#hopefully the first of a series of illustrations… i hopee

[mossdrawn]

« Because he doesn’t want to be too loud he doesn’t use his hairdryer. Instead he drapes his towel around his shoulders and lets his hair drip and drip and drip. »

from dragonfly year by @c-kiddo. this image really gets to me every time… the lonely quiet of trying to not get in the way. it really resonates. beautiful story.

(i hope it is ok to tag you in fanart!)

[callsignseagull]

all you had to do was stay ✪ part 1

Jake ‘Hangman’ Seresin x fem!reader

Summary: Six years ago Jake hit your life like a hurricane. In and out in a matter of weeks. You thought after you get over the disappointment of him leaving without saying a word you’d never think of him again. But then two pink lines change your life forever. Now he’s back and still has no idea that the little girl by your side is his daughter. 

Words: 2.1k

Warnings: Not much, honestly. maybe just a little angsty 

A/N: Here’s part one!! I hope you like it! It's a little on the short side but hopefully there'll be more soon :))

feedback is always appreciated :)

series masterlist

You’re sitting at the dining table, scrolling through your emails with one hand while holding your toast in the other. You’ve become a pro at multitasking.

“Mommy? Do you think they have churros at that market Penny is taking me?” Your daughter is munching on a toast of her own, crumbs sticking to her cheeks. 

“I’m sure.” You smile. “And I’m sure if you ask nicely, Penny will get some for you.” 

She grins before taking another bite of her toast and you can’t help but reach over and give her a kiss. You can’t believe how fast she’s growing up. At now five years old, Josie is your entire world. As shocked and scared as you were when you found out about her, she’s the best thing that ever happened to you.   

Turning back to your laptop, you flag the most important mails so you don’t forget to follow up on them later. The time before one of your books releases is always the most stressful, but you wouldn’t change it for the world. You got so lucky. 

You wrote and illustrated your first children’s book while being pregnant with Josie, it gave you something to distract yourself from all the changes you were going through. And then you posted about it online, it went sort of viral and then a publisher reached out to you. The book was an immediate success. It’s been translated in several different languages and they even make stuffed toys and board games based on your characters now.

And now you’re about to release the fifth book in the series. It’s hard to churn one out every year, but you’re scared that if you drop the ball, all you’ve worked for will be ripped from you. You want to give Josie the best life possible, so you work your ass off. 

When both of you are finished with breakfast, you clean up the table and tell Josie to put her shoes on. As you slip into your own shoes, you whistle for Muffin, the four year old poodle mix you adopted from a rescue last year, and he comes trotting around the corner moments later. 

After checking you’ve got everything you lock the front for behind you, hold your free hand out for Josie to take, the other holding Muffin’s leash. Then, the three of you take on the short walk towards the Hard Deck. 

Penny Benjamin has been a life saver these last few years, throughout your pregnancy and beyond. She’s been there for you whenever you needed her, day or night. You don’t know what you would’ve done without her. And now she’s somewhat of a grandma figure for Josie, and she’s probably the hottest grandma ever. Her and Amelia are the closest thing you and Josie have to a family, besides each other.

Today, Penny is taking Josie to a Food Market while you look after the bar for a couple hours. It’s still early and not many people will be there, but you’re glad you can help Penny out while still getting some work done for yourself.

“There’s my favourite little family!” Penny greets, as you enter the Hard Deck, her arms wide and Josie immediately runs towards her and into her arms. 

“Hi Penny! I’m so excited! Are you excited? Do you think they’ll have churros?” Josie rambles with glistening eyes, her dimples on show and for a moment you’re reminded of how much she looks like her father. You manage to push thoughts of him to the back of your mind most days but sometimes you just look at her and all you can see is him. 

You haven’t tried reaching out to him again. You know you should’ve. But it felt wrong sending him a text telling him he’ll be a father. And you doubted that he even wanted to be a father. So you decided you’d spare yourself, and your daughter, the heartache. Josie hasn’t asked about her father much, but when she did you told her that he’s a pilot in the Navy and that he loves her. You never want her to feel like she’s not wanted.  

✩̿✪̿✩̿

Jake knew he’d come back eventually. He just didn’t know it would take him so long. But if he was being honest with himself he knew that if it wasn’t for him being called back to Top Gun for some top secret mission he still wouldn’t have had the guts to come back here. Hell, he’s been living only a few hours north from here for the past couple of years. He easily could’ve made the drive down. But he’d always been good at coming up with excuses. But now he couldn’t. Not when he’s in the same city for the next few months. He’d constantly be looking for you. Seeing you in every face that just slightly resembled yours. He didn’t even know if you still lived in San Diego, though. But going to the Hard Deck seemed like the logical thing to do. Even if you weren’t working there anymore, Penny Benjamin might know where to find you.

As soon as he enters the bar he’s hit with nostalgia. Nothing has changed. He takes a look around and pretends he’s the six years younger version of himself, still naive enough to think that nothing will ever rattle him.

Since it’s still the early afternoon it’s not busy and there seems to be no one behind the bar right now. With a deep sigh he sits down in one of the barstools, then notices someone crouched down behind the bar, looking for something in a cabinet. 

His breath catches in his throat. It can’t be.

He hasn’t seen you in six years, and even though he can’t see your face right now, he knows it’s you. He can feel it. 

Now he really feels like he’s been transported back six years in time. You haven’t noticed him yet and he can’t hold back the words that are going through his head.

“Can you pinch me? Because I can’t believe you’re real. I thought I was dreaming.” He knows it’s a bit of a dick move, throwing his first thing he ever said to you at you now. But maybe you’re not as mad at him as he thinks? What if you don’t even remember him? He hadn’t thought about that. Fuck. 

✩̿✪̿✩̿

You almost hit your head when you spin around towards him.  This can’t be real.

“What are you doing here?” You must look like you’ve seen a ghost, but it honestly feels like that. He looks the same but he doesn’t. He’s filled out more, even though you never thought it possible. And he just looks overall more mature. It suits him. 

“What am I doing here in San Diego or what am I doing here at the Hard Deck?” He tilts his head, a small smile on his face. You don’t grace that with an answer, he knows what you mean. The smile slowly drops from his face, and there’s a seriousness in his eyes that makes it impossible for you to look away. “I was hoping to find you here.”

“Why?”

“I want to apologise.” 

That makes you straighten up. Apologise? After six years? 

“I was an absolute asshole to you and you didn’t deserve that. I was going through a rough time and I took all that out on you. I’m sorry. And I’m sorry I just left without saying goodbye. I got called on a mission right after graduation and when I got back I figured you didn’t wanna talk to me ever again.”

His words take your breath away for a moment. Never in a million years did you think you’d get an apology from Jake. 

“I-,” you stop, wringing your hands together. At a loss for words.

“You don’t have to say anything.” He smiles softly. “I’m in town for a while. Maybe we could … I don’t know … hang out sometime? Catch up?”

As much as you want to protect your heart and tell him no, you know you have to catch him up on what happened after he left. It’s not right to keep him in the dark now that he’s here. You know that.

“You don’t have to answer me now. Take some time to think about it. I’m sure you’re busy, with your books being such a success. And you’re still working at the bar?” He looks curious and you’re a little shocked.

“I’m just helping Penny out for a couple hours. You know about my books?”

“My nieces love them.” He grins. “I have to read them to them before bed every time I’ve got time to visit them down in Texas.”

“You’ve got nieces?” 

“Yeah, they’re two and four. Love them to death. My Mom’s been begging for grandkids for years and she’s so happy to dote on them every chance she gets.”

Your heart constricts. Two and four. They’re younger than Josie. Not only does she have cousins somewhere in Texas, she’s also the first grandchild to a woman who’s never met her. Who doesn’t even know about her. But you don’t know much about Jake’s parents. Maybe she wouldn’t be the biggest fan of a child out of wedlock. 

You glance at Jakes hand. No ring. 

You muster up the courage to your next question. You know the answer might hurt, but you have to ask him.

“Any kids of your own?” 

Jake shakes his head with a laugh, “No, not that I know of.” 

It’s just a joke but you feel like it makes your heart stop before it starts beating rapidly in your chest. This is it. There’s no better moment than now. Just get it over with.

“Jake, I-“ 

“Mommy!” Josie comes barreling through the door, Penny a few steps behind her. “Penny let me have Churros and they were delicious!” She wraps her arms around you and looks up at you with her sparkling green eyes.

Maybe you don’t even have to tell him. You glance at Jake and he looks a bit taken aback.

“Yeah, honey? Did you have fun?”

“So much fun!” She grins, showing off her deep dimples, and you run a hand over her head before giving her a kiss. You manage to look at Penny, who’s glaring at Jake. It takes all your courage to look at him. He doesn’t even seem to notice Penny, his eyes focused on the girl in your arms. You can’t read the expression on his face, has he already realised how much she looks like him? 

“Well, I guess I don’t have to ask you if you have any.” He smiles, his lips tight, then looks at your daughter and his smile turns more genuine. “What’s your name, sweetheart?” Hearing the term of endearment again makes goosebumps raise on your skin. 

“Josie.” She’s not a shy kid, so you’re not surprised when she looks at him curiously and asks, “Who are you?” 

Your grip tightens around her but before you can say anything he replies, “I’m an old friend of your Mom.” 

You shoot him a really? look but he just shrugs his shoulders. Well, you guess it is inappropriate to tell your five-year-old daughter that he used to fuck your brains out. 

“Thanks for helping out.” Penny says, “Both of you.” She winks at Josie. 

Muffin comes trotting around the corner and Josie let’s go of you to throw her arms around the poodle mix. “I missed you!” While Muffin covers your daughter’s face in slobber, Jake huffs out a laugh. 

“A dog, too, huh?” 

You shrug your shoulders, not sure what to say to that. 

“Does the house have a picket fence?” It’s a bit of a loaded question, you think, but you don’t read too much into it and reply truthfully, thinking about the little house you put a down payment on a couple years ago. 

“It does.” 

Jake rubs his chest and gives you that tight lipped smile again. “I’m happy for you.” 

He means it, you can tell. “Thanks, Jake.”

He gets up from his seat at the bar, knocks on the wood a couple times then says. “Your husband is one lucky guy.” Another tight lipped smile.

“My wha-?” 

“I’ll see you around.” He nods then turns on his heel and before you can comprehend what just happened he’s gone.

“Mommy, why did he say your husband? You don’t have one of those.” 

“I don’t know, honey.” 

You watch him cross the parking lot to his car and it dawns on you that he thinks that all your dreams came true:  become a full time illustrator, fall in love, get married, adopt a dog, buy a little house, have kids.

Little does he know that you fell in love with him, had his kid, and did all of the rest on your own. 

taglist: @annathesillyfriend ✪ @lovebittenbyevans ✪ @heyhihellowhatsup0 ✪ @one-sweet-gubler ✪ @emorychase ✪ @wooya1224 ✪ @novagreen04 ✪ @iammirrorball ✪ @lolcaca ✪ @caitsymichelle13 ✪ @soulmates8 ✪ @soleilgrec ✪ @lilylilyyyyyy ✪ @winters-queen ✪ @i0veless ✪ @the-romanian-is-bae ✪ @mandyppp ✪ @dempy ✪ @mizuki80 ✪ @lumpypoll ✪ @averyhotchner ✪ @babyice1274 ✪ @captain-fandomwriter58 ✪ @hangmanscoming ✪ @caidi-paris ✪ @linkpk88 ✪ @djs8891 ✪ @xomrsalliej4787xo ✪ @lnmp89 ✪ @startrekfangirl2233 ✪ @gigisimsonmars ✪ @merishfit ✪ @clancycucumber230 ✪ @sky0401 ✪ @emilyoflanternhill ✪ @roostersforevergirl ✪ @celestialeviereads ✪ @blackwidownat2814 ✪ @impossiblebagelcowboyfreak ✪ @grxcisxhy-wp ✪ @atarmychick007 ✪ @dakotakazansky ✪ @fulla02 ✪ @alana4610 ✪ @callsignwidow ✪ @memoriesat30 ✪ @ebonyhogan24

[dxstopiaa]

Close Confinement

Synopsis: Party games were a great way to pass the time, but seven whole minutes with the scribe himself? [Request]

Characters: Al Haitham x Fem! Reader.

Warnings: NSFW content, interact at your own risk. [Includes: Soft sex, Virginity loss, semi-public sex, praise, pet names] [it took me a while to write this, but i hope you like it! <3]

Boring, tiresome and irrelevant.

The trinity of words which circulated the young post-graduate’s mind, all to describe the topic of socialising and parties. If it was up to his own decision, Al Haitham would’ve rejected the offer in less than a second. However, it was not.

Duties and desideratum of the Akademiya’s students, he was told. According to many of the matra, there was a high demand of past students requesting a sort of reunion— a celebration, as illustrated on the infamous community message board.

In short, the Acting Grand Sage had no choice but to cater to their desires, hence the situation he found himself in. Snapping back from his thoughts, he glanced back at the venue he had organised, half proudly, half nonchalantly. Not too bad for the first try.

Of course, with the help of his rather irritating roommate, who wasn’t as insufferable when he had something to occupy himself with. Kaveh stood expectantly beside the Scribe, tapping his pen on his pale lips, surveying the checklist he had prepared. The quiet hum which left him already told he was satisfied enough.

One topic that Al Haitham didn’t see on aforementioned list was guest entertainment, something that he ignored in hopes of not having to deal with it. Spoiler from his future self— that approach did not go to plan.

Instead, the Acting Grand Sage found himself musing over you, who currently sat opposite from him. That sweet, soft-hearted girl who always greeted him so kindly, always keen to listen to his theses and reports with such attention. Even now, you just looked too cute for the most stoic of men to ignore. The Scribe would gladly play any silly game to amuse you.

“Al Haitham, just spin the bottle already!” Cyno groaned, wanting nothing more than to get this stress-inducing situation over with. A series of agreements from the other two graduates followed. You merely stared at him with anticipation.

He’s changed a lot, you thought. Appearance wise, his silver tresses were more the shade of oxidised metal, not to mention his muscular physique, just how much has he undergone in recent years? Still as nerdy as ever though, another book resting on his lap.

The ashen-haired scholar scoffed—smoothing his fingers over the virescent glass, pushing it into a spinning motion. Friction worked its magic, slowing down till the neck of the bottle faced directly towards you.

The group immediately began snickering, observing your cheeks redden, putting the ripest of berries to shame. You looked up again, witnessing the smug expression of success on their faces. The tension between you both was overpowering, about time they did something about it.

“That settles it then! Go on..” Kaveh coerced, pushing the both of you into a poorly-furnished conference room to the left of the lounge and locking the door from the outside.

Cliché. Was this a punishment or rather a reward from the gods?

Al Haitham didn’t know what to do with himself. This wasn’t like him at all to be thinking in such ways but— Archons, your dress barely covered your thighs from him.

You were biting the insides of your cheek, averting your eyes to anywhere but him, despite only being a few inches away. You’d understand his actions soon enough, hopefully.

He cupped your face with his palm, brushing away stray strands of hair that obstructed the view of your precious eyes. Your breath hitched, leaning into his gentle touch. He pulled you in closer, intending to wordlessly claim you as his own.

“May I?” Al Haitham pleaded, his piercing, turquoise irises tainted with affection. His voice was quiet— almost strained, like he was afraid of rejection, something you’d never do to him.

You hastily nodded your head, wrapping your arms around his neck. He kissed you delicately, a faint taste of sweet wine still left on his lips. The Scribe trapped your body against the wall, pulling away just to kiss you again at the sight of your smudged lipstick. His mouth trailed down to your neck as his hands did to your waist.

His touch was hypnotic— your mind was hazy and overcast with him, countless dreams of this years ago now enacted in-front of you. His hands travelled further, grasping onto the underside of your thighs and wrapping your legs around him to stand comfortably imbetween them.

Al Haitham was curious as to how you’d react. Would you be quiet and anxious, rarely moaning and instead gasping? Or would you be vocal, crying his name out at any given moment? He traced a slender finger over the front of your panties, observing you squirm into his touch.

“Haitham…” You muttered, a flutter of butterflies swarming deep within, each flickering motion of a wing seeming to spur a different emotion. Desperation, apprehension and lust.

“Yes, darling?” He continued to skim over your clit underneath the fabric, clouding your thought process over. You reached to cover your mouth, whimpering into your own hand.

“I haven’t done this before—” You whined upon feeling his clothed erection press up against you, needily rolling your hips against him. Your face flushed from the confession and the sinful noise you let out.

“I’ll be gentle, angel.” The Scribe comforted, which felt strange for him to utter such words. Anyone who knew the scholar would be aware of his abrasive, arrogant nature— but his heart followed no limits when it came to you.

And gentle he was, softly pleasuring you with skilled fingers, coaxing angelic sounds from your pretty, hesitant lips. Al Haitham wanted nothing more than to see them swollen and wet from kisses. A few seconds later you were essentially begging for his cock, palming his crotch with your inexperienced hand.

Your pleads were just adorable, who was he to deny you of what you wanted? With his fingers wet with your slick, he slid them over his flushed tip. It was quite the confidence boost for you to exclusively see the Acting Grand Sage deteriorated to this mindless state.

He prodded at your pussy, barely even managing to hilt himself with you clenching so tightly, hearing your timid sobs from the stretch, tears forming in your eyes.

“I know, darling, try to relax for me…” Al Haitham amorously whispered, planting short-lived pecks on your forehead whilst he massaged your thighs softly, giving you a few moments to adjust before beginning to move.

The feeling of his girth dragging against your insides was a simultaneous sensation of pain and pleasure. You struggled to restrain yourself, opting to bury your face against the scholar’s chest. With each prolonged thrust, your brain struggled to comprehend anything else.

“You’re doing so well, angel.” Al Haitham could feel you squeezing around his cock at his words, murmuring how it was all too much for you, phrases adjourned by blissful moans. You were close, those erotic grunts from his ajar mouth did nothing but worsen the tingling in your lower abdomen.

A final firm thrust and you finished around his cock, gripping onto him so much that he came inside of you. Your sublime expression so innocent, eyes half-lidded in euphoria. The Scribe pulled out, letting you stumble against him for support.

“So good for me, let me clean you up, sweetheart.”

The long-forgotten graduates were still at the very same table, entertaining themselves with numerous glasses of alcohol and a card game of the General’s choice. It’d be a complete lie if they were to say they hadn’t had a clue about your prior predicament.

The lipstick stains over Al Haitham’s face and neck, his dishevelled hair accompanied with your dress creased and legs still trembling from implied events— all telltale signs of something more explicit.

“It’s called seven minutes in heaven, not thirty minutes making your neighbour’s ears hell!” An embarrassed complaint from an even more ashamed blonde, flicking a card at his chuckling roommate.

[wondernus]

˗ˋˏ a winter interlude ˎˊ˗

synopsis: maybe this is meant to be an interlude – an unforeseen passing moment in each other’s timelines. but with the stroke of a conductor’s baton, the symphony lands on the fermata hovering above the note. do we allow this interlude to become something longer than a short period in our lives, or do we end it after all of it is over?

pairing: wonwoo x coworker!reader

genre: romance, drama, light angst

tags: children's book illustrator wonwoo, publisher reader, enemies to lovers, fake marriage, food/drinks, work husband jeonghan cameo, small town dynamics, snowed in, scene where reader almost gets physically injured

wc: 11.3k

message from nu: waaaa first fic of the year. special special special thank you to my beloved madi (@heartkyeom) for being my beta reader well after midnight. I also wanna thank mars (@onlymingyus) for being mars c: I remember a while ago I answered an ask with a possible wonwoo work husband spinoff. this is it. this is wonwoo's work husband spinoff. this can be read as a standalone fic. happy winter and happy new year to all of you. I hope you all enjoy this svthub snowventeen collab fic - nu ♡

wondernus's masterlist / snowventeen collab 18+

one

“Don’t forget to wear you layers because it’s about to be chillier as the week passes by. For those trekking into the mountains, make sure you look out for weather updates from the signal tower and stay indoors because a large snowstorm is about to paint the mountains white. Stay safe, and have a great day. Now, onto Yoon Jeonghan with the traffic.”

“‘Trekking?’ What are you? A protein bar wrapper? Anyway, thank you Joshu-"

Never really understanding why other people say they often find themselves turning down the music while driving to see better, you find yourself doing the same – driving in silence as if the silence could create such a frictionless surface that would shoot and propel your car to your destination. A couple of hours late to your annual winter work retreat, a clear understatement defined by the speed at which you are driving, what was supposed to be a carpool event turned into you sitting in a pool of cars while stuck in traffic.

The Sun shines lightly, a gentle kiss against your skin, but not enough to hug everything it touches in warmth. With the heater on high, you sit in your front seat sweating and dreading the moment when you have to get out of your car, thighs peeling off the leather seats and leaving a pool of sweat where you were sitting. Perhaps it is not the Sun and the heater’s heat that causes you to sweat, but a psychological factor – an amalgamation of stress and anxiety that stemmed from the moment you realized you were late.

No longer can you allow yourself to forgive him that easily, yet you really did not want t blame him for giving you incorrect meeting minutes. But when the retreat itinerary clearly stated to meet in the morning at seven in front of the publishing house, you should have known better than to wholly trust your ditzy new intern to attend your office meeting while you traveled out of town to hunt down your author for her overdue speculative fiction novel draft. Instead of writing the correct time to meet, he incorrectly noted the arrival time.

This unprecedented-precedented blip is the catalyst for a series of chain reactions that would metaphorically send you pummeling down the steep side of a mountain in a snowy avalanche that you could have avoided. But you do not know it, nor do you know how it, whatever “it” is, ends.

Dark circles under your eyes and a forgotten paper-thin pimple patch a jolt over a speedbump away from falling off your oily skin, you keep telling yourself that everything will be okay once you get to the camping grounds. Hopefully, this sort of denial could make up for the fact that you spent all of last night kicking your feet under your covers while binge-watching the reality show that your favorite boy group filmed rather than packing for your trip. But there is only so much your heater turned on high can do for someone wearing an old flimsy university tee with a couple of cat teeth-made holes who forgot to put their contacts in last night. You are better off skipping the winter retreat, but you are already nearing the mountains. There is no turning back – especially on winding roads.

And the embarrassment. This feeling of creeping anxiety seemingly washed away the moment it stepped foot into your head even though you are utterly unprepared and inappropriate for being late to the paid work retreat. Because this sudden realization hits you mid-drive: the only person who you would be embarrassed to meet in your current situation is excused for the retreat. Reasons unknown. And not that you would let any man define you, but at your core, you are simply a person with an embarrassingly big fat crush on your co-worker (and seemingly everybody else you work with). This crush is so bad that if HR made every team create their own set of photocards, you would put his in a protective cover with tiny holographic hearts, and then in a sturdy toploader decorated with overpriced stickers. One glance at him would put you in a trance, daydreaming about what it would be like to wake up in his arms on a sunny day with birds chirping outside your window, and him with a soft smile on his face.

Except for one thing – he hates your guts, so you decided to hate his too.

They always say “try, try again,” but how many tries would it take before the attempts turn Sisyphean? Sure, Hades enchanted Sisyphus’s boulder so that it would roll away before Sisyphus reached the top, but what about you? Car tires struggling against the icy roads, you drive carefully so your car does not turn into a giant hockey puck or a curling stone on (what is essentially) a giant ice rink. But being careful does not help the fact that you are unprepared. And being unprepared means your car has absolutely no way for you to drive over any sized slopes, no matter how many times you try.

You only realize any further attempt of going over the slope or taking any other route is fruitless when your tires spin in place after digging themselves well enough into the road. And you slump against your steering wheel like an exasperated character in a movie – pounding your head against 12 o’clock a few times for good measure. So much for a fifteen-minute-saving de-tour through a small town you have never seen before. And so much for you trying to drive over a slope you could easily walk over. Trying sucks.

Still, the only thing that keeps you from abandoning your hand-me-down car to trek forty-five minutes to the campsite is the fact that it is freezing outside, and your cellphone Wi-Fi gets especially spotty when you are in areas of high altitudes. With one final sigh, you push yourself away from your steering wheel to sit upright, leaning the back of your head against your headrest. There is not much to do except to put your car in neutral and try to push your car out of the little hole it dug itself in.

The thing is, the texture of real snow is a lot different from the snow that giant portable snow machines shoot out of their gigantic cylindrical nozzles to cover the courtyard in front of the city hall whenever the local city has its annual winter festival. Real snow is also incomparable to the “snow” a child creates along the perimeter of an ice skating rink, hands holding onto the rails for support while they repeatedly scrape the inside of one of their blades towards the inside of their other shoe, creating soft ribbons of shaved ice before the navy blue Zamboni can create a clean slate before private lessons start.

Real snow is relentless toward anybody who does not come prepared to interact with it. So, no matter how much you try to dig and twist your sneaker sole into the snow, that tactile grip that you wish to create that supports your feet while you are pushing against the back of your car can seldom be created. You slump against your car’s bumper in defeat. The Sun still shining on your skin, a little bit stronger now, leaves you with the same warmth you felt against your skin, a bit tingly and upsetting, when you knew your skin would still burn no matter how nice the cordiality of the Sun felt on that one Spring day in the past.

Plus, there is a little more time to observe your surroundings when you have given up completely.

In the grassy median strip that denotes the entrance into the small town is a wooden welcome sign with the name in loopy golden lettering against a beautiful pine green: “Welcome to Interlude.” A few feet ahead of you, the mountainous road marries smooth concrete, and the sidewalks pave in a festival town-esque brick lining. And you conclude you must be on the outskirts of the town. Leftover snow fills the grooves between each brick and covers the dark-colored awnings in front of each shop along the town strip. Where flashy LED shop signs and brightly colored bulbs decorate sidewalk trees drawing visitors in from around the world, is surprisingly a lack of people. And you frown while thinking about how you would be able to push your car to the side of the road if another vehicle wants to enter the town.

Not a few moments later, a navy blue truck slowly climbs up the road, and you feel the littlest bit of hope surge into your body. Forcing yourself to stand up, you move out of the way and wave at the incoming car. But as your day could not have gotten any more unfortunate, your car starts rolling backwards towards the pickup truck. And you cannot help but see your entire life flash in front of you – a person dressed too lightly for the snow and the used car passing by like a celebrity on a parade float, all in a moment.

What is scarier than the fact that your car is now bumper-less and the pickup truck remains unscathed is the man who hops out of his truck. Looking like a snow-stage boss from a video game, the man who is large and menacingly looking enough to make his shiny dark green car look like a minivan next to him stalks over to you with his finger pointed directly at your face. The only thing missing from the scene is the army of ice ogres that are supposed to follow closely behind him.

However, the only thing you can register is the fact that he is yelling at you – face glowing bright red and spit flying out of his mouth. Your body is frozen in fear. There is a lack of capacity for you to be able to stand up for yourself while you are shocked and unable to recognize your surroundings while terrible words spill out of the man's mouth. And you cannot do anything except take in his expletives while teardrops well up, ready to spill out of your tear ducts.

But they do not. A figure puts himself between the man and you, and your view is too obstructed to see the other side.

“I called the insurance company. Give me your information and I’ll handle it,” the mysterious person says.

“And who are you?” You hear from the other side.

“I’m their husband.” He fishes for his wallet in his back pocket and takes out a business card, handing it to the man between two fingers. “Call me. Email me. Your choice. I’ll get it sorted. Sorry about the whole thing, I didn’t have time to drive my partner. Bad husband right?... So, I heard you’re the new fishing shop owner? I’ll drop by sometime.” He tries to switch subjects to lessen the tension while slipping his wallet back into his pocket.

The thing is, it works. The presence of the man who uses his body to shield you calms the angry pickup truck driver almost exponentially. And the man who yelled at you seemed to forget he was yelling at you just because he realized your marital status. The man calms down, and even falters in his speech.

“Ahh…I’m not a fishing shop owner. I guess it’s fine now that you’re here, but you know men. There aren’t bad husbands, only ba-”

“I’ll be at Town Hall if you need more information from me.” The man who calls himself your husband purposely and curtly cuts the other man off, knowing very well that he would be even more upset if he heard the man finish his sentence.

The man does not turn back to address you until he is done taking photos of both cars and waving the other man goodbye. And your piece of junk car stays in the same spot, bumper-less and bruised, while the pickup truck, clearly without any injury, smoothly makes its way into Interlude, disappearing from your sight.

“You’re just going to dumbly let that man say those things to you? About you? Do you have no respect for yourself?” He lectures you, his deep voice muffled by the black wool scarf wrapped around his neck and mouth.

You see him clearly this time, how his black locks fall in front of his face in neat curtain bangs, set in a defined “C” shape. The oversized fleece-lined collar jacket falls to the middle of his thighs, leaving little room for his cream-colored sweater to peep into view. And his stance, focusing his weight on his right heel while his left foot slightly protrudes forward, allows him to tap his foot against the snow while he waits for you to answer him.

But what is shocking to you is not the code-switching he uses when speaking to the driver versus when speaking to you. What is shocking, you realize, are the thin silver-framed glasses that sit on the bridge of the man’s nose and the familiar deep woody scent that clings onto him, touched with a hint of peach.

It couldn’t be.

A cold chill leaves your tongue dry and squeezes your stomach.

“Are you dumb? Did you not hear about the snowstorm coming?” He asks you, a voice without concern, all while pulling out his phone from one of his pockets.

He tugs his manicured thumbs out of his gloves to wake his phone and proceeds to reveal his face from under his scarf to unlock his phone. After a few loud keyboard taps, you hear your phone’s notification sound from your car. But all you can do is stare back at the man, stomach gurgling and queasy.

“Yn,” your co-worker sighs, clearly annoyed by your lack of response. “Why are you here?”

two

A backpack-wearing piglet who happily crosses the street. A fashionably dressed lumpy toad who rows across the pond in a wooden paddle boat. A shrew who picnics with a chipmunk in a grassy city park. Tiny children who sit between each of a stegosaurus’s scutes. An angry and scruffy-looking Siamese cat who wears a cone too big for it to see. The backside of each illustration states:

Jeon Wonwoo ILLUSTRATOR Same Dream Publishing House Work Email | Work Number | Personal Website

Nicely squared recycled textured card stock printed with soy ink, Jeon Wonwoo’s business cards can very well double as collector cards. And the owner of these cards himself, in your eyes, is the most beautiful man you have ever laid your eyes on. No fantasy writer, no Renaissance artist could ever truly depict how you see this man. Yet it makes you feel terrible, so entirely rotten on the inside, knowing that he would rather crawl up several flights of stairs made of tiny plastic building blocks than take a fifteen-second elevator ride with you.

If you could pinpoint the exact day Jeon Wonwoo started hating you, it would be the Monday after coming back from a previous work trip to the vacation home of a poet the two of you were assigned. The two of you were amicable with each other, even more so – close friends. A power couple in the children’s books and short stories field – a force to be reckoned with. And the hotel rooms adjacent to each other where the two of you decided to sit on opposite sides of your shared door and talk to each other with both your backs against the door. You remember the sound of his hair brushing against the wood and his soft chuckle when you accidentally bump your head against the door. The goodbye after the trip lingered for a little too long while the first hello back never came. And you can only watch from the back of the crowd during meet and greets and panels, sometimes only catching the tip of his tiny flyaway from far away.

It would hurt your feelings a lot less if he turned away whenever you walked near him, but he chooses to frown instead. Unfortunately, it doesn’t make you like him any less. But you do not know what you are holding onto (or if there is anything to hold onto at this point).

Even now, there is a blatant emotional and physical distance between the two of you. He briskly walks at least a meter in front of you, never turning his head back to see if he left you behind or if you were following closely behind.

The thick uncomfortable shoulder strap keeps slipping from your shoulder, unable to find any traction against the smooth nylon of the puffer you put on earlier. And it is just a walk, a measly ten-minute walk to the police station where you can report the accident, but it is hard to walk while looking ahead when you are so close to crying. No matter how much you try to adjust your shoulder strap so it doesn’t stop falling, it finds a way to slip from your sore shoulder or frozen grip. Overwhelming emotions usurp any will to continue onwards and leave you feeling so annoyed, so dejected, and so frustrated with everything that happened today. And when your bag’s strap slips again, you let it slip from your shoulder, sending your entire duffle bag crumpling against the wet and icy brick pavement. 

And so you crumple with it, sinking to your knees and wallowing in your unhappiness.

The winter boots that clop in front of you never stop. Jeon Wonwoo would never stop for you, never walk backwards to pick up your heavy duffle and offer you a hand. So it wracks your head trying to understand why he would help you out in the first place, leaving you in the snow once everything was settled, and threatening an IOU coupon for the future. Why he would be in this town in the first place.

The shop window lights of the tiny electronics store to the side of you flicker on. On display and pressed flat against the glass are a bunch of old television sets stacked on top of each other, creating a large screen if not separated by the thick plastic television frames. Golden tempera paint in a modern Serif font exhibits the store’s logo across the glass: “Stay For A While,” in a wide downward pointing arc.

Every single television screen livestreams the local news. According to the subtitles, a giant snowstorm is about to hit the local area. Residents are advised to seek shelter and stay home. The sunny weather is only a farce. 

But you don’t notice the news. To you, the only thing in front of you is a lachrymose shadow of a blob trapped in a foreign town with nowhere to go. And your heart follows closely behind the man as if dragged by him on a leash – blindly bouncing, cobbling, and getting scratched by the various pebbles and dirt on the pavement.

The man never looks behind to check on the organ. He doesn’t even know it’s there.

“What do you mean you’re cat sitting? Jeonghan, you never volunteer to do things willingly…Oh, for the friends who are high school teachers? Then road trip with their cat and save your cousin who is stranded in the mountains.” You adjust your grip on your phone while mindlessly browsing through the several knickknacks for sale in the souvenir shop in the town’s only lodge.

Passing the wall of graphic tees and sweaters and passing through a shelf of souvenir mugs, you stop at a shelf of tiny woodcarvings. Your eye lands on a figurine of a whittled cat, hand-painted orange with a white belly. On the other end of your phone call, your cousin complains about the weather, but you don’t listen – clearly too entranced by the tiny cat.

“Of course I listened to the radio this morning,” you mutter while running the tip of your pointer finger against the cat’s ear, feeling the smooth sanded wood under your touch. “Okay, you got me. It was for background noise. Look, I’m not asking you to pick me up today. I somehow ended up booking a room after finding out cab services are down today. But if you’re not going to pick me up then I’m going to hang up and solve this myself. But if you don’t hear from me in three days, then call a search party. Okay?”

Except he hangs up before you can say goodbye, grumbling about how you never listen to him. Still, you’re unbothered by his action. The tiny cat, now in the palm of your hand, looks so content with life, unbothered by what goes on around it. Your mind wonders about its artist, how long they must have spent carving the cat from a single block of wood, the hours it must have taken to create something so tiny yet so fulfilling to own. And you wonder about the artist’s emotions, if they ever felt sadness after parting with their cat. If the cat was the artist’s friend, even for the brief moment, that juncture, in their individual timelines.

It would be best if you left the cat on the shelf, you think. Just in case the artist ever changes their mind about selling the cat. And the cat looks happier sitting on the shelf with its other animal friends, happier than what its painted lazy smile suggests.

And for the first time today, you feel a tiny bit of happiness – a halcyon moment surrounded by forest-themed trinkets and flashing keychains with generic names and soft 2010s pop music playing from the store speakers. That is until you see a familiar figure being escorted to the lobby of the lodge. Curiosity causes you to leave your spot in the souvenir store, edging closer to the creation of a new scene.

“I have a room.” You hear him try to reason with the security guard. “It’s not called loitering if I am a guest.”

You can’t hear the security guard, but it seems like Wonwoo’s bluntness is not a strong enough source of logos for the guard. And the guard stands in front of the illustrator, fully unconvinced that the man wearing a suit and holding his work briefcase would be any other out-of-town guest. And one look of pure panic on Jeon Wonwoo’s stupidly handsome-looking face sends you on autopilot, making your way to his side for no good reason.

“Babe.” You lie through your forced smile while looping your arm around his right arm. “Where were you?”

His arm jerks in the tiniest bit before it relaxes as if he hesitated for a moment before making his decision. Of course, another explanation could simply be because he experienced a negative bodily reaction to your mere presence. Flabbergasted, he would mutter. The nadir of today’s excitement. And you would hate him even more for using vocabulary without incorporating any malapropisms. He is as pretentious as the outfit he wears.

“Baby,” he grits through his teeth. “This gentleman seems to think I’m stalking the halls like some animal out to hunt its prey.”

“Sorry, Sir.” You pout at the security guard, hoping your natural pathos could appeal to the man. “My husband has a tendency to walk around whenever he’s bored. It’s been a while since we went on vacation, and he clearly has too many thoughts in his head. You see his outfit? It’s a bad habit.”

The security guard strokes his chin and nods, eying Wonwoo’s ineffable outfit. He wonders why the man in front of him would pack a business suit for a vacation in the mountains, but he doesn’t want to be the one too quick to judge. Rather, he agrees with the fact that the suit actually fits the man very well. If the man wasn’t stalking the hallways just a few moments ago, he would’ve asked him about which tailor he sees. “If he’s so bored, why don’t the two of you join couples night tonight? Winners get a free bedroom upgrade. And between you and me, I heard there’s a famous author who’s staying with us,” he whispers the last portion, a quick cheeky wink.

You don’t realize that you are still grabbing onto his arm until you dragged him into your room. And he shrugs you off, taking the extra step to smooth out his suit fabric while looking through your vanity mirror before turning to you.

“You have the grip of a snapping turtle,” he scoffs while looking around your room.

It is a standard room with a single queen-sized bed at the center of the room. If it were not for the carpeted floors, the entire room would look like a wooden box from its Western Red Cedar planks that make up the four walls to the wooden paneling that covers the ceiling, giant circular wooden beams that keep the ceiling steady by design. The rooms in this lodge are a termite’s dream feast and an art deco enthusiast’s nightmare. Even the bedframe is made of logs, cylindrical in every piece, and the bedsheets are of deep burgundy red bordered with silhouettes of black bears as if it came straight from the video game your cousin was so obsessed with a few Summers ago.

What catches his eye is not the fact that your duffle bag is thrown across your bed, nor the fact that the lamps in your rooms may as well be oil lamps. Rather, he stares at the door to the right of your mounted television, the divider between your room and your neighbor’s. And you can’t help but wonder what is going on in that head of his.

“You are insufferable, you know that?”

“How long did it take for you to think of that comeback?” His attention is drawn away from the door and aimed toward you. “Just because I compared you to a turtle didn’t mean you had to act like one.”

Your jaw drops and becomes your turn to scoff at him, loudly. You cannot believe what you are hearing, and your breathing becomes shallower as you glare at him. “Are you kidding me? Me helping you literally saved you from being pathetically kicked out by the security guard. You should be happy I didn’t record it and post it online.”

“Like you would have enough followers for it to go viral,” he sneers while taking a step toward you. “And I never asked you for help.”

“Loitering in the hallways? Wearing a business suit when you’re supposed to be at the retreat?” Now there is almost no space between the two of you. And you reach over to his chest, grabbing the plastic nametag that dangles from his neck, and holding it up to his face. The item feels as cold as the person who wears it. “Wearing your work badge? Fine, I’ll admit I have no idea why you’re here. But if you thought that walking around and waiting for some author to come out of their room and have some preplanned accidental meet cute could work, then you’re so wrong. And I’m not going to let you defame our company just because you have no social skills whatsoever.” You let go of the item you’re holding, letting it drop against his chest.

“Okay, I’ll be the bigger man and admit that I was waiting for the author my team wants to work with to show up. But talking about defaming the company? You want me to care about what you say when all of that was coming from someone who would rather let some random man verbally degrade their worth than to stand up for themselves? You’re all bite and no tongue. Just like a snapping turtle,” he says, his face entirely without emotion.

“SNAPPING TURTLES HAVE TONGUES. DUMBASS,” you snap at him.

“That’s exactly what a snapping turtle would say,” he challenges you.

The thing is, Jeon Wonwoo likes to keep things short even though he is not as quick-tempered as you are. He prefers to relay everything he wants to say at once, saving anybody from asking for clarification. Yet, you can feel that Wonwoo only seeks to maim you with his words. Even at your most imperturbable composure with your intern, you cannot stand being alone in a room with Wonwoo once he starts opening his mouth to speak. And stupidly and repeatedly you let his elementary quips affect you like rubbing salt on an open wound. The laceration in your heart.

“You’re so rude Jeon Wonwoo. No wonder I hate you more and more every single day. You’re the single-most worst person in the entire world, and I hate how I once considered us friends.”

He looks like he has something to say to you but mentally drops the notion. Instead, he sighs and makes his way to the door beside your television, unlocking the knob and opening the door. He doesn’t make some offhanded comment about being your neighbor and only quietly closes the door behind him, making sure it’s locked with a tiny click.

three

It is a tiny office breakroom, the kind with a beige refrigerator whose motor is a little too loud, a low-watt microwave, and light green walls decorated with random pen marks from the lodge workers signing up for holiday potlucks. The late afternoon sunlight shines in an ethereal orange glow through the window, casting what could be the day’s last warm ray across the round wooden table in the middle of the room. Central heating runs throughout the building, and the lodge manager sits in the hot seat, his hands folded in front of him while he stares at you and your “husband.”

“Darling?” A nice elderly receptionist on break holds up a bag of mini marshmallows, the tri-colored kinds you can only find in baking stores, and points to it with her manicured finger. “Marshmallow?” she asks you from her place near the kitchen cabinets.

“No thank you,” you reply, your hands wrapped around a warm disposable cup filled with generic brand instant hot chocolate. Gratis, courtesy of the elderly receptionist before the manager arrived to talk to the two of you.

You bring the sugary drink to your lips, blowing softly and watching the steam disappear into the air. The drink itself, velvet chocolate that coats your tongue, is a warm invitation to this little town in the middle of nowhere. However, you cannot help but feel the only thing – or person – that unwelcomes you is the man who tries to angle his body away from you and the manager if the two of you ever cause trouble for your neighbors. Again.

“Look, we’re not going to kick you out. It would be inhumane to kick someone out during a snowstorm. And also we’re all kinda snowed in…actually, we’re super snowed in so nobody is coming in or out at this point. Funny how it was sunny earlier, right? Anyway, word has it that the two of you are married. So why don’t you two take some time to work things out, yeah? I’m no relationship counselor, but this is a small lodge in a small town so word gets out fast. So, seeing how far the two of you are sitting apart from each other, maybe channel that pent up anger into some competitive spirit during couple’s night because we can’t have you two being loud and arguing elsewhere. And I hate to be the bad guy here, but no more calls from your neighbors complaining about the two of you arguing or else we will contact authorities. Alright? Just keep it down and work it out, would ya?”

The manager’s lengthy spiel is immediately followed by silence, although not awkward, but one that provokes thought. And when you sense Wonwoo, being the smartass he is, open his mouth to counter his marriage status, and you immediately kick him in the shin with the heel of your tennis shoe. And he folds like his latest pop-up book, glaring at you while trying not to wheeze in pain. A fake smile and a solemn pledge to not bother the other patrons for the rest of the night are enough for the two of you to be excused from the conversation with the manager.

But not from each other.

How you ended up blindfolded and dizzy with a bat in your hands while Wonwoo angrily yells at you from the sidelines is beyond you. For the time being is what the two of you agreed with, albeit this one is far from Ruth Ozeki’s version. It’s a small promise to try to prove the two of you are more than amicable: attend a few games and activities together with the other couples, attempt to act like a married couple, and dip after an hour.

After twelve elephant spins with your forehead against the baseball bat, you and the other blindfolded contestants try to cross to the other side of the banquet hall in order to smash one of the many squashes on the large blue-colored plastic tarp laid across the floor. And Wonwoo, along with the other separated pairs, barks into the open air in the direction he wants you to move.

The funny thing is, you would expect to hear him call your actual name out of all of the pet names being thrown around, but Wonwoo cannot yell for the life of him, so much to shout your name in public. So even though you hear a bunch of people getting confused with the various forms of “honey” and “baby” being called out, you struggle to find his voice amidst the cacophony of shouts. Once the physical dizziness from spinning around evaporated, you feel a new kind of dizziness from being agitated as an aftereffect of trying to find Wonwoo’s voice in the middle of the crowd. By the time you decide on giving up, the shrill sound of a whistle signaling the end of the game fills the air. Shrugging the blindfold off your face, you look around to see the aftermath. While the other pairs are on the other side of the room surrounded by broken pieces of squash, there is only one man standing in front of you alone and separated from the others.

Your breathing hitches when you realize he’s walking towards you – long, even strides like the romantic lead in a movie. By the time he places himself in front of you, your baseball bat is in his hand while your cheek is in his other.

“It was hard, wasn’t it?” he whispers while looking into your eye.

Except you can’t help but train your eyes elsewhere, unable to look him in his eyes while it feels like your heart is beating erratically. And even though you know very well how he is faking everything, you can’t help but regress to the same you, the same you who is so helplessly in love with the man you hate. The same you who spends every day wondering how did the two of you end up that way.

“You only took the bat from me because you’re scared I might whack you with it. And not going to lie, I was contemplating it,” you mumble.

“It’s okay babe.” He tries to cheer you up, a slight undertone of insincerity in his voice. He continues to ignore your statement. “You did your best. Snapping turtles are slow, but they still manage to survive.”

Ignoring the fact that Wonwoo’s hand is warm because he has warm packs in each of his loungewear jacket pockets (and the fact that he refused to share one with you), someone catches your eye in the distance. Where workers are cleaning up the aftermath of the squash game, a familiar-looking man stands to the side where some lodge patrons flock around him with rectangular objects in their hands. Once you see him turn his head your way, your entire body freezes – Wonwoo’s touch suddenly begins to feel cold against your skin. And Wonwoo, who was expecting you to get mad at him for calling you a turtle, can’t help but notice your state of panic. And he not so subtly turns around to see who could be causing you so much fear.

“Oh my,” he mutters, coming to his realization.

“I can’t believe –” you begin before Wonwoo interrupts your train of thought.

“I hope he rots in hell before he can get his next book deal,” he almost spits at the man from several feet away. He drops his hand from your cheek and takes a tiny step back before taking a deep breath as if he is about to ask you something that he would regret, “Do you mind staying a little longer? I want to make sure chauvinists never win book upgrades.”

“Room upgrade,” you correct him while glaring at the other man from afar.

“What?”

“You misspoke.” You guide your attention back to the man who is, for what you think is the first time, looking at you attentively and without malice. And the fact that he is looking at you amicably makes your brain go haywire, but you subdue your thoughts and continue the conversation. “It’s the ‘room’ upgrade that we’re trying to stop him from winning.”

“Book upgrade or room upgrade, it’s the same thing.” He frowns while tapping the end of the bat against the ground. “It turns out your pickup truck man is the author my team is after. But I’d rather be jobless than to work with someone like him.”

So he works with you, absolutely demolishing the competition during the Dinner and Paint section and loudly cheering for you while you stacked plastic cups. And the way he smiles at you, lovingly and with the glimmer reflected from the ceiling lights contrasted against the cocky attitude he surrounds himself with when one of you wins a game – it almost makes you forget that you’re supposed to hate him. How easily he wraps his arms around you, hugging you tightly against his embrace so much that his cologne lingers on your clothes, leaves you feeling hopeless. Because the only time Jeon Wonwoo could ever approach you without visibly withering in repulsion is when he acts like he is in love with you.

Outside the cozy lodge, the Sun sets its rays on the heavy layers of snow. While the Earth turns to face the other way, the rays wash the pillowy white crystals in a warm and deep burgundy orange – a warm embrace, a promise to return, before parting for the night. As you clean Wonwoo’s smudged glasses with the hem of your shirt, he sneaks his right arm around your waist while he leans further into his seat as the Couple’s Night host announces the next game. You feel something warm enter the pocket of your jacket and look down to see Wonwoo’s hand back on your waist. The untouched hand warmer gradually feels hotter in your pocket when you gently place your fake husband’s glasses back on the bridge of his nose. He whispers a small “thank you,” and you can only smile back at him with a heaviness in your heart that only you can carry.

The hand warmer feels like it would burn through your clothes at any second.

four

“Team Snowball, what did your partner answer for the question: ‘What is your partner picky about eating?’” The emcee points at the woman sitting next to you who gladly flips her sketchbook around for the other half of the room to see. She squints her eyes, trying to read the woman’s squiggly writing, and smiles when she realizes it’s a match. “Soft grapes? It’s a match. Point to Team Snowball.”

Despite everything going around you, you can’t help but fidget in your seat, the sketchbook’s pages starting to feel damp in your sweaty palms. Wonwoo sits with the separated pairs across from you. He crosses his legs, and his sketchbook lays comfortably across his lap so he can twirl his black marker in his hand. Even when you know you wrote the correct answer to Wonwoo’s food preferences, the two of you are still several points behind the other teams. Your stomach cannot help but feel queasy every time you embarrassingly flip your sketchbook for others to see. Because every single wrong answer about your “husband” whom you love very much feels like a punch in your gut every time you hear snickers from the others around you.

Seafood is your answer; you’re the last to answer this round’s question. You earn a small cheer from the woman reading your answer and a small smile from Wonwoo. He sneaks you a tiny thumbs up, the tip of his thumb poking out of his sweater.

“Next question,” dictates the emcee. “When did you know they were the one?”

It’s an abstract question – one that doesn’t necessarily need matching answers from both sides. Still, you look across to look at Wonwoo, uncertain whether or not he would put much thought into an answer he would have to pull out of thin air. Uncapping his marker with his mouth, he pulls the sketchbook closer to him to scribble down whatever comes to his mind. The action leaves your mouth feeling dry: one, obviously, because he uncapped the marker with his mouth; and two, he was the first to start writing.

Some answers are simple. Some answers are meaningful. Some answers are like yours – “love at first sight.”

Corny, overused, and unusual, your answer is the safest route you knew you could take. And despite how clichéd your answer is – its timelessness, its Hallmark-ability – still garners a series of awws from everybody around you. Technically, there is some truth to your answer. You developed a tiny crush the first time you saw him at the office. Who wouldn’t? He surrounds himself with illustrations of anthropomorphic animals and has a laugh that bellows and fills any room with joy. He made your days brighter by simply existing.

Now, the brightness struggles to navigate its way through the thick fog. And you’re left alone in the cold, the fog’s misty droplets clinging onto your skin.

It’s weird how in this life, time moves linearly, but moments and experiences with others exist in intervals – interludes that we can relive over and over again through memories. Sometimes we experience interludes of happiness, interludes of pain, and interludes where it only seems like there are only two people in this world. But nobody can determine how long these interludes can last and for how long you can try to hold on to these moments before letting go.

“Let’s see if Team Turtle can earn a point. Please show us your answer.”

“I’m kind of embarrassed,” he softly chuckles, voice more sonorous than ever, while standing his sketchbook on his knee.

9 pm is his answer. You, and the rest of the people sitting beside you, cannot help but gaze at his answer in confusion.

It is only when he sees you staring at him he finally clarifies, “When we were sitting in my car eating donuts while the waves crash on the shores in front of us. You smiled at me with pieces of maple donut glaze stuck to your upper lip.”

You. He speaks in the second person and looks directly at you with a soft gaze. It couldn’t be, you think. But it is true, you recognize his diction as true. He’s speaking to you.

And you remember that shared moment in the front seats of his car, the night of the work trip. The donuts were for the poet, but the two of you had the door slammed in your faces before being able to hold a full conversation with the poet. And after an entire day of confusion and apologies, the two of you were finally able to fulfill your portions for the work trip. Who knew that the tiny suggestion of walking along the pier after dinner would turn out disastrous – frigid ocean winds strong enough to blow people away? The clothes the two of you packed were not meant to sustain harsh winds but harsh sunlight – after all, the work trip’s destination is a beach town. So the two of you sat in his car, eating donuts, people-watching, and sharing anecdotes to get to know each other better. It was the type of conversation that you would do anything to prolong its duration, the type of conversation with the right type of person.

“You were so happy,” he finishes.

You were so happy, it echoes in your head.

Are you happy now?

“How about you?” The emcee turns to you for clarification. “Your partner gave us such a beautiful explanation. So, you have to explain your ‘love at first sight.’ Tell us about it.”

“Ohh,” Wonwoo begins awkwardly while giving an equally awkward chuckle. “You don’t have to if you do-”

“I was having a really bad morning.” You smile into your lap and look up at your supposed husband. You don’t know why or how the full day with unease bubbling inside of you dispersed so quickly after Wonwoo’s particular answer. But you launch into your story, letting the words flow out of your mouth like melted snow on a grassy hill under the bright Sun. “A really bad morning. I ended up working overtime and accidentally missed my morning alarm. I had to chase the bus while my hot coffee poured out of its opening and onto my skin. My entire day at the office was a mess because I kept messing up. I felt awful and exhausted. So I worked overtime for the second day in a row to clean up my errors. Someone places hot green tea in front of me, the free ones at the office. There is a doodle of a stingray with the dumbest-looking smile on its face. It looked so pathetic that it made me feel a little better about myself. He says that he accidentally boiled too much hot water and thought to make a cup for me. And then he holds his own up in front of his face. There’s a picture of a cat wearing glasses. ‘You can do it,’ he tells me in a squeaky voice. And he leaves. We don’t meet again for about a month, but his kind gesture pieced me back together. And I held onto his kindness for days.”

He stares at you, a few strands of his hair out of place and in front of his eyes. He doesn’t care to move them back in place. There’s that smile on his face, the exact one you imagined to be on his face that time he sat on the other side of your shared door. Soft coral lips relaxed, but the cupid’s bow is slightly perked as the corners of the lips turn upward. He tries to hide the fact that he is smiling, keeping his happiness hidden and only to himself.

So you smile at him. An honest, genuine smile where the cheeks kiss the lower lashes. And his lips stretch thinly so that his brilliant white teeth shyly make their way into the open. He smiles back at you.

Musicians know that an interlude, in music, is an interrupting or intervening passage that connects different parts of a song. An interlude can also be a song in an album. In other words, there are different ways for musical interludes as well as temporal interludes to exist. Now, there is a new interlude in your timeline, this shared moment where two timelines from two completely different lives collide and converge. Anybody can tell that this shared moment is filled with happiness and understanding…perhaps, even longing.  

But what do you call it when these two timelines have converged in the past? If two timelines that once converged reconverge at a further point on the timeline, did that initial interlude ever truly end? Are interludes simply short periods in our lives if these interludes stay in our timelines forever, even when the moments they denote end?

Nevertheless, at this moment, you know you’re happy. And you can only hope the man who sits across from you, the one who looks at you with a reminiscent expression you once experienced so long ago, is feeling the same way.

“Okay. We’re in third place. If we win this one, then we’ll be a point ahead of them.”

“I tied it pretty tightly. Is the tightness okay with you?” Wonwoo frowns from below you, seemingly exploring a different problem at hand. He inspects the rope he tied around your leg, poking and prodding at different sections. “It’s a three-legged race, but I don’t want you getting hurt from an accidental rope burn because I tied it too tightly.”

“Wonwoo, it’s fine.” You pat his left shoulder, letting him know he doesn’t have to worry.

He grabs your stretched hand, and you help hoist him upwards. But there is an apparent frown on his face.

“Why do you still call me Wonwoo,” he mumbles while wrapping your arm around his back and on his waist. There is a tiny pout on his face pointed downwards as he naturally loops his arm around your shoulders like he had done it a thousand times. “Are you not comfortable with calling me ‘babe?’ Any other name also works.”

Deep down, or not even deep down, you know he is right. You are uncomfortable with the idea of casually calling him by these pet names over and over again. Calling him by fake pet names, not counting the many idealistic scenarios that once played in your head, in this case, feels very wrong. His sudden change in attitude towards you as well as his overall demeanor after the last game left you in shock. A plot twist in a season finale would be less shocking than what you feel at this very moment. Like every other hypothetical person in your situation, you choose to ignore your problems by focusing on your other problems at hand. Because you know very well, allowing yourself to fully play into this fake husband rouse, even in times when you’re truly happy, would only hurt you in the end. And you’ve been hurt by him before, not really sure if you ever fully healed.

But you can’t deny he looks and seems nothing like the literal he-devil he was this morning. In fact, he seems to be the opposite. Even without being physically tied to you, he trails behind you like a lost puppy and clings onto your sleeve like a cat who kneads dough on your arm, nails hooked onto the fabric of your clothing. And you let him hold you close to him so much that he leans his chin on your shoulder while listening to others talk. And you let his hair tickle your scalp and would let him melt into you if he asked.

Getting hurt by the same man twice does not make a right. Succinctly, it only makes you dumb. So, to protect yourself, you use the image of the screaming man from the morning to remind yourself that everything is a rouse no matter how much you enjoy each moment with the illustrator.

The three-legged race’s course starts in the banquet hall, passes through the hallway and into the lobby, takes several twists and turns throughout the sitting area, and finishes in the banquet hall. Wonwoo takes the lead, firmly holding you against him while he chants “in, out, in, out” to direct how the two of you should speed-walk. But the excitement of the games and the promise of the upgraded room must have gone over the heads of several of the teams, causing each team to speed walk into a sprint once they left the banquet hall.

Wonwoo and you are also victims of wanting to win, or at least of wanting to beat the author. But in this incredibly small lodge, there are only so many paces you can take before having to try to squeeze past another team. And Wonwoo practically hoists you onto his foot without notice, penguin-walking you to make it past another team to navigate through the sectioned seating area.

Startled by his sudden lack of communication, you demand he set you down. “Let me go,” you grunt after being jostled against one of the round wooden tables. You are absolutely sure your hip would bruise in the morning if he bumped you into one more object. “It’d be easier if one of us walks ahead of the other.”

Does it look like I care?” His ego slips from his tongue, completely coating the sweet words that came out of his mouth before the game started. His sudden change in tone catches you by surprise. “I’ll buy a sled from the gift shop if it means I get to drag you instead of hauling you around.”

“It’s just a game.” You try to push yourself off of him, annoyed that he’s suddenly being uncooperative with you. In the meantime, the team behind the two of you catches up and pulls ahead. “Let me go before one of us gets hurt.”

Wonwoo’s eyes aren’t trained on you. Instead, he stretches his head to look at the few teams in front of the two of you. Surprisingly, the two of you make it out of the seating area without any trouble. Before the two of you can make a sprint back toward the banquet hall, you pull yourself away from Wonwoo, yanking his arm off of your shoulder.

“Babe, come on.” He holds out his hand for you to grab onto. “We’re going to end up being last.”

But your hand never reaches out to meet his.

“Babe? Are you serious? Are you kidding me? Are you really calling me ‘babe’ right now?” You almost shriek at him if it weren’t for the fact that the two of you are standing in proximity to the reception desk. But you are exasperated, your voice wobbles as you voice what is bothering you. “I’ve had it with you, Wonwoo. I tried communicating with you. I tried voicing my fears. But your head is so far up your ass that you couldn’t even think about the safety of the person right beside you. Am I sad and mad about what happened this morning? Yeah, I still am. Nobody deserves to be treated that way, but nobody deserves to be ignored. I don’t care about winning anymore. I feel humiliated, utterly and devastatingly humiliated by you and by myself. To think I let myself have fun around you. To think I believed for a second that you truly did care about me. At one point, I thought we were friends. At one point, I really did like you for who you were. But I guess I can’t expect people to stay the same, can I?” More words and sentences pour out of your mouth – like a small tornado that grows larger in size after picking up all of the things you left unsaid, the words that threatened to slip from your tongue all picked up and twirled into the tornado, you ended up saying more than what you meant to say.

“Look, I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say,” he begins, but he can only hopelessly stare at you squatting in place to untie the rope that binds the two of you.

“There.” You bitterly drop the rope in his free hand. “You’re free from me now. You can go back to hating me all you want.”

“But I don’t hate you.”

“I’m done, Wonwoo. I’m done with being confused so I’m just going to give up and wallow in my room until Jeonghan picks me up once the snow clears.”

five

“No offense, but I would never spend that much time or energy on a guy…especially a guy who treats you like that. He even stopped pounding on your front door so that obviously means that he’s the type to stop trying after a while,” your cousin rants from the other side of your phone screen. He shuts his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose while the cat he is looking after purrs contently on his lap. “So what are you? A masochist? You like men who treat you poorly and then reward you with like an hour of happiness? That’s literally like if professors gave you the hardest final you’ve ever taken in your life and told you to grab a free cookie after you turned in the final. What are you even holding onto at this point?”

“I don’t know,” you wail at the older man, crumpling your used tissue in the palm of your hand. It quickly joins the growing pile of snot-riddled balls of tissue at the edge of your bed. When you recline into your initial position, the shifted blanket knocks Wonwoo’s hand warmer onto the floor.

“Eww stop holding your phone so close to your face,” Jeonghan complains, “Vernon says I kinda look like you, and I can’t help imagining that’s how I look when I cry.”

“I don’t know why I still like him,” you mumble to your cousin. You honestly still don’t understand why you like him despite every single recent negative encounter with him. To be honest, your heart doesn’t flutter as it does with the characters in the novels you read. Nothing cliched happens when you see him, like how the world stops and he is the only one who walks in slow motion. Quite frankly, your days pass by whether you see him or not, but it doesn’t mean that the thought of him crosses your mind every once in a while.

“Maybe you just like the idea of him,” he offers with a sigh. There isn’t much that he could do for you in the middle of a snowstorm except to be on a video call with you and hope that the can solve whatever you have going on before his bedtime.

“I make up scenarios of him in my mind but I still prefer the real him,” you admit with a twinge of embarrassment. You can only sink deeper under your covers, pulling the cabin-themed sheets closer to your chest. Maybe you’re still holding onto the Wonwoo who existed during the work trip, and maybe, you think, he still exists somewhere.

“Hypothetically, do you maybe think that the reason why he’s so bad at everything is because he spends most of his time with children and draws instead of writing so his communication skill is basically hindered? Like how you’re good with feelings and ideas because that’s the bulk of the media you surround yourself with daily so you have more exposure to that area. So you have man-child versus person with skewed expectations on love and relationships. But then you literally have people like me…perfect in every aspect.”

“Shut up. You talk about traffic every morning but you can’t even name the model of your car. You were also tricked by a catfish.”

“I’m hanging up.”

“I’m sorry,” you beg him. “Please don’t.”

“My point is.” He places his phone down on the sleeping cat to use as a temporary phone stand while he gathers his thoughts. “The two of you seem like total opposites. And the only time the two of you seem to work well together is when you meet in the middle. So, have you ever tried communicating with him? Ever pulled him to the side to ask him why he’s such an ass?”

Yoon Jeonghan’s simple solution to your problem causes your brain to briefly short-circuit. Silence fills your lonely cabin room as your mouth slightly hangs open while your cousin silently judges you from the other end of the phone. It took a simple suggestion to make you realize that you have been hanging onto Wonwoo’s personality change to even think to consider the idea of confronting him about it. And Jeonghan’s hypothesis may not be wrong at all – life isn’t a fictional novel where everything can be magically solved in the incoming chapters.

“No?” Your answer is meek. You don’t know what to feel after this revelation. Anger? Despair? Peacefulness?

“And is he still knocking on your door? Trying to talk to you?” His tone is gentle for once.

“Yeah?” You look to the right side of your room where the door stands between his room and yours. Slips of lodge notebook paper often found in the nightstand drawers slowly shove themselves through the tiny crack under the door. “I think he’s pushing slips of paper under our shared door.”

“Then go talk to him. But throw away your snot pile and fix your appearance before you do. Yeah?”

“What would I do without you?”

“I don’t know. And I don’t care. Bye.”

Sitting on the floor with your back leaned against the door, you shuffle the sheets of paper in your hands. There are a couple of sorry notes partnered with sad and apologetic-looking animal doodles. There are a few slips where he asks you to forgive him. Then there are these series of slips – a mini cartoon of his morning, this morning – that somehow cause a small upwards curl to form on your lips.

Blue ballpoint pen ink depicts a series of panels starting with a text he received this morning. This comic is void of cute tiny animals and can only be drawn with the sincerity of a children’s book illustrator. He draws himself staring at his phone screen in confusion – you’re missing, and the rest of the work group chat has no idea where you are. And he’s worried. Everybody is worried, but nobody is worried enough to send search parties for you. Blue-figured Wonwoo rushes out of his room, completely abandoning his presentation for the author, to rush to the entrance of Interlude. Because he knows that your team always passes through Interlude, but you’re known to arrive at the campsite while rubbing your eyes, hair frizzing from the static built from your head rubbing against the headrest while you were sleeping on the way there. But the scene he stumbles upon makes him angry despite how relieved he is to know that you are okay.

The few pages that you hold in your hand are smudged with blue ink, and the ending is unfinished. Wonwoo softly rasps his knuckles against the shared door, calling out your name. When you don’t reply, he sighs and sits down with his back against the door. You feel a tiny jolt with his added pressure against the door. Still, you can’t bring yourself to confront him. At least not yet.

“I’m childish and I let myself get caught up in moments. And you were right, if something happened to you, I would never forgive myself for hurting you. At one point, I really did forget that the reason why we agreed to work together was because we didn’t want him to win. I ended up wanting us to win, or at least for you to win so you could have the upgrade. I’m really sorry for not communicating well with you, and for how I acted.”

The sound of his hair leaving the door lets you know that he probably dropped his head toward his lap.

Taking a shallow breath, he mutters into his hands, “And I wasn’t lying when I talked about us at the beach. I really did like you then. I still like you.”

“Then why ignore me? Why act like you hate me? What did I do to deserve how you treated me?” The questions leave your mouth in a flare of anger.

“I started ignoring you because I was hiding from you. I couldn’t confront you because I knew I would make it obvious that I liked you. But I guess I hid from you for too long because you thought I hated you.” His voice muffled from being on the other side of the door.

“So all of this happened because of some big misunderstanding? Just because we couldn’t confront each other?”

So it really was a simple problem with a simple solution. The revelation feels like a sore punch in the gut, one that’s so surprising that all you can do is laugh.

“I’m sorry, Yn. I really am.”

“I’m also sorry.” You feel really guilty now that you know that you were wrong to believe that he hated you. “I should’ve confronted you about this earlier.”

“Does it still hurt?” His voice sounds clearer as if he shifted his body so he sits facing the door.

“Oh, from the race? Actually nothing happened.”

“From when you fell from heaven,” he finishes with his voice trailing in diminuendo, almost as if he is slightly embarrassed from using the overused pick-up line.

“It actually hurt a lot,” you joke. “But I’m glad it was you who found me in the middle of the road.”

“Then can I stay by your side? Not separated by doors, but by your side?”

So you push yourself away from the door, turning around to unlock the brassy knob. The door slowly swings open to Wonwoo, who is still sitting on the floor, now facing you. And you awkwardly sit in front of him, not really able to meet his eyes.

“I think I have a lot to learn.” He fiddles with the hem of his sweater. “I’ll start by being more communicative about my feelings,” he promises with a soft smile. “Because I really do like you.”

“I like you too.”

There is a magnetic pull that slowly draws the two of you closer together, a comforting sort of sensation that offers a moment of solace created from two extremes. The outside world is dark. The snowstorm has long gone. The surfaces where the sunlight once touched are replaced with the soft yellow glow of several lamps around both of your rooms. Kaleidoscopic remnants of shards of light scatter around every surface. But the two of you, seemingly in the very corners of your shared world exert a different type of glow - one that can only be created in a collision like the break of dawn after a devastating snowstorm. 

“I really like you too,” you can’t help but reaffirm.

“It’s actually ‘I also like you.’” He can’t help but playfully correct you. “You’re the publisher. You shouldn’t be making these errors.” He teases.

“And you’re the illustrator, so shouldn’t you stay quiet so I can kiss you?”

one month later

At the base of a computer monitor, a tiny wooden whittled cat naps lazily next to its turtle counterpart. Two people sit side-by-side in the breakroom a few rooms away, the metal seats practically stuck to each other. While their lunches heat up in the microwave, the two happily discuss the upcoming young adult novel they are finally working on together. Under the table, their pinkies naturally interlock. The man who scrolls through art ideas on his tablet can’t help but let his eyes linger on his partner for a little too long while they scroll enthusiastically through the several concept art slides he created. When the microwave sounds, he quickly leaves a soft and brief kiss on the side of his partner’s temple before getting up to remove their heated lunches. And the partner smiles while turning back to look at him, a smile brighter than the soft sunlight that wraps the room in a warm afternoon glow.

There’s a new interlude in their timelines. In this interlude, the two opposites are taking it slow, learning to meet in the middle.

dedicated to ellie (@flowershu/@eliphant). just wanted to thank you for supporting wondernus for all these years. happy new year <33

Copyright © 2022 Wondernus. All rights reserved.

[dwindlinghaze]

Hi :)) im wondering if you could write a Remus fic with a suuuuper shy!reader? Reader loves him but poor baby can't even look at him omg. Love your fics darling🌙

hi lovelyyy,, thanks for requesting !! yes ofc i could :) i hope you like this !! ☁���🪽🫧🫧

one spoon for two

(remus lupin x reader)

contents : fluffy, shy reader, mentions of twoz book series bcs my ozian ass is obsessed with them😭🙏, not proofread

　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

it wasn't a secret that you were shy.

you don't talk much. you usually let the others do the talking and you listen. despite your lack of voice, your ears are fully open. which is not so much of a convenience really.

sometimes you worried that your friends get bored of you because you have nothing to say. it's not like you don't care, you do. you just don't quite know the right words to express what you think.

you only talk when it's necessary. when people talk to you first. that's why you've been getting frustrated lately.

sitting on the grass with a book open on your lap, you were focused on the neatly printed pages and illustrations on your book along with the sound of soft winds and dried leaves. well- that was until you saw the infamous marauder, james and sirius trotting on the ground while throwing a snitch at each other to catch.

you don't want to look at them. although every part of you wanted to steal a glance towards the kindhearted marauder, remus lupin.

he's the perfect combination of every good things in the world.

he is smart, funny, witty, caring, and so much more.

it takes everything in you to keep your little pupils away from his face. if you look at him, you were sure you'd blush and that would be embarrassing.

you got up slowly, escaping whatever you're feeling right now.

there he goes, averting his eyes to your moving figure. he frowns a little, knowing that you were quite shy in front of people and prefer being in the company of your own.

"whatcha looking there moony? your girl?" sirius quipped.

"she wouldn't even look at me," he shook his head. he wondered if you knew his feelings and were terrified.

"she's just shy, moony," james said, almost missing the snitch sirius threw.

the next time you were in the same room with him was in potions. you noticed how his hair flops in the prettiest way possible with the perfect shade of golden.

then the next second, he turned his head so you reluctantly look away immediately. thankful that he was turning to look at james and not you.

and god does the universe loves seeing you nervous!

your were partnered up with remus and james to brew a potion together.

the two boys walked towards your table. james skipping like a child while remus tried to keep his cool.

"hey darlin' i will be getting the ingredients yeah, and you and remus can set up the table," james grinned a friendly grin.

you nodded, whispering a 'yeah'. it wasn't loud, but remus heard it just as clear.

as you set up the table, remus tried talking to you, to hopefully get you comfortable and to show that he is a good person.

you didn't need him to do things just to prove he is a good person. you already knew that of course. he is nice to everyone. he's selfless and caring.

"hey, you alright?" he noticed your timid movements.

"yeah, m'fine," you said to him in such a quiet voice. you couldn't look at him, you're too shy to do so.

it was the middle of brewing when your hand brushed his while you were crushing pearls. "sorry," you mumbled.

"no need to apologise..." he frowned, confused as to why you were so... away from here yet you were in the same room. "you sure you're alright?" he continued, reaching for your palms.

he was shocked at himself. he just touched your hand? he's never done that to anyone except his marauders. but he didn't regret it though, your skin was so much softer than his. he felt like he's holding a ball of cotton.

your cheeks turned red when his hand grasped yours. your heart beating twice as fast. "remus, i'm promise im okay...," you answered.

remus squeezed your knuckles, sending a confused look to james in which he returned with a teasing grin that made remus rolled his eyes.

maybe he liked you. well- who's he kidding, of course he does! he saw you almost everyday, and you look so enchanting the entire time.

he thinks your hair is perfect. you styled it in the way that makes your pretty face prettier. your energy (or lack of energy) is cute too. you fumble with your words when people talk to you. and he thinks it's adorable and attractive at the same time.

the way you pushed your hair away from your eyes as you crushed those pearls. it was absolutely angelic.

"i think y/n likes you moons," james said when they were all sprawled on their dorm at the end of the day.

"i think so too" sirius agreed, chuckling as he threw a piece of crumpled up paper.

"me too." he said.

everyone stayed silent after that. mouth wide open. they never thought remus would be so confident saying that someone likes him (although it's not a bad thing, just out of remus' usual self deprecation).

"wha- no!" remus shook his head in disbelief. "i mean i like her too," he corrected shyly, his cheeks flushing.

"we know," the three of them said at the same time and bursted into laughter the next moment.

"it's quite obvious moony!" james said, "especially this morning when you held her hand. you never do that! let alone let us touch your little shoulder."

"it's different!"

"oh we know! you never look at me like you want to kiss my face off but you do look at y/n that way," james said.

"she always steals a millisecond to look at you y'know?" sirius snickered. enjoying the embarrassment his best friend is experiencing currently.

"don't lie, pads. she didn't even look at me the whole potions class," remus sighed.

"she's just shy, moony," sirius rolled his eyes. "if you really really and i mean really feel like you two can work out together, my advice is that you should reach out and talk to her. slowly but surely she'll be less nervous with you!"

and remus took sirius' advice. usually his advices are absurd and obnoxious but sirius has girls and boys falling for him left and right. surely he knows how to treat a girl right?

he saw you sitting at the library one evening. nose buried in your book. the only features he can see are your hair, forehead, and eyebrows.

and they all look pretty. your brows would furrow when you read something weird in the book.

it's hard to compose himself when you were there. just sitting peacefully with no care about the things surrounding you. you weren't even doing anything and he is smitten.

you heard shuffling besides you and you look up almost instantly, meeting a pair of honey green eyes in the colour like a comet in the sky.

you look away immediately, focusing on your book, growing nervous under his stare.

he smiled, "is it okay f'me to sit here?"

"yeah," you replied. you cringed at how short it was. you don't want to come off as rude or cold or anything but it's hard to speak a sentence.

"what're you reading there?" he asked, his voice sweet like candy.

"uh," you flipped your book around, to read off the title. "the road to emerald city of oz," you replied, tilting your chin towards him as you smile gently but still keeping your eyes firmly on the page.

"is it like a series? i heard about the wonderful wizard of oz somewhere," remus replied.

"it is," you nodded. it's hard to read when he's beside you like this. when you're the only thing in his view right now. when you're the only one in his head.

"do you have all the books?" he asked, just wanting to hear voice.

"i do," you finally flickered your eyes at him for a good two seconds before returning them back to your book. you blushed when you look at him. he was radiating comfort and care but you were too much in your feelings. eye contact is your weakness.

"can i borrow them?"

"you want to read them?" you looked at him again, this time a little longer and a little more confused. confused as to why anyone would be interested in what you like.

"why not? don't you like it?" he asked.

"i do," you replied. "i'm on the seventh book," you looked down again.

remus let out a soft chuckle, gazing at you like you're the most precious human being ever.

"huh?" you furrowed your brows. looking at his sweater instead of his face.

"you're so dear you know," he smiled.

your cheeks flushed red at his compliment. you didn't reply. didn't know how to.

"i'll get the book for you," you scrambled out of the library, heading to your dorm to give remus the first book in the series.

while being away from him, you collected yourself, taking deep breaths because he's so breathtaking that close. you've never been this close to him. he smells so good.

you were back in a jiffy, only to find out that remus has scooted more in the middle, making your legs touch when you sit down.

"oh yeah! just like what i heard "the wonderful wizard of oz," he nodded.

"sorry, it's a children's book," you replied in embarrassment, just realising that you were reading a book for children!

"oh i don't mind! i read cringy werewolf romance books and that makes you so much better than me," he laughed, seeing the small smile that appeared on your pretty lips.

the next time he was talking to you this close again was when he finished the first copy of your book. he had finished it in just two days, leaving you in surprise.

he read it so fast so he can find an excuse to spend time with you again. the story was quite alright, but he would not tell that to you.

"hi," he plopped down next to you in the library. same exact spot as last time. "i finished it!" he held up the book.

"oh that's great," you replied, surprised he was sitting here again next to you "did you like it?"

"i loved it! i can't believe the wizard of oz is just an old basic man! not even magic," he huffed childishly, making you giggle.

the sound is simply spa music to his ears.

"what's your favourite character?" remus asked.

"glinda."

"oh the witch... from the south?"

"yeah," you replied.

"next book?" he questioned.

you had it in your bag, ready to give it to him anytime. "i've got it here," you pulled it out.

remus smiled as your fingertips brushed past his in a quick incandescent touch.

this routine continued so and so until he noticed a few changes within yourself. you weren't that shy nor timid anymore. you still couldn't hold eye contact with him for more than five seconds but that's alright for him.

during those five seconds he is sure he has fallen in love. he couldn't help it. you're his crush since forever, it's bound to happen.

"hey, i finished glinda of oz!" remus cheered, putting down the book on his lap as he took in your appearance.

this was not at the dark library that shadows off your features. you were sitting on grass in the afternoon, making your skin glow under the golden rays of sunshine. he can see your pretty face clear now.

you smiled at him as he took a seat beside you, you actually feels secure enough around him to look at his face.

"that means you finished the whole series, rem," you let out a soft and proud but light chuckle.

"i now know why you love it so much!" remus smiled. he realised he always smiles when he's with you. you must have super powers.

"do you like glinda?" you asked.

"my favourite character is the tin wood man. he's funny, but yeah. since you like glinda so much then i guess she can be a favourite of mine too!" remus replied, rubbing circles in your knuckles.

just that little gesture he did made you shy all over again, unable to look at him like the first time you two were talking.

remus smiled again, gently taking your other hand with his other. "i want to ask you something, lovie," remus looked into your beautiful eyes.

your head is fuzzy. he called you 'lovie'. a nickname. you're sure you were warm in the face.

remus brushed his fingers on your left cheek with the softest touch known to men. "love..."

"yes...?"

"the next hogsmeade trip is this saturday.... do you want to er- like share the trip together- i mean as a date?" he looked at you with such fondness in his eyes.

"me?"

"yes you, lovie, look at me yeah?" remus gently cupped your cheeks.

you two were so close to the point that you can feel remus warmth radiating off of him.

"what do you say?"

"yeah," you nodded. embarrassment washing you again when all you said was just a 'yeah'.

"yeah yes or yeah no?" remus asked, a smile playing on his lips.

"yes i'll go with you," you were a blushing mess, trying to look away from his eyes but his soft hands kept tugging you back.

remus felt the heat from your cheeks in his palm. it was absolutely a fuzzy feeling knowing that you were showing likeness towards him.

he wanted to kiss you. doesn't have to be on the lips. he'd love to plant small kisses on your red cheeks. but he didn't of course. boundaries.

"settled then yeah? i'll be waiting at our common room, darling," he smiled.

[yumeka-sxf]

There were two panels related to Spy x Family at Anime Expo this year, with the first on Day 1 being Toho Animation's panel featuring both Spy x Family and Kaiju No.8.

The panel started with the SxF portion, with the special guests being the series director, Kazuhiro Furuhashi, and the CODE: White director, Takashi Katagiri. They also had the six SxF ThreeZero figures on the stage with them 😀

The MC asked them some questions, like what their favorite scenes were from their respective works and who their favorite character is. They also showed behind-the-scenes footage of both the Loid/Fiona tennis match in season 1, and Yor's fight scene against Type F in the movie. We got to see both of these scenes in rough animatic sketch form and then in line art form, which was pretty cool (it wasn't clear if photo/video was prohibited at this panel, but I didn't want to risk it by being caught blatantly recording these exclusive clips, lol). Then they showed off some of Anya's unused outfits from the movie.

At the end, they showed this original illustration by Kyoji Asano, made specifically for this event 😁

And that was it for the SxF part of the panel before they moved on to Kaiju No.8...and to be honest, it kinda overshadowed the SxF part, mostly because it featured two of the main Kaiju No.8 voice actors, one of which was extremely hilarious and charismatic. Plus there were a lot more segments compared to the SxF part. The interview with the guests seemed longer, they did three live voice overs, showed a pre-recorded special message from the band that performs the Kaiju No.8 opening, and then they took a group photo with the audience (and maybe something else that I'm forgetting). It seemed like the SxF part took up about 35% of the panel's time while Kaiju No.8 took up 65%. Not sure why it felt so unbalanced, but it was still fun.

Next was the panel on Day 3 for Production IG and their related studios WIT and Signal MD. Heads of each studio were there, including George Wada from WIT. Photo/video wasn't allowed once the panel started, but it basically consisted of an interview with the different guests, then trailers/teasers for their upcoming projects, then a Q&A session.

WIT is the studio that makes SxF, so I was hoping for any news about season 3, specifically if WIT would be more involved with it than they were with season 2. For those who don't know, season 1 of SxF was made by both WIT Studio and Cloverworks. But when they decided to make both season 2 and the movie in 2023, they split up the work, with WIT focusing on the movie while Cloverworks did pretty much all the work on season 2 (which is why the animation in season 1 and season 2 looks a bit different). According to this tweet, the official staff listing for season 3 is the same as season 2, meaning WIT will once again have little involvement. But despite this, they had a slide during the presentation with the season 3 promo image (preceded by the CODE: White teaser trailer, which made the crowd go wild - glad there were lots of SxF fans in the audience!) George Wada also said in regards to season 3 that they're "working hard on it."

I wanted to confirm during the Q&A if WIT would again take a backseat during season 3's production as well, but unfortunately the panel only had a few minutes left when it was close to my turn, and then they opted to pick a few random people in line for their last questions (which I thought was kind of unfair). Guess we'll just have to wait and see if anything changes with that staff listing once we get closer to season 3's release.

Overall, while Takuya Eguchi's appearance at last year's AX was more fun, it was still cool to attend this year's SxF-related panels as well. Hopefully season 3 will either be airing or close to being released at next year's AX, so we'll have even more SxF events!

[insertdisc5]

Devlog #14: Big News Incoming and Illustrations

Hello everyone! Welcome to this month’s devlog!

If you just stumbled upon this, I am Adrienne, also known as insertdisc5! I’m the developer, writer, artist, main programmer, etc of the game. The game being In Stars and Time, a timeloop RPG, which is also the next and final game in the START AGAIN series, following START AGAIN: a prologue (available here!).  You can find out more about In Stars and Time here!!! 

LET’S GET TO IT. This month has some Big News about Big News Incoming! And also some illustrations!

The Big News Incoming first: In Stars and Time will be a part of Future of Play Direct on June 10, 8:00am PT | 11:00am ET | 5:00 pm CET! Future of Play is part of the Summer Games Fest and showcases a lot of incredible indie games, so I hope you’ll tune in. There might be a little something for you to see :> And...

In Stars and Time will also be a part of The Mix on June 8th! The Mix is an amazing games showcase over in LA. There will be a lot of press there, so I’m very excited to get some eyes on ISAT! Please stop by the booth and say hi to the lovely people from my publisher, Armor Games Studios, if you get the chance!

Alright! That’s it for the big news. Now for other big news.

Porting the game to Switch seems to be close to done! Currently, the porting team is taking care of optimization thingy things. The game is playable, but tends to drop frames every so often, so the team is optimizing the game to make sure it’s playing smoothly so Switch players can have the best possible experience! And…

The (hopefully) final round of Japanese localization is underway! Last April, the localization team sent back a couple of sentences that should be reworded now that they have further context. Now that those changes are implemented, they are playing it one more time to make sure everything works as intended!

I sadly don’t have a Fun Gamedev Thing to talk about this month (or… last month either…) because I moved elsewhere back in April and have been taking care of many things so my move went smoothly. Did you know that moving and getting used to a new town is hard work? So, here’s some things I posted on social media in the last couple months!

Here’s an illustration I drew a while back but only posted recently! I imagine that during their journey, everyone must’ve shared a bed at least once. This is also an occasion to show everyone’s sleepytimes clothes. Siffrin on that honk shoo honk shoo fit

Like many people, I have seen the Barbie movie trailer. So of course I had to redraw these iconic frames.

And someone over on Tumblr asked me about how I picked everyone’s names! Here it is copy-pasted for your convenience.

Siffrin: i think. i will wait until the game comes out before saying how i picked their name. ask me again later (it’s not a spoiler its just silly)

Mirabelle: her name was actually Prunille for the longest time, but I kept mixing it up and calling her Bonnie… so I went looking for another fruit sounding name (prunille>prune>plum in french) and Mirabelle fit her perfectly :> (Mirabelle is a kind of plum!)

Isabeau: it’s just a nice name. It actually is a girl name but i refuse to accept it because “beau” is the masculine form for “beautiful”, but either way it fits his character pretty well…

Odile: old sounding french name. that’s it. when i was early in preproduction her name was Isabeau actually (and she had a WAY different personality)

Bonnie: it’s a nickname and not their full name. have i said their full name yet? (checks the wiki) i did. Boniface is just a name that I had never heard before, and I could easily imagine Bonnie not liking it because it sounds “old and lame”. i think as they get older they would like it more and more

This is also a reminder that In Stars and Time has a wiki page. I am so grateful that this is a thing someone made. You know you've made it when your game has a wiki page!!!

That’s all I have to say for today! Let me know if you have any questions, or if there’s any aspect of the game development struggle you’d like me to talk about! See you next time!!!

AND DON’T FORGET TO WISHLIST THE GAME ON STEAM ALSO IT REALLY HELPS BECAUSE STEAM’S ALGORITHM IS MORE LIKELY TO SHOW OFF GAMES WITH A HIGH AMOUNT OF WISHLISTS THAT’S THE REASON WHY GAME DEVS ALWAYS ASK TO WISHLIST!!! OKAY BYE!!!!

[houseofsnarry]

💚 HoS Mods Recs ❤️

Cause, why not? photo source

Summer is coming to an end, and autumn will be here soon. Seasons change, years pass us by, but Snarry is here to stay. The following brought us some joy and hopefully it'll bring you guys some joy, too.

Art

🎨 @ofnightsndsongs - Spicy Polaroids Rated E

🎨 @flymetosnarryland - Muggle London Rated E

🎨 @ac1d6urn - The Bravest Man Rated T

🎨 @danipantsu - Tailormade Rated G

Podfic

🎙️Things We Wish For by @avioleta (AO3) Podfic by JocundaSykes Rated E, 2 hours

Harry blinks. Blinks again. It doesn’t make sense. It’s simply not possible. But yet… “Snape?” It’s not the Snape Harry knows or remembers. Not the Snape Harry grieved. But he would know that face, that profile, those eyes anywhere. “What happened?” he manages. “How are you here?”

🎙️ World Enough, and Time by @likelightinglass (AO3) - a Podfic Podfic by Cailynwrites Rated T, 40 minutes

Soulmate clocks start ticking when you first lock eyes, and count down until your time with them is over. Harry’s starts ticking on September 1st, 1991. He has only six years, eight months, and one day.

Fic + Art

🌸 The Curse of Anteros - @danpuff-ao3 (AO3) / @mrviran (AO3) Rated E, Word Count 53k

When Harry is cursed, he seeks out Severus Snape. They have a long history behind them, after all, and they've always had so much between them. Who else would he go to?

🌸 A Step into the Light - @givereadersahug (AO3) / @gullibert (AO3) / @dandelionstars (AO3) Rated NR, Word Count 10k

Severus Snape is now a free man. He fills his time travelling the world, collecting potion ingredients, and helping Luna with her business. The thing is, Severus has a gift. No, not potions or the Dark arts. He can see mushi, creatures that show up from time to time. Severus knows how to help them and the humans that come into contact with them. This time, their travels take them to an island off the coast of Japan, to a man sitting on a log, staring out into the ocean and waiting for his wife to return home. Inspired by the anime Mushishi. A retelling of Season 1, Episode 8. For the Snape Bang 2022.

🌸 The Ugliest Veela - Octroman Rated E, Word Count 60k

Snape is part-veela. It is interfering with his dating life. Post-war, Severus Snape finds himself in a life without purpose. In a desperate bid for the family he always wanted, he subjugates himself to a matchmaking service in hopes to find an acceptable partner. However, it is mandatory to disclose veela status in order to use the premiere matchmaker of the old family houses. Wrinkled, sallow, oily, big-nosed, and bony, Severus shows up for a string of horrific dates where potential partners expect him to be both gorgeous and enchanting. “I thought veelas were supposed to be beautiful!” Cue the jokes. How much humiliation can Severus stand? --------------------------------------- Illustrated chapter titles and crafted with love.

Fic

📚 A Series of Events - @babygray (AO3) Rated M, Word Count 67k

In January, the impossible occurred. It took Severus until April to realize just what that was, and to believe. Snarry Mpreg, takes place during Half-Blood Prince.

📚 A Trick of the Mind - @vulnerasanenturmyprince (AO3) Rated E, Word Count 40k

Ever since the horcrux in his head is gone, Legilimency comes easy to Harry. It’s nearly laughable how easy it is, considering how much he used to struggle with it back in his fifth year. But he reckons half of that had been Snape’s fault anyway. Who on earth would enjoy the nasty git invading their mind? But as life as Harry has known it changes, Harry’s opinion on the matter changes with it ― rather drastically so if he’s being perfectly honest.

📚 Blowing Smoke - DawnOfTomorrow Rated E, Word Count 231k

Harry doesn't care about Snape beyond having to sit detentions with the man despite being of age. He doesn't. He asks him out for a drink just to get out of detention. So what if it's... nice? So what if they become friends? So what if Snape *is* lonely? It's not Harry's problem - at least not until he realises he's accidentally befriended the man, and just how much he cares for Snape. Well, shit.

📚 Close Encounters - @bleedcolor (AO3) & @likelightinglass (AO3) Rated E, Word Count 35k

Years after the war, Harry Potter and Severus Snape meet and fall in lust, then love. Too bad they don’t know who they’ve fallen for.

📚 Curatio - @serenaew (AO3) Rated T, Word Count 12k

curatio, onis, f noun 1. healing/curing 2. object of care 3. treatment, surgical operation, medical care

At the foot of the Whomping Willow, there lay an injured kingfisher. Now with moodboard (chapter 2)!

📚 Date In A Dash - @silvereye5 (AO3) Rated E, Word Count 16k

Harry and Severus accidentally attend the same speed dating event.

📚 Fuck, Marry, Kill - @titconao3 (AO3) Rated T, Word Count 13.2k

After the war, Harry Potter and Severus Snape, er, fuck sometimes. You know, it just happens; it's one of these things. They're not in a relationship, right? They're not like that. ...Until they are, but only one of them can see it.

📚 Gold Like Ichor, Gold Like Magic - @dandelionstars (AO3) Rated M, Word Count 26k

Seven years after Harry James Potter was left unceremoniously on the doorstep to Number Four, Privet Drive, Vernon Dursley was offered a promotion and the whole family had to move to Cokeworth, England. While Dudley is off terrorizing the local children, Harry spends his days in the school library and finds a fast friend in Ms. Eileen Prince. From Cokeworth to Hogwarts and back again, this is a story about the friendship, the magic, and the love that can be found in the unlikeliest of places, if only one bothers to look.

📚 Hawthorn Branches in Spring - zalil Rated T, Word Count 37.5k

Harry returns to Hogwarts to finish school properly and sit for his NEWTs. He doesn't expect Snape to be back teaching, nor their old animosity to resurface. When it is pointed out to him that he is responsible for it, he sets out to change their relationship for the better. The results have more of an impact on him than he expected.

📚 Little Monkeys - Lilian Rated T, Word Count 15.7k

"There might be a chance that maybe, perhaps, Severus went too far this whole ‘exile far away from the Wizarding World’ thing. Because however he tries to frame it, it comes down to this: after nine years of being completely alone, the first time he stays with another person, he’s plotting to steal said person’s children."

📚 Loose Ends - @arrisha-ao3 (AO3) Rated E, Word Count 9.8k

I love you, Severus wants to say. But the timing is never right.

📚 Lovers Reunited - Now with a special buff! - @hereiamwithmyninjaclan (AO3) Rated T, Word Count 10k

MMORPGs are a fun way to pass the time and spend time with your friends- and hey, Harry might just find true love along the way. Beta'd by the lovely @silverdrip

📚 Not Giving In - @hippocrates460 (AO3) Rated E, Word Count 38.7k

Harry comes back from his holiday to a stack of memos on his desk that all say the same thing: "Severus Snape adopted Teddy Lupin." Snape. No one has seen him since the war trials ended, no one knows where he lives, no one knows why he took Teddy. And what happened to Andromeda? Harry is determined to be a good godfather and sort it all out. Even if it means dealing with Snape. Title from Better Son/Daughter, because Nanette.

📚 Professional Strippers - @coconutice22 (AO3) Rated T, Word Count 6k

At Uncle Vernon’s funeral, Aunt Petunia asks Harry for a favour.

📚 Snowed in with Severus - @maraudersaffair (AO3) Rated E, Word Count 32.5k

In eighth year, Harry decides to stay at Hogwarts for Christmas. He sets out to spend the time with Professor Snape, but after a magical accident, they find themselves stranded alone in a snowy cabin with no way out and only one bed.

📚 Sudden Light - @liladiurne (AO3) Rated E, Word Count 48k

Seven years after the war, in the dead of winter, Severus Snape meets a beautiful stranger on a train. Inevitably, he falls in love. Inspired by D.G. Rossetti and Paul Celan and based on the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

📚 The Beating of This Fragile Heart - @writcraft (AO3) Rated E, Word Count 33k

After the war, the last thing Severus Snape needs is the memory of a fleeting wartime kiss and a very persistent Harry Potter thwarting his plans to live a peaceful and solitary life. It’s only when Harry’s life is endangered that Severus is finally forced to confront his feelings head on.

📚 the Boy Who Lubed - @swoontodeath (AO3) Rated M, Word Count 7k

Desperate to pass his N.E.W.T. in Potions, Harry Potter joins a secretive Discord server run by a Potioneering expert known only as the Half-Blood Prince. What will happen when Severus Snape, full-time Potions Professor and part-time Discord mod, realises that the newest addition to his server is none other than his least favourite student?

📚 The Half-Blood and the Prince - @tax-onomic (AO3) Rated E, Word Count 6.5k

“It’s just a book, Harry.” “Okay. Thanks.” “But… you’ve got a crush on a book, mate. That’s a bit much. You need a girlfriend.” She tapped the name on the first page thoughtfully. “Or perhaps a boyfriend?”

📚 The Measure of a Man - @ac1d6urn (AO3) Rated E, Word Count 50k

Several years after defeating Voldemort, Junior Auror Harry Potter discovers himself and, at the risk of losing his childhood love, follows the truth. Through it all, Snape is an unexpected solace. Will he become more?

📚 The Want of You - @fleetingdesires (AO3) Rated E, Word Count 7.3k

On his night off, Severus unexpectedly realises that Harry has grown into quite an attractive man. He's just not going to think too hard about it. No, he's not going to think about him at all. It's fine. He's fine. Everything is fine.

📚 Thirteen and a half inches - @loneamaryllis (AO3) Rated E, Word Count 8.3k

The Marauder's Map shows a number above some people's head. Harrie investigates what it means.

📚 You Were Myth-Taken - @hokee101 (AO3) Rated T, Word Count 23.8k

When vampire attacks hit Hogsmeade, Severus Snape is the prime suspect. With Harry and Albus not taking these accusations seriously and the students threatening to expose him at every turn, this term was going to be just fangtastic.

Discord || Recs Lists

[bettyfrommars]

Stop the World and Melt with You//Eddie Munson x fem! reader//Part 5

🚨18+only, MDNI, adult themes, magic realism, fantasy, talk of dimensional travel, fear of the unknown, smoking cigarettes, sense of fear, held hostage (not reader), getting slapped (not reader), mention of blood, mention of being restrained (not reader), storyline involving people other than reader, sense of being hunted down, eventual smut, talk of tattoos. Word count: 3.2k

Series Masterlist

💜disturbed by the temporary tattoo you got from the quarter machine, you cut your time with Eddie short. Time goes on, you get a job at the motel, and meet Robin Buckley who says you remind her of a girl she used to know. We meet some people behind the scenes of your trip to Hawkinsgate.

A/N: Brought to you by my love of Eddie Munson, parallel universes, and The Twilight Zone, this story is for anyone who wants something a little different--definitely not for everyone. This is something I'm writing to relax my brain while I work on a longer series. Parts will be short, updated hopefully every other week. ALSO, forgive me, but I lost my tag list for this, I know there were a couple of you xoxo

-------------

Part 5: The Flicker

"This place is like someone's memory of a town, and the memory is fading."

-------------

In the real world, we live on the hands of a clock, digital flashes that remind us that we’re always aging in this free fall, on a rock plummeting through space. In Hawkinsgate, you felt like you were living in moments, some of which didn’t even belong to you. Like a peddler somewhere in the universe sold you someone's memories, without any structure or reason, and you were now a permanent resident in one.

Eddie leaned over. “What is it?” He asked. You had your hands positioned like you were holding a book in front of your face, blocking him from seeing what you had while you tried to make sense of it.

The first words that escaped your lips were that it must be a mistake, yet a mistake would imply that it existed in the realm of possibility, but this did not. How could it?

Eddie was worried about you, your skin had gone ghostly pale and you weren’t saying anything to him, you were just staring down, mouth a bit slack.

Your tattoo was an illustration of a pineapple wearing Eddie’s denim battle vest; not just any pineapple, but your pineapple.

You showed it to Eddie. “How can this be? Look---” you pointed to the tiny, specific details of the pins on his vest, right down to the pocket that was unbuttoned. Strange little green flourish of pineapple hair sticking out from the collar like a real cool exotic fruit boy.

Eddie didn’t know what to make of it. Sure, strange things always happened in Hawkinsgate, but they seemed to be getting stranger since you arrived. Eddie’s tattoo was a grim reaper, complete with a scythe, a bit menacing for a quarter machine, but nothing to get alarmed about, all the same.

“It’s a good thing though, right?” Eddie lifted his eyebrows. “That way you will always remember him.”

Eddie seemed to be missing the point of why the existence of it was freaking you out. Or, maybe he fully comprehended the magnitude of your situation and wanted to try and make you feel better somehow by minimizing it.

“I have to go,” you whispered, grabbing your bag off the chair.

“Wait, no, stay. Please,” Eddie stood halfway and lingered there, hoping you would come sit back down. As long as you didn't see what was in his bedroom, everything would be fine.

“I’m sorry Eddie, I just...I need some air,” and then you were out the door, jogging down the steps, throwing yourself into your truck as quickly as you could as if there were a killer at your heels. Eddie stumbled out onto the porch with a wave, watching you yank the gear shift to reverse and peel out. You threw a wave over your shoulder at him, made sure you were out of his line of sight, and then you burst into tears.

------- Somewhere Else--------

A short, blonde man studied an obscure map on the wall, his hands behind his back, mumbling to himself, “where can she be...where can she be?”

Just then, the doors to his study open and two officers in dark blue jumpsuits enter.

“We have Lorelei,” they tell the short blonde man, and then there is a sparkle of satisfaction that stretches across his face.

Lorelei is tied to a chair in a slightly damp cement room, with weeds growing up from the corners and cracks in the floor; a tiny window with metal bars above her head, and a bare mattress against the wall. She’s wearing a long, purple dress, her bare feet are dirty, and her long red hair is dotted in dried mud.

She tucks her chin to give the blonde man a Cheshire smile when he walks in.

“Lorelei,” the short man with the receding hairline says, tucking a yellow file full of paperwork under one arm. The two guards in blue jumpsuits are with him, guns holstered at their sides. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Hello Ronald,” Lorelei purrs, batting her lashes a few times at him. “This is an odd way to let me know you have a crush on me.”

“Hilarious,” Ronald returned, handing the file under his arm to one of the guards. His hands go into the trouser pockets of his tan suit, his smile fading. “But this is no time for jokes. You know what I want.”

Lorelei sniffed and licked her lips, her resolve set; there is a tinkle of laughter in her voice: “You’ll never find her.”

Ronald loses his cool instantly, his face screwing up, his fists flexing at his sides. She could almost see smoke coming out his ears like a whistling tea kettle. She enjoys the sight of his frustration while it lasts, but then he calms himself with a deep breath.

He takes a few steps toward her, flexing his mouth, scooping two fingers in to stretch his shirt collar away from his neck. “See, now, that’s where you’re wrong,” he chided. “This little game of yours has been entertaining, albeit a complete waste of time. You know I’ll find her with or without your help, my dear.”

“You can try,” Lorelei replied with an air of smugness, a dull laugh escaping her throat.

Ronald was shaking, the whites of his eyes cracking with bloodshot veins. It took him years to find out which dimension you were in, and when he finally did, that cunt Lorelei was somehow able to move you, and it was really grinding his gears. He was tossing and turning at night, fully obsessed.

He came up and snatched Lorelei’s chin, squeezing her lips together, forcing her to look up at him. His words were a venomous hiss. “Oh, I’ll find her, and when I do, you’ll be sorry you played this little game with me, you fucking bitch,” and then he threw her chin so that her face jerked to the side, hair falling in her eye.

Defiantly, Lorelei turned to meet his intense gaze again. “She’s growing stronger, I can feel it. If you do find her, it will be too late.”

Ronald’s hand came down, smacking his palm across her cheek in a slap. “You know I hate it when you make me do this!” He barked, his hands going to his hips as he started to pace in front of her.

Lorelei continued to exude calm and patience as she watched him unravel before her very eyes. She licked her teeth and made a smacking sound, tasting blood.

He turned his back on her, facing the door. “Why couldn’t you just let me have this one?” He asked in a softer tone, cheeks red, eyes dry. “You could’ve had anything you wanted; a home, a life, freedom. But instead you choose this,” his hand gestures around at the concrete room.

She thought about her words for a second. “I could tell you, but you wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me!” Ronald shouted as he turned on his heel to face her.

A dreamy look passed over Lorelei’s face as her eyes shifted to the ceiling, thinking beyond it, to the sky. “Because I love her,” she replied, a partial smile exposing a tint of pink blood over her teeth. “She’s one of the last Creators, Ronald. For all of your faults, I know you can appreciate what that means.”

There was a gold wedding band on Ronald’s finger and he twisted it as he frowned at the ground. “Wherever she is, you can’t keep her there forever. You’ve been on the run for too long, you’re getting weak, Lorelei.”

Lorelei felt the pang in her empty belly, and the ache in her sore muscles, but her spirit was strong. “I can keep her there long enough,” she answered in a hush.

Ronald cursed. “Long enough for what???” He belted, flapping his arms out wide and then letting them slap down against his legs. “It’s always goddamn riddles with you people.”

His flare for the dramatic never ceased to amuse her. Ronald continued to pace, running his hand down his mouth, until he stopped, abruptly, and turned to her with an unnerving smile pressing his lips against his teeth.

“You put her with him, again, didn’t you?” He bleated, a thrill rising in him when he noticed the way Lorelei’s gaze flickered away, unwilling to meet his gloating stare. Ronald clapped his hands together, giggling like a toddler.

“He’ll protect her,” Lorelei squared her shoulders, wrists flexing in the ropes at her back. “He doesn’t know he can yet, but he will.”

Ronald chuckled, wagging his finger at her. “You’re too much of a romantic, Lorelei, that’s your problem. You could’ve sent her to a dimension on Saturn to sit in a cave and stay safe, but you just had to reunite those two like the incredible sap that you are.”

“Love is stronger than fear,” she said with a lift of her chin.

“Oh, shut up!” Ronald shook his head, signaling for the guards to open the door. “Thank you Lorelei, you’ve been very helpful.”

Pausing in the doorway, Ronald jerked his thumb over his shoulder at her. “Make sure she eats something, will ya?” He looked over his shoulder at her, and then patted the guards arm. “Not too much, though, wouldn’t want to spoil her.”

----------

A week went by and you were still living at the motel. You mentioned to Mrs. Henderson that you were running out of money and things to trade, and as it turned out, she said she was in desperate need for some part-time help at the front desk, so you had yourself a job.

The pineapple tattoo on your forearm was fading, but you brushed your fingertip over it, thoughtfully, wishing it would stay.

You didn’t see Eddie that whole time, but you did notice that his van drove extra slow down the street in front of the motel a few times on his way to or from work, as if hoping to catch a glimpse of you. He didn’t deserve to be ignored; he had done nothing wrong. Nothing except be a part of this obscure place that held you captive, where nothing made any sense. The other day, there was a pile of mismatched socks on your doorstep; not a single pair in the lot of them. You asked Claudia about it and she didn’t have an explanation, but said you could keep them if you were interested. You doubted there was any value in a pile of single socks, so you put them in with the lost and found at the office.

You started your job the next afternoon, flanked by your three office helpers; cats named JoJo, Henry, and Clarice. Cleaning out their litter box was one of your nightly duties, and they loved to watch you as you did it, twitching their whiskers with pride as you collected the gifts they’d left for you. Every so often there was the random husband having a fight with his wife who got a room for the night at the motel, or the occasional friends who were having a “girls night” and wanted to sit by the pool out back. One night, a shifty couple with sweaty palms asked if they could rent a room for a couple hours, but you regretted to inform them that they would have to pay full price. The Grove was the only motel in town, and they ended up trading with a bunch of food supplies like gold chocolate coins, oranges, and an unopened box of Honeycomb cereal.

You made a friend, her name was Robin Buckley. She worked as the part-time maid, and she also worked at a Family Video down the street.

She went out back by the dumpster to have a smoke, and you went with her. She offered you one from her pack, and you took it, thinking that maybe this was as good a time to start smoking as any.

You took an aggressive inhale, and then sputtered and coughed.

“Couldn’t remember if you smoked or not?” Robin asked with a crooked smile.

You choked a few more times, throat burning. “What is it with people coming here and losing their memory?” You asked, hoping maybe Robin would be the one withholding some answers.

Robin leaned against the side of the building, hiking one foot up behind her, both of you staring across the alleyway at the metal fence and the diner that was down another block.

“I wish I knew,” she admitted softly. “I met a girl once…” she drifted off, taking time to flick her cigarette. “She was...like you, but also, not.”

You turned to face her, interest piqued. You put the filter of the cigarette between your lips but did not inhale before lowering it.

Robin continued. “She remembered stuff, from her other life.”

From her other life…

Robin looked around, as if to make sure no one was around, as if she shouldn’t be talking about it. “She had these tattoos all over her body,” she used the hand holding her cigarette to gesture down her leg and over her shoulders. “She said they were like passport stamps for all of the different dimensions she’d traveled through.”

You swallowed hard, thinking about your own tattoos.

“Anyway,” she snorted, scratching her elbow. “Everyone thought she was crazy, but I loved---I thought she was funny and brilliant. I believed her.”

Robin seemed to follow where your mind went and both pairs of eyes traveled to the tops of your feet that were visible through your sandals. There was a circle with dots around it on your left foot, and three parallel lines on your right foot; a thick black circle around your big toe. You also had some on your stomach, your sternum, under your arms, behind your knees, just behind your ear. They were all geometric shapes and markings, and none of them made sense to you, but you figured that, whoever you were before was into that sort of thing.

“Hers were the same, but different,” Robin assured you, without you having to ask the question.

“What else did she remember?” You asked reluctantly, a part of you almost afraid to know.

Robin swallowed, clearing her throat after taking another drag. “Supposedly, this place---” she looked around at the sky and the building, “--was designed to be like a safe house for travelers like her...like you.”

You made a face, clenching your eyebrows together. “So this place isn’t real? You’re not real? It’s all just a dream or something?”

Robin put her hand up, palm out. “Touch me.”

You obliged, spreading your fingers and pressing your hand against hers to feel the warmth and the callouses.

“Do I feel real?” She asked.

You nodded, deciding to run your fingers down the brick of the building to also see if it was real.

“She said there are billions of parallel lives, and we’re all living them at once, moment to moment,” she snubbed the last of her smoke out in the ashtray. “What this place is called is a flicker, like a blink, a sliver that exists in between each of our simultaneous existences.”

To be honest, it made you head hurt a little. But you didn’t want her to stop talking, you wanted to know more, you wanted…

But then the bell at the front desk rang to alert that someone needed service, and Robin was getting ready to head to her other job, but you asked her when she’d be back.

“Not for a couple days,” she told you with an air of reluctance. “But come by Family Video sometime, I’ll introduce you to the King of Hawkinsgate.”

You didn’t know what that meant, but you knew you wanted to talk to her again.

“Is there a VCR in your room?” Robin asked. “If not, we rent them at our place. I could get you all set up.”

The bell rang again, this time the person was tapping their hand on it over and over.

As Robin backed away, she waved to you. “Hey, don’t be afraid, okay? Wherever you come from, I’m pretty sure you were a badass. I know she was.”

----------

Eddie dropped down on the couch in the living room of his trailer with a grunt. He was still in his work clothes, hair and face filthy, mouth parched. His grim reaper forearm tattoo was almost gone, and so he ran his hand over it vigorously to peel the rest of it off, bits of his sticking to his arm hair. He was tired of convincing himself not to go over to the motel and see you. He was tired of listening to people, especially Gary, telling him he was doing the right thing by staying away.

If only they knew…

He pulled the bandanna off of his head and let his hair go loose, thinking about what sounded good to eat. It had been over a week, but he still had some of the cans of spaghettiOs you’d left behind, and he figured that was as good as anything for dinner. He turned the TV on and slipped the movie Halloween into his VCR so that he could have something on while he cooked.

In the bathroom, he washed his face while the shower got hot, and then he opened a can of beer and jumped in, sipping the beverage as he washed the grime of the day away.

Standing on the blue bathmat, he turned the shower off and wrapped a towel around his waist, hair long and wet down his shoulders. On his chest and back were strange markings he’d always known as birthmarks: the outline of a crude triangle, a letter C with a line through it, two vertical wavy lines. He used his hand to wipe some of the fog off of the mirror on the medicine cabinet, making a squeaking sound as he went.

He continued on down the hall to his bedroom, stopping at the closed door, pausing with his hand on the doorknob, wondering what you would think of him if you ever saw what he had in there. The paintings, the drawings, the letters. The songs he had written. The nights he had paced the floor wondering why he kept seeing your face; and then one day, there you were --- appearing to him in the flesh.

First order of business after he ate was to finish the mix tape he’d been working on for you.

Scorpions, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, those were all a given, but he had some other things planned for your listening pleasure as well.

That night, you both had the same dream, and shot out of bed in your separate rooms with a start, clutching the blankets, hearts racing, tears of joy brimming in your eyes. But the second you were fully awake, it was gone; another precious memory lost in the flicker.

——-

[hypersomniagame]

HYPERSOMNIA JUNE DEV LOG : “FASHIONABLY LATE”

Hi! I already wrote this entire dev log but I closed the tab by accident, so it's now 10:55pm and I'm going to try and speedrun writing something that took me an hour to write.

For all of you who follow HYPERSOMNIA, you should already know what the gist is here I've been saying this for 6 months.

if you don't know what this is or are confused on what HYPERSOMNIA is read the other dev logs i've said this like every time lol

So, just as a heads up this log isn't going to be super long with new content because I have been insanely busy these last few months! I just graduated High School and the last few months have been me cramming to make sure I pass and could graduate and now I am!!! Yay!!!

I won 2 awards at my grad (One of them being excellence in arts :D) and the other I was given a check for 200$ so I snagged one of these!

Super happy I finally got a display tablet for drawing, I've wanted one of these since I was like 14 and it feels awesome to have one now. I got this thing super cheap too, this thing usually goes for like 300-350 Canadian and I got it for 130! Super super happy about this.

That's all from me personally, but I would like to say just as 1 last thing before the updates, Happy Pride Month to all who identify as LGBTQ+, I myself am queer and just want to remind all of you that you are loved and accepted. Hopefully I can get this out before midnight so it's still pride month LOL

OK! NOW FOR UPDATES! I don't have too much to share today but I do have somethings I want to show off.

First things first, I've been respriting some characters! Ross and Jack are the biggest edits I've made so far so I'd like to show them off.

(Left is old, and right is new!)

Ross' walking sprites were updated! I was kind of dissatisfied with how Ross looks like he's struttin' everywhere so I redid it to give him a more casual walk. I'm very happy with this change and I plan for it to be the base walking animation going forward. I also updated his side profiles slightly to look closer to the key art I illustrated.

Jack also had his idles redone! He I think was the biggest thing I needed to resprite, his old sprite is kind of cluttered and poorly detailed so for his new one I simplified a lot of the shading and reshaped his hair and mask. I think it came out really well.

Also, just earlier I was working on music for the game.

I'm really happy with how this came out, I just got high and made Half-Life music (Which is what I was aiming for LOL)

Hopefully I can get to a point where I can finish off the soundtrack for the demo and post it all. Some friends of mine were a bit sad I delisted the tracks I had up initially so I hope to get those up again soon.

I've also been storyboarding out some early game cutscenes, I can't show a lot because it's all a bit spoiler-y but I will put this in the log.

And one last thing too, THE MOTHER DIRECT!

on July 27 at 6PM ET, MOTHER FOREVER will be hosting the MOTHER Direct, which HYPERSOMNIA is a part of!

There'll be a ton of indie games, fan projects, and other things relating to or inspired by the MOTHER series! Please give it a watch if you can. If you can't make it, the event will remain on MOTHER FOREVER's YouTube channel, and I'll be uploading HYPERSOMNIA's trailer on YouTube, Twitter, Steam, and here. If you do catch the stream or end up watching it after, leave a comment! Tell 'em Ferris sent ya. Do it, or I'll cry. I'm expecting at least 1 "Ferris sent me!" or I'll cry. I swear, I will do it!

If this is your first log you're reading, or even your first time seeing ANYTHING relating to HYPERSOMNIA, I got a whole bunch of links for you to check out if you wanna know more about me and my stupid little game.

TWITTER

YOUTUBE

STEAM

UNIQUE INDIE RPG'S [SHOW US YOUR GAME!]

[PREV] [ABOUT HYPERSOMNIA] [NEXT]

[t-t-tau-me]

Mystic Flour and Cultural Confusion: part 2

I'm going to assume you've already read part 1 and just move on from where I was. How about we start with One of the very first things we see in “The Awakening of White Apathy” update, The Ivory Pagoda itself! (Sorry for the awful image quality, This is the best I could get.)

...Except…What is a pagoda?

Well according to Merriam-Webster it's "a tower in eastern Asia usually with roofs curving upward at the division of each of several stories and erected as a temple or memorial" which is accompanied by this illustration.

Question answered, right? Answered, but not elaborated. There are many cultures in Asia So even though it could be assumed to be Chinese-inspired it doesn't guarantee it.

The next place to look is good old Wikipedia, which actually has a lot more detail for us. It references exact places and even mentions that pagodas aren't always used for Buddhism (didn't know that), But that's not what's important right now.

Have you noticed that many of the Pagoda designs don't really match Cookie Run: Kingdom? Yeah, you could easily say it's for the sake of gameplay, but I think there's actually a purposeful design to it. Looking on the Cookie Run Kingdom fandom wiki and looking up the origins of Buddhism, I found something kind of interesting. Buddhism has been around for a looooong time and seems to originate from India if my research is correct.

But what does this have to do with the design of the ivory pagoda?

Boom! Indian pagoda!

Pagodas in India tend to have a lot more variation with their designs, some being made out of multiple buildings or looking more like castles. Perfect for say…a map for stages.

Okay cool, kind of proved that it's not all chinese-inspired...Now what? The point of this mini post series...thing? It's inspire people to look at other cultures and a discourage those shaming others for looking. A lot of people only see the final product, but they never think about the hours of research put in to make sure a culture is accurately depicted. A lot of people in the West are very quick to just label Eastern culture as "Asian", which dumbs down the complexities of Eastern society.

Another reason why I made this post is simply the prove that Dev sisters there's no ways follow a single culture to the letter, which is why some people make it confused.

Well stranger, I hope You're well rested and enjoyed my rambles, hopefully you learned something new today.

[endlessknights]

I’ve been working on a fun story project over on Twitter for the past few weeks, and I figured I’d share what art I’ve made of it so far here as well!

I don’t have a good story name for it yet, but I’ve been calling it “Dinowar” until I can think of something less dumb lol. It’s about a group of dinosaur prisoners who are forced to fight in ritualistic battles in hopes of appeasing the gods and convincing them to stop a decades long war. That is, until they begin to believe that the gods have abandoned them, and they escape (and learn that they’re less abandoned than they think).

I actually got the idea when I was watching an Elden Ring playthrough and glanced over at my plastic dinosaur collection lol. Anyways without further ado:

Initial protagonist designs - I usually start my character designs with a bust (to more easily come up with a palette for each character) and then work down to the rest of the body from there.

Full protagonist lineup - figuring out outfits and everyone’s build

Armor concepts -

Side characters - family friends, children, traveling merchants, corrupt kings, and distant gods

Concept comic - this was moreso practice for drawing simple comics than worldbuilding. Still, it explores Bones and Fangs’ relationship.

Lastly, Beast’s family - this is the first in what will (hopefully) be a series of illustrations of each protagonist with their loved ones.

Thanks for looking at my silly dino guys :)

[roslynnsommers]

Introducing: The Fallout comic I've been working on for forever! :D A lot to say about this...which is why this is going on my blog. XD First, this 8 page mini comic is a little devotional piece to my husband. Fallout has been a huge part of our relationship since the beginning (in fact, it's pretty much how we started talking to each other lol), so that's why the comic is Fallout based. Second, this comic is currently available to read FOR FREE in greyscale on my website. So if you'd like to check it out, follow this link:

But that's not all I have planned for this comic. It will eventually get printed in full color for my husband once I have the ducks in a row (which will hopefully be soon). But in the meantime, you can sign up as a patron on my Patreon for $1/month (or more if you want other special perks), and get added to the Special Thanks page of the final printed comic (even if you cancel after the first month sign up). Patrons who sign up for the $5+ tiers will get access to the full colored digital version of the comic. ;)

Full picture plan: Based on what I've found so far, the minimum amount of comics I can have printed is 25. I obviously do not need 25 comics lol. One will go to my husband, and I plan to keep one for myself, but that leaves a whole 23 comics left just sitting there. Now... my plan is to host a small Kickstarter for anyone who might also like a printed copy. The cost for the Kickstarter will be set to cover costs for shipping, proper packing material, and all that is necessary for this kind of thing (I'm still figuring it all out). If it's popular enough, I'll set goals for things like stickers and maybe other merchandise. But since this is my first time going print and launching a Kickstarter by myself, I'm going to try to keep this as manageable as possible for wittle ol' me. Now... What's next for the Fallout Adventures series? (Yes, it was intended to be a series. XD A series of small stories of me and my husband's characters going about Fallout related adventures.) Well, when my husband finally saw this comic (he couldn't wait for it to be printed, so he wanted to see the digital version), he wanted to do his own story. How we're going about that is still undetermined, but it's either going to be written, turned into a comic, or both. Beyond that, I would still like to do some mini stories that - maybe one day - I can turn into an entire anthology of sorts. That's the hopes and plans for the future of this series. :) KEEP IN MIND This is a passion project. I'm doing this for fun and for/with my husband. We got full lives, so I'll do what I can, when I can. If y'all have questions or anything, don't hesitate to message me, and I'll get back when I can. Until then, please enjoy. :)

[reliul]

Hello all, I call myself Reliul. Should you not be familiar with who I am, allow me to quickly introduce myself. I am a being who has travelled far through the depths of Grand Reality--what you might call the Multiverse. I have been gone from this universe for what may seem an infinity to one like you, but know that this is my home as much as it is yours.

I will describe what Grand Reality is in another post soon, but know that it is by all means infinite and contains just about any universe you could imagine. Even one such as myself, who has travelled the Multiverse for many lifetimes of our universe, has not seen the barest drop of what is out there.

You will hopefully be seeing many of the universes here soon, along with any illustrations Veronica can cobble together.

[Veronica here, that's kinda rude. You could at least introduce me, first.]

You must be patient with me, I like to meander. Veronica is the one doing the physical work of typing these words, for I cannot. She happens to be the only one in this universe who can hear me.

[Thanks. You can continue now.]

Delightful. Below are listed some of my current works (in progress, so far). Ones with pages are linked under their names, but as you can tell, more pages need to be created.

Tunneling (2nd Draft) and the rest of the Seven Forces series.

The Emperor's Fortress (1st Draft)

The New God (1st Draft)

Unnamed Universe of Essences Novel

Below are the universes in which the above stories live, along with other stories I have yet to even start the backbones of. None have links yet, but that will be fixed hopefully soon.

Our Home Universe

The Universe of Elrys (setting of Seven Forces)

The Universe of Gen (setting of Emperor's Fortress and New God)

The Universe of Essences

The Crafted Universe

The Colorful Universe

The Timebent Universe

The Universe of Chance

This post is long enough, I feel. If you, the reader, want more in the meantime, we have a website at reliul.neocities.org. Goodbye.

(full transparency from Uluscri, I am neither a multiversal entity from the far ancient past nor a woman named Veronica--I am but an early 20s human trying to spin up some interesting worlds and stories, and I hope you enjoy your stay here)

[reversemoon255]

SSSS.DYNAZENON THE GATTAI Gridman Universe & Big Goldburn

Thank goodness this one didn't have shipping issues like the last Goldburn set. In fact, I got an email a week out saying exactly when it would ship, and it arrived before the tracking number could even update. That's pretty good service if you ask me, especially compared to last time.

Oh, and I really enjoyed the crossover film. It basically gave us everything you'd want from this type of thing; catching up with the characters post-series, lots of fun character moments between the casts, previous villains playing heroic roles, every single possible robot combination you might want, just a lot of fun overall.

The Good: Gridman Universe is a decent upgrade to its previous incarnations. While it looses a bit of posability, it has ratcheted shoulders to help support the weight of the larger arms. The hands are also easier to swap, and they fixed the issue with the chest gem by giving it a release button on the back of the figure.

Big Goldburn is a bit of a brick, but has a few articulated areas. He's got arms, fingers and toes, wings, a bit of neck and tail, and a mouth (though its on the same joint as the neck, so it clashes). Also, when you spin the shoulders, the internals and tips spin in the opposite direction.

And Rouge Kaiser Gridman is very cool. It feels a lot more solid than its Gridknight counterpart, with the tail also serving to tripod the unit if need be (though it doesn't need it).

The Bad: While Gridman's new shoulders do help hold everything up better than its predecessors, I do find it to be a little under-powered. They hold a pose well, but if you start moving the figure, they will shift around. There are some weird transformation ideas that feel like they're there for longevity's sake, but they do seem and feel a bit odd at first. And this may just be a thing with international shipments, but the instructions seem to imply the chest piece is supposed to come with batteries (it is illustrated with a pulltab), but in practice has none. It required 3 LR44s, but it's important to note that those batteries have multiple names and can vary by brand, so have your phone out while shopping in-store for them.

Overall, while I can try and nitpick this kit, it's a fantastic addition to both the DX Gridman and The Gattai lines. It does a great job trying to adjust to the failings of its predecessors, and gives me high hopes for the Full Power Gridman V2 releasing later this year. I've got my nose to the ground trying to track down Full Power Gridknight (since I missed the preorder window on that one), so hopefully we'll get to talk about that one soon, too.

[dropthedemiurge]

I shouldn't be buying books currently (money!! Books are hella expensive in Korea!!) but I couldn't hold myself back *д* I bought The Vegetarian by Han Kang because I was also curious about Nobel Prize winner and because all books have good english translation, and because my Korean friend told me a lot about Han Kang works and struggles of women in Korea and feminism movement here.

And then I didn't join the book club on tumblr but I saw that people were reading Love in the Big City novel and I think enjoyed it? Anyway, if the book sparks discussion club, I gotta read it and hopefully support author and director (and translator who I heard so much about), even though I only saw 1 episode of the series yet 👀 I'm sure I'll enjoy it and it'd be interesting to dive more into queer literature and culture.

The last novel book by Hwang Boreum I don't know anything about but it's also in English and the reviews all say that it's about healing and mundane life and human stories which I can learn from - and I definitely enjoy cozy stories. Hopefully, it'll contrast the first two heavy books xD

Also I noticed two prominent Kr-Eng translators so it'll be also interesting to check their works since I love translating too but I usually sub videos and not books. I wonder how do you get to that job, I would like to practice and translate some Korean books when I'll be more fluent. (Shall I work on the new epilogue of Love for Love's Sake? Maybe after I learn for sure if my visa is extended or not...)

Anyway, this is why I also hope business Korean will be useful to me! To upgrade my translation skills, I need to get used to more specific terms and to improve my reading skills because I still cannot really read full chapters in one sitting 🥲

I also have Love for Love's Sake script book to practice reading with and illustration manual book for 2d artists to improve my coloring and Korean too...

...I might've overestimated my capabilities but welp. I see a bookstore, I blink and my hands are already full of bought heavy delicious books. Very confusing how that happens. :D