#god this whole thing gives me violent middle school flashbacks | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

marmolady · 3 years ago

Text

Back to School

Main Pairings: Estela x (f)MC, hints of Quinchelle

Summary: Endless Ending. The Catalysts are heading back to school. Or, at least, most of them are. For Taylor, Hartfeld is a whole new beginning... but the past isn't done with her yet.

WARNINGS: Character death (flashbacks), self-harm.

Word Count: 6348

Chronology: After 'Homecoming' and 'Clarity'.

Tagging: @saivilo, @edgydepressedchoicesthot, @sceptilemasterr, @greengroove @mauvecatfic

Thanks for reading

“Stay with me, okay? S-stay with me!” Taylor frantically tried to stem the bleeding with the shirt she’d taken off her own back, but it was already stained through. “I can’t… I can’t lose you too. Not you, Diego, please…. P-please…. Please….”

His breath rattled in his throat, strained and weak. “T-tell… tell Varyyn I’m… I… s-sorr--”

“No. No. You’ll tell him yourself, all right? You’ve got to hang on, Diego, please….”

Even as Taylor spoke, she could feel her friend’s fingers growing cold in hers. A distant yell sent a chill down her spine. The Arachnids were closing in. If she was going to get Diego to safety, she had to get him on his feet. Fast.

“...Tayl… you… f-find…” he croaked.

Taylor tried to meet his gaze and failed. He couldn’t see her there before him, though he was trying… he was trying so hard…. Until his eyes were still, searching no longer.

And she shrieked. She screamed into the night, knowing that she was good as sealing her own fate but not caring. How could she care anymore? She was alone. She collapsed into the blood-soaked chest of the best friend she’d ever had… and howled.

“Taylor!”

Woken by a shake, she kept on screaming, her body convulsing with violent sobs. Where was she?

Diego… Diego, no….

Estela cradled her face, stroking tenderly with gentle fingers. But all Taylor could see was a lingering vision of unseeing eyes. Of blood, and death, and….

“Shh-sh-sh-shh…, it’s over, amor. Everyone’s safe….”

Taylor tried to ground herself, to bring herself back, but she was swimming in anguish-- no, she was drowning.

“Diego!”

More urgently, Estela stroked Taylor’s face and hair. Her own eyes were sparkling. “Querida, he’s fine. He’s safe-- I swear he’s safe. Taylor-- Taylor? I need you to come back to me, baby….”

Something about the fear in that voice snapped Taylor to reality. Estela. Estela was holding her. They were… home.

The tears kept coming. Why? Why was she not allowed any fucking peace? She was broken… her head was broken….

She couldn’t stop howling, even as she was held. The blood could still be on her hands… she could feel it there….

“I… can’t… make it… stop…,” she whimpered. Her hands trembled as she lifted them; they tingled with the expectation of what should have been there but wasn’t. Why won’t it stop? She raised a hand to her head and smacked herself with all the force she could muster.

“I… can’t… make it… STOP!” Taylor hollered, and she slammed her open palm to her head again and again, resisting Estela’s panicked grappling. “MAKE… IT… STOP!”

Then Estela managed to wrestle her way to Taylor’s hands. The grip was like iron, though Taylor kept on struggling.

“Taylor-- Taylor!”

“LET… ME… GO!”

“I’m sorry.… I’m sorry, I can’t. It’s okay that you’re overwhelmed and you’re scared, but you can’t… you can’t hurt yourself like that.”

“LET ME… let me….”

Taylor screamed and sobbed, but she stopped fighting at the sound of the pain in her wife’s voice, and let herself be cradled and gently rocked.

“Sh-shh-shh… I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

“It’s too much…,” Taylor whimpered through her tears. “I--I can’t stand it anymore.”

“I know, mi amor. I know.” Shaking, Estela softly kissed her wife’s temple. “Will you be all right if I let go? I’m just going to grab you a tissue, okay?”

Just then, there was a loud rapping at the door, followed by Quinn’s voice.

“Can we come in? It’s me and Michelle… just a little worried about you guys.”

“Yeah… come in. And if you wanna help, we could use some tissues.”

At the sight of more friends, looking towards her in concern, Taylor cried all the harder, and very quickly she was being hugged by Quinn and Michelle… and Diego, who was also now wide awake and worried. Surrounded by friends’ arms and soothing words, she let her emotions flow forth until she had no tears left to cry.

With the risk of Taylor hurting herself diminished, Estela stepped away to get a hold of herself. “I’ll just get you a drink of water, cariña, okay?”

Taylor blew her nose noisily. “Actually, um, I might get up for a little while. If I try and go back to sleep now, I’m pretty sure it’s just gonna be nightmares all over again.” She shrunk into herself guiltily. This was not the ‘good night’s sleep before the first day of college’ that everyone had in mind. “And I don’t expect everyone to stay up just for me--”

“Oh, shut up, Taylor.” Michelle offered another tissue. “The sooner you let us help you, the sooner we can all get some sleep, all right?”

It turned out-- unsurprisingly, given the noise-- that the rest of the house had been woken by Taylor’s shrieking.

“So, uh… someone getting murdered up there?” Zahra quipped as the group descended the stairs.

Estela gave her a look, but turned her attention quickly back to Taylor. God, she was still shaking like a leaf… and then Estela realised that her wife wasn’t the only one.

Pull yourself together. For fuck’s sake.

If she was going to be any use at all, Estela knew she needed to sort herself out… and it felt like she was on the verge of breaking down sobbing. “I’ll… I’ll get you that drink, Taylor.”

Grabbing a glass from her wife’s bedside table, Estela retreated to the bathroom and collapsed over the basin with her head in her hands.

Taylor hadn’t hurt herself before. The way she’d hit herself over the head, as if determined to pound out a part of her she couldn’t stand… it struck Estela as hauntingly like the way she herself had lost immunity to her own fists in her frantic need to purge the poison. It hadn’t happened many times-- four?-- five at the most-- but Taylor was like a human sponge; it wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility that she’d been influenced by her wife’s response to trauma and taken it as her own. That was troubling.

Estela felt ill. Sick with guilt. Helpless.

So, when Raj popped his head around the door to offer a hug, she all but fell into his arms, all the bottled-up frustration bursting forth.

“I know it was stupid and naive,” she lamented against her friend’s chest, “but I really thought we’d cracked it.”

“I wouldn’t say you haven’t cracked it,” Raj said thoughtfully. “Taylor used to have these visions most nights, right? If this is the first time it’s happened since you guys moved in here, you must be on the right track… but even the right track’s gonna have a bump in the road here and there.”

“If she’s waking up screaming in the middle of the night, ‘the right track’ isn’t fucking good enough!” To her frustration, angry tears splashed down Estela’s cheeks. Crying wouldn’t do a damn thing to help Taylor. Roughly, she rubbed her face dry. She should have seen this coming; stepping foot into Hartfeld University as a student would be, for Taylor, incredibly significant. Estela had known Taylor was stressed leading up to the start of term. She should have done more….

“Yeah… I know. And it’s not fair at all-- after everything our girl was prepared to do for us, the least she deserves is a bit of peace at the end of it. So, we’re just gonna have to keep on taking good care of her. Like she always does for us. You know-- if relaxation is the key to Tayls’ good night sleep, I’m happy to give coaching….”

In spite of everything, Estela spluttered a laugh. “Raj, if Taylor ever wants to give the getting stoned route a try, I’ll make sure you’re the first to know about it. If I’m honest, some days I could probably use some of that shit myself.”

Raj grinned. “Even just the thought got a smile out of you-- that’s a win! But if a good hug is more your thing, I’m more than happy to deliver on that one too.”

Estela exhaled slowly, her eyes shut. She’d needed that hug… more than she’d known. Those disturbed nights punctuated by the anguished sobs of her poor wife crying out in her sleep, and it had been all Estela could do to stay calm enough to offer any kind of soothing comfort… they’d taken a heavy toll.

“I need to go back to her,” she said quietly.

“So, Tayls,” Craig had been asking, as if it was the most everyday thing in the world, “what’s the worst way I died? Gory details!”

“Craig!”

“I mean, we’re all curious, but come on!”

“What? You know what they say, ‘if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry’-- I mean, it’s not like any of those things are actually gonna happen now. There’s nothing to be scared of!”

Taylor’s mouth hung open. Actually… would that help? It wasn’t an approach she’d even considered. But as her mind flickered back to the vision of Diego dead in her arms… the feel of the weight of his body, she knew she couldn’t do it.

“I, um, I don’t think I’m ready. To laugh about these things. When I have these dreams it’s like… they’re fresh. New and visceral and vivid every time. I… I can’t bounce back from that and just laugh. Maybe in like… a couple of weeks? That’s if it doesn’t happen again. But it’s like I’m living it. And when I wake up… all the shock, and dread… it’s all still there.”

Everyone was quiet. Taylor didn’t blame them. How the hell could anyone know what to do with this? Estela sat down beside her and offered the glass of water.

“Thanks, babe,” Taylor murmured. Her throat was parched and sore… she supposed screaming bloody murder could do that. She took a few sips, then let herself relax into the couch, and Estela’s and Diego’s arms around her.

“I think, “ she said, “I underestimated how nervous I was about starting tomorrow. I don’t know what I’m expecting to happen, but I guess it’s ‘cause I feel like… well, a bit of a fraud.”

Zahra scoffed. “Freaking pseudo-humans think they can muscle in on our school. Man, they’re letting that place go to shit.”

Taylor looked at her, taken off guard, then slowly… she started to laugh, until she was near doubled-over. Wheezing, she sat up and wiped away a tear. “Oh my god. It’s ridiculous!”

“Honestly?” Michelle said, “I think it’s going to be surreal. ‘Normal’ is going to be hard, after….” She shuddered, and Taylor knew where her mind had wandered to… the smoldering wreckage that was a past not another soul bar the twelve of them could ever comprehend.

Quinn hugged Michelle tightly. “That’s why we need to keep doing this. Sharing the burden. If we can survive the end of the world that way… well, that’ll be how we survive the aftermath as well.”

Regaining her breath, Taylor snuggled into Diego’s shoulder. She’d been the damsel in distress tonight, but come the next, it could be any one of her friends drowning in the enormity of what they’d survived. And she’d be there, offering a shoulder, as they’d done her. Taylor closed her eyes, and focused on her breathing; slow and deep into her belly. The horrors would fade, just as long as she could keep them at bay for long enough for them to do so. It wasn’t as if she wasn’t well-used to the challenge; it had become almost routine until she’d thought she’d mastered it. Her friends had gathered around her, offering whatever comfort they could give, and that was the best hope she could ask for.

Raj sat bolt upright, clearly struck by inspiration. Always a worry.

“Guys! Gu-u-uuys!”

Taylor snorted an affectionate little laugh. “Raj! Ra-a-aaj! What’re you thinking?”

He jumped up and began moving furniture out the way.

“This is ominous….” Zahra muttered.

“Okay, doodlejumps, everyone one the floor! Sitting in a nice, wide circle.”

“Yup. I knew I had a bad feeling…. If this isn’t ‘pass the bong’, I’m out.”

Raj was undeterred, in spite of the scepticism shown by a chunk of the group. “Now, lie down, so that your head is resting on the belly of the dude or dudette to your right.”

“Er, okay,” Diego said, angling himself so that his head would fall to Taylor’s middle, “kinda weird, but why not?”

“Is everyone in positio--”

But Craig was already laughing; being sleep-deprived and tickled by the movements of Zahra’s diaphragm, he couldn’t help it if he tried. And Quinn with her head on his belly, found herself jiggled up and down in a most giggle-inducing manner.

“There you go-- you’re doing it!”

Bouncing up and down on Estela’s firm belly, Taylor laughed, and laughed, and laughed. Which made both Estela and Diego laugh more, which made her laugh more…. And so, Raj’s laughing circle worked its magic. It was simple, and silly, but actually… it worked. She was smiling so hard her jaw ached. The genius of Raj had struck again.

She laughed until…. “Okay, okay, I c-can’t breathe! Too much laughing!”

Taylor sat up clumsily, and a rosy-cheeked Estela put an arm around her once more, still giggling herself.

A rather uncharacteristically disheveled Michelle caught her breath long enough to give Raj a look of incredulation.

“I hate the fact that I feel so much better after that.” She collapsed against Quinn’s shoulder and shook her head. “I don’t even want to know how ridiculous we all looked just then…. The things I do for you people….”

“For what it’s worth,” Taylor said, “I appreciate it. More than I can say.”

It would be over an hour before everyone at last trundled along back to bed. An hour that Taylor’s loved ones had filled with chamomile tea, a giggly session of group yoga, a massage with soothing lotions from a talented Michelle, and many, many hugs. She even managed to snag a hug from Zahra; very brief and well out of sight of anyone else, but a hug nonetheless.

Taylor sunk into the mattress with a quiet moan, and curled her body into a ball, soon to have Estela’s wrapped lovingly around it. She was tired… so tired that the weight of her eyelids was painful. But she was relaxed, more-so than should have been possible after the horrific vision she endured, and with something as momentous as her first day as a student at Hartfeld lying ahead.

“Duerme ya, dulce bien; mi capullo de nardo,” Estela sang softly as her gentle fingers stroked Taylor’s hair.

Taylor closed her eyes, knowing nothing but the feel and sound of her wife. The surest thing she could ever trust in.

“Despacito duermete, como la abeja en la flor.

Duerme ya, dulce bien;

Duerme ya, dulce amor

Dulces sueños tendrás

al oir mi canción.”

And Taylor slept soundly, cocooned in love.

_________________________

As she pulled the van up into one of several car-parks on campus, Estela was struck by how right Michelle had been about it feeling surreal to be back in this place. The only reason she’d ended up there to begin with was because she’d intended to kidnap one Aleister Rourke and hold him hostage to gain access to his father. Circumstances had… definitely changed. That she was studying now wasn’t just a means to a probably violent end; it was to equip her to live a life fulfilling and true to who she was.

Her passengers piled out of the van; usually, those without a class first-thing would more than likely take a bus in later, but today felt significant.

“How are you feeling?” Estela checked in with Taylor, noting that she looked rather like someone on the verge of vomiting.

Taylor felt rather like she was on the verge of vomiting. She was a walking jumble of nerves. The smile she gave her wife was shaky. “It’s just… weird. Other than the Lernaean Gate experience, and I’m trying to keep that out of my mind, I’ve never stepped foot in this place. But I look over there, and I know that’s the Humanities building, and the best coffee shop on campus is around that corner, and if I were to bump into another Freshman, I could probably give them accurate directions to whatever lecture hall they were searching for. I know all that, and still… it’s new.”

“It’s okay,” Estela said gently, finding Taylor’s hand and squeezing it. “All the other new students are gonna be freaking out too. You’ll blend right in.”

“Yeah… yeah, you’re right.” Taylor took a deep breath. This was nothing, nothing that she couldn’t handle. When she stepped back and looked at it logically, there was obviously no threat. All those months of building this up in her head sure had wreaked havoc on her. “What do you have up first? Was it the subject on discrimination and identities?” That sounds right.

Estela nodded. “Yep, that’s the one.” She had just the three classes on this first day; one each for Identity and Discrimination, Conflict Resolution and Peace Building, and Social Development. Having opted to change her major from Business Studies to Peace and Conflict Studies-- something that hadn’t even been an option when she began studying in San Trobida-- she was starting this school year as a Junior rather than a Senior.

She wasn’t alone-- Craig had also decided to change direction, now focusing his degree on Game Development. “Well, uh, that sounds… fun,” he said, grateful that Introduction to Computer Game Design would be his first lecture. It was something he’d wanted to try out back in his Freshman year, before he’d gotten swept up in the popularity that came with joining the football team. Now, his inner nerd wouldn’t be hidden in shame. “Anyways, I’ve got to go-- I actually don’t wanna miss this class. Weird. That’s like… never happened before.”

He shuffled off with Zahra, who rolled her eyes as she swung an arm around his shoulder.

Taylor pulled Estela into a kiss. All too brief, for they had company, and because that Identity and Discrimination lecture wouldn’t attend itself.

“You still on for coffee?” Quinn asked Taylor as the rest of the group broke off for lessons. “Grace says she’s on the way there now.”

With a tight hug goodbye, Taylor let Estela go off to her lecture, and joined Quinn in a brisk walk to the coffee shop.

As with much of the Hartfeld campus, the coffee shop felt as familiar as if Taylor had been there many times before. Rather than feeling odd, in this particular instance it added to the warm and comforting feel of the place…. It was like a hug from an old friend.

And the coffee itself….

“Actually, that’s a nice cappuccino!”

“Good enough that you’ll convince Estela to give it a go?” Grace asked, a twinkle in her eye. She knew well from experience that, as a rule, Estela found American coffee to taste-- to quote her directly-- ‘like ass’.

Taylor snickered. “I could get her to join us no problem, but I’d put money on her sticking to her flask of a superior Colombian brew.”

Whether it was a world-beating cup of coffee or not, it certainly fulfilled the job of giving Taylor the wake-up she needed. It was hard not to keep on apologising for being the cause of a disrupted night’s sleep, but she bit it back. There was no shame in not being okay. Soon enough, it would be someone else’s turn, and she sure as hell didn’t want anyone else beating themselves up the way she did. Estela had always been very quick to snap Taylor out of hypocritical thinking where guilt was concerned, and it was appreciated. So, Taylor just let herself enjoy a warm brew and the company of two of the best friends she could ask for as they pondered on this new year of college.

“Ooh!” Quinn cried suddenly. “You could try ‘Hartfeld Creates’; it’s basically a club for people who are into arts and crafts of all kinds-- well, basically, anything that you create yourself.”

That sounded all right. If she was going to ingratiate herself into the school community, starting with something Taylor already had an interest in wouldn’t hurt.

“Do they take bumbling beginner knitters like me, d’you think?”

“They do a big exhibition at the end of the school year; if I remember correctly from last time, there were definitely a few knitters showing off their work.” Quinn took another sip of her coffee, then looked up with a shy smile. “Actually,” she said, “I’d wanted to sign up, but commitments were always tough for me. I guess… there’s nothing to hold me back now.”

Grace returned the smile. “It sounds like a good excuse for me to really start diving in to fractal art. If you wanted, we could all sign up together.”

“I think I might really like that,” Taylor said, and she licked froth from her lips. Estela was missing out-- this was a good coffee. “At least I’ll know there’ll be two people who will say nice things about my lumpy knitting.”

She brought her mug upwards to chink with her two friends’.

“To new experiences!” she toasted, before hastily adding, “--of the low-key variety!” No more sea monsters for me, thank you.

Before Taylor knew it, the next of her new experiences had rolled around. She’d found her way to the lecture hall for Introductory Spanish without a sweat, as if she had a campus map pre-downloaded in her brain. It was weird, but she did turn up looking less frazzled than a few of her classmates, so it had its value. Taylor took a seat beside a mature-aged student, quietly relieved that not everyone in her first class was fresh out of high school. And, of course, being Taylor, she immediately made herself acquainted.

“Hi,” she said, offering a hand that was gratefully shaken, “I’m Taylor.”

The silver-haired woman returned a smile. “Lovely to meet you. Sue.”

“Is this your first class, too?”

“Not my first class-- I just came from a Molecular Biology lecture-- but it’s my first day, so still getting my head around how it all works. I did try college years back, but, you know… life happened. I can tell you it’s changed a lot since then!”

This was so much easier than Taylor had anticipated. Caught up in her own head, she found herself frequently falling into the trap of underestimating the qualities that had always best served her. She wasn’t just the glue that held the Catalysts together simply because she’d been created as a perfect match to their needs; it was more than that. Taylor loved people. She was good at people. So long as she focused on her innate humanity and not the part of her that felt alien, she could find her confidence.

“So, Molecular Biology, and Introductory Spanish. That’s broad. I’m guessing you don’t have a major in mind yet? I’m the same.”

Sue chuckled. “Well, I’m not studying for anything in particular. No one strong direction. To be honest, I don’t have a great deal of interest in a career change. I work part-time from home, which suits me fine. Plenty of time for the grandkids. But I have always loved to learn. The way I see it, if I’m to broaden my horizons, I might as well cast a wide net.”

“Fair enough,” Taylor said. “There’s certainly the range here to do that. I found it a little intimidating to have so much choice. I vaguely know what direction I want to take, but really, until I give things a go….” She shrugged her shoulders. “What’s really going to grab me, I don’t know.”

“There’s something to be said for the fun being in the journey. I know I’ve always wanted a university education, and I’ve always wanted to travel. Both things are coming to fruition after more years than I care to count, but I wouldn’t trade any of the stops along the way for anything. That’s what inspired me to take Spanish-- Latin America is high on the list.”

“You should go off the beaten track and give San Trobida a try! It’s really beautiful.” Taylor suggested to an intrigued nod. “For me…. My wife’s Colombian-San Trobidan and my best friend’s Mexican by blood. I’m kinda curious about what they say to one other about me.” She smiled cheekily, had a momentary realisation of ‘oh, I’m not sure how LGBT-friendly this older stranger is’, then realised Sue hadn’t batted an eyelid, and continued. “No, we’re probably going to end up spending a lot of time in San Trobida; my wife’s only family is there.” Well, I guess that’s not even entirely true anymore. “A bit more Spanish will serve me well. Wifey’s teachings have mostly centred around curse words and romantic pet-names… neither of which are appropriate in all circumstances.”

Sue gave a short laugh. “It’s a useful language,” she said. “Widely used. And once you know a bit of Spanish, you find related languages start to make some sense as well. French is next on my list.”

And so, by the time the professor arranged his notes and set up the projector, Taylor had realised that she really needn’t have worried about a thing. She was a social butterfly; on La Huerta, or anywhere else. All she had to do was spread her wings.

_____________________

Estela’s morning had been uneventful. Her classes had basically been introductions to the respective courses; general overviews of what to expect in the coming weeks and months of study. This was just as well, because she found her mind wandering.

The previous night’s events had rattled her. So long it had been since Taylor had one of her horrific nighttime visions-- the last one had been back in San Trobida-- Estela had been caught off-guard. Once again, that helpless feeling was seemingly inescapable.

She sat down in the library and buried her head in her assigned Peace and Conflict textbook, trying to focus for long enough to string two sentences together.

It was just a freak thing because of all the build-up to starting college. Chances are, she’ll sleep like a baby tonight.

Babies sleep like shit.

Who came up with that dumbass idiom anyway? No one who ever met a goddamn baby….

Taylor had always been prone to vivid dreams; dreams that weren’t normal dreams. Actually, on La Huerta, Estela had experienced a few of those herself. But after Taylor released the part of Vaanu that resided in her, things changed. The memories gifted to her by the Endless took over all of Taylor’s dreams. Between the two of them, they’d managed to note patterns; flashes of violent scenes had-- without fail-- been in the wake of a period of stress, while a reduction of Taylor’s waking anxiety led to lighter scenes playing through her head at night. The key, they’d deducted, was to ensure she went to bed relaxed and happy. Estela couldn’t believe she’d been so stupid to think it was a phase that had passed; it had simply been a case of waiting for a significant enough stressor and --whoomp-- back to nightmare city. And once Taylor closed her eyes each night… there wasn’t a damn thing Estela could do to keep her safe from the cruelties of her own mind.

Estela glanced at the clock. It would be three-quarters-of-an-hour at least before Taylor was done with her second class. She should at least take a few notes while she waited.

Then a voice echoed out from behind one of the rows of shelves.

“.…I’m still not convinced scar-girl wasn’t somehow involved. Nine students disappear off the face of the earth and that creeper just happens to be with them? I’m not buying it.”

In an instant, Estela felt a hot blush rise to her cheeks, and her stomach drop. In all honesty, she hadn’t expected much different but… she’d hoped she could get through the first day without… without…. How could it not hurt? Pointedly, she kept looking down into her notes, though any remaining hope she might have had to actually focus on them had fled. Nine students? She didn’t even count; she was an ‘other’. As everyone had always seen her. Don’t let it get to you. Don’t let anyone see that it gets to you.

“Oh my god-- right? I can’t believe they let her back here after what happened….”

Another voice cut through, sharp and comfortingly familiar.

“I’m sorry-- are you serious?” Michelle demanded.

“...We didn’t ask you!”

“I know, I know. You’re just too busy making up poisonous gossip about a person who you’re well aware has just survived a traumatic event. Classy!”

“What the fu--”

“I’m sure the dean would be interested in hearing all about your treatment of one of the Hartfeld Ten. Someone the rest of them owe their lives to several times over. Or, you know…. The both of you could just get out of here, and while you’re at it…. Get. A. Fucking. Life.”

There was some rude and clearly embarrassed muttering aimed in Michelle’s direction, the shuffling of feet, then quiet.

Estela realised she’d been holding her breath. Everything was different now. The sting was still real, but coming up behind it was something soothing. And she wasn’t the ‘other’ any longer; not in that moment.

“Michelle….”

And Michelle came around the corner, a look of horror across her face. “Oh, shit--you heard that?”

Estela offered a shaky smile. “It’s okay; I’ve heard worse.”

“It’s not okay! It’s not remotely-- They’re just… assholes. Self-absorbed, ignorant assholes.” Michelle was shaking with fury. And Estela found herself not surprised those students scarpered quickly as they did. “You would not believe how close I came to slapping those bitches just now--”

“No, I can guess. Thank you.”

“I used to be friends with people like that. Or… I thought they were my friends. I can’t tell you how grateful I am that now I’ve got the real thing.”

Michelle pulled off her shoulder-bag and sat down in the chair beside Estela.

“Are any of them still here?” she asked. “The people you used to know.”

“’Know’ is a strong word in hindsight,” Michelle commented dryly. “But, the vast majority graduated when I was meant to, or the year after. There are a couple of girls I was in the sorority with who were Freshmen at the time. I caught a ‘you saw Michelle Nguyen’s gay now?’ ‘thank god we saved poor Sean when we did-- he deserves so much better’.” She rolled her eyes.

Estela huffed. “Ignorant assholes,” she affirmed. She looked back down at her notes. “Too bad, though. So far up their own asses they missed out on knowing the most amazing friend a person could ask for. Sucks to be them.”

There was quiet, and noting the silence, Estela raised her eyes to see Michelle looking at her with the warmest, most appreciative of smiles. Somewhat shyly-- she’d not intended to stir up deep emotions-- Estela returned it.

Michelle glanced around, checking there was no one in earshot. “I was talking with Grace earlier; bringing her up to date on everything that went down last night,” she whispered.

Estela quirked an eyebrow. “Any words of wisdom there?” she asked with a soft sigh. “Anything at all, I’ll take it. Please.”

Sympathetic, Michelle reached out and squeezed her friend’s arm. “We’re going to look after each other. That’s the best wisdom I think any of us has to offer.”

It was hard to argue with that… but it didn’t feel like enough. Not when Taylor was still being wrenched back to the darkest of places, powerless make it end.

“We wanted to float an idea with the others,” Michelle continued, sensing Estela’s helplessness. “Maybe we could get together every month, every fortnight… whatever it might be, and all of us just… talk. Like therapy, but just us, because so much of what’s been the fucking hardest we can’t tell anyone else. I dunno… maybe Quinn will bring cupcakes or something….”

“That usually reels everyone in,” Estela noted, a smile tugging at her lips. It wasn’t a bad idea. For herself, she’d looked at the idea of some kind of counselling, but it had come down to the fact that she’d only really want to do that with a therapist from San Trobida-- someone who understood where and what she’d come from. That was a tall order, even before the challenge of dodging around sensitive La Huerta business was considered. Obviously, everyone else would also need to get help in their own ways, but for some things, they had to be one another. “I think…. I think that might be a really good idea.”

_________________________

“See? You survived two whole classes!” Diego laughed, coming out of a lecture theatre beside Taylor. He’d made a point of choosing at least one best-friend-friendly elective, landing on ‘Gender, Sexuality and the Media’. If the first lecture was anything to go by, they were going to enjoy it. “All those nightmares for nothing.”

Taylor sighed dramatically. “All we’ve gotta do now is hope my brain gets with the programme. She can be tricky, that one.”

With a kind smile, Diego gently bumped shoulders with his friend. The night before had been eye-opening. Of course, Taylor had told him all about the ghastly visions she’d been haunted with, but to be present through the aftermath… it had slammed it home just what she’d been enduring. And he didn’t know she’d kept herself together as well as she did.

“Hey… it’s all gonna get better.” As Taylor met his eye, appreciative but unconvinced, explained. “The way I see it, you’re basically Stitch right now--”

“I’m gonna need you to spell this out for me,” Taylor said with a laugh.

“Ha. Trust me, it’ll all make sense. You know how Stitch had been made for only one purpose, and he felt kinda lost when all that was gone? That’s you.”

“I… guess….”

“Hear me out!”

“Always.”

“Well, when Vaanu left you, there was this big empty space left behind. And The Endless’ memories are basically you clinging to what your purpose always was-- to care for us all. It’s like Stitch; you don’t have your own memories to take up space, it’s just you and your purpose.”

Taylor stopped in her tracks. “Hang on. Is Estela my aggressive, lonely orphan Lilo?”

Diego sputtered a laugh. “I’d like to think Estela and I are both your Lilo. But what matters is that’s not going to last. All that empty space is going to fill up, day by day.”

“I… really wanna believe that.”

“I know.” He put an arm around her shoulder and squeezed. “You know what else I think? I think the more you see that we’re all okay, the less you’re going to have that protective part of your brain setting off those nightmares as alarm bells to you. And for as long as it takes for you to be okay… I’m here for you. We all are.”

Taylor looked into his earnest face and saw only genuine love and care. And it broke her heart, because she couldn’t gaze into his warm, dark eyes and not see their light going out. A hard lump rose in her throat, choking her, and she buried her face against Diego’s neck, hugging him tight.

“Thank you,” she murmured. “Really. Thanks.”

Finally pulling away from an embrace that had been so needed, Taylor and Diego hurried toward the green wooded area of campus where they’d arranged to meet Estela.

She was waiting for them by the fountain, her eyes lit with a smile at the sight of her beloved.

“Hola, mi angel!” she called out as they approached. “Te traje el almuerzo. Quieres encontrar un lugar?”

“Hahaha,” Taylor said sardonically, rolling her eyes exaggeratedly for good measure. “Yes, one lecture and I’m not fluent. Clearly university is money down the drain. Pfft.”

“Joder!”

“That, I understand.” She reached for Estela… the simple feel of her bringing her instantly home. “If we ever have an exam on curse words, you’ll have me on the trajectory for an A.”

What a relief it was to see Taylor happy, joking. Estela wrapped both her arms around her wife’s neck, and just held her. And when she finally released Taylor, it was only for her to move in once more to kiss her.

“Uh, guys? Are you going to do this after every block of classes? I might need you two to get a room.”

“Por favor! You love it. We all know you’re as invested in Taylor’s love life as you are your own.”

“Hey!” Diego exclaimed, hand to his heart as if mortally wounded. “A little rude, but true. But, I guess I can leave you lovebirds to it for a few minutes. Is it sad that I’m dying to see if they have anything new in the food court?”

And so, Estela and Taylor were left to wander a beautiful corner of the sprawling campus. Estela hooked her little finger in Taylor’s, and everything that had once made this world hostile melted to nothing. It was hard sometimes, not to feel like a round peg being forced through a square hole. Somehow, Taylor softened the world’s edges to her… and when she was near, Estela fit. Just as she was.

“Querida?” Estela looked at Taylor, and adored her. She could only hope that in her, Taylor found the same sense of belonging… the kind so strong that it defied all else.

“Mm?”

“I really love you.”

Taylor’s heart swelled. As it did every time she heard those words stated anew. Every time, it was a promise that for all the pain that still lingered, everything really would be all right.

“I really love you, too.”

#endless summer #estela montoya #estela x mc #playchoices #michelle nguyen #raj bhandarkar #diego soto

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that-one-fandom-vore-blog · 5 years ago

Photo

chained and bound (to this hopeless town)

Ch. 1 | Ch. 2 | Ch. 3

Ao3 Link

Good things happen to bad people. Bad things happen to good people. Which must mean Anna Shephard must be the best fucking person to have ever lived, or, at least, the best person left alive. Lucky her. To be fair, she hasn’t got much competition. As far as she knows, she, Steph, and Nick are the only people still alive. After a year of fighting off the undead, struggling to come to terms with her new reality, Anna is suddenly thrown back into the midst of her past without so much as a warning. Old friends, old faces, and old fears all resurface, along with zombies that seem to be getting smarter with every new day. So much for a warm welcome...

Co-written with the wonderful @thebadhalfofafandom! Warnings up here for: Flashbacks, panic elements, gore, swearing, zombies, and vore.

“Out of all the places for the damn engine to freeze up, it’s here?!” Anna shouted as she swung herself out of the car, slamming the blue painted door shut behind her for good measure. She could practically feel Nick and Steph looking at her as she stalked to the front of the car, looking helplessly down at the blue hood as if she could convince it to start up with a glare. It had been running just fine— fine enough, for the clunker it was— three bloody seconds ago, but now, fucking now, the engine had finally quit.

Anna scuffed a shoe on the ground before delivering a swift, sharp kick to the blasted thing’s tire, hard enough to send a jolt up through her foot. “Fuck,” she hissed under her breath, then again, louder: “FUCK!”

Drawing back her foot, she kicked the vehicle again. Harder, this time, squarely on the side of the door with a dull thump with enough force to chip the paint.

“You don’t have to blame the car,” Steph huffed, coming to stand beside Anna with her hands stuffed firmly in her pockets. “Blame the snow— or the idiot,” she paused, giving Nick a pointed glare, “who was driving.”

The glare she earned in return was almost as heated. “Oh, fuck off, Steph,” Nick shot back, “s’not my shitbox that got us stranded, anyway!” His volume rose dangerously at the end of his sentence, the words coming out in a near bark.

Neither of the others dignified him with a response as his boots crunched in the snow, grumbling under his breath. It wasn’t worth trying to decode anything he said— Anna had dated him before, and if she was being honest, she’d rather date a zombie. He practically was one, anyway.

...he’s gotten better.

A year of travel had done the tensions in the group good, and besides, he didn’t eat brains.

Though… as Anna watched him pace in a circle around the hood, she was beginning to doubt he even had one in his thick skull. She’d definitely rather date a zombie, and where better to find one than Little Haven? That, as far as she knew, was where it had all started…

Out of all the places to break down, why did the little blue shitbox have to pick here?

Anna’s gaze drifted from the sight of Nick and Steph glowering at the engine, which was now starting to let off a good amount of smoke, to the surrounding countryside. There wasn’t much there to see, not really, but Anna didn’t need the visual. She could see it so perfectly in her mind’s eye, the snow stained with blood, the smoke rising in the horizon. She could feel it, too, feel raw terror curling in her chest like a poisonous snake and the feeling of another hand locked tight with hers, but then it was being pulled away and she was screaming, screaming with a voice that splintered and broke—

“JOHN!”

Her grip on the candy cane she called a weapon tightened. Her heart started to beat harder in her throat, like when she’d watched— she’d just watched— as her best friend was—

Do. Not. Think. About. That.

Snapping back into the present, trying to force those thoughts out of her head— thoughts of gentle eyes and bloodied screams— Anna crossed her arms and watched with a clenched jaw as the other two bent over the hood. Steph had popped it open, and although Nick looked like he wanted to help, Anna knew Steph wouldn’t be letting him anywhere near the engine.

Sucking in a breath through her teeth, she began to saunter over. She held the plastic candy cane in a too-tight grip, though, managed to look as casual as she could. Her breath formed a cloud in front of her face as she carefully stepped closer, squinting over Nick’s shoulder to see what the problem was.

...whatever the problem was.

Was a car’s engine supposed to look so black?

The whole thing smelled like gasoline, though, and she was quick to cover her nose against the stench.

“Fuck,” she intoned again, slamming one hand down on the hood for good measure, loud enough to make Nick jump back in fright. “Fucking— god— how come it had to be here?” She moaned, unable to keep her voice from sounding far too sharp. “This has got to be the WORST place on earth—”

“Yeah, and screaming about it when there could be zombies around is a great idea!” Nick cut in, shuddering violently in the cold. “S’fucking freezing, Anna, and there’re more important things to worry about than the fact that the ruddy car broke down, alright?”

"What? Am I not allowed to be upset that the moment we get back into this shitty little town in the middle of winter, we get stranded. And now you're just standing there!” Her gaze flicked down to the weapon hanging loyally at his belt, and she gestured blindly at it. “Being all 'at least I got a cool gun now' as if that'll help us! News flash, asshole, it won’t! Not unless it’s loaded with screws!”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Steph flinch.

“It’s like you’ve never even seen a car before—” she tried to joke, though, Nick’s voice was louder.

"At least I'm not screeching about it!" He hissed at Anna, who looked like she was going to beat him with her candy cane as he stalked closer. She felt like beating him with her candy cane, come to think. It’d be satisfying to just bash his head in and—

She barely realized she was raising the lawn ornament until Steph stepped between them and raised a hand in Anna’s direction. Her eyes were narrowed in a glare, and although her tone was light, there was anger flickering just beneath its surface.

"Hey ladies, why don’t we just focus on finding a place to stay rather than arguing who's being the least productive?” She asked, seemingly immune to the glare Anna shot her way. Instead, she locked eyes with the taller girl. Her hand came back to rest at her side, though, not before scrubbing over her face. “Look,” she started, taking a step back to stand before them, “this is ass, but you don’t have to be assholes about it, okay? So shut the fuck up, let’s ditch the car,”

“Shitbox,” Nick corrected.

Steph pinched the bridge of her nose and inhaled sharply. She looked almost ready to snap, though, as the engine belched out another thick plume of smoke, she sighed. “Shitbox…” she corrected, glumly, turning her eyes to the still-steaming engine as she continued, “and find somewhere where we won’t get eaten alive, okay?”

Anna didn’t answer.

Nick shuffled his feet.

Again, Steph sighed, heavier and harsher. “Okay?” She tried again, elbowing Nick hard in the ribs for emphasis.

“Fine, fine, okay— just keep your hands off me!” He sputtered, annoyance written across his face. The snow crunched under his weight as he stepped to the side, crossing his arms tightly against his chest. “So what’s the plan, then?”

All eyes turned to Steph.

The silence that fell was somehow worse than the argument. It was awkward, broken only by a few little sputters from the shitbox’s engine trying dogeddly to start.

“Don’t fuckin’ look at me like that!” She protested, though, after a moment of silence and a kick delivered to the ground, she exhaled heavily. “What about the school?”

Anna stiffened, but before she could speak, Nick shook his head.

“No. Too risky. After Savage let those fuckers in, they probably got stuck inside,” he explained. “And voila, zombie motel.”

Steph set her jaw. “What about an actual motel?”

A snort escaped Anna. “A literal zombie motel. Check-in at the front desk, gotta be out by ten, don’t mind the bellhop, he bites.”

It sounded funnier in her head. It came out too sharp, too sarcastic, and was met with an awkward sort of silence.

She coughed and looked up at Nick. “This whole town’s gonna be completely infected.”

“It’s been a year,” he returned, evenly.

“Great.” Anna’s cold glare only intensified as she started speaking again. “A year for all those things to get hungry and fester. You’d need a bunker if you didn’t want to—“

In a flurry of motion, Nick gave a shit-eating grin and snapped his fingers. “A bunker!”

Anna couldn’t help but snicker. “What, you know where one is? Got one in your backyard?”

Nick’s grin only grew. His chest puffed out with pride and as Anna watched, he put his arms to the sides. “The military base! It probably has backup generators, or at least of a lot of stuff that we can burn. Won’t smell great or anything, but the army’s fucked off from there, so the place is ours.”

"Holy shit, you're right!" Steph exclaimed. Nick’s enthusiasm was contagious, apparently. The short blonde gave a laugh of disbelief. “We could probably get there before dark, if we really hoof it.”

Anna looked up to the sun where it sat in the sky and squinted for a moment through the clouds before giving a small, apprehensive nod. “Okay,” she huffed out, before giving a soft snicker. “Can’t believe we forgot we had an airbase. It’s practically on our doorstep.”

Steph’s nose wrinkled. “It practically was on my doorstep,” she grumbled back, though, any irritation was masked with a crooked smile. “Military assholes had no concept of when was too early to be practicing their shooting.”

As the trio began to march forward through the snow, Anna gave a snicker. “Yeah, reminds me of our asshole, here.”

“Hey!”

Steph exhaled a laugh and shook her head, once again, moving to jab Nick in the ribs. “Quiet, remember? Don’t wanna attract any zombies.”

“Yeah,” Anna agreed with a cheeky grin, “‘specially not because you’re firing that thing at the ass crack of dawn.”

The three fell into an easy step together. If Anna squinted, she could almost pretend things were back to normal. It was just like they were hanging out during a snow day, really, with the small flakes that were beginning to fall and their breath fogging up the air. The snow had masked the town Anna remembered as Little Haven, masked the carnage and blood that had been there as they’d sped off in Steph’s bright blue shitbox.

They didn’t talk much, though, they didn’t need to. The place was a ghost town. Nothing seemed to move, not a zombie, nor another group of survivors. Little Haven had never been much— it was Little Haven, for fuck’s sake— but it seemed so much more barren than she’d remembered.

Because you’re remembering it before everything went to shit.

Those memories were getting blurrier. With everything she saw, every broken window, every unhinged door, they began to replace the thoughts of riding her battered bike down the streets. When things were better. Back when her and her father would make snow angels on the lawn, and John would be over, smiling that crooked smile and—

Don’t.

She quickened her step. That was the last thing she needed to be thinking about. He was the last thing she needed to be thinking about. She didn’t need to think about his dreams, or how she felt when his arms were wrapped around her and the horde was converging, grabbing at him with their spindly fingers and—

Fucking don’t.

Setting her jaw, Anna lowered her head and tried to focus on where they were going.

“This place gives me the fucking creeps,” Steph commented, breaking the silence that had been steadily growing around them.

Nick scuffed a boot against the snow. “Yeah, ditto,” he agreed.

There was an awkward silence where Anna should’ve spoken, but instead, she slung her candy cane over her shoulder. The hard plastic resting on her shoulder was a small comfort. It kept her grounded, reminding her of the fact that Little Haven as she knew it was gone. She bumped it up against her shoulder between steps, harder with every second

The sun had just begun to set as the group finally found the chain-link fence that surrounded the base. That sinking feeling that had accompanied Anna right from the start— that feeling she could only describe as Little Haven dread— had only gotten worse, and it intensified when she looked upward at the cold steel.

“Shit…” She mumbled.

She knew it wouldn’t be easy— it was a fucking military base, for Christ’s sake, it wasn’t going to be a cakewalk.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched as Steph took her pack off her shoulder and began to sift through its contents.

“I can’t fucking see anything,” Nick grumbled. “How am I supposed to—“

Steph hit him in the back of the head with a flashlight, ignoring the sharp yelp of protest she earned in response. “Here.” She snapped, passing another to Anna without making eye contact. Her gaze was fixed upward, and as Anna looked up as well, she saw what Steph was looking at.

Sharp spikes of barbed wire lined the top of the fence.

“So we’re not climbing,” As she spoke, Anna’s eyes began to travel along the length of the chain link, looking in vain for any sort of opening. Zombies wouldn’t be able to get in, she hoped, but neither would they…

The snow was piled high beside the posts, and just as Anna was trying to figure out if it was worth trying to climb—

“You just gonna stand there looking pretty?”

Anna flinched. Her gaze shot to where Nick had been standing moments ago, though, as she flicked on the light, her brow furrowed.

Where—

“Over here,” his voice came again, and as Anna tried to locate it, she turned her head back to the impossible fence—

To meet Nick’s gaze and cheeky grin from the other side.

“Gate’s open,” he remarked, gesturing over to his right with his flashlight beam, swinging it at enough of an arc to momentarily blind Anna.

Swinging one hand up in front of her face, squinting through a scowl, Anna managed to focus on the fence once more—

Oh for fuck’s sake.

—and the obvious gap in it where the gate began.

“You snuck in here, before?” Steph questioned, beginning to trudge forward with Anna behind her. Her pack jingled with every step, punctuated by the crunching of her boots and the steady swaying of her own, heavyset flashlight. It cut through the darkness with a wide beam that made the snow glitter.

“No,” Nick returned, “I thought about it, though,”

“Should’ve,” Anna fired back, her shoulders tensing further with each step she took past the gate, “they would’ve turned you into swiss cheese.”

The noise of mock protest she earned from Nick hit her with a wave of familiarity so sudden that it hurt. Swallowing hard against a sudden knot in her throat, Anna pushed ahead, reaching the door in a matter of minutes.

The door, like the fence, was unhinged and hanging loosely open. Anna shared uneasy glances with the other two, but not a word was spoken as she pointed her flashlight beam into the dark interior.

Rank air wafted out to greet her, sending a cold chill down her spine despite the warmth of the building. They filtered in single-file, Anna with her cane raised in one hand, Steph with her flashlight ready to bludgeon anything in the way, and Nick with his hands shakily clamped around his gun.

Their beams, minus Nick’s, which only illuminated his pocket, shone outward in a wide fan, casting long, humanoid shadows that seemed ready to come off the walls and grab them.

Anna shifted her grip on her cane. "We should split up,” she hissed out in a whisper, “cover more ground. Maybe if we're lucky we can find a new engine or car, and hopefully, get out of here as soon as possible." The last part of her sentence was lost in a whisper, more to herself than either of the others.

Get out.

Like John never did, because he’s dead— he died here, did you think about that, Anna—

“Sure,” Nick’s voice cut in, breaking her out of her thoughts, “I’ll take…” He looked to Anna, who shrugged.

“Doesn’t matter to me,” she shifted her weight before turning her light to the nearest hallway, “you can take that one, I’ll…” She hesitated, before turning right. “I’ll take this one. Steph, you can take the one on the left. Meet back up in… an hour?”

She shone her flashlight back toward the group in time to see them both share nods. She found herself bobbing her head in agreement as well. For a moment, she wanted to say something else. The air was charged, not tense, mind, but there was an energy that couldn’t be denied. She could feel it— feel it in the tight feeling in her chest and the fact that she was digging the plastic hook of her cane deep into her shoulder.

“An hour,” she said, uneasily, and before she could try saying anything else, she turned sharply to the right and disappeared down the hallway.

Her footsteps seemed far too loud. Anna trudged through the halls cautiously, trying to see with her barely working flashlight in one hand and candy cane at the ready in the other.

It didn't take her long to stumble upon a barely-open door. She quietly opened it with her shoulder, clutching both items tightly. The light weakly shone on the room’s contents, only illuminating a few feet before her. She squinted, daring to stick her arm into the room a little farther in and shining the light from side to side. It was reflected on a few objects she couldn’t make out, and for a moment, it looked like eyes—

Remember when you thought it was safe and it wasn’t? Remember who paid for it?

—it wasn’t eyes.

She knew it wasn’t eyes.

Inhaling through her teeth, Anna squared her shoulders, and stepped inside.

It wasn’t what she was expecting. As she swept the light’s flickering, shaky beam around in a wide circle, she was made aware of shelves surrounding her in neat rows, and their contents. Vials upon vials of contents. Their labels were scratched and worn, and as Anna squinted at a vial containing a bright, ugly yellow liquid, she felt a chill wind down her spine.

It was weird, how everything was just… left like this.

Some places looked completely fine, like the untouched vials. It was nothing new, truly, everywhere was a ghost town now that everyone was dead, but it still made unease creep across Anna’s skin like a cold wind.

Shuddering, she began to walk down the rows of shelves, paying less attention by the second to the vials decorating them. What use were a bunch of random chemicals, anyway? What use were—

The hook of her cane bumped against a shelf with a sharp clang, causing Anna to let out a sharp yelp.

“Shit!” She hissed, swinging her light around in time to see a vial wobbling. The liquid inside it was red, and although it quickly settled back down, she didn’t move the light away. Beside it lay a stack of papers. They were tucked messily in place beside it, dog-eared and yellowed, but still intact.

Carefully, Anna reached forward and took the packet in her hands, carefully setting the cane up against the nearest shelf to better leaf through the hand-scrawled notes. Her breath stuck in her throat when she finally managed to decipher what it said.

UNIDENTIFIED PATHOGEN CURE PROTOTYPE TESTING: TRIALS 1-10

“I knew they were working on a cure,” she whispered to herself, both excitement and anger filtering through her voice.

Dad could’ve made it.

John, too.

Nobody would’ve had to die… not Chris… not Lisa…

Even thinking their names made her heart sink.

Anna grabbed the packets, already planning out how to best tell Steph and Nick what she’d found— how maybe, maybe things could finally go back to how they’d been— when something cut through the noise of her thoughts.

A clumsy, sluggish shuffling cut through the silence, followed by a low, feral growl.

The papers tumbled from her grasp before she could stop them, though, she barely noticed. Already, she was shoving her flashlight in her pocket, grabbing her weapon, and beginning to raise it. Her steely gaze was fixed on the door she’d come in through, listening in tense silence as the shuffling drew closer… and closer…

When it finally entered her line of sight, it was alone. Just one. Nothing she couldn’t deal with. Already, she was readying herself to swing, but—

Recognition flashed across her face.

Her stomach dropped.

No.

It was wearing a tattered sweater, smeared with blood and torn in spots, but—

No, please, no...

If the brown hair and soft face didn’t give it away, that Christmas sweater with the tree and lights did.

Her best friend.

One of her only friends.

John. John Pine. Still wearing that sweater he’d been so proud of, the one that devoured batteries by the dozen. His head was cocked harshly to the right, though, as Anna tried to back away, it began to straighten out.

The second those eyes— deep brown, just like she remembered— met her own, the creature gave a little snort of excitement and began to stumble in her direction with its— his—deadened gaze fixed on hers.

“No…” Anna’s voice was soft and shaky. It felt like there wasn’t enough oxygen in the room— like it had been sucked out entirely. Her hands felt clammy. Her heart was beginning to beat like a kickdrum, thumping through her veins at a rapid tempo. “No, please, John… don’t do this,” she begged, trying her best not to let her voice break.

John didn’t register anything she was saying. If anything, he was growling louder by the second, an awful, grating noise that rose above the panicked rushing of blood in her ears. It was barely human— hardly a noise she could ever picture him making— but it was escaping his throat regardless as he shuffled closer and closer to his potential meal. His gait was shambling, closer to a limp than the goofy stride Anna remembered—

He was limping before it happened, don’t you remember? He fucked up his leg and then—

Anna gripped her candy cane tighter. She had to kill him. If she didn’t, then he’d rip her to pieces. Zombies were vicious— all of them were vicious beyond repair, they were hardly human anymore—

But John isn’t—

The creature before her gave another throaty growl. His whole body seemed to wobble unsteadily, as if he couldn’t decide which direction to walk, or if he could even walk at all. Everything about him was wrong, clashing so horribly with how she remembered him. She was frozen to the spot, looking into those eyes that were so familiar it hurt, those same eyes she’d looked into before the horde had converged on him and she’d screamed, screamed so loud her throat had hurt—

“JOHN!”

Struggling to inhale, Anna began to back away. She kept her weapon raised, the wicked, plastic hook up over her shoulder, trying to ignore the way her hands trembled and the fact that the memory was rising in her mind faster than she could hope to block it out.

“LET GO! L-LEMME GO—”

Another set of arms wrapped around her. She tried to beat them back, her body shaking. Her hands were clenched in tight fists. Her legs kicked out wildly as she tried to get her footing, broken, terrified sobs catching in her throat.

Nick’s voice was loud, but not louder than the noises, the sounds of a horde beginning to feast— “No, Anna, no! Leave him!”

Her eyes welled with tears. She had to kill him. He wouldn’t want to live as a zombie. Living as a zombie wasn’t living at all, surely he’d known that, he’d had to have known that. Her only option was to swing but…

“Leave him.” Nick had said again, ignoring the way her hands beat against his side.

She couldn’t. Her grip loosened as she backed away at a faster pace than before. Fuck, she was useless.

She could feel her throat closing up as she tried to find an exit, not taking her eyes off the creature— it’s not John, it’s not, stop pretending— shambling toward her. His head was cocked to the right, mouth slightly open, glossy eyes boring into her own. She felt her stomach lurch at the sight of dried blood smeared around his mouth, her insides turning to water. Bluish, broken veins decorated his cheeks, and when he gave another lurch, right hand swinging downward, her gaze tracked automatically to the vicious bite embedded in the back of his hand.

The same sort of bite that he’d use those crooked teeth to give her.

“John?” She choked out in a whimper, frantically searching his eyes for any recognition. He was closer. There were only a few feet between them, and that distance was closing fast.

“Please, you don’t have to do this, please...” Tears threatened to spill from her eyes as she gathered what little courage she had left and screamed: “JUST GET OUT OF HERE—“

Anna’s back slammed against one of the shelves before she could process what was happening, barely having enough time to register, the various glass vials on the shelf began to crash at her feet. Chemicals splattered across her coat and shoes, and as she tried to stumble away, momentarily forgetting the zombie—

Something crashed against the back of her head. Things went dark immediately.

They were quick to flicker back in a mess of disjointed sounds and messy colours that blurred and spun drunkenly around her. Spots were dancing across her vision, and as she blinked blearily and tried to focus on the overwhelming, dizzying sensations, she was made vaguely aware of something pooling around her.

All over her, actually—

Shit, my head—

Everything was too slow. Raising one hand, frantically feeling her hair, she gave a sharp gasp as the feeling of something liquid—

Blood or chemicals—

Shit, both are bad—

And if the shelf fell—

With a wince, Anna struggled to get to her feet, feeling as though she was forgetting something, addled mind fighting to put it all together and—

Wait, what about—

“SHIT!” Anna’s eyes snapped open remembering the zombie in front of her, but she wished she never opened her eyes. Everything was… wrong… horribly wrong. Her frantic eyes shot to the shards that were around her feet— should’ve been around her feet— and the puddle that looked more like a small lake than anything.

Her heart leapt into her throat.

The shards littered around her, their wickedly sharp points glinting in the low light, were longer than her arms. They were longer than she was tall, which was impossible, and how—

How much had been in those vials?

How hard had she hit her head?

This CANNOT be happening.

I can’t be—

A sudden sound from above caused her blood to run cold.

Shit.

Her hands felt clammy.

Shit, shit, shit.

Frozen in place, whole body trembling, Anna shakily began to look up… up, up, up…

Her heart plummeted to her shoes. Her grip on her plastic cane suddenly felt weak—

At least I got something my size...

She managed to think through her panic. Her face paled exponentially, all the strength she had draining from her in one fell swoop. She tried to open her mouth, to scream, to cry out, to beg for her life— anything— but no sound escaped her lips, save for a strangled squeak.

This can’t be happening.

He was huge.

John had always been taller than her, that much was true, but the zombie before her was easily a giant. He didn’t seem to be looking directly at her, though, and as Anna watched, paralyzed by fright, she realized he didn’t seem to see her. His glassy eyes were out of focus, trained on the shards around her, and although he was growling— a horrid, awful sound that shook her to her core— it was quieter than before. Confused.

Hope flickered to life in her chest.

Maybe he can’t see me.

Was it possible? Maybe his eyes had decayed enough that he wouldn’t bother with her, or maybe she was too small for him to care. She just had to get out of his way and then—

Another growl shook through her. Louder this time.

No—

Her small victory was quickly cancelled out as suddenly, John’s eyes locked onto her form. His lips began to curl back in a snarl, showing off a dizzying array of teeth that used to smile the sweetest, most crooked smile—

A snarl vibrated through her chest. Panicked, Anna tried to stumble away, her fight or flight instinct finally kicking into high gear. Her little body chose flight.

She stumbled forward, boots slipping in the puddle surrounding her. She skidded, terrified at how quickly the tables had turned— she’d been bracing herself to kill him and see his blood speckle the floor but now—

Anna tried to tighten her sweat-slicked grip on her weapon. Her vision was blurred, though the panic coursing through her veins was making things sharper. Everything was picking up to speed with her racing heart, and as she helplessly skidded, she could feel him getting closer.

No, no— NO—

She couldn’t outrun him. She was too small, now, and her head was pounding with every second that passed.

Panicked beyond belief, voice shaking, Anna forced herself to meet his gaze, looking in vain for anything familiar in those hollow eyes. “John—”

That’s not John, he’s gone, he’s not there—

“—p-please!” She stammered, “I-It’s me, it’s— it’s Anna! You— W-We— We’ve been friends for— for years, years, John, PLEASE—”

Her words broke into a scream as John lurched forward. Stumbling backward, brandishing her weapon as though it would help, Anna let out another broken plea.

“NO! P-Please, John— you— you have to remember me, I— You— You were going to go to art school, a-and I was gonna go to Australia—”

It seemed like a distant dream. Australia. Art school. Things that had mattered before the world as they knew it had ended without any warning.

Her throat began to close up. She sucked in a sharp, frantic breath through her teeth, trying to say something— anything— that wouldn’t end in her demise—

He reached forward. That hand— that monstrous, discoloured hand riddled with bluish veins— was inches from her, and the distance was closing.

“Y-You jumped in front of a horde just to save my life!”

Do you remember his hands around your waist? When you were calling to him? He wasn’t answering.

The hand less than a centimeter from her face. Instinctively, she put her hands up to her face and gave a sharp, guttural cry: “PLEASE DON’T KILL ME!”

He would rip her to pieces in seconds. He’d use those same clumsy hands she knew so well to tear her from limb to limb, those teeth would pierce her, and her blood would speckle the floor and—

She screwed her eyes shut tight for good measure at the crunch of glass under one of his feet coupled with the sliding of fabric across the floor.

He’s kneeling.

Her stomach twisted in a knot. She had seconds left to live, seconds left to muster a final plea, or an attack, or even an escape, but—

A soft, rumbling noise rolled through the air, close enough to make her whole body buzz with the sound, then…

Then, nothing.

Nothing at all.

...what?

Anna slowly lowered her hands, after a few quiet, tense moments. Her breathing was quick and sharp. Why… why was she still alive?

Why hadn’t he killed her?

His hand was still there, his huge fingers poised and ready to snatch her up without a second thought, but—

They hadn’t.

He hadn’t.

Questions began to swarm in her mind, but above them was one desire: to get away.

Stumbling under her own weight, Anna made it about three steps back before a shard of glass met the bottom of her boot. It skidded along with her, prying a startled yelp from her throat and prompting her to swing her arms out for balance.

John flinched. That hand that had been so close to brushing her skin shrank back.

Anna’s mind was beginning to race as she looked into John’s eyes, her balance still somewhat wobbly. Her confusion was clearly written across her face.

It didn’t make sense.

Is he—

She couldn’t let herself hope.

No.

Impossible. He’s probably just wondering if a small human is just as satisfying as a normal-sized human.

She didn’t want to believe it. Those eyes seemed lucid— they looked so much like his that it hurt. A knot formed in her chest. Her legs wobbled like those of a baby deer as she forced herself to keep her eyes locked on his, ignoring the fact that his veins were too prominent, his teeth almost unnaturally sharp.

He’s just sizing me up.

A cold chill spread across her body. Her instincts were screaming at her to run— he was frozen, for fuck’s sake— it would be easy enough to make a mad dash for cover, but no matter how she tried, she couldn’t force herself to move. Her fingers weakly twitched at her sides. She felt like she was going to throw up.

Trying to stand, sitting up as well as she could, Anna felt her whole body sway unsteadily. The room spun in a nauseating fashion, everything around her blending in a mess of nonsensical swirls that immediately brought her back to her knees.

Shit, definitely concussed.

That was the last thought Anna had before that hand reached out to her again. Accepting her fate, Anna looked down, closed her eyes and hoped it would be quick, but… that moment never came as she noticed. She gave a small gasp at the feeling of something touching her, something cold and almost clammy that started at the top of her head and trailed its slow way down her back. She held her breath as it stopped, then repeated with a tad more certainty.

It took several seconds for her to realize he was petting her.

Petting?

Why would a zombie—

Why hasn’t he hurt me yet?

Daring to hope, Anna looked up, trying to get her vision to focus on the soft, concerned eyes of her friend. It seemed so familiar. She wanted so desperately to believe that he remembered her, but it was impossible… right?

Struggling to find her voice, Anna managed to quietly, incredulously ask: “Am I dead?”

The petting stopped. Those eyes she knew so well were hidden by a slow blink for a moment, and then John did something that made her heart skip a beat. He shook his head. Like a human would. Like he was alive.

Anna’s eyes widened. “Wha— c-can you—

Slow down.

Taking a deep breath, she tried again. “—do you remember me?” She asked him, hardly daring to hope. It was probably just a twitch, and her size had distracted him from thoughts of eating her, that had to have been it—

He nodded. That soft face she remembered sported a small, crooked little smile that she could recognize anywhere. Twitchy and uncertain, sure, but there.

Before she knew it, she was sobbing. All of the anger, sadness and regret she held for the past year overwhelmed her. Her throat ached from having shouted at the creature before her, her sobs coming out in hoarse sounding barks. Her tears ran down her cheeks faster than she could try to wipe them away. She was vaguely aware of a soft, concerned grumble and forced herself to look up again through her tears.

“N-No, I— It’s not your fault, I— oh my god, John—”

Another bout of wracking sobs made her chest ache, causing John to pull his hand away. His brow was furrowed, his eyes tracking her every move.

Anna tried to wipe her eyes and gave a broken laugh. “I-I’m just so glad to see you again after all this time!”

Glad was an understatement. Her legs wobbled as she forced herself upright, stumbling toward his hand unsteadily. “A-And you— you remember me, you— it’s really you, I—” She swallowed hard against the knot in her throat. “—I can’t believe this, I— what’re the odds?”

One in a million. One in a billion. Less, even.

Laughing again, close enough to his hand that she could’ve reached out for it if she wanted, Anna finally caught her breath. The adrenaline— that giddy rush that had surged through her— was fading. “The only thing that could make this any better would be if I… was…”

Wait—

“Normal sized!?” Her voice took on a sharp lilt of confusion as, yet again, another reality crashed down on her like a ton of bricks. “Holy shit, what the fuck happened to me?!”

She watched John’s shoulders give an unsteady shrug.

“I— How—”

It must’ve been that cure. The vials she’d knocked over her had done it, but how it had happened was beyond her—

She was snapped out of her thoughts by the sensation of John’s fingers curling around her waist. A breath caught in her throat. She gave a sharp, frightened gasp and clung tight to her weapon, the ground suddenly so, so small. His whole body swung uncertainty, and although his fingers weren’t too tightly clasped around her, Anna’s chest felt too tight. Her head was still throbbing away. She couldn’t find her voice.

Shit, no—

He wouldn’t. John wouldn’t—

But a zombie would.

Fear began to spike through her, but she managed to give a small whimper of: “J-John?” Using her free hand to bat at his fingers, she tried to grab his attention, but all she earned in response was a little grumble. Her whole world pitched dangerously as he stood, causing her to squeak. This was terrifying. She was so high up— John had always been tall but this was taking things to a new level. One hand wrapped tight around her cane, the other in a tight fist, Anna felt her stomach lurch as he got to his feet.

Christ, they were high up.

Anna managed to get in a sharp breath before John’s grip on her abruptly switched, depositing her on the surface of his palm. A small rumble shook through her, and as she looked up, she nearly yelped. He was so close, close enough for her to feel his breath.

Zombies breathe?

She’d never been close enough to find out— nobody ever had, without getting bitten or ripped to shreds, but as the seconds ticked forward, she realized that John was just… watching. He didn’t blink, but his warm eyes were trained on her, his brow slightly furrowed.

She exhaled.

It’s fine.

You’re fine.

“Right, o-okay, I—” Shakily, standing as well as she could, she turned her head and forced herself to look down at the mess she’d created. The liquid looked almost like blood puddling around his feet, and as she squinted—

Wait—

The papers she’d dropped weren’t soiled by the puddle. They were a little crumpled, splashed in spots, but otherwise fine.

A cure. They were working on a cure.

Turning back to face John, she gestured down to the papers on the floor. “Can you grab those papers?” She asked him, continuing to explain as he tilted his head and focused his bleary eyes down where she’d pointed. “Th-They were testing all this shit so it’s gotta be recorded. There’s gotta be a way to reverse this!”

Both the zombie thing and her reduced height…

Clinging to John’s thumb for balance as he bent over, Anna watched him fumble with the papers for a moment before—

A growl shot through the silence, followed by another.

John’s hackles raised near instantly and he stood back up with the papers in his grasp with a sudden, jerky motion that caused Anna to yelp.

“Shit, the vials!”

Of course they’d heard the crash— fuck, she was an idiot— and now they were going to come and rip them to shreds—

Would they attack John? He was one of them, and maybe that would keep him safe, but Anna certainly wasn’t, and now that she was bite sized—

Shit.

“We gotta go!” She urgently instructed, earning herself a nod from John.

She didn’t do a thing to protest as he carefully drew her closer to himself and began to take one limping, shuddering step after the other. Was it fast enough? Her mind was racing from one panicked thought to the next, and the speed of them only intensified with every step he took toward the still-open door.

Please, please, c’mon…

She inwardly begged, holding John’s thumb in a deathgrip, trying to see if anything was coming their way.

They were mere inches from the door when the first zombie made itself known, lurching so suddenly into their field of vision that Anna let out a shrill scream and shrank backward. Its lips were pulled back, thick, black strands of drool oozing from its open jaws, and it wasn’t alone. More and more began to pour through the entrance in a swarm, some of them still sporting military garb.

No, no, please—

John began to growl, the noise low and grating, making Anna’s ears ring and her headache thump harder. His grip on her shifted.

Hundreds of scenarios began to race through Anna’s mind, each one more brutal than the last. There wouldn’t be any escape, and they didn’t seem interested in John at all. She’d been reunited with him for nothing, and soon, she’d either be one of them or nothing more than a red stain on the floor, and nobody would ever know—

Before her thoughts could even finish, John’s fingers once again closed around her waist and she was suddenly lifted, that nauseating feeling of being picked up too fast causing her head to spin. Trying to focus, legs swinging wildly, cane nearly slipping from her hands, she realized she was being dangled above John’s face.

More specifically, his mouth. Her panicked gaze met his own.

“J-John,” she stammered, “what’re you—”

She was cut off by the intimidating sight of John’s mouth opening beneath her, those teeth that seemed inhumanly sharp mere inches from her feet. She barely registered the thunder of his voice, though, once his maw was closed, she processed the one word he’d managed to wheeze out.

“Safe…” Even though voice was thick and gravelly, like he had just had woken up dehydrated, she understood.

But… what did he mean, “safe”?

Heart lurching into her throat, Anna struggled to cling onto his fingers. “Wait, wh-what are you talking abou—” Anna didn’t have any time to wonder what John meant before, without warning, his loose grip on her was gone entirely.

Down she plummeted.

A strangled scream escaped her throat. She looked down, and as she was being dropped—

His jaws opened to greet her, wider than before, displaying in horrific detail the inside of his maw and his pink, quivering tongue.

“JOH—”

The rest of her protest was lost in a wheeze as her little body hit a slick, foreign surface. She hardly had time to register what was going on before her surroundings went dark with a snap that caused her to let out a shriek and ball up. Her body was shaking, and as she forced herself up onto her hands and knees, she nearly lost her balance. The ground below her—

That’s not the ground, that’s his tongue, you’re in his MOUTH—

—shifted and slid as she frantically tried to process what had happened. There wasn’t much light, but it filtered between his lips enough for her to see the faint, pinkish tongue beneath her and the terrifying, pointed shapes of his teeth fencing her in. Her heartbeat was rapid, her breaths short and laboured.

Why—

Why did he—

I thought he wouldn’t—

Was it a trap? Anna felt like she was going to be sick as the muscle beneath her shifted, sending her sprawling onto her front once more. Saliva was pooling around her little frame, and as she struggled to get up— to claw and punch and kick everything she could reach— an annoyed sort of grumble rang through the space, loud enough to make Anna clap her hands over her ears. The tongue beneath her curled slightly, the edges of it pushing on her sides and keeping her confined to the middle of his mouth despite her squirming.

The noises it made were making her repulsion grow by the second. The muscle squelched beneath her weight, and there was another annoyed little grumble before something smacked against her side. Something hard and plastic.

My cane!

Rolling sharply to the side, Anna snatched it up and moved to stab him with the sharpened end, trying her best to stand in the cramped space. She ended up bent awkwardly in place, her shoes sinking into the fleshy surface beneath her, her back pressed up against the roof of his mouth above her.

Bracing herself, Anna tried to force his jaws open from the inside to no avail. Saliva dribbled down her sides in thick strands, enough to make her shudder violently. She began to shove at the surface above her harder, digging her nails in—

Everything pitched hard to the right. Anna’s legs gave out from under her, and clutching her candy cane tight against her chest, she landed on his tongue with a squelch, giving a sharp gasp when everything turned to the left, then right again, almost as if he was shaking his head.

Shit, my head.

The throbbing feeling was getting worse by the second. Struggling, landing a good hit with her heel to the flesh beneath her, Anna moved a hand to clutch at her wet hair.

This concussion isn’t going to get any better if he keeps doing that, not that it’ll matter if he doesn’t let me out!

When she pulled her hand away, thin strands of drool connected it to her head. Her hair was practically slicked down to her, and as her eyes adjusted to the dim, faint light filtering through his teeth, she realized the rest of her was hopelessly soaked as well— her jacket, her shirt, her tie— covered in saliva.

What the fuck—

Is he—

Is he fucking TASTING ME?

Terror surged through her once more, though, it was quickly followed by a rage that bubbled over her and made her ball her hands into fists. “JOHN!” She shouted, bringing a fist down as hard as she could manage on the tongue beneath her, “LET ME OUT! I KNOW YOU’RE STILL IN THERE! PLEASE, PLEASE SNAP OUT OF IT!”

For a moment, everything stopped.

She lay there, panting, covered in spit and feeling absolutely disgusting as the surface beneath her curled over her side once more.

“John, please…” She whimpered, moving to crawl further toward the front of his mouth. All he’d have to do was open up his mouth, and she’d be home free—

Before she could say anything else, Anna was suddenly pressed against the roof of the mouth, squishing all the air out of her in a sharp wheeze.

No, NO, NO NO NO—

Everything tilted back. Anna dug her fingers into the surface of John’s tongue in vain, panic rushing through her veins. She kicked and squirmed wildly, though, with a soft squelch, she felt the muscles of his throat begin to latch onto her legs.

Her eyes widened.

A deafening gulp muffled her scream. She was forced back faster than she could grab anything. Her desperate, reaching hands skimmed one of his huge teeth before disappearing into his gullet entirely. The light disappeared instantly, and although Anna couldn’t see, she could still feel the powerful muscles of his esophagus engulfing her tiny frame.

“NO!” She was forced downward at a rapid, terrifying pace. Her arms were pinned up above her head, and with each tug from the slick muscles, more slimy substances connected with her body.

“NO, N-NO, JOHN—”

Another swallow cut her off, the muscles around her squeezing the air out of her lungs and making the panic coursing through her intensify. She could barely move. The darkness was smothering her, alive, squeezing her every inch of the way down—

Her legs were free.

Eyes widening, knowing what it meant but refusing to believe it, Anna tried one more time to claw at the walls of his throat, but it didn’t matter.

With a final squeeze from his gullet, Anna dropped onto a cushy surface. She managed to land on her knees, her panicked eyes darting this way and that in the darkness. Everything was eerily still and quiet, the only thing she could hear the quick pounding of her heart.

He couldn’t have.

Her chest felt heavy. Slime dribbled down the back of her neck, making her shudder violently.

Where else could she be? Her senses were on overdrive. She was painfully aware of the feeling of sticky saliva clinging to her body, but also aware of the noises surrounding her— soft gurgles and growls, uneven, shaky breaths, and—

A low thumping from above her.

His heartbeat.

He just put me in and…

God, she couldn’t even think it.

...like I didn’t even matter?!

Her best friend— someone she’d thought was dead, had eaten her. Whole and alive. Her days— her minutes — her seconds were numbered. How long did it take a zombie to digest? How long did she have to breathe the stale tasting air and wait for acid to melt her into nothing?

A gurgle echoed through the fleshy chamber, loud enough to make Anna jolt and grasp her weapon—

I still have it.

Without hesitation, she dug the pointed end of it into the stomach’s floor as hard as she could manage, standing on wobbly legs. She braced herself against it, driving it in deep before tugging it free with a sickening squelch.

“NO!” She snarled, stumbling forward, ignoring the dizzy feeling that came with standing up, “I am not dying in some SHITTY TOWN,” she punctuated those words by driving the sharp end of the cane into the closest wall, “in some BROKEN DOWN BASE,” she pushed it in further, “where NO ONE WILL KNOW WHAT HAPPENED!”

Running on sheer desperation, the shrunken survivor used what little strength she had left to drag the sharp tip through the wall of flesh, feeling her entire environment abruptly tense around her. A growl rolled through the space, making everything vibrate.

It only encouraged her to continue.

Removing the edge, Anna began beating him with the blunt end, hitting him over and over again as if the cane was a baseball bat.

“If you want me to stop” she hissed through her teeth, “then LET! ME! OUT!” She hit him with every word, choking up slightly as she did.

Those three words suddenly made it all real. Her whole world began to crash down around her, the realization coupled with the churning motions of the stomach around her enough to bring her to her knees.

She was stuck in this horrible small town. She was in a worn down military base. Her friends wouldn’t know what happened to her. She was tiny. And she was in the stomach of one of her closest friends.

Anna Shepherd was going to die.

Her grip on the candy cane loosened to a point where it slipped from her fingers, though, she barely noticed as it hit the fleshy floor beside her. Her eyes began to sting from tears. There was no joy in them. Not this time.

Alone in the dark, alone with the realization that John, her closest friend, the person she would feel safe to talk about anything around— the person who helped her through her mother’s death and always, always been by her side, the person she cared for the most—

Another organic rumble from the stomach around her sent a cold chill through her body.

John was going to kill her, and nobody would ever know.

As the adrenaline faded and her limbs grew weak and heavy, Anna began to curl into a ball, her hands shaking violently. She wanted to scream out to him, or hit him with the cane as hard as she could manage, maybe even carve her way out. If she just managed to claw hard enough, she could do it, couldn’t she?

All she did was let tears trickle down her cheeks and curl up tighter. What else could she do?

She was alone. Stupidly alone. Had Nick or Steph been there, they would’ve been able to bludgeon him and this whole thing never would’ve happened. They wouldn’t just give up, either, they’d fight with everything they had and then some, but…

She was so tired. Her head was pounding at a mile a minute, and her limbs felt so, so heavy. She was going to pass out, soon.

And I’ll never wake up again.

Before the darkness behind her eyes engulfed her limited vision of the soft walls surrounding her entirely, Anna managed to choke out a sentence so quiet, it sounded like a breath.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save you…” She whimpered.

Then, there was nothing but the darkness and a low, slow heartbeat thudding above her.

78 notes · View notes

kimsngmn · 5 years ago

Text

Moonlight

(there’s no gif of both them so please enjoy fetus minho!)

Minho x reader x felix

Angel au

warning (s) : Tons of cursing

fluff and a tiny of angst

2.5k words

The bright moon shines brightly. Every step I go, it’ll always there, no matter where I run off to. The white sky moves quickly with the wind violently hit me. Just like that, the once shining brightly that’s been there for me, it's just gone. No words, just painful feelings in the chest that’s eating me alive.

Dragging myself to school probably the hardest thing to do. The amount of stress I get from the finals is better worth it. It’s like, I’m not sure that if I’m tired of not working hard enough or I just tired and want to give it up. Everything goes back and forth. You arrive at school, Study for a couple of hours, break time for an hour or even half of the hour. Then continue the study. Again and again.

Walking to the school’s bathroom and see my reflections in the mirror is exactly horrific. The amounts of eye bags and dark circles are getting clearer. But, hey, for school right? Sometimes I just wish that someone would like, help me to lessen my burden. My mouth lets out a soft sigh and goes to the routine that has been set up for everyone.

“Hey!” A deep voice got my attention as the hall chattered with voices from other students. After all, it’s the time where everyone goes back home. That voice belongs to a boy who taller than me, with freckles scattering all over his face. With his plump lips, he starts to speak again.

Honestly, if I could wish on something, and one of it will be to listen to his voice. It’s like, his voice is that deep enough to make people flutter on inside. And I have to say, His puberty hits him like a truck. A tiny boy that I know from the next door is not sure exactly like this person.

“Earth to Y/n?”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Oh boy, the finals kicking in your ass, aren’t they?” He chuckles as he thought of it. Probably amused how lost I looked.

“Shut up, Felix.”

“Let’s just say that-“

“Nope” I cut him abruptly with ‘p’ popped at the end.

“Oh come on, ” Felix whiny and purposely make his voice higher with his eyes suddenly become the biggest wide eye ever he made, it scares me to think that his eyeball would fall out.

“Felix, I love you, but I hate you at the same time, would consider that might be, it’s a dumb thing to do?”

“I will kick your damn ass one day, Lee Felix,” I muttered as I tried my best to not scratch myself with all those thorns that on trees all around me. Let’s just say, Lee Felix, my best friend that I would trade with money, decided to be a freaking adventurous at midnight where both of us have classes the next day. He barged into my room without my permission and abruptly wake me up after I just slept? He, my friend, deserve a big ass kick ever.

Just to find a flower? I mean it’s just a legend. No one knows whether it’s real or not. I swear, there is one of the days where my eye rolls become uncontrollable.

The Moonlight Flower is a flower that has five petals decorated with dark purple-blue along with white dots that looked like a star.

People told us that, if anyone found it and wish upon it, his/her wish would come true. But, it comes with a price. It was unbearable pain and thus, the price equal to wish that must think carefully.

I lost Felix in the middle of the forest and I’ve no intention to search for him. Since this forest once our playground, there’s no such thing for us to get lost in this forest. But it does get lonely without him.

Man, Can I just finish this quick? I need to get back and sleep. That’s all I need. I mentally beat myself up for actually accept Felix’s quest out of nowhere.

The wind breeze makes my heart in peace. And I almost thankful for Felix to bring me out tonight. Almost. The forest itself, not entirely dark because the stars are there to brighten up. My walk has been softly rather than hurried up. Somehow Felix’s word makes me think those flashbacks that happen suddenly out of nowhere.

“I wonder what it feels like to wake up knowing you’re in love with someone who loves you too,” Felix asked me as he kicking those tiny stones while we’re walking back home.

“I’ve never been in a relationship before, but, someone told me that, if it’s meant for you, not even the seven skies and seas could keep you from it.”

“I see,” He said as he looks up to the sky for a while before he turned his eyes and smile at me.

“It could be any relationship, right? Till then, wait. No, Always. You have me until every last star in the galaxy dies, you have me. And I’ll be here for you.”

The sounds of crickets can be heard from every direction and the wind breeze now gone and its cold dead end. The star also is gone, somehow, the forest itself becomes deadly.

I’ve calculated every measurement that I needed, just in case someone or any animals attack me from behind. Every each of the step causes silent, it was an uncomfortable silence. I could feel tense and at this time, I wish Felix is here from the beginning.

I keep turning left and right. Hoping that I am alone instead of having thoughts of strangers follow me. Life of full surprise right? Out of fear, I just found myself a legend flower; the moonlight flower.

Oh great, now what I am supposed to do? Wish on it? How?

As I get near to it, it softly glows and for sure, it’s let out a sweet scent. It’s mesmerizing.

“I wish I have someone that I can call mine” I quietly muttered as I cupped the flower. Not sure what am I supposed to do, but, at least I did something right?

“I’m sorry but what?” my titled a bit as my face full of the confusion of someone that happens or barges, in my house. Not only that, he has these wings attached to his back. I’m not sure that felix threw a Halloween party without I know about it.

“For someone who good at academics, you’re not that bright, aren’t you?” His dark brown orbs stare at me along with his lips curled into a smirk. Cocky ass.

“Excuse me? I didn’t ask you to sassy out of me? I asked you, who the hell are you?”

“Well, sweetheart. As you can see, I’m an angel.” He said as he turns around to show off his beautifully craved wings. His voice for sure getting more arrogant.

“Great, now where’s the devil then? Did he run away because you’re such pain in the ass to handle with?”

“There’s a line there, little human.” His eyes sparkle with darkness and the whole atmosphere goes cold instantly. “Try your best to control your pretty little lips to not cross it” He whispered into my ears as he bends down a bit to have face-to-face with me. His eyes still glow dark, but his smirk still there.

“Minho. Lee Minho. That’s my name. And, I’m here because of your wish.”

How is that even correlate with what I wished for?

Minho said it’d be fun. Fun my ass.

Minho lays down on the couch making him feel comfortable as his feet rest on the armrest. His whole outfit of an angel that he claimed now turned into a dark grey hoodie with sweatpants. His fascinating wings are gone too.

“Hey,” I said softly, as I walk from the kitchen after heard Minho’s groan in pain. The nearer I get to him, the faster my heartbeat goes. Just to realize that he is having a nightmare.

I sit down near to his face as he’s comfortable laying on the couch. His face clearly shows that he is in pain. My heart speeds up as I try to touch his face with my finger. The electric shocks linger in my body as Minho’s cold finger touch with my wrist. His eyes still shut.

“Don’t. You’ll hurt yourself if you’re trying to figure me out.” His words contained a warning and sad as his eyelashes go up revealing tears that being held back.

My heart just dropped.

The morning comes and Minho is gone. Half of my heart feels happy when I found that Minho is not there, laying on the couch. While the other is pain and sadness. It was wild, thinking where Minho could have been in this huge city and even if he goes out somewhere, does he even have money to buy something? Why? All those questions make my head spinning around and around.

It pissed me off. To think someone that I just met last 2 weeks, claimed himself as an angel could make me worried like this. Because he’s the first one to make my heart torn apart like this. And I hate it. I hate this feeling; the hopelessness. No matter how hard you try to get rid of this feeling, it’s always there, haunting you until the end.

Among those 2 weeks, I learned that how lovestruck can he be when sees stray cats. And it took lots of energy to hold him back from chasing those cats. Not to mention, he is a pain in the ass to take care of but he always is there. What an angel you are, Lee Minho. Being able to make me speaks about the pain that I’ve been holding on.

As the rain trickles down my face, that’s when I realize that I’m outside with rain all over me, running like a crazy person. Searching for him. Asking everyone what have they seen Minho by describing his tallness, his hair color, and the outfit. Hoping, desperately. Someone saw him walking here or there. Who gives a damn about the school, when you just lost someone that give an impact on yourself.

Now I’m left with unwanted feelings and a mind that won’t stop thinking about it, but despite all this, I still have hope. Hoping that he would be there at home, worry about me. Was that another wishful thinking? Or just useless hope?

The rain won’t stop its tears so do I. Until someone stopped me by holding me tightly from behind and his head are low enough to whisper my ears.

“Let’s go home.”

It’s him.

God. Please. Let this feeling last.

Both of us changed our drenched clothes in more comfortable clothes. I am mad, for leaving the house without letting me know, make me feel this emotion all over the place and make me feel like worthless without him by my side. What’s exactly wrong with my heart? Since when my heart becomes this soft?

As I arrived in the living room, I see Minho playing with his fingers. Is he nervous? Well, he better be for making me worried about him. His hair still drenched with water as the rain falling harder as both of us walked home. Sitting next to him, while waiting for him to speak first. What if he didn’t talk first? Should I-

“I’m sorry”

Eh?

Minho takes a few deep breaths before continuing. “I’m sorry for making you worried about me, and I-I don’t have any excuse for that. It’s just, I bought something for you and I kinda forgot to leave a note as I abruptly left the house. I don’t even have your number to call you in the first place.”

Minho briefly looks at me, seeing that I didn’t make any effort to move or speak, he decided to continue anyway.

“When I saw you running from another side to another, just to find me… it just makes me feel this whole new emotion that I never felt before. Like, you looked so vulnerable when that person told you that he never saw me before; It makes me want to protect you and never want to make you feel that sadness ever again. It’s so-“

“Then don’t leave me” My small voice opened up as I interrupted him. My eyes now focused on him, I can see that his shoulders tensed and his face was shocked, but it was gone a few seconds later. A hope rising in my heart.

“I promise you. That I’ll never leave you alone ever again.”

Both of us shared a smile and laugh all night. We are getting to know each other and surprisingly, both of us have a lot in common. He would tell me, how dumb others angels that he had to handle with. And somehow, both we relate to each other so much. It’s scary, but at the same, it’s nice to have someone that could be related to you so much.

Like a soul mate.

“You know, you’ve been so happy these days.” Felix pointed out as both of you walked outside of the school entrance.

“That’s…great? I guess?” I answered him back, unsurely.

“Well, Y/N I known pretty busy with homework, assignment or, not forget your own best friend's birthday. But go off I guess?” He replied with a hurt tone lies within those words.

Shit. Shit.

“Omg, No, Felix. Sweetie. Happy Birthday!” I said happily, but seeing his face does break some pieces in my heart.

“Oh, no, no. I’ll treat you with food. Come on, Felix. Don’t ignore me like this.” He walked away as I desperately try to talk to him.

How can I forget his birthday? What a great friend you are, Y/N.

Try my best to at least at the same pace on him while walking, it does make me why I hate P.E so much. And this boy, freaking athletes in our school.

“Felix”

No answers.

“Felix!” At this point, I don’t even care. My hands caught and intertwined both our fingers and run towards any place that both of us can talk peacefully. And hopefully, he wants to talk.

“Mind reminds me why are here again?” Felix broke the silence that surrounding us for a while. Running away from the crowded place and go to places where almost no one there, do make you feel peaceful for a while. Our fingers still intertwined tightly as I don’t want to let him grasp go.

“Just…Nothing. I just want to be here. Alone with you.” I answered it, still walking side by side with Felix. My head still finding any excuses to give to Felix about how can I forget about his birthday. Little did you know, Felix’s heart just burst out by how tight you hold his hand.

What should I do now?

#stray kids #stray kids felix #stray kids imagine #stray kids scenarios #Lee Minho #Lee know #Lee know you know bcs im dying rn #lee felix #almost typed little felix...#lee know scenarios #felix scenarios #stray kids lee know

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makeste · 5 years ago

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BnHA Chapter 229: The Real Me

Previously on BnHA: Dabi fought a dude who could control ice. For like three pages. Then we cut to my boy Twice, who had located an unconscious Toga (who as you recall had her blood blown up a couple chapters back, so yeah) and was understandably freaking out about how to get her some help. To make a long and somewhat confusing story short, you know that long-haired guy who hacked Giran’s phone? Turns out he has the power to create human puppets or some shit, and he created a bunch of Twice duplicates and sent them to capture the real Twice (who you might also recall has some traumatic history involving clones of himself). Seems they want to use Twice’s quirk to create a backup clone of Re-Destro, just in case history repeats himself and he ends up kicking the bucket like his great-great granddad. Wouldn’t that be sad. Re-Destro getting murdered. Wouldn’t that just be a darn shame. Anyways so let’s see where this leads.

Today on BnHA: The Villain Flashback Arc continues with today’s installment featuring, you guessed it, more villain flashbacks! We learn more about our little buddy Twice who was apparently orphaned as a young teen and subsequently found himself alone in a cold and uncaring world. Honestly you guys, after reading this I’m amazed that he’s still as nice of a guy as he is. Anyway, so he used his quirk to clone himself because he was lonely, and the clones and him engaged in a petty crime spree or two, and then somehow or other it all led to the whole murderfest that fucked up his head so badly. Back in the present, a struggling Jin tries to escape and help Toga, so Skeptic orders his puppets to break Jin’s arms. They do so, but this has a curious side-effect that Skeptic may not have been expecting. Namely, that having that much damage dealt to him makes Twice realize that he definitely is not one of his clones, and is in fact the real deal. This appears to at least temporarily cure his split personality woes, and the chapter ends with him creating about a dozen duplicates to go fuck up the Liberation Army’s day. Hell yes.

(All comments are my unspoiled reactions from my initial readthrough of the chapter. I did a quick edit for grammar and clarity immediately afterward, but aside from that there are no changes.)

hey guys, sorry I’ve been inactive all week; I’ve been sick and haven’t really had much energy. I still am sick, but I appear to have reached the stage of exhaustion where I’m all “eh, fuck it, yeah sure whatever” where it’s ironically easy to motivate myself to do stuff because I have no willpower to resist, lol

so anyway. we’re apparently not missing a beat, picking up right where we left off last week with Twice’s mask being pulled off by one of the gorilla puppets

wow and they’re just like. flinging him aside

DON’T FLING MY BOY NO!! AND GET AWAY FROM TOGA

AHHHH

shit, how creepy is that? are they cold because they’re just ~puppets~ and not actually real, living people? what a disturbing touch

now we’re cutting back to Skeptic, who’s giving the puppets orders and addressing them as various letters of the alphabet. how can he tell them the fuck apart

meanwhile Giran’s asking what they’re doing to his pal. ;_; Giran you continue to be the best

and Re-Destro’s forcibly directing his attention elsewhere, but he’s also answering his question, strangely enough

that’s a lot of detail to be giving the guy when you could have just smacked him and told him to shut up. these villains are so confusing

but I guess they’re just telling him all this to taunt him more, because now Skeptic is bragging that he learned about Jin’s psychological disorder from Giran’s client data

hey btw I don’t think I’ve said this yet, but fuck this guy so hard for taking advantage of Twice’s trauma and using it against him. what a shocker, the Meta Liberation Army of dickheads pulls another dickhead move. these guys are so classy

oh my fucking god you guys Giran is getting hotter with each fucking chapter though fffffffff

if you’d told me a month ago that this dude would be nipping at Aizawa and All Might’s heels for the title of BnHA’s most eligible bachelor I would have called you a liar and a thief, yet here we are. good lord

that said, I appreciate that he’s thinking about how hard it’ll be on poor Twice, but they also just said they’d kill Toga as well, so I imagine that part of it would be pretty hard on her too. just saying

SDLFKSDLFHK SPEAKING OF

FUCK ME YOU GUYS I ALMOST LEAPED TO MY FUCKING FEET, WHAT THE FUCK. DON’T TELL ME THEY’RE GOING TO SNAP HER NECK. HOLY SHIT

SOMEONE BETTER SAVE HER OR I’M GOING TO FLY OUT TO JAPAN AND GIVE HORIKOSHI MY STUPID COLD. THAT’LL SHOW THAT BASTARD. HAVE SOME BRONCHITIS YOU PIECE OF SHIT

AND TWICE IS WATCHING ALL PANICKED AND SCREAMING THAT HE’S GOING TO KILL HER

AT FIRST I WAS CONFUSED AND WAS LIKE, DOES HE BLAME HIMSELF FOR GETTING HER IN THIS SITUATION? BUT THEN I REMEMBERED THE CLONES AND THAT YEAH IT’S LITERALLY HIM KILLING HER THOUGH OMGGGGG

AHHH HE’S SO CONFUSED THIS IS SO CONFUSING

I’M TOO SICK TO DEAL WITH TWICE’S EXISTENTIAL CRISIS YOU GUYS, IT’S REALLY FREAKING ME OUT, HELP. THE FUCKING PANELS ARE ALL WOBBLY-LINED AND THEY KEEP ZOOMING IN ON HIS FACE AND SHOWING HIM ALL BUG-EYED SCREAMING “WHO AM I” OVER AND OVER AGAIN OH GOD

OH SHIT!?!?

ACTUAL TWICE FLASHBACKS OH SHIT?! I was not expecting this oh snap. I am so into this

anyway, so he’s thinking -- with surprising coherence -- that because of his rough appearance, people were always afraid of him growing up

but also, what was that part about him not having a family? so he was an orphan then?? Horikoshi you are aware that I already love Twice and am emotionally attached to him, yes? but like if you want to hit me with even more feels and fuck me up some more then be my guest I suppose?

anyway so whoever he’s talking to here says Jin, who is apparently sixteen here, evidently hit some dude with his motorcycle by accident. oh shit

and baby!Jin says the guy jumped out in front of him and he was obeying the speed limit and everything

and the man he’s talking to seems vaguely sympathetic but says that regardless, it’s usually the victim who ends up winning these cases, and that Jin may end up with a criminal record. “but don’t let it get to you.” oh, sure. yeah, let’s just look on the bright side here

he says that no matter how many times you stumble in life, you can always start over

well shit is it any wonder this kid ended up going the villain route and making a bunch of clones of himself to live his best life? I mean jeez, he had absolutely no one on his side and was slapped with a criminal record when he was only sixteen. that shit is rough

oh fuck me and it just keeps getting worse

well that’s nice. so make that homeless with a criminal record, then. jesus christ he was still just a kid

so apparently his parents died in a villain attack when he was in middle school, and he had no relatives. I guess the state didn’t give a fuck either, damn

I find it extraordinarily easy to empathize with, actually! that’s one of the things that makes you such a great character!

so I guess he originally ended up making a clone of himself just because he was lonely. okay wow. not only does Twice continue to be the most likable villain in the series, he’s working his way up there as one of the most likable and relatably human characters, period

look at this shit! he’s just a guy who had a run of bad luck and tried his best to cope with it in whatever ways he could. there’s nothing villainous about him, he was just someone whom nobody wanted. he had his entire future stolen out from under him in the blink of an eye and had nowhere else to turn. he just wanted some friends for fuck’s sake

and so then he and his merry band committed a bunch of petty crimes. but they just needed some cash so they could live! like, all he wanted to do was just chill out and be happy. I got your back Twice. it’s not your fault

and then the flashback just kind of cuts to him tied to the chair in the aftermath of the clone hunger games. so I guess that’s all the backstory we’re getting as far as that goes. ngl I would have really liked to see just a bit more of the lead-up to that specific event. he’s such a nice guy that it’s a bit hard to picture him just suddenly going “RAWR I’M GONNA MURDER ALL Y’ALL.” but what I’m thinking is that all of the tragedy in his past contributed to him forming his violent alter ego personality, and that one of the clones must have just snapped one day and the rest is history

anyway so now we’re cutting to his first meeting with my new boyfriend Giran

ah okay, so he’s scared because if he actually is one of the clones then just a tiny bit of damage would be enough to finally do him in

btw Giran, possibly the one good thing Re-Destro and his buds did was getting rid of that scarf and sunglasses though bud. if you decide to change up your look after all of this, I’m not going to complain. there’s a reason I thought you were just some douchebag this whole time. obviously I shouldn’t have been so quick to judge you, I realize that now of course

but seriously Giran who wears sunglasses at night indoors. I mean, idk, maybe you get migraines or something. but if not I’m just saying

regardless, questionable fashion choices aside, Giran is actually a super nice guy, a mensch if you will, and he is now casually changing Twice’s entire life in the span of a few sentences. awww

how the fuck were you planning on smoking that cigarette while wearing a paper bag over your face. ??

also, Giran on this page kinda reminds me of Sanji, if Sanji was, like, a beatnik about to throw down on open mic poetry night

anyway so that’s the end of our happy flashback, and now we’re back in the present with Twice resuming his freakout!

but in spite of his mental struggles, he’s shaking the puppet clones off and trying to dash toward Toga again omg!

up in his little tower Skeptic seems fairly surprised

in related news, fuck this guy so much. also he’s using one of his puppets as a chair, which is one of the creepiest touches Horikoshi has put in this manga to date. but also they mentioned last week that Skeptic makes the puppets out of any human-sized materials that happen to be lying around, so I kind of wonder if maybe this dude originally was a chair. the mysteries of BnHA

moving on though, yeah, Twice and Toga really do have a strong bond though, don’t they? their chemistry is as beautiful as it is strange

oh shit but they really did hit him though

FUCK YOU F AND G

FFFFF SON OF A BITCH

DLASFKJLKJ PLEASE DON’T YOU FUCKING PSYCHOPATH, I CAN’T WAIT FOR YOU TO FUCKING DIE YOU ASSHOLE!!!

motherfucker! and we just established that he’s afraid that a broken bone will be enough to kill him if it turns out he really is a clone!

-- holy shit, but. on the other hand, if it doesn’t kill him though, that just might be enough to cure him of that particular fear once and for all. oh shit, unexpected plot twist

though in this particular situation it probably won’t make much of a difference how sane he is if he’s still got two broken arms though fuuuuuuuck

anyway... gotta click to the next page... even though I really don’t want to, sob

aaaaaaaand they’ve broken them. well shit. at least it wasn’t graphic. he’s just hunching forward and screaming and his arms are facing the wrong way, fuck

and now Skeptic is all “your legs are next,” and uh, can Twice actually hear him, though?? like, what? did I miss something here? is he piping his voice in through the shed’s convenient sound system or something?

anyway he’s telling Twice not to struggle anymore, and Twice is muttering to himself all darkly about how much that hurt

and apparently Toga’s regained consciousness now!!

wow Skeptic, okay sure, go ahead and keep talking about how you’re about to kill Toga in front of his eyes. just keep on digging yourself deeper. it’s like he doesn’t realize there’s only one page left in the chapter and things are just about reaching a tipping point and our heroes (?! I mean they are, though, for this arc at any rate) have had just about enough of his bullshit

lol I can’t take the tension omg

please do something badass please do something badass please d --

oh snap

Twiiiiiiice ;_; so it’s like I thought. they unexpectedly cured you of your identity crisis angst

anyway I guess this chapter is a longer one than usual because it’s page 15 now and we’re still going! so I will now resume my “please do something badass” chant. c’mon Twice. kick some assssssss

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS

THIS TIME I REALLY DID LEAP OUT OF MY CHAIR OMG. BOIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

LMAO ARE ALL OF THEIR ARMS BROKEN TOO. FUCK IT, IT DOESN’T MATTER. DEKU HAS SPENT APPROXIMATELY HALF THE MANGA WITH BROKEN ARMS AND IT’S NEVER STOPPED HIM*

*forest angst aside. and anyways that all worked out in the end, so

“wounded heroes are the most dangerous.” well fuck. given that we’ve just seen an exhausted and delirious Shigaraki eradicate an entire wave of people, and a bloodied and wounded Toga straight up murder one of the Army’s leaders, I think it’s safe to say we can apply this statement to villains too. and I for one can’t wait how dangerous a wounded -- but now sane -- Twice can be. motherfucker how I am loving this glorious arc

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constantlyirksome · 5 years ago

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Review: Euphoria’s First Season Finale was Aesthetically Stunning but Narratively Clunky.

Going into the Euphoria season one finale we had a lot of questions: Would Fezco get arrested? Would Maddy and Nate get back together, or would he finally get what was coming to him? Would #Rules make it? Unfortunately, due to the episode's reliance on non-linear storytelling, we left with more questions than answers.

The Halloween episode used a similar narrative structure, the party was the centre of it and all the other scenes were flashbacks, in the end coming together in a satisfying way. Unfortunately, it didn’t work well at all this episode, while the core of the episode is the school dance (a classic hotbed for teenage drama) it’s not clear when all the other scenes occurred in relation to it, end it ended on multiple cliff-hangers.

Let’s talk about Nate and Maddy first. I have praised Jacob Elordi in the past because getting people to like a character is one thing, but to create and act out a character as loathsome as Nate takes talent. His key scenes with his father, Rue, and Maddy all had an incredible intensity and heat, he’s so convincing as a brute you wish that Rue’s fantasy, lighting Nate on fire and shooting him, was real.

He continues a lot of his patterns; first, he bullies Rue in a tense faceoff. Elordi and Zendaya have incredible rival chemistry, and as Nate sowed the seeds of doubt for Rue and Jule’s relationship, Rue threatened to burn his whole family down. He abused Maddy verbally and physically. The question of his and his father's sexuality popped up and honestly, that’s a thread I’m a little tired of. Internalized homophobia on that level, if they are gay, isn’t something I as a gay man care to watch.

Nate singlehandedly wins a football match but his father still berates him for not doing enough as a captain. Nate does what he does best, gets in his dads face, but his dad doesn’t back down and when they get into an uncomfortable physical confrontation where Nate is overpowered and breaks down completely. Like a child in a supermarket, he cries and thrashes and then begins hurting himself in his rage. This is a man who has gone through some serious emotional abuse, repression coupled with a genetic inflated ego, arrogance and violent misogyny. He was bound to explode, and he does so in such huge way I just have to applaud Elordi again. But the question is, was the tantrum before or after the dance?

Maddy did a lot of growing after being covered in the human manure that is Nate and decides she’s had enough.

“You’re abusive, psychopathic, and I hate the way you make me feel…” she says as they slow dance. I love Maddy, and this is an aspiring thing to see, a girl in the grips of an abusive relationship, who until now knew how sick it was but couldn’t leave, make the decision to cut it off. And props to her for trying to assure Nate that It’s Okay to Be Gay and that sexuality is a spectrum while he was screaming in her face. What an icon.

Cassey deals with her decision to terminate her pregnancy, weirdly McKay isn’t in the episode at all. At the dance, she says she never wants to fall in love again (honestly what a mood,) meaning they split up after she had her abortion, meaning either he is as shitty as every other man on the show or the show just didn’t know what to do with him. During her procedure she tunes out and listens to music, imagining herself ice-skating instead. It’s a beautifully shot moment, her on a blacked-out ice rink, completely alone, no McKay cheering her on. She does have her sister though, and at the scenes, for the dance they sit and laugh at other people which is always fun.

Kat got probably the only “happy” end to her story arc, finding Ethan on the dance floor, she realizes she can be the bad ass, confident, empowered woman she wants to be without being cruel, or shutting herself off emotionally. She finds a good middle ground and it’s very sweet to see her open up after so many episodes of her being so stoic.

Ethan delivers possibly the most romantic speech ever: “This is high school, will we last forever? Probably not. Someone will probably get hurt, but I’ll do my best to make sure that person is me.” What a cutie! Mazel Tov to the happy couple.

Fezco and Ashtray (just learned that’s what the little kid's name is) don’t get arrested, but he is still in trouble with drug dealer Mouse, whom he owns money to. His solution is to put on a ski mask and rob some guy, I’m unsure if this man is narratively relevant, or if he’s just rich. He’s got stacks of cash and prescription pills in a drawer so Fez gets lucky either way. When the guy pulls a gun, Fez proves how hard he really is, that Nate should be worried, and beats the guy in front of his kid. Fez has been toted as the best man on the show and it’s sad to say after that scene he probably still is. There’s something so likable about Fez and Angus Cloud that has you blaming the guy getting robbed for trying to be brave instead of blaming Fez for robbing him. Audiences perceptions around men these days are so warped, and standards are so low that characters like Fezco, who seems genuinely okay deep down, become the ones we’re drawn to. It’s weird, but I’m guilty of it too, because while he gives Mouse the money, Mouse spots blood on the bills and grabs his gun, leading the question, “does Fez get shot?” and I hoped to god he didn’t.

Finally our heroes Rue and Jules. Jules does Rue’s eye makeup, in a very similar way to how Anna did hers the last episode, and sings Anna’s praises, casually letting slip that she did sleep with the other girl. Later that night at the dance Rue finds her taking selfies and sending them to Anna. While Rue and Jules aren’t in a relationship, while Jules isn’t Rue's keeper, her sponsor, or her girlfriend it still came off kind of dickish. Jules deserves to be as free as she wants but she has never been good at communicating. She tells Rue that she loves her, and she wants to kiss her, (they do, it’s very steamy), and that she doesn’t want Rue to change… But when a sloppily planned escape to the city between the two of them falls through, Jules ends up leaving Rue behind, going back to Anna essentially.

Rue and Jules were connected and were in a lot of ways perfect for each other, outsiders with the same sick views of the world, but in so many ways they weren’t right for one another, between Rue's addiction/sobriety and Jule’s lifestyle there were few ways were you could see it working out but it was still sad to see, and the way it happened didn’t make a terrible amount of sense. Jules escapes with Rue, but ditches her even though it was Rue’s plan? And the worst part is that that’s what Nate predicted would happen when he was fighting with Rue.

We end on a mishmash of scenes with Rue, Jules and her family, good flashbacks, and a flashback to a fight with her mother that was so bad Rue was kicked out of home, but when did this all happen? One flashback clues us onto the fact that Rue’s red sweatshirt was actually her dads, but other than that the scenes are confusing. Back in the present Rue puts on her dad's hoodie and snorts a line of something, officially falling off the wagon. The question, made less clear after the coming scenes, is did she die? Many people believe she’s only able to know everyone’s business every episode because she dies.

Then, bizarrely it turns into a music video of sorts, if not a trippy one. You think Rue is revisiting more memories as she stumbles in a drug-induced state (Zendaya’s physicality here was fantastic) as her family ignores her, but then her dad is there, and then suddenly she’s in a sea of dancers and she’s (Zendaya) singing Labrinth's All For Us. (I already have it saved on Spotify talk about a BOP.)

It’s beautifully shot, choreographed and performed. The whole episode was beautiful, from the girls dance outfits, to the makeup, Cassey’s skate scene, and then the end dance. But it speaks to one of the biggest issues I have with Euphoria, which is if you take away the cinematography, great acting, the costuming and the killer soundtrack, Euphoria is narratively up and down. This episode was confusing, highlighted by the absurd ending. With season two confirmed more focus needs to go into planning for the future and making sure everything lines up. Speculation is Rue might be dead, or near dead but she only did one line of something so I think she’s fine, but alive or not the finale might have been so much more satisfying if things were a tiny bit clearer.

#euphoria #euphoria hbo #zendaya coleman #rue bennett #hunter schafer #jules vaughn

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blookmallow · 5 years ago

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i dont have the energy to go through all my outlast 2 screenshots right now, i have one liveblog post drafted that i was working on before, and now i have a huge pile of screenshots to go through again so there’ll be. at LEAST two more... play by play type posts lmao

so anyway the order’s gonna be kinda weird but my brain is screaming and ive been going through wiki pages for like 2 hours so heres. some thoughts and a lot of questions and some observations i think im. sort of starting to get it,

---

ok so... knoth believed the antichrist was going to be born, apparently he DID think it was going to be from one of his own people, but then. blake and lynn obviously aren’t from his people so i have no idea why he suddenly decided it was on them

marta was his “angel of death” hitman going around murdering people in the name of god

people who got sick (definitely STDs, believed to be the Curse of Sin or whatever but it might have just been anyone who was diseased at all) got banished to the scalled village where they all got HORRIFICALLY sick and infected and have completely lost their minds now abandoned by the church

val broke off from knoth’s church and started the heretics cult, they seem to be. satanists now and are trying to allow the birth of the anti christ but are also constantly trying to kill me to death too

according to the wiki val is almost definitely a trans woman, which. the Only trans character in outlast is a woman who is a violent sexual predator who might be a devil worshipper and has wet dreams about child murder. granted everyone in outlast is fucked up but THAT’S A PARTICULAR KIND OF FUCKED UP

lynn was not visibly pregnant when they crashed, blake claims they hadn’t been sexually active in months so if she was pregnant, it’s not his child. when he finds her again she’s not only very visibly pregnant, but actively going into labor. she calls it “our baby.” blake doesn’t have the chance to ask her how this happened. this is never fucking explained : )

like it doesn’t look like lynn was just like.... reverse c-sectioned and even if someone raped her to force pregnancy she wouldn’t have gone through an entire 9 month pregnancy in ONE NIGHT, so what the FUCK was that about

the wiki mentions its possible the baby isn’t actually real, it apparently doesn’t cast a shadow and lynn has the “there’s nothing there” line, but even if blake hallucinated the pregnancy and the baby (which. at least would explain how the process of “giving birth” took like 3 seconds and she became suddenly 9 months pregnant in one day) why would lynn be reacting as if she was pregnant too. or if they both hallucinated it why did she say “there’s nothing there,” wouldn’t she be able to see it too

anyway jessica, lynn, and blake were all friends in. high school middle school whatever age. it seems like there was some kind of love triangle going on, jessica seems into blake in the flashbacks, blake seems unsure

he starts getting lynn and jessica confused near the end so he might’ve had some kind of feelings for her though, the wiki mentions his complete obsession with saving lynn might have been partly fueled by “i couldn’t save jessica but im going to save lynn im not going to lose them both i HAVE to succeed this time” to the point that they just kind of became the same person in his head by the end

there’s some weird parallels with jessica playfully jumping on him and val pinning him down so its very possible jessica was acting... sexually aggressive toward him, on a much smaller scale of course, but enough that val’s assault triggered the memory

jessica was almost definitely being molested by one of their teachers/church leaders/whatever and blake seems to blame himself for not doing anything about it

i thought jessica killed herself and blake felt responsible for it, maybe figuring the abuse she was enduring from the teacher (and possibly her father, she reacts very afraid when he threatens to call her father) might have been one of the causes, and he didn’t help her

but the wiki says the teacher actually may have killed jessica and forced blake to help cover it up as a suicide, hence... finding her on the stairs. which i guess makes sense too

but the whole flashback thing is never explained?? i guess maybe it really was just trauma manifesting in really fucked up ways and like, that’s still narratively interesting but the fact that it kept crossing over into the real world (the recordings from the flashbacks showed up as corrupted files, so Something happened and it wasn’t just in blake’s head, frequently you get stuck somewhere you can’t escape from, get pulled into the other world, wake up somewhere else entirely) means it’s not just internal so why the FUCK is he crossing dimensions. they don’t tell you!!! i had to go digging on the wiki to figure this shit out

from the wiki:

“The "apocalypse" Blake had witnessed, as well as the nightmarish flashbacks to his childhood, were all just hallucinations induced by the Murkoff Corporation's local Radio Towers.“

WHAT???? IT WAS MURKOFF THE WHOLE TIME

but like. are you telling me it was all a hallucination that was just kind of vaguely mentioned Once. the big reveal/the truth behind it all was literally just hinted about in One Note/One weird encounter with a distant radio tower in ONE SCENE randomly in the middle of the game and never expanded on. what the FUCK kind of writing/game design is THAT

it looks like the “voice of God” knoth was hearing was actually the murkoff frequencies too, but like. fucking why. why were they telling this guy to kill babies and create a murder cult. was it just a “how far can we take this” experiment like the “how badly can we fuck someone’s mind up if we take away their meds and exacerbate their mental illness” thing at mount massive. i mean i guess a corporation that would do That would also probably fuck with a bunch of hyper religious hillbillies too but it just seems way too convoluted for “idk just wanted to see what would happen”

and “maybe if we hide subliminal messages in the radio frequencies we can convince some random guy we’re the voice of God” is. way too specific to actually Work, i guess maybe if they could induce hallucinations they could maybe manipulate peoples’ minds that much more efficiently but like. still. it doesnt fucking make sense!!!!!! why would it manifest as “flashbacks of childhood trauma” in blake and “suddenly im pregnant” in lynn and “God Said I Gotta Kill Everyone” in knoth and “satan said i gotta fuck everyone” in val NONE OF THAT MAKES ANY FUCKING SENSE!!!

APPARENTLY there’s a whole mess of comics that go along with this and hopefully explain shit a little bit more but “explaining what the fuck happened in your game by means of a side comic that isn’t mentioned in said game” is : )

I DONT KNOW. iM SO TIRED ITS 1 AM SOMEHOW

ill go through all my screenshots and shit later maybe that’ll help. something :’) god. I MEAN TO BE FAIR, outlast’s strengths have never been its story telling, it’s a great game for being absolutely scared out of your fucking mind and boy did they ever deliver on that front so like... i guess ultimately i got what i wanted out of it but im still CONFUSED,

i should really have expected this though lmao this is the same thing that happened at the end of outlast 1 i didnt understand anything until 900 wiki pages later and still hated the ending even when i finally did sort of almost understand it

#lucy plays outlast 2 #im losing coherency i dont know if any of this makes sense bUT NEITHER DID THE GAME

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thebestplltheories · 6 years ago

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PLL The Perfectionists - 1x01 Pilot LIVE REACTION

WE ARE BACK!!!!

Ok I’m gonna do what I was doing for PLL where I react as I watch. But before I copy and paste the live reaction, I want to give my quick overview. That was by far a 10/10. That achieved everything a pilot should achieve. It introduced us to the characters, each of their stories, and the relationships each character has with one another. It set the overall tone, that this is a murder mystery with twists and turns to come. It established what the show is about. And it had occasional small shocks (I say small because there’s only so much that can be shocking in a pilot when everything is brand new). This was exponentially darker than the PLL pilot and for that I’m so grateful. We are cutting the high school airy-fairy (is that word used outside of Australia?) drama and going straight to scandals and a murder. I’m scared to see the ratings tomorrow because I want it to do well but hey it was trending worldwide on Twitter so that’s a good sign!? The show looks SO promising. I think I’m already in love with the cast. I just want to know more about everything and everyone and omg we are back!

LIVE THOUGHTS:

Love this intro! It sets the scene very well about the whole theme of perfectionism.

WAIT IS DYLAN PLAYING POKERFACE BY LADY GAGA HAHAHAHAHA

Okay sorry but that song ain’t it (“two can keep a secret if one of them is dead”). Why does it sound like an auto tuned choir? I’m happy for change. I actually don’t want the exact same version as the original series. But this one ain’t it. Is it too late to change it???

Wait, why is Alison walking around her new apartment like she’s walking around Jenna’s school for the blind in 710? If she lived 2 years of happiness and freedom of A, there’s no need to be so sceptical of danger every time you walk into a room. Anyway, doesn’t really matter.

Just the backing music throughout the scene is very PLL-esque! Yes, there is such thing as PLL backing music. And this is it.

Mona making a grand entrance!

I feel like Ali’s reaction to seeing Mona was a bit... underwhelming? If they haven’t seen each other in 2 years I expected a bit more of an “OMG”, and a “how did you get in my apartment”, etc. But they go straight to the point and cut the fluff so I don’t mind overall.

Mona recruited Ali. I knew it. And she works at BHU, we already knew that.

Emison is having trust issues. But she wants to do this for the kids. Ok I expected more detail there to satisfy the Emison shippers but whatever, I won’t cry at night.

Ok so Mary and Alex escaped Mona’s “dungeon”. That’s fine by me. Maybe that’ll be the storyline for a PLL movie later, who knows. It’s quite a vague answer but what did we expect... Mona to ADMIT to Ali that she captured her aunt? No. Mona could never explicitly say to Ali what she did. Hence the subtle pause before “... escaped me”. Only us the audience know the true meaning of that and I love how subtle yet meaningful it is.

Why do I feel like this security system is gonna play a massive toll throughout the entire series?

Loved the little Easter egg of seeing Mona, and Mona in the mirror (2 Mona’s). A subtle symbol/reference to her split personality in PLL.

I LOVED the scene of Ali teaching in the classroom! I got How To Get Away With Murder vibes...

Remember when we all thought Taylor’s death would be the main death of the show because of that memorial with her name on it... lol. Okay I’m calling it now... come back to this in the apparently mind blowing season 1 finale... Taylor isn’t really dead WE HAVENT TECHNICALLY SEEN A BODY

Love the complicated friendships going on between Dylan, Nolan, Ava, Caitlin! There’s a lot going on about faking being friends and faking tasks to uphold the image of being perfect. I love this theme and I feel like it’s super relevant to today’s world. Like especially social media. Everyone’s instagrams are always filled of their highs. And they’re mostly edited. No one ever posts/shares their low moments.

So no one knows of Ali’s past. Hmmm. We’ve had this discussion before, I don’t think it’s realistic that no one knows the name Alison DiLaurentis - surely that was on national news when “dead girl isn’t dead anymore” made headlines. But anyway. If they wanna pretend no one watches the news, it wouldn’t be the most unrealistic thing PLL has done.

Is Dylan the gay male character Marlene said she was going to introduce in PLL season 5B? Lmao about time.

WOW that flashback of Caitlin and Nolan just gave me PLL season 1 Alison flashback vibes! Nolan plays the bad manipulative guy so well just like Ali played the bully so well in flashbacks!

Two moms don’t make a right hahahaha who wrote that

Sofia looks FLAWLESS in the pool scene OH MY GODDD. AND her voice is so soothing what the hell

Love how the first scene of Nolan’s mother shows her standing on top of the staircase and the camera panning up. Great directing there. Showing she’ll be like a supreme leader. And then the camera being over her shoulders looking down on Nolan. Again great camera work which conveys the message that she is the boss of this town. I think she’ll be our new Jessica DiLaurentis lol

“I’d like some time for myself” ... “to do what?” OUCH why is that so iconic

Eli is... doing great. He comes across very confident. A star in the making?

Love the cinematography period. And Portland is beautiful!! Better than the Warner Bros lot.

Omg Nolan’s mother gathering “attractive” people for her photo op. Lol, they really are big on presenting a perfect image.

“You saw somebody else” NO CAITLIN, ALISON SAW YOU wow these kids will adamantly lie to uphold perfectionism. I keep saying that but I just love this theme!!!

“I know a little bit about manipulation” hahahahaha Ali

Omg Ali is so good at learning their lies. Of course she is, she’s had years of practice

The woods, Nolan? Nothing good ever happens in the woods.

Lol when Nolan tells Dylan to “kiss me” and Dylan actually contemplates it (and does it). That’s the type of power Nolan has over people.

I love how Ali is trying to help them! I can see a bond eventually forming here.

This scene where Nolan cheats on Ava isn’t shocking since they unfortunately shared it in the promos but hey a douche is a douche.

WHAT THE FUCKITY FUCKING FUCK IT’S TAYLOR WHAT DID I JUST SAY ABOVE

OK I KNOW I GUESSED ALEX DRAKE BUT THIS IS A NEW RECORD FOR FASTEST THEORY TO COME TRUE

Well it wasn’t really a theory I was just joking that she’s not really dead because we didn’t see a body but still do I get a point? Lmao

Nonetheless that shocked me! I love that they’re trying to take down their own family, that’s so dark and it’s only episode 1!

Yes Alison is already getting suspicious. Solve this one please Ali

Sorry I put my phone down during that scene in the woods. I just knew it would be juicy and I wanted to immerse in it properly. I frickin adore this scene. It’s creepy in tone, set in the woods like classic PLL, they’re referring to Ali like a friend and my PLL heart is content, and this is the first time they’re all bonding over one thing: wanting Nolan dead. This is probably my favourite scene in the whole episode.

So I’m guessing the vibes are that they were being recorded in the woods about how they want Nolan to be killed? But didn’t Nolan turn off the security?

Mona gets in her car and chucks a big bag in the back seat. Where was she and what was in the baggggg

Ok that was a bit dramatic Ali (“why am I really here”)

Lol I had to rewatch that for a sec. I thought Ali said “and his dead sister who I just saw pick him up” and I was like wait what Ali knows Taylor’s alive??? No, “dead sister who I just saw a picture of”.

OH MY GOD WHAT A MISSED OPPORTUNITY!!!! THAT SCENE WHERE THE 3 OF THEM ARE WALKING AWAY FROM EACH OTHER... NOLAN’S BODY SHOULD’VE FALLEN TO THE GROUND IN THE MIDDLE OF THEM RIGHT THERE! That would’ve been iconic. Like “oh well we were just kidding about all that, good night xx” then nope bam dead body. But I guess he had to die with poles through his chest as Caitlin said.

Oh Marlene. That’s a LOT of dialogue for a death scene. I hope you can back up and explain what Nolan is talking about before he died. Don’t you dare tell me that was an interpretative dream. Again that’s a lot of dialogue for a death scene. You better know who that killer is Marlene! Don’t make it up the day you write the finale!

I don’t like how we didn’t see Nolan ACTUALLY be killed. They play it safe because they don’t want to show us the killer in action. they basically copied the format of Mona’s “death”. Just change the scene to a flashing ambulance with a lame transition lol.

Another missed opportunity. Mona should’ve said to Ali “they found a body”! That would’ve been iconic in every way possible. First it was Ali’s body now Ali is finding a body and hearing the news and ugh oh well

My god that’s a violent death. And pretty early in the series for a Noel-Khan-level death. Too bad the photos leaked online and we knew that Nolan would not only die, but die like THAT. Those extras/fillers on set really should get charged for having their phones on them and leaking shit. Isn’t there copyright laws or something???? idk

Ummmmmm what? What kind of sci-fi, dollhouse level bullshit is that? That’s kinda over the top. Ehhhh. We’ll see where that goes.

My brain right now instantly got to thinking if Nolan’s murderer will be the “A” of the series or if the killer will just be the main mystery for season 1? Is “who killed Nolan” going to be the overarching story of the entire show or will they answer that sooner rather than later and then start a new mystery? I wonder what the format of this show will be. That’s where my mind is right now as the credits play.

#PLL #pretty little liars #pll the perfectionists #the perfectionists #pll theories #plltp #tp #alison dilaurentis #pretty little liars theories

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makethosenarratorsfight · 1 year ago

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UNRELIABLE NARRATORS; SIDE C

*NOTE; Due to the length of Harrowhark's propaganda, it is out of order and below Kuzco's propaganda

Kuzco Propaganda:

The movie starts with them doing the voiceover, telling us how he'll show us that evil people ruined his life for no reason at all, before proceeding to show him fire a loyal advisor, announce to a guy he'll chase him and his whole village away from the homes they've been living in for generations, just to build a summer villa with pool for himself, have a guy thrown off a window for being on his way when he was freedancing, etc., etc. Then as his life is ruined and we get back to the point at the beginning from which he had started the flash back which took half the movie, he's like "see? for no reason!"

Harrowhark Propaganda:

She gave herself a lobotomy and gives completely incorrect flashbacks to the previous book. Things that straight up did not happen. Gaslight gatekeep girlboss.

She’s schizophrenic (confirmed by the author) and also lives in a world with necromancy and ghostly revenants. She’s not just an unreliable narrator for readers, she’s an unreliable narrator of her own internal experience. She knows this and has to work with people around her to compensate for it. Descent into spoilerville below. Seriously Do Not Read if you want to read these books. There’s also the little matter about how she is *not actually the narrator* of a huge chunk of the story that we are initially led to believe is being told from her perspective.

(Spoilers) Holy shit she is THE most unreliable narrator. This gremlin gave herself a lobotomy so that she could forget about Gideon Nav, the most important person in her life (for magic soul-preserving reasons) so half of the second book in the series is spent gaslighting the reader about a book they just read. She comes up with an entire alternate version of the events of the first book in the series to carefully exclude any mentions of Gideon, and any time someone says ‘Gideon’ in front of her she LITERALLY has a stroke and/or an intercranial hemorrhage as her brain overwrites the word with someone else’s name. God occasionally intentionally triggers her memory revision to get out of difficult conversations. She also hallucinates ALL the time (unrelated to the lobotomy). She shows up at her frenemy’s room in the middle of the night (think little kid stumbling to their parents’ room and saying “I frew up”) to ask her to come check underneath her bed for the corpse that’s been wandering the space station. When frenemy checks underneath the bed, frenemy claims not to see anything, and Harrow is such an unbelievably unreliable narrator that it’s an open question in the fandom as to whether frenemy genuinely didn’t see the corpse or if frenemy was just yanking Harrow’s chain. Harrow is also haunted by a literal ghost that fucks up her already fucked up alternate history. Girlie will pick up a piece of paper and read from it the most violent and haunting piece of prose ever composed, when in reality all that’s written on the paper is the elementary school Superman S*. I am NOT joking that is a real goddamn scene. Harrow was created to win this poll. TLDR; she has brain damage and memory loss, she hallucinates, and is also haunted. * https://twitter.com/vestenet/status/1301012651145859072

Girl is so unreliable, she unreliably tells me events I was there for!!! She's retelling the previous book and I'm like "girlie, this is absolutely not how it happened". Also, she gave herself a DIY lobotomy, it has to impact your memory center I guess

She literally had a lobotomy, how can she be reliable

Rest of Propaganda under cut!

Harrowhark is simply the unreliable narrator of all time. Can’t remember shit because of a lifetime of trauma? Check. Maybe lying to yourself and those around you a bit? Most definitely. Being gaslit by the survivors you depend on to orient you to reality? For sure. How about a little bit of canon schizophrenia? She’s got it all. Ghosts? Or something? Spirits that are attached in some way to your body and are not perceivable by others? Sure, sure! But how about spirits that are attached in some way to your body and are gonna use you to hijack others’ bodies and maybe kill God, too? Absolutely. Wee bit of DIY brain surgery? If it would make you an unreliable narrator, friends, then Harrowhark Nonagesimus has been there, been subjected to that!

Okay I don't know that much about this series since I haven't convinced myself to read all of the first book, but this is my blorbo in law so I'd feel bad not spreading propaganda (all of what I'm saying is something I've read, as to prevent myself from straight up submitting misinformation). So all of Harrow's unreliable narration takes place in the second book, Harrow the Ninth. Basically, without her even seemingto acknowledge it, Harrow's brain is very fucked up during this book, to the point where even she's not sure how reliable her narrative is. There's many questions left unclear as a result of her fucked up little brain, like what's real, what's fake, whether we can trust her judgement, whether even she can trust her own judgement, whether her original cavalier is dead or not (Harrow is convinced she is), etc. Let me tell you, I adore unreliable narrators who aren't even that sure if they're reliable. I have yet to eat that trope up here in this circumstance, but this poll might not run again by the time I do, so for now, here's my messed up blorbo in law.

OKAY SO REMEMBER MY GIDEON SUBMISSION? HARROW DOESN’T! SPOILERS AHEAD BECAUSE SHE LOBOTOMIZED HERSELF TO FORGET GIDEON BECAUSE THAT’S A HEALTHY WAY TO GRIEVE AND THEN IN THE ONLY PARTS OF HER BOOK THAT SHE NARRATES (THE REVISED CANAAN HOUSE PARTS) IT’S LITERALLY A ROOM FULL OF GHOSTS HER BRAIN SUMMONED TO DEAL WITH THE FACT THAT SHE CUT HER BRAIN IN HALF TO FORGET GIDEON. she also is a) haunted and b) psychotic, experiencing hallucinations her entire life of both the ghosts haunting her and less supernatural hallucinations- bells tolling, bones rattling, her parents (some of the only dead people NOT haunting her), etc! in the revised history of canaan house that her brainghosts invent, she brings along someone who knows about her psychosis to help reality check her when she tells him go! her caregiver as a child and support when she got older, crux, is a horrible man- but at one point, when someone other than harrow is in harrow’s body and tells him “i am not harrowhark, i am sorry,” his response is simply “aye, you’ve said that before too. who are you then, if not my lady harrowhark?” showing his familiarity with her psychosis and his love for the child he wouldn’t dare see as a daughter. but enough about that lets talk about her unreliable narration! she lies about her feelings of course but she also simply hides the truth from everyone, all the time, compulsively. also literally the entire section of her book that she narrates is a lie she’s telling US about a lie she’s telling HERSELF and no one understands even a little bit of the truth until like the last act of the book. queen.

#kuzco #disney kuzco #emperor's new groove #harrowhark #harrowhark nonagesimus #the locked tomb #harrow the ninth #unreliable narrator battle #unreliable narrators #polls #side c

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kaitycole · 5 years ago

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The Secret (My Best Friend’s Wedding: Part Five)

This is the fifth installment to My Best Friend’s Wedding which you can read or catch up on here.

Summary: Whispers are going around the Brooks-Walker wedding about a secret kept from Drake by Riley and Liam. Here’s a flashback to all those years ago, before Riley and Drake left Cordonia during the middle of Liam’s engagement tour.

Word Count: 1913

I am so sorry that I have been MIA. Life has been hectic and a whirlwind between graduating with a BS, to starting graduate school as well as running my own business! I hope this makes up for the radio silence!

Tag List: @liamxs-world @lynn1214 @mynameiskaylabella @meswalkers-blog @drakelover78 @gardeningourmet @zilch3 @speedyoperarascalparty @umccall71 @mrsdrakewalkerblog @hopefulmoonobject @sleepwalkingelite @annekebbphotography @jared2612 @indiacater @lodberg

“Liam, you know I couldn’t accept this.”

“Yes, you could. You’d be a fine duchess, maybe Olivia could give you a crash course.”

Riley rolls her eyes, “They’d be just as painless as Bertrand’s.” Liam laughs at the sarcasm lacing her voice. He loves this woman with all his heart and he knows she feels the same.

The limo finally arrives in front of the dutchy and when the door opens, Riley can’t help but gasp. “Liam, it’s beautiful.”

“Just like the future duchess.” He smirks.

“We’ll see. Before I decide I think I need a tour.” She smiles flirtatiously. The two seem lost in each other until Riley’s phone breaks it.

“Hana or Maxwell?” Liam laughs.

She smiles as she checks it – DRAKE – her cheeks redden, “Just Hana asking if we made it okay.”

“I do love how much she cares for you. Glad you could make a friend while here.”

“As do I.” She quickly opens the text message.

Miss you, Brooks

She smiles before replying.

I’ll be home before you know it!

*ping*

Still don’t know why you went in the first place.

She knew that Drake knows she had to make it appear she was still interested in Liam until she could talk to Liam about it and away from court was her best option.

I’ll make it up to you when I get home.

*ping*

Oh? What did you have in mind?

Riley tries to conceal the devilish smirk on her face from Liam as she hurries a reply. Wouldn’t you like to know ;)

I have to go, talk soon!

“Ready for your tour?” Liam asks.

Quickly she turns her phone off and tucks it away, “I think so!”

The pair follows the caretaker around as they get a tour of the dutchy. Riley is in awe at the different rooms and the immaculate decoration that covered the walls.

“And this is the master suite.” She opens the door and motions her arm for the two to walk further in. There’s a King size poster bed with a lavish canopy hanging above it, giving the room a regal look. Liam exchanges a look with Riley, whose face is bright red.

“I think this is our stop,” he politely smiles at her.

“But there’s…oh…” The caretaker quickly excuses herself and hurries out.

“Why’s this the stop? I was promised to see a stable.” She smirks as Liam’s lips crash with hers.

“We can finish the tour later, I’d rather show you something only I can.” They back up until Riley falls back on the bed. Liam quickly slides her up, kissing down her neck as he unbuttons his shirt.

She lets out small moans as his hands trail up her legs, stopping at her hip before raising a brow.

“I got tired of always acting like a lady,” she bites her bottom lip mischievously.

“You’re going to be the death of me, you know that?” Liam says as he pulls off her skirt.

“At least you could die a happy man.” She goes to smirk but lets out a quick moan when she feels his tongue lick her clit.

Liam quickly pulls her legs to his shoulders and spread them wider and his tongue begins to explore the lips below her waist. As he drives his tongue inside her, Riley responds in a string of moans and he begins to softly rub her clit.

Her hands grip the sheet tightly, her hips lift off of the bed as each stroke of the tongue brings her deeper pleasure. He can feel her getting wetter and lets her legs slowly slide down his arms as he slides his right hand up her leg. She shivers with desire and lets out a deep moan while thrusting her hips as he pushes two fingers into her.

He slides them in and out a few times before places a finger on her lips which she quickly opens and sucks her own cum off of it.

Liam lets out a deep moan, “I love when you taste yourself.”

She raises a brow and winks at him while he pulls her legs, bringing her to the edge of the bed. He gently taps her hip twice, commanding her to roll over on her stomach.

She can feel the plush carpet beneath her feet, standing tippy-toed, she wiggles her toes into the carpet.

He runs his hands down her sides, stopping at her hips. He presses firmly on her hip bones as he grabs ahold of them, pulling them up slightly. The pressure of his palms causes her to gasps.

Riley feels him reaching behind her before he slides inside her.

Drake…She thinks to herself, immediately she begins feeling guilt. They had talked about telling Liam, that’s why she was here, yet there wasn’t much talking going on.

He thrusts into her soaking wet core while he spits on his fingers, rubbing them between her cheeks, peaking her interest. She instantly loses her breath, moaning into the bed sheet as she feels dual pleasure.

She can feel the sheets under her are completed wet from her pussy which just adds to her deep moans. Liam grabs one of her hips and starts violently thrusting into her, causing her to groan but it wasn’t until he slid a finger to her ass, that she begins screaming his name.

She’s never felt this pleasure before, it wasn’t entirely her first time but it was the first time he went complete in. He alternated his thrusts, hardly giving her time to recover after each one.

He pulls his finger out, causing her to suck air through her teeth and he begins to pound into her as hard as he can, pounding out any guilty thoughts she may have had. Her screams, mixed with his quickening thrusts cause them both to reach the edge. She moves her hand underneath her and begins to rub her clit, “Oh god, fuck.”

He can feel himself losing control, his thrusts become sloppier and he can feel her begin to lose her footing, her legs becoming weaker as he pounds his cock into her. He thrusts deep and hard into her, causing a scream before he feels her juices spill down his cock her body going limp beneath him. Liam thrusts up into her once more, filling her with his cum before gently pulling his cock out and lying next to her.

Riley rolls over and cuddles up to his side before the two end up falling asleep.

* * * * * *

The pair finally emerges from the bedroom after an hour-long nap and a quick round two in the shower. They are escorted to the dining hall for an early dinner, at Liam’s request.

“This is lovely, King Liam.” She winks as the servers’ finish placing the meal in front of them.

“I’m glad you like it Duchess Riley.”

Her lips curl into a smile, “I haven’t accepted that title just yet.”

“Just trying to show you what you could have is all.”

* * * * * *

“Drake stop pacing please, you’re making me dizzy!” Maxwell pleads.

“I just don’t understand why she isn’t replying.” He finally stops and flops down on the couch.

“Maybe the cell service is bad up there?” Maxwell offers.

Drake glares at him, “I’m sure the king wouldn’t go anywhere they couldn’t reach him.”

“Look at me, she loves you. I’m sure she’s just busy.” Hana places her hand comfortingly on his shoulder.

“What if…”

“Don’t even finish that thought, Drake. You know Riley, she wouldn’t do that to you.” Hana says with a sympathetic smile.

“It’s just…” His voice breaks.

“She’s slept with him but not you. That doesn’t mean that’s what she’s doing now.” Maxwell says, slightly inconvincibly.

Drake stands up quickly and marches out of the room before either can change his mind. Stomping to the stables, his whole body relaxes when he sees Jameson, his prized horse.

He pulls out the velvet box from his pocket, rubbing his thumb over the lid, “I guess it’s still just going be you and me for a while.”

* * * * * *

The crisp evening air wraps around them as they stand on the balcony, looking across the land of Valtoria. Riley drapes her shawl over her shoulders as Liam takes her hand into his.

“You look beautiful tonight.”

Riley blushes, “Thank you.”

“I had an alternative motive to bring you here, it wasn’t just to try to convince you to take it.”

Her eyes widen and her smile stretches across her face, “And what would that be?” Her face slightly drops when she sees him get down on one knee.

“Riley, will you marry me?” Liam asks, kneeling on one knee.

“I can't marry you. I'm in love with someone else.”

“…What?” He takes a step back from her, unsure he heard her correctly.

“I came here for you…but found someone else along the way. I’m in love with Drake.”

“…Drake?”

“I know it’s probably a lot to take in…He’s your best friend.”

Liam’s face turns red, “What exactly can he offer you?”

Riley knits her eyebrows together in confusion, “…I’m sorry?”

Liam’s face continues to turn red, “I can give you a whole kingdom, a duchy, a really good life, basically everything you could ever want. He can give you, what, a stable and a worn-down cabin?”

“I honestly can’t believe you’re saying these things! He’s your best friend!”

“You claim to love him, but look at what’s happened today!”

“I..I..can’t…” She’s unable to make a complete sentence.

“That’s what I thought.” Liam walks away, bumping his shoulder into her as he passes.

Six Weeks Later

Riley slams her hands on the sink, I can’t believe this.

“Ri? Where are – there you are!” Drake pops his head in the doorframe, kissing her on the forehead.

“Oh uh, hi.” She places the hand towel over a box on the sink.

“Are you ready? We are supposed to go to the palace for an engagement tour dinner.”

“Yes, I’m ready.” She smirks, “I had a pretty great idea.”

Drake stops in his tracks, “Oh yeah? Well I think all your ideas are great, what’s this one?”

It’s now or never Riley. Now or never. “I was thinking that we should move to New York and start a life there.”

“Silly, we are moving to New York. After the engagement tour is over, we already talked about this.”

“I know, I just think it would be better to go now. You know, the sooner the better.” She shrugs, “Plus this whole tour is really taking its toll on me, Drake.”

He scrunches her face in confusion, “What’s the difference in another three months, Ri?”

Everything, she thought. “Please Drake, I wouldn’t suggest this if I thought I could wait. Plus, I think it would be better for us to get a jump start on everything.” “Oh…well I mean, I guess it wouldn’t hurt.” He rubs the back of his neck, “When were you thinking? Next month?”

“Actually, at the end of the week. I already have an apartment lined up as well as a few job offers for you along with the tickets purchased!”

“Did I even really have a say?” Drake says with a chuckle trying to mask his annoyance.

She kisses him as she walks passed him, “Trust me, it’s what’s best.”

Best for who? Drake wonders.

#the royal romance #choices the royal romance #liam x riley #mc x liam #drake walker #mc x drake #trr hana #trr prince #trr drake #trr maxwell #Riley x Liam x drake #liam rhys #riley brooks #TRR Riley #fanfic #choices fanfiction #Choice fandom

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steve0discusses · 5 years ago

Text

Yugio S3 Ep 26: Marik’s Low Speed Escape From the Museum

This episode is quite short and contains about two things 1.) this weird 4-way duel that has little bearing on anything except who gets to play Marik and get super cursed first and 2.) flashbacks.

I am so thankful for flashbacks, because this was mostly watching Kaiba doing his damnedest to manipulate Joey Wheeler and Yugi into not working with eachother so that way Joey would lose and go up against Marik when Joey Wheeler has already decided he was going to go up against Marik.

It was very catty. Kaiba at his cattiest. He really thought he was breaking up this friendship of two people who were once chained by the ankles to an anchor when they’re like “no, Kaiba, you don’t get it. Kaiba, this is totally unnecessary, Kaiba. Kaiba, calm down.”

To be fair to Seto Kaiba, he probably absolutely believes that this is what Yugi is going to do before their Senior Year of High School is over. Kaiba kind of lives in a Game of Thrones situation in his head when in reality...he’s in high school playing cards.

(read more under the cut)

We also get a flashback of this show desperately trying to prove to us that they had planned JoeyxMai this whole time. I’m starting to realize this is just how they write most romances on this show, by inserting flashbacks instead of actually showing any romance in the current timeline.

And by romance, I mean aggressive friendship because yes that age gap is...still there. My bro was like “I dunno if they’re even still in High School at this point. I think they wrote them out of High School without telling us” but like, until they show me directly that they have graduated, then I’m just gonna still believe they’re in high school. Except Seto who is like both 18 and 16 and a college graduate at 14 or just never graduated the 9th grade depending on who you’re talking to. Seto will be our outlier of “he’s in class but don’t ask.”

Anyway, lets go hang out with Ishizu to see what happened when Marik decided to pay her a visit at the museum. This occurred directly after she handed over her God card to Seto Kaiba.

Yes, she gave her God card to Seto Kaiba, and then, once he was out the door, decided to lock herself in a vault, just so she could spook her little brother’s cultists. This family and their weird pranks.

But here’s the thing I just realized that I can’t shake. I know it’s a kid’s show so none of this will matter, but let me go a little Ace Attorney on us here and just throw out a very quick “objection!” to the floor because...there’s some continuity issues.

+++++++++++++++BORKED TIMELINE RANT FEEL FREE TO SKIP ++++++++++

(Shocking on this show that has Seto Kaiba’s timeline, that there’d be some continuity issues, but youknow...now we have new one.)

If she JUST gave that card to Seto Kaiba, and she did not leave Japan from the time that she gave Seto the card and the time the tourney started (since this museum show I assume has been in Japan this entire time), then why is Marik here?

Marik came here on a boat in the middle of S2, he made a big fuss about it, but apparently he was already here just weeks earlier. He was already in Japan, then got back on his boat, and just sailed around in the Pacific for a spell before heading back?

Did he just come here to get these cards and then also drop off Bandit Keith???? Except...Bandit Keith was...before Ishizu showed up in the timeline of this show.

Or, and this is might be even more confusing, what if this is happening in Egypt, and it’s a completely different museum, and Ishizu just left Japan at some point to stand in a vault until her brother showed up,and then got back on a plane back to Japan just in time to crash Yugi’s date?

And here’s the thing, lets just pull out that borked timeline. The Ishtar timeline, from the perspective of the Isthars, lets do this.

1. Marik feels like going on a really exotic yachting trip with his cultist buddies and decides to check out Pegasus’ Island off the coast of America(?) While there, he unexpectedly comes across Bandit Keith, who (and this must have been really shocking to every single cultist there who is used to living underground) is violently shot out of a strange slip n’ slide mechanism, that pops him out of a cliff-face and vaults him directly into the ocean. Curious, Marik picks the weird Trash American out of the sea, and he finds out that Bandit Keith knows Yugi, but instead of invading Pegasus’ island where Yugi was currently residing, Marik decides to go allllll the way to Japan (Which is crazy because Bandit Keith did not know what part of Japan Yugi lived in. Japan is freakin huge and made up of several islands.)

2. Since Marik wanted to get to Yugi ASAP, he tosses Bandit Keith onto the coast of Domino in order to abduct Yugi on his way to soccer practice. We can assume this happened...like a few weeks later (I really am not sure how fast his party yacht moves, but like...considering we also don't know where Pegasus’ island is (Maybe like the coast between California and Mexico?????) I can never say.) At this point, Marik probably just peaced out and went to Guam to hang out 20 leagues away from where Noah was currently plotting his revenge.

3. While Yugi is recovering from 3rd degree burns form the warehouse fire, and during which time, Yugi’s doctors were also trying to figure out how the hell to get Yugi to let go of the goddamn golden puzzle that remained in his hands from the moment Yugi passed out to the moment Yugi woke up in the hospital, Ishizu lands in Japan via a plane (although the English version erroneously says she lands in America, because for a little while they wanted to pretend that this entire show takes place in the US.) She unpacks her cargo, sets up a museum exhibit, and then on the news/psychic phone call, invites Seto Kaiba over so she can give a God Card to Seto Kaiba. I assume al that happened the very evening that the museum show opened. Like maybe this happens over the course of maybe a week or so from when Marik left Japan after dropping off Bandit Keith?

4. Shortly after (within the amount of time it takes Kaiba to get the idea to do the tourney and the time to hastily throw it together (which could not have been long, this tourney is a complete disaster)) Marik crashes Ishizu’s museum in.......Japan? Japan or Egypt. Something like that. Considering he wants to go where the God Cards are, he’d probably go to the exhibit that also has the giant God Card tablet that will curse everyone that looks at it. So...probably Japan. However, there are palm trees here, and so maybe it’s Egypt? I don’t know. After that doesn’t work out, he peaces out yet again, and then gets back on his boat for the second time, and goes straight back to Guam or wherever.

5. A few days later, Ishizu crashes Yugi’s and Tea’s date. (and if she has been in Egypt spooking Marik in a vault, this means she had to get off of a plane in order to make it in time to spook this date as well on the other side of the world) She tells Yugi about the tourney because for some reason, Kaiba has invited everyone with invites but just...didn’t send an invite to Yugi for some reason although Yugi is the only reason he’s throwing this tourney. Then she shows Yugi the cursed God Card tablet and then peaces out so she can join Kaiba’s tourney and play cards peacefully while everyone else was getting attacked by cultists.

6. About a few days later into the tourney...Marik arrives in Japan and we act as if this is the first time he ever has and it’s with a MUCH better motorcycle, but we’ll get to that motorcycle later.

It’s not as bad as the Kaiba timeline--I can’t even put the Kaiba timeline in a consecutive order, but mm. This brother sister team realllly likes to travel across the entire world and back within the span of a couple of months, huh?

++++++++OK THAT’S ENOUGH ABOUT THAT TIMELINE, BACK TO THE SHOW+++++++++++

I am so weirded out that Marik doesn’t wear like anything under his cloak. Like nothing. It’s just a gross sweaty cloak and that’s it...and like I have NO idea if he has pants on, they never scroll down. I mean, I assume he has matching purple pants...or probably cargoes, but...does he? Or does he just wear that cloak over a pair of golden boxers?

Also, why is he wearing golden arm bands with a long sleeved cloak? It’s because he knows he’s gonna take that cloak off at EVERY opportunity, right? Like that’s the only reason you would bother with the arm cuffs?

And then we get the most unexpected motorcycle in history.

So like...remember how Marik was hella into Motorcycles? Remember how it was really cool hot rods that made him start towards the evil side in the first place? Think about the coolest motorcycles you know and then...admire this one

This motorcycle that moved so slowly that the cultists casually jogged behind him like it was a parade or something. Like, did he steal the motorcycle from this museum collection?

Anyway, bro let me know that apparently in the Japanese version she’s got armed guards with guns, but they were edited out. Funny thing is, bro also mentioned that since Marik can just mind control people, it makes more sense that Ishizu wouldn’t bring an armed militia with her. I gotta agree, this is the one instance where the English version actually works better.

Although that motorcycle though. Wow. It’s like out of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Marik just stuffed himself into that baby side car, making vroom vroom noises with his mouth as he glides away at a smooth 10 mph.

This is our serial murderer that killed Bakura, folks. It was this guy.

Kinda wish he kept the side car this entire time, that would have been a treat throughout S2.

Anyway, here’s a link to read all the recaps from Ep1 S1 in chrono order.

#yugioh #yu gi oh #yugioh recap #photo recap #episode recap #s3 ep 26 #I looked up this motorcycle and it's called a ural classic and that is an unfortunate name #hot damn I know it's a vintage motorcycle but did no one on the development team 50 years ago think youknow what ural sounds like?#yugi muto #seto kaiba #joey wheeler #marik ishtar #ishizu ishtar #sidecar motorcycle

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utopianvoices · 6 years ago

Text

seven things | h.hyunjin

↭ genre: enemies to lovers au (kinda); fluff

↭ word count: 4.27k (i might’ve gone slightly crazy)

↭ a/n: yEs i is back!!!! here’s a hyunjin scenario that i don’t really like to make up for my disappearance from posting works :D i’m writing this on a whim so it might seem like i’m on crack but really it’s just me on a daily basis,, also this turned out way longer than i expected whoOps

⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⊰⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅∙∘☽༓☾∘∙•⋅⋅⋅•⋅⋅⊰⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅

ok so

you were waiting outside the cafe that you and hyunjin usually go to

and y’all might be wondering

why don’t you just go in??

that’s what i’m wondering too

well because

your best friend was late,,, for the 3rd time that week

and to say you were pissed was an understatement

just as you whipped your phone out to message that not so little nuisance, you heard rushed footsteps getting closer and closer

and you turn just in time to get aTTACKEd by this boy

“i’m SO sorry y/n i overslept and like i really tried to come on time but then the bus was late too and-”

“just stfu and never talk to me again”

well then

“noOOoOo y/n don’t say that i’m so sorry. i promise i’ll try my best not to be late from now onwards :(”

and like you really wanted to be mad at him

really

but he was pouting and your heart was going boom boom

because he just looked really adorable

so you just ended up going “ugh fine”

which was the cOmplete opposite of this whole speech you had planned in your head

about how you were going to stop being friends with him and move to another continent,,,,,,,,,,

yea maybe that wasn’t such a good speech

but you weren’t going to let him go that easily too

so, you being the absolute tease

“you know i think it was better when we hated each other”

oUCh

and hyunjin being the drama king he is

decides to go overboard and clutches his chest, staggering around the entrance of the cafe

you just roll your eyes and walk into the cafe,,, ignoring the poor boy outside

as you scan the cafe for seats, you feel a weight on your shoulder

“you know the feeling of hate was never mutual”

and you look up to look at the party responsible for this new burden

and well let’s just say you were about to combust on the spot

because your best friend was one good looking boy

and like all this violent rush of thoughts took you back to when the only “feelings” you had for him was hate

*cue flashback* i suck at transitions im sOrry

so you were just chilling in class,,, minding your own business as you doodle on your book

when the school’s most popular girl decides to spill her salad juice or whatever disgusting green thing she was drinking, all over your papers

and i mean, accidents happen ofc and you’re TOTALLY willing to let it go

if she had apologised

but she was clearly too popular for petty things like apOlogies

so you just open your mouth to fire at her when she cuts you right off

“that was my only juice, but i’ll forgive you since i’m so kind”

and you just stare at her like she grew 3 heads bcs

how is one so dUMb

“oH that was juice??? i thought you were drinking vomit, you know since it kinda matches up with your personality?”

oH no one messes with you

and you were trying really hard to hold your laughter in, because you were the sAss master and no one stood a chance against you

but she just whined like a little girl, with no proper comeback to match up to yours

“hyunjin baby!!! aren’t you going to say anything?!”

and you just realised the being standing behind her,,,, hwang hyunjin

soccer team’s star player/captain and pretty much the most popular boy

half the school was drooling whenever he passed by

and i mean,,, it’s not like the girls didn’t have good taste or anything of that sort

because this boy was sculpted by the gOds,,,, and you would be lying if you didn’t let yourself glance at him a little longer than needed when passing by

but like all cliche stories, the most popular girl and the most popular boy were dating

i mean,,, cmOn it’s a given

till this day you were still wondering how in heavens they ended up together,,, one’s a plain bitch and the other,,, well, not so much of an asshole

but all thoughts of him potentially being nice unlike his girlfriend flew out of the window in like a millisecond

“hey y/n maybe you shouldn’t have left your bag to block the aisles”

bij say whAT

first of all,,, your bag was tucked close to your table, bcs you were a responsible student who cared for the well-being of other students,,, most of the time

second of all,,, how did he know your name??

you were pretty sure you never mentioned it

but as these thoughts were running through your head, rendering you silent,,, the bij thought she had “won” and took hyunjin’s hand with a smug face, walking off

and you were too busy caught up in your own thoughts to notice the apologetic look hyunjin was desperately trying to get across to you,,,,

but you knew one thing for sure after that small incident

you hated hwang hyunjin

call yourself a niggling bij but that’s just you,,, you gotta deal with what you gotta deal

so since that day, every time you glanced at hyunjin, your glance turned into a glare and you made sure he caught that “glance” before you broke eye contact and stormed off

your petty-meter was seriously off charts,,,,,

and it pains you to admit it but mAyhaps the reason you were so pissed was because you had this teeeeeeeeeny tiny crush on him, just like the rest of the girls in the school

because although he was a jock and dating that evil witch, he seemed nice to enough to smile at anyone who made eye contact with him and like,,,, basically for being the opposite of being a generic athletic jerk

but nAh that one sentence was enough to snap you out of your delulu and go about your own day,,,, ya know, hating hyunjin and stuff

the usual

so this goes on for weeks, you giving hyunjin your famous glare and hyunjin feeling his heart break every time you do it,,,, bcs he’s never had anyone hate him before

one day you were at the library, rushing your assignments bcs dAmn the queen of sass was also a queen of procrastination

like mate, stop procrastinating

you binge-watched your show over the weekends and now you were seated at the library, regretting your life decisions

and you’re so focused like, it’s a miracle that you’re that focused

but some iDIOT just breaks that focus by sitting from across you on YOUR table

who dares

you look, ready to snap at this soul when you realise who it was

“hey y/n,,, can i sit here?”

“funny how you do it and then ask for permission”

at this hyunjin gives you a sheephish smile and goes

“well i had a hunch you wouldn’t have said yes if i had asked first”

“ding ding ding!!!!!! you’ve got the correct answer and earned yourself no shits from me!”

at this, you go back to your work, ignoring the cute pout hyunjin was now sporting because of your ignorance

3 minutes later and you’re disrupted again

“hey y/n,,, i’m sorry for what happened between you and her,,, i really didn’t mean to say that. i just wanted to let you know that i broke it off with her.”

“oh wow congrats”

you hear him sigh, feeling triumphant that you had gotten him to give up talking to you

well spoiler, you wERE WRONG

not even 2 minutes later

“hey, do you have a pen i can borrow? i lost mine,”

“hey do you know what this means”

“hey-”

tHAT WAS IT

“omG hyunjin i’m trying to finish my assignment will you just shut up for a while? like literally i’m willing to do anything to get you to shut up”

you furiously look back down at your assignment, wanting to get it over and done

and then you hear it

you hear him clearing his voice,,, indicating that he was about to speak again

just as you were about to cut him off

“anything?”

wut,,,,,

“what do you mean, anything?”

“you said you’ll do anything to get me to shut up. will you really?”

“ofC not what do you take me for??”

“okay then i guess i’ll just continue talking :>”

bOi

that did it for you

you slammed your book shut, and looked up at him, narrowing your eyes suspiciously

“what’s your deal?”

at this, hyunjin looks away, thinking for a while

just as you were starting to get impatient, he speaks up

“okay. okay okay okay. this is the deal. i’ll stop talking for the rest of the day if you promise that we can be friends. and that you won’t hate me anymore.”

well that was unexpeCTED

but you weren’t that easy

nah uh

“wOw you’re asking for a lot huh,,, hmmm let’s see,,,,,,,,,, no.”

and just as you were about to pack your stuff and move to another table, you hear something that stops you from moving

“i’ll help you with your assignment. i’ve already finished mine so it’ll be a piece of cake.”

now THAT was a good offer

“but i only help my friends with their assignments”

this lil sHIT

well played hwang hyunjin, well played *slowly claps*

you watched as he smirked at you, knowing that he had caught your weak spot

you had an internal debate with yourself, and finally came to a decision

will you regret this decision??

probably

but you were desperate

so you stare at him for a few seconds before extending your hand

“deal.”

he breaks out into a grin and grabs your hand, sealing the deal and the start of a new friendship

that night, just as you were about to sleep after that oh so eventful day you had, you hear your phone chime

you groan as you reach out, wanting to make as little movement as possible bcs,,,, you were lazy

you grab your phone by the tips of your fingers and check your messages

hyunjin: hey this is my address! [address]. see ya tmrw bestie <3

you roll your eyes at his attempts and type one letter before throwing your phone to the side and drifting off to dreamland, with a slight smile on your lips

you: k

the next morning,, you are there at hyunjin’s front door, right on time

bUt why aren’t you pressing the doorbell????

let’s be real,,, underneath all that sass, you were just a nervous teenage girl

before you could chicken out and leave, you smack yourself and press the doorbell

a few seconds later the door opens,, and you come face to face with a middle-aged woman

“hi dear, what can i do for you?”

aWkwArd,,,,

“uhm,,, i’m here to work on an assignment with hyunjin??”

“oh! hyunjin didn’t mention anything, but come right in!”

that little piece of uncultured swine

you walk into the house and stand around awkwardly, not knowing what to do or say

when his mother points you to his room, and lets you know that he’s probably still sleeping with a small shake of her head

hmMm looks like him oversleeping happens often

you contemplated if you should go in,,, cause ya know, privacy and shit

but you had to get your revenge??? obviously

so you silently walk in to the room and voila

there was that sleeping lump, sprawled across a queen sized bed

as you get closer, you can’t help but notice just how good looking he was

i mean sUre you’ve seen him around in school but

with the amount of peace he had on his face,,, he looked almost ethereal

but with that thought, you snapped out of it

bcs exCuse yOu

you’re here for revenge

not to admire the boy

so you carefully lift your leg,,, and muster all the strength in the world

and BAM

you just kicked him off the bed,,, him falling onto the floor with a loud thud

and it did the trick !!!!

he shot right up and looked around, vision hazy and mind still blurred

just as he was starting to come to his senses, his eyes focus on the one girl standing on the other side of the bed,, smirk evident on her face

“that’s what you get for leaving me alone with the adults in the house”

and you walk right out,, leaving him to stare at you speechless

time skip,,,, 5 hours later, and you’re all done with your assignment

and although you hated to admit it

it turned out pretty fricking amazing

thanks to your brain, your hardwork, a bit of hyunjin, but mostly your perseverance :D

oK but real talk literally you were screwed if he didn’t help so

you kinda owed him big time

“look man, thanks a lot for your help. i would have died without you”

and hyunjin just counters this statement with a smile and shakes his head, letting you know that it was okay

and you kindA felt bad,,,, i mean, you did try and kill him with your glares the past few weeks

and you weren’t thAt mean

so,,,

“uhm,,, do you think,, maybe,, we could start over? hard feelings forgotten?”

and this takes hyunjin by total surprise,,, like all he ever wanted was just to talk to you after seeing you stare him down the past few weeks

but he’d be lying if he said that his heart wasn’t bursting for joy bcs !!!! yay!!!! you didn’t hate him anymore!!!!! what a baby boy

so y’all start over that very day,,, and as expected, hit it off almost immediately

*end flashback*

sO back to now where you have an amazing best friend

pshhh best friend they say

what no i didn’t say anything

n E ways

oK fine,,, on top of him being your best friend, it was really no surprise that you fell for him

i mean cmon

he’s sweet

talented

bEautiful

and etc

but like bij nAh, you were never planning to confess bcs bij??? that could ruin your friendship????

everybody facepalm with me

so you just keep it a secret and try to live with it

except it was reaaally hard to keep it a secret

bcs you saw him almost every. single. day

he’s always asking you to do something with him

getting ice cream,, watching a movie,, going to the park

you even learned how to play soccer bcs he insisted on teaching you

but despite all this, you were still persistent that he saw you as nothing more than a friend,,, and that he did this with all his close friends

news flash: nO he did not

but since it was too much feelings for you to handle, you spill all of this to your other close friend, jisung

and he’s like

“oOOoO expected,,, why don’t you just confess??”

and you’re like

“are you duMB? it’s going to ruin our friendship?? i can’t do that??”

and he’s just like

“you’re the dumb one here sis, but go off, i guess”

bCs literally the whole world knew you two had heart eyes for each other

and by whole world, i mean jisung

and being xTra, he’s like,,, you know what?? i gotta get them together

so he “casually” makes a bet with you

and you’re like ooOoO fun

bcs you love bets

mainly has to do with the reason that you hardly ever lose one :>

so when jisung goes “if i get higher than you on this economics test, you gotta text hyunjin 7 reasons why you like him. no explanations given.”

and you really wanna say no and run away

but like

you were no coward

so you’re like “sUre bij bring it on, i was born ready for thi s”

so the day you get back your results, you’re more nervous for the bet than your grades

like you could fail, for all you care

but as long as you failed higher than jisung,, all’s fine

so when you get back your test with a 86 scribbled at the top, you grin to yourself,, convinced that there was no way he was gonna get any higher than you

but as you turn to show him your score,, your smile slowly fades,,,

bcs on his paper

a big red 92 is written at the top, with an ‘excellent’ scribbled next to it

“so,,, y/n,,, ready for what i’ve planned?”

and he’s just grinning like the cheshire cat, with you staring at him in disbelief, mentally counting down to your doom

the next day, you try to convince your mum that you’re down with a really bad disease, which makes it absolutely impossible for you to go school

but your mum ain’t buying that

so there you were, standing at your locker, looking left and right for any signs of han jisung

just as you thought you were safe, you hear someone calling out your name

your face turns white, as you turn around, expecting to come face to face with jisung

but instead you’re met with a raven-haired boy that made your heart beat unnecessarily fast

“whatcha doing today after school??”

and you’re just like qUick think of an excuse

bcs you were in no position to stay with him any longer than necessary for fear that you may just blurt out what you had formed in your head bcs of the bet

“uhhh i’ve got plans with jisung!! we’re gonna go to,, the market! yea!”

seriously,,,, that’s the best you could come up with??

so hyunjin just gives you a really weird look and draws out a “okay,,,,,,,,”

and you’re just like “yea okay bye!!!”

and you run the heCK away

time skip and it’s the end of school

the time which you were dreading,,, because there stood han jisung, waiting for you to confess to your crush

“jisung,,, i really don’t think i can do this,,, can’t i just like, buy you lunch for a week or something?”

“as tempting as that sounds, nO. you’ve gotta do this for yourself, for humanity, and for my sanity. i swear i can’t hear you talking about him again”

at his, you sigh, knowing that he’s right,,, but still not gaining the guts to do it

“come on y/n,,,, you know that on top of me really wanting you to stop bothering me about him, you really gotta get your feelings out of your system,,, you’re not going to be able to keep everything in.”

and although you just wanted to die and chill in heaven at that moment

jisung had a point,,, which was a rare occurrence

so you decide to listen to him,,, i mean, what’d you got to lose???

maybe your shame

and your precious friendship

but that’s it

so you whip your phone out and press the top contact on your phone

“ok here i go,,,”

“yEs queen!!! get it!”

you briefly roll your eyes at him, before returning your eyes to the screen

the cursor blinking, almost tauntingly

you breathe out and just take it as a platform to let it all out

i love the way you play soccer

ofc you do,,, i’m the best :P

you feel slight relief at his reply, but at the same time, you couldn’t stop the way slight disappointment filled you at his interpretation of you texts

jisung peeked at your phone from over your shoulder, immediately voicing out objections

“come on y/n!! that’s so lame! that barely counts as a confession!”

you groan out loud, and type on your phone, earning a hum of satisfaction from the nosy boy behind you

i love the way your eyes crinkle when you smile

why, thank you y/n,,,, but what’s with the sudden compliment spree

“ugh, jisung i’m going crazy,,,”

you actually were,,, moments away from throwing your phone into the lake right beside where you were seated

“you got this love,,, just a few more and you can live with no regrets,”

you knew he was right,,, although it was absolutely embarrassing, you know you would regret not telling him in the future

i love the mole underneath your eye

y/n??? c’mon, what’s wrong? are you pranking me right now??

you take a deep breath, and continue on, with the newly found courage

i love the way you pestered me to talk to you even though i was being a complete ass

hey seriously, tell me what’s happening?

i love the way you always manage to put a smile on my face no matter the circumstance

y/n, please,,, don’t fill me with empty hope,, cut it out if you’re pranking me,,,

,,, empty hope? what’s that supposed to mean??

whatever it meant, it sure did it’s part in speeding up your already dying heart

you suck it up, butterflies growing stronger as you get closer and closer to your last message

i love how my heart speeds up merely at the mention of your name

tell me that this is what i think it means,,,

you stared at your screen, three simple words written out

but your fingers seemed to be jammed, unable to press the send button

was this all just a mistake?? maybe you could just play it off as a prank by jisung

“you got his honey,,, just do it,, press the button”

and with this encouragement from jisung, you press the send button without further hesitation, feeling as though your heart physically stopped as you observed how the “delivered” changed to “read”, indicating that he had read your message

i love you.

are you for real???? i’m coming to you now. where are you?

you stare at your phone, unable to comprehend what had happened in the past few minutes, as jisung slowly pries your phone from you

he types your whereabouts, as you continue to space out, heart beating at an unusual pace as you still try to process what you just did

“i’m going to leave now okay? just know that i am really proud of what you did,,,, and don’t worry too much, everything will be fine,”

with this, jisung leaves, leaving you to sit there alone, just wondering how things were going to be between you and hyunjin now

were y’all going to stop being friends??

or maybe you could just completely ignore what had happened and go back to being how y’all used to be,,,,

as you were in your own world, you fail to hear the footsteps that stopped right behind you

you hear someone take a seat beside you and whip your head to the side, almost regretting it immediately

“so,,, your messages,,,,”

and before you could do anything else, words just spill from you mouth with no filter whatsover

“i’m so sorry hyunjin, i really am,,, i know that we’ve been really really close friends and i might have just ruined what we had. i understand if you don’t wanna be friends anymore but i guess i hope we could just forget this and move on? i mean, that’s totally your choice because-”

and you’re cut off, just like that

no warning

nothing

zilch

nada

and the only thing that stopped you from continuing your rant was the fact that there a pair of lips on yours

hyunjin’s ones to be exact

whAT

DID WE EXPECT THIS???

yes, yes we did

but you certainly got the answer to your worries by that one action

as y’all break apart, you stare at him still dazed by the kiss, as he smiles lovingly at you

“i was so afraid that you were just pranking me,,, because if you had been, i would’ve been so heartbroken cause i really got my hopes really high,,, like, super high,, i guess i never replied you tho,,,, i love you too y/n. more than you can imagine.”

and you just snap out of it and do something you always do when you had to cope with intense situation

you laughed

you laughed and laughed and laughed

were you laughing at the fact that the person you loved, loved you back?

were you laughing at the fact that jisung was right for once?

or were you laughing at the fact that you were being a dumbass all this while when you could’ve manned up sooner?

you never found out

but what you did find out, is that being in love was amazing

especially when the person you were in love with was hwang hyunjin

so since then, you’ve been having a pretty frickin amazing life

good grades, hot boyfriend, the whole package

the news that you both were dating spread like wildfire

half of them were surprised, the other half jealous

but people were mostly surprised bcs of the fact that they thought you and him were already dating,,,

like you both were glued to each other every other day

so with that, everyone slowly got accustomed to the fact the school’s jock was once again taken

your relationship with hyunjin didn’t actually change that much,,, other than the fact that y’all kissed and did all the mushy shit

and also omg imagine

you going for his soccer games, sporting his extra jersey that had “hwang” on the back of it, together with the number he was playing

and also him giving you flying kisses right before the starting whistle blows

and running over to you to give you a proper kiss once the final whistle had been blown, win or lose

and you couldn’t have been happier

∞ end ∞

#skzwritersnet #sk-writersnet #district9net #stray kids #stray kids imagines #stray kids scenarios #hwang hyunjin imagines #hwang hyunjin scenarios #hwang hyunjin #dee scribbles

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juminsmysticmc · 7 years ago

Text

Mc being abused in her past by the professor but nobody believed her

PLEASE BE ALERT! IT´S NOT GOOD BUT STILL WITH ANGST! IF YOU ARE SENSITIVE ABOUT ABUSE DON´T READ IT!

Jumin

He wondered everytime why you got so afraid when someone laughed

Everytime you heard a group laughing you would shriek and close your ears

Jumin didn't think it was annoying

But he was curious why you were so afraid

But you didn't told him so he couldn't do anything

But one day at work, you were with him and Jaehee, it got really bad

You got so paranoid that you forgot to breath

He was angry that he didn't knew what was wrong

When everything became quiet he forced you to tell him

,,You can't take everything on your own! God tell me! How can I help you if I don't know what's wrong?!''

You cried and closed your ears with your hands.

You didn't want to hear it.

No shouts, no laughs, nothing.

You lived in pain but kept on smiling.

But this was over now.

Since you had someone who could probably believe in you

But, would he believe you?

You cried so hard and Jumin could only regreted his harsh words.

,,Will you believe me? Will you still stay at my side? Will you help me out, even if I tell you, that my high school teacher abused me?"

Jumin was shocked and so was Jaehee but they just kept it quiet.

,,Will you believe me, if I tell you, that I told a lot of lies in the past because everyone liked me they way I was? Would you believe me, if I tell you, that my teacher abused me?

That he asked me, to do bad things after school?! Would you still believe me, if I tell you, that he told me bad things and none believed me?

Would you still love me, if I tell you, that he told me bad things while my classmates laughed?!

That he gave me bad grades even if I was right?

My mom, my dad, my brother, my friends... THEY ALL JUST LAUGHED AT MY FACE BECAUSE THEY THOUGHT I WOULD LIE.

But none cared that I was afraid of other laughs.

But none cared that I cried until late in the night.

None cared that I hated this tiny room where he abused me.

None believed me.

But still.

Would you believe someone who could only lie to be accepted, ending up being hated because of the truth?"

Jumin took a huge breath and smiled.

Of course he would believe his wife.

Zen

You were his beautiful princess.

Your smile was the biggest and brightest smile he ever saw.

And he loved your smile.

He was happy that his manager was his girlfriend.

But he was curious of your swings of mood.

And, why would you go away, everytime something got wrong in the studio?

Once, the director shouted really loud and clapped on the table so violent.

You disappeared and Zen followed you.

You entered his changing room

he could see how you sat in front of the mirror

You took off your T-Shirt and sat there in underwear.

He could see a lot of scars

You laughed in the mirror

Telling you the same things while you were crying

,,None believes you. None likes you.

None will help you.

The persons with the biggest smile got hurt the most.

Keep smiling. Keep...." and you were crying while you were touching the scars.

Zen couldn't understand why you were so injured but he got really afraid.

,,Please don't shout...don't shout... DON'T SHOUT MR (NAME), DON'T I WILL BE A NICE GIRL" you cried.

thinking you were alone

But Zen came out asking why you were so strange.

He really thought you noticed him

But you looked in his eyes.

You saw his despair, the scared look you saw in your own eyes.

You told him.

You told him that your professor would always hurt you with scissors, with his hands and the school tools.

Why?

You looked like his wife who went out with another man.

So you had to get punished.

You didn't deserve happiness.

He always told you, you had to live in despair.

When you told your friends they all kept distance from you.

You were alone.

Maybe he was right.

You didn't deserve happiness.

So you didn't told your parents.

Zen hugged you.

He wanted to give you happiness.

You cried and cried.

The darkness followed you but with Zen at your side there could be a little bit hope left

Yoosung

You were married since five years.

And you looked happy.

But everytime you got in a full place, you looked scared, snapping for breath.

You hated the RFA parties with so much people.

And it got even worser when you heard, that one guest was married to a math professor.

You just begun to cry and run away.

The RFA was shocked but not angry.

Yoosung wanted to hug you but you rejected him.

He was really sad but then he looked at your trembling body

You mumbled weird things like ,,Hai Anata." Or ,,Forgive me master"

it was really strange.

,,I know. None will believe me. None will help me out."

That's when Yoosung just hugged you.

Ofc he knew, you shouted things like "not there, not here, not you!"

And that was the baddest feeling he ever had.

The feeling of realizing that his wife got raped.

You calmed after an hour and told him.

You told him that your professor raped you and gave you bad grades.

That your dad was drinking alcohol and wouldn't believe you and that other teachers hadn't got time for "lies like that"

But Yoosung believed you

And he promised you that you would never go near a professor or a crowded place.

Jaehee

The nights were the scariest for Jaehee.

She would be afraid of sleep since you moved too much while sleeping.

You even talked while sleeping.

She was annoyed a little bit.

Who would not.

She bought a coffee shop with a girl who couldn't sleep.

One night, maybe the scariest for Jaehee, you even walked.

You went in the kitchen and talked something about family and death Jaehee followed you.

She wanted to wake you up even if she knew that it was dangerous for a sleepwalking person.

But then you hold a knife in your hand.

She got so scared

but you woke up on your own and were crying like a baby.

She wanted to know the truth and so you told her.

The professor at your school was once a paramedic.

He did really awful things to you.

He hurted you and then he patched up.

He told you things like

,,Dummy, your good for nothing´´

making you cry and hate yourself for comforting you.

Jaehee didn´t know what to say

but she was sorry for all the annoying feelings she had.

She wanted to help you.

Saeyoung

The first night with you was awful for him

well, he mistook your nightmare with a pleasure moaning.

He woke up in the middle of the night because of your moaning.

he thought you were doing naughty things on your own and wanted to help you.

But then he realized that you were sleeping.

When he turned on the light he saw you wet sweat and noticed soon-

you were having a nightmare

three nights in the row and every night you were crying or moaning.

he really wanted to know what your nightmares were about.

One night, you even shouted.

You even woke up Saeran.

He was also thinking the two of you were doing naughty things.

When he came in to shut at you, he saw his brother sitting on the bed and you still sleeping

It was an awkward situation but the two boys soon realized you had also problems in the past.

The next day the boys talked with you for a long time.

You knew that you couldn´t sleep good but you hoped, that you wouldn´t wake up Saeran or Saeyoung

You had to tell them about your past.

About your teacher shouting at you, even if you were right, telling you to leave you behind even if your grades were the best and making you embarassed in front of the whole school.

Your Mother didn´t believe you but even if she would- she wasn´t interested

Saeyoung and Saeran believed you.

They had so much faith in you

so they asked Jumin for help and destroyed the life of the man, who destroyed your life.

You never knew and you didn´t need to know.

You just had to get better

but this was maybe impossible.

Saeran

He was shocked you panicked so easily and you even had pain in the stomach.

but he never asked you.

everyone had secrets so if you didn´t wanted to tell him, he couldn´t force you

but he was worried for you.

You seemed to have a trauma.

every time you saw something, you seemed to get flashbacks and after that you seemed to be in pain

he didn´t wanted you to be in pain he thought, you had a trauma because of the things with the RFA

but, it had nothing to do with the RFA

so it had to be something in your past

he looked through your past with his computer and saw, that you were really good in school

but really bad in behave

but, you seemed to be fine.

so he looked more and more

until he found out, that your professor abused you

when he asked you, you told him, that you had no friends and that he hated you because you weren´t korean

telling bad things at you like ,,slut, bitch, dummy, pork..´´

he even threw things like keys at you

and very often he would write something about you on the blackboard

about you being bad in school.

but your mother didn´t believe you after she talked with other teacher or classmates.

so she stopped believing you

and your friends just didn´t tell anything.

Saeran was so angry.

but your professor died a long time ago.

Saeran knew what you felt like.

You weren´t alone

he was there for you.

When you finally could go to your own apartent, you never let V in

you never kissed him,

you never told him you liked him or loved him.

he thought you were really shy.

but you seemed to be really afraid

like, a half blind blue haired man could do something to you.

but you seemed to have nobody, not a friend, not a best friend, no family

but it even looked like you never let someone in your heart.

you couldn´t trust anybody

V wanted to know why.

was it something in your past?

Or had it to do with the RFA?

He was puzzled but still wanted to know something.

he decided to ask you.

After distract him from the topic a few times,

he finally got you to tell him

and he wished he would never asked about that.

he was feeling so bad.

literally it was his fault for you feeling bad.

you were in love with him again

and you somehow were scared again.

you once loved your professor

and he knew that

but still he abused you and took advantage of it.

Nobody believed you.

they all knew you were in love with him so they thought you wanted to take revenge

and soon you were left behind without anybody

so that´s why you can´t tell others that you love them

that´s why you can´t trust anybody anymore

but ofc V wasn´t so like the others.

He won your trust and never took advantage of it.

he helped you.

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katieiscunning · 7 years ago

Text

MTMTE #10: Sympathy for the Prowl????

Stupid carbots making me feel things.

We open with a page summarising the political and actual situation in pre-war Cybertron, and as this arc is far more complicated than any silly car robot comic has a right to be (stupid people making a stupid series so good that I am eager to read about car robots) I will too.

Proteus - due to become the next Prime- is apparently an alright dude, stating that he won’t blame the Decepticons for the senator’s murder until it’s been proven. He’ll even give them official political status if 1000 of them come forward and register. I think we can trust him! The last Prime, Nominus is getting a full state funeral. The Decepticons continue to be rightly angry about everything. I like this. It’s simple, and it gets the setting summarised fast in a very on the ground way. It is noir-y, and it tells us just how messed up Cybertron is.

BUT POLITICAL COMPLEXITY TIME IS OVER NOW BECAUSE CHROMEDOME HAS A CROOK TO CHASE. It’s over pretty fast because Domey once again uses his power of sarcastic detective narration.

He goes back to find Prowl analysing what went down- this is one of Prowl’s abilities: he can look at somewhere and tell what happened there. Another power is illustrating why he is a very bad boyfriend but then being oddly endearing.

I don’t know guys. Prowl contains multitudes I guess.

The building’s Warden turns out to be Red Alert, which in anything that wasn’t this would be a stupid, unlikely coincidence. But when you have a limited and relatively small population of near-immortal beings it would actually be sort of weird if you weren’t constantly Forrest Gumping into people you know. He reveals that the guy who lived there until the whole ‘thrown from the window’ thing was an ex-senator, Momus, as well as a secret Decepticon. Prowl works out that there was a second attacker- likely still there- and hearing that he’s been discovered the robot flees, crying ‘Death to the Decepticons!’ as he goes. I wonder what his motivations are?

But before we can chase him we head back to the future, where Rodimus is conducting his own investigation.

I mean, I say investigation. He’s pretty much certain that Cyclonus is the one who attacked Red Alert- and yes, just attacked. They found his head, so it’s all fine. Robots are pretty tough.

Of course, what Rodimus thinks, Drift is willing to sign his soul away for. God, he needs some self respect. Look at him trying to be all scary as he bad-cops Cyclonus.

It’s an… un-smart move.

Anyway, Cyclonus makes a pretty solid argument - that if he wanted to kill Red Alert, he’d be dead - and a moment later First Aid confirms that whoever it was, it wasn’t him. The mystery continues.

Back in flashback land, Prowl, Red Alert and Chromedome are under fire from the second attacker and dammit Prowl manages to be endearing again. Ugh, I feel dirty.

Anyway, they’re rescued by-

Orion tells the others that the first murdered senator was also a Decepticon which gives them a pretty solid reason for their deaths, and god dammit Prowl I actually feel sorry for you now and I have no idea what to do with that.

The second attacker dies on the ground- as it turns out he was in someone else’s body (via the Relinquishment Clinics from last week) and his spark couldn’t take the strain. That’s bad, since it means they can’t find out who he was working with. But Orion gets a new lead - he’s needed in the Luna 2 Prison Camp. A prisoner he knows - some dude called Whirl - wants to speak to him.

Whirl interrupts, happy that they’re finally getting to him, and takes the chance to make fun of Rewind’s insecurity while he’s at it.

So Whirl’s locked up for police brutality. As I’ve mentioned before, he was coerced into joining the Cybertronian police force, then told to beat up a then non-violent Megatron while he was imprisoned. Orion stopped him in time to save Megs (though not in time to stop him embracing the knowledge that violence can be used to enforce social change), and now, hated by everyone, Whirl has been having a bad time in prison. That’s not what he wants to tell Orion though: as it turns out his still-unnamed Senator friend is in danger from the Senate, and possibly worse, a giant bomb is about to go off somewhere on Cybertron. And why is Whirl sharing this?

Jesus Christ this is just the sympathy for everyone issue, huh?

Orion sends Ratchet and his BFF Roller round to pic up the Senator from the school he runs- a place where he takes in Cybertronians with weird abiites that would normally result in their ostracization at best. Skids is among them, but we’ll meet the rest later.

Chromedome and Prowl visit a Relinquishment Clinic to investigate, and find a Decepticon rally in full swing outside. But their conversation is the real star here because god damn it Prowl.

Jesus I have to like the guy now. I actually have to like him.

At least Rewind is there to share my annoyance.

Inside, they meet a charming character called Trepan, a name which- in a world where sticking needles into brains is pretty common- just screams goodie. They manage to sneak in further and find a hidden lab, filled with creepy ass brain operations. Chromedome suggests that this could be the mysterious ‘Institute’, a place where out-of-line Cybertronians are sent to be brainwashed back onto the straight and narrow. This is called ‘Shadowplay’, and as that’s the title of the arc I’m sure it won’t be important again.

They escape after stealing some data and make it back to the Senator’s Academy. The Senator, reading the data, recognises it as the registered Decepticon names. Realising that the next large gathering will be at Nominus’ funeral, Orion guesses the Senate’s devious scheme: to blow up a fake Matrix during the ceremony, blame it on the Decepticons and use it as an excuse to start rounding them up. The only solution??

Look at the Senator back there grinning. That is a robot in love. Roller’s baffled excitement is pretty charming too.

This is a high speed issue, and, as a story like that should be, it’s fun in all directions. It’s funny, and it gets everything where it needs to be for next week’s conclusion. As middle acts go, it’s awesome. But what stands out to me here is the tragedy of the characters.

Prowl’s the standout, if only because his past portrayal has cast him as such an ass. It’s even more poignant that the guy he used to be wasn’t perfect- that he had all of the same problems he does later, just at a less extreme level- than it would have been if he were a saint. Past Prowl, while he’s still basically awful, was sweet hearted and optimistic, and he really loved Chromedome. And part of Chromedome misses him- if he didn’t he wouldn’t bother to remember his kinder moments. The war ruined who he was, and he can’t be the person he was ever again.

And in case you needed more, Whirl summaries all the damage of trauma in that one awful image of him holding his claws together. Thank god next week’s going to be a fun heist, right? Right?

I’ve been bad at talking about art, which is so unfair because artists are already underappreciated in comics and I don’t want to contribute to that. But I’m also artistically illiterate and I know that I sound repetitive when I say how awesome everything looks every time. That all said, Milne’s work in pre-war Cybertron is beautiful. Its unearthly and weird and moody and makes it almost seem like these ridiculous robots could really live there.

NEXT TIME: CARS DO MISSION IMPOSSIBLE!

You can get on this fun train by buying the comics over here: https://www.comixology.co.uk/Transformers-More-Than-Meets-the-Eye-2011/comics-series/7279?ref=c2VhcmNoL2luZGV4L2Rlc2t0b3Avc2xpZGVyTGlzdC90b3BSZXN1bHRzU2xpZGVy

Written by James Roberts, Art by Alex Milne, published by IDW.

#transformers review #mtmte reviews

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makeste · 6 years ago

Text

BnHA Chapter 194: Dream Analysis and Joint Battle Training

Previously on BnHA: Deku had a freaky dream! All the previous wielders of OFA were there (although we couldn’t see all of them clearly), and there was an epic flashback starring the first one, All For One’s Brother. He spent most of the flashback screaming at All for One to stop toying with people and using them for his own purposes. AFO spent most of the flashback ignoring his brother completely and being a bad bitch. He built an army of loyal followers who eventually grew bold enough to start taking violent and even lethal action against AFO’s enemies. Then one day he came to see his little bro again, and they talked about an old comic they read as children. AFO was inspired by the villain in the story, but his bro identified with the story’s hero, who never gave up in spite of the struggle, until he finally won and saved everyone. AFO was all “well that’s just a story,” which was some great fucking irony right there, and then he bestowed his brother with a quirk, thus unknowingly sealing his own doom. OFA Primo then turned to Deku and started talking to him, telling him there was more he wanted to show him but that this was all he could manage right now. But he told Deku “you are not alone.” And then Deku woke himself up by activating some sort of new power in his hand, inadvertently destroying half of his fucking room in the process.

Today on BnHA: Deku tells All Might about the dream and about how OFA Primo spoke to him. All Might says he’s seen the “Vestiges” of One for All in the past, but that they’d never communicated with him. Shimura had told him about that phenomenon though. Apparently the wills of the past OFA wielders are contained within the quirk as part of its power. But All Might has no clue regarding the explosion that took place when Deku woke up, and he tells Deku that for now, they’ll search for the answers together. As Deku heads off to his afternoon training session, he runs into Aizawa and Shinsou in the hall. We then cut to the industrial training ground area, where class 1-A shows off their various cold weather gear, including Katsuki, who’s got almost a whole new look going on and I love it and never want him to go back tbh. Class 1-B then joins them, and we learn that today’s class will be a joint training exercise. Oh, and there’s going to be a special guest -- Shinsou, who is still trying to transfer into the hero department. And he’s also sporting a familiar-looking capture scarf around his neck.

(As always, all comments not marked with an ETA are my mostly-unspoiled reactions from my first readthrough of this chapter. I’ve read up through chapter 213 now, so any ETAs will reflect that.)

so it’s the middle of the night still, and Deku is out running because he couldn’t fall back asleep

ahhhhh look at his cool winter gym uniform!

incidentally, the title of this chapter is “Wintery Sky! U.A. High!” and yesssss we’re finally getting into winter now! THAT MEANS A CERTAIN SOMEONE SHOULD BE GETTING HIS NEW COSTUME ANY DAY NOW, I THINK. I CAN’T WAIT AHHHHHH

and a brief flashback now of Aoyama giving Deku some cheese to make him feel better after his episode

true friendship right here

and now Deku’s continuing to run, and thinking that even though it was a dream, he remembers it as clear as day

that’s because it wasn’t just a dream, Deku. those are memories, obviously. memories which are now a part of you bud

it looks like his hand’s back to normal. I wonder what quirk it was that he activated?

also is he allowed to be out at night like this? you trying to get yourself put under house arrest again or what?

YOOOOOOOOOO

THIS IS THE COOLEST FUCKING SHIT OH MY GODDDD

though it’s looking more like androgynous trenchcoat dude is indeed just a dude. well, whatever!

at least we finally get to see the First’s face! yessss I’m so hyped this is the coolest fucking thing ever

and now we’re cutting to U.A. the next morning!

oh my god

ALL MIGHT YOU GOT SOME ‘SPLAININ’ TO DO

LOOK AT DEKU’S ANNOYED FACE

YOU KNOW HE FUCKING DID, DEKU. WHAT ELSE HAS THIS ASSHOLE BEEN HIDING FROM YOU. HE NEVER TELLS HIM SHIT

still trying to figure out exactly how old All Might was when he received OFA. we know Shimura died before his last year of high school. and he seems to have met her when in middle school. I guess he most likely received it around the same age as Deku but just had a better handle on controlling the strength part of it as he explained in the previous arc

so Deku’s explaining that he watched until the point where the First received OFA, and then after that the dude started talking directly to him

...does Deku actually think that All Might omitted this by accident? does he not realize All Might was deliberately untruthful?

...

...is this true or not. damn it

I’m inclined to think no, because All Might has a history of Not Telling Deku Things

anyways we’re flashing back to when Shimura told him about this

ah, so is this the explanation for why a power-stockpiling quirk would also stockpile memories, and even what appear to be souls? you’re saying it’s his predecessors’ wills?

(ETA: somewhat disturbing but also intriguing thought that just occurred to me. we know that AFO’s quirk and OFA’s quirk are related. they’re more or less opposites of each other, but they both grew out of the same bloodline. so if OFA can pass along the previous users’ wills, does it then stand to reason that AFO can do the same thing? when AFO imparts a new quirk on someone, is he also imparting a little bit of the previous quirk owner’s will? could that be one of the reasons why the process often overloaded people’s minds and turned them into “puppets”? and also, if this is the case, does that mean there’s actually a 10th person’s will hidden somewhere within OFA? whoever it was who originally owned the power-stockpiling quirk in the first place?

one last thought -- if this is the case, wouldn’t it be great if this is part of what leads to AFO’s eventual downfall? all the quirks he’s stolen over the years betray him, with their owners’ wills working to battle against him in his own mind. kinda makes me wonder whether Horikoshi has ever read FMA.)

and in fact All Might did experience this when he fought All for One for the last time, now that I think of it. pretty sure I even made note of it at the time. Shimura was there telling him to remember his origin. although by that point he’d already given up OFA to Deku, so it’s hard to say for sure. but I’m still choosing to believe it really was her, offering him her strength and support when he needed it the most

always with the not saying things. why do I stan this frustrating man so badly omg

the more we see of All Might, the more I recall what he said to Endeavor about having a tendency to push everyone away from him. and it seems like even with Deku, his beloved protege whom he loves and supports with all his heart and is devoted to, there is still some part of him that he has closed off there. either to protect him, or just out of habit by this point. he’s just used to holding everything in and never confiding in anyone. and damn it but why are all of my faves like this

now Deku’s snapping him out of his reverie and All Might’s like “oh yeah wait a sec”

whoa, but it seems like not even he understands what happened there?

so he doesn’t know about the whole passing along the quirks thing? or is he keeping it secret? tbh I cannot think of a single reason why he would keep that knowledge from him if he did know, because it could potentially be super dangerous. and obviously All Might only ever had the one quirk himself. so I’m thinking now that this is indeed something that only Deku has awakened thus far, which is super interesting

(ETA: so the verdict appears to be in, and it seems he didn’t know. also, yet again here is another mention of that quirk singularity shit. you sure have awakened something dangerous my little green son.)

damn it All Might

he seems so genuine... I feel like he really is telling him the truth for the most part. or maybe he knew it was a possibility but he never experienced it much himself and so he figured it would be the same for Deku

so what I’m taking from this then is that while All Might was a natural when it came to figuring out the physical side of OFA, maybe Deku’s more naturally gifted when it comes to the spiritual side? I’m starting to think of it in Avatar: The Last Airbender terms now lol. All Might was more of a Korra while Deku is an Aang

(ETA: and you know, I think that analogy can even be stretched to their respective coming-of-age processes as well. like Korra, All Might went through the normal training process and was given time to master his power. but Deku is more like Aang in that he hasn’t had that same benefit of being able to learn all of this gradually. like Aang, he’s kind of been thrust right into the thick of things before he was fully prepared for it, and a lot of his growth has been of the trial by fire variety.

and this is only going to get worse from here, because the League of Villains is not going to wait until little All Might Jr. is all grown up before making their move. Deku is going to be put to the test soon, and he won’t be ready for it, and he’ll have to do it anyway because the fate of the world may depend on it. I know the whole SIXQUIRKS thing potentially looks like a massively overpowered upgrade at first glance, but the thing is that he’s still a kid, and he has no idea how to use this shit. look at how much he’s struggled learning how to use just one quirk without killing himself. now throw in six new ones with no training manual. and on top of that they’ve all been cranked up to 11 thanks to that quirk singularity(TM) shit. basically it’s going to be a hot fucking mess that will probably get him into as much trouble as it helps get him out of. he’s still going to be figuring out what percentages he can safely use, and he’ll be forced to put his Big Hero Brain to the test in new and fascinating ways as he comes up with strategies to use whatever he does manage to figure out.

and meanwhile he’ll be up against Tomura and the League and -- eventually -- AFO himself. much like Aang inevitably had to take on Ozai even though he was only 12 years old and his training wasn’t complete. I’m anticipating something similar for Deku in the endgame here, and I think it’s going to be an amazing ride and I can’t wait.)

so now Deku is smiling and he says he’ll do his best

oh!

;_;

;_______;

(1) THIS IS THE PUREST INTERACTION THAT’S EVER GRACED THIS MANGA’S PAGES, and (2) HELL YEAH SHE FUCKING WAS

(ETA: this makes me so fucking sad now because I’m sure All Might would give anything to be able to see and talk to Shimura again one last time. if Horikoshi does kill him off I hope he gets to see her first.)

so now they’re heading out and All Might’s escorting Deku to his next class and says he’s gonna watch and that it seems like it’ll be fun

and they’re running into Aizawa who’s stepping out into the hall himself

OH SHIT

WAS HE JUST MEETING WITH SHINSOU??

okay but I’m pretty sure Shinsou hasn’t been accepted into the hero program yet? because truthfully this is another thing I’m pretty sure I’ve been spoiled for, though that was kind of an inevitable development so to me it’s not a huge spoiler. but anyways pretty sure that won’t happen until around chapter 216 though so this meeting can’t have been about that

given that this is not the first time we’ve seen these two together, I think we can assume that Aizawa has been mentoring him off and on? I keep seeing Shinsou included as one of Aizawa’s kids in fanfics (maybe once I finish this arc I can finally read some of those), so I’m guessing it’s something like that. he’s so addicted to being a good dad that he goes out of his way to find even more kids to adopt in his free time. jesus christ

huh, Shinsou seems much happier than he was the last time we saw him!

... [hair ruffles]

LOL AIZAWA

THIS CLOSE-UP STARTLED THE SHIT OUT OF ME LMAO

and now we’re cutting to one of the training grounds! I think this is the one where they had that race that one time right after the Hero Killer arc. but I forget the name of it though

AHHHHHHH

WINTER CLOTHES

why the fuck can’t Momo wear a cape all the time!?

Tsuyu’s winter gear seems less extreme than I thought and I’m a bit surprised! but I guess it must be warmer than it looks

all Mina did was add a fur collar. girl you are going to freeze your ass off

no comment on Hagakure but you all know what I think already lol

AND WHERE IS MY SON WHO I KNOW FOR A FACT HAS A COMPLETELY REVAMPED WINTER OUTFIT WHICH I’M ABOUT TO BE LIVING FOR

AHHHHH YESSSSSS

COME AND FANGIRL WITH ME DEKU!

OH MY GOD YES!!!!!

IT’S SO MUCH BETTER THAN HIS NORMAL COSTUME. 10,000x BETTER!! THE SLEEVES AND THE COLLAR COMPLETELY CHANGE THE LOOK. THE COLLAR ESPECIALLY, IT MAKES IT SO THE METAL COLLAR NO LONGER LOOKS SO WEIRD. I’M SORRY BUT THE DEEP V-NECK AND THE BARE SHOULDERS WERE JUST ODD

like, I think his normal costume was designed more with his future image of himself in mind, and doesn’t necessarily work as well with a teenage boy who is still growing and still has a relatively lean frame. he’s got a lot of muscle, yeah, but his costume is the sort of thing that would look more natural on someone with an Endeavor or Muscle Might type of build. his shoulders are not broad enough yet for it to really look natural

(ETA: and you know what, come to think of it I don’t think he’s ever gonna bulk up as much as either of them, because the more muscle he’s got, the more difficult it’s going to be for him to propel himself with his quirk. he’s gotta strike a balance there. so in conclusion Katsuki your summer costume needs a redesign!)

so the collar really helps here because it hides his whole neck which helps a lot with that awkwardness lol

anyway I’ll stop analyzing Kacchan’s costume now you guys but please rest assured that I fucking love it and this shit was worth the wait

(ETA: oh my god and now that Awase’s gone and busted up his gauntlets too, is it too much to hope he might redesign those to be a bit less bulky as well? dare to dream!? Horikoshi are you listening??)

and now I’ll let Deku have his own fangirl moment

you guys. I can’t oh my god I fucking can’t

but just. he’s so excited. and more importantly he’s interacting naturally with Kacchan without the slightest bit of uncertainty or hesitation or awkwardness, even though Kacchan’s still being a grumpy grump

and really Kacchan is behaving no differently than he would toward any other classmate. there’s no actual heat there, just normal Kacchan banter

in fact, if you look a little closer at this interaction, Katsuki actually invited him to talk. he saw Deku staring at him, and rather than telling him to fuck off and go bother someone else, he actually gave him express permission to start geeking out. (and then got fucking embarrassed by it oh my god)

in other words, they are interacting like normal classmates with none of the awkwardness and unease and hostility that was there before, and it’s fucking amazing. this is all I’ve wanted this entire time you guys oh my god

(ETA: seeing Bakugou and Deku finally interact again in this arc has given me so much joy. this is easily one of my favorite arcs just for that alone)

so now Ojiro’s coming up to Deku and saying that his suit is the one that’s had the most dramatic change lol. and that he even got new gloves recently

oh for fuck’s sake lol

okay at this point I totally support the Dekacho if that’s what they want to do. but why do they have to keep showing it by having Ochako get jealous of every third person Deku interacts with??

(or rather, every third person with boobs. because if this was a bit more realistic and she was paying just a bit more attention, the person she ought to be the most jealous of right now is Kacchan lol)

ohhhhhhh SNAP

I know it would end up just getting shredded, but Kiri might want to think about getting some sort of winterized non-shirtless version of his own costume too regardless. maybe just get something made from an inexpensive and easily replaceable material

anyway! holy shit, I forgot all about this, but I knew there was something with class B coming up soon because the manga was in the middle of this arc back when I first started reading it. and so this was what everyone was talking about

Monoma is surprisingly flexible

where’s Kendou? and that Pony girl?

holy shit Monoma

“my research”

son, I want details on your sample sizing and the way the question was phrased. I’m not sure if this holds up

lol and even then they only won by 2 votes

did you vote in your own questionnaire Monoma

lmao Aizawa is choking him out with his capture weapon oh shit

“shut up” oh damn. you do not insult class A in this man’s presence

so now Vlad is saying they’re going to have a special guest! and Aizawa’s telling them not to embarrass themselves

is it Shinsou. again, this guess is based solely on what I can recall of the fandom atmosphere when I first started reading the series and before I realized that I should blacklist spoilers

(ETA: okay so rereading this recap, I realize it seems like I’ve been spoiled for practically every damn thing in this arc, and I just wanted to make a quick note that this isn’t actually the case lol. I knew some basic stuff about the Joint Training arc, but I had no idea what the battles would be like, who was gonna win, or that Deku’s new upgrade would come into play the way that it did. basically I knew about SIXQUIRKS (but with no context), Kacchan’s costume, Shinsou’s presence (and what I assume is his successful bid to join the hero course), and that it would be 1-A vs 1-B. so basically most of this arc has still been a ride and I’ve really enjoyed it.)

I love that Baku, Kami, and Tetsu are all demonstrating their own unique ways of how they would befriend the special guest

AHHHH YEP IT’S HIM

THE WEIRD MASK THING OH MY GOD

I HAVE WONDERED ABOUT THIS FOR SO LONG YOU GUYS. HE WAS WEARING IT IN SO MANY FANARTS AND I WAS LIKE WTF IS THAT

and is that an Aizawa-style capture weapon?? oh ho?!

you guys, this chapter was only 13 pages long. and it was so good. that’s not fair, you deserve more pages BnHA. why is the page count so damn inconsistent; I’m already dreading once I’m caught up and I never know what to expect each week

but for now I still get to binge. finally my procrastination pays off. thanks to my efforts, I have another 22 chapters to read instead of like 4 or 5 lol. there’s a lesson in that, kids. maybe. or probably not actually lol

okay guys, and unfortunately I have to end this recap by announcing that I’m going to be taking another brief hiatus, most likely for about a week or so. there is some financial shit I need to get sorted before the end of the month, and I need to find myself another job too so I’m gonna need to do everything I can to focus on that.

I’ll try to catch up with some of my asks and the comments whenever I have a chance. and aside from that, I will hopefully see you guys in a week, hopefully under circumstances where I can breathe a little easier! be well, everyone.

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