#guess who got carried away

[digitalworid]

@glassesandpassion

"Miyako-senpai...!"

Hikari trotted up to her with a somewhat awkward smile.

It was surprisingly hard to get a moment alone with the girl known as Inoue Miyako. At first it was confusing. Now, with Miyako refusing to turn around and continuing away from her, it was clear that the avoidance was deliberate. The awkwardness grew by several magnitudes.

To begin with, she'd started this interaction because she wanted to apologize - for the chosen children monopolizing the computer lab which was technically Miyako's clubroom. But the level of hostility she felt from the older girl was much stronger than expected, enough to make her question how dearly important her club might've been to her, or if Hikari had somehow personally slighted her..

The girl felt only guilt and regret, not reciprocating even an ounce of that animosity. When someone glared at her, Hikari only thought to apologize for hurting them. And well, she'd already prepared an apology to begin with.

"Senpai, I got you a present!"

With that, the surprise was ruined, but there would be no surprise if Miyako wouldn't give her the time of day.

Hikari gently held the gift forward. It was the new peripheral Miyako had wanted for her computer.

"I...I know it must be annoying for you that we keep hogging the computer lab...! And that you probably only tolerate it because Koushiro asks you to...So...I wanted to say thank you!"

She summoned all her energy and held the peripheral out further, smiling with a warmth that could cut through a blizzard.

"I asked Koushiro what you would want. Is it ok?"

[candycatstuffs]

Bro where r u GOING

[tomwambsgays]

who even gives a fuck about that paradox guy (I DO!!!!!!!!)

[danvillecheese]

floor after floor now we know what's in store 'nother floor then a floor then a floor

[mushtoons]

they're so in love, but like in a lesbian way

[oceanwithouthermoon]

ive been unhealthily fixated on kubosai for the past few weeks, i just have no idea how to put it into words. kuboyasu aren and saiki kusuo are in love btw

[gierosajie-art]

Blade except he didn't get any younger

[theflyingfeeling]

I think today I will cry about BC not making tour vlogs anymore 😔

[mistamishmash]

He's so. much. eerier after hearing his rationale for always smiling! It's like his entire personality is all about keeping the upper hand; who knows what he's actually thinking! (also the kicky feet in that scene aaa )

I'm obsessed now, send help (don't actually send help).

[okalanissolis]

⌖ ๋࣭ ⭑♚₊🗡 ๋࣭ ꜱᴇᴇ ɪꜰ ɪ ꜱᴛɪʟʟ ᴇxɪꜱᴛ

ᴀ ᴄᴇʟᴇꜱᴛɪᴀʟ ᴍᴀꜰɪᴀ ᴀ.ᴜ.

⌖ ๋࣭ ⭑♚₊🗡 ๋࣭ ᴏɴʟʏ ᴛᴏ ʙᴇ ᴋɪɴɢ ᴀɢᴀɪɴ ๋࣭🗡₊♚⭑ ๋࣭⌖

ʙᴇꜰᴏʀᴇ ᴛʜɪꜱ ᴘᴀꜱᴛ ɪꜱ ᴄᴏɴꜱɪᴅᴇʀᴇᴅ ᴘʀᴇᴠɪᴏᴜꜱ . . .

pt. ii | | series masterlist

focus on: muni sarang (diane meunier), choi san, & song deokhee word count: ~4.6k warnings: language, intermittent Lore Dumping™, mentions of violence, occasional graphic imagery, mentions of semi-main character death, Even More Gods Are Introduced and i think that is lovely

ᴛᴄᴅᴜ (ᴛᴏᴏ ᴄᴏɴᴠᴏʟᴜᴛᴇᴅ, ᴅɪᴅɴ'ᴛ ᴜɴᴅᴇʀꜱᴛᴀɴᴅ) ɪꜱ ɪɴᴄʟᴜᴅᴇᴅ ᴀᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ᴇɴᴅ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ !

⌖ ๋࣭ ⭑♚₊🗡 ๋࣭

lilo's mic: still knee deep in history but with more character introductions! i think at some point i might do a character recap page where i can offer some quick stats about the character's strengths and role, but idk if it would be helpful or just another way that i Procrastinate™ — let me know your thoughts !

⌖ ๋࣭ ⭑♚₊🗡 ๋࣭

⌜ my girl pinched my hips to see if i still exist / i think not ⌟

ꜱᴇᴇ ɪꜰ ɪ ꜱᴛɪʟʟ ᴇxɪꜱᴛ ๋࣭🗡₊♚⭑ ๋࣭⌖

— ʜᴀᴇᴍᴏ ᴘᴏʀᴛ was the main harbour of hoku city. home to the oldest and most robust working port on the island, the leeward side of the city was often referred to as haemopu side — an amalgamation of the names ʜᴀᴇᴍᴏꜱᴜ, the god of light and namesake of haemo port; and ᴋᴀᴘᴜ: sacred, taboo, forbidden. it was an unspoken rule that the shadows that danced on haemopu side were all puppets of that power known as serpens, and if you saw their strings or witnessed their plays, you would keep quiet, or your days were numbered — your gift from samgong through.

— still, haemo port was vast and wide, and business had to keep. it wasn't particularly bad luck to be a shop stationed near haemo port: there was so much foot traffic there, so many lives crossing back and forth, still hungry to survive; the best of money could be found for those who dared haemopu and kept their sight where it belonged — out of their eyes and in the open hands of hoku — or so the urban prayer went.

to the untrained eye, haemo port and ʜᴀᴇꜱᴜ ꜱᴛʀᴇᴇᴛ (the road that led to the devouring mouth of it) were the same as any other harbour on the island: only slightly more complicated than the sum of their intricately stacked, labyrinthine parts; bathed in light by enormous streetlamps so that when the sun went down, the majesty of ʀᴀᴋᴇᴛᴜ, night, couldn't be the refuge with which spirits attempted to thwart demons. but the fangs of some serpents still found their venomous purchase, and the storefronts along haesu street were often just that — fronts. legitimate stores, but facades for things still sinister, sliding their way through the waters, encircling your world, whole.

— on the furthest place inland haesu street ever went, there was an old business complex that had stood so long the original signage was lost and along with it, the precedent name. haesu complex, haemo park, haemo plaza, haemopu ether — old things have many names, and in legend, the many named becomes gods. inside the six story building, shops and establishments checked in and out like aimless souls in a graveyard: some lingered, some faded, some lasted the test of time.

on the first floor of haesu complex stood a taekwondo studio.

next to it, an indoor shooting range.

— we start this story with the taekwondo studio — the dojang, where mountains go to be edified and pupils to be fortified. eventually, we will open the door to see what is made with bullets and loose gunpowder, but for now, we take an abrupt turn right, through the third set of doors on the ground floor.

ᴄʜᴏɪ ᴊᴇᴏɴɢᴄʜᴇᴏʟ, father of one, was the owner of the modest studio: a stern man with a compassionate underbelly, a fourth dan black belt and the first sabeom — teacher — to enter the business complex. in the early days, when he was newly teaching and the world was more cruel and wanton than it ought, he orchestrated and ran illegal fights in the backmost part of his dojang. necessity begged it; life forced his unwavering hand. he'd never been proud, but he stood in his choices steadfast, and if you only saw the whole of him from an angle upturned and below, it seemed the might of him was his honor, unmarred.

dealing in entertainment and prestige, jeongcheol made ends meet in the evening to bring necessities and opportunity to his wife and newborn son at dawn, and by noon, instill dreams in the children that called him sabeom, center of their budding confidence.

when the serpens found out about his midnight habits, they paid a prompt price for front row tickets. by the end of the evening, jeongcheol's rental payments were moved to an account more reliable, and his small family moved out of the back office space and into one of the apartments that sat on the fifth and sixth floors. in exchange, the fights would persist on a grander scale at a more regular schedule ad infinitum, and the serpens would get their due cut.

jeongcheol always knew that this favor would amount to more debt, in the future, but for the security he was promised, in this blood oath? for the advantage and chance he could bestow upon his son? if it were shortsighted and misguided — this business deal with the serpent of the sky — then forgive him, but omniscience was simply the name of his city, not the power in his mind.

— and as san, his darling boy, grew from jeja to seonbae and in the course of time, sabeom all his own — a 3rd dan black belt and the pride of jeongcheol's world — the price of a demon's mercy became ever clearer, crystalizing into the certainty of future: law.

— it was in that very dojang, after all, that jeongcheol added to his myriad of students two young girls: diane and soyeon, dawn and dusk. jeja diane, a student named wisdom, took early to sparring with san, never minding that the younger always won, ever scheming to learn from a protégé's skill.

when san was chosen to be the demon heir's protector, it wasn't a matter of surprise or honor, simply that of providence.

and san was dignified by it, at any rate.

— only ever envisioning an inherited taekwondo studio for himself, a modest future but fulfilling dream, san's world expanded at the hands of diane — and his dojang, while still being the center of all his tethered existence, was a future now shared. ʏᴇᴏꜱᴀɴɢ, a pupil and friend, would aid him in handling the fights in the backmost part all of his father's hope and shame, an eternal rite, the sisyphean promise the choi family would never complete.

— jeongcheol had slowly backed away from the uglier side of his business as he aged into complacency and fatigue, and san had taken up the mantle in his place. now, sin would beget sin and shackled to the serpens would be yet another soul.

yeo was clear that he didn't mind.

already one foot into corruption, what was one more leg?

— he'd been cleaning up bruises from betting fights and broken limbs from shadow duels for years. he'd sewn flesh together the way others might knit tenderness and virtue, goodness and love.

every dojang needed it's medic. and every medic needed his charge.

— this was merit enough, for the both of them. respect for san in being trusted with something on which the whole of the underworld revolved; prestige for yeosang in the power inherent of a ruling head of a domain long standing, and in it's ancience, revered.

and watching them both, once the hand that led them deep into the mouth of something ravenous, still, stood choi jeongcheol, left wondering when security was no longer security — a promise no longer words of honor.

ꜱᴇᴇ ɪꜰ ɪ ꜱᴛɪʟʟ ᴇxɪꜱᴛ ๋࣭🗡₊♚⭑ ๋࣭⌖ ᴄᴏɴᴛ.

— diane had asked him to disappear, again.

— it was never an explicit demand, not since the first time, when she'd been following the tail of a banker and realized it would be so much easier to approach him if she were just a woman and not a daughter, held.

the nameless banker had decided he no longer wished to be a pigeon fed from an opened hand but a raven shot out of the sky, the shiny things he stole slipping from his traitor beak and landing back into the hand of the power that wielded the shotgun evermore.

— "you're intimidating, san." and it hadn't been her words or the command in her eye so much as it was a shift in her being — sarang to diane, veracity to something mutable and ever brewing. "i need to ensnare him..."

and he'd slipped away, taken her half-cue and was already gone.

— if the demon of hoku knew how often diane asked him to slip away, san was sure the mythic ernest would be none too pleased. it takes half a second for malignance to seize you in hoku city, and only a fraction of that if you're particularly inclined. of course, san was never far, and sarang more competent than what the wills of well meaning fathers offered her, but it would be more than just san's immortal soul on the line if something befell her and he were at all still breathing.

but it was always sarang's eyes that sought for the mercy of him, in the hairbreadth turn of her infinitesimal micro-expression, the graceful warp into something so unseen it were all but hidden to eyes that were any less devoted than his. and it was never a question because she would never need to ask; he'd learned to read the depths of her during sparring sessions in a dojang made of his youth and all his tomorrow. once, he'd crafted alongside her the armor that was so much a second skin, there were barely any joints or seams that one could rub the pad of their thumb along.

he'd seen her, then, and so he always knew.

— and that's how he found himself here, again. vanished from a spot he said he'd always defend: dematerialized, because bang chan had come to call.

— or so diane let the boy think. she'd found chan first, weeks before this encounter he'd name 'chance' or 'fate'. it had been simple to learn his routine and easier to insert herself in it. a coffee shop he always walked past. her new favorite window seat. a position so comfortable it looked as though it had always been.

and so they talked; this woman neither diane nor sarang, crafting a life by degrees of admission, chan warming to the gentle flame of her lies so that eventually, perhaps, knowledge of him would melt, secrets in him slip between them, in this place behind glass, warm between cups of untouched coffee.

not even san would hear the things chan would reveal in his adventurous, half-flirtatious speech. the thought often made the black belt's heart skid — his resolve stutter — but the bulk of him never wavered. he was a mountain and summits never crumbled; their might certainly never moved.

and that simple conflict of interest was something his friends never failed to entertain, and in mocking, enjoy.

— ᴅᴇᴏᴋʜᴇᴇ, twin sister of ᴡᴏᴏʏᴏᴜɴɢ and the one-minute younger half of their expert gunman team, was the one to first discover san's internal battle, having joked about his affection for diane from his sabeom days at the dojang. first, a true baseless joke, then overtime, a comfortable uncomfortability for san as it grew in truth and size.

san and his diane; no one loved their work the way san did; if san could marry duty he would.

— if he wasn't always looking at deokhee down the barrel of her sniper rifle, he just might knock some humility into her near prophetic teasing and her twin's identical shit eating grin.

but what was he to do when she was, in part, always right?

— sarang laughed at something chan said, and diane reached out to touch his shoulder with the soft of her hand. san turned his gaze, somehow half guilty, and that's when he saw the ephemera of a shadow he should not have.

what was kim hongjoong doing all the way here?

— first order of business would be to pull sarang from the place at which she stood. second would be to see just who the informant whisperer was that hongjoong strove to meet. third would be to evaluate just where that placed this puppet-master of secrets in the ever turbulent waters of organization and fealty — obeisance and axis.

— san was standing in front of her in the coffee shop before the shadow had ever truly dissipated — before any of the prior thoughts had fully formed in his mind.

sarang was good at smoothing her own confusion and concern, and playing the part of the innocent and sheltered. she huffed a convincing sigh and muttered something about a father that, overprotective, cut her time with this young officer short, and san caught the thrown word of 'cousin' like a fire-hot, thousand pound and ever-burning coal.

so that's how she'd explained his presence to chan.

— when she knew she'd almost been caught in the act by hongjoong, sarang swore.

— ʜᴏɴɢᴊᴏᴏɴɢ was a member of the serpens syndicate, and had, since the death of byeonghwa, been the watchful eye that extended past the confines of hoku city. loyal to the demon — a horkos made potent in the poignance of a blood debt — hongjoong was trusted... so far as anyone could be reliable, in this city that ate you whole, in these times that twisted the sinew of your very heart. at any rate, he was an informant of ernest, and while not one nearly as volatile as soyeon, still convoluted in intent.

he would be interested — perhaps even moreso curious than san, who daily burned all of his inquisition and steadfast resolve near through — as to what the demon heir was doing out here, in the pristine half of hoku city, talking with an officer that would just as soon as imprison her, if he knew even a fraction of the atrocities and moral impurities she ordered and aided, abetted and carried out.

— of course, even if hongjoong were to ask, sarang would never tell.

— not even with san, himself, did sarang reveal her true intentions in this business involving newly minted officer bang chan, a rookie at some few years post-graduation, an acquaintance turned friend from their first windfall encounter. not even with san, who knew the verity of sarang and had cherished her humanity from it's first appearance, did she let any information slip, a single hint pass.

he'd look into her eyes and unexpectedly, a wall was there — a guardedness of which he'd never known. she was no longer forthright about all possibilities with him. her thoughts were not so easily read, her want not so readily known.

— but that was not the worry that had the jaw with which to gnaw at san. not yet, anyway. not when hongjoong was surreptitiously on the same path as them, in a place where neither was colloquially seen (his informant hadn't been anyone of note, and so the consequence of his gained knowledge that day couldn't have been much, but one could never be complacent, if they wished to thrive).

— not when soyeon was unhappy, and sarang was the fool to not believe it.

— not when ernest, kingpin of terror, chessmaster of the underworld and ruler of hoku city, was mired in that slow changing-of-hands and place of gentle retreat where all of his speech was about the hand of iku, that terrify in the weight of dying.

the death of a demon was always a wounded threat that demanded first redress.

— it had started, in part, with the death of byeong-hwa. what was a king, after all, when his sworn shield had fallen? what menace was left in a monster, when his right hand was rotting, 6 feet below? the monsoon season would come, and a sickness would plague ernest along with the rain. jangma was the will of bada — the monsoon season the cursing volition of the sea. it was divine law, in some ways, that bada would claim her vengeance on hoku by taking it's epicenter and sweeping it's fortune and prosperity into her tumultuous seas, but it was still too soon, and thus, a secret well hidden.

no one in the serpens outside of the few remaining elders that sat at the demon's table, byeong-hwa's only daughter, his heir, and his warded nephew knew of the state of ernest's true mind.

the tides were swelling, the ground was saturating; bada was clambering toward the city, and at the time least affordable, the cracks between sarang and soyeon's friendship and intertwined lives deepened to a schism, with roots on either side, blooms torn apart, thorns tearing stem like gnashing teeth devouring flesh.

— when it rains, it pours, and in jangma, the storms were violent and unending; when bada raged, all the gods hovered close to witness her torrential price.

— "i'll tell ʏᴜɴʜᴏ." when they were haemopu side, diane turned to san, the silence between them broken, the confidence that always held in it's place perhaps worse for wear, if either of them had the resolve to mention it. "he'll have some clever way to spin hongjoong off our track - if he even saw anything in the first place."

— san nodded: just once, a jerky motion that left this world still buzzing, a dull, low whine.

yunho, sarang's cousin, was a close confidant of theirs. he moved into the serpens complex when he was 17. some commonplace tragedy left him with a want in the pit of his belly, and ever since the breaking down of all that tied sarang to soyeon and night to the dawining day, he had played the role of strategist and pragmatic advisor to his cousin — a safer, less volatile option for diane to pick, considering soyeon had always been her council, former.

— diplomats need their advisors; conmen require their marks. diane had a necessity for yunho and a plan for bang chan, and of course, they would be dealt with first. san was just a bodyguard, and in this way, he'd always known his place. but favor had a way of lead to want, and if he tended to that fire, it could always lick its way past his defenses and consume him whole.

— sarang blinked, and the change pulled san from his thoughts the way it always would. born to serve, her movements were what he'd been shaped to read. "i guess i'll tell hermes that you stood him up for yunho again, when it's time for your 13:00 date and you don't show."

— sarang laughed at that, warm and clear, almost chasing away the mist that had gathered all through the day day, at choice intervals and expected alleyways, thickening to the obscurity of fog. hermes was sarang's greyhound — the puppy she'd once found when younger but crowned wise. she never had taken him to the serpens complex, where he could be socialized with the dobermans she'd cared for most her life. instead, san took him in — an act of kindness she never stopped praising him for, never quite forthright about her reasoning but offering just enough to where he was satisfied.

"tell the twins when you see them i need to have a word."

ꜱᴇᴇ ɪꜰ ɪ ꜱᴛɪʟʟ ᴇxɪꜱᴛ ๋࣭🗡₊♚⭑ ๋࣭⌖ ᴄᴏɴᴛ.

— the shop never had a name: just a wordless sign in the shape of a generic gun scope: the focus for an eye you'd never look into as you took your final, heaving breath.

the shooting range, the eye, akita's place, the final shop on the ground floor of haemo plaza.

— every child who'd ever touched a gun — any soul who had enough of some small mercy they had the fire to protect it in this heaving city — had, at some point, entered the shooting range that sat haemopu side. established longer than jeongcheol's dojang, but having changed hands at around the same time, the shooting range was owned by a woman named ᴀᴋɪᴛᴀ — ex-military but dishonorably discharged, a mother of twins, and simultaneously warm yet cold: distant, but always manning her station.

it was only natural that, sharpshooter of her squad, akita had taught her children to shoot from the moment their hands had the strength to thumb a trigger.

eyes bred to look at you through the barrel of a firearm, hearts trained to see the liberation at the end of a mission and none of the causalities between. akita took her twins, cradle of her future, and gave them all the skills she broke skin and bruised knuckle to hone. they would never have to struggle, because they would be born with skilled gift. they would have the freedom of honor, because no training would mar their resolve.

— at first, the shooting range was only that which sat within the four walls in the ground floor of that complex. but slowly it expanded: the back property, accessed through the side entrance, narrow but deep, for single sessions with moving targets; the abandoned lot near the docks that akita had come into possession of by chance and was appraising for sale until her daughter showed an aptitude for long range and a spark to pursue it.

before long, what was modest expanded, and with an open mouth, devoured until engorged. the shooting range was well known. beloved. conspicuous. exactly the sort of place one would expect to find a doorway into the depths of a now illegal, though still legitimate syndicate, and therefore, a place where they could never be found. in reverence and renown, akita secured a safe haven for her children, a place where they could rest without the fear of being poached.

two doors down, the serpens paid a lease, but here, in the four walls she maintained, they could never sink in their teeth.

but fate was the domain of samgong, and mischief the trait of hoku, and here, in a city where the presence of gods were only so strong because they were so ceaselessly revered, the two powers often conspired to thwart the dreams of those who dared trying, and those whose complacency masqueraded as crown.

— wooyoung, the younger of the twins, was the impulsive to deokhee's passion. touched by caprice, drowning in compulsion — akita whispered into his ear as he grew up, tickling the soft skin hidden there, that he was born the same star sprite as hoku: before he became the omniscient eye, back when he was nameless, and his fervency was tried by the test of his father's tedium. in constant motion, neverending activity: "make no deals with iku, listen not to the obligation of horkos. you are a star, you belong to nothing but your own burn."

— deokhee, of course, was the fire burning her younger brother brighter, still, the combustion in his path that kept him from apathy, that saw all his visions through. ᴇɴᴊɪ, her mother would call her, the fire god incarnate. the ardor, the devotion, the commitment deepening to obsession, the dedication to wooyoung's whims, the conviction in her twin brother's mania. akita adored her daughter's fervency, fanned the flames of her exuberance never quenched. "shackle yourself to no one, my enji, you are not meant to be contained. never turn in on yourself; find a direction to incinerate: you are meant to set this world ablaze."

— avoiding flirtation with the fetters of the serpens was an unspoken request from akita, a desire never plainly raised. if she had been wiser — if she saw all too clearly the way serpents rise to challenge and adaptable, warp their venom to something honey-sweet — perhaps akita would have been more explicit in her demands, exact in all she envisioned and prayed to conspire. but it seemed an evident requirement, a moral anchored deep and in it's inevitability, made potent and strange.

"you are made for more," she had always told them.

but what can be done when your only framework of 'more' and 'greater' is the gunpowder residue of a superior weapon?

— once, akita built her children into crook of a firearm. ever after, they would know mostly it's bitter taste.

— none of this is to say, however, that the twins were a tragedy and their penchant something acrid, lead.

— deokhee was bottled excitement and effervescent joy in every task, and wooyoung the kind of gregarious that surrounded him with enthusiastic friendship and kindred brotherhood in every space he ventured to grace.

— and ᴛʜᴇ ʟᴜᴍɪɴᴀʀʏ was one of those third spaces that wooyoung and deokhee frequented most.

a serpens owned establishment: an electricity plant on the edge of town, with hidden rooms that opened into dark things that could only hide in the shadow of a generator as massive as that which fueled a never-blinking city. the luminary was one of the largest holes in the wall that the serpens ran. there, you could order any sin you could pay the ferryman to usher you to.

so long as you were in the right room, of course. the serpens liked to keep their messes orderly.

— the twins mostly frequented the rooms with standard bar fare. alcohol, dance, betting and games of chance, fisticuffs when more than just spirits hit you square in the jaw after one freedom too many. a common enough vice with a burgeoning sea of acquaintances and a militia of contacts and friends. it was here, in the pale of haemosu's light — all the glare they could harness but never reach — that the twin's sociability spun a web that was never meant to entrap them, but still made them the perfect players for a serpent game.

after all, it was in the luminary that the twins aligned themselves with the spine breaker bikers.

a group of criminals and delinquents that rode through ꜱᴋɪᴛ — the next door neighbor of hoku city, and the border at which the serpens let their spines halt. the serpens owned hoku, and every gang and group of would-be hopefuls that they'd long run out had taken up station in skit and brawled it out, there. a neighboring city was of no consequence to the serpens as long as they spilled blood on their rightful side of the fault line, and the spine breakers were a fairly established group that occasionally crossed the borders of hoku — careful to always show their deference and pay their dues. they were a infrequent though to some familiar face in the luminary on nights when the moon hung low, mostly to work deals with the mercenaries for hire in the back, and always to chase a drink alongside the twins.

ᴊᴜɴɢᴋᴏᴏᴋ was their closest companion of the lot, and if his drink of choice was an expected usual, and his uninspired flirtation with deokhee an affectionate and comfortable aside, then the night would be warm and the luminary waitstaff would make better money in tips than they had all month.

— and it was precisely that friendship with jungkook (and perhaps their closeness with san, though why make complicated something already written by fate?), that brought the twins to the serpens those aging years ago.

it had been hongjoong, newly syndicate minted, that noticed these two sparrows who somehow seemed to know everyone he had been keeping his thousand eyes on, and dared to ask himself what use could come with knowing their names.

it had been simple, after, for seonghwa to convince him that wooyoung was the easier approach, and for soyeon to cast the die on his fate.

(but that had been years ago: before the breaking down of factions, before suspicion and envy cast shadows that demons new not how to play, before ties were cut like marionette strings, and seonghwa and soyeon became a duo, and hongjoong, far enough from the barrel to not yet choose how to align, had to keep his ideas in his breast pocket and his lies tucked beneath his tie.)

— in the end, the twins were brought into the serpens because their connections would open doors that had no keys. it was through wooyoung and deokhee that the serpens greedy left hand reached into the heart of skit and, with an emboldened and wanting jungkook, staged a coup and installed this friend as the spine breaker's acting head.

ever after, the gang would be in debt of the might of hoku, and in perpetuity, there would be scouts and reinforcements, should there be need of aid from a distance.

— it was simply providence that the twins would have use beyond their sociability and want. it was the work of that ever mischievous hoku that in a chance encounter and a single ploy, diane was gifted with the two best marksman the city could afford.

danger, of course, in the single-minded passion of deokhee and the brilliant aimless apathy of wooyoung, but when combined together (and wooyoung under the threat of the only one he swore obeisance to: san), they were more than their arsenal, a weapon greater than their might and distant reach.

— when san found the two of them sitting on his couch, deokhee knuckle deep in affectionate rubs for hermes, wooyoung eating noodles out of the pot, on his pinky swinging the apartment's spare key, there was less a reaction of disappointment or surprise, and more an acceptance that at least this way, the message would be easily delivered, sweet.

"diane's calling."

⌖ ๋࣭ ⭑♚₊🗡 ๋࣭ ᴏɴʟʏ ᴛᴏ ʙᴇ ᴋɪɴɢ ᴀɢᴀɪɴ ๋࣭🗡₊♚⭑ ๋࣭⌖ pt. ii | | series masterlist

ᴛᴄᴅᴜ (ᴛᴏᴏ ᴄᴏɴᴠᴏʟᴜᴛᴇᴅ, ᴅɪᴅɴ'ᴛ ᴜɴᴅᴇʀꜱᴛᴀɴᴅ) :

1 - jeongcheol, san's father, used to run a taekwondo studio. because times were hard, he ran illegal fights in the back of his dojang, and when the serpen's found out, they co-opted his business and expanded it. as he got older, he passed down his dojang to san, who now works as the bodyguard of diane. because of his busy schedule, he co-manages the dojang with yeosang, the medic of the taekwondo studio.

2 - the taekwondo studio is situated on haesu street in an unnamed work-live complex often referred to as haemo plaza. on the same floor as the dojang there is an unnamed shooting range, owned by akita, the mother of twin gunman for the serpens deokhee and wooyoung. akita does not know of her children's affiliation with the syndicate and would disapprove if she knew.

3 - san, deokhee, and wooyoung are all friends are are closely allied with diane. diane is also close allies with yunho, her cousin and strategist council after her falling out with soyeon has deepened in the past few years (there has been a vague multi-year time skip from pt. i to pt. ii).

4 - ernest, kingpin of the serpens, is currently dying. it is a well kept secret - but not from soyeon, who diane fears will use this knowledge opportunistically. recently, diane has been keeping many secrets from even her closest confidant, san, especially regarding her consistently visiting officer bang chan, trying to weasel from him secrets... but about what?

5 - hongjoong is a member of the serpens with many secrets and many informants. diane is unsure if, in the power vacuum created after ernest's death, if he will show loyalty towards her or soyeon, and so she is wary of what he knows, when he was in the area as she was meeting up with bang chan.

6 - hongjoong was the one to originally recruit twins deokhee and wooyoung, because they have many contacts in hoku and neighboring cities - notably jungkook, now leader of a biker gang in the neighboring city named skit.

7 - diane has a mission for deokhee and wooyoung heretofore lacking details or rhyme.

now onto pt. iii . . .

[starpiastri]

for the trope mash up, may i request summer camp au + accidentally married + martian? :P

hello!!!! you’ll have to forgive me for both the time this took and the brief accidentally married bit but it made it in there and it’s sweet i think!!!! i hope u like it :)

seb and mark as camp leaders! they both have their own group of about ten kids and their groups go together on adventure walks in the mornings (an hour for the kids to get all their energy out and then do nice quiet things in the afternoon). the groups joining together is not by choice.

it’s a problem because the two group leaders bicker. a lot. the camp is very underfunded so a lot of the equipment is missing and/or on its last legs. they mostly argue about silly things like Well you had the stove last night so can my kids have it tonight? But we’re toasting marshmallows! You toasted marshmallows last night!!!! no one seems to think why don’t we just collaborate and share a stove. (one of the other camp leaders will sigh and push their own stove towards whoever’s moaning abt it)

they are also deeply competitive on behalf of their camps. children are children and love games and winning and beating each other and seb and mark sort of might maybe use this as an excuse to wind each other up. the whole ethos of the campus is Be Kind Everyone’s a Winner Teamwork all that rubbish. seb and mark, upon hearing there’s a egg and spoon race across the wider camp, are strategically planning who is best suited to compete for their team.

it always comes down to Webber vs Vettel and the kids love it because children are desperate to shout and cheer at anything that moves, especially when the thing moving is their friends and in the background their camp leaders are elbowing each other when one wins and the other loses

anyway. one day they’ve gone on an adventure walk. afterwards one of the kids comes and taps mark and has a very sad little look on her face. she’s lost her camp backpack and it had all of her stuff in it (the way kids bring every item they own everywhere). she’s all teary eyed and nervous and so mark says don’t worry, i’ll go and look for it. can’t have sprouted legs and walked off!

but then mark realises the girl is from seb’s group. so he goes and tells seb and he’s like Oh we’d better go look for it. mark is like Um. We? seb shrugs. says Well she told you so. You have to come with me. It’s only fair actually. Anyway, two sets of eyes are better than one!

(lots of flimsy excuses to spend time with mark, who he’s had a little bit of a crush on since seb started working here last summer, that’s irrelevant, though.)

cue plenty of huffing. but off they go! into the woods! they follow the same trail they did in the morning, up the hill, through the twisty trees, as they’re colloquially named for the way they wrap around both the sky and themselves, the huge and constantly muddy puddle on a concrete path that the kids delighted in getting their boots in.

and it’s a nice day so maybe they take a little longer on the way, while also peering around bushes in case any passersby have been kind enough to drop the backpack in for safekeeping.

maybe seb takes a little longer in the dirt, checking behind trees because when he turns around mark’s got one hand on his hips, squinting into the sun with the other hand covering his eyes and he’s actually really toned and his arms are very nice. he’s noticed before obviously. how could he not. he’s just a guy. but this is different, especially when mark turns to look at him and seb feels particularly caught out when he grins knowingly. Shut up. Keep walking.

and maybe mark lingers a bit behind seb as he runs ahead thinking he sees a glimpse of red on a fence post. maybe he watches because seb’s hair turns golden in the light like a halo and it’s very beautiful. like art, mark thinks, and he wishes he had a camera. or maybe he can keep it all to himself in his memory

seb turns back around when he sees it isn’t the backpack, just a bit of a torn fabric from a tent, and mark sighs but they’re nearly at the end of the trail (a big loop around the campsite) so Surely it must be ahead!

the last part of the walk is always the children’s favourite, a big hill leading into a sunken in field, a valley of sorts. there’s a footpath worn out by adventurers over the years but they all, everytime, get on their stomachs and roll down on the grassy part, tufts sticking to their shirts as they land at the bottom, giggling. seb looks as if he’s itching to recreate it but they carry on down the grown up route.

something catches their eye in the middle of the field, and there sits a bright red backpack, looking very lost. they run towards it as if it’s some precious artefact and they cheer and hug each other and then laugh it off nervously. because they’re stupid.

the running wore them out, though, so they sit on the grass. the kids are fine with the other camp leaders, probably being better behaved than they do for mark and seb themselves, so they’ll take a break. seb notices (after he stops looking at mark who’s leant back on his forearms and looking sweaty and handsome) that there’s little braided stems littered in the grass.

Oh, she must’ve got distracted when making the daisy chains! Easy to do, replies mark with a smile, eyes shut as he soaks up the sun

seb picks one chain up, inspects the way they’re intricately laced into one another, finds some half finished ones too. he gets to work piercing a hole through the stem with his nail, threading it through, over and over until it fits neatly on his wrist. flimsy and delicate but he grins and shows it to mark

mark will smile and say, Can I have one? and seb would say Make one yourself you lazy arse, and then mark would pull himself upright and scramble to launch at seb, who laughs loud and bold like it’s so easy to do. he fights because because he’s no quitter and the smell of grass and the sun beating down on them mixes in their lungs and Oh, look, you’ve snapped it!

seb frowns but stops when he realises he’s now on top of mark, was pinning his wrists to the dirt when he notices his bracelet has broken and fallen off. mark doesn’t say a word, just breathes and looks straight up at seb. they both breathe like that for a while, seb in two minds, a dozen fleeting thoughts while mark looks so calm. how can this be so easy? how can it be so hard?

Pull me up, then. Sure, sorry. S’alright. I’ll make you another bracelet.

so then they sit quietly against each other, knees touching, and occasionally mark let’s out an exasperated sigh as he splits the stem (big hands, clumsy) but eventually there’s a semblance of a bracelet for the both of them. they gather up some of the smaller rings too, to bring them back for the kids. finally, seb hoists the little red backpack over one shoulder, and they make their way back to the camp

it’s late afternoon so they’re getting ready for dinner around the fire, and some of the kids are comforting the little girl who lost her backpack. It’ll be okay! They’ll find it! Mark found my hat, remember! Yeah, and Seb found my pencil case!

when seb and mark return it’s as if they’ve brought home a golden trophy. the girl hugs seb’s knees and they both scruff her hair and say Be careful next time!

the kids crowd around them, hailed as heroes, and one points to their arms and gasps, turning to their friend and giggling. then they’re all in fits of laughter.

What’s so funny? says seb, putting a chain that’s far too long on his hair. everyone keeps laughing and mark looks at him like he’s an angel, with his crown of daisies atop his head. You’re married now! says one of the little boys, and he smacks his hand over his mouth as if he spoke without thinking.

How does that work, then! mark laughs but doesn’t look at sebastian, who’s looking at him with pink cheeks and a wide smile. Because you both have the bracelets on! It’s fairy magic, it means you’re married forever! one girl chimes in, her tone of voice as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

I can’t be stuck with him forever! and all the children cackle with laughter and run back to their seats around the campfire as dinner is called, plastic plates on their laps.

and they both should go and help serve the food but instead they just stand there for a little while, watching the flames dance in the pit.

and then maybe mark slips his hand into sebastian’s, just gently, the daisy chains sliding against one another. and seb squeezes, once, and doesn’t let go. like it’s easy.

[mourn-and-watch]

Would you pls tell us your thoughts and opinions on Carver? I too love him, he's so prickly and fighting so hard all the time to keep his head above the water and keep his remainibng sibling alive and free, and a lot of DA fans are so down on him because "oh he's grumpy though:(".

oh i'm always happy to talk about carver!

actually, i love that he's grumpy! and i also firmly believe that bethany is grumpy as well but it is overlooked in the same way carver's reasons to be grumpy are, but it's a topic for another day. anyway!

his whole deal - being a younger sibling who tires to fulfill the role of cool-headed one, who at the same time is still obviously young and too hot-tempered - hits a little too close to home sometimes, to be honest, and this is what i really really like about him. he is a character who genuinely tries his best, but fails because of how unexperienced and flawed he is (and how he doesn't have time or proper conditions to work on it in act 1, considering the situation his family is trapped in). he tries to join the guard, but gets turned down, he follows hawke everywhere to help them, he's also the one who cares about going on the expedition the most, because he realises that it's their best chance to make sure their family survives - and if he doesn't join it as well, he becomes a templar first of all out of necessity, because at this point he ran out of options and there's no guarantee his sibling will come back with enough money to restore their nobility status.

he is often rude and insensitive around hawke and their friends and his words and petty passive aggressive insults sound so childish, because, well, he was what, eighteen when the blight happened and he witnessed the ostagar massacre and also lost his father and sister? he hasn't still, you know, fully grown up, he's still so young and has so much bottled-up anger and trauma already, because his family has been living under constant stress his whole life and it has never got better. he may come across as pro-templar considering his approval and comments, but when you get to see the whole picture, aka his development through all acts, you can understand how false that statement is - he's genuinely terrified of losing hawke as well, and pro-mage hawke constantly puts themself in harm's way and sticks their neck out for people they barely know, and if it ends badly, nobody will be able to do anything about it, and carver believes he's the only one who realizes how fucked up their situation is. on top of that, he's always been struggling with feeling overshadowed, and now people who he hangs out with the most are his sibling's friends, not his own, and at least some of them just love to make fun of him and his issues. they tolerate him for being hawke's sibling. they don't care for him for any other reason.

none of it makes his actions and words righteous, though! it makes them understadable and his arc meaningful and satisfying, especially the warden route. i did the templar route once and don't remember the details well, but the point still stands - carver, no matter who he serves, always chooses his family first. and it has weight, it has meaning! because the other very important aspect of carver's character is him searching for his purpose, a desire to become his own person. both wardens and templars offer it to him, and in the end he will abandon his duties - and straight up betray his order in templar's case, and it's not, like, a futile sacrifice. by the end of act 3, it's been six years of his service. and his loyalty to hawke prevails even though they've been apart almost all this time and, as a result, became more distant in one way or another - but his sibling's safety continues to be his priority, even if he doesn't approve of their choices or isn't as close to them as he used to be. they're his only family left, and throughout the course of the plot he learns that it is important not only to care, but also to show he cares before it's too late.

and it's like, the general overall plot arc thing. i also love his dlc batner in act 2/act 3 because you can see how less antagonistic and more chill his dialogue becomes! his pettiness never fades away, for sure, but it's a part of his character i've grown fond of at this point and it's also very heartwarming to see other characters admit it as well. like, yeah, he still gets easily annoyed and still can start an argument, but he's learnt to keep it down when needed and grown to be more understanding. he's also so embarrassed about his past behaviours sometimes, it's genuinely endearing

i've talked about it once, but a lot of da2 character arcs either result in a little and still painful growth or in a straight up decline. and i still love it because, you know, a beauty of a tragedy. but this is also a reason why warden carver is so dear to me. he starts as a very distressed character, stuck in an uncomfortable environment, having no idea what to do with himself anymore, but joining the wardens really makes him shine. he's doing something good now, and he's good at it as well. the realisation of his inevitable warden fate makes him appretiate life and people in it more. among the wardens he's carver hawke, not simply hawke's brother, and he's respected for it. he becomes calmer and wiser, his grudges lose importance and his love for his family isn't tainted by it anymore. his opinion of hawke and relationship with them becomes more mature, and it culminates in his bittersweet speech and farewell before the final battle. it's genuinely a positive, hopeful growth, and while there's a little to no chances we'll see him again in another game, i hope when people in weisshaupt hear hawke family name mentioned, their first thought is about warden hawke, not champion of kirkwall

[weezerlvr228]

they look half dead ☹️

[whatudottu]

I am endlessly entertained (perhaps that's the wrong word) by the concept that Knock Out was only ever doctor adjacent and just switched from a cosmetic surgeon to a full blown medic during the war, especially since apparently in human medicine you don't have to have a doctorate as a cosmetic surgeon, at minimum only needing their basic initial medical training.

But I've also been thinking of it shattered too, Shattered Glass specifically.

I mean, I could hypothetically keep SG Knock Out as a cosmetic surgeon, but why would a cosmetic surgeon not practice what they preach and at least look a little nice. Going with a literally shattered Knock Out, would you trust a bot that looks like he walked out fresh from a car crash to make your finish shine? Probably not, but he'll do it...

Though, not in the same way one might as a cosmetic surgeon do (beautician?)

If SG!KO is so hellbent on keeping every scar and only really fixing anything if it reduces the integrity of armour (Knock Out may scoff at scuffed paint but he isn't an idiot), what if frankly he's unused to working on anyone that was ever remotely alive, especially himself who would need to be alive to do anything in the first place. A scar here, a scrape there, battle hardened warriors on their deathbed might want to look grand and imposing even in death, no wayward medic is gonna make that body look pristine and perfect just to erase the story of what had happened.

So instead of being a cosmetic surgeon, Shattered Glass Knock Out may have been a mortician, perfectly adept at making a corpse shine without erasing the features the dearly departed so diligently requested, though gussying up a comatose body is a lot more living than he's particularly used to.

Part of what makes this funny (in perhaps a horrifying way) is that Knock Out uh has no history with being a doctor OR as a licensed medical professional; you don't need a to worry about the hippocratic oath if the patient you're working on hasn't been alive for a whole month. What counts as an open wound fresh from stabbing versus an old wound one wears proudly is if there's any live wires or leaking fuel actively compromising the integrity of a bot's frame. Buffing and waxing a living mecha's armour is different when there are still active nanites working their way on and throughout the body giving their vibrant armour colours. Stemming the flow of actual liquid energon versus the congealed clots of cold dead fuel is an entirely different experience than what Knock Out had been doing over and over again before he had to be a medic.

Trial and error, where the errors lead back into KO's expertise, dealing with the dead and following the wishes of the deceased; a new term to agree upon came about with the war, to harvest what can be salvaged and be stored (for as long as they will live) for spare parts.

If baseverse Knock Out was a charming, outgoing, and sociable mech, SG Knock Out isn't used to bodies (patients, mecha) walking around and talking. One of the first time he was fixing a finish, first time using the stuff for the living, he nearly clawed off his own work when the mech made conversation; the ensuing joke of 'having a BREAKDOWN' didn't stop the groan and eye roll from being his next response. He doesn't so much as flinch at a dead looking finish, the kinda grey you look at an immediately associate with a corpse, but he can certainly tell the difference from a hue of nanites and the absence of their activity. At the cordial 'Doctor Knock Out' sent his way, he has to shut himself up correcting them, for as true as he may say he isn't a doctor it isn't particularly assuring for the bot in charge of your medical care states blandly he doesn't have a license; not many do, but saying it aloud doesn't help anyone.

Working during the war KO has accrued a few scars of his own, never makes it the end of the solar cycle with a pristine finish... and not just because he doesn't really care to start the day with a fresh coat. Armour often left dented though repaired when split, face and portions of protoform littered with nicks and cuts and sometimes gaping wounds, sealed shut not with welding but a mesh net he had once used as a mortician for those very same scars, whatever bleeding there long since healed. The missing optic is inconvenient, though not quite as terrible as losing a few parts from his fingers, their delicate work hampered with some missing tips, another near fully gone.

Some of them have stories, others a quick flash. There was a bomb in a body, that took his fingers. There was a welding torch, the light burned his optic. A wound on his side, that was from a lucky shot.

He is his own walking autopsy.

[ramenwithbroccoli]

Mój przyjaciel. Co oznacza 17? Prześladują mnie twoje przypadkowe bazgroły. Czy ktoś... był z nią "romantyczny"?

answering this in english since it touches on the Janka lore 💥💥💥

although the comic idea was there more for the laughs, there's a significant difference between Giewont and Janka when it comes to relationships with people. The first one used to be a hard worker but got betrayed by humanity. They're wandering around, with no place on this earth, scared of what being around people will do to her. Forming meaningful connection is hard and they're not even sure if they really want to do that.

on the other hand we have Janka, designed to look nice, to be amiable. she's always there to listen. she knows your favourite songs and brightens your day. she can't leave you unless you get rid of her yourself!

i think it's an idea that would need some more exploration. people who are lost or lonely or angry or searching for whatever feeling they need in their life try to find a thing to bestow those feelings upon. and sometimes it ended up being Janka. whether or not the feeling was reciprocated or not, or if they've seen her as an object or as a person - that's a question for another time

[thatgirlwithasquid]

despite my love for thinking about billy with soft, fun little hobbies, so far i had not considered photography. this is a huge failing on my part.

now thinking about an au where jonathan teaches billy how to take photos and they just go out on photography dates together. billy hasnt quite got the knack for it yet but its hard to feel like hes not doing good when jonathan showers all his photos with compliments.

‘this ones a keeper, billy,’ he tells him after they get them processed. ‘if you dont want it, ill put it up on my wall’

said wall is about 90% photos billy has taken at this point and it always makes him blush to see them when he visits.

joyce loves having him around, too, and that hes given someone for jonathan to share his passion with. she grows to really care for billy and between her and jonathan they pull together enough money to buy billy his own camera.

billy cries when they give it him and jonathan snaps a picture to immortalise the moment. joyce puts this one proud on the fridge.