteps*

"I'll just borrow these clothes and change, so hold on a bit."

Gone. She walked right into the back of the store again. She is truly an audacious one.

Sheesh. I headed back to my seat and decided to continue reading my book, but my stretched out hand grasped nothing but air. The book was floating above.

"What'cha readin', Kourin?"

A black shadow spoke. I've had a bad feeling about her showing up ever since my teacup went missing this morning.

"Hey, I always say this, but--"

"Don't just waltz in here. Right?"

Every single one of them... The girl in black before my eyes is Marisa Kirisame. A magician whose speech is a little unique. She gets along well with Reimu. She's a frequent visitor to the store, but I can never tell if she has any business or not.

"What're you here for today, Marisa?"

"I don't really get this book. Hup! Nothin' much, but I ain't goin' anywhere."

Nothin' much, huh? As she said that, she brushed off the dust on a pot for sale and sat down on it.

"...That's the 12th volume of a series, the continuation of the books piled up here. You wouldn't be able to understand that book without reading the ones before it."

"Oh, 'The Future of the Non-Neumann-Type Computer'? Man, I can't even figure out what it's about by the title."

"It's a spell book from the outside world. You probably wouldn't be interested at all but I am."

"Hmm, spells from the outside world... What kinda magic is that, Kourin?"

"I'm still in the middle of reading it, but... they use calculation familiars called "computers", and those do exactly as they're ordered. Of course, those are clearly shikigami, but I'm still not quite sure what kind of power they use."

"Shikigami, huh? ...Hey, isn't this Reimu's stuff? She here?"

Either Marisa wasn't interested in shikigami or just wanted to change the topic. I told her the details of Reimu's arrival. I said, "You're kind of like Reimu," or some other conversation filler while she dug around Reimu's belongings, and pulled out three books in them.

I felt a light jolt. Those books are part of the same series as these 12 volumes I have here. Why does Reimu have them...?

"Hm? Interested in these books? Knowin' Reimu, I bet she thought, 'They looked pretty important to the youkai so I'll take them,' or somethin'."

With the 12 volumes I have on hand and the three volumes there, that's a total of 15 volumes combined. I have no doubt that this is a set of 15 volumes. The shikigami of the outside world are the same as the ones in Gensokyo after all. With computers, F represents 15 and F represents a state of maximum capacity. It is written that when everything becomes F, the highest value is held.

I think that it's natural for 15 to have power. Even in ancient times, 15 meant perfection in this country. The same reason the full moon is also known as the fifteenth night. Computers must be familiars that have resulted from the ideas of the East and the beauty of the moon.

Marisa asked me what I was thinking about as she lined up the three books.

Through Marisa's nonchalant actions, I realized something else. When lined up, the numbers on the books, "13", "14", and "15", make 131415. If the 1 in front is removed... it then depicts the number that represents a perfect circle, 3.1415. This also means a full moon, and thus affirms my theory that the familiars of the outside world use its power.

I wanted to research more in regards to the shikigami of the outside world, but to do that I required these books.

"...Kourin. You plan on makin' a deal with Reimu? Forget it, her idea of value is completely different from everyone else."

Indeed, Reimu is too detached from this world. Normal exchange conditions wouldn't suffice. However, I can still make a deal with Reimu, for I have a general understanding of her values.

It was then that I heard the returning footsteps of the books' owner.

To be continued

#i realised i forgot to put up cola even tho it came out before baijr AAAA #im trying to make up for it now haha #touhou cola #curiosities of lotus asia #touhou #touhou project #project shrine maiden

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utterlyhopeful-fics · 6 years ago

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Mission Complete

To Anon who requested Angel Reyes + cheating. This was too much fun, I LIVE for angst.

Angel Reyes x Reader

Warnings: language, angst, cheating, sexual content

Word Count: 1.7k

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Her pink polished nails burrowed into the crevice of Angel’s lower back, temporarily imprinting his imminent mistake onto his flesh just as her throaty moan fell on deaf ears. Angel Reyes described himself as the textbook definition of a selfish asshole which, is exactly why he found himself beneath someone else, someone completely opposite of his girl, Y/N. Her perfume suffocated his senses as he sunk deeper into her, unable to stop his own moans slipping through his lips. He was officially a piece of shit boyfriend, but his inner thoughts screamed at him to feel wanted. Even if it was by the wrong person. Angel was a man who reveled in power, craving complete submission, and tonight was his form of freedom. Every sound was different, genuine intimacy was out the window as his lustful instincts overtook him. Hiding her away in his judgment-free zone, stupidly picturing Y/N as he came, the girl he never deserved, but he made a choice, and for that came cruel consequences he wasn’t willing to admit were an option just yet.

Angel’s abdomen tightened as his ecstatic end came to a finish, sweat glistening like glue between their overheated bodies. That was the tricky thing to secrets, they weighed heavily as we adapted to carrying them, forever, no matter the cost of their burdens. Angel caressed her hips before moving her off his lap, his bubble of bliss nothing but a puddle of destruction in this inevitable aftermath. As he reached for his boxers, he felt her lips kissing along his neck.

“Get the fuck out already, will ya? Y/N will be here shortly.”

“Easy jackass, I can’t find my underwear. Where the fuck did you throw them, Papi?”

Angel couldn’t even muster up enough energy to remember the poor girl’s name minus that he chose her for no reason whatsoever, an entrance into oblivion. He required a warm body, someone who didn’t know shit about his fucked-up life, and was able to silence his thoughts, if only for a little bit.

“Olvídalo (Forget it). You know where the door is.”

“You really are a piece of shit Angel Reyes. I can’t believe Y/N hasn’t dumped your ass by now.” A devilish grin mirrored upon her caked features as he noticed her smeared lipstick.

Bile rose in his throat as his words ascended through the humid air, watching it all slip from his grasp, and he didn’t do a damn thing to stop it.

“Me neither. Thanks for the ride sweetheart.”

Internally, Angel couldn’t mute his mind any further and sighed as Y/N face stormed behind his closed lids. He knew Y/N would be worried about him by now, she was structure, beauty, and, imperfectly resilient. Always better to reign in hell, anyways.

Shit, he sighed, finally releasing his breath he didn’t realize was entangled in his lungs. Y/N would be here in 15 minutes as the guilt only began its descended coil within his gut. Angel exulted in self- hatred, but not all monsters were that way in the beginning.

Y/N’s POV

Just as his trailer came into sight, electricity surged as her excitement started to build, this was her favorite part of any day, being in his presence. She took in his unkempt facade; Angel’s forehead was beaded in sweat as his cheeks were flushed red almost like he had just finished a marathon. Odd, but still she found this man to be downright irresistible. Y/N stepped closer to him, wrapping her arms closely around his neck, unable to hide the smile that made its way to her lips.

“I missed you today.” Before he could comprehend, she was already pressed against him as the edge of her lips found his, and he couldn’t help but give in to the courageous woman standing in front of him.

“Lo siento baby, you know better than anyone how knee deep in shit we are?” He prayed to whoever was foolish enough to listen to his prayers that forgiveness was on the table, but he should have known by now that everything he ever cherished, he tainted; given enough time.

“Que paso mi amor?” Her brow uneasily raised, she knew him like the back of her hand, and he was mere seconds away from destroying her. Finally meeting her eyes, Angel guided her to sit on his bed, all while taking her hand into his, memorizing every detail he took for granted. Unexpectedly, her steps stopped as she eyes found their intertwined fingers, nervousness finally making its appearance.

“Sometimes it feels better to just not talk at all. Please just – listen to me. I love you so goddamn much.”

“Something’s tearing you up on the inside. Man the fuck up and spit it out.” Worry laced her tone as she nervously shifted from one foot to the other, unable to calm the quaking in her heart. If his eyes told her anything, war was about to crumble upon them.

“You wanna be in a relationship and I can’t seem to stay in one. You should know by now that I care about your feelings more than mine which is why what I’m about to admit is terrifying.”

Her mind sputtered to a halt as she processed what Angel was exactly trying to convey to her. Her words were locked behind her lips uncertain of the situation in front of her, as her body had become her own personal prison. She stuttered as she spoke, unease shaking her to her core before forming the one sentence she never wanted to muster.

“Did you sleep with someone?” He absolutely hated when she cried, but he loathed himself fully when her chin quivered. The true kicker was when he reached for her and she flinched from his touch, a touch she so deeply craved, one she didn’t realize came with an expiration date detailed in the fine print. This was the one moment Angel wished the cement floor could swallow him whole. He was indeed a glutton for punishment, and the reaper was fast approaching.

She made her way towards his disheveled bed, nausea churning in her chest as she thought about another girl being in his arms. Her back was faced away from him as she couldn’t help but notice the unwarranted red undergarment lazily tossed by her sweatshirt. A sweatshirt she had left behind since they started spending more nights together. Y/N reached for the offensive item before fiercely stalking his way, rage taking ahold of her.

“It’s funny how sometimes the people you take a bullet for, are the ones behind the trigger, huh?” Angel was caught off guard when he felt her arms press into his shirt before violently throwing the underwear in his face. Y/N considered crying, but nothing came out. All that remained was a sort of twisted sadness, a sick sad, one where she couldn’t feel any physically worse.

“Y/N, let me expl-“

“No… You don’t get to speak, you don’t get to defend your fuck up, and you definitely don’t get to control this conversation. Got it?”

All he could do was simply nod in agreement and tread lightly as her fury began to simmer below her skin.

“Mission complete Angel Reyes. I feel so fucking empty. Do you know what it like to be completely empty? I—I don’t think I can do this anymore.”

“I know I messed up but-“

“But nothing. You made a decision and now you’re cowering instead of bearing the consequences. Did you think of me when you were fucking her? Was I even a passing thought as you shoved your dick inside her?”

Angel inhaled in an attempt to gather his recklessly scattered thoughts. He couldn’t bullshit a bullshitter and based on the look etched into her newly found frown, Angel was officially shut out by the one person he considered his safe haven. You deserve this you piece of shit, you brought this upon yourself when all you had to do was push her away.

“I wasn’t thinking. Sometimes people do terrible things when they’re scared. They don’t mean to, but they can’t help it. I lashed out for no reason at all but to test to waters and now I’m anchored to the ocean floor.”

“Just quit already, let me guess- this wasn’t the first time. Exactly how many times did you laugh behind my back only to come home and double dip, hm?”

This was a question Angel wasn’t prepared for in the slightest which is why he chose to remain silent. Y/N didn’t need any additional ammunition to fire his direction. The damage was done, and he was naively there to watch the wildfire spread.

“Y/N, if you walk away, I understand, but know that you were the only one who always had my heart. Please never doubt that.”

She gathered her remaining articles of clothing that had created their blended home and shuffled towards the impending exit of his home and their sunken relationship. Y/N’s fingers wrapped around the cold knob, the crickets chirped as she fought to regain her composure.

“I want to you remember this day and recognize that you broke us, even when we don’t know each other anymore because I will never be yours again Angel.” Her trembling hands finally allowed her one last push against the door-frame as she met the chilled air, goosebumps rippling along her skin. Y/N’s emotions finally seeped through, but she refused to let him see her collapse.

“I wanted to find a way to be happy with you by my side, but if I can’t have you, I’ll find a way to be happy without you. Now get out of my fucking face, asshole.” The finality in her words commanded his attention as Angel was left horrendously alone all by his own hand.

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http://utterlyhopeful.tumblr.com/post/180940839697/masterlist-mayans-mc-angel-reyes-x-reader-happy

#Mayans MC #mayans mc x reader #My writing #angel reyes x reader #angst #angel x reader #mayans mc fx #fanfiction #mayans mc imagine

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blueboxesandtrafficcones · 7 years ago

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Written on Your Heart - Chapter 1

12 year old Rose finds her soulmate in 15 year old James. This is their story.

Now titled ‘Written on Your Heart’ and available on AO3!

Masterlist

Written for @doctorroseprompts Soulmate September.

10/Rose AU. Will feature: Sarah Jane, Jackie, Donna, Wilf, Mickey, and others

Chapter 1/??

Every soulmated couple was marked in their own unique way. Some couples, arguably the luckiest, had each other’s names inked on their skin; others would only be marked upon a shared touch, or speaking to each other. There was no way of knowing how, or when, a person would be marked until it occurred, if it ever did.

There were two broad categories of the looking – those that knew they were mated but had not yet met, and those that were dependent on luck. Those that knew typically had clues to follow, or at least to eliminate potentials, based on their mark. The levels of contact for those that knew varied depending on their type of bond. Some had a name to be on the lookout for, but nothing else – others were in contact from a young age, but had not been able or allowed to meet until they were of age. They were the lucky ones.

The other category, those who were only marked upon meeting, were not so fortunate. They had no information about their mate; it was quite possible to meet them, even perhaps know them for years, without stumbling upon the trigger for the mark to appear. There were stories, of couples who would work in the same office building and speak every day, and not know they were mated until they actually introduced themselves. Others would be marked upon merely the brushing of the fingers; it was not uncommon to see someone running along the platform of the tube, yelling for their mate, only known of because of the brush of fingers.

Family didn’t seem to have anything to do with the type of mark you would receive; even in large groups of siblings, no two would have the same type of identifier. If your ancestors tended to ‘know’, it was a higher likelihood that you would as well, but certainly no guarantee.

As a child, Rose had always been fascinated by her mother’s mark. Jackie and Pete Tyler had been those with the first words they would ever say to each other imprinted on their skin. After Pete’s death, Jackie’s marks had faded to a faint silver, almost impossible to see but still present.

Rose is twelve when the words first appear on her left palm, accompanied by a slight tickle.

Buy the new Harry Potter book.

What?

She was in the middle of math class, staring out the window, when she glanced down and saw the message. At first, she wasn’t certain how it had gotten there, as it most certainly wasn’t her handwriting. It wasn’t until the bell rang, and she was halfway to her next class the most likely explanation hit her, and she stopped dead in the hallway.

In a fog, giddy with excitement, she had enough presence of mind to make her way to the nearest toilet, heedless of the bell ringing for the next period to begin. Instead, she locked herself in a stall and sat on the toilet lid, staring at her hand in awe, gently tracing the letters.

Eventually, it occurred to her that if she could see his writing, he would likely be able to see if she responded. Digging in her bag for a pen that wouldn’t hurt, she held it poised over her palm, lacking only something to write.

This was it – her first communication with her soulmate! She’d been worried that she would be one of the searchers; that she’d never know if she had a mate, or worse, that she would only know when she lost him. She wanted something special, dazzling; she wanted to charm him, make him fall hopelessly in love with her with only a few letters written on her skin and transferred to his. But what was right?

In the end, she decided to make one thing clear – she was her own person, capable of thinking and deciding for herself. Even though she knew in the back of her mind it was most likely only a note to himself (or herself – it happened), she still wanted to establish herself as independent. So, with a trembling hand, she printed four characters below his message.

Why?

Dropping the pen with a nervous giggle, she waited with baited breath to see what her soulmate would respond with. It took the longest two minutes of Rose’s life, but eventually he (she assumed it was a he; most girls had far better handwriting) replied.

Hello?

Hi! She quickly scribbled back.

This is Came through after a moment, though it seemed like an unfinished thought.

weird strange different new. Her mate seemed perplexed, though she appreciated that he seemed to be trying not to insult her right off the bat.

Yep. Do you write notes on your hand often? She asked. This was the first time she’d noticed it, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything without knowing what was the trigger to initiate the bond.

Sometimes, if it’s important. You?

Drawings, but that’s it. She admitted.

You draw?

Yes.

Well?

At this point, Rose had to roll up her sleeve to continue the conversation, considering her response all the while. After a few moments hesitation, she doodled a simple rose.

Is that a rose?

Yes.

Why?

She paused only for a second, before reminding herself that they were soulmates – even if they’d never met, she could trust him.

It’s me.

You’re a flower?

No – it’s my name.

Rose?

Yeah.

Your name is Rose?

Yeah.

She briefly considered leaving it there, but decided to go for broke.

Tyler.

Uh, actually, I’m James.

No, Rose Tyler.

Oh. James Noble. Hi.

Hi!

Can I ask you something? He replied after a minute.

Sure.

How old are you? She froze, nervous.

How old are you? Rose asked instead of answering.

15. She instantly blushed, sure that he would think she was just a kid.

12.

After that, she didn’t hear from him, though she spent twenty minutes staring at her arm, hoping for a reaction. Finally the bell rang, signaling the end of the period she skipped and the start of her lunch break; shouldering her bag, she walked quickly to the cafeteria, going through the lunch line by rote and finding her friends. A little hurt at his lack of response, she resolutely decided to focus on the rest of the school day, and maybe check when she got home.

In the end, she made it ten minutes into history class before checking her arm, pleasantly surprised to find a response.

Oh. Ok.

I was just a little worried – the exclamation points made me think you might be a bit younger, which would be weird.

Well, it’d be weird now – not in like, 10 years.

Well, maybe still in 10 years – it would’ve depended on how much younger.

But 3 years isn’t that big a deal now. At least for talking.

Hello?

Rose?

I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings – also, for disappearing. I was trying to figure out what to say when my teacher announced a pop quiz. I hope you don’t think

The writing stopped there, but there was an arrow pointing to the left. It took a moment, but then she realized what it meant and twisted to see her forearm, where the message finished.

that I was rejecting you. Because I’m not. I was just a little thrown.

Rose?

I really am sorry – once we meet (if we meet – was that too presumptuous?) you’ll realize that I’ve got a bit of a gob, and it can sometimes take off without me.

Though, I suppose, in this case it’s my hand that’s got away from me.

Please, Rose, don’t let me have ruined this on day one…

It was the final message that truly got her, and she practically knocked all of her books off her desk to scramble for her pen.

Sorry! Remembering belatedly his comment about the exclamation points, she quickly scribbled the whole word out, replacing it with, Sorry. I was at lunch, and didn’t see your message til now.

So you don’t hate me already? It was his fastest response yet, and Rose felt bad for making him worry.

No. Not at all. She only hesitated a moment, before adding a smiley face.

Good!

“Something to share with the class, Miss Tyler?”

Rose’s head jerked up, her smile falling as she realized the entire class, including her teacher, were staring at her.

“Uh, no?” She said meekly.

The teacher raised an eyebrow, but moved on. “Please try to pay more attention, Miss Tyler – the test is on Friday, as you’ll recall.”

As subtly as she could, Rose glanced down at her arm, ready to tell James that she couldn’t talk until after school, only to see a note from him.

Don’t want to randomly disappear on you again – I don’t think I can talk write until after classes are done for the day. Can we speak write tonight?

She managed to scrawl back a hasty OK before turning her attention to the front of the class. History was not her best subject, and she needed to ace the test on Friday to pass with an acceptable grade.

That didn’t stop her from daydreaming about life with her soulmate, though.

Thanks for reading so far! I’m excited about what I’ve got coming up for our young couple - I’m already written up through chapter 8 :)

Any suggestions for a title would be appreciated. (No, seriously - please help!!)

Also, if anyone would be interested in being a beta, please let me know.

#bbatcfic #doctorroseprompts #ficandchips #Doctor Who #human!tenxrose #human!ten #rose tyler #Written On Your Heart #soulmates au #human au

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jollyviscreal666 · 5 years ago

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The New World(entry no.2)

It’s been 4 months since my last entry. I have been through a lot since then. Nothing short from my last adventure I there to described. I have been to two survival sanctuaries. Supposedly designed for safety. As well as the welfare of our planet and it’s newfound stats.

There is one thing prior to me of which I’m certain. The new world along with its events not only gives my life purpose as I have previously perceived, but rendered me a seemingly infinitely jubilant soul. That’s the only way I can put it. Whereas to others it does the opposite based on what I’ve experienced. Fortunately, I’ve met people at the third sanctuary, counting the first where I was left for dead, that have similar feelings. I am going to recount my experience at the scientific institute in which I was a potential resident.

Honestly, I fell like this sanctuary held more sentimental feelings of dread then the previous events that followed up to it. I refer to the base. I didn’t kill nearly as many infected, yet the only thing that feels infected is my tolerance. I’m struggling to find out what about it is. Perhaps the near un perceivable amount of carnage left me baffled in a brutal way. Watching people I know along with friends I made turn into delicacies for the endorsed maniacal infected denizens. This was the real deal. This institute. You supposedly get used to the carnage. But I’m this infected world, getting used to constant carnage is like getting punched in the nuts when you’re the toughest guy on the planet. And it only gets worse.

I did make one ally before I arrived to the next sanctuary. The pilot I rendered under my command to do as I said. He goes by Don. He made his living in this new world by offering his skills in the form of services in exchange for supplies and a shelter. We left the armored vehicle in a spot we considered to be decent as we flew over the supposed mine field. I had my sniper ready and I told Don to be on high alert. Then after we landed and as we were scanning the place, we established a friendship after a 20 minute conversation. I was happy I found someone to relate to. The last person I could relate to was Bryce Reyes and I have no idea where he was. I still don’t.

We were getting ready to turn back. Then we spotted an SOS smoke marker. The white smoke drifted into the air with a steady pace. We decided to make our way to it. We were heavily armed one could say. Me with a suppressed glock and him with a suppressed beretta. We also carried a primary weapon. Me with an SIG Saur sniper rifle, and Don with an G 46 assault rifle. Near the bolt operation mechanism near the top, was a stamped imprint labeled: SiG Sauer SSG 2000. It was a pretty handy weapon. It was my first time using it. I had used my glock to eliminate nearby infected who we stumbled upon. We agreed more than likely it signifies that there’s got to be a pack of them somewhere nearby. So we proceeded with caution. Soon we reached the source of the signal. Although there seemed to be no sign of survivors. I thought maybe it was too late.

It was a house. Like a fancy residence building. Something you’d expect a mayor of a town to live in.

We were right about the pack. They were lingering about, in and out, and through the two story house. As usual with defected bodies with cut open parts and blood dripping. They were too focused on something to draw attention to us. Although I was sure one of them gave a glance to our presence. I picked off about 30 if them, leaving me with 1 more clip. I placed about 10 more clips nearby discreetly. I equipped two, leaving me with 15 rounds, plus my suppressed glock. I was confident it was all I needed to clear the area. Then again, there could be more packs waiting inside. I told Don to retrieve the armored vehicle and the copter so we could escape when necessary. I also told him, I was going to explore the area by myself. He questioned it. But I shrugged it off and told him his role was more important. He took off.

As I advanced towards the estate, I realized the smoke was coming from inside the house. I reached the door. I opened it. I lied my eyes upon 3 strangely figured infected individuals. Their faces were caved in and had a strange bone crest on their forehead. They made some kind of hissing sound. Their spine seemingly protruded from their backs, but not hard enough to brake their rotten skin layers. Two of them were feasting on featureless corpses who’s first two layers of flesh had been completely removed. The one closest to the door I just opened, opened it’s mouth slightly and some colorless saliva type liquid dropped on the corpses featureless face. I looked closely to see the skinless corpses face meat layer slowly deteriorate. But only very mildly so. Then the skinless corpse slightly moved a limb. It’s forearms as well. A third skinless corpse was missing its lower torso. On the left side of its face all the meat layers have been removed revealing its skull eye socket. It barely moved as well. Its rib cage hung out and some normal infected feasted on the remaining origins of that deceased individual. Blood was smeared all over the floor.

These corpses they were feasting on looked fresh. As if it only recently occurred. The crest headed infected closest to me then threw his head in haste at me and snarled. Mouth dripping with the strange liquid. I aimed at its head and fired. It’s crest prevented the slug from entering its brain. It charged at me. I dodged its ram as it hit the wall. It then surprisingly backed up and began gargling. The other standard infected individuals took after it in a sense of leadership. I could tell it was going to projectile that liquid my direction. I hastily boosted my body for cover. I used a standard room door detached from its hinges. Thankfully the knob was still on it. I held onto it. The liquid seemed to have eaten through the wood as termites wound do. But only 8 minutes after. 4 seconds after the liquid hit the door, I rammed it as hard as I could. Which wasn’t very hard cause of the weight.

The crest heads moved significantly faster than the standard infected. Still not as fast as runners though. The crest head fought to reach me from the other side. I decided to blind the fucker and destroy its jaw. The 3 standard infected followed shortly behind. I also took its fingers off disabling its slash attacking ability. I carefully counted my last 3 rounds in my glock as the standard infected individual increasingly advanced. It had no sight , no jaw, and no fingers. Still it somehow sensed I was close to reaching a dead end in the hallway. It thrashed about. I dropped the antsy standard dead head behind him accurately. Then I realized the only way to kill it or destroy it was to remove the head from its body. Right then and there I knew I needed my Sauer rifle to do so. I detached the suppressor of the Sauer rifle. I didn’t want to take any chances. I needed to fire fast and efficiently. Not accurately. Not then. It was harder than I had previously perceived. It took 3 shots to create a crater in its neck near the Adam’s apple, knocking it out with other fleshy parts all over the place. The 3rd shot definitely slowed it down. It was beginning to get weaker due to the near slight detachment of its neck. But it kept itself moving. I had 2 more rounds left. I apparently got lucky because the first shot I landed dislocated the remaining flesh tendons from its deep cratered neck. It’s head hung from meat tendons. Some with fresh dead flesh on them. I landed a final shot. And believe it or not it was a lucky shot as well going through its sternum to its head after exiting the back of the sternum. The last standard zombie approached in a curious manner only to have a bullet plummet through its skull. The last remaining in the living room of the house was a crest head. He was chewing on the corpse of the skinless corpse before. Only now it was only a drenched skeleton with pieces of meat hanging off of it. I’m almost glad they’re that stupid. I would appreciate more of a challenge but every scruff I get into with these dead heads, I risk my life. Technically I do anyway. I put a slug in its upper side of its head.

For a moment I thought it was over. Then I heard a scream. My combat sessions with the undead seemingly attracted a lot of infected. They more than likely followed the flare signal marker smoke then smelled the trapped individual upstairs. I looked to split, but the entrance was getting blocked off by dead heads. I inserted the last clip I had for my glock handgun. I was very careful to land perfect headshots as I progressed to find a way out. I equipped my combat knife at the ready as well for personal close encounters. I thought I was done for. There were too many and they kept poring in. Then Don arrived in the armored vehicle and mowed them down with a SAW light machine gun. I was very grateful. I owed him one. I got in the armored vehicle with him and we sped off. We drove back to the helicopter. Don flew the helicopter of course. Me, driving, we stayed in contact via radio connection by an external input where it was compatible with our vehicles.

After about an hour of searching, we finally came upon what looked like to be a standard amateur survival camp. Needless to say, it’s members were not present at the time. Then we stumbled upon a trail. It seemed like these survivors have relocated. We followed the trail briefly just to be safe. Guns at the ready. To our surprise, there was an open field. It had been covered in trees until someone cut them all down. It’s anyone’s guess as to why. Before we advanced, a human figure zoomed out at us with wit and skill. Me and Don fired a couple of rounds and missed. He put his hands up. He had a crossbow on his back.

“Don’t shoot, I’m here to help”! He blurted out. We kept our guns on him.

“My names Zach and I can help”?

“What do you mean? What are you doing out here”? I questioned.

“Just surveying the neighboring grounds is all” Zach replied. He removed the crossbow from his back and put it on the ground humbly.

“What happened to the folks of those camps”? I asked.

“Some rabid gangs have been trying to take over these parts for awhile now. Many groups tried to fight back and it became a bloodbath. It’s under control now. We took care of it”.

“Whose we”? I asked.

“Wait, How come you showed up just before we were about to go on that field”? Asked Don suspiciously.

“I was just about to get to that”, stated Zach.

“It’s a fucking mine field. Product of all that stuff I just told you. I tried to save you”.

“Thanks”, I said plainly.

“Where’s your base”? I asked him.

“I’m not really supposed to tell survivors about it”, he said. Before he could continue, I spoke.

“Hold that thought”. I went to grab our trusty armored vehicle that has pulled us through for a good while. I showed him our weapons and explained how we could be of use. He generously agreed to introduce us to his base. I asked him how far it was. He said with our vehicle it would take no longer than 8 minutes.

The base turned out to be a cdc scientist institute. According to Zach, it was once a hospital. Then after the breakout it became a safe haven for survivors, doctors, and scientists alike. The leaders of the institute had made many reconfigurations to the place prior to the breakout. Especially after things settled down and the first wave of survivors attempted to reach salvation, I’d imagine. They called it the Obin institute. Not sure why, though. The institute is at least a couple of kilometers more wide than the first base and had a bigger antenna sticking out of the top. Some state of the art shit, I imagined. Definitely larger and seemingly more advanced than the last bases antenna. And for an hour after we arrived once I’d seen it, I had hope this would be our salvation. Needless to say, it wasn’t even close.

Like the last base, the institute had its own security military type style personnel. There were actually 3 branches in the institute. The first one, or the main priority rather, were the doctors and scientists who did the research prior to the outbreak and continue to do so. The second, were the security personnel, armed to the teeth. No different than last base. Although this one had more guards. The place was bigger and seemed to deem some sort of importance. We would find out soon. The dress code for the security forces were different than the previous. They were a darker shade of blue. Some wore hazmat type light plastic wear, and some just leather dark blue. Sometimes they even wore hazmat masks when guarding closed to survivors section or other secret studies. This caught my attention. Most bothered not to give a care.

That day, at the lunch table, we met two remarkable individuals.

“What do you think the deal is with the freaky cdc type masks the security are wearing”? I asked Don quietly. Don looked over to them guarding the entrance. There were two sets of them. One guarding the back exit, and one the sections of the institute entrance. Specifically, the scientist doctors headquarters.

“It’s probably part of the agreement. You know how this new world makes people act”, stated Don.

“I hope this place isn’t locked down on policy personnel procedures”, I said.

“I’m more worried about what they put into this food! I mean...who do you know who cooks something like this”?! Exclaimed Don.

“I’m about to launch a complaint file to the kitchen zone so they can get their shit together”, he continued. Then a friendly female voice spoke seemingly out of nowhere.

“You’ll eat what they give you, period. There’s not many options to getting your ways here at this place. I’m Anne”. Next to her was a fairly built male.

“This is Jerry, you must be new”, she said.

“I’m Josh and this is my friend slash pilot Don”, I said. We got acquainted. She and Jerry explained the physical layout of the institution. There were 6 sections of the whole institute. The first was the main HQ. Then came the work stations of the survival personnel including education sessions for young ones about the outbreak, the infected and whatnot. Then there was the security HQ. Next comes the vital Research labs stations filled with doctors and scientists for their work. Then the waste and trash compartments where the sewer pipes lead and where infected remains were disposed of, as we learned. The last two are vital as well with one of them being secret kept by the main scientist doctor organizers of the institute. The secret one was where they kept the genetically altered infected we learned later. Their goal was not just to solely find a cure but to explore the genetics and possibilities of the infected due to research and study. Implying that they had a group of hyper intelligent infected in there somewhere. Locked up. Kept secret from most of the personnel of the institute. Only few doctors knew of it. The last one was the last resort plan which consisted of a self destruct room with all kinds of explosives. Not just the shrapnel kind. There were rumors of nuclear warheads. This was top secret info. Me and Don figured it out prior to the institute outbreak before Jerry and Anne..... well we’ll get to that.

Apparently survivors were called in for monthly check ups. This made me feel uneasy in a place as organized and strict as this. It didn’t feel right. There were rules and rewards for those who ace their check ups. More privileges were attained. More freedom and whatnot. About 68 percent of the time in the institute was idly social. The rest was work and eating(also partly social). Jobs and assignments were based upon what the scientists and doctors needed for their current research. For the good of the survivors, the institute, mankind and whatnot. You were required to work and assist the institute if you wanted to stay there. It was fairly paced and gave survivors free social time. It went well for most and seemed to be a good fit. Except for the check ups. After awhile, the four of us started noticing that every now and then someone would not return from their check up. The institute was very sly about this. They did their best to keep the survivors distracted and lied to them. Then they promoted the suspicious ones and whatnot. We even fell victim to this a couple of times. Then we decided to do something about it. In the course of a month, we became acquainted with a devastated individual by the name of Dean. We were very sympathetic towards him. His little brother had been gone for almost two months. He was distraught. We came up with a plan. It needed to happen sooner or later. Because we knew whatever they were doing was in favor of the research this facility was conducting. And boy were we right.

We took a huge step. If was a huge risk. Very dangerous if we got caught. We eventually made it to the depletion of dangerous chemicals department. You didn’t need special clearance to get in. Also implying no electronically locked door was in the way. This proved to be their downfall. However, they never expected anyone to rebel such as we did. We ran into the remains of his brother and several other survivors we were acquainted and even befriended by. One by the name of James was diced up from his knees to his upper chest, most of his body missing. Dean and two other friends were distraught. Dean couldn’t help but to release a mild outburst. Whatever he hit, he activated the mini mechanical machine like tubes connected to the clean un operated head of the dead one called James. The head made an unearthly screeching sound and it’s eyes rolled to the back of its head. It vibrated. The diced meat and organs of James in a blender type compacter, began turning the diced pieces into liquid. Blood spat out of the heads mouth. Then strained out the ears, nose, and eyes with intense flow.

“Turn it off!”, screamed Dean. I spun to the crew and told them now is the chance to escape and start a battle to fight for our lives against the institutes personnel. They gave it all they had. Right after the incoming security were ambushed and killed by us. We took their weapons and got ready for the next wave. We apparently forgot to double tap one of the corpses from the first wave. Unbeknownst to us ,the viral infected didn’t attack us. It knew. It just wanted to feed. So it messed around the blender compacter as we massacred the second wave. Eventually it got the lid open and detached it. It went to town and drank from it like a smoothie from heaven. How did I know? Well I could hear it. I was just too busy killing assholes to pay attention to our unwanted guest. Eventually the greedy fucker took a chunk out of Gabe right before vomiting a single series of its smoothie and head right on us. Then we blew its head off, obviously.

We made it to the announcement room baring only 4 casualties counting Gabe. We had a defector in the kitchen slash HQ. He set the area on fire, metaphorically speaking. Soon all hell broke loose. Me and Don were lucky enough to retrieve our vehicles as they were confiscated and defected by the institute. It was a huge battle. Very savage and violent. Survivors versus security personnel. Luckily, the institute wasn’t prepared for the onslaught, meaning however many survivors died, we breached the scientist doctor HQ research experimentation area. Many of the survivors, knowing what the doctors were responsible for, lead them to their horrible deaths. Such as drowning in the blood, guts, and remains of infected, slow brain frying, quartering procedures designed for infected and so much more. It seemed we were triumphant. A lot of it was because of me and Dons defense play I’ll admit. With my infamous armored vehicle and it’s weapons. Especially cause we found a cannon that fits onto the vehicle. We killed many. However, as the threat of the security died down, there was the evident threat of the oncoming infected attracted by the battle. Thousands at the gate to the institute.

It wasn’t long until someone discovered the secret room. I never got to see what it looked like and part of me is glad I didn’t. However the intelligent infected became loose. There were 4 of them. Two looked to be of African descent. One bald the other with a Bob Marley hairstyle. Their mouths were covered in blood. The haired ones jaw was hung ajar. But it’s hand flesh and muscle were chewed off until the end of the forearm. The fleshed out bone wasn’t a hand but more of a fingerless implant of some sort of sharpened chain piece it seemed. The other two were American militarily generals it seemed. Right after the infected made their way in, me and Don were mowing down wages of oncoming infected. Anne and Jerry were with us at first but realized they needed to prevent the outside infected from finding other ways to breach the institute. They always do. As usual we had the unfortunate luxury of witnessing their deaths. Jerry mowed down the two military generals who had managed to kill and mutilate 8 survivors. Almost killing Anne as well. Then he was decapitated by the zooming smart infected with the chain piece. Anne attempted to mow it down. It apparently made a circle where it met up with the other one. They each stabbed their limbs(hands with arms)into both of her sides. They ripped her in two staring from the middle. The middle of her body as well as her chest became separated, creating a hole in her body in which the hole spread as a tear to her neck and downwards to her groin as well. Until she was separated completely in two. Her blood and insides of her body lost their gravity the instant it happened. I then also witnessed a guy get his heart ripped out and eaten by them almost as fast as when they killed Anne. He was alive and watched them eat it. It was time for an endgame to get the hell out of this place. Unfortunately, there was still more to witness before we were free. Infected just being themselves. And people used to think that was a good thing.

We realized more deadheads were becoming apparent because the two smart infected have cracked some infected attracting tech of which I am familiar with. Although I wasn’t surprised they had it here. So we attempted to locate the source. We attempted a shortcut we believed to be plausable. It just lead to another infected hellhole. Although this time there was plenty to see. This is all I recall: a torsoless rotter with intestines dangling out the side of its ribcage was feasting on a dead security mans torn open thorax, slowly. Then an obese infected with its giant stomach layer flaps open. It’s ribcage was visible and it held its intestines as did two other legless infected. It stared at me viciously. It put its intestine in its mouth. I observed all this very quickly. Then I looked up. It only got worse. There were dozens of blood covered infected seemingly taking other more rotten infected apart to either connect more limbs to already limbed infected for fun, or attempt to put the disassembled rotten infected back together. They used intestines to tie the body parts in place. Many intestines. It was as it appeared. Whether they were successful or not is something we’ll never know and I pray you never will. That’s all you need to know. We hauled ass out of there. The smart one eventually caught up to us. The other ‘artists’ reaching out to him slowly. Him zooming by without regards. We stayed in the vehicle. It ran from one side of the vehicle to the other, tirelessly. A helicopter came by. We were lucky to find a un designated route out of the compound. We thought we got luckier. Nope. It was a high ranking doctor who did business with the institute. He almost killed Don, but I got him in time. Knowing how many trackers were in the copter, we blew it up. We took off. The dead, arriving like vultures. Nothing really changes anymore once you think about it. We’ve been searching for gas for awhile now.

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ooc-but-stylish · 8 years ago

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iprinny

“There’s a lot that gets me about the love story in FFXV and how it…”

Im super curious to know what your thoughts are on that absurdity with prompto’s “dramatic reveal” in chapter 13

Hoo boy. My opinion about the “dramatic reveal” is pretty much my opinion on the whole game, which is

“Good plot, terrible execution”

Prompto was an MT? Neat. However,

it should have happened earlier

it should’ve been resolved earlier

it should have had a bit more foreshadowing if it was going to be dragged out to Chapter 13 of all things.

With regards to the actual scene, my first impressions were “Damn, Prompto looks good for a guy that fell off a moving train and got tortured!” then “Oh, oh shit, this is the twist– Prompto’s gonna strangle the shit out of Noct, isn’t he? He’s right there–” and finally “…. Oh.”

The game has Prompto like “Oh, I’ve been tortured for a while in this dungeon, also I wanna tell you guys I’m a Nif/MT”(1) and the bros are like “Ok so? That doesn’t change anything. We still care about you.” which matches more the reaction parents should have when their kid comes out of the closet than anything else. One of their own revealed themselves to be part of the same army that, like, has been attacking them relentlessly on the World Map every 15 minutes ( and interrupting the important dialogue we’ll never hear again ). You know the reaction Wakka had about Rikku being Al Bhed? Yeah. I was expecting that, most likely from Gladio. But they’ve known each other since they were kids, more or less, and those of us who have played the game, regardless of whether we did or didn’t see Brotherhood or the extra media, have likely already seen proof of their unwavering friendship toward each other even in portions of the game where it wouldn’t even make much sense for them all to still be cool.(2) So this… is a waste. It reinforced what we already knew. It served no purpose except to reveal a plot-convenient serial code on his wrist to help them escape, and it raised more questions.

MTs are made from daemons made from Starscourged humans, and Niflheim would need a lot of humans, so they started making clones and infecting them. Prompto is supposedly one of them, but escaped when he was super young and adopted into the Argentum family. Okay, so who got him out of that lab? Why did he still have “no parents” in Brotherhood? Who were his parents? Were they natives to Insomnia? How did he get a nice place to live in and not end up in the outskirts/slum parts of Lucis on account of his being a foreigner? If he got a serial code imprinted when he was a baby, wouldn’t it have deformed as he grew up? How did it maintain its shape? Was the barcode the same size throughout his life? Why isn’t he wearing light-resistant armor, like the other MTs? This is stuff we’d have to read the Wiki or the strategy guide about, except I’m still asking these questions, so the answers exist nowhere. Even to this day. And people still have theories on whether the Naga in the beginning of the game ( the one that kidnapped Prompto and cried about her baby ) was actually Prompto’s mother. That’s fucked up storytelling, not because they did it on purpose, but because they didn’t.

The reveal happens and is resolved so quickly, no one has the time to process anything. A lot of this game is pretty much “Here’s this earth-shattering detail! Let us never speak of it again”.

Like, yeah, Noct is broken up he attacked Prompto and knocked him off the train, but did he process the part where he said everything was Prom’s fault and demanding that Prom stop following him around? Right to his face?

Did no one stop to think that Ardyn being able to make himself look like another person means that there’s 0 chance any of them would know for certain that their allies were their allies? Wouldn’t they be in an intensely paranoid state, questioning each other on stuff the “real” them would know about? How do any of them know Ardyn isn’t still right there, hiding in plain sight?

Details that would have worked as foreshadowing for Prompto’s reveal, instead of Ardyn dropping eleventh hour infodumps on Niflheim’s army allowing for post-hoc bullshit:

The constant Magitek encounters come specifically from the Nifs geotracking Prompto’s barcode. The party actually brings up the frequency of these attacks, but Prompto is hesitant to say anything.

None of the Magiteks attack Prompto, focusing on the other three in the party instead of “one of their own”. Possibly dumb luck, and saves every gamer the trouble of Prompto always dying first somehow.

Increased frequency of goofy Ardyn selfies and creepy Prompto pictures on any day Ardyn is with the party.

Instead of Ardyn’s “stitch in time” thing that is never explained again, and Ardyn’s immortality just being the Astrals going “Ew, cooties” and banning him from the Beyond to inflict him on the living, have this: the way 'Ardyn’ appears and disappears is by body-hopping from one Starscourge-afflicted/daemonified person to another. Some individuals are more receptive to him than others based on how far along they are in their daemonification or MT experiments. So why was he on that train, in the place of Prompto? Because something inside Prompto allowed him to be there ( enough to alter his looks but not his speech patterns ). He could drop that particular bomb in Ch 12 before telling Noctis that Prompto is in Gralea.

Ardyn’s immortality comes from the fact that when he ‘dies’, he just manifests in the next likely person to host him or maybe someone of his choosing if he wants. That adds the drama of Ardyn not really ever being dead for good, and the possibility that he could take over Prompto in his next life if he felt like it. That’s a better justification for “You have to kill this dude, then kill yourself, then kill him again” than “Because the gods said so”.

TLDR the Prompto reveal sucked ass.

(1) Let me get this out: Fuck This Game. The localization sucks in its consistency by language. Bahamut is either the Draconian or the Aetherian. Ardyn could have either vaguely “known” Gentiana died, or personally had a hand in killing her. Izunia is either a relative of Ardyn, and Noctis’s ancestor, or is a completely random name Ardyn made up that he forgot the origins of. The Japanese version of the game, rather than hinting that Prompto is an MT, has sections where Ardyn instead taunts Noctis about “Did you know he’s originally from this city?”, and when Prompto reveals it to the group he says “I’m a person of Niflheim”. Even the JP VA confirmed it. So whether or not Prompto is even a Magitek is dependent on language of the game. I can understand that they were trying to go for, but they should have been consistent. Must have been something to do with the constant rewrites of the plot.

(2) Fuck This Game Part Duh: No, seriously. It tried to eat its cake and still have it, and I’ll tell you why. The game doesn’t actually give a shit about your choices. It wants its narrative both ways, telling us that Noctis in particular has certain “fixed” character traits but giving us a choice to make him another way in his dialogue options typical of Western RPGs which have “blank slate” characters. Using both methods and no lasting plot divergences to support those choices beyond the immediate cutscene makes it so that the dialogue options have no impact on the story or make sense, suggesting you play it “Square’s way” or else the game ignores your choices, which is fundamentally not how open world western RPGs work.

A playthrough in which Noctis acts like a total jerk to Prompto and dismissing him every chance he gets will still result in Prom wanting to hear from Noct that he cared about his well being, as well as Prom expressing sadness that Noct will die.

A playthrough where Noctis puts only platonic or indifferent notes into the book he sends to Luna will still result in the scenes in Chapter 9 where he sheds a tear at her speech, laments that he wanted to save her, and then is quiet rather than impassioned and vengeful, even though he summoned Ramuh and busted a base to rescue the Regalia and to get revenge for Jared of all people.

A playthrough where the Altissian woman interrogates Noctis and Noctis answers by straight-up fucking metagaming and showing more understanding of the lore of the story than he’s ever been told and treating her with respect should count as “gaining her implicit trust”, but we still see a scene where Luna is sitting in the chair across from the Altissian woman and Imperial forces come in and surround Luna anyway, meaning the Altissian lady sold them out.

A playthrough where Noctis only ever responds maturely to Gladio, and his conversations with others have the options for him to act like a leader and the King he’s meant to be, will still result in Gladio chewing him out unnecessarily while the game clunkily tells us Noctis “is a spoiled brat/selfish”, “is being immature” and was “moping for weeks” about Luna even though we just saw her death five minutes ago and Noctis is shown to be quiet but otherwise not stalling the quest in any way. We didn’t even see a funeral, or excessive crying or outbursts, or Noctis demanding that everyone focus on his pain and staying in Altissia locked in a hotel room. He’s just quiet on a train.

Chapter 13 of the game is especially awful, when both it and Ardyn insist that Noct is supposed to be some scared, frightened puppy without his weapons when he’s wielding the most canonically powerful item in the game, casually ripping gashes in reality and insta-killing a fortress full of daemons with an anti-daemon ring, and the player is able to ignore most (if not all) stealth mechanics and blitz through that chapter with no penalty.

For those that did the side quests throughout the game, the only trait from gameplay that sticks in the narrative is that Noctis is a passive entity. He’s told to do something, he just does it. Otherwise, no matter what, even if you played the game and had Noctis act like a rude shit and played as if none of the Bros were his Bros, they’re still going to be Bros. They’re still going to care about him, including Prompto. Especially Prompto.

#iprinny #ffxv critical #ffxv negative

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flowerfan2 · 8 years ago

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Winds of Change - Ch. 15/15 - Complete

Stucky, 46k, A03. Post CACW. Read from the beginning here. **Please reblog if you have enjoyed this fic!**

Bucky’s still got some healing to do after the doctors in Wakanda rouse him from sleep and make sure there are no more deadly triggers lurking in his brain. He decides it should happen where he can have some peace and quiet, as well as a little distance from Steve’s overwhelming presence. When he sees an ad for a “Winter Caretaker” he takes the job, but it turns out to be not so peaceful after all.

Or, how Bucky realized that while he still needs to heal, it wouldn’t be such a bad thing for him and Steve to do it together.

Chapter 15

For the next few days, it’s like Bucky is living in a state of suspended domestic bliss. He thinks he and Steve are playing at being normal, trying it on for size, seeing how it would feel to just hang out together, as if Bucky wasn’t a traumatized former assassin, and Steve not a government sponsored superhero with a growing disdain for following orders.

Bucky pulls out the notebook Nora left him and makes sure all the household maintenance has been taken care of. He replaces a few light bulbs, tightens a leaky faucet, and changes the oil in the station wagon. He gives the plants some extra care, and spends an hour dragging Mittens’ favorite toy up and down the stairs, until Miss Kitty and Gracie come out of hiding too. Bucky can’t help watching Steve with a fond smile on his face as he trails Bucky around the house, handing him tools and scooping up unsuspecting cats when they do something particularly cute.

But when Steve returns from a meeting with Natasha with a nervous look on his face, Bucky worries it’s all about to come crashing down. He sits at the kitchen island, trying not to tap his metal fingers on the gleaming granite countertop, and waits for Steve to spill.

“I thought maybe we’d have our lighthouse date tonight,” Steve says, which isn’t what Bucky was expecting. “It’s kinda warm out today, for December, anyway. And clear, so we could actually see the sun set.”

“Sure,” Bucky replies. The look on Steve’s face hasn’t changed, though, and it’s not a nervous-and-excited-about-a-date look, it’s something decidedly more stomach-churning.

“But I think we should talk, first,” Steve finally says, and the churning in Bucky’s stomach intensifies.

“About what?” And make it fast, pal, because this is not the fun kind of suspense.

“The mission’s over. Coulson wants the team back in New York.”

Bucky knew this was coming – the Avengers weren’t going to start a permanent base of operations on Martha’s Vineyard.

“I want to talk about what happens next,” Steve goes on.

“I’m guessing the Avengers go back to New York?”

Steve sighs. “Well, what else?”

Bucky feels himself tapping hard on the granite, and puts both his hands in his lap, the right one keeping the left still. “I don’t know what you mean.” Which is not completely true, he does. It’s what he’s been avoiding thinking about for weeks, now. Where’s a retired former assassin to go when his house-sitting gig is up?

“Bucky, come on.”

“I don’t know, Steve,” he says tiredly. “Do you have any suggestions?”

Steve’s face lights up, and he practically bounces on his toes. “I do, in fact. You should move in with me. My place in Brooklyn is plenty big enough. I know you’ll like it.”

“I can’t do that,” Bucky says automatically. “I promised Nora I’d stay here.”

“Just through January, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So you’ll come then?” Steve’s face is so hopeful, it makes something ache inside of him.

“I don’t know, Steve,” Bucky says again. “Is it really such a good idea?”

Steve smirks, as if he’s already anticipated this. “We can test it out and see.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Bucky,” Steve says, stepping closer and taking Bucky’s hands in his. “Relax, okay? Take a deep breath.”

Bucky is about to snap at him that he’s breathing just fine, but then he realizes he really isn’t, and does as Steve says. He’s not sure why he’s freaking out over a conversation that really isn’t particularly scary. Except for him, maybe it is.

Bucky wants to go back to New York with Steve, move in with him and continue playing house for the rest of their lives. He wants to putter around their apartment together, cook grilled cheese, maybe get a cat or two of their own. He wants to go to sleep every night with Steve’s arms wrapped around him, and wake up with his face pressed into Steve’s ridiculous chest.

But what if it doesn’t work? What if Bucky can’t handle it, the constant presence of another person, the unending need to keep it together in front of Steve?

Steve threads his fingers through Bucky’s hair and leans in for a soft kiss, then pulls back and meets Bucky’s eyes.

“Hear me out, okay?”

Bucky nods, ignoring the way his heart is pounding against his chest.

“Coulson wants to keep the safe house running a little while longer, just in case there’s any further activity on the island. He’d like you to keep an eye on things. So I asked if I could stay, too. Kind of like working remotely.”

“You can’t be Captain America remotely,” Bucky protests.

“No, but I can get to wherever I need to go from here easily enough. But after he said yes to that, I, um.” Steve stops mid-sentence and rubs his face with his hand. “I may have asked for some time off. From being Captain America.”

“Steve?” Even with the Sekovia mess, the civil war between the Avengers, all of it, Steve hadn’t given up on the symbol that meant so much to people.

“Not forever,” Steve says. “Just, you know, until the end of January. Approximately.”

Bucky can feel the smile stretching his cheeks, and there’s a matching one spreading across Steve’s face. “The end of January.”

“Yeah.” Steve’s blushing, and Bucky can’t wait to kiss him.

“You’re taking a vacation until the end of January.”

“Not a total vacation. I’ll have some administrative work to do, make sure the safe house is fully stocked with Clint’s favorite beer, critical stuff.”

“But no missions.”

“No missions.”

Bucky puts his hands on Steve’s waist and pulls him closer, spreading his knees so Steve can step in between them. “So when you said we could give it a try…?”

“I’ll stay here on the island for as long as you do. At the safe house, or here with you, whatever you want. And if we like it, which I’m guessing we sure as hell will, then you can move back to New York with me.”

Bucky presses his lips together, pretending to weigh Steve’s proposal. Because there’s suddenly no doubt in his mind what he’s going to say, despite his earlier hesitance, and the fact that he’s making this commitment scares the crap out of him.

Steve just waits patiently, calm and considerate. The idiot knows Bucky can’t resist him. Finally Bucky breaks. “The bed’s a lot nicer here. And the safe house doesn’t have any cats.”

Steve grins. “I’ll stay here, then.” He pulls Bucky down off the stool, and wraps him in his arms. Bucky digs his face into Steve’s shoulder. “See?” Steve says, his breath warm on Bucky’s neck. “That wasn’t so hard.”

“Maybe not for you,” Bucky mutters into Steve’s shirt. “This shit scares me.”

Steve laughs, light and happy, cupping the back of Bucky’s neck with his hand and holding him close. “Same here, pal. I always want to be with you, Bucky. I’m like an imprinted baby duckling. Got one look at you in my impressionable youth and haven’t wanted to let you go since.”

Bucky’s heart sings, and he squeezes Steve tight, loving how he can feel Steve laughing all over his body. “Okay.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. But don’t ever share that comparison with Natasha.”

“Not that I’m about to, but why not?”

“She’ll call you ‘Bucky’s ducky’ for the rest of your life.”

*****

They drive out to the cliffs at the western edge of the island that afternoon. It is in fact unseasonably warm, well above freezing, and they’re both more resistant to cold than most people.

Still, it seems a little ridiculous to be standing up on the rocks at the top of the cliff, looking out past the lighthouse to the dark gray ocean, in the middle of winter.

“Stop complaining, Bucky,” Steve says, sitting and pulling Bucky down next to him. “You look adorable in that hat, anyway.”

It’s a navy blue knit beanie Steve had produced from somewhere, joking that now that Bucky had cut his hair, he needs the hat to keep his ears warm.

“It itches.”

“It does not.”

“How would you know?” Bucky asks, and Steve blushes. “This is your hat, isn’t it? What about your ears getting cold?”

Steve shrugs. “It looks better on you.”

The wind is whipping around them, and Bucky’s ass is numb where he’s sitting on the uncomfortably rough boulder, but Bucky lets Steve pull him in tight and relaxes against his side. After the sun sets they’ll have dinner in the little clifftop restaurant, and Steve will probably insist on getting the fish and chips, since he’s talked them up so much. Bucky will argue with him about whether they’re better than the kind you get at Coney Island, and Steve’s eyes will light up with the shared memory.

Bucky’s looking forward to it. There’s a lot he’s looking forward to. But for now, he pulls off his gloves and slips them over Steve’s chilly hands, giving him a soft look when Steve protests.

“You gave me your hat,” Bucky explains. “We’re looking out for each other now, right?”

The smile that spreads across Steve’s face is more beautiful than any sunset.

“Right.”

Bucky may have some healing left to do, and he may not know exactly where he’s going from here. But he’s damn sure who’ll be by his side as he goes.

#stucky #stucky fic #marvel fic #Steve Rogers #bucky barnes #natasha romanov #tony stark #clint barton #bruce banner #captain america #my fic

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jacewilliams1 · 5 years ago

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A lesson for life

Aviate, Navigate, Communicate.

The three least useful resources for a pilot are: the sky above, the runway behind, the fuel at the gas station.

Stabilized approach at 1000ft AGL prevents dents on the runway.

Every successful landing ends with a successful go-around.

Many valuable phrases that are essential for your survival accompany pilot training. They deal with judgment, identifying critical situations, managing risk and—this may be the most important category—admitting and correcting errors you have made to avoid the fatal one, even it feels like failing.

Theory is valuable and memorizing all those phrases support sharpening your pilot survival skillset, but nothing beats direct confrontation with the matter.

Visual navigation is something a green pilot needs to get accustomed to. You build experience slowly, by keeping track of the progress of flight by judging time/distance, identifying landmarks, and comparing to your planned route on your paper map. All the stuff that was considered routine before the advent of GPS and glass cockpits anyways.

Having completed the initial phases of my pilot training a couple of years ago, I was ready for my first cross-country flight. The destination airfield we planned for was Punitz (LOGG), a small strip located in Styria, southeastern Austria. Punitz is located in slightly hilly terrain that is common for that area, surrounded by small patches of forest, fields, and little towns and villages that from above all look pretty much the same.

It’s an airport—how hard can it be to find?

My flight instructor was making jokes in advance, about how difficult the airfield is to find for somebody lacking experience. His favorite story was that of one of my predecessors who got lost on the same navigation flight. Assessing the situation with help of his flight instructor, the student pilot began circling while comparing landmarks to the map. After a while, ATC radioed in to ask if their destination (Punitz) still was valid. When the flight instructor confirmed, adding they were still looking out for the airfield, ATC replied “best of luck” accompanied by a laugh. Turned out they were circling exactly above the runway.

Determined not to act as baseline for another funny story, my planning was meticulous. I printed out satellite pictures in different resolutions and noted down radials from every VOR I could find in the remote vicinity. I decided to approach Punitz from the north, turning south at a town five nautical miles from the airfield. I wrote down descriptions of landmarks near the airfield (“NOVEMBER VRP located just north of a triangular shaped storehouse complex 200m across”). I even checked (unsuccessfully) on YouTube for videos on approaches to our destination. While visibility would be decent, and wind generally calm, some light crosswind with annoying gusts were expected on landing. This was not of concern to me, though, as my home base is renowned for crosswinds and I already made jokes on being more proficient at landings involving crosswinds than without. Essentially, I was as over-prepared as possible, and quite confident that even failing on some aspects on navigation my flight would be a complete success.

During the flight, everything went smoothly. I ticked off my turn points, engaged in relaxed conversation with my flight instructor, and felt completely in control of the situation. Approaching and passing NOVEMBER VRP, I turned south and began to look out for a runway. I knew the general direction and had the patches of forest essentially imprinted into my brain, but even so it took quite some time until I finally identified the airfield. When I saw the concrete behind small groups of trees, I pointed out our destination to my flight instructor. We radioed asking for landing information and received a direct-in “land at your own discretion runway 15” immediately as no other traffic was near.

Searching for the field had already made me a bit nervous, and on approach my anxiousness to bring the flight to a successful conclusion grew. My stress level rose the closer we came to the field. I felt I was a bit high, a bit too late on everything, a bit too tense and erratic in control of the aircraft, but put it down to the unfamiliarity with my surroundings. On final approach, I was still too high and compensated with full flaps and a slip. I convinced myself that the approach still looked OK, but even to my untrained eye it was obvious that this was not one of my best approaches, familiar airfield or not. The whole approach phase my flight instructor intervened only minimally and quietly observed my performance.

On flare it all collapsed. One of the crosswind gusts hit the plane with force right when I set power to idle—still a bit high—and turned the plane sideways to the runway. I was completely taken by surprise, and, unprepared, had neither the time nor the reflexes to cope with the situation. I simply continued down towards the concrete, unaligned with the runway.

I heard a shout: MY CONTROLS! and simply let go. My flight instructor, with his experience from thousands of flight hours, and a couple of quick moves, put the plane on the runway as if he had been waiting for that moment—which he probably had.

Twenty minutes later, sipping a coffee, baffled and hands still shaking, fully aware that my life had been saved just moments ago, I winced at the stare of my flight instructor.

A good landing starts long before the flare.

Now tell me, what went wrong?

I did not count on the crosswind gust…

No. What went wrong?

Well, I was high on final and the slip added to…

No. Think. What went wrong?

I think my timing was off right from the beginning.

Closer.

He continued with determination:

That was not a single mistake. You were at least 1500 ft too high when you identified the airfield, you were close, and you were aware of that. You misinterpreted the radio message to land at your own discretion as an order to land. You wanted to impress by completing what you started instead of minimizing risk. You ignored that fighting for your descent resulted in being too late on every step in the approach, mentally and physically. You ignored all the accumulating warning signs on final and were overloaded with tasks. You ignored the option to go around, an option you had all the time until milliseconds before touchdown. But actually you should have opted to enter the traffic pattern in the first place instead of trying to prove how cool you are going direct in. Even without that gust your landing would have been somewhere between terrible and dangerous. You had lengths of time and gazillions of chances to prevent ending up as a blotch on the concrete. You took none of them.

I was thunderstruck. I realized I had ignored every single lesson about judgment and risk prevention just because I wanted to be successful. To impress. To be the Best Green Navigator Student Pilot Ever. With my head hanging, I felt what was still left of my confidence slowly drifting away. I realized that I had failed in my decision-making process.

Then my flight instructor grinned: “That will not happen again. Lessons like these stay. Don’t worry, I know how you fly. You will be a good pilot.”

To this day I believe this was one of the most important lectures of my adult life, not just to remind me how to stay a responsible and safe pilot. The options to prevent fatal errors, even if it means to swallow your pride or to admit that you did not perform as expected, are always there. Some options might be inconvenient, or embarrassing. Nevertheless, if it is necessary to prevent something significantly worse, it is not only legitimate but mandatory to make use of them.

I believe this lesson applies to many aspects life, not only to flying. The underlying mindset can be a problem solver in relationships, raising kids, to friendships, to cope with difficult situations in general and how you perform on your job.

To become a pilot and roam the skies has always been my dream since I was a child. Only with time, I realized becoming a pilot taught me a lot more than just how to fly aircraft.

The post A lesson for life appeared first on Air Facts Journal.

from Engineering Blog https://airfactsjournal.com/2020/01/a-lesson-for-life/

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biofunmy · 5 years ago

Text

Facebook Is Removing Kashmiri WhatsApp Accounts Because Of Kashmir’s Internet Blackout

tech

Kashmiris enduring their region’s ongoing internet blackout are losing their WhatsApp accounts because of the platform’s policy on inactive accounts.

Pranav Dixit

Pranav Dixit BuzzFeed News Reporter

Last updated on December 5, 2019, at 2:07 a.m. ET

Posted on December 4, 2019, at 6:02 p.m. ET

Danish Ismail / Reuters

A Kashmir girl rides her bike past Indian security personnel standing guard in front of closed shops in Srinagar, Oct. 30.

On Wednesday, Kashmiris began disappearing from WhatsApp — and no one initially knew why. Citizens of the disputed geographical territory, whose autonomy the Indian government revoked in August, abruptly and inexplicably began departing WhatsApp groups in which they had long participated, leaving behind only a “[Phone number] left” message.

It’s been four months since India’s government shut down Kashmir’s internet services, cutting off the region from the rest of the world. Because of this, some observers suspected that the Kashmiris who disappeared from their WhatsApp groups this week did not do so on their own and may not even know anything has changed.

In a comment provided after this story’s publication, a spokesperson for Facebook, which owns WhatsApp, said the disappearances were the result of the messaging app’s policy on inactive accounts.

After 4 months of total communication blackout, @WhatsApp is automatically deleting Kashmiris from groups.

#Kashmir

07:16 PM – 04 Dec 2019

“To maintain security and limit data retention, WhatsApp accounts generally expire after 120 days of inactivity,” they wrote. “When that happens, those accounts automatically exit their WhatsApp groups. People will need to be re-added to groups upon regaining access to the Internet and joining WhatsApp again.”

The spokesperson did not respond to questions from BuzzFeed News about how many Kashmiris were affected. Those whose profiles have expired will have to re-register on WhatsApp and recreate their profiles on the platform.

WhatsApp is used by some 400 million Indians, making the country the app’s largest market in the world. WhatsApp groups dominate online conversations in India, and most Indians with access to a smartphone participate in at least a few. So when Kashmiri people began disappearing en masse from groups, a lot of people noticed.

4 months of inactivity, WhatsApp accounts from Kashmir are getting deleted. Weird to see individuals you haven’t spoken for all these months ‘leave’ WA groups whereas in reality an important part of their digital imprint – images, videos, texts & memories attached – vanishing.

06:15 PM – 04 Dec 2019

“I initially thought that internet services had been restored in Kashmir and maybe these people were just removing themselves from WhatsApp groups on their own,” Mudasir Firdosi, a London-based Kashmiri doctor who is in half a dozen WhatsApp groups with friends and family in Kashmir, told BuzzFeed News. “But I quickly realized that’s not the case.”

Kashmir contacts automatically “exiting” from my WhatsApp groups today.

I know they would not have been able to see my messages anyway, but this is heartbreakingly symbolic.

04:26 PM – 04 Dec 2019

Shahnawaz Kaloo, a Kashmiri doctor who lives in New Delhi and is part of half a dozen WhatsApp groups with friends and family who live in Kashmir, told BuzzFeed News that Kashmiris who were entirely cut off from the internet were automatically evicted from every WhatsApp group that he was in with them. “It didn’t happen with people that used the internet [because they traveled out of Kashmir or briefly got internet access somehow].”

Suhail Lyser, a Kashmiri student who lives in Dehradun, a city in northern India, told BuzzFeed News that he saw more than 150 Kashmiris in a WhatsApp group that shared news and updates about the region that he was part of suddenly get kicked out of the group.

Suddenly all my contacts from Kashmir are ‘leaving’ the #Whatsapp groups, and their WhatsApp accounts are getting lost. Remember there is NO internet in #Kashmir from the last 4 months. What kind of sinister moves are these? @facebook @WhatsApp @UNGeneva @UNHumanRights

05:54 PM – 04 Dec 2019

“When I first saw what was happening, I thought it was the government of India that was doing this,” he said.

In February, Nasir Khuehmi, a 21-year-old student, set up a WhatsApp support group for Kashmiri students around the country who faced violence and backlash in the wake of an attack by a suicide bomber in Kashmir’s Pulwama district, in which 40 Indian paramilitary personnel were killed. On Wednesday, the group, which had hundreds of young Kashmiris, emptied out instantly.

“I was shocked and disappointed,” said Khuehmi. “It was heartbreaking.”

UPDATE

Dec. 05, 2019, at 01:29 AM

This article has been updated with a comment from Facebook.

Sahred From Source link Technology

from WordPress http://bit.ly/2ORBSAw via IFTTT

#IFTTT #WordPress

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preserving-ferretbrain · 6 years ago

Text

Dollhouse: Thoughts

by Rami

Monday, 16 February 2009

Almost completely by accident, Rami happened to catch the season premiere of Joss Whedon's latest oeuvre.~

I'll be one of the first to admit that I don't exactly fit into the typical audience focus-group that American TV networks base their decisions around. Having seen (and, to be fair, adored) Firefly but not seen much of any of his other work (most notably Buffy or Dr Horrible), I am not enough of a Whedon fanboy to have seen all the buzz about it. Although since the buzz has been piling up for a good few months if not well over a year, I did notice one or two hints in the blogs I read.

So, with my laptop open in front of me I was engaged in what appears to be the traditional American pastime of not paying huge amounts of attention to the television when I noticed

Eliza Dushku

sprawled across the screen. Needless to say, that got my attention enough to notice that the much-talked-about season premiere of

Dollhouse

was coming up. For those of you who aren't completely up-to-date with Whedon's work, Dollhouse is about a secret facility housing a number of "Dolls", people whose personalities have been wiped out so that they can be imprinted with fresh ones to handle the missions that the Dollhouse hires them out to do – these missions, then, can be pretty much anything from seduction to assassination, and I have no doubt they will be the ostensible focus of each weekly episode. The ongoing story follows one Doll in particular, Dushku's character Echo (one of her fellow Dolls is called Sierra; clearly they have disposable

alphabetical identifiers

to go with the disposable people), who begins to become self-aware.

I won't spoil the actual plot of the pilot or sketch out more of the characters for you, although

Wikipedia is happy to do so

. What I will say is that the premise is handled very well, with lots of out-and-out cool technology (mixing and matching personality traits to construct the perfect composite for a mission; recording memories onto disk for later playback; making someone appear nearsighted by altering her brain's perception of her optical signals) and suitable amounts of on-mission action and adventure. There's also the rather more interesting matter of Echo herself, who seems to be breaking out of the personality wipe (Dushku plays this pretty well, being fairly convincing in each of her mission-specific roles and her reactions to her personal flashbacks), and a couple of hints as to who she was before becoming a Doll; some continuity and quite a few options for sub-plots in the Dollhouse staff (including doctor, geeky tech-guy, mission handler, etc); and for those who are into it, high-level political machinations involving the Dollhouse's CEO and the corporate world in which she moves.

There's a tantalizing possibility, in other words, that there might be something for nearly everyone in there. Online reactions have been mixed, some

liking it

and some

doubtful

. I think it's too early to tell, but seeing as the writing and direction will include

Whedon himself

and

Tim Minear

, both of whom I have seen do amazing work on Firefly, I'm cautiously optimistic.Themes:

TV & Movies

Sci-fi / Fantasy

Whedonverse

bookmark this with - facebook - delicious - digg - stumbleupon - reddit

~Comments (

go to latest

)

Nathalie H

at 23:44 on 2009-02-16To be fair, I haven't seen it. But I have seen this summary:

"The most interesting point that Whedon made about his new show, Dollhouse, was the unlimited possibilities associated with characters that quite literally have their mind wiped when their job is done.

These for-hire bombshells show up with a blank slate, perform the task they are hired to do - which can vary from being the perfect date, cracking safes or fulfilling the sexual fantasies of whomever they’ve been hired to please."

And I don't know about you, but that creeps me out quite substantially. Joss Whedon has this very interesting image of himself where he thinks he's immune to gender issues because 'hey look female protagonist', and I have a horrible feeling he's getting into territories related to prostitution and sexual abuse that he simply can't handle without screwing up appallingly.

Who knows, I may have to watch this and have a rant going the other way. ;)

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Gina Dhawa

at 00:09 on 2009-02-17The most often used word I've seen to describe Dollhouse is "skeevy", which, to be honest, sums it up best for me. I most likely will give it a chance to redeem itself - I do like some of the characters enough to give them another episode or two - but in general, it makes me uneasy.

I was unimpressed at the use of child abuse as a plot device - you can see where it's going, but there are ways to use that story sensitively and I don't believe it's done well here. I'm also not too happy with the heavyhandedness of the Dolls = Female Prostitution = Look at Eliza Dushku's body! situation. To create the Dollhouse as an exploration of human trafficking is fine - but to create it only with sexy women controlled by (mostly) men? That pings a little too high as titillation rather than any kind of social commentary.

I am pretty sure the premise can be done right. I'm just not entirely sure - and agree with Nathalie on this point - that Whedon is going to be able to this time. Which I say as a Whedon fan.

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Viorica

at 04:30 on 2009-02-17I watched the premiere, and was slightly disappointed, mostly because I went in with sky-high expectations. While I am a bit skeeved by the premise, I am giving Joss some credit- he's made a career out of subverting expectations, so I think/hope that's what he's planning on here. The one thing I was unimpressed by was the use of child abuse as a plot point. It's cheap, it's gratuitous, and it's demeaning to everyone involved. Still, I'm hanging on to see where it goes.

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Arthur B

at 09:42 on 2009-02-17I'd be interested to see what people think about this by the end of the season, because it strikes me as the sort of thing that is very, very difficult to judge solely on the basis of the first episode, especially since there's so many ways it can go wrong. The much-vaunted feminist allegory might become oppressively heavy-handed (or indeed might just fail and end up being a skeevy old man-fantasy), Echo's emergent personality might prove to be intensely irritating. the big reveals might fizzle horribly...

It strikes me that the free will plotline is going to need to be handled very carefully by Whedon; if he intends to have the show finish once Echo becomes fully free and recaptures her past, then he's going to be pressured to stretch the thing out horribly to fill out more seasons (if

Dollhouse

is successful, that is). If he intends to keep going at that point, he's either going to have to completely rethink the premise of the show or present the ludicrous situation of a self-aware and free-willed Echo who hangs around the Dollhouse and does missions for them anyway.

I mean, it might all turn out fine; Buffy didn't turn sour for five or six seasons, after all. But then again, Buffy also struggled to adapt the premise to the characters' continued development ("oh shit, they grew up, we can't set it in a school any more"), and was often too heavy-handed with the social commentary (

THE GODDAMN MAGIC-IS-CRACK PLOTLINE

), Since

Dollhouse

's success seems to hinge on adapting the premise to Echo's continued awakening, and walking the fine line between not being too heavy-handed with the social commentary on one hand and being flippant about serious issues on the other, I have to say I see trouble brewing.

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Wardog

at 10:37 on 2009-02-17I have to admit I have on-going issues with Whedon's presentation of women / his self-proclaimed feminism.

There's an insanely hysterical

LJ post

about Firefly which kind of dashes to the opposite end of the spectrum.

But there must be some middle ground between declaring him a feminist messiah and a de facto rapist...

Sorry, the reason I have gone off on this massive tangent is because some of the sex / power / titillation aspects of Dollhouse's premise concern me.... but, hey, I haven't seen it so who am I to bitch/

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Arthur B

at 10:49 on 2009-02-17From that LJ post...

I have become increasingly interested in examining Joss Whedon’s work from a feminist perspective since I had a conversation with another lesbian feminist sister at the International Feminist Summit about whether Joss was a feminist.

Are we sure this person is serious? It almost looks like a parody, between the psychotic misandry and "lesbian feminist sister" and the repetition.

Seriously, it scans like "I live to play punk rock and will never do anything else. Punk rock is my life and without it I would rather die. It is the greatest feeling in the world to perform punk rock in a packed club full of punk rock fans." GET A THESAURUS, _ALLECTO_.

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Wardog

at 10:53 on 2009-02-17I'm afraid ... I think it's dead serious.

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Wardog

at 11:17 on 2009-02-17Actually, having posted rampant insanity here - I think I ought to also post to some sensible discussions of Inara. These are old but I remember they articulated some of my concerns nicely (and do not once claim Whedon is a rapist, oddly enough) -

this

is a good one.

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Dan H

at 15:37 on 2009-02-17

To create the Dollhouse as an exploration of human trafficking is fine - but to create it only with sexy women controlled by (mostly) men? That pings a little too high as titillation rather than any kind of social commentary.

This sort of thing is exactly why I'm officially Off Joss Whedon. He just can't shut the fuck up about his feminist credentials while at the same time writing TV series which involve hot young girls posing in short skits.

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Wardog

at 16:28 on 2009-02-17I would like to control Eliza Dushku but I don't think this is especially feminist of me...

*dreams*

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Rami

at 17:23 on 2009-02-17I'm afraid ... I think it's dead serious.

Oh god.

writing TV series which involve hot young girls posing in short skits.

According to the Internets there was meant to be a

hot young boy posing in tight trousers

, too, but he was moved around to fit a stereotype better and is now with the Russian mob...

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Viorica

at 18:03 on 2009-02-17The thing is, I'm not entirely sure how much of the skimpy-skirtedness is Joss's idea, and how much is the network's. I know that TV shows tend to be heavily edited by network execs, and it could be that they were worried about the mass appeal of the series itself, and had Whedon throw in some girls in skimpy clothing to attract the drooling fanboy crowd.

One thing I am concerned about is what Arthur mentioned- the series' lasting potential. They can't drag Echo's awakening out too long without it getting stupid, and without that, there's only so much material they have to work with.

(The LJ post is, to my knowledge, dead serious.)

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Nathalie H

at 19:15 on 2009-02-17@Kyra - I was planning on pointing to some discussions of feminism in Firefly, but that extreme one was the only one I could remember! Which I think does go too far the other way too.

@Dan - exactly.

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Nathalie H

at 19:23 on 2009-02-17An example of just one reason I find him annoying, from that Firefly discussion Kyra linked:

"My only contribution to this discussion is that Whedon appears somewhat defensive about Inara's reception among fans. He says his wife is the one who suggested the character and therefore he doesn't understand why women, especially, seem affronted by her."

OH, SHUT UP.

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Wardog

at 21:46 on 2009-02-17Dan and I used to have (well, still have really) this joke called Joss Whedon: Minority Warrior. We can't draw but that's the only thing that's stopping us making a detailed cartoon of the scenario. Basically it would consist of lots of women crying out for aid: "Help help! We are being oppressed". And then heroic Joss Whedon: Minority Warrior would swoop in with cape flying and liberate them.

Mind you, it's easy to whinge but I did love Firefly so very very much, despite Inara.

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Arthur B

at 23:02 on 2009-02-17@Viorica:

I know that TV shows tend to be heavily edited by network execs, and it could be that they were worried about the mass appeal of the series itself, and had Whedon throw in some girls in skimpy clothing to attract the drooling fanboy crowd.

This is definitely a factor, although it's insanely difficult from the outside to judge how much it is. It's worth bearing in mind that Joss Whedon is one of the few writer/directors working in TV whose name is itself a draw; Dollhouse is, after all, heavily hyped on the basis that it's The New Joss Whedon Show (and I do wonder whether we'd be giving it as much attention if it wasn't Whedon). While it's true that Whedon can't use the force of his name to just steamroller the network execs, he is still applying his name to it; he's not quitting or making this an Alan Smithee project. Even if he didn't make all the decisions about the content, even if he might have private objections to some of the content, he's still standing by it. And in my book that still makes him partially responsible for it.

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Dan H

at 23:16 on 2009-02-17

The thing is, I'm not entirely sure how much of the skimpy-skirtedness is Joss's idea, and how much is the network's.

I think it's easy to point the fingers at networks about these sorts of things, but when you get right down to it, I don't think Joss Whedon ever walked into a studio execs office and said "Okay, I've got this idea for a show, and I think it's really important that the main character actually be kind of plain looking and dress sensibly."

Whedon's actually pretty good at fighting for what he wants (he got a married couple into Firefly). If he really wanted to have a protagonist who wasn't a hot kung fu chick, he could probably make it happen.

The thing that bugs me about Joss Whedon is that he shouts so much about his feminism, all the while being

very slightly sexist

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http://roisindubh211.livejournal.com/

at 03:19 on 2009-02-18That livejournal post is SCARY.

I could never figure out what I thought about the whole Inara thing- I thought it was neat that she clearly liked Mal but wasn't willing to give up her career for him (DIDN'T see Serenity, so I don't know what happens there) but the combination of her character and the beautiful actress that played her sort of makes my brain go "guh pretty" and stop working.

Dollhouse...the idea creeps me out, even without having seen it. I just expected it to be along the lines of "real dolls" that move and talk, so I didn't want to, and now I'm kind of glad that I didn't.

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Viorica

at 06:08 on 2009-02-18I

posted

my thoughts on the whole sexism debate on my LJ. The problem with debating it is, it always ends up with people flinging accusations of sexism and extremist feminism respectively, and nothing actually gets discussed.

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Wardog

at 09:32 on 2009-02-18but the combination of her character and the beautiful actress that played her sort of makes my brain go "guh pretty" and stop working.

Yeah, I get that all the time. The other thing, which I suppose, we have to bear in mind is that "whore with a heart of gold" is a Western trope, updated to fit a sci-fi premise. I suppose the problem is that you can't have it both ways. You can't say "well, this is a typical character that occurs in the genre so we're going to use" AND say "well this is a typical that occurs in the genre so we're going to use and, by the way, it's *empowering to women* as well".

I was very interested by your LJ post, Viorica. I'm not sure whether to respond to it here or over at LJ. I feel a little bit bad since we've all jumped into Rami's article and starte weighing in, despite the fact nobody in England has seen the damn thing yet =P From your LJ, then, I think this raises a point:

They're saying that the idea of the Dollhouse makes them uncomfortable because it represents the ideal of a woman being utterly passive and fulfilling any (presumably male) fantasy.

You've said a couple of times that it could be argued that the premise of Dollhouse is supposed to be skeevy ... but skeevy is ultimately still is skeevy, which I suppose is the flaw in that kind of defence. I think we kind of have to wonder who Dollhouse is *for*, really - with Echo's growing awareness she may evolve into a character we can identify with / want to be / admire ... but at the moment she's very much a character we *look at*. Mulvey would have a field day with this one, I reckon. I never saw a gaze so male =P

The other thing is that it does remind me a little of Victorian redemption narratives (stick with me on this one) - I mean it's *okay* if she's totally a passive fantasy figure onto which to project male sexual desire *at the moment* because *she will be liberated later*.

Also

this trailer

is quite illuminating as far as target audience is concerned - I know it's self-consciously pulpy but STILL!

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Shim

at 22:31 on 2009-02-18

For those of you who aren't completely up-to-date with Whedon's work, Dollhouse is about a secret facility housing a number of "Dolls", people whose personalities have been wiped out so that they can be imprinted with fresh ones to handle the missions that the Dollhouse hires them out to do – these missions, then, can be pretty much anything from seduction to assassination, and I have no doubt they will be the ostensible focus of each weekly episode.

Okay, I have no TV (shock!) and haven't seen any of this. Actually, the bit I find most striking/interesting is not the sexism debate (I'd need to have watched it), but the premise itself. Because if I were setting up a (secret?) "guild" that took on all these kinds of missions, it seems to me incredibly unlikely that the "operatives" would be dreamy women in skimpy outfits. Okay, the seduction part I'll allow. But even allowing for some kind of brain transfers, it seems far more likely you'd have a completely different lot of (probably not all attractive young female) people for assassinations, espionage and whatever, because of the physical/mental demands of each job.

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Rami

at 05:55 on 2009-02-19@Shimmin: Don't worry, I think the Ferretbrain style is rather more to curl up with a book than in front of the TV ;-) In any case, I'm not sure it's actually showing in the UK (or rather, on any free channel; it's probably available on Sky) at this point, so it's probably just those of us across the pond who have seen it so far...

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Nathalie H

at 21:57 on 2009-02-19@Kyra: Joss Whedon: Minority Warrior is an excellent name for your Joss Whedon joke! Mine is Joss Whedon Understands, followed by it's sequel Russell T Davies: He's Gay, So He Understands Too.

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Dan H

at 19:18 on 2009-02-23

I posted my thoughts on the whole sexism debate on my LJ. The problem with debating it is, it always ends up with people flinging accusations of sexism and extremist feminism respectively, and nothing actually gets discussed.

I've just read your post, and I think you basically sum up the core arguments very well. It's the women-as-victims thing that bugs me, particularly I think because it's exactly the sort of trap that Man!Feminists can easily fall into. You get so busy saying "look how awful it is that society treats women this way!" that you forget to actually show any women who don't get treated this way, which winds up reinforcing the stereotype that women are just supposed to get treated badly because that's how things work.

Ironically (contrary to what one of the posters on your site suggests) I actually think having Eliza confront her abuser and win makes things worse, not better. "You can't hurt me any more" sounds empowering until you realize that what it really means is "you have been hurting me constantly and, until this moment, there has been nothing I can do about it."

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Viorica

at 21:01 on 2009-02-23I have to disagree on the meaning of "You can't hurt me any more" She's not nescessarily saying that he's been hurting her up to this point, but rather that she's not nearly as vulnerable as she was the last time she encountered him, and he isn't able to hurt her now. Small difference in meaning, big difference in interpretation.

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Dan H

at 22:21 on 2009-02-23I'll bow to the interpretation of somebody who's actually seen the episode, but isn't part of the setup that the person whose memories Eliza is using actually ... y'know ... killed herself?

The thing that I find so shonky about the whole abuse-empowerment deal is that whether she finally defeats her abuser or not, her entire character is still defined by that experience. It's problematic because it winds up being a manifestation of the whole "virtue of oppression" fallacy. You wind up with a situation where the noblest thing a female character can aspire to is to deal courageously with abuse.

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Viorica

at 04:50 on 2009-02-24Oh, I don't dispute the abuse = empowerment message- it's something that always irritates me, especially since it seems to be a way of saying "Hey guys, see this strong, empowered woman? She used to be in the ultimate helpless position! She isn't threatening anymore!" but I do think the specific line is open to interpretation.

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Wardog

at 09:16 on 2009-02-24I do think the specific line is open to interpretation

I agree.

Because if I were setting up a (secret?) "guild" that took on all these kinds of missions, it seems to me incredibly unlikely that the "operatives" would be dreamy women in skimpy outfits.

Actually this is vaguely addressed in the pilot because the person for whom Eliza Dushku is meant to negotiating hostage release for wastes a lot of valuable negotiating / thinking time by not letting her do her job, and basically following her around going "wait, you are far too young and hot to be a shit-hot hostage negotiator".

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Arthur B

at 09:44 on 2009-02-24Surely this makes the objection even more valid, not less? It's clearly a flaw in your mind-controlled duplicate operation if your mind-controlled duplicates don't even slightly look like the real deal, to the point where people are openly questioning exactly how 50 years of experience got into 29 years of Eliza Dushku.

If people aren't buying your cover story when it's imprinted in your very mind, then you're doing espionage wrong.

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Wardog

at 09:57 on 2009-02-24If people aren't buying your cover story when it's imprinted in your very mind, then you're doing espionage wrong

Like this?

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Dan H

at 14:32 on 2009-02-24

it seems to be a way of saying "Hey guys, see this strong, empowered woman? She used to be in the ultimate helpless position! She isn't threatening anymore!"

I'm, afraid it's even worse than that. It's a way of seeing "see this woman who you were

totally getting off

on imagining totally helpless, well she's

also

strong and empowered, which means wanting to have sex with her makes you

a really good guy

#Ferretbrain #Dollhouse #Joss Whedon #Rami

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