#hahaha this is probably longer than it needed to be

[totsandnuggsrebloggs]

?!!??!? if youre alright with talking about it i am SO curious about your dinosaur nightmares??

This is so funny. Because I love talking about my dinosaur nightmares. And I’m not kidding when I say I have them almost every day.

So it starts:

When I was a kid, I watched the Jurassic Park movies a little before I was fully ready to watch people get torn apart by large predators that were REAL IN HISTORY at some point. And before I had known I had hallucinations I would sometimes have hallucinations of velociraptor claws on doors and t-Rex heads popping out of corners. And on top of that I also suffered from vivid sleep paralysis nightmares and hallucinations while sleep walking of those very same dinosaurs. So to say the least I was plagued with dinosaurs all throughout my childhood even with the reassurances by my parents that dinosaurs couldn’t be alive today and couldn’t hurt me. But in my kid brain they were, they were here! How did no one see them? How did no one hear them? Didn’t they see the second Jurassic Park movie!? There were dinosaurs in the year 2010, and I was sure of it.

Fast forward a couple years and I am 12, I am having extremely realistic and vivid hallucinations once again but no dinosaurs this time. At least it wasn’t dinosaurs, i thought to myself, I couldn’t do that whole ordeal again. And then it happened. My dad got a job working at Universal’s game studio and low and behold they were making a new VR game: Jurassic World Aftermath.

I have always wanted to be a game developer, even as a kid I have play tested hundreds of the games my dad worked on. So I’m sure you can imagine what happened next.

Despite my fear despite the warning signs going off in my mind I strapped the headset in and prepared myself for a wild ride.

I couldn’t even get past the intro to the game as I knew there was going to be a velociraptor and it was going to kill me. I kept trying again and again to play the desk level but I could barely move every-time I saw it’s claws walk past me under the tables and desks. I think I had maybe played like a total of 2 hours just trying to get past the first level but I literally was shaking out of fear that the dinosaurs were back and that dinosaurs are here and they are not dead and they are in my house.

And a little deep dive into the inner workings of my mind, you see, all of my nightmares are stress related whether it’s a dream about a report due for school or about our car driving off the road while we do our yearly drive to Yosemite, my nightmares are always stress induced. So, when my dad worked as an imagineer at Disney, it was stress dreams about Disney land. And when my dad went to work for Universal’s Jurassic department, it was stress dreams about (you guessed it) dinosaurs! But these dreams weren’t like the Disney land ones I used to have maybe only a few times a month, no, these were full on NIGHTMARES about dinosaurs EVERYWHERE. Dinosaurs were in my dreams about school, the doctors, our car, underwater, AT DISNEY LAND, on the fictional island Isla Nublar, LITERALLY EVERYWHERE. And it’s not like they start off as nightmares, they turn into them.

Every few days a week in my dreams I am hiding in cupboards from velociraptors, being carried away by a pterodactyl, or ripped apart by two t-rex’s. And everyday when I woke up I would be face to face with more pictures of dinosaurs from the newest game my dad was working on, more games to play test, more mechanics to talk about. Dinosaurs Dinosaurs Dinosaurs! My brain was being bombarded with dinosaurs all over again!

And even long after my dad left the company and we moved away, I still, consistently get those dinosaur dreams whenever I feel even slightly stressed out about something in real life.

So yeah. Short story long, dinosaurs have plagued my youth and now I pray that the world understands the messages of the original movies: don’t fucking bring dinosaurs back or I will cry :)

[uwuinhell]

I wish I could pour warm water directly on my brain. I think it'd help.

[skyjynxart]

.

[chdarling]

Not a goodbye, just a brb.

And so we reach the end of TLE2.

…holy shit, y’all.

I had it in my head that I was going to write a whole deep, emotional retrospective on what TLE2 has meant to me, how it’s seen me through so many dramatic changes in my life since I start writing it in 2021, etc, etc, etc. And I have so much to say on that, but it turns out, I’m still a little too emotional to do it hahaha. Honestly didn’t think it was going to hit me this hard.

So instead let me talk about the future for a minute, and then another night I’ll invite drunk CH in to do my dirty work for me.

First things first, as you are probably all aware, I will be taking an extended break between TLE2 and TLE3. I’ve been posting this story pretty consistently since 2020, and as much as I have loved it, and continue to love it, it’s time for me to take a little breather and focus on some other projects for a while.

Please do not worry that I’m abandoning TLE. I am not. This story has haunted me since I was fifteen years old. I will never escape until I write those final words. It’s a part of me, and I’m going to see it through. One way or another. But, in order for me to continue to love working on TLE, I need to take some time and space away, and I also have several original projects that I’m really excited to work on, and that I have frankly been neglecting over the past few years as TLE2 took much longer to finish than I anticipated.

Among these projects is a substack that I literally just set up today. So, it’s very fresh. There’s nothing much there yet, but if you’d like to follow along as I focus on my original writing, this would be the place to do it. No pressure at all, but if it interests you, you can subscribe here. (It’s free!)

It’s probably going to be a month or so until I’m really able to dive into this, but I’m really excited, a little scared, and really, really grateful for all of your support.

Probably not a great advertisement for me as a writer to say that I don’t have the words to tell you how much you all have meant to me over the years of sharing TLE, but just know it’s a lot. It’s a lot a lot.

Ok and with this little self-indulgent post out of the way, I’m going to wipe the tears from my misty eyes and go press that publish button for TLE2, one last time.

See you on the other side.

[hoshinasblade]

Hi I love ur Hoshina fics sm!

Anyway you were asking for headcanons last time, do you think our Hoshina sends dick pics to his s/o? I'm not sure if you write nsfw but it will be fun to read if ever! Thanks x

HAHAHA anon, this is so interesting. minors, please don't interact with this one.

honestly i dont think hoshina is above sending thirst traps - he would be the type to send you a picture of him topless while still sweaty after his workout, and he'll probably throw a peace sign or two and tell you that he's just tryna be cute. liar liar, pants on fire. he gets his kicks on knowing he can fluster you with that. im a bit hesitant on dick pics though, and it's not because i think hoshina is a prude - hell no - but i think it's because he was never able to get a good angle ever so he doesn't think it's sexy enough for you to look at. and let's be honest, if he's gonna send you a picture of his immaculate junk, he would rather go to you and show it personally. im assuming he's got more privileges and therefore freedom so he can roam around even after-hours or get out of the base when he's not that needed.

one nsfw headcanon i have for this guy though is that though he never sends dick pics, he excels at moaning audios. his voice would be deep and husky from both sleepiness and lust, and he would just sound really, really hot. you mentioned to him once that you liked him dirty talking during sex and it activated a switch in his brain that you can't turn back off. he had definitely sent you multiple voice messages where you can hear him moan while he's touching himself. you overheated the first time you listened to it.

also yes, i have some nsfw prompts lined up, just gotta look for some momentum and chance to write. i know i yap a lot here but i also work full-time so that makes writing a bit hard for me since my process takes longer than i sometimes intend it to be. it's always worth it though hehe i like writing for hoshina. if you have a specific nsfw scenario you want me to write about, feel free to let me know and i can possibly whip up even a drabble or a one-shot for you.

[danieyells]

hi there,

thank you so much for all the voicelines you post !! if it’s okay, can i request subaru’s ?

thank you again !

You're welcome! At some point I might go back and put in the ones I leave out because they don't appeal to me as much lol but since i always end up posting 99% of them anyway I think it's enough for most people hahaha. It's all of them now! Sorry for the delay.

I WAS GONNA OMIT ONE OR TWO BECAUSE OF SPOILERS but eh i'll just warm for like. extra spoilers. since after doing more code peeking it wasn't the spoiler i thought it was. SUBARU IS A SWEETIE THOUGH. I also read Subaru's chats which were put in the code recently and. Man this guy needs anxiety meds. I have a small guess as to what his stigma is, but we'll learn in a few days anyway.

Hello: (the first time the game is opened after that character is set as home screen NPC. Only happens once per day, unless the character is switched out and back.)

"I'm very sorry to have kept you waiting. It's wonderful to see you again."

You've Got Mail: (whenever there's something in the inbox, usually Arena rewards)

"It looks like there's a notice for you. I'd be happy to go pick it up for you if you've got your hands full. Oh, forgive me if I'm overstepping."

oh no he's anxious about helping--

Default: (requires no affinity, has no time constraints)

"I really am so lucky to be surrounded by so many kind people like you."

"I never thought I'd get the chance to enjoy the lifestyle of a student until I came to Darkwick. Every day truly is fulfilling here."

it feels like subaru is like. . .the only one who actually enjoys school life here. . .or who really enjoys being here period lmao. . . .

"You think I'm always smiling? Ha ha, I hear that a lot. It just happens when I'm around all of you."

"I may be the captain, but it's just in name. I think Haku is much better suited for the job than me."

"I've been working since I was four, so people often said I was mature for my age. But the truth is, I've still got a lot to learn."

that makes two characters whose parents have essentially been keeping them from normal life and normal childhood for work reasons since they were four year olds. . . .

Affinity 1: (between 5am and 11am)

"I tend to just have hot water for breakfast. I know it would be better for me to eat a proper meal, but it's just so much effort."

DO WE REALLY HAVE TO START WITH "I NEED THE GHOULS TO EAT PROPER FUCKIN MEALS". . . .

Affinity 2: (between 11am and 4pm)

"I'm sorry I'm so late. The campus is so crowded I can never manage to walk in a straight line, so it always takes me longer than I think. Silly, isn't it?"

baby you're hardly the first person i've met with anxiety about crowds. you're fine.

Affinity 3: (between 4pm and 8pm)

"What would I do without Haku's help? Hotarubi would be a mess without him."

Affinity 4: (between 8pm and 5am)

"I wonder if I should apply early to take out any common artifacts I might need for this mission. I'll ask Haku what he thinks..."

Affinity 5: (between 8pm and 5am)

"Ah!  You surprised me there... I just got back from a small errand. Do you need something?"

Affinity 6: (between 4pm and 8pm)

"Ever since I was a child, the performing arts were my only focus. Maybe that's why people always say my mannerisms are so peculiar. It bothers you too, doesn't it?"

poor boy doesn't know how to act if he isn't acting. . .he doesn't know how to exist off-script. . .no wonder he made a deal with a demon. it's probably the first thing he's ever done for himself.

Affinity 7: (between 11am and 4pm)

"I'd like to go to the cafeteria, but the line is always so long. I feel bad taking time to choose while people are waiting behind me. The bar of entry feels a little high."

i am once again suggesting subaru get anxiety meds. hell go to sinnostra and get some weed, i bet they sell that. i hear it can help.

Affinity 8: (between 4pm and 8pm)

"I'm just about to go and meet a friend. I hate to inconvenience you like this, but if it's something urgent, could you speak to Haku about it instead?"

Affinity 9: (between 8pm and 5am)

"What am I going to do? We're supposed to be meeting up in an hour... If I cancel now, they'll hate me..."

Affinity 10: (between 10pm and midnight)

"Whew... I'll walk you back to your house, {PC}. Oh, it's no problem at all, I assure you! I wanted some fresh air anyway."

Affinity 11: (between 5am and 11am)

"I have an Anomalous Ecology test coming up. It's such a fascinating subject, I couldn't help but stay up all night studying. Now I'm a little sleep-deprived."

Affinity 12: (between 11am and 4pm)

"I'm going to stretch my legs a little. I might not have a show to practice for right now, but I need to keep putting myself through my paces. I'll get rusty otherwise."

Affinity 13: (between 4pm and 8pm)

"I'm sorry my phone's been making so much noise. I recently downloaded an app by mistake, and it won't stop sending me notifications..."

awww he's also technologically incompetent. . .poor guy was probably raised with such a heavy focus on his career he just. never needed a smartphone. anyone he needed to contact or who needed to contact him was probably always very close by. it sounds like he didn't even properly go to school before going to Darkwick. Somebody please take this boy on a walk. like anywhere. take him to a library. buy him a churro. can sho make churros? this is somebody who's never had any sort of normal social experience and sees how different he is and wishes it weren't the case, unlike Ritsu who assumes everyone else is like him, i think he'd like to have some more Experiences.

Affinity 14: (between 5am and 11am)

"... ...Oh! Hello, {PC}—I didn't even notice you there. My mind was somewhere else."

Affinity 15: (between 5am and 11am)

"Good morning! Sorry? My hair's messy? You're right, it's sticking right up at the front... That's embarrassing. I'll fix it right away."

Affinity 16: (between 11am and 4pm)

"I usually have lunch in the dormitory. I do eat on the terrace with Lyca every now and then, but he seems so busy these days..."

Lyca is one of the members of Obscuary, btw! Seems like he and Subaru are friends.

Affinity 17: (between 10pm and midnight)

"I didn't take you for a night owl, {PC}. Since you're here, I suppose I'll stay up a little longer. You're sure you're okay? You're not sleepy?"

Affinity 18: (between 8pm and 5am)

"Do you visit Sinostra very often, {PC}? I see... Oh, no reason. I was just making conversation. Ha ha."

why do you ask that. . .a certain mafioso captain wouldn't happen to be suspicious of you would he. . .or maybe you owe them money. . .or maybe you used to be part of Sinostra and moved to Hotarubi. . . .

Affinity 19: (between 10pm and midnight)

"It's getting late, {PC}. How about we finish this tomorrow? Thank you for keeping me company all this time."

Affinity 20: (between 5am and 11am)

"Oh, I couldn't ask you to come all the way to my room to wake me up—I'd feel terrible. I do very much appreciate the thought, though."

it's okay buddy jin already makes them do it, one more pit stop won't hurt.

Affinity 21: (between 11am and 4pm)

"Oh, hello, {PC}. Sorry, I was actually just on my way out. I should be back by evening—do you mind if we speak then?"

Affinity 22: (between 4pm and 8pm)

"Lyca has seen my message, so why hasn't he responded to it? I hope nothing bad has happened to him..."

Affinity 23: (between 8pm and 5am)

"Lyca will adapt well to human society, I'm sure of it. I'm so relieved that Darkwick chose to trust him. I can't thank you enough for your help."

he really likes Lyca huh? that is his dog.

Affinity 24: (between 10pm and midnight)

"You can't sleep? Then let me tell you some stories. Legend has it that evil spirits appear once you've told a hundred. Now, what number was I up to..."

BOY IS TRYNA GET YOUR ASS HAUNTED.

Affinity 25(max): (no time constraints)

"I don't want to seem like I'm testing you, I just... I get really anxious sometimes... I'm sorry. I'm being weird, aren't I?"

he's the type to ask 'are you sure you love me? are you sure you wanna be with me?' after you get married and move in together and own a house and have two kids with another on the way. he's the hyper anxious 'i'm sorry we disagreed about our favorite colors do you hate me?' friend(affectionate) I wonder though, is he apologizing for seeming like he's testing you because he's using his stigma to see what you've been up to or something. . .? Probably not lol it's more likely he just keeps asking if you like him

Spring: (March-May) (between 5am and 11am)

"There is no time like spring. Everyone seems more relaxed this time of year. It's reassuring to see."

(between 11am and 4pm)

"I have some sakura mochi. I was just about to prepare some tea to go with it—would you like to join me?"

(between 4pm and 8pm)

"They have no control over whether they bloom, and yet they get made a spectacle of nonetheless... Oh, sorry—I was talking about the cherry blossoms."

(between 8pm and 5am)

"There are many different flowers growing in Hotarubi, but I think the wisteria are my favorites. This is the best time to see them, so you should take a walk around."

Summer: (June-August) (between 5am and 11am)

"Hot today, isn't it? It's always raining in Hotarubi, so it does provide a little escape from the blazing summer sun, but... Ha ha. It is very humid, isn't it?"

(between 11am and 4pm)

"Summer makes me think of the ghost story Yotsuya Kaidan. The scene where Oiwa becomes hysterical, having realized her her face has been disfigured— incredible."

Yotsuya Kaidan is one of the best known japanese ghost stories! It's extremely violent, so read the summary at your discretion. The scene in question has Oiwa shown her reflection by her sister's boss to see that the cream she was given by a woman who was in love with her husband was actually some sort of poison that instantly scarred her face. She grabs a sword and goes to kill her, only for her to accidentally slit her own throat.

(between 4pm and 8pm)

"Hotarubi House holds regular festivals during the summer months. If you need a yukata to wear, I'd be happy to pick one out for you."

(between 8pm and 5am)

"I don't mind scary stories, but when that biwa in the tea room started playing by itself, it did make me jump a little..."

slight spoiler, although you can probably figure it out from this but. . .Zenji is a ghost. Subaru currently can't actually see him or hear his voice. . .only Haku, the pc, and, perhaps not so oddly, Towa can afair. All of his youtube content doesn't have him or his voice in it because he can't be recorded by cameras. So Subaru doesn't realize that the biwa playing on its own is actually Zenji playing the biwa.

Autumn: (September-November) (between 5am and 11am)

"The air has gotten crisper, and the leaves are changing color. I know it's only natural for the seasons to shift, so why does it make my heart ache so much?"

(between 11am and 4pm)

"Oh, these? They're some chestnuts I found. I know—I should give them to Sho. I'm sure he'll be able to make something delicious with them."

(between 4pm and 8pm)

"That's another kuchikiri tea ceremony under my belt. It's an annual tradition where one cuts open a tea jar to reveal the tea that was preserved from the first harvest."

(between 8pm and 5am)

"On long autumn nights when the moon is shining beautifully in the sky, it's hard to resist taking a walk outside. Don't stay out until too late though, {PC}."

Winter: (December-February) (between 5am and 11am)

"...Oh, {PC}. Good morning... I had a hard time getting up today. It must be the cold... Ha ha. Not very captain-like, is it?"

Jin, Taiga, and Ed are all prone to not getting out of bed. and Yuri falls asleep on operating tables when he has down time. Trust me Subaru you are perfectly captain-like.

(between 11am and 4pm)

"Today, I'm going to order ingredients from one of my favorite stores so we can all make negima—tuna and scallion—hot pot together. Please, do join us."

(between 4pm and 8pm)

"It's cold out today. I was just thinking about lighting the fire. Would you like to come and warm up with me?"

oh subaru you don't even know how that sounds

(between 8pm and 5am)

"People say winter makes you want to snuggle up with someone, but I find that a good blanket does a much better job."

i agree that blankets are much easier to manage than people lol. probably warmer too.

His birthday: (February 20th)

"A present? For me? Thank you... I didn't expect you to do anything for my birthday, so I'm a little caught off guard. I really appreciate it."

Your birthday:

"Um... Happy birthday.  I really hope this year will be a wonderful one for you."

New Years: (January 1st)

"Happy New Year. I hope I can depend on your guidance and support again this year."

Valentine's Day: (February 14th)

"Chocolate? Oh, It's Valentine's Day, isn't it? Does that mean these are for me...?"

nah i just wanted you to look at them. YES THEY ARE FOR YOU BBY. why would you be showing him chocolate if it wasn't for him! On any day, not just valentine's day!!

White Day: (March 14th)

"These are for you, {PC}. I put in a special order for monaka from my favorite confectioner in Ginza. They're wafers filled with bean jam—I hope you like them."

April Fool's Day: (April 1st)

"Earlier, Haku told me he was switching houses. It gave me a real shock— I'm very relieved that it wasn't true..."

i bet subaru made the most scared kicked puppy face and started apologizing for being such an awful captain and blamed himself for that haku would go to a different house and haku had to quickly explain it was just a prank for fear that subaru might burst into tears.

Halloween: (October 31st)

"Happy Halloween. I know it's nothing special, but I've prepared some treats for the occasion. Oh... But you're more than welcome to play a trick instead."

please don't trick him. april fool's day was hard enough for him.

Christmas: (December 25th)

"Merry Christmas. We already have our New Year decorations up in Hotarubi, so it has a real east-meets-west atmosphere now. I hope everyone is okay with it..."

Idle: (about 20 seconds without interacting with the game) (below 13 affinity)

"Everyone seems busy at the moment. Maybe I should use this opportunity to tidy the garden..."

(13 affinity and above)

"{PC}? Oh... I'm sorry, I didn't mean to disturb you. I was just worried because you were so quiet..."

Absent: (logging in for the first time in 2 or more days?)

"You're back... I'm so relieved. I was worried I'd done something to make you feel uncomfortable..."

this man shakes like a chihuahua 24/7. like you can taste the anxiety coming off of him. i love him. he's so pathetic(affectionate). i wanna squeeze his hand reassuringly and tell him everything's gonna be okay. i wanna hug him and pat his head. i wanna take him places so he learns more about the world outside of working. i wanna watch him do schoolwork excitedly because he's never really gone to school before and it's a new and exciting experience. i want him to experience the most mundane aspects of life with wonder.

good boy. yeah. get him anxiety meds /nodnod

[suzukiblu]

Parasite WIP is so good and I desperately want more of it! I voted for it in the poll and I’m so sad it didn’t win

Friend, I appreciate you asking after it because it really is one of my fucked-up faves that I really need to work on more, so uh . . . have all 4500 words of the prose so far all together, hahaha. Yes, yes I DID reformat this whole thing into Tumblr-friendliness all for you. THAT IS HOW MUCH I APPRECIATE YOUR APPRECIATION, FRIEND. ( so definitely we are gonna need that read-more down there, lol. )

Clark wakes up. 

Clark didn't even know he wasn't awake. 

"Superman," Bruce says with absolute neutrality. He's wearing the cowl. Standing in rubble. Clark is . . . not standing in rubble. 

Laying in rubble. That's what Clark is doing. 

Bruce is looking down at him very, very carefully, and seems . . . reserved. 

Reserved for Bruce, even. 

"What happened?" Clark asks, trying not to concentrate on the little seed of dread that the sight of that reservation invokes in him. He can hear the heartbeats of other League members, here and there in the wreckage of the street around them. Hear civilians and city noise. Hear Lois and Jon, distantly, and Ma and Pa, even more distant. And . . . Kara–both of her–and . . . 

"We'll go with 'electrocution', but I think we can safely say just about anyone else would've been virtually incinerated," Bruce informs him, distracting Clark from his mental rundown of people he's currently worried about. "Or just exploded."

"Ah," Clark says with a grimace. Well, that explains why his head hurts so damn bad, he guesses.

At least it was him, then, and not any "anyone else"s. 

He pushes himself up. Looks around. He . . . isn't sure where they are, exactly, except that it's probably somewhere on Earth and within the continental United States, judging by the architecture and signs he's seeing and the accents and languages he's hearing. 

He has absolutely no idea how they got here, though. The last thing he remembers is . . . 

. . . he's not actually sure what the last thing he remembers is. 

Not a great sign, that.  

Bruce is watching him. Like he's . . . expecting something, almost. Clark would ask, but there's an odd feeling distracting him. Something's . . . off, somehow. 

Missing. 

Bruce's utility belt is a new design, he notes absently. J'onn is down the street a bit and his costume looks a little different too. And Diana . . . 

Diana is over across the way, and her hair is a couple inches longer than he remembers it being. 

Clark would assume he was mistaken, except for the eidetic memory and all. 

"Hm," Clark says. 

"Hm?" Bruce says. He still sounds faultlessly neutral. 

"Trying to figure out if I'm in the right reality. Things look a little off," Clark replies, tilting his head and narrowing his eyes in concentration. No unexpected sounds or scents. No particular feeling of disorientation that can't be accounted for by being apparently electrocuted. No additional pains past the dull pressure in his head or any immediately obvious peculiarities beyond the minor little scattered differences here and there in his teammates. 

But something is–

"I can't hear Kon," Clark realizes abruptly. He doesn't usually especially keep an ear out for the kid, at least not deliberately, but . . . 

Bruce . . . pauses. 

"You can't," he says, very carefully. It doesn't sound like a question. 

It sounds like something, though. 

"I can't," Clark confirms anyway, glancing around again. He still doesn't know where this is. "Where are we, exactly?" 

"What's the date, Kal?" Bruce asks, and Clark's heart sinks. 

He answers the question. 

Bruce's mouth thins. 

Hell, Clark thinks. 

"We're currently in Keystone City," Bruce says, very carefully expressionless. "We've been here for three days. The date you just provided me was a full fourteen months ago. And Kon-El has been MIA for roughly thirteen and a half of those months." 

Hell, Clark thinks, and doesn't let himself process anything past that. 

"We need to get a scan of your brain," Bruce says. "For starters." 

"For starters," Clark agrees tightly. 

Bruce tells Diana they're leaving, then abandons the rubble and takes Clark up to the Watchtower. Clark goes. He doesn't ask what electrocuted him or who's died in the past fourteen months or if there's anything immediately urgent that he should know. Bruce would've already told him, if there was. 

And he thinks he'd choke on the question if he tried, anyway. 

They go to the med bay. There's a total stranger standing in it who smiles at them when they step through the door. 

"Haven't seen you in here in quite a while, Superman," the stranger observes in amusement, tapping a pen against the clipboard in their hands. "You still haven't been in for that checkup I owe you, you know." 

"He doesn't know you," Bruce informs them evenly. The stranger blinks. 

"Sorry?" they say. 

"He was electrocuted," Bruce says. "Now he thinks it's fourteen months ago. We need a brain scan. Immediately." 

"Hell," the stranger says, their eyes widening in alarm. 

Clark gets the brain scan. 

He and Bruce wait in a convenient exam room for the results, which seem to be taking a while. Bruce seems a bit more guarded than usual, which means Clark is standing next to goddamn Fort Knox right now. He sighs to himself. 

"Suppose at this rate I should call and tell Lois and Jon I'll be late for dinner," he jokes wryly as he folds his arms, no real humor in the comment, and Bruce goes very, very still beside him. 

. . . hell. 

They're not dead. He knows they're not dead, he heard their heartbeats before they left for the watchtower, Bruce would've already told him if either of them were–

"They aren't expecting you," Bruce says with absolutely no intonation whatsoever in his voice. "You moved out eight months ago. The divorce is already finalized." 

"Ah," Clark says, very slowly. He doesn't let himself process, again. Not–just, not yet. "What happened?" 

"You left them," Bruce says, and Clark . . . blinks. 

"I left them?!" he demands incredulously. Leaving Lois is one thing, horrible and impossible a thought as it is, but– "Not just–I left them both?!"

"As you explained it to me, you were no longer interested in maintaining the . . . 'persona' of Clark Kent," Bruce replies carefully, looking just past him. "You said you couldn't stand the screaming anymore. That you appreciated us . . . humoring you for so long, but you couldn't just keep walking around making excuses and lying to everyone while people were suffering and dying just because you had to pretend to be human for a while. So yes. You left them. Haven't visited since Lois finally signed the divorce papers. Haven't spoken to your parents either. You've been . . . erratic. Since Kon-El's disappearance. When we couldn't find him . . . when we couldn't even find out what happened to him . . ." 

"Oh," Clark says, and his heart sinks again. 

He doesn't understand, though. Kon is–he cares about the kid, obviously. Cares very deeply about him. He's pretty sure he even loves him, at this point. But he's not . . . 

It feels terrible to think it, but Clark doesn't understand why Kon disappearing like that would affect him enough to stop being Clark. It's awful, and he still hasn't let himself actually think about it happening at all because he really can't process it right now, but that awful? Really? Awful enough to abandon being any semblance of a normal person? Abandon Lois and his parents entirely? 

Abandon Jon entirely? 

Apparently, yes. 

"Technically you're on unpaid sabbatical from the Planet," Bruce tells him. "We thought you might . . . reconsider, once you'd grieved properly, so Lois pulled some strings with Perry White. He thinks you're having an early mid-life crisis and your co-workers think you're off finding yourself in South America with a bad cell phone plan." 

"I guess I don't believe in satellite phones?" Clark says, trying for wry again. It doesn't work, but he tries all the same. 

"This is unfair of me, but I'm going to take advantage of your current mental state," Bruce says. He's looking at the wall, though there's nothing there to actually be looking at. Not even anything on the other side, at least not according to X-ray vision. "Try to remember how you feel right now, when your memories of the past year return. Try to remember who you are right now, when those memories return."

"Why?" Clark asks, watching him carefully as he does. The corners of Bruce's mouth tighten. Just barely, but undeniably. 

"You've been . . . gone, Clark," Bruce says slowly. "You won't even answer to 'Clark' anymore. You aren't the same man that I . . . that we all . . ." 

The stranger comes back before Bruce has to admit to too many personal feelings or Clark can figure out what to say to any of that, which might be a mercy but might also be–

The stranger looks . . . strange, Clark notices. Nauseated, almost. And definitely distressed. 

"I haven't done brain scans on Superman before," they say, their grip on their clipboard concerningly close to white-knuckled. "And my predecessor apparently hadn't done any in a while either. Last ones in the system are over two years old." 

"What's wrong?" Bruce says, narrowing his eyes. Honestly at this point Clark figures a kryptonite brain tumor would really just be the icing on the cake, and frankly would probably explain some of his apparent behavioral changes and current memory loss. That genuinely makes more sense than anything else, really, even with grief and guilt to contend with.

More sense than abandoning his own damn kid does, at least. 

Although a tumor's the worst-case scenario, obviously. And it can't be any worse than that, really, or any worse than anything he's apparently done to his family this past year, so at least he's braced for–

"There's an . . . organism," the stranger says, swallowing uncomfortably. "In your brain." 

"What?" Clark says. 

"A dead organism, now," the stranger clarifies. "But it looks like it's been there for a while. There are . . . roots. And . . . lesions, too." 

"An organism," Bruce repeats very, very slowly. "In Superman's brain." 

"Yes," the stranger says. 

"I don't . . ." Clark trails off. 

"We need more scans," Bruce says. 

"I ran it four times on two different machines," the stranger says. "It's organic. It's not giving off any recognizable life signs. It seems like it might've been . . . you mentioned electrocution, before?" 

"You think the electricity killed it," Bruce realizes. "And then Superman forgot fourteen months?" 

"I'm not sure Superman ever experienced those fourteen months to begin with," the stranger says tightly, gripping their clipboard even harder. 

Clark was in no way whatsoever braced for this. 

"Fuck," Bruce says. 

More scans happen after all. A lot more scans, a lot of specialists, and a lot of arguing. Everything's a bit of a blur, in a sense. Clark absorbs very little of it, and mostly leaves things to Bruce unless he's asked a direct question about his medical history. His judgment might be compromised right now, after all, whether the . . . organism is dead or not. 

The emergency OR gets prepped. The red sun lamps get set up inside it. 

"Should we contact Lois?" Bruce asks as Clark's shrugging into an ill-fitting hospital gown and preparing himself to possibly die in pursuit of getting a dead who-knows-what out of his brain before it can start to rot there and potentially kill him that way. "Or your parents?" 

"No," Clark says. "Just get this damn thing out of my head." 

If he doesn't survive the removal process . . . 

They don't know what's been going on. What he let happen to himself, somehow.

He isn't going to tell them he's back just to immediately take himself away again. 

He records something for Jon, just in case. It's not enough, but it's–something, he tells himself. It's something. 

It's all he can bring himself to do. 

He leaves the disk with the recording on it with Bruce and asks him to have Dick deliver it, if it's necessary. 

Things proceed from there, and Clark wakes up again a week later in a private room in the med bay, connected to half a dozen machines and needles and tubes and directly facing the sun. Diana is dozing in the chair next to his bed. Bruce is pacing at the foot of it. They're both in costume. Clark feels weak and groggy, but he can hear half a dozen other heartbeats lingering in the hall, so presumably they were expecting him to wake up around now. 

"Mm," he says. Diana snaps awake. Bruce stops mid-step. 

They both look at him. 

"The operation was a success," Bruce informs him. "Textbook. Or as textbook as removing a mind-controlling parasite of unknown origins from a Kryptonian brain can get for mostly-human surgeons, anyway." 

"Do you need anything?" Diana asks. "Would you like us to call your family yet?" 

Clark shakes his head, then closes his eyes and sleeps for another week. 

"Sleep", he supposes, counts as something that he needs right now. 

The next time he wakes up, he's alone in his room and disconnected from the machines and just feels . . . normal, really. Like nothing was ever wrong at all and he didn't just have major surgery that was, essentially, the equivalent of multiple traumatic brain injuries. His hair is already starting to grow back from where it was buzzed down for the surgery, and there's not even any bandages on his head. 

There's no noticeable scarring, Clark observes when he makes it to the little ensuite bathroom to take a look in the mirror. The surgeons told him there probably wouldn't be, given both the methods they'd been intending to use and the nature of his own physiology, but seeing the total lack of proof of what happened to him is just . . . strange, somehow. 

It feels almost like a cheat. Like it should be obvious, in some way. 

There was a parasite in his head. Something controlling him. Pretending to be him. Passing for him. It could've done anything it wanted. 

It did do things that Clark still has no idea about. 

So many things. 

He couldn't even fight it. Wasn't conscious or aware enough to, or just not strong enough to, or just . . . 

He couldn't even fight it. 

And he doesn't know what it did. 

The door opens. Diana walks in. 

"Would you like us to call your family now?" she asks. 

"Yes," Clark says roughly, curling his fingers around the sides of the sink in front of him. "Please." 

"Of course," Diana says with a terrible and merciless gentleness. 

Clark sits down on the lid of the toilet and just . . . cries. Just for a minute. 

Or twenty. 

Diana kneels in front of him and holds his hands in her own. 

Fourteen months, Clark thinks, all twisted up with grief and pain and so, so much regret. He missed so much. He wasn't there for Jon or Lois or his parents. He wasn't there for Bruce or Diana or the League, for either of Kara, for . . . 

For Kon. He wasn't there for Kon. 

Wasn't there for Kon when the kid needed him. 

Kon completely vanished, and who knows if the damn parasite even pretended to help look for him? If it did anything at all for him? Who knows if Clark could've found him, could've saved him, if he'd still been himself at the time? 

. . . who knows if the parasite isn't what made Kon disappear to begin with? 

It took fourteen months of Clark's life, and Kon . . . Kon disappeared two weeks into those fourteen months. 

If nothing else, the timing is a screaming red flag. 

Clark abandoned his son and might've murdered a kid who only ever looked up to him, a kid who he was never really able to fully understand but literally named, and he can't do anything to bring Kon back or to make up for the year that he wasn't there for the rest of his family. 

Their family. 

God, what has he done? What has Clark done, and did Kon die feeling afraid or shocked or terrified? Did he die feeling betrayed? Did he think it was Clark doing it, however it happened? 

Did he die thinking Clark wanted him to die? 

Clark doesn't even know what happened to his body. 

There won't be another resurrection.  

Clark chokes. Diana squeezes his hands. He grips hers like a lifeline and shudders through it. The grief is a terrible, ugly thing. It's one of the worst things Clark's ever felt. 

The guilt is worse. 

"Lois," he murmurs finally, feeling like the weakest man alive. "Could you call . . . Lois, please, and just . . . ask if she'll come. I'll explain it all to her, just–could you call her, please." 

"Yes," Diana says, squeezing his hands again. "Of course." 

"Thank you," Clark says. 

He pulls himself together, more or less, and Diana goes to make the call. She comes back a few minutes later and tells him Lois agreed, but needs to find a babysitter first. Clark in no way blames her for not bringing Jon along and frankly is surprised she's willing to come at all. 

He's not sure what he could even say to Jon right now. 

What can he? 

Diana makes sure he eats something, then leaves for monitor duty. Clark tries not to overthink things. Tries not to think too much at all. 

He spent fourteen months not thinking at all, though, all of it lost in one oblivious blink, so that doesn't work out all that well for him. 

An hour later, he hears the Zeta platform activate on the opposite side of the base, and hears Lois's heartbeat appear inside the watchtower. 

Clark exhales, very slowly. 

He waits. 

Lois comes to the med bay. She doesn't stop to talk to anyone on the way. Doesn't talk to anyone except that stranger Clark still doesn't actually know the name of, who tells her where to find him. 

And then a minute or a millennium later she's standing in the open doorway of his room, and Clark is looking at her. Her expression is neutral, and her hair is shorter than it was the last time he remembers seeing her–the last time he was the one actually seeing her. An inverse bob, not shoulder-length anymore. He recognizes the blazer and heels that she's wearing, but not the blouse or the pants. Not the earrings or the necklace, either. 

And there's no wedding ring to recognize either way. 

Clark wonders what happened to his. 

God, but she's still the most amazing woman he's ever seen, and he's still never once deserved a single part of her. Not even a fraction of a part. 

Especially not now. 

"Kal," she greets, tone just as neutral as her expression, and Clark aches. 

"Clark," he says, just a little too abrupt, and Lois–pauses. 

"Clark," she amends casually as she tucks her hands into the pockets of her blazer, and if he didn't know her quite so well he wouldn't have even heard the crack in her voice around his name, super-hearing or not. "Never seen your hair this short. I kinda miss the curl, not gonna lie. It has charm, you know? Very boy scout next door." 

"I had emergency brain surgery," Clark says. Lois pauses again. Tilts her head. He keeps talking. "Two weeks ago, now. Just woke up again fully today." 

"What?" she says, just staring at him. "You–what happened?" 

"It's . . . unclear, still," Clark replies slowly. "But as far as we can tell, roughly fourteen months back an unidentified alien parasite moved into my brain and . . . took me over, essentially. I don't actually–I don't remember any of that time. At all. Then two weeks ago I got electrocuted in Keystone and the parasite died. The surgery was to remove its body so my brain could heal from the damage it did without it rotting in there." 

Lois keeps staring at him. 

"Fourteen months," she echoes very, very carefully. 

"I'm so sorry," Clark says tightly. "Bruce told me I left you. Left you and Jon. That I stopped being . . . myself. I can't imagine how difficult that was, or how it must've felt." 

"I can't imagine how waking up and hearing that none of us even noticed you were gone felt," Lois says. 

"You never do pull a punch, do you," Clark says with a weak attempt at a smile. 

"I'm sorry," Lois says evenly. "I should've known." 

"No one did," Clark says, then . . . hesitates. "Or . . . we think no one did." 

"You think that's what happened to Kon," Lois says, because of course she's already done the math, and of course she's already had the thought herself. Obviously she would've. 

"The timing is . . . likely, at least," Clark says. "And really, if anyone was going to see my face and notice that a different person was wearing it . . ."

"You have a point," Lois murmurs. She steps into the room. Clark wants to hold her. He also wants to bury himself in the coldest, darkest place that he can find and never, ever let himself see the sun again. 

He doesn't deserve it anymore. 

"I'm so angry that I want to cry," Lois says, her voice very distant and her eyes locked on his. Clark can see her hands fisting in her pockets. "I'm so . . . god. I should've known. You never would've left Jon. Not like that." 

"Bruce made it sound like the parasite was . . . very convincing," Clark says. It convinced Bruce, who may just be the most paranoid mind on the planet, so . . .

"It was," Lois agrees, still without taking her eyes off his. "But I still should've known." 

Clark blinks a little too quickly. Lois tightens her jaw. Takes her hands out of her pockets and leaves them at her sides instead. Clark never thought he'd see them without her wedding ring again. 

"It's been–months, I know," he says, hating himself for thinking he even deserves to say this. "For you. But I still . . ." 

"I love you," Lois says. "Come home." 

There is no possible world in which he could tell her "no". 

Med bay makes him wait for another two hours of observation and runs some scans, but then they let him go. Lois waits with him the whole time. She doesn't call anyone or send any texts. Doesn't leave the room. Barely says a word. Hardly even takes her eyes off him, like she thinks if she blinks he's going to disappear. 

Clark can hardly keep her heartbeat out of his ears, so he doesn't blame her. 

He doesn't blame her at all. 

They go to Smallville. Bruce had said he'd send Dick to pick up Jon from the babysitter's and get him to the farm, and as much as Clark had wanted to go straight to him himself . . . 

Ma and Pa first, he reminds himself. This is going to be upsetting for Jon–most likely traumatic, once it all sinks in. And definitely disorienting. It'll be best if as many of the adults in his life as possible know what's going on in advance, so he can go to whoever he needs to go to; get whatever comfort they can prepare themselves to offer. 

Clark doesn't know how to do this. 

He doesn't . . . 

They don't take two steps onto the farm before a familiar blur is crashing into him head-on. 

"Oh," Clark manages, and Krypto barks excitedly and flies up to lick his face, tail wagging wildly as he jumps all over him. Like he's missed him. Like he's been waiting for him. 

Clark nearly cries again.

"Good boy, Krypto," he tells him, quiet and rough. "I missed you too, boy." 

He scratches Krypto's ears. Strokes his back. Krypto nearly bowls him over in delight. 

Clark buries his face in his neck and cries a bit after all. 

Lois watches. 

Waits. 

Clark spends . . . maybe a little bit too long crying on his dog, and then they all head up to the house. Ma and Pa are both standing on the porch; presumably they heard Krypto barking. They both look a little bit startled and a little bit confused and a lot more pained at the sight of him, and Clark swallows painfully and stops just before the porch steps. 

He looks at them, and he loves them so desperately. Everything they ever did for him, and everything they've ever been to him, and . . . 

"I'm sorry," he says. "I just . . . there was . . ."

God, the way this hurts. 

"It was mind control," he says. "The past fourteen months or so. I was . . . I wasn't. Wasn't here. Or . . . anywhere." 

"Oh," Ma says, and her eyes are instantly wet with tears. Pa blinks very quickly, his hand curling against the porch railing. 

"I'm so, so sorry," Clark repeats tightly, his own hands in useless fists. "But I'm–back now. I'm home." 

"Oh, Clark," Ma chokes, and then they both throw themselves at him. Clark's been hugged by people with strength far past superhuman, but it's never felt . . . 

No. It's never once felt the same way as when his parents do it. 

They cling to him. He clings back. Krypto barks again and swoops around the knot of them, wagging his tail hard enough to nearly knock Lois over with the force of wind it stirs up. Definitely some of the porch furniture gets displaced. 

Clark feels so much. 

They sit together on the porch, Krypto sprawled contentedly across Clark's lap and Lois on the steps beside him. Clark gives Ma and Pa what explanation he can–tells them everything he knows about Keystone and the electrocution and the watchtower and the surgery and waking up. They watch him just as intently as Lois does the entire time. 

He doesn't . . . he doesn't mention his suspicions about what might've happened to Kon. Not . . . not yet. 

He doesn't know how to. Not to Ma and Pa. Not after he brought the kid here and left him on their doorstep with no real direction and . . . 

Just–he'll tell them. He'll tell them soon. 

Just . . . not yet. 

It's not a very long talk, in the end. Ma and Pa take in everything he says and just take it all in stride, just like they always have. Baby in a spaceship? Kid with superpowers? Son who thinks he can save the whole damn world? 

Of course they take it in stride. 

Clark loves them too much to even define. Too much to even wrap his own head around. They're the best people he knows. The best people he's ever known. 

They don't even think there's anything for him to be sorry for. 

It's . . . painful, a little, when Clark realizes that. 

Or a lot. 

So, so damn painful. 

Clark hears the definitely-not-a-Batmobile coming, far down the road. Three heartbeats inside it. Dick, Damian, and . . . 

Jon. 

Obviously. 

Clark strokes Krypto's ears one last time, then gets up. No one asks him why, but he supposes the look on his face must be answer enough right now. 

He steps off the porch and goes to wait by the driveway. 

It's not that long a wait, but it feels like the better part of eternity.

[meabh-mcinness]

I really loved your Narnia courting headcanons!, can we get the same but for Kalego and opera?

You sure can! We’ll start with Kalego and then do Opera in a separate post because space~ totally not because I find them harder to write hahaha😅

Main Masterlist

Kalego Courting Human!reader

Much like his older brother, it’ll take a minute for Kalego to even admit he likes you, much less try to court you.

But for a completely different reason.

Whereas Narnia wouldn’t want to because you’re human, Kalego wouldn’t want to because he seems to have some less than desirable thoughts towards “love”.

Likely due to the way he was raised I will strangle whoever came up with the Naberius rules, I swear He seems to be the type to believe love is a distraction rather than something to seek out or even want.

Probably doesn't help that you're related to a boss he hates and a student who constantly causes trouble. Not to mention who your security devil is.

Also, he probably doesn’t know you’re human still, at least in the beginning.

Because let’s be honest, at this point it’s not so much that no one trusts him with the secret so much as you just literally forgot to tell him and have assumed he knew, since both Shichirou and Opera do, and he's always involved in things that happen.

(This leads to a very funny confrontation one day when you kinda just throw out some knowledge about the human world in comparison to the Netherworld.

“You act like you’ve been there.”

“Well of course I have, it’s a bit hard to be born a human down here. Although I wouldn’t be too surprised if there's a small colony or two hidden somewhere. As a race, we're rather adaptable, it's why Iruma and I can attune to different situations so well.”

“…born as a what now?” 😐)

He may have a tiny fit about this at first.

Humans are considered weak and fragile, after all.

But he gets over it.

Once he finally admits to himself he does in fact fancy you, he still won't make a move right away.

Kalego is a surprisingly cautious demon, and he doesn't want to risk the humiliation of rejection, or make either of you uncomfortable.

He will however choose to be around you more, subtly testing the waters with your reactions to different things.

He isn't very good at it, though.

You ask to borrow a pen since yours has run out of ink? He'll hand one over with only a bit of snark, his fingers purposefully brushing against your palm and linger for a moment or two longer than necessary.

You complain, only to him, about running out of your favourite brand of something? The next day, you have an "anonymous" gift of that very thing.

He is only slightly less petty to you. Whereas other 'newbie' teachers will end up with piles of work as tall as them, yours is maybe half that.

Just as I said in Narnia's, I think demons start courtships with gifts!

I think he'll probably give you something along the lines of practicality, but specialized practicality.

Perhaps a leather-bound notebook with a pretty one of a kind design on it. If you're the artist type, he might get you the highest quality brushes with your name ingrained on them.

I still stand by that Kalego is the silent acts of service, gift giving and quiet quality time type.

He's a confirmed rich boy, and so has no issue giving you gifts he thinks are worthy of your station.

Definitely not into PDA. The most you're getting out of him in a public space is an offered elbow and a hand on your back to guide you in crowded areas. If you're lucky, you might get a hand to hold.

I don't know why, but hand holding with him just seems super OOC to me. But him placing a possessive hand on your back seems far more in character.

He's an old school lover by personality and training.

He is better at initiating at home, but not by much.

Will hug you randomly when he needs comfort, though. Buries his face in your neck to inhale your scent until he has nothing but an empty brain and you.

While he's bad at initiating touch, he's perfectly fine with you doing it. Just gotta warn him before you do bigger things.

Want to rest your head on his shoulder while you both grade? AOK, as long as you're in private.

Want to sit in his lap while you both read, sharing a glass of wine, music playing in the background? He's more than OK with that.

He also enjoys having you pet his head. Enjoys the pressure of your fingers against the spots where headaches had been forming, and then are chased away by your skilled ministrations.

Also, I feel like he would enjoy ear messages?

I personally think that much like Narnia's been confirmed to have a seriously good sense of smell, Kalego has seriously good hearing.

He says "Silence!" so much, even when the people around him don't seem that loud, because they actually are that loud to him.

Better than normal senses are both a blessing and a curse. For him, though, it's mostly a curse.

He works in a high school filled with loud teenagers and just as loud co-workers. His ears are probably practically bleeding before the first period has even started.

Which is why he enjoys the ear messages. Helps the pain go away.

When it comes to you, though? He's never been happier to have it.

He loves music, but he's found no better rhythm than your heart beat and has never heard a better vocalist, even when you're sick with a scratchy voice.

You are quite literally his favourite song.

Hope you're brushed up in musical terms, by the way. He will use them a lot.

Despite his love of music, he probably doesn't get much chance to talk about it. So you're going to bear the brunt of everything he wants to say from the "The lyrics are atrocious, but the melody is quite lovely. Though they could stand to add a piano bit here and perhaps a few more strings." to "Have you heard so-and-so's latest album? It's really very good compared to other things coming out lately. It almost seems like this band knows what they're doing. Almost."

Although let's be real, hearing him jabber on about his interests is not going to be a chore.

Speaking of interests, I hope you're OK with cacti because they are everywhere.

He likes to collect them and takes great joy in caring for them.

Will occasionally compare you to one, but he means it in a good way.

Not in a 'you're really prickly' way, but in a 'Much like their beauty, yours is incomparable and unmatched before anyone else's' kind of way.

He'll also do things for you without prompting.

Running low on items needed for a beloved hobby? You'll suddenly find them replaced the next day.

Need to eat, but you don't have the energy to cook? He'll either cook for you or have a spontaneous restaurant date.

He'll always have a fresh steaming cup of tea for you in the morning. Or your whatever your favourite drink is if you don't like tea.

On a side note, I feel bad for you coffee lovers because I'm pretty certain it doesn't exist in the Netherworld, and it doesn't seem like there is a counterpart to it.

Have fun going cold turkey! -Love from a tea enthusiast

He will play music for you!

And if you also play an instrument? Even it's just singing or a light clapping of the hands, he would love to duet with you. Having a partner to play music with is literally something I can see him looking for in a partner.

If you don't play an instrument, but like to dance? He would more than love to see you dancing to his music.

It makes him feel things he didn't know he could feel.

If you can't music or dance, don't worry! He's more than happy to just play for you as you listen.

If you're interested, though, he'll be more than happy to teach you.

Little at home dates teaching you to play the piano or the violin, or any instrument you want to learn, is one of his favourite ways to spend time with you.

Line Break

He's quite distressed though when he realizes that by courting you, he's exposing himself more to the Sullivan family. He had to call out for a few days from the headache it gave him and wanted to cry at the fact he'd have to be related to the two demons he hated most, plus his favourite problem child.

Unlike Narnia though, he's incredibly helpful with raising Iruma since he practically already saw him as his own pup anyway. (Lets be honest, all of the misfits are his kids, even if he won't admit it.)

He brings the stricter side of parenting to your softer one to help balance it out. Iruma is quite happy with this arrangement, since now he has another parent to bring pride too and encourage him.

Sullivan cries a lot at Kalego blocking him from a good portion of his overboard ideas when it comes to you and Iruma. It's one of the few times you can see Kalego and Opera working together without complaint.

He's also a real guard dog when it comes to you.

He is fully willing and able to fight off anyone and everyone who decides they want to have a go at you. Even if it's his own family members. Whether it be members who have gone rogue coughNarniacough or members who think that courting is beneath Naberius's, especially unranked demons, he'll fight them all.

Listen, I have a headcannon that the Naberius clan uses highly ranked surrogate carriers and just don't do courting/marriages because romance would be a distraction.

Kalego fully believed in this until he met you. Now he's fighting the other family members (i.e his father, because his uncle couldn't care less) into submission because he refuses to give you up.

Speaking of Naberius headcannons I'm pretty sure they all have dog tails, and while Kalego usually hides his, he'll let it out and about for you. When you're alone, of course.

He refuses to admit it out loud, but he enjoys your fingers running through his tail fur, move your fingers just right, and you might even get to see it wag a little.

Will occasionally sit down next to you and just plop his tail in your lap for the pets while pretending to have not noticed and be doing something else.

Also, he's addicted to you even if he's very good at not showing it.

He's not pleased to go an extended amount of time without seeing you.

Will be extra grump and waspish during that separation period, and then will actually be slightly touchy when you're back.

Especially after the HeartBreaker exam, he will be keeping an incredibly close eye on you, and will be making lots of excuses on why you should be spending time together. From schedule/training planning for the misfits, to paperwork discussions when on school property, to a lot of at home dates when you're not at school.

In other words you have your own personal guard dog.

[wonwoosthetic]

< series masterlist

word count – 13k

warnings – sibling energy

A/N – this already turned out so much longer than I wanted it to be, so I would have more content for a part 2😅😬

minnie's struggle (and blessing) of growing up with 13 dudes

[Minnie being the only girl in an idol group with 13 other guys is as iconic as it gets]

[I think we can all agree on that]

[but, we also know how much of a struggle this brings as well]

[as someone that grew up with an older brother, I don't even want to imagine how it must be with 10 of them + 3 younger ones]

[now, there's MORE THAN ENOUGH on camera footage, BUT we also have quite a few stories]

[and we'll be looking at a few of those today]

[pls enjoy]

-

teasing her

[some of these are really such canon events if you have older siblings and i love them for it]

Minnie was relaxing her back against one of the lime-green walls. 

[warning: there's quite a lot of content from the melona prison]

[just so you know]

With her phone in her hands, her eyes were focused on the screen as her fingers were tapping on it frantically. After a few seconds, a chuckle would tumble from her lips, only for her to start typing again.

Seungkwan had been entertaining the camera, with the girl only being shown in the background, but as soon as he turned around, his attention was fully on her. In a few steps, the '98 Liner stopped by her extended feet, tapping the souls of them with his toes.

"Who are you texting?" He asked her, continuing to nudge her feet with his own.

[the amount of times my brother has done the exact same thing, ugh]

[but seungkwan does it in a much cuter way]

[I MEAN JUST LOOK AT HIM]

The girl pulled in her legs and brushed him off. "No one." Only to chuckle at the screen again.

"Are you texting a friend?" Seungkwan got down and slid across the floor, his hands now placed on her knees. Once he didn't get an answer from the female trainee, he patted her bony knees. "Is it your boyfriend?"

[THE question as soon as you laugh while on the phone istg]

"What?" Her head shot up as soon as he threw the question into the room, pushing his hands off her with an annoyed sigh. "No! Get away from me."

"Just say if it's your boyfriend," the younger boy shrugged, still not getting up to leave her alone.

[i would've already smacked him ngl]

"Seungkwan!" Minnie rolled her eyes. "Stop it." A clear blush brightened up her full cheeks.

With a grin, the boy pushed himself up, pointing a finger straight at the girl. "Noona's blushing! She's texting her boyfriend!" His exclaim gained the attention of the rest of the members that were in the room.

[broooooo]

[why did he do her like that hahahah]

"Boyfriend?" Seungcheol called out from the other side of the room.

[oh no]

[big bro mode activated]

"No, I'm not! Seugnkwan, I said stop!" With her extended legs again, Minnie was able to reach his shins kicking him, making him groan as he backed up. 

"Don't lie!" He pointed a strict finger at her again. With a quick push-up, the girl stood up and slapped his hand away, only for him to slap hers in return. With a frown on her face, the female trainee pushed him by his shoulder, but before the '98 Liner could do something again, the oldest of them all stepped in between them.

[PLS]

[the bitch fight they were about to have HAHAHAHAH]

"Stop fighting!" He growled at each of them.

[just a quick intermission: i need him to shout at me like that]

[okay back to the scene]

Immediately, both teenagers raised their fingers to point at each other.

"She pushed me first!"

"He started it!"

[HEAVY SIBLING ENERGY]

A groan from Seunghcheol got both to lower their hands again. "Both of you stop!" He turned to the boy first, "Seungkwan, stop annoying her."

[cheol was soooo done with them hahaha already back then]

[i just know he probably already had to stop SO many fights at this point]

"You always defend her, hyung." The younger one rolled his eyes, crossed his arms in front of his chest and walked away.

[well, we all know why, soooo👀🥰]

[she‘s a Choi deep down🫶🏼]

Then, Cheol turned to the girl. "And you, don't hit him."

"But-" She started, but as soon as Minnie saw the scowl on the oldest's face, she shut her mouth again. 

[BRO]

[THAT LOOK]

[i. am. on. my. knees.]

[like i know this is very big brother vibes bla bla bla]

[BUT HE'S SO HOT WHEN HE'S MAD]

[god😫]

She turned around to sit back against the wall, sliding down with a sigh. Wonwoo was quick to jump up from his place on the floor and join her, sitting closely by her side.

[aaaand of course, there's wonwoo to save the day again]

With a grin, Vernon made his way into the view of the camera. "You know, we're gonna lose a lot of male fans now."

[bro hahahah]

[what a comment]

[not the right moment]

"Ooh, that's true," the youngest, Dino, nodded with a chuckle.

The female trainee said nothing in return, instead chose to throw a pen she had lying next to her at the duo, making them laugh as they tried to dodge it.

[them as annoying younger brothers actually seems so much fun]

[but i also know that i'd be beating them up left and right]

-

[now]

[this is technically not really a moment of them teasing her, but it was mentioned]

[and i really liked this moment in street women fighter]

[it's very cute, so i'm gonna include it]

The members of the HolyBang group had gathered in their greenroom, each getting comfortable on the sofa and chair provided. As they fell into a comfortable conversation, Belle spoke up.

"Where's Minnie?"

The leader started frantically glancing around the room, trying to find the eyes of the youngest in their group.

"Where did we lose her?" Jane wondered, also looking around.

"Maybe she went to the toilet," Taro suggested, but the eldest of the room wasn't listening.

Honey J got up from her position on the couch, pulling up her pants just a bit. "I'll go look for her. I'll be right back." 

[SHE WAS SUCH A QUEEN]

[AND SUCH A MOM]

[i really am so glad minnie has a woman like her in her life in korea]

Without looking back, she exited through the door they had just come in. Walking through the hallway, she tried to get a glance into each room that was open, evening taking quick peeks around each corner she passed. Up until she reached the toilets that were on the same floor. The cameras only showed the hallway that was connected to the green rooms that housed the dance groups, but the microphones followed the female dancers all the way.

The '87 Liner opened the door to the female's bathroom, not expecting to find the younger girl by the sink right away.

"Oh, what are you- are you crying?" She wondered with a gasp. "Why are you crying?" 

[this literally broke my heart🥺]

[i knew minnie was going to have a hard time bc of stupid comments]

[but her crying really killed me, like fr]

Minnie's sniffles were caught by the microphone. 

"N-No-"

"Don't say no, I can see that you're crying. What's going on?" The older woman interrupted her.

Minnie whimpered as she patted her cheeks down with some tissue. "It's nothing, I was j-"

"Ya, Minnie-ya," Honey J's strict voice was clear as she spoke. It was not often that she turned this serious. "Don't lie to me, okay? What happened? Did somebody say something to you?"

[seungcheol if he was a woman, TELL ME I'M WRONG]

The sound rustled as the '97 Liner shook her head, her hair brushing over the microphone. "The critique just hit me harder than I expected. I- I... I don't know- I didn't think I would react like this."

"Because of what they said about you?"

[FUCK THEM]

Minnie only nodded.

"Don't you want to go somewhere more comfortable where we can talk? I don't think the bathroom is the best place for a conversation like this?" The leader wondered, getting a soft chuckle from the girl.

[MOM]

"No," her sniffles continued. "If my members see me cry about this on camera, they'll tease me forever because of it." Her statement got a whole-hearted laugh from the other woman.

[and i bet they still did]

[but i'm also sure they were ready to throw fists]

[rules of brothers: make fun of your sibling for crying first and then beat up the person that made them cry]

"Minnie-ya! That can't be your concern right now, are you serious?" Chuckling along with the female idol whose cries have gotten less and more quiet.

"I'll beat them up if they do, okay?" 

[GO MOM]

[you dropped this 👑]

Honey J's question made the girl laugh out loud and cover her mouth as they both exited the bathroom and got back into the hallway. "Look," both women came to a halt, the leader looking intensely into her member's face. "Listen to me. You and I both know exactly why I asked you to be here with us. Because I know how good you are. YOU know how good you are. Fuck them and what they think just because you're an idol. You were a dancer first. And you'll always have that."

[alright, make me cry i guess]

Minnie nodded, her eyes lowered down to the floor.

[i just wanna give her a hug😢🥺😭]

-

[nowwwww]

[everything with na pd was CHAOS]

[but there were some moments i just had to highlight bc my god]

Once the producer hit the 'play' button, the intro music of the next song filled the room. Minnie, along with some other members shot up from her chair, but S.Coups beat her to it when he shouted out the name of his team. He was able to name the right group, but Woozi forgot the correct name of the song, giving them an altogether wrong answer.

[WOOZI HOW COULD YOU]

Minnie was about to shout out her team's name that she shared with Hoshi and Seungkwan, but Mingyu pushed her back into her chair, taking a step forward to cover her form as he screamed out the name of his and Jeonghan's team. 

[THIS]

[WAS]

[SO]

[FOUL]

[stand up for yourself minnie and smack him]

Right after he said the name of the group, the '95 Liner followed with the correct name of the song that was playing.

Pink Venom. A song performed by the project girl group Minnie was part of.

With her mouth agape, she glanced up at the tall member, still surprised by his action.

"Why did you push me?" Almost pouting, knowing it would hopefully make the rapper feel bad.

[HER POUT]

[this must be such a weakness for the members]

[LOOK AT HER]

"I'm sorry," he chuckled, sitting back down, placing one hand on her shoulder and the other on her knee. Minnie was quick to brush both off, smacking his chest and making him wince.

[pls he's so dramatic]

Unbeknownst to them, Dokyeom had made his way into the middle of the area, stopping right in front of the main camera, after he had thrown his jacket to the floor. The members started hollering after him as he got ready for his performance.

[i love dokyeom so much]

[but it i were minnie, i'd be RUNNING]

As soon as the chorus that Minnie sang started, DK started to move. He knew the choreo to this part inside-out at this point. The rest of the members couldn't help but laugh at how seriously the '97 Liner took his role.

[dk's coming for your career minnie, watch out]

"Dance like Minnie! Stick your butt out more!" Dino commented with a laugh, getting the girl to stand up from her position.

[BRO💀]

"What's that supposed to mean?" She argued at him before getting suddenly pushed forward. 

[fr hahahaha]

Turning around, she found Hoshi motioning for her to get closer to Dokyeom to dance with him, but she shook her head.

"Hyung, do a sexy face!" Seungkwan shouted out, clapping along to the rhythm of the song.

[istg she's with them for like ten years and then finally gets to do grown up girlgroup dances AND THIS IS THE THANKS TO THAT]

While the members were hyping up their friend, Minnie hid her smile behind her hands as she sulked into her chair as far back as possible.

[i love how shy she gets about this still though]

[on stage a beast but off stage still so shy, I LOVE HER]

When it was finally over, the room filled with applause.

"Woah, hyung, that was so good!"

"How are you so good at that dance?"

[svt really is just a bunch of simps]

"He really looked just like Minnie on stage," Vernon jokingly commented. The girl shot up from her chair.

"Hey!" 

[he went to far with that comment hahaha]

With a few steps forward, she was close enough to her fellow '97 Liner, lifting her leg to try and kick him, but he was quick to jump back with a giggle. "I don't dance like that!" Minnie pouted.

[well... i mean...]

"But you do," the leader told her, relaxing back into his chair as he eyed the girl's expression.

[he's not even bothered by it anymore PLS]

"Stooop," she whined.

"Minnie-ya," Na-PD spoke up. "Do you want to go again and dance with Dokyeom?"

She quickly shook her head. "No, thank you." Getting a laugh from each of the members, including the staff and producers.

[no thanks, i choose to keep my career and not have it taken away by one of my members]

-

[i felt so bad for them during this episode]

[but can we talk about how minnie and dokyeom pushed an entire car?! i salute them]

With the wind hitting the members' faces, it was hard to talk, but they still made the best out of it, just like they did with most situations. 

[they really had to film gose on one of the windiest days of the month outside on the street🫠]

Minnie was trapped in between Dokyeom and Dino, violently shaking her legs, hoping to create some kind of warmth as the small heaters in her pockets were almost not helping her at all.

[SOMEONE PLS WARM HER UP]

[i bet mingyu's arms would be warm enough🤭]

"What do you think, Minnie-ya?" Woozi suddenly called out for her, making her look up. "You've been really quiet so far." Commenting on the unusual lack of banter coming from the girl, especially with the topics the members were discussing.

"I-I'm really cold, I'm sorry," she explained, a somewhat smile on her face as her lips felt frozen.

Seungkwan rolled his eyes, "Suck it up then," unfazed by her statement.

[...]

[KICK HIM MINNIE]

"Yeah, we're all cold. You're nothing special," Vernon added, getting the girl to sulk into her chair as the rest of the guys started laughing.

['you're nothing special'😭]

[i have no words, they're just annoying hahah]

-

[EVERYTHING ABOUT THE GOSE SCHOOL EPISODES WAS PERFECTION]

[can we just agree on that?]

Minnie rushed to the door the directors were standing in front of, the cameras focused on the door that was closer to the blackboard in the room. She opened the sliding doors after knocking, only to find eleven pairs of wide eyes already looking at her. After a quick bow to the teacher at the front of the room, she introduced herself,

"Hello, sorry for-", but he didn't let her finish,

"The girl's classroom is two rooms down the hall." 

[PFF]

[bitch]

She looked at the man, slightly perplexed, "But- but this is classroom 17, right? I'm supposed to come here."

Soft whispers from the rest of the guys could be heard,

"Is that the new girl everybody's talking about?"

"Wow... she's really pretty."

[facts jeonghan🤝🏼]

"I heard she's French," "Oh wow, really?"

"No, I think she's British."

[I BET YOU this was exactly what was going on in the heads of the trainees when she came to pledis]

[everyone's a simp for minnie]

[her members included]

"Aha," he nodded his head slowly, still unsure of the female, "A girl in an all boys' class... interesting. I don't know how I should feel about that."

[i love how this was one of the things they were most critisised for at the beginning of their career]

[but it made them even more unique than they already were]

[and now they just make fun of everyone who ever said it was weird]

[BC LOOK AT THEM NOW🔥]

And became very stern unexpectedly, "Why are you late?!" 

Minnie flinched at the sudden change of attitude and tried holding in her laughter after closing the door behind her to take a seat at the closest seat in the last row, "I-I'm sorry, I'm-"

"No, you don't get to sit in the back! There's still a free spot right here," the teacher pointed to the first row, where an empty table stood, right in front of him.

"I'm pretty comfortable here-" Again, she got interrupted by him shaking his head,

"No, no, no," and motioned for her to come forward. She sighed, earning a warning glance from Mr Lee Soon-eung, shutting her up quickly, before sitting down in the middle seat in the first row. 

[he was using this role to his advantage in EVERY way possible hahah]

"You interrupted me calling attendance."

She bowed her head, "Oh, I'm sorry. Please," and extended her hands, "continue."

"You don't get to tell me what to do," the homeroom teacher shook his head, getting a chuckle from most of the boys in the room and making the girl find a camera to look into.

[pls tell me she beat him up after filming HAHAH]

He went on, calling out the names, "Lee Seokmin?", the student raised his hand and answered,

"Yes, Mr. Lee!"

"Ah," then he stopped, "There you are on the list. Number 10... Kim Minnie," his eyes found the girl's again.

"That's me," she raised her hand politely, a pretty smile on her lips.

"I know. That's what I just said," he continued.

"Right," Minnie whispered, nodding before mumbling to herself and the microphone attached to her, "He already hates me..."

[she was so done😭]

-

[THIS WAS GOLD]

[inse really gives us some of the best moments ever]

[before we had the pink venom moment during game caterer, we had this:]

"We have something very important to discuss, everyone." Hoshi's face took up the entirety of the camera's shot as he spoke in a low tone. 

The practice room was not yet occupied by every member, so the background noise was limited to a few people talking while the songs of their newest album 'Attacca' were playing. 

"There's a member. In this group." He let his fingers run through his hair, checking himself out in the viewfinder. "Who... we should interview today. And that member is right... there." As he turned around, he revealed Minnie's form, right next to Jun, as they were presumably caught up in a conversation that made both of them chuckle. 

[never could i have ever predicted what he was going to talk about]

With her back turned towards the performance unit's leader, the taller '96 Liner had to point behind her to make her look around.

"What?" She wondered as her eyes found Hoshi's already trained on her.

With a smug smile, he walked over to the girl, the camera following his every step. 

[THE SMILE OF A DEVIL]

[right there is were we see kwon 'younger brother' soonyoung energy]

"I just told them," he pointed at the lens filming them, "there's a member that we should interview today." The tiger threw his arm around her smaller frame. "Do you want to tell Carats something?"

[here we go]

"Me?" Unknowing about what he was talking about, Minnie glanced at him wide-eyed. "What should I want to tell them?"

"You know," Hoshi nodded, but the female member just continued to stare at him.

[oh no]

"But I don't," she simply told him.

After clearing his throat, he took a deep breath, looking back at the camera again. "Everyone... a few days ago, the new episode of Street Woman Fighter came out-"

"Ah, stop it!" With a swift move, Minnie got out of his hold, brushing his arm off her shoulders with a frown. Her voice echoed through the practice room.

[RUN MINNIE]

The '96 Liner gazed at her with a grin on his lips. "What?" He played innocent. "You don't even know what I wanted to say."

[OH PLS]

[you sneaky little bitch]

"Of course, I know!" She whined. "You guys have been teasing me about this all week!"

[OH NOOOOO]

[i can only imagine how bad it must've been for her oh god]

[i just wanna know who she watched it with]

[scoups? wonwoo and mingyu? PLS]

"That's not true," he tried to argue back.

Minnie scoffed, "Yes, it is."

"Anyways," he brushed it off. "Carats, in case you haven't seen it yet-"

With a shuff to his side, Hoshi was kicked out of view from the camera -the culprit being Minnie. "Of course, they've seen it by now. So, stop it."

[she's so whiny when she gets shy hahahah]

[cuuutiiieee]

"No, we should talk about it." The dancer stayed calm and put his focus back on the camera, but was interrupted by the girl's voice.

"Jun!" She called out with a pained chuckle. "Help me!" Her arms tightly wrapped around the '96 Liner's bicep, cuddling into the loose sleeves of his shirt.

[bestie pls help]

[come support]

"Don't drag me into this!" Jun tried to get out of her grip. The girl's surprised facial expression made him laugh.

[well done bestie]

"You said you liked the performance!" 

[OH]

[alright junie]

After the episode had aired, the members saw the choreography HolyBang had created for Jessi's new song 'Cold Blooded'. And let's just say... they didn't expect their female member to go ALL OUT.

"Ya!" the '96 Liner shouted out. "Don't say it like that, that makes it sound weird! I said you looked really confident and comfortable."

['confident and comfortable'🥹🥺]

[i'm gonna cry, he's so supportive]

"And I did," Minnie crossed her arms in front of her chest. Hoshi took a step closer to her. "I really liked our performance too."

[WE ALL LOVED IT TOO MINNIE]

[don't listen to those men]

"Then that's all that matters." 

[MIC DROP]

Was Jun's last comment before he disappeared, leaving, much to her dismay, the girl alone with their unit's leader again.

"Well," he started, "that's not really ALL that matters."

[hoshi pls😭]

"Yes, it is."

"Seungkwan-ah!" He directed his attention to the '98 Liner that had stopped in front of the mirror, now glancing towards the duo with wide eyes.

[oh no, he's getting the devil involved in this]

"Huh?"

The '96 Liner's arm was back around the shoulders of the girl.

"What did you think about Minnie in the last Street Woman Fighter episode? HolyBang's performance."

"Oh, you mean this?" Without a warning, Seungkwan bent over, putting his ass up in the air before doing circles by bending his knees. His butt on full view for the rest of the room.

[PLS]

[I ALMOST PISSED MYSELF]

[HE'S SO FUNNY FOR WHAT]

"Stoooop!" Minnie crouched over giggling while Hoshi was clapping along with the main vocalist's performance right in front of them, a big smile on his face.

"Why is Seungwan impersonating Minnie?" Vernon suddenly wondered as he walked up to the small group, only getting another round of laughter from each of the members.

[I CAN'T ANYMORE]

"Guys," with sniffles, as the girl had started tearing up from laughing, the female idol whined. "Why do you do this to me?"

[girl is literally crying 😭😂😭]

"Why are you showing your butt like this on TV?" Seungkwan confronted her with a strict voice.

[listen]

[he might be asking the real questions here]

[BUT DON'T KEEP HER FROM DOING IT]

[we need more adult girly minnie]

[like, YES GIRL, SHAKE THAT ASS]

[god gave you that for a reason yk]

"You're being mean!" She shouted back at him, getting him to mimic her mad facial expression. Minnie shook her head with a smile. "I just did what Hanee-unnie told me to do. And it looked good." She turned around. "I'm sure, Carats will agree," and winked at the camera.

[YES WE DO M'AM]

"Agree with what?" Dino appeared to her left, smiling innocently at the female member.

[keep his eyes covered pls save the maknae]

"That HolyBang's performance was good."

"The one from last week?" He wondered.

Minnie nodded. The maknae's smile dropped as he pressed his lips into a tight line. With slow steps, he started walking backwards. One step at a time. Slowly. His eyes never left Minnie, who had her mouth slightly agape.

[OH BOY WAS NOT IMPRESSED HAHAHAHA]

[the image of his noona just got RUINED]

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Before he could answer, the familiar loud voice of Seungkwan bounced off the walls as he stood in the middle of the room.

"Hey guys!" He called out as most of the members had gathered. "Who am I?" And once again, he repeated the dance move, putting his butt up extra high. 

[DUUUUUDE]

[they ain't letting it go. EVER]

The joined laughter from all of the members could be heard through the camera.

"Ah, Seungkwan-ah!" S.Coups had to stop his chuckle, his hand half covering his eyes. "We've seen enough of this. Don't remind us."

[big bro to the rescue]

"Yeah, once was enough," Wonwoo's deep chuckle was immediately recognizable.

[OH]

[WONWOO WAS NOT IMPRESSED EITHER?!]

[shook]

[i just got reminded that he's really possessive]

[nvm i take that 'shook' back]

[dude's too obvious]

Minnie just shook her head, the lens back on her. "Help me," she whispered. "Help. Me."

[GIRLY GET BEHIND ME]

"Minnie-ya!" Jeonghan suddenly called out. "You did well!"

[I'M GONNA CRY]

"Thank you!" The girl was quick to react, smiling brightly at the second oldest, who was resting on the bench they had put up against the wall. Joshua sent her a thumbs-up as well.

[THEY'RE SO CUTE]

Surprisingly, Minghao jumped into the camera's view, his arm embracing Minnie right away. "Yeah, don't listen to them." He reassured her before talking towards the camera. "We're all actually really proud of Minnie," the two '97 Liner nodded in chorus as the girl chuckled. 

[crying again]

[may we pls all be gifted with a minghao]

[how dare he be so cute and supportive]

"It was a bit of a surprise, but the performance was really good." 

[oh, the money i would pay to see all of the guys' reactions to the performance]

Another smile at her earned him a tight embrace, making him laugh as he tightened his embrace. 

[IF THEY EVER GET PULLED APART EVER AGAIN, I WILL RIOT]

[DO NOT SEPERATE MINNIE AND HAOHAO]

The moment was ruined once the camera caught the BooSeokSoon trio in the mirror, all repeating the iconic moves of HolyBang's performance to Cold Blooded. 

[ngl though]

[they kinda ate that up]

This was going to haunt her for quite a while.

[i'm so sorry minnie HAHA]

-

minnie as 'one of the boys'

[or in other words: the members forgetting that minnie is a girl and like half their size]

[tbh i don't even know if you could call it 'forgetting' or rather just ignoring that she's a girl]

[which, ngl, love it]

[like yes, sometimes you'd definitely need to consider it, like whenever they talk about showering together and what not bc let‘s leave that to the melons prison times😂]

[but like... with everything else]

[those dudes do NOT give a single fuck]

[they either treat her like a bro or like a princess, there's literally no in between, AND I AM HERE FOR IT]

[she really gets the best of both worlds?]

[she's been one of the dudes since day one, and we have content to prove it:]

Mingyu surprised the rest of the group when he suddenly showed up, carrying Minnie in his arms.

[a queen should never walk, and that's on period💅🏼]

"What are you doing?" Woozi couldn't help but laugh as he eyed the two friends. The female trainee was tightly clinging onto the neck of her fellow '97 Liner.

[although, she does look like she ain't enjoying this even one bit]

"He's gonna drop me!" She whined out loud, re-securing her grip.

The boy shook his head, "No, I won't," before turning to the older member. "I wanted to see how long I could carry her for. She's really light, I think I could do this forever."

[did he just brag about his strength or compliment her body?]

[slay i guess]

Minnie rolled her eyes, "Yeah, alright... but I won't let you, so can you please put me down?"

[back then she wasn't taking advantage of it just yet]

[and then you watch in the soop and she's being carried around literally EVERYWHERE hahahah]

"Wait!" Aprubtly, Soonyoung rushed towards them, away from the conversation he was having with Chan. "I want to try to carry her too!"

[this seems like such a dude thing]

['i'm strong too, let me show you]

"Noo, why?" Ignoring her whine, Mingyu crouched down slightly as the older member had his arms already extended. They switched quickly, with Minnie having to loosen her grasp around the taller member's neck slowly, one hand leaving his skin first, only to switch onto Soonyoung's neck. As soon as her body was fully in the dancer's arms, he started bouncing her up and down, making her chuckle, but a frown was still evident on her face.

[annoying ass]

[KICK HIM MINNIE]

"No! Hyung, please!" Tightening her grip once again.

"Woah, she's really light!" 

[so you think i'm skinnyyyyy]

The '96 Liner commented, carrying her towards the middle of the room when the other members got closer to them.

Dokyeom got to her legs and started holding onto them. "Should we try throwing her up?" He suddenly asked.

[dude...]

[can they be any more bro-like?]

[like who even thinks of that?!]

[boys. that's who.]

A round of laughter and applause filled the room, "OOOH YES!", "Let's try it!" The whines of the girl were overheard by the boys as they gathered around her, each placing their hands on her back and legs.

[she was so helpless, oh god😭]

"Guys, no! Please, you're gonna drop me!" She shouted out, a nervous chuckle falling from her lips, not helping how scared she actually was.

[i would literally be screaming at the top of my lungs]

"We're not gonna drop you," Wonwoo tried to assure her, but it wasn't helping in the slightest.

[yeah alright, move over loverboy]

"Minnie," Vernon spoke up, "You have to let go of Soonyoung's neck."

"No!" She argued back while the older member was already moving his head around, trying to loosen her grip on him. Seungkwan got up behind him, his hands working on the girl's fingers that were intertwined.

[also: the staff? didn't care. not one bit.]

"Come on, Minnie, trust us," he chuckled as he pulled her hands apart.

"Ey, please, guys," she covered her face, still trying to get out of their hold. For some reason, even though she was scared to the bone, she couldn't help but chuckle.

[the nervous laugh is so real]

[like what else are you gonna do?]

Together, the guys lowered themselves slightly, bending their knees.o

"Alright, everyone!" Soonyoung called out. "On three!"

"No, stop!"

[panic]

"One! Two! Three!" As soon as the last number fell from his lips, the guys pushed their knees back up straight, extended their arms, and managed to throw the girl up into the air. Minnie's scream echoed through the room, still ringing in their ears once she fell back into their arms.

[it looks kinda fun]

[but jeez, i'd be pissing myself from fear]

"One more time! Higher!" It was Mingyu's turn. "One!"

"STOP!" The girl's exclamation was ignored - possibly because she was still laughing along with them.

"Two! Three!" And once again, the eleven members threw her up, only that this time, they underestimated their strength as the girl had to reach out with her hands, so her face wouldn't hit the ceiling.

[i actually would've died]

"OH!" A round of exclaims came from the boys as they were surprised by the sudden sound her hands made once they hit the hard material. 

[THEY LITERALLY THROUGH HER AGAINST THE CEILING]

Hastily, they tried to catch her again and lower her onto the floor. She caught them off-guard when she suddenly started to laugh.

"Oh my god, are you okay?" Vernon was the first to ask her, followed by Chan who got down on his knees.

"Noona, did you hurt yourself?"

"Are you okay?"

After taking a deep breath in, Minnie pushed away all the upper bodies that were now way too close to her face, for some reason still softly chuckling.

[how tf she can laugh in this moment, i don't know]

[i would be crying and running home]

"I told you guys to stop!" She was still trying to catch her breath, as she pushed herself up from the floor, Dokyeom trying to help her.

Seungkwan, Vernon, and Chan had taken a step back and watched her with wide eyes, fear written all across their faces.

Dokyeom lowered his head to meet her eyes as she fixed her hair. "Did you get hurt?"

"No," the girl shook her head. "I'm okay."

For a quick moment, the entire room fell quiet, only for Mingyu to break it again.

"Alright! Let's do it again!" Getting cheers from the others in return.

But the female trainee was already running away, her screams disappearing behind the door.

[BYE BYE]

-

"Jihoon has never had a girlfriend. Ever."

Vernon, Seungkwan, Jihoon, and Minnie were together cramped in the small room with muffled walls, that was right next to their practice room. The youngest one was talking to the camera.

[they're literally babies, I CAN'T]

"He doesn't even have friends that are girls."

[RUDE?!]

With furrowed brows, the girl turned to her right, glaring at the English-speaking member.

"And what am I then?" She wondered, making Vernon's head shoot in her direction.

[facts]

"Hm?"

"I'm friends with Jihoon," she explained, "And I'm a girl."

[you tell him girl]

"Oooh, yeah right," the young rapper nodded. "I keep forgetting that, I'm sorry."

[explain to me why i find this kinda edearing]

[she's so close with them and they're just enjoying their time together and do not give a shit about gender]

[#oneoftheboys]

His comment made the '96 Liner laugh and lean forward, giving the girl the perfect opportunity to grab the notebook from the table in front of her and whack Vernon across the head with it. The youngest groaned with a chuckle, his hand reaching for the back of his head.

[idk why but seeing minnie mad like that is so funny for no reason HAHAHA]

[she looks so cute, but then she just whips out a freaking notebook and hits you with it]

To his defence came Seungkwan, who snatched the notebook out of her grip, only to hit her with it as well. He added about twice the amount of strength, letting the sound of it hitting her skin ring through their ear.

She turned around, trying to regain the pieces of paper, but the younger member pulled back with a sheepish smile plastered on his face.

-

The girl's high-pitched giggles filled the room with joy as Chan joined her laughter while she ran around in circles, carrying him on her back.

[minnie is the best big sister ever and i will fight anyone who says otherwise]

[even in the melon prison, they were so happy🥺🥹]

"Noona, can you jump with me on your back?" The maknae wondered. 

[CHANIE]

[YOU LITTLE CUTIE]

Minhee didn't need to be asked twice as instead of answering him, she tried to do exactly that. Less of a jump and more of a gallop got another round of giggles from the trainees, making the girl continue doing the action.

After only a few seconds, the female member started breathing heavier than before as she slowed down.

"This is more exhausting than I thought," she commented as she lowered herself onto her knees, letting Chan get easily off her back. Minnie laid down on her stomach, her arms by her side as she enjoyed relaxing on the floor.

"Noona!" The youngest, still as excited as ever, threw himself onto her back, getting a groan from the older girl in return. "You're so much stronger than I expected." Making the girl chuckle.

[🥹]

[crying]

"Yeah, it surprised me too."

[minnie bulking up? let's gooo]

"Are we cuddling?" Seokmin's loud voice echoed through the room as he saw the two lying on the floor. 

[BABY]

[HE ASKED IF THEY WERE CUDDLING]

[STOP]

Without waiting for an answer, he copied the maknae and threw himself onto the two the same way. This time, a second groan came from the youngest.

[i mean, at this point, the ppor girl]

[come on guys]

Before any of them could rake themselves up again, the next trainee followed - Seungkwan.

Minhee moaned out in pain. "Guys, I'm still underneath all of you."

[hi, pls, help me]

Then came Mingyu, who let himself fall back onto the mass of his friends, his back hitting the '98 Liner's.

[this would've been my last straw]

Wonwoo decided to go next, slightly jumping up, so he could be at the very top.

[and there comes the next]

A chorus of moans filled the room.

"Guys," Seungcheol rushed over to the hill of people, ready to push them off. "Come on, guys, you're crushing Minhee." 

[thank you]

[THANK. YOU.]

[poor girl was about to see the light with all of that weight on her]

The younger members quickly reacted and got off again, one after the other, releasing the blockage of air the girl had experienced.

"You're all so much heavier than her," Joshua came towards them as he laughed at the antics of his fellow trainees. 

[aaaaand seventeen's gentleman back in the game]

He crouched down, his hand reaching out to help Minhee get up once she had rolled onto her back.

"Ugh," she groaned as she pulled herself up with the help of Jisoo's grip. "Thank you, Josh."

-

[what happens in the melona prison, stays in the melona prison]

[this too]

[although, i have to admit, i'm pretty convinced they would still do this]

Nine of the members had their arms tightly interlocked with each other as they lay on the floor in two separate rows. The six others were on their feet and trying to pull the other trainees apart. Somehow, Seungcheol had managed to tear away Wonwoo and Minhee from the rest of the chain as those two were clinging onto each other the tightest.

"Let go!" The oldest's shout was filled with laughter as he tucked on the '96 Liner's legs.

[can you imagine getting pulled away with cheol's strength]

[i'm convinced he could rip out an arm]

Mingyu saw his struggle and was quick to rush to his help, getting a hold of the girl's legs. With her starting to kick like a fanatic, it was hard for him to hold his grasp, sighing in relief once he got her loose pants's leg.

"Mingyu!" She called out. "You're taking off my pants!"

[smh]

"Then let go!" He argued back.

[WHAT KIND OF ANSWER EVEN IS THAT]

[mingyu, how about you try to use less strength on a girl that's two heads smaller than you]

Minhee started kicking her legs again, hoping the boy wouldn't accidentally expose her underwear and naked legs.

[i love how her number one defence mechanism, after throwing random shit, is kicking them]

[bc same]

"Cheol-hyung! He's gonna take off my clothes!" She shouted out for the oldest member, who looked up at the '97 Liners.

[and just when she thought big bro cheol would come to the rescue]

"Stop kicking, then we can pull you guys apart!" 

[he pulls this...] 

He surprised the female trainee with his answer, originally hoping for his support. She was caught off guard as she was still busy trying to keep her pants up when she suddenly felt an emptiness by her arm. Looking to her side, she found Wonwoo an arms-length away from her.

[and there goes her other half]

"No, hyung!" Minhee laughed as she tried to sit up and stand up completely, but instead, she felt another tug on her leg. Before she could react, the floor was already being swiffered with her body. Mingyu's evil laughter rang through her ears as Dokyeom joined in. His hands wrapped around right arm while the rapper still had his grip on her left leg. 

[they were EVIL]

[how tf is she supposed to defend herself against THAT]

Helping pleas and giggles from the only female trainee filled the room, but went ignored as the guys started adding to the laughter. The other members who were already separated decided to just sit on the floor and watch the '97 Liner group with big smiles on their faces.

[no helping hand in sight]

[love it]

-

[going from the melona prison, to even more public on camera]

[oh, you thought they'd stop once they became famous? hell no.]

The members were lined up in front of the pool, all ready for their sign-off towards the camera on the other side.

"Seventeen!" Jeonghan started them off, with the rest of the members following him. "TTT!"

Minnie was about to turn around and walk away when she suddenly felt two strong arms wrapping around her torso. Mingyu had her tight in his embrace as he turned her to the side, his mischievous giggle right next to her ear.

[here we go again]

[how she managed to survive stuff like this for 10+ years now, with no broken bones, i'll never understand]

"Let go of me!" She shouted, but Seungcheol had already grabbed her legs, lifting them up. The girl tried to kick him away from her, "NO!" 

But before she could do much, the two strongest members of the group had already started rocking her body back and forth by the side of the pool. 

[how is this fair ...]

[like bffr, at least give her a chance ...]

On three, they let go of her, letting Minnie disappear underneath the surface, her scream muffled by the water. All of the members stared at the pool with their mouths agape.

[bc they really had to THROW her]

[they couldn't have just pushed her in the pool, no they literally had to throw her up in the air, to make her entire body turn]

With a gasp, she came back up to grasp for air, her hands running over her face as she tried to free it from her hair.

"You idiots!" She cursed at them with a giggle, but the guys were already on the floor, clutching their stomachs, trying to control their laughter.

-

[THIS]

[i would've left]

[i'm telling you as it us]

[no contract renewal bc of this betrayal]

For a good five minutes, Seugnkwan, Minnie, and Mingyu were hurdled up in the stairwell of the warehouse. They had yet to open the doors and enter the corridor that would officially lead them into the horror house the Going Seventeen staff had set up. The rapper had already tried once but as soon as one of the killers crossed his eyes, he closed the door again right away.

"Ok," the '98 Liner took a deep breath. "Noona, you go first."

[what a gentleman]

Her head whipped in his direction. "What?! Why me?"

But the younger member just shrugged.

"Please, Minnie-ya," Mingyu practically begged her. With her mouth slightly agape, she glared at both of her members.

[DUDE, YOU'RE 6FT2, FUCKING ACT LIKE IT]

"Are you- you know what, alright." She brushed their fear off of her and opened the door, not able to see the little claps the two did in celebration of getting her to go in first.

[i can definitely tell that if she hadn't agreed to it, they would've just pushed her in through the door]

-

The three had just managed to run away from the first few killers they had encountered and were now stuck in a dark room. Mingyu had closed the door as they all rushed to the very end of the room, trying to get as far away as possible.

Minnie couldn't help but continue her giggle that had started once she was being chased.

[for now she's laughing🙃]

"Why are you laughing?" The rapper hissed at her in a whisper, clearly shaken up by the situation.

At his reaction, the girl crumbled over, her hands falling to her knees as she laughed out loud. Then she pointed at the youngest of them.

"Look at him," chuckling at the crying expression Seungkwan held. 

[OLDER SISTER BEHAVIOR]

[she's literally making fun of him while he's almost having a mental breakdown, what😂😭]

He was quick to switch to a neutral face, glaring at the girl before lifting his hand, and threatening her with a slap on the back of her head, making her slightly flinch.

[some members need to learn how to fight back just like seungkwan does]

[not looking at anyone in particular👀]

Before she could react back to him, the door unexpectedly opened, revealing one of the killers with the light-up mask, catching the three idols off-guard. Subconsciously, the two male members, grabbed the girl by her arms, trying to hide behind her much smaller frame.

"What?! I'm gonna-" the '98 Liner tried to toughen up. "You've been waiting for a long time, right?" 

[don't even try seungkwan💀]

[don't even]

Minnie tried to free herself of their grip on her shoulders but was unable to do so. Once the killer started to get closer, the three moved together in synch, further away from him, along the wall, towards the opposite corner of the room.

[they were CLUTCHING onto her for dea life, jesus, let a girl breathe]

One quick look towards the door showed them the next killer that had shown up, the killer clown.

"Oh, what?!" Mingyu cried out, clutching tighter onto the girl's arms. She continued to brush his hands off her. 

[not impressed]

Seungkwan's scared whines echoed through the room and hallways, only adding to the thrill of the situation they were put in. The masked killer was to their left, slowly getting closer, while the clown decided to stay by the door.

As if the guys had made a pact, with one push to the left, Seungkwan and Mingyu threw the girl right into the killer's chest, leaving everyone not involved in their action in shock. The two rushed out of the room, leaving the girl alone.

[I'M SO DONE]

[THEY CANNOT BE FFR]

[DID THEY REALLY JUST THROW HER LIKE THAT?! yes they did]

"Are you kidding me?!" She shouted out as the man made sure she stood up straight, his arms that had caught her now back relaxed by his body. "They really just did that...," she shook her head in disbelief, mumbling under her breath. A comforting pat on the shoulder made her look up. 

[they were so sweet 😭😭]

[scary horror killers that have a soft spot for minnie]

[don't we all]

The actor of the killer was looking at her while his free hand pointed at the door. The clown had copied his motion, showing her the way out.

"Are you letting me go?" She wondered, her fingers running through her hair to straighten it out.

She got a nod in return.

"Because those idiots left me here to die?"

Another nod.

"Thank you," Minnie sent them a tight smile.

[SO SWEET]

After a quick exchange of looks with each of the killers, Minnie sprinted out of the room, the actors waiting a few seconds before rushing after her.

[and back to killing]

[btw still mad they all made it out, minnie should've left them there]

-

[i just have one thing to say: i want to go on vacation with them]

[i am BEGGING]

Woozi, Dokyeom, Joshua, Dino, Wonwoo, and Hoshi were still focused on their water game, passing the ball around in the circle they had formed. Vernon had gotten out of the pool, leaving Minnie alone on one of the floaties. 

[they were so unbothered in this scene, i love them for that]

The floating pineapple pool mattress gave her the perfect opportunity to rest on her back and close her eyes, just listening to her other members playing their game.

[how she can be so quiet and unbothered while they are literally shouting and being as loud as possible is still a mystery to me]

[it's like her superpower almost]

Her fellow '97 Liner noticed her still form, not having moved for at least fifteen minutes. The game came to a halt as he ushered the guys into a smaller circle, exchanging whispers and chuckles between them. 

[this isn't gonna end well]

Shortly after, the maknae made his way over to the girl as carefully and slowly as possible. The sudden quietness made the girl slightly suspicious, opening her eyes to see what was going on. 

[oh oh]

She noticed the movement. She pushed herself up, and her eyes fell on the youngest of the group.

[got ya bitch]

"What are you doing?" But she got no verbal answer other than a sinister giggle.

The members were already waiting in position, all on one half on the floatie when Hoshi started counting to three with his fingers. 

[bye minnie]

The girl caught on to their prank. “Wait! Wait, guys!" As quickly as she tried to move away, Minnie was still too slow.

Once he held up three fingers in the air, the guys put their hands underneath the mattress and lifted it easily, throwing her into the water, her scream getting muffled underneath the surface.

[...]

[girl just wanted to relax]

[and this is what she gets]

[no quiet day for seventeen ever]

With proud claps and hollers, the guys cheered on themselves as the girl got back up, her hands immediately pushing her hair out of her face.

[how proud they are of themselves 😭]

"What the hell was that for, you idiots!" She laughed out loud. Before any of them said something back, Hoshi started splashing her frantically with water, making her turn around and hide her face. The rest of them quickly joined in, all attacking her with splashes.

[AND THEN THIS]

"GUYS!" She continuously shouted, all covered by laughter from each member inside the pool.

[LET HER BREATH, jesus]

When they finally stopped, she turned back around towards them, glancing at each of them with a small smile on her face.

"I hate you all." Getting a chuckle from each of them. 

[yeah yeah]

[you love them, we know it]

They were about to get back to their game when Minnie suddenly attacked Dokyeom by jumping on his back, catching him off-guard and slightly stumbling back. In return, he let himself fall backwards, taking her down with him, both laughing all the way.

Once they got back up, they were separated again, and as if both had agreed on the next move, together they started attacking the person next to them with water - the victim being Woozi.

With no warning, Minnie was suddenly lifted up by Hoshi, who just threw her back into the water. She was quick to come back up to the surface to start splashing him right away. The '96 Liner got support from the youngest, joining in to attack the female member. She, in return, got help from Wonwoo, who had joined her side and started helping her. 

[this was all just so chaotic]

[i love them all]

-

The next emotion for their SVTSIDE OUT episode was anger and Seungcheol started it all when he suddenly shouted out loud, his deep growl too close to Minnie's ear. In return, the girl pushed him harshly away from her.

"What is wrong with you?! Don't scream like that!"

[only minnie is brave enough to do this to cheol]

Instead of a verbal answer, S.Coups grabbed her arm and threw her onto the soft part of the trampoline they were standing on. 

[A FULL SLAM]

[LIKE DUDE]

[come on bro]

[don't do this to her]

[i was so shocked hahahah]

With a heavy huff, she landed on the ground, but before she could get up, the '95 Liner had already started jumping around, making her body bounce off of the stretchy fabric. The members came to his help, using the strength of their knees as they made the female member unable to stand up.

[no mercy]

"Stay down!" Dokyeom shouted at her, to which she couldn't help but giggle when she screamed back at him.

[none at all]

"What the hell is wrong with you?!"

Somehow, Minnie managed to get onto her wobbly legs, only for Joshua to throw his arm around her shoulder and pull her down with him. While he chuckled, the girl groaned, squirming around as she tried to get away from him

"Get off me, you wannabe wrestler!"

[WANNABE WRESTLER 💀]

-

her actions speak for themselves 

[you better bet i'm putting in another scene from street woman fighter]

The nine women of HolyBang had gathered in their green room, waiting for further instructions as they got comfortable on the sofa and chairs. Some of them had already turned to their phones, while others had started talking to each other.

"Who do you guys think are gonna be the strongest rivals?" Belle suddenly asked the rest of the members.

Hertz shrugged, her eyes glued to the screen in her hands. "I don't really care, we're strong anyway, we shouldn't worry too much about that."

[PERIOD GIRL]

[i love how confident they were]

[gotta teach me their way, please]

"Oh," Minnie chuckled nervously, "I was ready to say YGX, but that's gonna sound really insecure now."

[GIRLY😭]

"Yeah, don't say it, please," the older woman chuckled. "Let's stay confident."

[facts]

A sudden laugh surprised the women. Honey J was hunched over on her chair.

"What?" Taro wondered, chuckling at her leader.

The older women pointed at the youngest of them all. "I just love how Minnie is sitting like the most confident dude, but wanted to talk about being scared of the other groups."

[well, who do you think she got that from]

And she wasn't wrong. Minnie had her knees wide apart, her back half on the seating cushions on the sofa while only her head and shoulders leaned against the backrest.

[SHE DOES]

"Oh," she chuckled, "Sorry," and pushed herself up immediately, straightening her back.

"No, no, no," the older woman reached out to her. "You should look relaxed. It makes you seem more confident, that's good."

[and that's why she's perfect]

[WE LOVE YOU HONEY J]

"Fake it 'till you make it," Belle nudged Minnie's shoulder as she repeated a phrase she had recently learned from the younger girl, getting a giggle out of her.

-

[yes, another game caterer moment]

[i loved these episodes just too much alright]

[can you blame me?!]

The members had just changed into the basketball jerseys the staff had provided for them and were making their way onto the field. The weather was slightly cooler than expected, so Minnie had put on a long-sleeved shirt underneath. Each jersey seemed to have come in the same size as her white one was almost reaching her knees.

The guys had started throwing the ball around randomly, each of them trying to get it into the net. 

"Minnie-shi?" Na-PD called out for her, making the girl turn around towards the cameras. "Didn't they give you pants? Do you want some sweatpants?" He kindly wondered, two staff members behind him already standing up.

[okay but can we talk about how sweet he is?!]

[i mean, the entire staff seems amazing]

[but i love this man so much]

Without thinking twice, the girl suddenly pulled up her jersey, revealing the black biker shorts she had put on. 

[WITH NO WARNING]

The action surprised the staff members as they gasped and quickly turned their heads, as they had thought she was still without any piece of clothing on her legs.

"Minnie-shi!" 

[their life literally just flashed right in front of their eyes]

[jesus christ minnie HAHAHAH]

[💀💀]

This time, the members' attention was also turned towards the staff, their eyes though on the girl who chuckled,

"What?"

"We thought you weren't wearing anything underneath," another female staff member explained, joining in laughing at the moment they had shared.

"Oh my god, I'm sorry!" She giggled, scrunching over as laughter took over her body.

[don't scare them like that girl]

"What?" The leader suddenly came forward, switching gazes between the staff and the girl. "What's going on?" 

[protective bro is back]

Still confused when Minnie leaned on him for support, the laughter coming from her and the people behind the camera still filling his ear. 

"What happened?" Now it was Hoshi's time to ask.

[protective bro #2]

"I-" the female member tried to explain through her giggles. "They- They thought I wasn't wearing anything under the shirt, so I showed them." She repeated the action, catching some of the members off-guard as well as S.Coups, who was quick to reach out, pulling her jersey back down again.

[HE REACTED SO QUICKLY]

[like, how many times has this happened before that he just reacts within AN INSTANT]

"No! I'm wearing the biker shorts." Minnie pulled the jersey up, revealing her choice of pants. "But they weren't expecting it."

A slap on her shoulder made her turn to the side. Vernon's bright smile was shining at her, his uncontrollable laughter only making hers start again too.

[supportive younger bro that finds everything you do hilarious]

[love him]

"Oh," Seungcheol chuckled as he shook his head. "Don't do it like that," he scolded her, gently nudging her shoulder as she was still laughing with the '98 Liner.

[pls scold me like that coups]

-

[everything about this game was so chaotic]

The game was at full speed, with Mingyu, Dokyeom and Joshua from the white team on the field, while Minnie, Jun, Dino, and S.Coups were sat on the bleachers.

DK tried to pass the ball to his fellow '97 Liner, but Wonwoo, who only shortly before got switched in, blocked Mingyu and the ball fell outside of the field's line.

"Wow," the girl commented with a nod, the '96 Liner clearly better than expected.

The deep voice from the PD behind her made her jump. "Minnie just said 'wow'!" Letting the rest of the crew and idol group know. Her head shot back to the older man.

[snitch]

"Wait, what?! 'Wow'?! Because of 'wow'?!"

[fr hahah]

"Minnie-ya!" The leader to her left punched her shoulder, making her wince slightly.

[a punch from coups really must leave a bruise]

[dude is STRONG]

The maknae next to her put his hand on her upper arm. "Noona," he spoke softly, to which the girl turned back around, her eyes immediately on him. "It's 'woah'. 'Wow' really is English." He explained with a tight smile, but Minnie could only groan out loud.

[PLS HE'S ADORABLE]

['noona' will forever be my favourite word from him🥺]

"YA!" From the field came Mingyu's deep voice. "Minnie-ya, get over here!" His right hand had a tight grip on the basketball.

[RUN GIRL]

[RUN]

The girl stood up with her arms crossed. 

[she was SO ready to fight ...]

[the confidence she built up over the years to be ready to fight a 6ft2 man should be studied bc this is insane]

Before she could say anything, a strong arm wrapped around her shoulders and pulled her down. Seungcheol held her in a tight lock.

[and here we go]

[you're supposed to be the protective bro, wtf is this coups]

"Let go of me!" She shouted out, holding onto his arm, trying to open it, so she could escape.

[big bro taking advantage of his strength, smh]

"Do you promise not to speak English anymore?" He asked her, laughing at her trying to fight his strength.

[😭]

[he's literally enjoying this 🥲]

"I didn't even know 'wow' wasn't Korean! How the hell am I supposed to know that?!"

She was freed very suddenly, her hair all over the place as she took a deep breath before falling back to the bleachers with a huff.

[you got this minnie]

[i believe in you]

The leader nudged her shoulder. "No, stand up and go in. Dokyeom's gonna go out."

With that, she pushed herself off the benches and switched positions with DK but before the game started, Mingyu walked up to her, the basketball still in his possession. Thanks to her back being turned towards him, she couldn't see his form coming closer. Once he was right behind her, he held the ball up, letting it drop onto her head from a short distance, just to tap it, not to actually hurt her.

[pls kick him]

The girl flinched with a surprised expression and turned around, finding the mischievous grin of her fellow '97 Liner.

"You deserved that."

-

As Minnie decided to stay out of the game, she was sitting next to Woozi on one of the stools provided by the Game Caterer staff. Seungcheol had joined them after losing his challenge and having to eat four pieces of lemon. Now it was Jeonghan's turn to sit down next to them, a cup filled with his own amount of lemon pieces in his hands.

The singer took one of the slices and bit into it, an instant groan tumbling from his lips.

Minnie turned her head. "Give me some," the girl held out her hand. "I can help you eat them."

"Isn't that cheating?" He wondered, making the girl chuckle.

[COMING FROM YOU?!]

"Since when do you care about that?" To which he nodded, taking one lemon piece out of the cup and handed it over to her.

[fr hahahah]

With ease, the female idol bit into it, sucking the juice out first, before ripping the lemon's flesh from the peel, jewing on it as she put the rest of it back into the paper cup.

With shock written across his face, Jeonghan gazed at her. "You don't think it's sour?"

Minnie shrugged. "I don't mind it. I really like it."

[hell yeah]

"What do you like?" Seungcheol's head popped up as he leaned back to glance past Woozi's frame to look at the girl.

"Sour lemon. Do you want me to help you with yours too?"

"You want to eat my lemons?" He wondered, slightly surprised by her request.

The '97 Liner nodded and reached out, holding out her empty palm to the leader, who placed one piece on it.

"Give me two," she stated, to which she got another slice. With a grin, she sat back straight and enjoyed chewing on the citrus fruit.

Seungcheol sighed. "Woah, I didn't know you became that much of a cheater."

[well]

[who do you think taught her that 🫣]

With a proud grin, Jeonghan patted her knee, leaning forward a slight bit to get a look at the leader. "I taught her well," he commented before his hand ran over her long hair.

[HE'S SO PROUD OF THAT]

[jeonghan is just so happy he got another member on his cheat agenda hahah]

-

but at the end of the day, they love and care for her

[as much as i love them for their sibling energy]

[and them making fun of minnie]

[and teasing the shit out of her]

[I AM SO SOFT FOR THEIR CUTE MOMENTS]

[like look at this]

"Noona!" Seungkwan's voice made the girl turn around from the conversation she was having with Jun about the Harry Potter Lego set he had just won. The game the Na-PD and the rest of the Game Caterer producers had prepared was over and everyone was free to take the presents that didn't get picked in the first place.

Minnie walked up to the younger member who had called out for her.

"What is it?"

His hand reached out, holding a few of the pebble snacks he had taken for himself. "Eat this."

The female member shook her head. "No, thank you-"

"You haven't eaten much today yet, take this." He grabbed her hand and put each snack piece into her palm.

[when i tell you i teared up?!]

"Seungkwan-ah, only a few."

"No, take all of them." He answered back, brushing off her comment. 

[he wasn't having it]

[TAKE IT AND EAT IT]

With full hands, she turned back around and stopped by Jun again as she put one pebble into her mouth.

"Do you want some?" She asked the taller member.

For a second, he looked down at her hands before shaking his head. "No, you should eat them. Thank you, though." Giving her back a comforting pat.

[🥹]

-

The members were standing in the 'living room' of their dorm, looking up and speaking into the camera that was being held up by Joshua. 

Once Hoshi and Dokyeom finished their sign-off, they disappeared into another room, making room for Jeonghan, who had been hiding behind Joshua. He was just about to say something as his mouth opened, but the sudden appearance of the female trainee from around the corner made his eyes light up.

"Oh, Minnie-ya, come here for a second!" The older of the two called out for the girl. With a smile on her face, she crossed the floor and walked up to the '95 Liners as they broke apart, leaving a space in between them for her. 

[BABIES]

[they look so young, oh my god]

Jeonghan raised one of his arms to welcome her, making her look straight into the camera.

"Today is a very special day for Minnie-ya. Do you want to tell them why?" He asked her, making a shy grin appear on her lips.

[he literally looks like a proud mom]

[🥺😭]

[somebody get me tissues pls]

She turned her head to look at him.

"Do you mean the test?" She softly wondered, getting an encouraging nod from the member in return.

"Oh, well," her lips curled up even more. "Today I had to take a Korean language test, and I passed."

"Don't just say you passed!" Jeonghan whined at the younger girl. "Because you passed extremely well." He turned to the camera, "She got all the points, guys."

[SUPPORTIVE AF]

Minnie nodded, her hands clutching onto each other. "Yeah... I'm now officially a B2 Korean speaker."

[slayyy]

"Is that the highest ranking?" Joshua wondered, turning his head towards her.

"No, it's like levels. B2 means I can speak it well enough to hold up more complicated conversations, but I still don't know specific words and... terminology. That would be C1. And then C2 is that you speak it like it's your first language," she explained.

[our smart girly👑]

Jeonghan nodded, "But you've been here for four years already, so you'll be at C1 very soon. And then C2," he patted her head, getting a smile from her in return before she waved into the camera and disappeared again.

[pls i need somebody to be this supportive of me too]

"She's really smart with languages. I don't think even I would be at a C1 or B2 level now," Joshua admitted. The older '95 Liner couldn't help but chuckle.

"Learning new languages seems really easy for her. But she also worked very hard and studied a lot for this test."

[yes pls praise her even more guys]

"That's true," the Korean-American agreed, smiling into the camera. "Everyone, please congratulate Minnie."

[!!!]

-

The team had just scored another point at the foot volleyball match they were playing. The big white walls were shining brightly in the background of the studio they had rented for the Going Seventeen episode. After celebrating the added point, Minghao passed the ball to the opposite team.

"No, no, it's ours," Jeonghan told him, but it had already gone over the net.

With his foot, Mingyu hit the ball to land in the other team's half, but he underestimated the strength he had put into the pass. The ball flew over the net, right to where Minnie was looking down at her pants, straightening out the creases, not realising the ball was getting dangerously close to her head.

Dino was quick to react as he rushed to stop in front of her, smacking the ball away from her before it could hit her face. The girl flinched up, her wide eyes glancing around the room. 

The members wooed their maknae as he ran a hand through his hair, proud of the scene he had created. 

[PLS]

[DINO]

[the confident boost omg]

Their claps bounced off the walls before they got interrupted by Seungcheol's voice.

"Ya! Mingyu-ya, be careful," scolding the younger member.

[exactly]

[go cheol go defend her!]

Minnie glanced at her fellow '97 Liner. "That was you?"

He quickly bowed after nodding. "My bad."

[cutie]

With a smug smile, Dino let his jacket fall from his shoulder, looking at the girl, who started giggling at his antics.

She patted his shoulder, "Alright, you got your Drama moment." 

[KDRAMA MOMENT HAHAHAHA YES]

[i need to be friends with her, pls god]

To which maknae started laughing out loud, his arms wrapping around the female member.

-

With the cameras placed around the dorm, the viewers of The Manager were able to see each room the Seventeen members lived in.

Minnie was standing in front of the mirror in the living room, holding up different bottoms in front of her legs. She had two pairs of pants and a skirt in her hold. 

"How does the skirt look with this top?" She turned to Wonwoo who was sitting on his makeshift bed in the corner, and Seungcheol who had found a place on the floor.

[i love how the members probably could not care less about this but she still wanted their opinion]

The '96 Liner lifted his head up from looking at his phone screen.

"It's really short. I'm not sure you should wear that."

[protective mode activated]

Before Minnie could say anything, their leader took the word. "You shouldn't." 

[HIS VOICE]

[deep ass voice cheol is my biggest weakness]

He got a roll of her eyes in return, making him sigh as he pushed himself up. "It's also way too cold for that. You're gonna get sick."

[minnie is so much stronger than me bc i would obey to his every word]

[but girl was NOT having it]

"I asked you how it looks, not what I should and should not wear. I can decide that for myself," the girl snapped at the older members, mostly directing her comment at the '95 Liner as he stopped in his tracks right next to her.

[OH OKAY]

[and that's on period]

[biggest slay]

[but talking back to scoups 🫣]

[that's pure bravery]

"I'm only telling you my opinion," he stated, his voice still laced with tiredness as he had just woken up. "Do you think I would give you advice like that if it wasn't meant well for you?" 

[STOP CHEOL]

[YOU'RE GONNA MAKE ME CRY]

His question made the girl shut her mouth. Without another word, she turned around and walked back into her room. She came back out wearing a pair of black pants.

[the power 'coups holds is absolutely insane]

-

After Youngji took another big sip of her glass, she let it hit the table again. A big sigh fell from her lips.

"But for real," she started, "I really like all of your members. I was nervous when I first met them, but they really are... something else."

[she's such a fangirl, i love it]

Minnie nodded, her mouth still full from the rice cake she was eating.

"I know. I always say that... I really do think that all of them are gentlemen. Because," she cleared her throat. "When we debuted, Joshua was known as 'the gentleman of seventeen' but in reality, all of them are really really nice. And like gentlemen."

[i will cry]

[like rn]

[the fact that she even says it]

[this means so much to me]

[they love each other so much]

"Even when they punch you?" Youngji laughed along with her question as she remembered one of the stories Minnie had told her.

[YOUNGJI HAHAH]

The '97 Liner joined her. "Even then! Mingyu even threw me into a wall once when we were trainees, but that's just what you're like with people you're comfortable with and like." 

[?!]

[their stories will forever haunt me]

[like what do you mean he threw you into a wall and you just go 'alright' ...]

She ended her statement with a shrug.

The younger rapper chuckled as she choked on her drink. "Or that's what they tell you, so you'll believe that."

[💀 FACTS]

"NO!" Minnie shouted out, hitting the other girl's shoulder as they laughed in chorus.

"No, no, but seriously, they are very very kind," Youngji stated after they both had calmed down.

[we stan the right group]

The female idol nodded. "That's right. I honestly- I don't even remember the last time I paid for... like food or something. When I was with them."

"What?"

[exactly]

[what?]

[excuse me?]

"Every time we're out together, one of the members pays for me," Minnie explained, her back resting against the wall.

[she's saying this as if it's the most normal thing ever?!]

"Are you serious?" Youngji was clearly taken aback by the words of the woman in front of her, glancing towards the producers and back at Minnie.

[i love how shook she is hahaha]

But she just nodded with a smile on her face. "Yeah... I mean," she turned towards the cameras, "Don't get me wrong, I can very well pay for myself and I really try," before looking at the '02 Liner again. "But they don't let me. Every time I go to pay, one of the members says 'I already covered it'."

[a girl that can pay for her own stuff but gets treated like the princess that she is]

[hell fucking yes]

[THIS IS SO FUCKING CUTE]

[i just want to know which member does this the most]

[my guess is cheol, mingyu or hao]

[maybe joshua or wonwoo too]

[or jun would do that too]

[woozi definitely too with his black card]

[and dk would for sure treat his fellow '97 Liner as well]

[but seungkwan and dino would want to treat their favourite noona too]

[and vernon won't let his bestie pay either]

[alright, so i guess just all of them]

"Woah!" The female rapper looked at the table with an open mouth, still taking in what the idol was telling her. "See! See what I mean?!" Making everyone in the room errupt in laughter. "I want to have members like that! I want members to take care of me like that!"

[YOUNGJI'S SO REAL FOR THAT]

[good luck to minnie’s future partner]

[her standards must be 📈📈📈📈]

[AS THEY SHOULD BE]

"I will share my members with you, okay?" Minnie proposed to her.

Youngji's eyes lit up. "Would you really?"

With a sheepish smile, the '97 Liner grinned at her. She shook her head, "No, I wouldn't." Getting a groan in return. 

[HAHAHAH]

[possessive minnie for the win]

[but let's be real]

[i wouldn't ever share them either]

"They're my members!" She then turned towards the camera again. "I love you, guys!" Raising her arms up, with her fingertips touching the top of her head, she formed a heart.

[conclusion: seventeen is the cutest group ever]

[thank you very much]

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[blueteller]

Thanks for answering! If I can ask more but what made og!Cale (and also KRS) not like their previous life? And is the novel not still complete?

Of course you can! I'll answer each topic in this order, as it will make the most sense:

the current state of the novel

why OG Cale did not like his previous life

why Kim Rok Soo did not like his previous life

how transmigration happened, and why it was good for both of them

First topic: is the novel complete?

At this moment, the novel is still in the works: more precisely, Part 2 is still in the works. Part 1 of "Trash of the Count's Family" (title from "Eat Apple Pies" English translation; the manhwa title translation is "Lout of the Count's Family" due to convoluted legality reasons) had been been completed in year 2022, with 776 chapters.

While I considered Part 1's ending a satisfying conclusion of the main story arc, it still left a lot of unanswered questions – and I do mean a LOT. It felt less like the end of a book, and more like an end of a season. So Part 2 is really the continuation of the same story.

Between Part 1 and 2, there were additional "extras" published, which were numbered as chapters 777-799. So that when the prologue for Part 2 came out, it was numbered 800, and everything from 801 up was Part 2. Yesterday on Munpia, where I read the novel in Korean (through an automatic translator of course, since I don't know any Korean. Let me tell you, it's a pain...) came out chapter 1006, which makes TCF Part 2 currently 206 chapters long.

The author originally predicted that Part 2 to be 300 chapters long. No one believed that, myself included: because the author is one of those writers who always end up writing much more than they intended, hahaha! I know that feeling well. I'm estimating Part 2 to be at least 500 chapters long by the end it's done, probably around 600.

...I know that the length of this novel might seem unreasonable, but it's really not being stretched for content or money purposes: it's truly Plot all the way through. It's all story. There really is just that much story to tell, and it would not be as satisfying if you cut any of it out.

I admire this writer a lot. TCF is so much fun. I freaking love this novel.

Second topic: why the Original Cale Henituse did not like his life?

We have to go back to the very beginning: the marriage of Count Deruth Henituse, and Jour Thames. (You might have seen the name "Drew" being used sometimes, but it's really just the matter of translation. I'm sticking with "Jour".)

Jour had a very complicated background, but I won't dive into all of that here – what matters is that Jour had a very special power. It was a Wood Ancient Power called "The Annual Rings of Life", and it allowed her to see the "annual rings" of all living things: past, present and future. Meaning she could see the fate of a person, including how many years they had to live.

And when she looked at her young son, Cale, with that power, she saw something very unusual. His "annual rings of life" were "warped". Meaning, he would experience an unusual fate in the future, and in result become a Variable: either a regressor, a transmigrator, or a reincarnator. Or, more than one at once. So she told Cale:

"You are someone who will have an unusual experience with time."

Basically, she saw OG Cale's future fate and realized that the world is going to be in Big Trouble, because gods only make Variables like that happen when something really big and really bad is going down.

Now, it's just my speculation – but on top of it, I think Jour could see her own "annual rings". Meaning, she knew she would die young, and that by the time Cale became a Variable, she would no longer be around. So, knowing all this, she decided she needed to help out as much as she could: she wrote down a journal for "the person who would possess her son's body" in the future.... and commited suicide.

Why? Because it allowed her to split the power in 2 pieces. But that is a much longer story, and we're here to talk about OG Cale.

But it all starts right here: with Jour committing suicide, although no one knew that was the case at the time. All they knew was that Jour went on a short trip to Harris Village for some reason, had a carriage accident on the way back, and then died soon after, despite her injuries not seeming very serious.

That unexpected death devastated both Deruth and Cale, who loved her very much. Deruth was emotionally broken and Cale reminded him much of his dead wife, because they both had red hair and looked very similar. I imagine he started avoiding Cale for that reason, although it wasn't at all mean-spirited: Deruth was simply depressed over his beloved wife. To cope with his broken heart (and possibly to give Cale a new mother figure), he soon chose to remarry rather quickly, to a woman named Violan, who already had a son named Basen. Basen was 3 years younger than Cale.

Basen's existence is the reason why Cale chose to become "trash". You see, while on the outside people thought that Cale was outraged at his father "replacing" his mother so soon, or that he resented Violan... that wasn't the case at all. Cale quickly grew to accept them both as family. However, unlike Jour (who was from a small noble family), Violan was descended from a merchant family. She and her son were not nobility. Because of this, Basen faced discrimination from their relatives, who did not approve of Deruth's second marriage.

Young Cale, seeing Basen insulted and belittled by other nobles, created a plan. He told Basen to lie to everyone that he was Deruth's biological son, and that he was a Henituse by blood. Then he began acting like a completely spoiled brat. He complained, he yelled, he threw things. At the age of 15, he started drinking. He did everything in his power to completely ruin his reputation.

Why? All for Basen, Violan, and later Lily. Because he wanted them to be accepted by noble society. If he, Deruth's firstborn, was removed from succession, that would make Basen the next Count. And then no one would be able to disrespect them.

While it might seem like a crazy plan (and let's be fair: he came up with it as a child), it was actually surprisingly effective. No one saw through his act: not even his butler Ron, who was a trained assassin by trade. Cale's acting abilities were flawless. He played the drunk, spoiled noble with a trash reputation perfectly. Basen was quickly accepted as the heir by the public; although nothing in the family had been formally decided. While this was going on, Deruth did not know why his son was acting like this, but he never really lost faith in him; he probably thought it was all about Jour's death, and Cale would mature in time. It was also said that despite everything, Cale still acted respectfully towards his father, and was distant but still respectful towards his step family. Their family were thus strained, but not broken.

When Kim Rok Soo transmigrated, he was under the impression that OG Cale was deliberately shunned by the rest of the family. But that distance was purely artificial, but OG Cale's own design. When KRS!Cale "stopped" acting distant towards the rest of the family, the Henituses happily embraced the change. They likely thought that he finally allowed himself to heal from Jour's death and move on. That's why no one questioned him about the "change of personality", even though they all noticed it immediately.

Now, we have to talk about the TBOAH ("The Birth of a Hero") timeline. What happened before OG Cale regressed, and transmigrated into KRS's body.

In the TBOAH timeline, when OG Cale was 18, he met Choi Han on a rainy day. OG Cale was "drunk" (actually just pretending to be, as his alcohol torelance was secretly super strong), and Choi Han mentioned being from Harris Village, which had just been all massacred by assassins.

Now OG Cale, full in his "drunk trash noble" personna, probably had his own reasons for provoking Choi Han. He likely thought that getting into a fight would prevent him from getting sent to the Capital for an important celebration, and letting Basen shine. But he also honestly hated Harris Village, which was the place where his mother died. So he insulted the dead villagers to Choi Han's face. Choi Han took it personally and beat him up quite a bit for it. That incident was what inspired KRS!Cale to change the events from the TBOAH timeline, despite his lack of desire to get involved with the "plot of the story".

What exactly happened between this point and OG Cale's transmigration 22 years later is mostly speculation, but we do know some things from the TBOAH timeline thanks to KRS!Cale.

Firstly, soon afterwards Basen went to the Capital, and it was attacked with bombs. Basen either got lucky, got injured, or died in the incident. Whichever actually happened then, Basen certainly could not remain alive for long; 2 years later, the Henituse territory was attacked by the Indomitable Alliance, as their first act of war. We know that the territory was unprepared, and suffered countless casualties. Among them, the entire Henituse family died, except for OG Cale.

So we have a clear order of events for OG Cale in the TBOAH timeline: his happy early childhood, his mother's death at 8, soon followed by his father's second marriage and the appearance of his step family, OG Cale sacrificing his heir position for Basen's sake, a terrible adolescence focused entirely on ruining his own reputation and acoholism (the latter which followed him into adulthood, and no wonder), and finally losing his home and his entire family at the age of 20.

Not to mention, the 20 years of war which followed afterwards. The TBOAH timeline sucked for absolutely everyone.

When soldier Cale was 40, during the "final battle" of all the allied forces against their enemy, he got trapped under his allies' corpses. As he laid there, he witnessed Choi Han facing the White Star, the mysterious enemy leader. OG Cale saw as White Star suddenly grabbed Choi Han and declared:

"Time is warped oddly for you."

The words made him recall what Jour told him years ago. In that moment, OG Cale realized: the White Star had his mother's power. Then the White Star shoot a stream of fire at OG Cale, intending to casually finish him off.

...but OG Cale did not die, because at that exact moment, the God of Death offered him a deal.

What kind of deal? And why? Let's get back to that in a bit.

Third topic: why Kim Rok Soo did not like his life?

First of all: from the very beginning, KRS was screwed. Why? Because he was born with a curse.

What curse? And why? I'll get back to that bit later, too. But what matters is: it was a curse of bad luck, which made KRS loose every single person he cared about sooner or later.

KRS started off not too differently from OG Cale – he wasn't a noble, but he had two loving parents. However, a tragedy struck early on, and both died in a car accident. As a young boy, KRS got adopted by a distant relative named Kim Seung Jong, his uncle.

KRS's uncle, who turned out to be a gambling addict and an alcoholic. He took KRS in only to use what little money his parents left for him, starving and abusing him. Eventually, KRS ran away.

What happened to him shortly afterwards is a bit unclear. It's possible he lived on the streets for a bit. But eventually, he had to have landed in an orphanage, because he went to high school like a normal teenager with an ordinary life.

...Except that one incident with some evil dimension travellers noticing his curse, mistaking it for something else, and trying to kill KRS. And also someone else using him as live bait. But hey, KRS got his memory erased afterwards, so it's not like the trauma of those events affected him or anything, right?? :')

Soooo anyway, all was going well for KRS. At the age of 20, he got into a university and had a part time job as a waiter. All was good!

...Except then the Monster Invasion started. That's right! You read it right! You thought KRS was from a normal modern Korea?? SIKE, he was from a post-apocalyptic world all along!! KRS spent 3 days under building debris, drinking rain water and slowly starving, until he was rescued by a young hero named Lee Soo Hyuk. LSH lead KRS into a nearby Shelter – a place with supernatural properties which were immune to monster attacks – and left. All was good!! ...Except then the leader of the Shelter turned out to be a huge jerk and started bossing KRS around and beat him up on occassion. Luckily, the Shelters failed 10 months later and everybody at the Shelter died, including that jerk!! ....Wait.

So KRS survived not just one, but 2 incidents where everybody around him died. But that's ok, because he joined the organization lead by LSH and another cool dude named Choi Jung Soo. Sure, they risked their lives every day by fighting monsters and rescuing people and fighting organized crime on the side – but hey, at least KRS had friends now, for the first time in his life! So that's good, right?

....Except, several years later – around time when KRS was 26 – a super powerful monster called an Unranked Monster killed everyone in KRS's team. But it was fine! Totally fine! He just survived everybody dying around him for the 3rd time in his life, and everybody kept talking about him behind his back how he's an unfeeling bastard because he's unable to cry anymore... but who cares! KRS became Team Leader now, and he was determined to have zero casualties from now on.

That's right! ZERO. CASUALTIES. Because he's the most stubborn person alive, and also insane. So of course, he managed to actually pull it off.

So KRS spent the next 10 years being an absolute bada**, taking down mob bosses, fighting monsters and keeping all his team members alive, but also keeping distant from everybody and not having any friends because hey – if you notice a suspicious pattern of all your friends either vanishing or dying since you were a kid, you'd probably stop trying to make friends too.

36-year-old KRS was totally fine, and emotionally stable, and absolutely-not-at-all traumatized by all the deaths he's witnessed so many times. Just like OG Cale was probably-not-at-all traumatized by how his entire family died, or the next 20 years of war witnessing people brutally dying everywhere and an evil overlord taking over the world. They were both totally fine, I assure you!!

...Anyway, what was that 4th topic again??

Fourth topic: how and why the transmigration happened, and why was it good for both of them?

Right, let's start with OG Cale's deal.

The God of Death is able to make deals with people in life threatening situations. When the White Star attacked OG Cale, it allowed the God of Death to offer him to regress back in time and then switch places with one Kim Rok Soo. But why OG Cale? Obviously KRS had the qualifications to avert the events of the TBOAH timeline and the End of the World, being an experienced leader of an apocalyptic world – but what made OG Cale so special?

Well, there could be several reasons. One of which was how despite all their differences, their lives were similar in many ways. Both OG Cale and KRS lost family when they were young, experienced rejection from society, and had military experience. Not to mention the acting skills. OG Cale was able to successfully take over KRS's job, and that was no easy feat. KRS's team noticed the change of course, but they were much more happy about their totally-not-depressed-and-potentially-suicidal Team Leader was finally starting to open up, than the fact that he apparently went "crazy" one day and decided he suddenly liked alcohol now.

Another reason, perhaps, was how OG Cale's mom had the Annual Rings of Life power. It was quite important for defeating the White Star, and the way Jour set it up, only her son – or at least, the person in her son's body – would be able to find the Ancient Power; specifically the part which was able to see fate, aka. the future. The White Star got his hands on the "weaker" half of the Annual Rings, so he was only able to see the past: which saved OG Cale, as during the confrontation where the White Star tried to kill him, he wasn't able to recognize him as a future regressor & transmigrator.

...There's also Jour's Thames heritage, but that's a a whooole other topic. (Also the possible connection between Cale Barrow's last body and the Thames, but that's just a theory right now so it doesn't really matter.)

So, that covers the part of "why OG Cale". What about KRS? He couldn't be the only person capable of defeating a final boss like the White Star, right?

Well, remember how I mentioned that KRS was cursed since birth? Well, turns out that it was all the White Star's fault! Apparently KRS was meant to be born in the fantasy TCF world. Except the White Star was a reincarnator, who reincarnated using an ancient curse. To be reborn, the White Star stole bodies from other people, like KRS. Those unfortunate souls would then pass on and reincarnate in a different dimension, except bearing a part of the very same curse. The curse which makes sure that "you can never cherish anyone ever again". While the curse was weaker in the victims of the White Star than the guy himself, it still affected people like KRS. Because the God of Death was the one who originally created the curse, he felt really guilty about it. He tried to remove it from KRS, but was unable to.

...until the transmigration, that is! So, part of the reason why KRS was chosen for the transmigration (or rather, to be the "victim" of OG Cale's own transmigration) was that it allowed the God of Death remove the curse from him. Which allowed him to FINALLY make friends and be happy.

OG Cale, in return for this deal, got: a time regression which saves his family and the entire world, the truth behind his mother's death, a new environment to live in unrelated to his traumas where he could heal, and most importantly, a young reincarnation of his birth mother, whom he got to adopt as an uncle.

KRS, on the other hand, got: a blood family that cares about him, a free luxurious lifestyle with lack of responsibilities, new environment to live in unrelated to his traumas where he could heal, a detailed guide about closest future tragedies to prevent, and most importantly, a life free of the curse he unknowingly suffered from his entire life and the ability to keep all his new family and friends close to him.

....Phew. I hope you don't mind my explanation being so long.

To sum it all up:

the novel has two parts, Part 1 is finished, Part 2 is in progress

OG Cale lived in a lie and then through a war and got to start over

KRS lived through constant suffering and trauma and got to start over

their positions in life made it perfect for a transmigration switch with no loose ends

I hope this explanation helped!

[skitskatdacat63]

2009 Reference Guide to Seb's Hair(Long post w lots of pics):

I would rate these but I love every version of him too much so I cannot pick 🤭, I'll add some commentary though. This took a horrible amount of time but it was also a great excuse to download and show off a truly terrible amnt of Seb pics(I was in tears half the time bcs of cuteness agression)

0. Testing(Jerez)(February 10th-12th):

Honestly such perfect Seb hair, I find this soooo cute!!! His hair is honestly always so perfect at Jerez testing every season. I love the length and style, he looks so incredibly pretty &lt;3

1. Australia(March 26th-29th):

And now he is...bald. I actually kinda love this hair, he's my little kiwi fruit!! But I also can't help but mourn the Jerez hair. I'm just like: why did you feel the need to go bald, Seb??? It makes him look so young!

2. Malaysia(April 2nd-5th):

3. China(April 16th-19th):

I think the highlight of his bald era is how much he embodies the nickname "sunshine." Like the way his hair and eylashes glow in the sun??? Literally sunshine. Also it's cute to see his hair grow more fluffy

4. Bahrain(April 23rd-26th):

The texture differences are so interesting, I think this length looks its best when it's more fluffy like in the top right pic.

5. Spain(May 7th-10th):

It's funny how his hairline does that point in the middle, again: looks better when he looks unkempt

6. Monaco(May 21st-24th):

Weirdly shocked at how much his hair grew in-between Spain and Monaco??? Also I forgot that those fashion pics were from this weekend, and I was jumpscared by his mohawk look. I think he should keep away from hair product hahaha

7. Turkey(June 4th-7th):

Lego hair looking ass. Kidding kidding, just think his hair looks best all natural

8. Silverstone(June 18th-21st):

Lowkey kinda baffling to me how different his hair looks at different stages of the weekend. The podium hair especially is just soooo different, its very cute but yeah idk

9. Germany(July 9th-12th):

I did not realize he cut his hair again during this season?? Seeing these was very surprising to me, I had thought he grew it out for the entire season but I guess not! But I guess if he hadn't gotten a haircut the entire season, he'd probably have his angelic curls of 2010 by the end

10. Hungary(July 23rd-26th):

Kinda love the looks he was serving this weekend, it's just very spikey and cute(also the cunty sunglasses!!

11. Valencia(August 20th-23rd):

12. Belgium(August 27th-30th):

That garage lighting makes his hair look soooo much more yellow rather than his fair blond in the sunlight

13. Italy(September 10th-13th):

This transitional growing period is not my fav, just the way his hair sweeps in is funny

14. Singapore(September 24th-27th):

Looking particularly blond this weekend!! His hair is just very light and pretty

15. Japan(October 1st-4th):

I think most of these are from post-quali and for good reason; I love the way it looks like he has highlights in all the bottom pics

16. Brazil(October 15th-18th):

I love his scruffiness from this weekend!!! The scruffy stubble is sooooooo!!!

17. Abu Dhabi(October 29th-November 1st):

Pretty cute I think but yeah like nothing can really compete with his hair length in 2010 for me so I look at these and I'm like, ooooo growing longer!!

Conclusion: I think it's fun to get to see the process of someone's hair growing out. I've noticed that a lot of men with short hair get very consistent haircuts to keep their hair generally the same length, and I think that's so boring!! I think it's great to grow out your hair for a few months time because you get to see yourself at all the different stages and experiment with all kinds of different looks! So yeah, props to Seb for serving all kinds of looks this season!!

Also it's always interesting to me how much hair length/style and facial hair can change a person's look, but particularly how old/young they look. Like when he shaved his his head, it made him look so young. But in Brazil for example, with the longer hair and scruffy facial hair, he def looks older!

And of course, let me know which you like the best :D My favorite is Jerez <3

[yilingpatriarchscvnt]

15 Hours

Special Ending 2

Childe x reader

"it's a relief we met again."

"ajax...Ajax...Ajax.."

A soft voice he thought, making his mind all fuzzy. He slowly opened his eyes squinting as the brightness pierced through his eyes.

"Ajax... You're finally up?"

He looked at his next, his heart stopped at the sight. Tears began to flow as he recognized her.

"y/n...Y/n.."

His voice cracked as he reached out for her. Cupping her cheeks and holding her dearly, hoping this was not a dream again.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry y/n! I won't leave you alone... I will be with you till the end. I won't leave your side so please... Don't disappear from my world again."

He was begging to the cruel world as he hugged her tightly not wanting to let go, breathing her scent in until his body was filled with it.

"we have to go ajax, we both can't stay any longer here."

No, not like this. He didn't know if you forgave him, scream at him, punch him, slap him. Do whatever comes to your mind. Just forgive him.

"I don't want to y/n. Let's stay here together, let it only be both of us here."

"We will always be together ajax, maybe in another life."

"I don't want to forget you, I don't care about next life... What if we fell in love with another one and forget about each other, I already neglected you once I don't want to lose you again.. Tell me, tell me you don't want to lose me again so I can follow you wherever you go."

Eyes getting red from crying and sobbing uncontrollably. Y/n landed a kiss on his watered eyes and smiled softly.

"I don't want to lose you ajax, I always loved you more than everything. But maybe in next life we will get our happy end this time."

Ajax dropped his shoulders, a feeling of relief washed over his body. Hugging her tightly again before both of them disappeared to a thin air while warm wind blows.

"You must had a warm and nice dream, before you woke up you were smiling so peacefully"

Ajax stretched out in his desk turning his head to the girl. He can't really remember his dream it all became so fuzzy after he woke up but it didn't matter. Nothing mattered as long as y/n was next to him.

"indeed it was a nice dream y/n! Such a shame I can't remember but I do remember it was kind of sad but... Also happy the same time?"

"silly, pack your things let's go get lunch from my mom's restaurant! She is excited to meet with you again. Also Lumine will be tagging along."

They both stood up and left the classroom, holding hands with each other while walking down the corridors.

"it's always Lumine, let's go together only... just the two of us."

He tried to hide his embarrassment.

"no way you are jealous, HAHAHA!"

Ajax stopped when a little head ache struck trough his head, groaning a little from the pain.

"are you ok? Do you need to go to the infirmary?"

"Next life..."

"what? What next life are you talking about.."

She seemed confused, honestly ajax didn't know why he thought of that too.

"nothing let's just go. İt's probably because I missed your mom's cooking."

No really it didn't matter as long as y/n is next to him. He opened his eyes with her and was determined to close his eyes with her.

[yazis]

IM NOT INTERESTED!!

四 - sibling tingz

wc: ~0.8k

note: not proofread!!

“y/n get off your phone and eat you’re food” yoichi said from across the table giving a stern look.

“yeah yeah sorry my bad” you said putting it down resting your chin upon your palm.

you payed no attention to the food in front of you, well aware of that fact that meguru was stealing some for himself.

you couldn’t care less, instead you stared at nothing in particular, letting out a long dreamy sigh.

yoichi raised his brow at you.

“let me guess, you’re still thinking about that one guy you met earlier” he said in an unimpressed tone.

“obviously!! he’s probably somewhere in this cafeteria right now!” you said gushing.

rin next to you ate his food silently, he hadn’t said a word since you all started eating.

“rin, you’ll help me look for him.” you said as more of a demand than an question.

“no i won’t?” he said confusedly turning to face you.

“oh yes you will, and then you’re coming to chess club with me!” you ordered and he groaned and rolled his eyes.

they carried on eating and you tapped your foot impatiently waiting for them to finish.

“hurry up with your food guys! we need to go find hi-”

“WHICH ONE OF YOU IS (Y/N)?!” a voice boomed through the whole cafeteria.

you turned around to face the entrance which was a few tables away from you. there stood a tanned boy with spiky blonde hair with pink tips at the end. he had a bump on his forehead that was noticeable even from a far and he looked absolutely feral.

you slowly turned back around again to face the table.

“that’s shidou isn’t it?” you whispered quietly not daring to turn round and take a second look.

the three boys simply nodded

just keep calm (y/n)! there’s no way he knows what you look like

you tried to tell yourself but you were panicking on the outside.

keeping your head low, you pretended to eat you food as you heard his footsteps stomping around looking for ‘(y/n)’. the footsteps gradually got louder seemed to be approaching your table.

for some odd reason they stopped right behind your chair.

you turned around and surely enough there he was, looking as if he was ready to end you there and then.

you gulped before smiling nervously.

“hey… what’s up?” you said trying to play it cool.

he didn’t say anything. he raised his hand and attempted to hit you but you had ducked just in time.

“hey!! why're you trying to hit me??” you yelled confusedly.

“because, (y/n), this bump on my forehead is all your fucking fault.” he said pointing to the redness on his head. you honestly thought it was from all the anger.

how does he know im (y/n)??!!

“huh? who’s (y/n) hahaha…” you chuckled nervously looking away.

he pointed to your blazer. “there’s a name tag on the back of your blazer.”

shit.

he started cracking his knuckles and winding up his arm ready to do some proper damage before someone else came from behind.

“shidou, stop causing trouble.” the low and lazy voice spoke up.

you edged your head past shidou to see who had spoken and gasped quietly.

it was him.

shidou growled and shoved his hands in his pockets. surprisingly though, he didn’t bother you any longer and trudged off mumbling some incoherent things.

the guy whom you had bumped into earlier, aka the love of your life.

his piercing eyes scanned over everyone at your lunch table, stopping a second longer on rin before looking at you.

you could’ve sworn you nearly peed your pants there and then as you heart started to beat faster. soon enough he turned around and went the same was as shidou.

you let out a sigh of relief and placed your hand on your chest.

“(y/n)? why are you blushing? you literally almost died.” yoichi asked perplexed at your facial expression.

“that was him! he’s the guy i was telling you about!” you said excitedly.

“who? shidou?” meguru guessed.

“no! the guy behind him!” you said and suddenly all three of them immediately went quiet.

you eyed them all weirdly, wondering what the shift of behaviour was about. the atmosphere was tense and you didn’t feel like you could say anything.

rin, surprisingly, was the first to say something.

“you seriously like him?” he asked, and was it just you or did he sound… mad?

“yeah he’s the guy im sure! is something wrong?” you questioned growing a bit worried.

rin shook his head and hesitated before speaking up again.

“that guy… he’s my brother.”

prev | masterlist | next

SUMMARY: in which 2nd-year y/n l/n one day turns up at their high school and falls heads over heels with a certain 3rd-year, one who has a strict ‘no-dating’ policy.

taglist: @bluerskiees @ilovechuuyaa @bloomb @silly-ez @yourstrulyharu @vanitasbrainrot @urdesaintess @saeswifeeee @kiopanxp @urluvvdomm

all right reserved © please do not copy any of my works!

[livelaughhyperfixate]

Spoilers for chapter 114.5!!!

A (probably incomplete) breakdown of No Longer Human and Crime and Punishment

Disclaimer: this is so long I’m so sorry hahaha

On Dazai probably having to kill Fyodor

Hi I am probably not the first person that has come up with this, but ever since chapter 114.5 came out, I’ve been thinking a lot about Fyodor’s ability and the probable role that Dazai could play in being the one to kill him.

In chapter 114.5, Dazai describes Fyodor’s ability the following way: “Dostoyevsky’s ability activates when he is killed. The reason his corpse turned into a different person. The reason he docilely submitted to being locked away across the world. There is only one possible explanation. Dostoyevsky’s ability is to subsume the person that killed him as ‘the next Dostoyevsky’.”.

The way I interpret it, and have seen others interpret it, is in the following way:

Fyodor’s ability, crime and punishment, works like this:

Crime: someone kills Fyodor

Punishment: this person’s body will be taken over by Fyodor to become the next him.

When explaining Fyodor's intentions to Chuuya, Dazai says the following about Fyodor’s motivations to be killed by a vampire: "During the prison break race, Dostoyevsky was frantic. He was frantic because death by my hand or poison wouldn’t do. What he needed, was to be killed by a vampire." This statement could be interpreted in different ways:

Fyodor could not have been killed by Dazai or the poison, because he needed to be killed by a vampire in order for his plan to succeed. Fyodor’s plan was to get killed by a vampire, which would make Bram the person with the actual murder intent, since the vampires have no will of their own. This would transport him to Yokohama and would gain him everything that he needed to create the tripolar singularity. If we interpret the statement in this way, it doesn’t necessarily mean that death by poison or Dazai would not allow for his ability to work, but rather not allow for his plan to work.

Death by Dazai or poison would not have allowed for his ability Crime and Punishment to work. If Dazai were to kill Fyodor, No Longer Human would nullify Crime and Punishment, making Fyodor unable to take over Dazai’s body. For the poison, my guess is that this would be unsuccessful since nobody made Fyodor take that poison against his will. He injected himself with it at his own volition. In this case, no other person has committed the crime of murdering Fyodor, meaning that there is no body for him to take over.

Secret third option: it is both. It was necessary for Fyodor’s plan that he would be killed by a vampire, and it is also the case that his ability would not have activated if he died by the poison or by Dazai’s hand. That leaves some unanswered questions and therefore, I’m going to make some assumptions.

Death by the poison in Meursault

Since Fyodor took the poison of his own volition, there is no one doing the crime, meaning that punishment is unnecessary. In other words, there is no body for Fyodor to take over and he would die for real in this case.

Assumption 1: If Fyodor dies because of himself, his ability won’t work, because he can’t take over another person’s body.

Assumption 2: it is not the fact that poison could not kill him, but the fact that no other person than Fyodor himself would be responsible for his death if he were to die from the poison. I’m assuming that poison could kill Fyodor if someone else injected him with it. For example, if Nikolai would have injected Fyodor with the poison instead, Fyodor would get to take over Nikolai’s body.

Assumption 3: any (indirect) way of killing Fyodor that is done by another person will activate his ability. For example, the vampires killed Fyodor, but they were ordered to do so by Bram, making Bram the person who committed the crime of killing Fyodor and therefore also the person who receives the punishment of being “the next Dostoyevsky”.

Dazai also mentions this when he’s breaking down Dostoyevsky’s skill to Chuuya. He says: “The vampire piloting the helicopter was just the same as a gun or a blade, nothing but a tool”.

Assumption 4: When Fyodor is killed of his own volition, but it is not done by him, his ability will still activate. For example, he WANTED to be killed by the vampires because he wanted to take over Bram’s body, but his ability still activated.

Death by Dazai

The reason why Fyodor could not be killed by Dazai obviously has to do with No Longer Human. As stated by the wiki, NLH nullifies the ability of anyone Dazai touches. Furthermore, the ability relies on skin contact and is always active. As such, he can nullify any ability even while restrained as soon and as long as it touches him. Dazai himself says the following about NLH in Chapter 1: “My power allows me to nullify the gifts wielded by others merely by touching them.”

Fyodor could not be killed by Dazai, because Dazai’s ability nullifies Fyodor’s. However, the way Dazai words it in the English translation of 114.5 is the following: “Death by my hand would not do”. This made me wonder whether Dazai's nullifying ability extends to both components of Fyodor's ability—crime and punishment, as his ability is activated by touch/skin contact. The question is whether being taking over by Fyodor/having bro literally become what used to be your body counts as Dazai touching him. Does the fact that NLH is activated by touch make it necessary that Dazai touches Fyodor’s skin when he kills him(I am unwell, actually)? Aka, does Dazai have to murder Fyodor with his bare hands for NLH to work? (this is sooooo fine y’all, I’m soooo okay with this)

I could not find the raw Japanese scans (crying) (also I can’t speak or read Japanese well enough to actually break it down anyway), but I did find a site that included the Japanese text. According to this site, the Japanese text of what Dazai says translates to "because he couldn't afford to be killed by me or by poison. He needed to be killed by a vampire.". This does not explicitly state the "death by my hands," part, meaning that the question remains whether Dazai just needs to be the one who kills Fyodor, or whether he has to touch him when he kills him.

Regardless, it probably needs to be Dazai who kills Fyodor, which is making me unwell. Since I am expecting the worst, I'm assuming that Dazai has to kill Fyodor with his bare hands, because activation of NLH requires touch. Basically, it could be the case that Dazai can nullify ‘crime’ if he kills Dostoyevsky with his bare hands, but might not be able to nullify punishment if he doesn’t do the first thing, since Fyodor taking over his body may not count as touch?? Help??? I am soooo well and okay about this!! I am so fine actually!!! (can’t my boy Dazai catch a break for once!!!)

[sequinsmile-x]

A Few of My Favourite Things

It's Emily's birthday, and Aaron and Jack seize the opportunity to right some of the wrongs of the past.

-x-

Hi besties,

Nearly four years into my Hotchniss writing career and I finally get to write one of 'those' ao3 author notes.

I know it hasn't been *that* long since I posted a fic, but 5 days is probably the longest it's been without me posting for a couple of years. I had (planned) surgery on one of my lungs on Friday and only got home from the hospital yesterday. I'm still recovering and will be for a few weeks, but I've been working on this on and off for a few days because I always write something for their birthdays <3

I'll absolutely still be posting - writing keeps my mind alive - but probably not quite as often as we're all used to whilst my body remembers how to...breathe properly hahaha

Anyway, here's a belated birthday fic for Emily based on an anon I got <3

As always, let me know what you think!

-x-

Warnings: None, just super super fluffy

Words: 3.5k

Read over on Ao3, or below the cut

“Emmy, can I ask you something?” 

She smiles as she looks at Jack, nodding as she sits up to make room for him on the couch, her book already closed and on the coffee table by the time he joins her so he has her full attention. Aaron was still at work, kept behind by paperwork and reports, and she’d offered to pick Jack up from Jessica’s and take him home. Aaron had smiled gratefully at her, his eyes shining with everything he couldn’t say to her whilst they were at work. He glanced towards the window of his office to ensure no one was watching before he stamped a quick kiss against her lips, a tiny moment of them lingering between them before they returned to the professionalism they held as dear as they did their relationship. 

It was a fine line they’d walked for months now, the 8 months since their first date some of the best of her life, and she knew eventually they’d have to stop. That as they moved further into this, as they took every next inevitable, wonderful, step into officially living together and marriage and kids, working together would no longer be practical. The blind eye that Strauss and the higher-ups had granted them so far would go away, any prentice of willful ignorance gone with by them submitting an address change form, or the existence of a marriage certificate. 

She knew realistically it would be her who would leave the BAU, and she was content with it. If it hadn’t been for Aaron, and by extension Jack, and the love and happiness they’d brought to her life she’s sure she would have left the BAU, and potentially DC, anyway. That she’d have taken the first offer that got her out of here, no matter how far away it took her, because she needed to be who she was now without people looking at her and mourning who she once was. Aaron had helped her through it, had helped her help herself more than anything else, and she finally felt at peace. Like she had a home for the first time in her life, only it wasn’t made out of bricks and mortar but a man, who she would have once called stern, with a dimpled smile that made her stomach flip every time, and his little boy. 

She loved Jack so much that it scared her sometimes. At first, she’d doubted her place in his life, never wanting to overstep, the gap his mother had left behind was not one she wanted anyone to think she was trying to fill, but as time went on she got more comfortable with it all. She cared less about what other people may think because it worked for them. She was the one Jack would seek out if he was sick or sad, his face pressed against her neck as she soothed him with soft words, gentle kisses and fierce hugs. He’d bring her paintings he’d done at school with a proud smile as he presented them to her and she’d react as if they should be hung in the Louvre. She loved him, and he loved her, and that was enough. She knew without a shadow of a doubt that when she and Aaron had more children she wouldn’t love them any differently to how she loved him. 

He’d taught her that she could be a mom, even if he never ended up calling her that. 

“Of course you can, sweet boy. You can ask me anything, you know that,” she says, patting the couch as he joins her, her smile getting wider as he sits next to her and huddles against her side as if on instinct, “Is everything okay?” 

He sighs as if he has the weight of the world on his shoulder, “I don’t know what I want to do for my birthday.”

She has to press her lips together to stop herself from laughing, never wanting him to think she was making fun of him, “Your birthday is meant to be fun, kiddo. Let’s think about it together,” she pushes his hair from his forehead and then drops a kiss there before she encourages him further into her embrace, “Have you had any ideas at all?” 

He half shrugs against her, “I know I want Daddy’s chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast.” 

She hums and rests her cheek against the top of his head, “The best birthday breakfast ever.” 

“And it would be fun to go to the park. And maybe the arcade?” He muses, his fingers idly playing with the delicate chain of her bracelet, something she’d rarely taken off of her wrist since Aaron gave it to her one date night just because, “I just want to spend the day with you and Daddy.” 

Her cheeks ache with the smile that spreads across her face, love for him so overwhelming it briefly makes it hard to breathe, “Well, you’ll get that no matter what we do.” 

It’s a promise she knows she can keep because they’d booked two weeks off work so they’d be off for both Jack’s and her birthday, a positive side effect of Strauss’s recent ‘use it or lose it’ policy when it came to the team's leave. Aaron and Emily both had so many vacation days left she’s sure they could have taken a month off and still had time to spare, but they’d settle on this for now, both of them silently agreeing they’d keep the rest banked until the honeymoon they both knew was somewhere not too far away on the horizon. 

Jack pulls away and looks up at her, his head tilted slightly to the side, his eyes full of curiosity, “What did you used to do on your birthday?” 

“When I was your age?” She asks, something that gets her a nod in response, and she suppresses a sad sigh, “My mom would take me out to eat at a nice restaurant if she wasn’t busy with work.” She runs her fingers through his hair, smiling when it flops back down immediately, partially covering his horrified expression. 

“She never took you to the park and pushed you on the swings? Or went to the arcade with you?” 

She smiles at that, internally laughing at the image of her mother in an arcade, the red soles of her Louboutins sticking to the soda-covered vinyl floor as her daughter tries to win enough tickets to get a stuffed cat from the prize stand. It wasn’t something Emily had ever really thought about all that much before. Her birthdays had consisted of over the top gifts and very little time with her mother. Any meal they did go out for was in a restaurant designed for adults - fancy dishes created to be paired with wine, nothing for a little girl who wanted pizza, chicken nuggets and ice cream until she fell asleep. 

It briefly makes her sad, familiar sorrow for the younger version of herself flickering in her gut, and she promises herself Jack and any siblings he would one day have would never have to feel this way. 

“No, sweetie,” she says, “She didn’t, but we’re talking about your birthday,” she says, diverting the conversation back to him, tickling his stomach to draw a laugh about him, “Chocolate chip pancakes, the park, the arcade…anything else?” 

He furrows his brow and pauses, deep in thought for a moment, before his eyes go bright and he looks at her, “Ice cream.” 

She laughs and nods, tugging him back into a hug, “Ice cream sounds perfect.”

___

The first thing she notices when she wakes up is the smell of pancakes. The second is the sound of Jack giggling followed by Aaron shushing him, his voice low as he tries to stay quiet. 

“We need to be quiet, buddy.” 

“But we’re about to wake her up anyway.” 

She decides to take pity on her boyfriend when she hears his exasperated spy, not that she’s sure she could hide that she’s awake much longer anyway, her smile wide and sleepy as she half presses it into his pillow, and she opens her eyes. 

“Lucky for the two of you, I’m already awake,” she says as she sits up, her smile getting wider at the sight of them - matching grins on their faces and splatters of flour in their hair and on their cheeks. She looks at the tray in Aaron’s hands with a huge stack of pancakes on it and a cup of coffee, and then back up at her boyfriend, “What’s all this?” 

“Happy birthday, Emily!” They say in unison as Jack scrambles onto the bed, throwing himself into her arms, an embrace she returns just as fiercely. 

“Thank you,” she replies, stamping a kiss against his forehead before she turns to Aaron who is now sitting on the edge of the bed, ready to hand her the tray. She gratefully takes it from him and rests it over her and Jack’s laps and cups Aaron’s cheek, tugging him in for a kiss, keeping him in place, chasing the taste of batter and him before he pulls back, “Thank you too.” 

He smiles and kisses her quickly, “You’re welcome sweetheart,” he winks at her as he sits back so she has access to the tray, “They’re your favourite.” 

She looks down at the pancakes, her smile getting impossibly wider when she realises they are heart-shaped, and she chuckles when she sees the scattering of chocolate throughout them, “Chocolate chip!” 

“The best birthday breakfast ever,” Jack says, repeating something she’d said to him weeks ago when he was agonising over what to do for his birthday. They’d ended up doing everything he’d wanted, and he’d fallen asleep on the couch that night as they watched his favourite movie, happy and content and safe between them. 

She hums and leans down to kiss his forehead, “Well, there are a lot of pancakes here,” she smiles up at Aaron, “I think you boys are going to have to help me.” 

Aaron chuckles and reaches for one of the forks on the tray, “Why do you think we brought three forks up here?” 

She laughs and shakes her head at him as he cuts through the soft pancakes with the side of the fork. She leans forward to eat the first bite when he offers his fork to her, and she smiles, “You’ve got it all planned out.” 

“Trust me, sweetheart,” he says, winking again, “We’ve got the whole day planned out, don’t we Jack?” 

Jack nods enthusiastically, half a pancake in his hands, his fork already abandoned entirely, “We do!” 

She narrows her eyes playfully, “You two are lucky I trust you.” 

Aaron kisses her cheek, and then the corner of her lips, “Eat your pancakes, Em. All will be revealed.” 

After they’ve had breakfast, Aaron insists he’ll clean the kitchen, ignoring their usual rule that if one of them cooked the other cleaned up, and he encourages her towards the shower. He joins her when he’s done in the kitchen, his hands on her hips as he pulls her back under the stream of hot water, whispering he’d distracted Jack with a video game to buy them 30 minutes before he kisses her. 

They give her gifts, a framed photo of the three of them from Jack and a necklace from Aaron to match her bracelet, and cards with beautiful things written in them that almost make her cry. Aaron’s warm and comforting hand on her thigh, a gentle squeeze through the material of her jeans, is the only thing that keeps her together. They tell her it’s time to go and she doesn’t even care where they are going because she feels warm and loved and just happy to be with them. Aaron insists they all wear jackets, a hint that wherever they are going they’d be outside, and they get into the car. It’s when they are just over halfway there she realises they are going to the park, a journey they’d made only five days ago for Jack’s birthday, and she smiles curiously at her boyfriend, reaching over the centre console to reach for his hand, his eyes giving nothing away when he turns to look at her. 

When they are a safe distance away from the parking lot, Emily and Aaron walking hand in hand just a few paces behind Jack, the little boy takes off at a run, “I’m going to go save the swings for us.” 

“Jack, be careful,” Aaron says, “Make sure-”

“I stay where you can see me, I know,” Jack says, rolling his eyes at his father and the warning he always gave him. Aaron chuckles as Jack continues to run towards the swings and he shakes his head lovingly. 

“You know, he never used to do that before you,” he says, squeezing her hand, his smile getting wider when she laughs and looks at him, her eyebrow raised, her smile diminishing any attempt to pretend she was annoyed. 

“So,” she starts curiously, purposely knocking her shoulder against his, “The park,” she presses her lips together to contain her smile, “Are you going to tell me what you two are up to yet?” 

He stops her, turning them so he can talk to her and keep an eye on Jack, “A couple of weeks ago a little bird told me you never got to do any fun things on your birthday like go to the park or the arcade.” 

She bites the inside of her cheek and looks over at Jack, the little boy now patiently sitting on one of the swings as he waits for them, and then back at Aaron, “Did he now?” 

Aaron nods and squeezes her hips before his hands slip to her lower back, encouraging her closer, “He did, so we decided we’d make sure you got to do all of those fun things on your birthday this year,” he explains, his smile adorably nervous, “We’re going to a pizza place for lunch, then the arcade and then out for ice cream - which I was told was non-negotiable - which will be followed by heading home to order in dinner from a place of your choosing,” he smiles, his dimples carved out into his cheeks, “And then we’ll watch whatever nerdy movie you pick.”

She chuckles and hooks her arms around his neck, her fingers trailing through the short hair there. She feels tears pressing at the back of her eyes, her chest tight with love and everything she’d never been able to find the words for. She’d never been loved like this before. Never been loved so unconditionally or deeply, and there were moments like this when it was overwhelming, something that not all that long ago would have sent her running in the other direction. 

These days, she didn’t want to run anywhere other than towards Aaron and Jack, and the future they were building together. 

She watches as panic washes over her boyfriend’s face, mistaking her silence for annoyance rather than joyful disbelief, “If this was a bad idea, we can go home,” he says, half stuttering out his words in a way she’d never heard from him before, “I have a backup reservation at that new Italian place this evening-”

She cuts him off with a kiss, her hands on each of his cheeks as she pulls back, “No, this is…” she trails off into a wet chuckle, shaking her head at him, “This is perfect,” she kisses him again, “You’re perfect. I love you so much.” 

He smiles, his relief spreading through him in a way she can feel, his body relaxing against hers, “I love you too.” 

She leans in to kiss him again but they are cut off by a yell from Jack, his patience finally running out. 

“Dad, Emily, hurry up!”

They both laugh and look at him, his hands on his hips as he stands just a few feet away from the swings, and then they look back at each other, wide smiles on both of their faces as they start to walk towards the young boy.

“He never used to do that either.” 

“Aaron.” 

___

It had without a doubt, been her favourite birthday she’d ever had. 

Jack insisted that he had to push her on the swing, his small hands on her back helped along by Aaron’s bigger hands just above them, both of them laughing as she tried to pretend she wasn’t enjoying herself. They’d ordered more food than they could possibly have eaten at the pizza place and then spent more money than she thought possible at the arcade. Hours and hours lost to the three of them moving from game to game, the tickets they’d won stuffed into their pockets as they drank giant sodas and somehow found room for hot dogs and ice cream. She’d handed her tickets over to Aaron when she went to the bathroom, her lips stamped against his as he said they’d meet her at the prize counter, and she expected that she’d find them standing there with some plastic game Jack had picked out for himself. 

Instead, she’d found them there with a large stuffed cat in Jack’s arms, his smile wide as he handed it to her and told her they’d chosen it for her. It’s probably the ugliest looking thing she’s ever seen - its black fur looked unevenly distributed, its sewn-on smile was wonky and the stare from its eyes was something close to unnerving - but she loves it. It’s immediately her favourite thing she’s ever been given, and she’s sure she’s never come closer to crying in public. It’s something that would have felt ridiculous in the middle of an arcade filled with screaming children and exasperated parents, so she’d held it together. She’d held the cat close all night, cuddled up against her as they watched Star Wars, a physical manifestation of their love for her that she wasn’t quite ready to let go of yet. 

When they get ready for bed, she places it on an armchair in the corner of Aaron’s bedroom and pats it on the head before she walks to the ensuite. She’s just finished with her skincare routine when Aaron joins her, his arms wrapping around her from behind as he smiles at her in the mirror. 

“Did you have a good birthday?” He asks, kissing her cheek, making her smile when he shifts down to kiss her neck, his nose nestling against her jawline, his love for her lotion well known. 

“I did,” she replies, resting her hands over his on her abdomen, “The best.” 

He tilts his head to look down at her, “Are you sure? It was only when we were at the arcade I realised I’d let Jack talk me into the perfect day for a 6-year-old boy.” 

She’d laugh, but she wants him to know how much this had meant to her, how this had been infinitely more special to her than a dinner in a restaurant they could eat at any night could ever have been. She turns in his arms and wraps her arms around his neck, letting her thumb stroke back and forth over the patch of skin beneath his hairline. 

“Honey, today was perfect,” she says, her eyes boring into his, hoping more than anything that he’d believe her, “You gave me something I didn’t even know I’d been missing,” she smiles when he relaxes, “This was the best birthday I’ve ever had,” her smile turns mischievous as she leans in to kiss him, “If anything, you’ve just made more hard work for yourself next year when you have to try and top it.” 

He grins at her, his grip on her tightening, “I look forward to the challenge,” he kisses her, his hands firm on her lower back as he holds her close, his fingers sneaking under the hem of her t-shirt. He starts to lead her towards the bedroom, both of them grasping at each other, their kiss eventually lost as her knees hit the back of the bed and she pulls him down on top of her, “Just one thing though.” 

She frowns at him as she tries to catch her breath, “What?” 

“We’re not doing this with that fucking cat watching us.”

She laughs as she looks over to the stuffed cat sitting on the armchair in the corner of the room, and she holds Aaron’s head against her chest, his forehead against her collarbone, “Don’t worry honey,” she encourages him to look up at her, her lips stamped against his as she scrapes his hair away from his forehead, “I’m sure we’ll find a permanent place for it.” 

18 months later, the cat is one of many stuffed animals lined up in their daughter’s nursery. Its wonky smile a well-loved companion on long sleepless nights as Emily feeds the baby and Aaron holds them both close.

[tiddiesoutwhenthetisout]

Do you have a headcanon that you like so much that you practically automatically include it when you think of the character the headcanon is about?

i will try to list a few, as i remember best when i trigger an associated memory (i think-- i'd like to think my memory still works 🤣).

tbh i held off on answering this since i can't think of a good hc from the top of my head hahaha

it's not going to be substantiated by historical texts or information since i have very limited knowledge in those areas. these are silly little hcs i inferenced from the most random places.

Patroclus:

- he has very nice names for his dogs. he thinks of each one very well as he walks back to camp after rescuing the animal from destruction. he constantly thinks about it, and of course they have meanings, but i'm unfortunately not greek so i can't dive deeper into that :') something like "child of vast plains" (one word) as in free. like his wishes for each dog. "never suffering a lack of", such and such. depending on his observations of each dog's personality.

- tired dad but also playful piece of shit uncle vibes.

- i like to think he genuinely enjoys the adrenaline of high stakes (gambling- which totally started as a joke because i saw a post saying he 'killed a boy over dice #gamblingaddiction') but doesn't participate much when the soldiers play because he has his dutiful side lol. when he decides to come out and participate, he keeps winning.

- voice smooth as honey and chocolate but he's a little tone deaf.

※ also, grey eyes patroclus truther over here. and that he probably got his medical talents from his mother, whoever it was.

Achilles:

- stays in his tent most of the time. the longer the war went on, the more he closed himself off, save for a few of his own men and his close friends (patroclus, antilochus, automedon, ajax, teucer...) he does get out for celebrations but he tends to get sick of merrymaking easier than others so he retires early. would complain to patroclus about several things in his day as they tend to their body pains and weapons/armor maintenance. this says a lot about my general impression of his personality. i don't need to spell out that i think he's dramatic lol

- has a green right eye and a deep black left iris (from thetis). i made this on accident with a sketch but i really like the idea of him being *slightly* unsettling when they see him the first time instead of a flawless blonde child. sure he still is, but i'd like in-universe characters to have more of a reason to not approach him. and well... pay thetis a little bit of tribute hahaha. i deleted other appearance hcs for him and patroclus, realizing i can just add those when i post my wip character design sheets. but here's a zoomed shot of his face as a 12 year old:

- likes theater. would have tried for it himself if he didn't have to be a warrior. has made several songs throughout his life especially in childhood but has never documented them. forgets them in the morning.

Odysseus:

- nearsighted. idk if there's anything to prove this otherwise, but i just slapped it on him. he doesn't recognize people super easily by their faces, but he goes by other things instead like height or voice, or their most prominent features. that's also how he hunts or kills. he doesn't really know this ofc, and has just been doing it his whole life. now he doesn't know his son's face very well, so i'd like to add this to the moral dilemma of throwing astyanax off the wall more than it already is.

- short king idk 5'1". 5'2" if he's wearing shoes hehe. has the same height with penelope. telemachus is 5'3" (without shoes). the genes are improving!

Menelaus:

- diomedes and odysseus second father figure. this probably has a lot of contradicting evidence, but let me sit with the funny image that it started as a joke at first then they found menelaus just has very basic dad instincts. has, on many nights, gotten drunk and cried about helen leaving him.

- has to watch his blood pressure (sorry).

Diomedes:

- values the concept of family higher than most. he doesn't spell it out in the open of course, but it's one of the things that sets him apart as well.

※ so i took a break, got curious about diomedes and looked up his future after troy. that hc does not bode well with his wife's status after his return 💀

Pyrrhus:

- has red hair (sometimes a "duh" moment for me considering his name is literally fire-haired/red-haired; I've seen blonde depictions of him).

- 5'6". slightly taller than average, but shorter than his father because his god blood is more diluted than.

- very cold and steadfast when he first showed up. i want to believe that he was not that all throughout. he learned to commune with other soldiers, although awkward and unsure. somehow, he became like another achilles; the youngest of the soldiers, the man who would spearhead the attack by proposing the idea of the trojan horse (i read somewhere it was him, and then some say odysseus, some say both). he would look quizzically at handshakes but would accept. he'd be so confused by whooping and hugging and cheering after battle, but didn't resist the warmth of it. he unfortunately didn't have time to explore that side of life before he died.

i think i'll end it there 🤣 i'm not that well-acquainted with other characters, but you yourself wrote about automedon and balius and xanthus being tamed by patroclus, so i also believe that now actually.