#because snail internet but

[galedekarios]

i'm assuming the patch will drop soon and i just wanted to let you all know that when it drops, i'm staying away from tumblr and other social media until i've played it for myself.

when i get back, i'll tag every new post, edit & gifset that has new content with 'patch 6 spoilers' and 'bg3 spoilers'. 🖤

[snailsandstrawberries]

people will ask why I like dan and phil so much and ill just say I think theyre funny because I cant say its because theyre so openly queer and happy while being queer and despite everything theyre such a good influence and can feel like such a safe space for little closeted me

[breadwheathead]

gotta go harvest my celery or whatever I planted in tunnel town

[getupthestairs]

i am so sorry for forsaking you email. email i love you please come back baby

[ryoflix]

sukuna doing your grwm voiceover | f. reader, s/h prns., crack 'n fluff, estb. rl ؛ ଓ

the mic is a cheap little thing—one of those clip-ons with a long cord and a half-broken clip that you swore was “totally fine for tiktok.” it’s taped to the desk lamp now, swaying slightly as sukuna leans back in your pink gaming chair, arms crossed over his chest like it might keep the cringe away. the video is on mute.

thank god. he would’ve walked out if he had to listen to your chipper little intro and do this dumbass voice-over. but he stays—grumbling, snarling under his breath, but he stays.

“ugh. fine,” he mutters as he hits record, voice low and already irritated. “hi. ’m narratin' her dumbass makeup thing. let’s get this over with.”

the video starts with you holding up your moisturizer to the camera like it’s a sacred relic. sukuna squints at the label.

“this one’s got... snail slime or some shit. don’t ask me. she swears by it. uses exactly three pumps, like a goddamn ritual. see? one, two... three. mmhmm. told you.”

he clicks his tongue when the next product flashes onscreen. your sunscreen.

“this one’s white as hell when it goes on. looks like a clown for a sec. she always pats it in too fast—like she’s in a race. it dries down okay, i guess. not that i notice. or care.”

he very much notices. always does. he sits on the bed pretending to scroll while you do this routine every morning. he's watched it with the intensity of a warrior memorizing enemy patterns.

now comes the concealer. the applicator dabs under your eyes with practiced precision.

“yeah. this part. five dots under each eye. exactly five. you miss one, she wipes the whole thing off like the world’s ending. don’t know why she bothers—looks good without all this crap anyway.”

he pauses.

“…not that i say that out loud.”

the beauty blender makes its entrance and sukuna actually groans.

“this sponge. she squeezes it before every use like it’s stress relief. and then she taps. forever. for e-ver. just... tap tap tap like an annoying little woodpecker.”

he mimics the sound with his fingers on the desk—tap, tap, tap—lazily, almost fondly.

your bronzer palette appears, slightly cracked in the corner. he narrows his eyes.

“this thing’s been through hell. she won’t throw it away. i offered to buy her a new one and she called me ‘sweet’ like i wasn’t trying to end this makeup horror show. anyway, she goes light-handed here. no muddy cheeks. she’s precise. annoying, but precise.”

his gaze flicks to the lipstick you picked—a soft, bitten pink.

“her favorite,” he says a little too quickly, a little too softly. then he clears his throat like the sentiment offended him. “whatever. next.”

the video ends with you posing for the camera, smiling. sukuna stares for a second too long. you’d edited a heart transition, too—sparkly pink.

“gross,” he mutters.

he clicks the mic off and pushes back from the desk like it burned him. “we done? finally?”

you post it anyway. mostly because the internet doesn’t deserve to be spared this kind of comedy gold. and overnight, the comments blow up. thirsting. begging. 

"i'd pay to listen to him read an audiobook."  "who is he and where can i sign up for the cult??"  "he sounds like he could ruin my life and i'd say thanks afterwards."

sukuna glares at the screen the next morning, cracking his knuckles like he’s ready to teleport into the comments section and throw hands.

“who the hell is sexyslut69 and why do they want me to whisper them affirmations?” he growls. “block ‘em. block all of ‘em.”

you laugh. he doesn’t. but when you offer to film another one, he grumbles a “tch” and sits back down in your chair.

“fine. but next time, you're using the expensive mic. and none of that heart bullshit at the end. i'm not doing that sparkly shit again.”

pause.

“…and do not let them think i’m for sale, you hear me? i’m yours. yours.”

[heauxplesslydevoted]

“Disconnected” and on a macro level it’s a series of silly calls because of a downed phone line or internet server somewhere causing people to freak out. On a micro level, it’s Eddie in El Paso and Buck in Los Angeles, having separate but parallel mini tantrums because they keep trying to call each other, but missing each other. And Buck is not on his A-game at work, he’s super clumsy because he feels like he’s missing the left half of his body. And Eddie is El fucking Paso, disconnected from his people, the 118, the family he chose. And he and Chris are still making snail level progress. He’s just as disjointed as Buck.

And the other subplot is Henren trying to plan a sexy date night, but a series of shenanigans and mom duties keep forcing them to postpone.

The episode ends with Henren having a cute candlelit dinner. And Buck and Eddie finally being able to talk to each other. Buck answers the phone and does that cute flustered smile/sigh/exhale thing that he does when he’s around Eddie and says “Hi Eddie” and then the episode cuts.

[daggerfall]

M's Updated New Player Guide for Elder Scrolls Online

I have to simplify a great deal of this information since the intended audience is people brand new to ESO looking to get into it for questing (not pve or pvp), so if anyone thinks bits of this are a little wrong or lacking nuance, please understand it is likely intended. Credentials: trust me.

Top 3 Important things to know before you get started

Character creation: You pick your class during character creation and this can never be changed. Trust me, people miss this. Your race, appearance, and name can all be changed but for a cost (crowns, the in-game micro transaction currency), and little bits of your appearance can be changed with cosmetics that may or may not be free. Any class can quest just fine, some will be better at solo content than others, but don't sweat this. Some classes are also DLC (warden, necromancer, and arcanist). All classes are capable of all roles for the purposes you, a new player wanting to quest, care about. Make the character you want and can stick with, as you will need a Main for purposes of crafting, and crafting knowledge can't transfer to other characters you may make. Also, plan for them to deal damage primarily. Supports are not needed in questing and you'll often be alone anyway - save yourself the pain of killing enemies at a snails pace and invest in damage with a smidge of survival.

Alliances and the Main Quest: The start of the game for new players should always be the base game main quest and your respective alliance's main quest. Unless you started with the expansion that unlocks any race any alliance, your alliance will be tied to your race. Bretons, Orsimer, and Redguards: Daggerfall Covenant. Dunmer, Argonians, Nords: Ebonheart Pact. Altmer, Bosmer, and Khajiit: Aldmeri Dominion. Imperials are DLC but any alliance. This can be changed later for crowns, but only affects what alliance you fight for/against in PvP zones, minor dialogue interactions, certain cosmetics, and which version of certain quests you get during the main quest. The starting city/zone for each alliance is as follows: DC: Daggerfall, Glenumbra. EP: Davon's Watch, Stonefalls. AD: Vulkhel Guard, Auridon. When you leave character creation, you'll be sent through the Coldharbour tutorial and spat out on your starter island (DC: Stros M'Kai. EP: Bleakrock Isle. AD: Khenarthi's Roost). Finish those storylines until you hit your starter city, and the main quest will progress again with meeting the Prophet at the Harborage.

DLC, Chapters, and ESO+: Depending on the version of game you got, you may be pushed or tempted to play the newest DLC (chapter or smaller zone DLC). This is a trap. ZOS advertises the game as play how you want and in any order you want, and any longtime player hates this marketing strat. Functionally, any DLC can be played at any time in ESO, but you will miss certain bits of dialogue and story by playing out of release order. Characters will remember previously meeting you if you play in order, but not out of order. They may drastically change their appearance to the point of the story making no sense if it happened in that wrong order, or even die and reappear with no acknowledgement of their death. If this is your first time playing ESO, I Highly recommend playing everything in the intended release order at least once, and then decide for yourself what stories you think work as independent stories for other characters you wish to play. Don't listen to the devil telling you to play some random dlc because you like dunmer or vampires. Listen to me, some guy on the internet instead.

The intended order is (without listing every single dlc) the Coldharbour main quest and your alliance's main quest at the same time ➡️ Cadwell's Silver and Gold (the other two alliances' main quests) ➡️ Imperial City (PvP zone with a solo storyline, but can be skipped/played at any point) ➡️ Craglorn ➡️ all dlc in release order (including dungeons, zone dlc, and chapters). Dungeons can be done in any order (base game I and II dungeons should be done in the numeric order) up to Wrathstone, which is when year-long story arcs began and included dungeons in the plot, and more returning NPCs appear in dungeons.

The Infamous "ESO DLC flowchart" can advise you the order of when you should play certain storylines (base game and dlc), but it's just the release order and natural flow of the storylines. It updates too often for me to post the image here, but you can easily find it by searching those terms. Another good ESO starter guide I like is this one, that explains which story points to hit and when.

The base game alone is good and contains hundreds of hours of content. Get through the base game's main quests and decide for yourself if you like the game enough to continue on. And if you do want to continue, then the best way to play DLC is to buy the subscription ESO+. Among many other things, the main use for the sub is access to every single DLC in the game* while the sub is active. If you play consistently, you can play through the dlcs faster than it would cost to buy them individually, and you can end your sub whenever you want/need. The sub also gives free crowns each month which can be used to purchase permanent access to specific DLC for if/when you end your sub. Or spend them on a cute outfit. Up to you. You might get addicted to the craft bag in the meantime and keep the sub forever.

*ESO+ does not give access to the newest chapter, until the next one comes out usually a year later.

ALRIGHT big stuff out of the way. More advanced stuff for once you're already in the game and playing now. And some M brand yapping.

Start researching item traits at crafting stations ASAP. The timers for research grow exponentially with each trait, so an early start is good. This is necessary for crafting later on, and everyone should have A crafter (ideally their main for resource reasons)

First I wanna address the final barrier a lot of people have with starting an MMO: the other people. To which I'm going to quote something I have found incredibly therapeutic: I think you guys might be thinking about yourselves too much. There are absolutely ways to avoid interactions with other players - playing in offline mode so people cannot whisper you, and hiding zone/say chat to avoid seeing other players talking - but generally speaking, other players do not care about you or others enough to bother you. The overland is not PvP enabled outside of both players choosing to duel, you're not going to get made fun of for being low level or whatever, and you're not going to get harassing messages just for existing. Others have their own lives and things to do in game. Just play the game and embrace the goofiness of someone's name or how wild their costume looks. Be brave and just Do It. Have fun! Okay? Okay back to the actual advice.

Avoid any quest that goes into your journal as a Prologue - delete it right away. Prologues are like introduction/teaser quests for zone DLC and chapters. Doing prologues out of order should also be avoided. Once you're onto playing DLC, there is a prologue for each starting with the Morrowind chapter.

Find the stable master early on and begin "training your horse" each day for 250 gold. Also buy a mount there. It takes 180 real life days to fully complete on each character, but you'll notice the difference with your mounts speed and stamina, and to clarify, inventory means YOUR inventory. That's 60 more inventory slots! And mount training affects all mounts on that character!

Speaking of mount speed - once you reach level 10 on a character, you should do the Cyrodiil tutorial quest (I promise there's no PvP required for this). Use the alliance war tab to queue into a campaign (any works but go for one that isn't all that busy. Under 50 ideally), and complete the tutorial IN FULL. Do not accept the option to skip parts of it because you know what you're doing. You'll reach rank 3 in the assault and support skill lines and gain a few skill points, all while never having to do any actual PvP. Take the first passive in the Assault skill line to gain access to Major Gallop for faster horse speed. You want this on all your characters. Finally, leave Cyrodiil using the wayshrine.

Find the bag merchant in town and spend your gold on maxing out your inventory space when you can afford it. Bankers can also be found in each town and you can store a lot of items in your bank with them FOR FREE. No other player has access to your bank. Your bank space is shared across all of Tamriel and all of your characters as well, to allow for easier item transfer to alts

Back on crafting, don't worry about materials or crafting your own gear for a long time. You pretty much need ESO+ to be a crafter due to the craft bag. Just put on random gear you loot off enemies or get as a reward, and replace it as you level up and outlevel your old gear.

As a quester, you can use any gear and any skills you want - with a few suggestions. Don't use heavy armor as your primary armor type (a few pieces are okay), ice staves, 1 hand and shield, or restoration staves. Those are primarily support armor types and weapons. Also, read your tooltips and skill descriptions, and don't use skills that state they will taunt the enemy. ESO's aggro system works differently than you may expect from other MMOs. Anything else is free game. Though I will advise this isn't Skyrim, and using skills will deal far more damage than spamming "basic attacks", or light and heavy attacks. Stealth archer isn't a thing here, sorry.

DON'T fall for the crown store trying to sell you respec scrolls, werewolf and vampire skill lines, etc. You can redo your skills and attributes at any point for gold in a capital city, other players can give you lycanthropy or vampirism for free upon request. Merchants and banker assistants from the crown store I don't consider a scam. Those are good uses of crowns once you're further into the game.

The build advisor for each class/role is painfully out of date as it hasn't been changed since launch, and entire skills/morphs have changed over the years to be entirely different. With no nuance to avoid it getting complicated, stick to either investing in magic or stamina as your primary resource, and most of your skills costing that same resource. Skills scale their damage with your highest offensive stat, so splitting evenly doesn't do anything besides make your pool bigger, but you can use both stam and mag skills and they will deal similar damage. You just might run out of your "off" resource faster. Light armor benefits magicka users better, medium benefits stamina users better, generally speaking.

And if you mess up your build or change your mind about wanting to play mag or stam, you can respec whenever. There are shrines to respec skill points/morphs and attributes in any base game capital city or chapter big city. It costs gold, scaling with how many skill points you have. Additionally, you can use the free armory station (from the crown store) to save builds and revert back to them for free. A good use for this is to save your generic PvE/questing setup and a second different setup for PvP or playing another role like healer. Currently it saves everything except scribing setups.

Join the Mages Guild and Fighters Guild ASAP in your starter town. Regardless of RP, they have storylines you'll want to complete, as well as skills and passive abilities you may want, and it's better to get a head start on this leveling process. Undaunted is related to dungeons and can be skipped early on, but if you start doing dungeons, make sure you join! It has no respective storyline.

Weapon and class skill lines progress by having those skills on your bar upon gaining experience while On that bar, not with each cast of the skill. Individual skills rank up and can morph into other skills by gaining experience with that skill on your bar. Guild skill lines have their own unique progression requirements - read your tooltips!

Main quest marker icons appear slightly fancier than generic quest markers, and I would advise to avoid taking them out of order. Most main quests will guide you to the next quest giver easily, so if you find yourself going far out of your way, you may be getting lost or starting a different storyline. Blue quest markers are for repeatable daily quests.

Delves are public instances and can be done solo. Public dungeons are public instances and may be able to be soloed depending on skill. Dungeons/group dungeons are for 4 people, not public instances, and you should not try to solo them. Trials are raids for 12 people, not public, and you very much should not attempt to solo them.

Depending on what DLC may have come with your version of the game, you may be pushed to try the various DLC features added with each chapter. This includes psijic order, antiquities, companions, tales of tribute, and scribing. All of these individually (except psijic) can be started/done early without spoiling yourself on future DLC. But there's no real need to rush through getting access/completion of them right away either.

There are daily login rewards that reset each month. Most of them are bad, but it's good to keep up on them for the monthly cosmetic or big reward. Sometimes they give AP which can level the PvP skill lines without PvP, sometimes gold, sometimes crafting materials, could be anything. There are also daily tasks to gain "seals of endeavour", currency that allow you to purchase things that otherwise can only be gambled for in crown crates. Keep up on them, and about twice a year, you can buy the most expensive mounts in the game. Golden Pursuits happen every few weeks/months, with multiple themed tasks to unlock a specific reward.

Add-ons (PC only) are allowed in ESO, mods and macros are not. The application Minion is how most of us download and update our add-ons for various UI and QOL features.

Once you reach level 50 on a character, you start gaining levels in Champion Points, which are shared across all of your characters. Once you hit CP 160, you will stop out-leveling your gear and can start making gear you plan to keep. CP goes up to 3600, but you'll hit the cap on effectiveness around 1500 (role dependent) I think.

The fashion system in ESO is either using the outfit station to apply motifs (purely cosmetic) you've learned to that character to your outfit, or costumes you can get with crowns or other means (questing, collectables, etc). Motifs learned on one character allow any character to use that motif in the outfit station, but only that character can Craft an item in that style.

There is no auction house system. There are guild traders instead - storefronts that guilds bid on weekly to gain ownership of and use for their guild to sell items to other players, for a small cut of the profits. Anyone can buy from them, only guild members can sell. Most of the junk you find in questing is worthless to other players, and most players use add-ons to know the marketplace average worth of any item in game.

Speaking of guilds, joining guilds is a good way to get access to free wayshrine porting for easier movement across Tamriel, and more. Porting to another player is free, even if you're not at a wayshrine. Many guilds also have a "guild hall" (player owned house open to all that has many resources depending on the owner). Plenty of social guilds don't even have serious requirements to join - a lot are aimed at newbies.

If you're looking to just make enough money to get by, you can sell all the random gear you loot to merchants. It will despawn from their inventory with enough time or items being sold. Once you get ESO+ and the craft bag, daily crafting writs is the best way to make easy money with little effort. Get certified in all 7 professions and do your daily crafting writs for about 5k gold per character per day. With enough skill point investment in hirelings that send materials in the mail daily, you never have to spend any gold to do writs.

Thieving is mildly good for making gold, but it has a cap on how much you can sell a day. Sell or launder at outlaws refuges in each city. Thieves guild and dark brotherhood are DLC content so don't look for them in the base game.

Before you start doing dungeons, at any level of difficulty, you should understand how ESO dungeon etiquette works. People here aren't as friendly as final fantasy, but hear me out before you say we're all mean. ESO does an extremely poor job of keeping the casual questers from the sweaty endgamers, and forces them to share the same dungeon queue when they're in that queue for entirely different reasons. Endgamers need transmute crystals quickly, questers just want to see the quest, and each person needs the other to achieve their goal, but you can't do both at the same time. Both are valid reasons to do dungeons. Quests can't be repeated on the same character, so they can't even do the quest with you if they already did it years ago. Quests also give a skill point for completing, which is another valuable endgamer resource. In general, if you plan to use the group finder to find a team for a dungeon, do not expect them to sit around and wait for you to sit through dialogue. At best they will wait for you to spam through it for the quest completion, if you warn them in advance. Randos aren't going to be overly social, even a "hi" at the start may be ignored. It's to be expected, but not intended rudely. If you want to see a dungeon's quest in full, this is the time to find a friend to group with you! It's an MMO! Be social! Many ESO dungeons are unable to be soloed unfortunately, for strange mechanical reasons.

Also, you need to know your role before queueing, and that includes knowing how to actually deal damage as a damage dealer. You don't need to be amazing, but please don't just spam light attacks. Don't queue as a tank unless you actually understand the basics of ESO tanking, same for healing. Look into resources online for beginner builds. If you don't want to learn your role or how to git gud, then I'm sorry but doing dungeons with strangers is not for you then. It's a team effort, and their time should be respected too.

Related, if you get to the point of wanting to try the trials (which do technically have a repeatable quest), normal difficulty is less scary than you may fear, but still requires coordination and a group. Ideally you come above 160cp in full sets of gear and a basic understanding of your role. Checking Craglorn zone chat or the in-game group finder for normal PUG (pick-up group, just sorta grabbing anyone that wants to come, versus an organized run) trials is the best way to find a group without using discord or joining a guild. But I do recommend finding a social guild that does casual normal runs! Just please read if they're doing normal runs or vet hardmodes runs, or if they want specific classes/roles. And of course respect the raid lead's requests and requirements

Be cautious looking for advice regarding builds. The top result when searching for a solo build is not necessarily the best build - it is the most Search Optimized build. And it's most likely intended for crazy strats like soloing vet dlc hardmodes dungeons for views. You do not need any of that!!! You at most need to learn how to block, roll dodge, interrupt, sneak, and walk out of damaging areas. When you hit cp 160, all you need is gear at your level, start looking to complete set bonuses, and some kind of self heal.

For your purposes of leveling, you should not need to grind out levels. You get various buffs as you level that scale your damage to the enemies around you within the base game. You shouldn't race to level 50 or CP 160 on your first go-around. Enjoy being a baby. You will hate the game if you spend your first hundred hours listening to sweatlords telling you that you need to pay them to level you to 50, and then pay them to make you gear.

I am willing to offer specific advice in dms or asks if people have build questions, but I prefer to not use Tumblr for this. Join my friends discord server in my About Me (pinned) if you want detailed answers!

This isn't meant to be the most strictly followed list of all time, but things that I end up inevitably telling people or wish I had learned sooner. It's meant more as something to refer back to and to gently guide you in the right direction, as well as get you in the right mindset for character creation when planning a character you'll play for Years of quests.

[hanibalistic]

THE SOUND MONSTER | STRAY KIDS.

genre | magic au, action au

synopsis | your client shows up in the middle of your bounty mission with answers you've been searching for and without the million dollars he promised you.   

word count | 10.5k+

warning | mention of violence, killing, blood, injuries / reader wears a skirt (necessary due to character)

note | lousy writing at the end because i got bored

If you had one million dollars each time you were asked to kill a homeostatic curse within a specific area in a forest that covered most of the city limit, you would have one million and fifty thousand dollars.

The first client who contracted you to kill a curse in this area paid you only fifty thousand dollars. Your current, suspiciously generous client offered you one million.

This should be the area. You thought as you scanned your surroundings through squinted eyes, then back to your phone, where a screenshot of a location was shown. 

The picture was taken from a fan website, one of the first things you stumbled into during your research into the Warp Curse. 

Since there has never been a sighting of what artifact the curse resided in, all you've got to begin looking for it was a bunch of historical texts and posts written by curse fanatics loitering in online forums. 

So far, you knew two things about the Warp Curse: (a) it has been killing random hikers that step foot inside the forest, and (b) it was speculated, using the locations of all its murders, that its artifact should be somewhere near the forest’s edge.

Closing your phone and dropping it in your pocket, you scoffed in frustration. The picture was taken straight from the album provided by the internet's map, and most of the photos uploaded there were captured by the satellite.

There was no way to compare and contrast the picture to what you could see in front of your eyes. Everywhere were greens and trees, short trails, and grass beds. 

Much like your last mission in the forest, you needed to take a wild guess and hope you get lucky with your search. At least you knew you had to keep to the edge this time. 

You roamed with your head in the clouds. There wasn't anything else to do besides daydreaming or thinking with a purpose. Whichever one came to you easier at the moment—the latter, obviously. You've got a lot to think about. 

First, it will be easier and faster if the Warp Curse decides to suck you underground and bring you directly to itself. 

The curse's power spanned across the forest from what you learned, most of them being speculations, but you were willing to take what was presented. It was no wonder so many hikers died on a leisurely day. The curse has an impressive reach. It would pull you underground and warp you to where its artifact is located, and then it would kill you for energy.

Second, what would you do with a million dollars? 

Abandoning hunting may be the first step since you were only doing this job to get by. The grand sum of money wasn't all that great when you were constantly blowing through it for medical expenses.

Your ruination curse heals at the pace of a snail strolling through a park, not considering your livelihood relied on having a functional body. Functional arms and legs, at least. 

If the family curse wasn't so greedy about hosting your body alone, you would have tried to sign a contract with a curse that has a faster healing process. 

You could use the money to find the remainder of your family. Specifically, the person who abandoned you near a police station when you were three years old. 

These three years of searching for clues have been less hectic than you desired, which was a reflection of your lack of progress in finding a blood relative. If you were close to your goal, you reckoned things might pick up the pace. 

But, all the ruination curse was willing to tell you was that it was a family curse, and all the police could provide you were three things: you were found at a park near the station, most of your family went missing years ago, and your uncle was sent to a mental institution by reason of insanity after killing most of your family members on Christmas night.

Oh, you would love to visit somewhere fun too, like an amusement park or an aquarium. Traveling the world sounded like a chore, so you might put that off for another year or two once you got the payment. 

You could go to college or try your hand at paying your way into a prestigious university. However, pursuing an education wasn’t appealing when you’ve got a million dollars to rationally spend. It wasn’t appealing now when you have empty pockets. 

You should prioritize buying a house, actually,  but that was unlikely to happen with today's market. An apartment was good enough. The thought of having a roof over your head instead of hopping through motels was desirable. 

The more you mapped out what to do with one million dollars, the giddier you became. If your client turned out to be a fraud, thus tearing your FastPass to an imaginary happy life, you might kill them along with the Warp Curse. 

The trees bustled around you as the wind suddenly picked up. Winter was steadily approaching, albeit much slower than the previous years. Feeling a short breeze or two, out in the forest nonetheless, was common. But your instincts—your monster-hunting psychic eye—spiked a joint of weariness in you. 

Your body tensed at the sound of the rustling leaves, fingers hardening, and toes curling into the bottom of your old and dusty shoes. As you carefully scanned your surroundings, you could not figure out the source of the rustling noise. It didn’t come from the leaves above you.

“Well, what have we here?” 

A voice! But was it a person or a curse? 

You whipped around to face where it came from, your feet cautiously taking two steps backward. The messy heaps of branches, all growing from the lower side of multiple trees planted in close quarters of each other, shifted. The leaves that adorned the wood swung like an elegant fan before they revealed the voice's owner. 

A man, wearing a coat unsuitable for the current weather and wearing black gloves, showing no skin besides what was above his collarbones, stepped out of the branches after his black derby cane stomped on the ground as an official entrance.

You tilted your head with squinted eyes. Someone’s missing a top hat, but that wasn’t the issue. You should be the only person in the forest. After multiple cases of the not-so-mysterious killing, law enforcement sealed off all forest entrances and forbade civilians from visiting.

You had to sneak past the security guards (which was easy) and the cameras (which was also easy, but researching their blindspots was time-consuming) to get inside. 

“Okay, here we go.” The man swung his cane off to the side in a pit of defeat after seeing the disdainful look on your face. To him, it couldn’t have been the cause of stranger danger. It must have been something about his attire today, which was just his daily attire.

“Is there something on my face? Or is it my height? Is it because I’m short? You think I can’t pull off an overcoat because I’m too short?”

When he saw your eyes travel down to his knees and back up to his face, he realized he read you wrong. His panicky questions about his appearance were what made you focus on them. It was not the first time he’d made this mistake, but he thought he kept repeating it to fulfill his inner comedian.

You furrowed your brows and sneered at him because you thought him embarrassing for being so anxious on your first encounter. You weren’t judging his attire or his height, at least not maliciously and not based on any fashionable knowledge. Who asks four questions in a row only a second into meeting a stranger? 

“Actually, don’t answer those questions. I fear you will hurt my feelings.” He waved a hand with a bashful smile that surprisingly still fit a man his age.

Looking down at his feet as if taking a short moment to make himself a mockery, he returned his eyes to you. He toned down his bright disposition when he saw that you remained cautious of him. “My apologies. This is all spiraling out of control. I need to stop improvising so much and stick to the plan I was given–“

His sentence was abruptly cut short by a claw or a hook. The event happened so suddenly that your reflexes didn’t register it fast enough to tell you to close your eyes when fresh blood splattered onto your face. 

Your lashes caught the droplets instead of your widened eyes, and as you could not avert your gaze from the man, you finally saw that it was a giant hook. A big upside-down fish hook. It pierced through the man’s head, the pointed end going through the top of his head and out the bottom of his chin as if making him the bait for a fishing activity.

Blood dried along the black, gooey surface of the hook. You’ve seen that texture before multiple times to be the skin of a typical monster. This monster was likely manifested by the Warp Curse to protect its homeostatic body. 

The knowledge didn’t ease your mind at all. While you have seen many a monsters, you’ve never seen a dead person, let alone watch one get killed. It was an aftermath of you choosing to work independently. 

Rigidly, you turned your head over to look at the killer. 

With a hook of that size, it was no surprise that the monster was almost as tall as the trees in the forest. It looked like multiple rotten tree branches haphazardly stuck together into a worm-like body. Its head, protruding like stacked tree branches, shifted like fat pounds of flesh, with sharp teeth sticking out at random spots. Its hands and horns were curled into a hook-like structure.

You suspected it could shift its mass at will, though, as you would have caught sight of it the second you snuck inside the forest if it was always this huge.

That didn’t matter. It could be in the shape of a kitchen knife, a clothing hanger, or a fly swatter. If it could kill you, you have to either leave the premises or end it before it could get you.

Your hand reached for the handle of your sword, strapped to the belt around your skirt, which you wore so your legs had ample space to explode when needed. At the same time, or at a pace much quicker than yours, the monster raised its other hook high and brought it down the direction of your head.

A cane stuck out at the speed of light. It went through the hoop of the claw and trapped it in the air, only a few inches away from your tiny head. It took you a few seconds to snap away from nearly being stabbed. When you finally recognized the familiar cane, your eyes gradually pulled into a confused frown. 

Only one person here owned one: the stranger you just met. You looked toward him and a bold gasp left your lips when you saw him already looking back at you, one arm stretched out with his cane to block the attack for you. 

“Hey,” he greeted, blood still squirting from his injuries. “I’m surprised you still flinch at these things!”

You looked visibly appalled, which he understood. He definitely wouldn’t say he cared much the first time he saw a mutilated body. But, if there was anything he learned growing up, it was that some people were simply more mentally endurable than others! 

Besides that, he knew you must be confused, which he also understood. He definitely wouldn’t say he’d still question the impact of biology at this day and age when curses make binding contracts with humans like gamblers at a casino. But, if there was anything he learned growing up, it was that some people were simply smarter than others! 

“Oh, where are my manners? Let me introduce myself,” he said over the monster’s growls. 

Turning his cane sideways so the handle laid horizontally, he pushed his arm down to tip the cane upward, knocking the hook away from your head. Throwing his cane into the air for a quick moment and catching the middle of the shaft, the man closed one eye to aim for the body of the claw before throwing his cane straight at it.

The pierce of the cane flew at a velocity strong enough to knock the claw back into a nearby tree, and it was strong enough to keep it nailed to a spot. 

“I’m Chan, host of the Immortal Curse,” he introduced before his eyes rolled up. “I’m gonna need help pulling my head out of this claw. Do you mind?”

You minded. Of course, you minded! You wanted nothing to do with that bloody pulp of a man hanging on a monster claw like a rag doll. Witnessing him talk under that circumstance was disturbing even after knowing he was bound to the Immortal Curse. The pain should at least paralyze him for a while, yet he was up and chatting. 

Unsheathing your sword anyway, you nudged your head at the monster standing tall to indicate to Chan that you’ve got a bigger problem than his head stuck in a claw. 

“Don’t worry about the monster. My partner will handle it!” Chan exclaimed after huffing out a dissatisfied laugh that you didn’t heed his request immediately. 

The monster shifted about in multiple attempts to pull its claw away from his needle-like derby cane. It was a miracle his head wasn’t sliding about the curve of the hook like a wooden bead maze. 

He pointed at his head, his eyes maniacally wide. “I’m getting old. Pain is starting to bother me! Also, I’m sure I look ridiculous, so come here and help me!”

You relaxed your stance, but your expression remained frigid without trust and clear information of the now. You looked at him, then around him at the monster.

Chan noticed your hesitation and attributed it to needing proof that the monster would be taken care of. He smiled, his voice cracking defeatedly in the process; he couldn’t blame you for being cautious on a curse-hunting job. It was something he would do as well. 

“Kim Seungmin! Get your ass over here and help us!”

“Don’t use my government name.” 

A voice as clear as crystal, seemingly sounding directly from the chest into an open throat, traveled through the wind blowing behind you. The bushes rustled once again before another stranger entered. 

He sauntered to you with his hands in his pockets and promptly stopped by your side. For someone with such purposefully lazy eyes, his posture was pointedly straight.

He leveled Chan with nonchalance as if he’d seen the same bloody sight more than enough to get used to it. Then he sighed in annoyance because, despite being used to it, Chan would never stop being a pest, and helping him was always a chore. 

“He is always like this,” Seungmin said once he pulled a hand out of his pocket. He planted his palm on your shoulder, squeezed to keep you in place, and waited for it to light up a green-black color.

Before you could retaliate against his touch, he spoke, “Sorry to borrow yours, I haven’t pissed enough people off today. Don’t worry, though. It’s better that I take them off your hands.” 

You shook your head at him, confused. Putting two and two together, Seungmin realized that Chan hadn’t gotten to explain anything or introduce anybody to you. He let his jaw drop in acknowledgment before letting his hand slip off your shoulder. 

He rolled up one sleeve to reveal his forearm, which was painted with bulging black veins. You could see the blood traveling through the vessels to his fingertips, gathering to completely darken his nails beyond recognition. 

It was as much of a rare sight for you as it was for Seungmin. 

He’d never collected this much karma from a single individual, so much almost his entire arm was blackened with it. The closest he has gotten to this effect was when he took from Chan, but considering that man’s personality, it may be hard not to accumulate so much karma.

Even he gets pissed at that boisterous fraud multiple times a day, so frequently he couldn’t remember why he was annoyed in the first place. 

Closing his fist to feel the energy, Seungmin figured all of this may come from your curse rather than yourself. 

“Seungmin. Karmic Curse,” he informed without looking at you. “Can you go over and hold him in place? I'm going to blast the claw out of his head. It's much faster."

You furrowed your brows and pulled a grimace. It was a question unasked when you debated if you wanted to help Chan or deal with the monster—how would you get the claw out of his brain? 

Sliding him out of it sounded painful and slow. Aggravating the beast so it swings its claw enough that he slips out of it would make a mess. Pushing the claw out of his head garnered an even worse painful illusion than sliding him out of it.

The conclusion was that this situation was terrible no matter how you viewed it.

"Hey, I got it from here," Seungmin said, returning you to reality. He was surprised you felt hesitant in causing pain, considering how you afforded to work as a hunter. "Go help Chan before he decides you’ve stalled enough time for him to rant about being abandoned for the next few hours. And trust me, he will complain.”

He put a surprising lot of emphasis on ‘will,' as if he believed Chan wouldn't make his whiny tendencies known within five minutes of meeting someone, purposefully or not.

You blinked at Seungmin for a good second before you sheathed your sword. He felt more trustworthy, and you got that from the mere fact that he wasn't incessantly cheerful when he saw you.

"Oh, good! What made you decide I'm finally worthy of attention, hm?" Chan asked in a quick slur before he shouted, "Clearly not my bleeding head!”

Resisting the urge to roll your eyes, which wasn’t hard considering you were about to get another massive round of blood powdered onto your face, you reached around his waist and held him down on the ground. 

Looking afar at Seungmin, who had taken a few steps backward to avoid the whiplash of close-quarter shooting, angled his arm upward so his fingertip leveled with the curve of the hook-like claw. When he fired the karma, it blasted across the air like a gunshot and tore the claw off the side of Chan’s face. 

When his torso went limp, you let go and dropped him to the ground. Without any time to react to the splatter of blood on your face, barley seeping through your eyes and mouth, the monster behind you screeched, unsure from pain or annoyance.

Still, the intensity of its noise broke you away from the allurement of glimpsing at the bloody aftermath on the floor. 

Snapping your neck to access your surroundings, you immediately unsheathed your sword again. You jumped to catch the end of its swinging hook, letting it take you into the air. A grimace surfaced at the gooey skin and how you could feel your hand submerge in its wetness. Despite its disgusting texture, you crawled with the help of its sticky skin before hoisting yourself on top of its claw. 

Your legs curled around the curve to keep from falling, and you wasted no time raising your sword and stabbing it through. Once you deemed it deep enough, a clanking noise sounded from your sword while something in your backpack exploded. The claw you sat on followed after, bursting open and leaving you in the air with no support.

With one of the monster’s arm stuck to a tree and another gone, Seungmin took the chance to power up his makeshift gun. He waited for you to drop to the ground; he would catch you, but there were bigger things to worry about than you fracturing an ankle from the fall. 

Once you landed, with a loud thud, he pointed his index finger at the eyes of the monster and made another shot. You took cover by curling into a ball as the shot blazed past you. Once the shot entered the creature’s mouth, Seungmin waved his hand to create an explosion from within, leaving nothing to remain but a downpour of its fluids.

Everything remained still for a little after. That went by quicker than usual. Typically, as you often try not to resort to using your curse unless necessary, killing a monster would take much longer than one second of a shoot. No complaints about the process being quick, though. At least you didn’t have to do all the work. 

Considering the size of the monster, if Seungmin wasn’t here, you’d probably have to break a leg or two. 

You pushed yourself off the floor by using your sword as an anchor, and then you sheathed it slowly so you could spend your attention on finding Chan’s body. You saw Seungmin standing over it with a cane, and you approached him. 

Noticing your presence, he barely turned his head to glance at you, then back at Chan on the floor. He used all the karma he took from you to kill the monster. Sleeve rolled down to his wrist, his arm no longer felt heavy. 

Much as he expected, the amount and intensity of the sins your curse brewed were more than enough to end the monster with a straightforward attack. The Ruination Curse and its atrocities—he’s heard all about it from Chan in the short pursuit for you. Finally seeing you in person, you were underwhelming. 

“Welcome back,” he greeted when Chan began to stir. 

The previous numbness remained vivid, but so far, it had gone away from the side of his face torn open when the claw was forced out the side of his head. It has got to be one of the more painful events he’s experienced these years, but he did die the moment it happened, so, to be fair, he barely went through any pain. 

Touching his jaw, Chan casually cracked his neck as he stood up, and then he was beaming for the return of his durable cane.

“I’m certain there were other ways to get me out of the hook, but you chose the most painful one,” Chan said. He reached into his coat pocket and took out a handkerchief. 

“I could have kept you there and let your flesh heal into the claw,” Seungmin retorted as he shoved his hands back in his pockets. 

“Never a peaceful moment with you,” Chan mused, dusting his coat before haphazardly shoving the handkerchief back where it came from. He turned to you and sighed in mock annoyance. “He’s always like this.”

You eyed Seungmin once before you shrugged. If you have to choose, you will pick Seungmin’s aloof temperament over Chan’s overwhelmingly sunny disposition that bordered as suspicious. Besides, how a stranger treats you was never within your realms of worry. You would never see them again, and you almost always have bigger things to deal with, such as the Warp Curse.

Considering the monster attacked you here, it should mean the cursed artifact was near. You’ve wasted enough time chatting; you should get going before the night arrives.  

Giving the two a nod, you brought your hand into a faint wave before turning around, prepared to continue your expedition.

Seeing your ready departure, Chan raised his brows in dramatic panic. He threw his cane up to catch it by the end and shot the handle out toward you. It hooked onto the back of your shirt, but you didn't notice it until you were abruptly stopped in your tracks by the restriction it placed upon you. 

You jerked around with an irritated glare, your eyes hardened with a furrow so intense you almost created yourself an extra eyelid. Chan rested the tip of his cane back on the floor. He didn't seem to believe he'd done anything unusual, which wasn't surprising. 

You opened your mouth only to suck in a huge breath, all the words you wanted to say swallowed by your inability to voice them. Coming to terms with that, you squeezed your eyes shut and turned away, honing into the silence of your mind. 

A pointed smirk was evident on Chan’s face. “Yeah. The Sound Monster is a bitch, isn’t it?”

You opened your eyes slowly into a squint. Chan was correct. Your voice was taken by the Sound Monster when you were very young. It was abrupt. You were praying to God to be reunited with your family, a mother and an uncle you could barely remember, and others you’ve never met. 

Then, suddenly, your voice vanished. Your foster parents dug around to find a reason behind the disappearance, but you were medically cleared. They eventually concluded that the Sound Monster had taken it. You haven’t been able to speak since. 

Back then, you didn’t understand why you were chosen to be stolen from. Now that you’ve grown up, the criteria wasn’t any less confusing despite you scouring the internet for information and stories. 

It seemed the Sound Monster picked at random, and you were just unlucky. But that shouldn’t be something Chan knew. It wasn’t uncommon for someone without a voice to be a victim of the Sound Monster, but it also wasn’t common for one to be.

The ratio between being born mute, becoming mute from an accident, and having your voice taken by a monster was balanced. Chan was weird for assuming the latter unless he already knew who you were. 

Seungmin rubbed the bridge of his nose when he saw the pointed look you gave Chan. This wasn’t exactly the plan. Sure, they were supposed to find you and introduce themselves. Surprisingly, none of them factored in how monsters lurked around a forbidden forest and would increase tension. 

Alas, there was a monster, and on top of that, Chan was the least subtle man on Earth. One thing on top of another, it wasn’t the best idea to spring onto you the fact that they’ve been stalking you for a while. 

“Maybe I should do the talking,” Seungmin suggested after he leaned toward Chan.

“But you’re terrible at talking,” Chan responded at the same volume of a whisper.

“You’re bad at making people want to listen to you.”

“That insult doesn’t hold the value you think it does,” Chan mused with a dismissive wave too close to Seungmin’s face. He returned to you, his smile more polite than friendly, but there was an element of natural mockery he may not be giving off on purpose. “Let’s chat.” 

You faintly shook your head, a movement to accompany your features morphing into the manifestation of incredulousness. The smile on Chan’s face deterred for a thoughtful second before he closed his eyes in realization. 

One finger pointed skyward, he sent you a dramatic nod—one single nod—and began reaching into his coat pocket to fumble out a notebook and pen. He limped toward you unnecessarily; you knew he could walk fine.

“My apologies, once again. How callous of me! You don’t have a voice.” He grabbed your hands and forcefully placed the notebook and pen in them. “Thankfully, I’m prepared. You can write with these.”

You held onto the items with one hand, clearly uninterested in using them. While unfazed by the proven assumption that these two strangers knew who you were, you had no intention of chatting with them. 

They could be rival hunters looking to kill the same curse. In that case, you’d want nothing to do with them. They could be random stalkers, to which you would respond with neither fear nor intrigue. All you wanted was to complete the mission, receive your end of the contract, and go home.

“I’d much rather be left alone,” you signed.

“Oh, we don’t do that. We don’t understand sign language because, obviously, we can talk,” Chan immediately responded. He pointed at the pen and paper in your hand. “This is accomodation. Please utilize the resources at your disposal.” 

Seungmin pursed his lips to prevent a defeated smile. That felt moderately problematic, but Chan’s confidence and nonchalance in executing rudeness made it less targeted. He wasn’t sure if he should make a point for Chan to stop acting like this, not that verbally accosting him has ever changed his ways. 

When you two accidentally shared a glance, Seungmin grimaced, but he wasn’t apologetic. 

“Leave me alone,” you wrote hastily instead. 

“Well! If only we all got what we wanted! I wouldn’t be holding this cane if that’s the case!” Chan laughed, but his eyes shifted to an unexplained glare as if you’ve taken something from him. People like him always thought the world owed them something. It wasn’t uncommon. “How about I offer a proposal instead of accepting your request?”

You rolled your tongue toward your inner cheek. You would always take advantage of an opportunity to earn more money. “I’m in the middle of a job.”

“For the Warp Curse, I know,” Chan said. “I am your client.”

“Great. So you’re a stalker. Through and through.” You shoved the notebook to his face, to which he backed off to avoid it. A thought flashed through your head, and you quickly flipped a page to write at an intensity so strong you could scratch a hole through the paper. “Do you even have a million dollars?”

You could see it. You could see your daydream vanishing before your eyes. 

The apartment you’d own, a regular college life, finally reuniting with some of your family—your promised million dollars was the center of a fraudulent contract. It was all too hasty. You should have checked before signing onto something too good to be true. 

Glaring up at Chan, you wondered if you wanted to kill him until you realized he has the Immortal Curse, and you weren’t breaking an arm just to watch him get back up again. 

“Stalker is a bad word for a description of me, but I don’t mind being praised once in a while,” Chan responded, then cleared his throat.

“And no, I don’t have a million dollars. But hold on, little sphinx–“ he reached out to pull you back from taking a prompted leave again–“I’ve got something better than a million dollars that I reckon you’d be interested in.” 

You swatted his hand away and fixed your shirt, soothing it down at the bottom and dusting off the fabric on your chest. You scoffed by blowing air out of your mouth, which made it similar to huffing, but those with the proper context would know what you were trying to do. Not sure if they would take into consideration your annoyance, though. 

Scribbling on the notebook again, you turned it around and raised a brow at Chan.

“WHAT?”

“I love the full capitalization. It’s like you’re shouting at me,” he joked as he stomped the cane on the ground for attention already on him. He sucked in a breath, preparing for the grand reveal, then asked, “How much would you like to help us kill the Sound Monster?”

“You can’t kill the Sound Monster.” 

It was the first response you gave them. You wrote it down without hesitation.

The Sound Monster wasn’t ordinary. Unlike the creature you just faced, it wasn't bred by a homeostatic curse. It wasn’t a product of species reproduction, which monsters have learned to do over the centuries as their sign of evolution. It wasn’t—technically—man-made. A person with a specific curse did not mold the Sound Monster into existence, and the ministry ruled out the creation of monsters through curses a long time ago for obvious reasons.

It was created by people, but it was done unintentionally.

Besides its uniqueness, the Sound Monster has a lasting impact on its victims and those adjacent to them. 

Taking one person's voice inconveniences the individual, and those around them, and the Sound Monster has taken a lot of voices. Hence its disreputable size and dreadful appearance. Only a handful of people have seen it up close. After realizing the amount of people out for its life, it closed itself off to a remote area. 

But, those who have seen the Sound Monster described it as a fleshy pulp. Its body was twisted together through thousands of esophagi, making throaty noises as it stomped, and it spoke with all the voices it stole: there shall be no hope, there shall be no prayers.

“It will be like killing a God.” 

Seungmin raised a brow at your statement. He didn’t necessarily disagree. The Sound Monster was speculated to be the aftermath of the Miracle Goddess descending into madness after receiving too much hatred from unanswered prayers, hence its mantra about hopes and prayers. He thought that speculation best suited the Sound Monster’s existence. 

However, ultimately, there was no guarantee. It may be a regular monster with immeasurable power because taking voices was the easiest thing to do. 

Besides, a monster would never be anything other than its name, regardless of where it came from. Seeing it as the Miracle Goddess, not the Sound Monster, was your mistake. 

“It won’t be like killing a God,” Seungmin disagreed nonchalantly. “In fact, it’ll just be like killing a monster.”

"However, even if it meant killing a God–" Chan chimed in enthusiastically. He was now relying more on his leg to walk. He saw that you noticed, but to avoid the current, far more prioritized topic, he didn't mention anything about it. "That is where you come in, dungeon crawler!"

"You and your whatever–ruins curse, rumination curse, ruffian curse–" he blew a messy raspberry–"your ability is going to be vital to our operation to kill–"

“Ruination.” You shoved the notebook at Chan’s face in emphasis. 

You underlined it three times, which he thought was unnecessary. 

It was the only word on the page, so there was no way he wouldn't see it. You detestably interrupted him with your lack of attention and lousy scribbling to correct an insignificant mistake. Although, to him, all errors made by his hands shall be minor. 

Alas, a man with a mission would be humble to those he required. He moved his head out of the square frame to deadpan at you before he sucked in a deep breath, brows raised with a calming mind. 

“My apologies–your Ruination Curse,” he corrected before waving a hand at your notebook and pen.

“I advise you to stop interrupting me. I talk much faster than you can write, and by the time you finish correcting me, I’ve moved on. Then you’d look terrible having to make me backtrack. Seriously. It’s more embarrassing for you than it is for me.”

“I don’t think it’s embarrassing.” Seungmin shrugged from the side.

"Your curse has you getting on people's nerves for a living," Chan sneered. "If I had skin as thick as yours, I'd find nothing embarrassing, too!"

You rolled your eyes. The irony was hot on the tongue.

“Never the matter, my point is–“ Chan raised his cane to point at your heart–“your curse’s ability to cause the destruction of anything if its host so desires is the key to killing the Sound Monster.”

“That’s refutable.” 

“It’s not,” Seungmin disagreed with a shake of his head. 

You narrowed your brows, your eyes gleaming with a dissatisfied sneer he couldn’t care less about. Looking down at the notebook, you quickly jotted something down and held it up. “What do you know about my curse?”

"Enough. Once we established we needed your help to defeat the Sound Monster, we researched you. Hence, we were able to track you down and offer you a curse-killing job," he replied. 

Chan leaned his torso forward not a beat later, popping from behind Seungmin’s shoulder with a grin. “We also know what happened to your family, by the way.” 

Your hands dropped to your side, but your fingers itched to move the pen. 

You already knew you were well-known among the hunting field because of your curse, but you’ve never personally met any of your clients and you’ve always used a fake identity for communication. No one ever knew they were talking to the person with the Ruination curse.

The fact that these two found you meant they weren't lying about looking into you. It was uncomfortable, but disregarding the confessed stalker behavior, your desire to know more about what happened to your family besides everyone's sudden disappearance was overwhelming.

What could they possibly know that law enforcement couldn't find out? 

“I was holding off on that,” Seungmin pointed out with a sigh. Considering the severity of your history and the current location, he thought it best not to mention something that would require a lot of time to explain and muster a lot of unnecessary emotions. 

“Why? They should know what happened.” Chan shrugged. 

“Are you sure it’s transparency you care about?” Seungmin turned to Chan. “Or do you want them to accept your favor in exchange for something they should already know anyway?”

"No one is entitled to information. If you want to know something so bad, you should have looked harder for it. Alas, I have something they want to know, so they'll have to work for that. No answers for free," Chan replied with a gentleman bow done out of, as usual, mockery. 

He straightened himself and exclaimed, "But of course, I care about getting what I want! If I can help them along the way, that'd be fantastic! Besides, information on your family is not my only leverage." 

You saw him wait for you to respond, silently gathering details of your subtle reactions to see if you cared enough about your family to not need him to enact his backup plans to rope you into this operation. He didn’t need to. You were already leaning toward joining it. 

Besides your family's history, having your voice back would be convenient. You just wanted to hear what he had to say. As obnoxious as he was, Chan has an outrageous amount of valuable intel for you that you failed to seek. 

“Which is?” 

“You can have your voice back.”

“Okay.” You wrote something more. “And?”

Chan smiled at your notebook. 

“Killing the Sound Monster means you can also kill the Ruination Curse.”

“I have to say I’m not a big fan of the cave,” Chan complained, for however many times now. “Actually, I’m not a big fan of any cave.”

Seungmin’s steps faltered. His shoulders slumped as he huffed, and his eyes rolled to the side to barely spare the whiny man a glance. “Yeah, you’ve made that clear.”

“You whine about everything,” Chan said. “Sooner or later, you’ll find out you are just like me.” 

The corner of your lips stretched downward as you watched Seungmin’s eyes roll to the beat of his exhausted sigh. You haven’t known him for long, but being stranded together with someone as insufferable as Chan developed a bubble of solidarity between you both. 

He might have felt the connection, too, as he immediately searched for your eyes to share another silent glance with you, a knowing smirk on his lips. Pausing your feet, you waited for him to catch up with your pace before walking. 

“He must have a lot of karma in him?” You showed Seungmin what you wrote, a finger jabbing at Chan, who walked ahead of you. 

He held back a brief chuckle. It wasn’t a flawed assumption, and it wasn’t wrong either. He just found it funny you thought that, and you were right. Chan has more karma stored in him than anyone on the team. 

Since karma was considered any evil deeds done by a person without counting the reaction of said deeds, it was easy for anyone to accumulate a level of karma in them, even if the act could garner only a small amount. Everyone litters or says the wrong thing once in a while. It was unavoidable. 

Nonetheless, Seungmin was always digging deeper into understanding his curse’s criteria because the fact that Chan has enough to act as a karma reservoir could either mean Seungmin’s curse worked in ways beyond his knowledge or that Chan has more secrets than he let on. 

Chan says and does many uncomfortable things, but verbal jabs and a whack of his cane don’t count for great karma. Seungmin didn’t think Chan had done nearly enough per day to garner so much karmic power, either. Something happened in his past that made him this way, just like your Ruination Curse made you. 

“He does, but not as much as your curse,” Seungmin whispered.

Your hand dropped slowly to your side when you realized you understood the pattern of his moving hands. Surprised eyes shaking between his fingers and finally up at his face, the excitement blossomed across your lips into a grin. 

You’ve had to accommodate others for so long, which hasn’t been a great hassle or anything. Still, encountering someone who didn’t have to wait more than five seconds for you to properly jot down a reply was pleasant.

Clutching the notebook with only two fingers to spare the others, you fumbled about where to put the pencil, gave up, clapped once, and signed back to him. 

“You know sign language?” 

“I’m still learning,” he said. “When we decided to recruit you, my best friend thought it was only fair that he learned how to communicate with you. He dragged me to take lessons with him.”

You pursed your lips. “You didn’t think to do it yourself?”

“No.” He shook his head. “I wasn’t interested in learning something new. But this has been relatively easy to pick up. I made more progress than him.” 

“I can understand you fine, that’s for sure.” You huffed just as your lips stretched into a smile, giving an illusion of a laugh. After a short moment, you continued, “What’s your reason to kill the Sound Monster?”

“Do I need one?” he signed, then, with a frown, he spoke, “Monsters are monsters. It’s always beneficial to purge them.”

Chalking it to a deed for the greater good was always the easiest answer. It was understandable and clear. No sob story, no personal grievances, just out of sheer goodwill. People with those answers were often lying—you’ve never known anyone who does things out of mere goodness of the heart.

But Seungmin didn’t seem deceitful. He wasn’t set on the betterment of the world, that’s for sure, but he thought eliminating the Sound Monster could make the world more convenient, so there wasn’t a reason not to kill it. 

You nodded. Whatever his reason was, it wouldn’t bother you so long as it didn’t negatively impact you. 

The cave began to dim as you three moved away from the entrance. You realized you haven’t been paying attention to your surroundings, but didn't think you’ve missed the Warp Curse yet. 

There were no special skills or a keen eye when looking for a homeostatic curse; it could be the resident of anything, from rocks to trees, paintings to instruments. Sometimes even a dead body, but you’ve only heard of those instances and never seen them. 

The key element was that they had to be inanimate. Anyone bound to a curse would have an easier time figuring out where a homeostatic curse was simply because curses could recognize each other.

It usually manifested in the forms of anxiety symptoms, an unnatural unease, and bodily reactions that went against logic, such as sweating in a cool area.

In the same breath, detecting and destroying a curse with multiple hosts is more challenging.

Chan poked a piece of debris on the floor, not quite examining it because he didn’t think looking for the Warp Curse was his job. Then he stood up from the crouching position and swung his cane backward to swiftly turn to face you and Seungmin, who were both lagging behind, engrossed in a chatter.

He sighed—this was dragging out longer than he wanted. He should have suggested canceling the commission. 

“How long is this going to take?” Chan asked once you both were within earshot.

“Somebody is bored,” Seungmin mused with a roll of his eye.

You took out the notebook and pen and jotted two things down: you could sense the curse nearby and that he should occupy his time explaining why killing the Ruination Curse would benefit you. 

You tapped his shoulder and shoved the notebook to his face. Chan snatched it away to read your handwriting better before returning it, a frown hanging on his lips. He handed the notebook back to you and clicked his tongue in preparation. 

“Considering your family’s history with the curse, I’m not sure you want to keep it alive in your body,” Chan said. “I am coming at this from an emotional standpoint.”

The Ruination Curse was a family curse, which you already knew. It worked because every generation would pick an offspring as its new host. It wasn’t noted why the curse wanted to reside in younger bodies, but the assumption that it desired them was eliminated when the members of your family started having children, which forced the curse to reside in adults well into their forties. 

But, in every generation, there was only one member of the family that could utilize the Ruination Curse. The previous host of the curse, just before you, was your uncle. 

“Does he have a name?” you signed to Seungmin.

He shrugged. “I’m sure he has a name, but it’s scratched off every record for some reason. Not even the mental institution he was sent to figured out why his name was crossed off all the records a day after he escaped.”

“He escaped?” you signed frantically. “Why was he sent to a mental institution?” 

“He–“ Seungmin licked his lower lip and looked at Chan. “He escaped, or maybe he vanished into thin air. Nobody knows where he is. We didn’t find him either."

“Leaving the big news to me,” Chan mused with a smirk. He paused from walking and twirled his cane on the spot. “You are the last member of your immediate family, [Name]–“ he corrected himself–“you and your murderous uncle, actually.”

Your uncle had no intention of letting go of the Ruination Curse, but since he knew its parting wasn’t a choice he could make, he contrived a scenario where the curse would have no other host to jump to except him. 

On one Christmas gathering, back when your mother's pregnancy wasn't visible, and she had set to announce the good news at the party, your uncle used the Ruination Curse to cause a mass miscarriage. All the pregnant wives, which weren't many, within your family lost their baby, except for your mother. He didn't know of your existence yet. 

Only killing those unborn was a form of mercy. When he was challenged for his action, he took it as an attack on his morals and agency and decided to end the lives of those who stood up to him the same night. 

Your biological father was one of those people, and your mother—a smart woman stunned into faux calmness, sought empathy from her brother, which she obtained. After that night, those who were alive went their separate ways, and nobody spoke of the tragedy until your birth. 

"It came to me." You signed, slowing down and looking to Seungmin for confirmation. "The curse came to me automatically after I was born, and my mother…"

"She had cut contact with your uncle and fled to live somewhere far away. She left you with an old friend from college when she realized you inherited the curse. She might have wanted to pretend she wasn't the one who had a child, and maybe she was convincing, but he killed her anyway," Seungmin said. "Some of what I said are speculations, but mostly it's true." 

You looked at the floor. That was all you needed to know, and it took that much for you to realize you never had any reason to look for the truth. It didn’t answer any questions because you had no questions, and neither did it give you feelings of closure. You just felt lost and wasted, like your journey has come to a unfulfilling end. 

“Your mother’s old friend, the man she left you with. His name is Seo Changbin.” Chan twirled his cane and hummed. “He was the one who abandoned you at the police station.”

“Abandon–“

“I am not wrong,” Chan cut Seungmin off calmly. “It sounds bad because it is bad. Despite any nuance of the situation, I am right. I always am.”

“Is he alive?” 

“Why? Did you think he left you to keep you safe?” Chan mused. “Like what your mother did?” 

The ground suddenly gave away from beneath you all. 

You reacted quickly, unsheathing your sword and throwing yourself toward the wall, stabbing its pointed edge inside it. You jumped to stand on the grip, only searching for your two new companions when you've stabilized yourself.

Chan resorted to a similar method with his cane, except he dangled on it as if using a pull-up bar, groaning as he tried to pull himself over his thin cane. He looked up and immediately squeezed his eyes shut, a disgusted scream louder than the rumbling of the ground pushed out of his mouth. 

"My goodness! I suggest biker shorts!"

You grimaced. For everything he knew about you, one would have thought he'd understand your decision to keep your attire to a minimum. Besides, you were already wearing safety shorts, albeit very short ones. He was looking for things to complain about.

Ignoring him, you waved away the dust for a clearer sight. Across you was Seungmin, his entire forearm covered in goo that stuck itself to the wall. You raised your brows; you didn't know karma has other functions, too. 

Seungmin had begun the box breathing method to ease the beating in his ears, but he wasn't so much anxious as he was exhausted. The goo around his arm needed to support his entire weight, so it was tightening on him for dear life, practically cutting off the blood circulation. It would take longer for any irreversible damage, but the fatigue and numbness arrived within seconds, making him sweat.

“There’s all the missing hikers,” Seungmin muttered as he accessed the sight.

Below the collapsed ground was a formation of blood vessels. Each of them was linked to a sharp edge protruding from the ground like a nail, and they were stacked with dead hikers still in their hiking gear. 

The blood painted onto the nails was what made the vessels red, and staring dead at you in the middle was an ember-colored hole. That was where the blood gathered, and they must all flow toward—

The curse is here. You thought as you hopped off your sword and plucked it off the wall.

Chan squirmed away from you when you fell from a great height. You dodged the nails when you landed and covered your nose with your hand upon the decaying smell of bodies around you. Carefully, you made your way to the ember in the middle. You looked at it, then up at the curse, which was just an ordinary sapling growing out of a place it shouldn't. 

You rolled your eyes and raised your sword. Before you could hit it, Chan’s boisterous holler stopped you. You lowered your sword and spun around, staring at him with wide eyes that screamed annoyance and confusion. 

He fixed himself atop his cane and huffed. "Hey! Are you sure this is a great idea?" he asked. "You don't even know what that is. What if it just gets angry and retaliates?"

He raised a good point. You just didn't care that he made one. Taking out the pen and paper he gave you from your bag, you scribbled something and held it up in his direction. Seungmin snorted as Chan leaned forward with his eyes squinted, pretending to read the words on the notepad. When he finished his theatrics, he moved away from the awkward position.

“Well, I’ll be damned.” he said with a few approving nods. “You think I made a contract with the 20/20 vision monster!”

“I don’t think someone with perfect vision can see from all the way up here either,” Seungmin chimed in.

“Just telling me you can’t read it is also an option.” You raised the paper higher by stepping on your tippy-toes.

Chan’s eye twitched. Without trying to read your handwriting, he groaned with a slurred emphasis on each word, “I can’t read it.”

You chuckled with the faint movement of your shoulders, the air punching out of your nose indicating temporary humor. Dropping the pen and paper on the floor and picking up your sword, you turned to face the ember again. As you aimed it at the ember, getting ready to stab it, a bright light engulfed you. 

You closed your eyes, bringing an arm up to block any potential attacks, and when you opened your eyes again, you were moved far away from the hole. You looked up at Seungmin, and he shrugged in response.

“It’s the Warp Curse. You didn’t think it’s going to warp you?” he said. “At least we know it doesn’t want us to destroy the ember.”

“That’s more reason not to touch it,” Chan said. “We don’t know if that is the heart of the curse. If we make it angry, we’re all doomed here.”

Seungmin pulled a face. “You mean I am doomed. Both of you are immortal.”

“They are actually partial,” Chan pointed out. “I’m the real immortal here.”

“What do we do then?” you sighed after clapping your hands for their attention, shifting your weight onto one leg and dropping your sword to your side.

“I don’t know. Do it again?” Seungmin suggested. “Let me see what it’s actually doing.”

You spared him a disapproving glance but didn’t have any brighter ideas, so you did as he asked. You approached the ember, raised your sword, and got teleported elsewhere. The pattern repeated several times until you decided to stop, glaring up at Seungmin to pressure him into figuring something out. 

He avoided eye contact to think. He noticed something, but he wasn’t sure how viable his idea was. Looking up at his arm, which must be turning paler based on the numbness, he sighed. He slowly released the karma from the wall so he could slide off of it instead of falling feet first. When he landed, he dusted his hands and hurried to where you stood. 

“Hey! Are you guys abandoning me?” Chan shouted. 

“You should join us down here!” Seungmin said. “Your face is turning red. You’re gonna fall!”

“You wish I would! I might be old, but I’m very endurable!” he exclaimed, tightening his grip on his cane. “You guys figure out how to kill the curse so I can get out of here! The dead bodies stink!”

You rolled your eyes. “The real surprise is his cane being able to hold his weight.”

“It can do much more than that,” Seungmin signed back, then he said, “It’s his partner in crime.” 

“Why does he need it?” You almost spared Chan a glance, which would have given away the fact that you were talking about him. “He doesn’t limp.”

“Nobody knows. He makes up stories. My friend looked him up, but there was nothing.” Seungmin shrugged. “He sometimes limps.”

“Nobody knows why?”

“What else can it be? An accident.”

“Hey, I love that you are hitting it off with them. But can you focus on your mute outreach program some other time? I’m getting tired!”

Seungmin put a hand on his hip and squinted, the corner of his lips quirking into an unamused smirk. “You said you’re endurable.”

“One word for you, young man–“ Chan leaned his head forward as if to spit–“coexistence!”

Seungmin turned around. “I don’t blame you if you reject our invite.”

“I hate to say this, but it’s not like I have a million dollars to give you, so why don’t we leave?” Chan continued. “The area is already on lockdown anyway. We should let the city deal with it! That’s what our tax dollars are for!”

“He hasn’t paid taxes in years. What is he talking about,” Seungmin muttered. 

“Neither have I.” You grimaced. 

“You’re legally unemployed,” he said. “You’ve never paid taxes.”

You shrugged. He wasn’t wrong. All of your bounty-hunting jobs were through backdoors. None of them were official, and most of them were suspicious, but those were the ones that paid the most. 

“Anyway, this thing seems to operate like a tunnel,” he signed. “If you get put in, you can always get pulled out.” 

As Seungmin cleverly pointed out, since the curse might understand human language, it came in handy that you two could communicate through sighs. Since he was still learning, he mainly talked through short and choppy sentences with a few keywords that could get his point across. 

He told you he noticed a few patterns of which you were warped, meaning the curse must have laid out specific routes that it could use. It was no coincidence that all those routes ended up somewhere above a nail. Another thing he saw was that you turn invisible when you were being warped, and judging by the laying of routes, he doubted the curse could see you when you were in the middle of the routes.

“Okay. This should be secure enough.” 

He squeezed your hand firmly and pulled at your fingers to check for security. You two shared a nonchalant nod as he removed his hand from yours. You rubbed your fingers to feel the goo he transferred to your skin; like he warned, they stung like spicy mint or super glue on your skin.

Seungmin watched you intently as you approached the ember again. You twirled your sword so the point faced the ground, and as you pretended to puncture the ember, you were whisked away. Forcing your eyes open, you waited a few seconds for the curse to push you toward a considerable height before you let go of your sword. 

Seungmin ran toward the direction of where you were moved away. There were only faint lines of the ‘tunnel,’ so he could barely see where you traveled to amid the multiple routes possible.

He raised a hand, and a thin line of goo webbed between his and yours. He turned his wrist around the line and held it to keep it steady, and then, with one leg anchored on the floor, he pulled the string over his shoulder.

The light around you disappeared like a camera flash as you were snatched away from the air tunnel. Your blurry vision steadily rubbed itself away, but you could faintly make out the shape of your sword still in the air.

Once you were almost in arm’s reach, you shot a hand out and grabbed its handle, and then you leaned your weight forward so you could begin to fall to the ground.

Seungmin raced to the ember when the karmic string snapped. There was no way the curse would idly sit by this operation, and he couldn’t count on the probability that it couldn’t activate its warp one after another within a moment’s rest. If his assumptions were correct, when you were about to fall sword first into the ember—

He pulled you down by your shirt and shielded you from behind, briefly taking your place, and then he was flung into the air. 

—the warp curse would try to remove you again.

Wind released between the crack of the broken ember, and one by one, explosions from beneath the blood trail broke apart its food source.

The ground rumbled beneath you, forcing you to lose your footing. As you were too busy trying to regain your composure, a slit cracked between your feet, and then bigger and bigger until a rocky nail shot upward from the spot.

You were pushed aside in the nick of time, and there came a trail of pained groans from none other than the gentleman himself. The earthquake didn’t stop, but you scrambled up to your feet upon the chaos and bolted toward the curse. Grabbing a fistful of the sapling, you squeezed it tightly in your hand and willed for its destruction. 

Your arm twisted with a pop—a low price for multiple lives lost, and the sapling in your hand turned into ashes. 

The nails crumbled soon after, dropping all its victims to the ground in several thuds. Chan spat the blood out of his mouth as he tried to get off the ground, but instead, he flipped his body over so he could lay on his back. With his eyes closed in relief, he breathed away the pain in his chest as his curse sealed his injury up. 

“I hate this job,” he muttered, earning a chuckle from Seungmin, who walked up to him just to kick his thin.

“How’re you holding up, old man?” Seungmin asked. “Hyunjin did offer to be here today.” 

“If it wasn’t for me, they would have died–“ Chan groaned. “Ugh, I forgot they can’t die too.”

You held onto your broken arm as you made your way to them. Chan closed the eye closest to you when you neared, turning his head away and bringing a finger gun up at you.

“I’ll repeat it,” he laughed, “try biker shorts.”

You clicked your tongue as you took a big step back, pressing your hand onto your skirt to cover up. 

“Is your arm broken?” Seungmin asked, gesturing toward it. “We can check it out at base. The one who was supposed to be here in Chan’s place is our medic.”

You nodded. Agreeing to head to their home would have established your agreement to join their operation to kill the sound monster. Truthfully, there wasn’t much else you could do as an individual project now that they have explained your family history. Killing the sound monster didn’t sound like a bad next step. 

“I guess I’m in?”

“Great. I’m glad you agree,” Chan groaned as he sat up. When he noticed your surprised expressions, he smiled. “Yeah, I do know sign language. I had a weird sister.”

As you and Seungmin drowned yourselves in shock and mild annoyance, Chan ruffled his hair and looked around. He nonchalantly looked past the dead bodies on the floor and exhaled.

“Say, do you think we can still get monetary rewards for finding these missing people?”

[snail-day]

Hey snail, would u be able to write about JJK mens reaction when their wife feels insecure? I sound hella corny right now, but its just one of those days where I feel really ugly. 😪

Oh, baby, I get that. No need to feel corny, it's a completely normal feeling. Sometimes, we become our worst critics, picking ourselves apart over things that no one notices. It’s easy to convince ourselves that we’re not good enough, that we don’t measure up, that somehow, we’re less than. But let me tell you something: you’re not.

Those little things you see in the mirror? The so-called imperfections that you focus on? No one else is analyzing them the way you do. While you're fixating on a small detail, the rest of the world sees the bigger picture—you. And that picture is already so much more beautiful than you realize.

Sorry It gets longer, the jjk stuff comes up eventually after the cut. Just don't like putting long text on the feed. Don't mind this little guy down below.

There are so many incredible things about you that outshine whatever insecurities you may have. Maybe it’s your warmth, the way you make others feel safe. Maybe it’s your laughter, the way it lights up a room. Maybe it’s the way you care, the way you listen, the way your presence alone is enough to make someone’s day better. And sure, we’re just two strangers on the internet—I don’t know what you look like, and you don’t know what I look like. But I can guarantee one thing: nobody is scrutinizing you as harshly as you do in your own mind.

You don’t have to be flawless to be worthy. You don’t have to fit some impossible standard to deserve love, appreciation, and acceptance—especially from yourself. The things that make you different, the things that make you you, are what make you special.

So, please, be kind to yourself. You deserve that kindness just as much as anyone else. You’re already enough, just as you are.

(Sorry for getting all sappy, but we all need a little pep talk now and then)

As for the jjk men, I feel like I have talked about this for after pregnancy but I will yap about just in general:

Oh gojo, you sweet summer soul, better not let him hear you even utter the words that you're ugly. This man does not let you talk down about yourself. The moment you say you're feeling insecure? He's already being dramatic. Gripping his chest like you just wounded him, pulling you on top of him on the couch.

"Oh no—no, no, sweetheart, say sike right now. You? Ugly? Do you even hear yourself? Do you even see yourself? My wife, the love of my life, my heart and soul—"

"Satoru, oh my god!"

He’s all over you. Tugging you closer into his arms, peppering so many kisses over your face that you can barely breathe between them. If you try to pull away? Oh, absolutely not.

"Nope. Not happening. You’re stunning, you're gorgeous, you're literally unreal, and I’m not letting you leave my arms until you admit it."

By the time he’s done, face buried in your neck, voice low and teasing in your ear, you’re laughing despite yourself. How can you feel ugly when Gojo Satoru worships the ground you walk on?

Suguru notices immediately, a quiet hum leaving his lips as he moves into the bedroom watching as you turn and look in the mirror, looking at those so-called imperfections. Suguru doesn’t argue. Doesn’t immediately deny what you’re feeling. Instead, he sets aside whatever he’s doing, crosses the room in just a few strides, and cups your face so gently that you almost melt.

"Come here," he murmurs, voice so warm it feels like home. He just holds you. Tucks you into his arms like it’s the easiest thing in the world, one hand threading through your hair, the other rubbing slow circles into your back.

"Talk to me."

He wants to know. What’s making you feel this way? What do you see in the mirror that he doesn’t? Because he knows you. Knows every expression, every slight change in your mood, every quiet thought you try to swallow down and he refuses to let you drown in it alone. If you don’t want to talk? That’s fine. He’ll still hold you. Letting his warmth soothe every insecurity until it feels like nothing more than a whisper in the back of your mind.

Later, when you least expect it, he’ll murmur against your temple, "You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. And nothing will ever change that."

Nanami is quite like a Gojo, you have to bring it up for him to notice. Nanami is not the type for flowery words. He’s not going to drown you in exaggerated praise or smother you in theatrics. But what he will do?

Make damn sure you know exactly how much you mean to him.

"You’re feeling insecure?" he echoes, setting down his coffee on the table, and before you can even respond, his hands are already on your waist, pulling you in until you’re standing between his legs, his eyes dead serious as he looks up at you.

"I need you to listen to me." his voice softens. "There is no world, no version of reality, where I could ever see you as anything less than breathtaking." Taking your hands, presses them to his lips, his touch slow, worshipping.

"I don’t like hearing my wife talk about herself like that, you're the only thing I could ever want, so please be kind to yourself. If you can't do it for yourself, then please do it for me." After he’s kissed your forehead, run his fingers through your hair, made sure you’ve eaten and gotten enough rest, he doesn’t leave your side.

Unfortunately, for whatever reason you married the brutally honest man known as Sukuna. Good Fucking Luck.

At first? Sukuna just stares at you. Like you just spoke in an entirely different language. Like you just offended him by even suggesting something so stupid.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

And when you try to explain, when you say, "I don’t know, I just feel ugly today." Oh. He’s pissed. Pissed off the wrong fella there.

"Tch. You must be blind, then."

Before you can even think about being offended, he’s already grabbing your chin, forcing you to look at him.

"Listen to me, and listen well, brat." His thumb brushes against your cheek, his eyes burning into yours. "There is no one—no one—that compares to you. No one could ever hold a candle to what you are to me. And if you ever say something so ridiculous again, I’ll have to remind you properly."

The rest of the day, you don’t lift a finger. He doesn’t say much about it, suddenly, your favorite snacks appear. Your favorite meals are made for you without a single complaint. If you so much as look tired, he’s dragging you to the couch, forcing you to lay down with him.

When the sun finally sets, the house is suddenly dark and quiet?

He pulls you into his lap, buries his face in the crook of your neck, and murmurs, low and gruff

"You are mine. And you are perfect. That’s the only thing you ever need to know."

[sgiandubh]

Idk about anyone else but it’s interesting to me that a con for Outlander is doing the same thing that Creation Entertainment does with the two leads of Supernatural, Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles. Any other cast member that attends the con as a guest with them has more reasonable prices for photo ops and Q&As and such, but it’s half my mortgage for one (1) person to meet Jared or Jensen?? (Keyword OR, as you have to pay twice to see them both if they’re not together {called the J2 Panel} and my mortgage is ~$2300) yikes. I’ve always suspected these convention companies are just capitalizing on the respective actor’s name, no matter how niche said actor is. I love Jared and Jensen as much as I love Sam, I still keep up with them despite my torrential time in the SPN fandom, but once again I’m grateful I prefer to admire these wonderful talented men from afar because my bank account would be yelling at me otherwise 😅😅

Dear @samsheughan,

Unlike you, this is the first (and certainly last, thanks) fandom experience for me. Paying 25 francs (5 USD) circa 1996 for a laminated, fake FBI agent ID with my photo and name, on behalf of the French X-Files fan club does not count, ahem. Suffice to say this folly just made my entourage laugh like drains (I was a sophomore, back then, mind you) and call me Agent Sgian-dubh for about a year and a half, or so. Embarrassing doesn't even start to describe the reality of it. Especially when you are 18, you think you are Simone de Beauvoir - at a bare minimum-, as you smoke your cigarette and sip your allongé while desperately trying to look intelligent, outside Le Café de Flore.

How we were happy, back then, and in what uncomplicated world we used to live, though! Without any fan events and forced to go to the nearest Internet cafe for the slightest Altavista research, that naive fanzine I received every month by snail mail quickly grew old, as my patience for the 'Agent Sgian-dubh' gleeful quip. Interestingly enough, I still must have that fake ID, somewhere. Last time I saw it, in one of my old wallets, my mother looked mildly interested ('and what the fuck is this, excuse me? an X-Files fan club ID? oh...'), but that entire experience was definitely underwhelming. Even if I secretly did ship Mulder & Scully, without having any idea that was a thing. Too ashamed to admit to it, for all of the above mentioned reasons.

Alas, today is just another planet, where cheap thrills and a pat on the back do cost half a mortgage. As a Romanian saying would have it, 'the stupid one is not the one who's asking, the stupid is the one who's paying'. In S's case, I think the mommies were and will be his demise, if he doesn't quickly get the gist of it and branches out, somehow. I mean, come on, with all due respect and all that #silly interest, this is JAMMF we're talking about, not Lang Lang, tickets to whose concerts don't cost one kidney and a half!

I don't even find it funny, mind you. I find it sad, perhaps because I am thinking about the day this entire circus will be over and done with and completely forgotten. But until then, let's sing and be merry: with one more season to air, the #shitshow is still alive and kicking and the fat lady is nowhere near.

[marzipanandminutiae]

Hello!

I am an aspiring author who struggles with accurately portraying historical clothing, and I stumbled across your blog while searching for photographs and information on late 19th century/USA Gilded Age fashion. From the research I've seen compiled across books/the internet, the clothing of the upper class from that area is very well documented in paintings, garment catalogues, photographs, museums, etc....but finding information on what the day-to-day wear of normal people was like is proving much more difficult. Since you seem to be knowledgeable in the subject of historical clothing in this approximate time period, I was wondering if you knew about any good resources to learn more about what people who couldn't afford to follow upper class trends were wearing in the general era as well as any general information around these items.

If it helps, I'm focused on eastern and southeastern United States farming/small railroad town/mountain mining/gulf coast wetland communities, but even just more general resources about what sort of clothing that the average poor person during the Gilded Age wore would be greatly helpful. I've been able to find a few photographs here and there, but these probably aren't an accurate depiction of a persons' 'day-to-day' wear, and I also haven't found much on how women learned to sew homemade clothes, what garments if any would have been bought, where people in rural areas would have sourced their cloth, what undergarments were like, how work shoes were made & aquired, ect.

Please feel free to ignore this if it isn't something you're interested in answering as I'm sure you get a lot of asks, but I'd greatly appreciate it if you have any pointers!

So here's the thing about 19th-century clothing:

in many ways, it's the same all the way down

now, that's a serious generalization. is a farm wife in Colorado going to be wearing the same thing as a Vanderbilt re: materials, fit, and up-to-the-minute trendiness? obviously not. but because so much of what people wore back then has only survived to the present day in our formalwear- long skirts, suits, etc. -we tend to have difficulty recognizing ordinary or "casual" clothing from that period. I also sometimes call this Ballgownification, from the tendency to label literally every pretty Victorian dress a Ball Gown (even on museum websites, at times). Even work clothing can consist of things you wouldn't expect to be work clothing- yes, they sometimes worked in skirts that are long by modern standards, or starched shirts and suspenders. Occupational "crap job clothes" existed, but sometimes we can't recognize even that because of modern conventions.

A wealthy lady wore a lot of two-piece dresses. Her maid wore a lot of two-piece dresses. The trailblazing lady doctor working at the hospital down the road from her house wore a lot of two-piece dresses. The factory worker who made the machine lace the maid used to trim her church dress wore a lot of two-piece dresses. The teenage daughter of the farm family that raised the cows that supplied the city where all those people lived wore a lot of- you get the idea. The FORMAT was very similar across most of American and British society; the variations tended to come in fabrics, trims, fit precision, and how frequently styles would be updated.

Having fewer outfits would be common the further down the social ladder you went, but people still tried to have as much underwear as possible- undergarments wicked up sweat and having clean ones every day was considered crucial for cleanliness. You also would see things changing more slowly- not at a snail's pace, but it might end up being a few years behind the sort of thing you'd see at Newport in the summer, so to speak. Underwear was easier to make oneself than precisely cut and fitted outer garments for adults (usually professionally made for all but the poorest of the poor for a long time- dressmakers and tailors catering to working-class clientele did exist), but that also began to be mass-produced sooner than outer clothing. So depending on the specific location, social status, and era, you might see that sort of thing and children's clothing homemade more often than anything else. Around the 1890s it became more common to purchase dresses and suits ready-made from catalogues like Sears-Roebuck, in the States, though it still hadn't outpaced professional tailoring and dressmaking yet. Work shoes came from dedicated cobblers, and even if you lived in isolated areas, VERY few people in the US and UK wove their own fabric. Most got it from the nearest store on trips to town, or took apart older garments they already had to hand and reused the cloth for that.

I guess the biggest thing I want to emphasize is that, to modern eyes, it can be very hard to tell who is rich and who is anywhere from upper-working-class to middling in Gilded Age photographs. Because just like nowadays a custodial worker and Kim Kardashian might both wear jeans and a t-shirt, the outfit format was the same for much of society.

Candid photography can be great for this sort of thing:

Flower-sellers in London's Covent Garden, 1877. Note that the hat on the far right woman is only a few years out-of-date; she may have gotten it new at the time or from a secondhand clothing market, which were quite popular on both sides of the Atlantic.

Also London, turn of the 20th century.

A family in Denver, Colorado, c. early 1890s.

Train passengers, Atlanta, Georgia, probably 1890s.

Hope this helps!

[rateaters-sutff]

Cool computer fact!

Statistically, computers often buffer more often when purple pixels are shown on the screen.

The reason behind this is pretty interesting! Computers have a harder time processing purple pixels because it takes 9000 snails boiled for days in a lead vat to produce 1 gram of purple!

This means your computer needs to wait for more snails to be boiled and that color to be wireless transmitted from your internet provider to your computer!

In order to speed up this prosses, hold a live snail against your monitor and allow it to move around. Doing this attracts the snail chemicals that create purple, which are being transmitted to your computer. Allowing shorter buffer time and more fun!

[brucewaynehater101]

Oh I was absolutely going with them Jason Finds Out During TT route. I think it would be especially funny if he's heard horror stories from Rouges and his own Henchmen that Robin The Third is some kind of demon that Batman summoned on accident. There are some rumors about how the demon feeds off of grief or anger or vengeance because it's illusions of being g a human are stronger when the Bat is there so *clearly* it is taking its power *from* the Bat. Others say that Nightwing summoned it so that it would keep Bruce on a leash without the first Robin having to come back. Some say it was some person in Gothem who did it or that it was the combined form of the many curses on the city.

All Jason knows is that when his replacement turned around, it's head luled to the side just an inch or two, like a puppet on strings that had to much slack on that one string. Jason manages to shoot one of its arms but instead of a spray of blood, it is broken shards of porcelain and sand. His hits feel like he's punching a solid wall but some do leave visible cracks in Tim. This Thing in a Robin Costume could not ever be human. He knows because when he left, he took a handful of sand in a vile to see if he could figure out what it is. Jason still has that vile to this day, the only proof he has that Tim isn't a human. Sometimes he will set it on a flat surface and watch the sand in it make it slowly roll towards whatever direction Tim is in.

As for how he heals, that's to the magic that animates him, all Tim needs to do is hold his pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle and after a few moments the piece he's holding will weld itself back into place. Also his sand will slowly come back to him, attracted like a magnet and he can tell where all his sand in instinctually. He let's Jason keep the vial of it as it's basically an unhacklable Jason Tracker. The sand isn't fast at moving towards him, roughly about the pace of a snail or sloth. It's certainly moving but just getting from downtown to the Batcave could take his sand a week. Also the pull isn't super strong, gaining about as much force as a particularly stubborn ant.

Ras took half a pound of Tim's sand instead of his spleen and Tim would very much like his sand back.

As for Cass knowing, she 100% does. Tim has shown her his true gorm and when she asked why he didn't show the others, Tim replied, "they wouldn't understand. They would worry over things that aren't problems and try to fix things I already fixed and end up breaking those things."

Eventually the Bats must find out though, and when Dick asks if that means they need to do special things to keep Tim from dying to Magic Users, Tim laughs and laughs like Dick has told the funniest joke in the world. When he calms down, he asks a question of his own, "Dick. How could I possibly die if I have never been alive in the first place? I am simply an object enchanted to move and speak. I am no more alive that the AI Babs uses to scan the internet for pictures of us. I am no more alive than a character in a video game. At most, at *most* I can be compared to some of Ivy's plants that she uses to attack us. I can not be killed for I have never been alive. Broken, yes, but that I can fix. I simply have to be put back together like a jigsaw puzzle."

Oof. Poor Dick is going to have to figure out how to feel about that statement. Tim not being alive at all and comparing himself to a video game or AI might fuck with Dick's sense of self, sentience, etc. I would love to see how they all logic, cope, and understand identity after this.

I do love the idea that the sand tries to make its way back to Tim, but he knows where it is at all times. Jason has an estimated location of Tim (N, S, E, W), but Tim has like coordinates.

I wonder if Cass would try dancing with Tim. Since his movements are different, perhaps she would enjoy learning to dance in a way that's similar to how he moves? It could be eerie and fun for her.

I'm curious how Ra's would feel about Tim and his sand in this. Why did he keep the sand? Does it look distinct from other sand? Was it just cause it was part of Tim and Ra's thought he might be able to use it? Also, does he attempt that shit he did with his Nyssa since Tim probably can't reproduce?

[mybeingthere]

Designs and colours of shells are wonderous - a true mystery of nature.

Here the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute explains the technology of shell-building. Yes, I understand everything, but it is still a wonder. Images are from various internet archives.

"Where do shells come from? The animals make them. Mollusks have an outermost layer of tissue on their bodies. Called the mantle, this layer connects the animal to its shell. The mantle also creates that shell.

Specialized cells in the mantle build the shell using proteins and minerals. These are secreted—released into the space outside the cells. There, the proteins create a framework that provides support for the growing shell. The proteins in the framework also determine which minerals are used in specific parts of the shell.

Calcium carbonate, the main mineral found in shells (including eggshells), binds to the protein. If you have ever seen construction workers build with concrete, this is similar. The protein is like the steel rebar that gives shape and support. Calcium carbonate is like the cement that fills in all the gaps.

Calcium carbonate can form two different types of crystals. One is called calcite. This incredibly common crystal can be found all over the world. Calcite makes up chalk, marble, coral, limestone—and seashells. The other form is aragonite. This crystal has a different arrangement of calcium carbonate. Both calcite and aragonite are found in seashells.

A mollusk’s shell has three layers. Each is made up of similar materials. But how those materials are arranged gives them each a different look and feel. The outermost layer is mostly protein. It’s often rough and may have bumps or spikes. Proteins in the middle layer cause calcium carbonate to form calcite crystals. These fill in the spaces, making the shell tough to break.

The innermost layer is the one in contact with the mantle. It’s a smooth, iridescent layer called nacre or mother-of-pearl. Nacre is made up of protein and calcium carbonate. But it looks and feels completely different from other parts of the shell. That’s because the mantle secretes different proteins for different layers. Different proteins cause calcium carbonate to crystallize in different ways. Those used in the middle layer create calcite. Those used in the innermost layer create aragonite.

As the animal grows, its shell must grow along with it. This happens along the outer edges. A snail adds to its shell around the opening, where it pokes its head out. For a clam or mussel, it’s the outer edges where the two shells separate. The result is growth rings, like those in a tree, that allow us to measure a mollusk’s age.

When the animal inside dies, its shell is gradually pounded against the rocks and sand. Over time, shells break down. They become part of the sand. White beaches have sand made almost entirely of tiny bits of shells."

[david-goldrock]

You voted for, so let me translate the entire poem

Let us talk about god About blind faith, and cold logic, and a lacking purpose A pale alternative to a pointless and alienated existence About the mantle and the lady and all that is familiar And the bitter truth of the thorn in the rose And the dangers of sugar and the cold reality Let us talk about god dsgnruwhurjehgtsbvalk

That is what I managed to write before the cat jumped on my keyboard Glanced at the words, glanced at me, glanced at the words And turned to lick its own ass

"Well, what's your opinion?" I asked it, for it is known cats do not tend to spare criticism If you wanna hear "Wow what a beautiful song" go and ask the dog For the truth, turn to a cat

Left the ass, glanced at me Glanced at the words, glanced at me His entirety is a Nietzsche's mustache The eyes of the abyss that looks back at you Uberkatze that will soon herald that god is dead (supercat, a reference to Nietzsche's "uberman") Opens his moth to talk, and thus spoke Zarathustra: "For someone who claims that god doesn't exist, you write about him a bunch, do you feel threatened?"

What? Threatened? From what? A flying spaghetti monster? No I just think that faith and god is a cool concept

It scoffs and responds: What do you fuck about? You dig (talk an excessive amount about something) And are an infidel And forces to confront And freeze in your place From the horror of the truth Because Darwinist monkeys Tried to trick To pile stones That cannot be lifted And cells from a fetus And a fossilized snail And big bangs And facts that most, as all Dwarven (become small, as dwarfs) On the banks of the everyday Of 7 billion Yearning souls From the heart of each land To the shore of each sea Go and tell all these That god doesn't exist

And then it hit me: The religification has come to me in my home! Because of course, a cat that once in Ancient Egypt was a god Now that were back to writing in emoji hieroglyphs, and the cat-worshiping gets a rejuvenation on all the walls of the internet Of course the cat will stand up to the side of the messianics, the darkened, the preachers and return-in-answerers (to return in an answer is a jewish idea, which I am unqualified to explain, but in this context it means to become religious) Well - Not in my house I won't be silent and I won't accept Religious compulsion from the mouth of a creature that licks its own ass

And it tells me: From the perspective of a cat Things are a bit different There is no Damocles' sword of time that is ticking Death approaches The end of the movie And in the meantime, we eat, and fuck Without doubting The world, ourselves By Allah Ya Allah You digged With all that messing around with "purpose" We start, we decay There's no one above No stairway to heaven Hell has no elevator

Well, exactly, so why search for imagined meaning? Why not settle for what there is - We were born for a short existence, kitty Let us fulfill it instead of casting the responsibility on some kind of creator There are better things to live by

Like what exactly?

Yes The tree is but a tree And the sea is but a sea But has anyone ever Seen democracy? Touched an ideology (In order to get the feeling of its texture) Or grasped an idea? Just today I hunted justice And I held a vision I hadn't met a cat That had counted its steps By a measure of morality Or a written contract Ironically you with the brain You don't have smarts Just the mercy of words That will build you a dam To stop the nothingness And to act as a reminder But the nothingness is winning I am sorry to herald And yet there's no shame in filling that which is empty Even you -

Me? I am a nihilist anyway, I don't believe in anything

Even you Rise very morning to work For money, a feeling of recognition and honor Maybe money exists if people live for it? If people are held by it? If people are worth because of it? If people fight, vouch for each other, sacrifice for it? If there's money, then there is god, why not? Nations and peoples and states ignite Flames in tens of thousands of hearts As far as I am concerned if all of them exist than god does too

Let us ask the audience, we'll do a survey here Who's more real, god, or Brad Pitt? Sorry for shoveling messages down your throats But no one ever died for Brad, the poor guy Certainly hadn't lived for him What is true: You You examine in a magnifying glass A view that's seen by a telescope Fight for flags And scoff at a horoscope If faith is a perspective Then the world's a kaleidoscope If life is a raging sea Then god is a periscope One can see with him high up And all looks clear If you hadn't begun to sink by now For this pitcher is hollow Take the word of a cat Every time over You kill god To crown under him A different hollow pitcher

You wanna talk about god? Let us talk about love Where is this love that you talk about? That you sing it?, that you write it? That you live it, you experience it You die for it, you kill for it Where is the evidence to prove the existence of this love? This catalyst, this causer The motive, the engine of life The battery of the existence, the fuel of the soul Where is this love? If there is no god, what about your love? If there is no god, what about love? If there is no god, what about love? If there is no god, what about love?

Its mustache bristles, and his eyes are boiling fire He finished And returned to lick its ass

I should have asked the dog

[realthoughtsreal]

Contemplations of a 22 year old ace

I find myself delving into the philosophical and sociological thoughts and research over gender, society, and sexuality more and more as I grow up.

It is most definitely a sign of me looking for a home. Rather, it is as if I am the migratory bird, looking for the place that I belong, the place that I can land in, ensured I am safe and integrated into the habitat.

I am a person growing up, searching for ways, for words, that fit, that explain and relate to my experience in society.

Some weeks ago I finally finished reading “Ace what Asexuality reveals about desire, society and the meaning of sex” by Angela Chen. It is a wonderful and enlightening book written by an ace person, full of ace experiences and discourse, research, arguing and explaining of not just asexuality, but how it exists within this society, and all it conveys and implies.

An absolutely recommended book. If you’re in the aroace spectrum, I highly suggest you read it. I suspect you’ll find it both fascinating and reassuring.

Even if you’re not on the aroace spectrum, you should still absolutely read it. It puts many things into persoective and you will find it very enlightening.

Among many things, the book proposes thinking of attraction as something that is composed by multiple elements, some of which are not present for aroace people.

I found this line of thought fascinating and incredibly logical. Attraction and sexuality are very hard to define and tackle, specially for aroace people who lack certain components of it, but it is an absolutely fascinating subject. The book tackles it so brilliantly without muddling it with complex terms, it truly left me feeling more consoled and reassured than ever.

It often feels like there’s no path forward for me. Like the relationships I want are impossible because of me being in the spectrum. But the book showcases many cases of people just like me, having good lives.

Aroaceness is a not an illness. It is also not something to be fought, I think. We are often so ashamed by our differences, we try to fit in society’s box, though we were not made for it. It is a struggle, a fight we shouldn’t be signed up for.

Why is diversity so hard to open up to? Even if we are open to it in others?

I accept diversity in others. Yet it took me years to accept my aroaceness, to feel comfortable with it. And I still have bad days.

The rise in hate against queer people has had me utterly stressed and anxious, balling up and hissing at every thing like a nervous animal. So many say this diversity is a flaw of modern society, a fault.

It feels necessary to say this, though it should be blatantly obvious:

Diversity is not the symptom of an ill modern society. It’s a symptom of the human condition.

Diversity is a fact in nature. It is natural.

Many animals do not have a set sex; mostly fish and amphibians from the species we know, which are able to change their sex as needed (like Nemo!).

Intersexuality is present in almost every species, as it is possible given the right set of genes.

Hermaphroditic animals are also very, very common. From invertebrates like snails to vertebrates like sea bass.

Many mammals and birds partake in what would be considered homosexuality, and do not have set gender roles (which could in part explain what we’d call homosexual behavior, because as animals, they have no concepts of sex or gender. They just are. No boxes, roles or stereotypes of behavior are required). Take the gay penguins for example, raising penguin chicks.

Mind you, this is all information that can be found in any book about flora and fauna, or an encyclopedia, a basic biology class, or any internet page.

Modern society, colonized by the western white way of thinking, driven by religious beliefs used to justify hate and violence, has made it seem unnatural. Queerness in any way (and by this I mean any identity that is outside the hetero, cis, allo, normative) has been deemed unnatural, unlawful, and sinful.

Yet it is in nature, and also in us. Because we are a part of nature, just another animal/being in the planet, however much we see ourselves as superior.

I find it befuddling and ridiculous that people will see the evidence of it being natural, as infinite diversity IS the natural way of the universe, and still have the gall to call it unnatural.

To every queer person out there (and by this I mean any person that doesn’t fit the cis/hetero/allo box):

I know things are very stressful right now. The world seems to be on the cusp of something, whether it is great change or chaos is still up to the masses.

Some of you may have lost funds you depended on. Your right to healthcare. Your right to marriage. Your right to love safely and openly. Your right to be yourself. Or your home. Or security. Or safety. Or family. Or friends. Or partners. Your mental and physical health; stability in general even.

Things may seem hopeless right now, even unescapable doom.

But I hope you find comfort in the thought that no matter how loud the violent voices of hate shout, your existence is natural, is expected, is logical. That cannot be refuted. No matter how much they try to erase you, they will not be able to.

We’re here, we’re queer. We’re people, we’re humans, we’re mammals, just a different type of animals with more awareness than all the rest.

Keep raising your voice. Write, make art, do what you must to leave a record behind, to protest in your own way, to speak out, to soothe yourself. Know that you will not be erased, that you are natural, that you are not the freak of nature they say.

Know you are not alone. We are all together in this.

To everyone else:

Speak out. It often feels like there are more bad people than good people in the world. Do you know why?

Because way too many good people stay silent. What use is it if you only have good thoughts and intentions and speak them only in private to yourself, but don’t do it with others, TO others?

When all the good people do nothing, that’s when the bad things happen. When malice wins. When everyone does nothing, the good people might as well be not there, mere wallpaper.

I do not mean you have to go to every protest, or oust yourself, or put yourself in every dangerous or uncomfortable situation you encounter that might end up with you homeless (in the case you’re young and get kicked out). It can be something as small as talking to a friend, to a classmate, educating them.

Maybe share with them a book about queer people, about marginalized people.

Tell them it’s not okay to perpetuate hateful practices.

Call out their racist comments.

Buy cookies from trans owned businesses.

Buy from local queer/black owned businesses.

Write a blog maybe, to share your thoughts, to spread the positive thinking, the acceptance and tolerance.

Make an art piece that resonates with tolerance, with love, that condemns the marginalization and discrimination of others.

Do something, anything. But do not do Nothing. Nothing is the enemy of good, it is complacency. Doing nothing means being complicit. Doing Nothing is what allows the bad to continue, to spread. Being silent in the face of injustice is never okay.

Big actions and words are not required. You do not have to attend every single protest and be the loudest chanter. But be present in the fight, even in the smallest ways.

It is in the small ways, I’d say, that the biggest changes can occur. Small tips in the scale can turn the tides. Butterfly effect, if you will.

As Gandalf would say, it is often in the smallest things that we find the greatest light and change.

My heart goes out to all those suffering right now. Do not lose hope, do not give up the fights. Know you are not alone.

I see you, I accept you, I love you.

We are all people, we are all alive. And we deserve to live openly as we are with dignity, happiness, safety.

Is it not enough that we are all people? All humans? All alive and feeling?

P.S.: I wrote this half-asleep, sick with flu(?), and at midnight. So, apologies if it doesn’t have the best coherent flow.