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yeolmae-s · 3 years ago

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a chanbaek analysis from a veteran exo-l (part 2)

CLICK HERE TO READ PART ONE

Writing this was a bit harder in comparison to the first part, because I wanted to organize things into a neat timeline, but I ended up not having enough patience for it lol specially because both of ChanBaek's main archive blogs seem to have deleted their pages documenting each date of EXO's early years. Therefore I apologize in advance if this part is a bit more messy. Also, please don't forget that all of this is my opinion and I don't mean for any of it to be taken as truth!

I kind of want to jump from MAMA era directly into Wolf era, since we don't really have a lot of cover regarding their debut phase besides Chanyeol's overeagerness and Baekhyun's awkwardness towards it, so to sum it up, I felt as if Chanyeol was more confident and consistent on what he thought an idol should act like, while Baekhyun (sweet, innocent Baekhyun who was a trainee for less than a year!) was still unsure on how to act on camera.

On the few early variety shows/interviews EXO appeared on, the members always pointed out how funny Baekhyun was, how good he'd be at variety and at doing imitations, but he never really lived up to all the praise on camera, although off of it, he most likely was as good as his members claimed.

He was a bit stiff on his early days in comparison to what we see today, and that's normal, I guess, since he debuted really quickly, but when you compare him to Chanyeol the contrast is so interesting, because the latter was able to latch on to a persona as soon as the public gave him one, while to me, Baekhyun was still doubtful regarding what to put on display. In the end, deep inside, Baekhyun is a private person, and was even more so when he wasn't confident enough to talk to fans like he does today.

Once again, I’m sorry for not being able to upload the gifs directly into the post, so I’ll just link them like I did on my last one.

This is another one of the moments where Baek appears to tell Chanyeol to just. Hold on for a bit.

There's another one similar to this where Chanyeol does the same thing (try to whisper on Baekhyun's ear) and Baekhyun fake laughs and stares at a fan's camera right after. Then, his expression just goes blank. It's really interesting to watch because you can just see the gears spinning on Chanyeol's brain as he stares at Baekhyun for a second and clearly thinks alright, fanservice time, and leans in to whisper something: it happens so fast you just know it wasn't genuine whispering, just a playful interaction for the fans, and Baekhyun's direct stare to the camera as soon as it happens just confirms this for me.

1: Chanyeol spots his target.

2: He’s really thinking this through.

3: Baek's in a perfect position for whispering-time, so he leans in and does his thing.

4: Baekhyun laughs.

5: And stares directly at a fan's camera.

6: Immediately regrets his life choices. Chanyeol looks pleased.

It's actually better to watch the whole thing, so I'll leave it here. (starts on 0:28!)

(Random note: on this date EXO perfomed a cover of H.O.T's We Are The Future, and I feel like a lot of new EXO-Ls have not seem it and I adore this performance, so I'll link it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1-z4s3fdgo)

Now let's jump on to Wolf era, shall we?

Wolf era

I can't help but laugh when I think about how wild 2013 was for both EXO and EXO-Ls. They had their first hit song (which was Growl, not Wolf) the fandom grew considerably, shippers where just discovering the cute ISAC moments between "BaekYeol" and "HunHan"... Or at least that's how everyone remembers most of what happened during that year.

Are we forgetting the rumoured ChanBaek fight?

Considering their past interactions on airports, SMTOWN concerts, ISAC and other events, ChanBaek was now widely known to be close to each other. Baekhyun even said Chanyeol was the one who made him open up, and both of them mentioned feeling this "connection" to each other as soon as they met (although jokingly).

After Mama, the fandom was content-less for a considerable period of time, and what most people did was sharing around old performances and repeat overused memes. I think that in every fandom there is a period where fans establish their main inside jokes and basically just get together to create a collective line of thought for perceiving their idols. That being said, one of the most well established facts in the fandom was that Chanyeol and Baekhyun were close. That was a fact.But then Wolf came, and they suddenly were not.

This gif is a good example of how awkward their interactions were. Not even my delusional shipping brain in 2013 was able to come up with an explanation for it.

They simply did not acknowledge each other at all, and Chanyeol appeared to be closer to Kyungsoo (I think Baekhyun interacted a lot with Tao, but that may have been during the Growl era, not Wolf. As I said before, I'm a Chanyeol stan guys, sorry lmao).

Point is, these two boys who seemed to be best friends suddenly were clearly distant from one another.

What added fuel to the fire of the rumours was their appearance on Sukira, a radio show, where Sehun cried because the members sometimes had fights. Here's a fanacc:

[130530] EXO at Sukira

Sehun cried because the members sometimes fight.

Sehun: "Let's be loyal to each other, don't fight, and go until the end"

D.O: "We've been under a lot of stress lately because of the comeback, so I wish we won't fight in the future and do our best"

Here's a video cut of this part of their interview.

I think this ask on lets-talk-baekyeol, a popular ChanBaek analysis blog from back in the day, shows how curious a lot of fans were.

What happened back then?

There's really no answer for that. On my opinion, not even Chanyeol or Baekhyun could give us a concrete answer on it, because I don't think an actual fight happened. For me, it was most likely a personality clash, a disagreement that probably wasn't even voiced out loud, just both of them noticing how uncomfortable things got, if Baekhyun's reactions to Chanyeol's fanservice is any indication. I somehow doubt there was a specific episode that created this distance between them, specially because during Growl, they went back to being friends, although not as touchy on camera as before, as if one of them had established their limits (oh, I wonder who!), but I still have this feeling that all of this was unspoken, because unspoken things seem to be a pattern on ChanBaek's relationship (something I'll touch on later, hopefully).

But it was during Growl era that I noticed something else about Baekhyun.

Wolf era

EXO'S Showtime was a such a gift. I recommend reading lets-talk-baekyeol's blog for this. I don't really agree with everything they say they do present a lot of relevant points. I may repeat them here, since I noticed them myself as well, but credits for them nonetheless.

I remember finding the lack of ChanBaek interactions during the episodes really dissappointing, but considering the Wolf Era drought, this was better than nothing.

My 13 year old self was devastated when Baekhyun appeared so quiet during Chanyeol's birthday episode, and during a recent rewatch of it, I think realized why.

Baekhyun doesn't like superficial things. It's not that Chanyeol is insincere, but he's just better than Baekhyun is at handling people pleasing, even when he doesn't really mean what's he saying/doing. The Chanyeol birthday episode was heavily centered on Chanyeol's random admiration for Kai, which I think we can all agree that it was a little bit scripted or a really spur of the moment thing that they just ran along with and oh man. Baekhyun did not want to be part of it.

During ChanKai's hug, this is what he looked like on the background, and the poor boy even refused to eat cake. He's just in the back, which is weird, because he's such a talkative person and Chanyeol is one of his closest friends. The only moment where he seems to be genuinely comfortable is when Chanyeol blows the candle and it's really cute. To me, it seems that he was kind of embarrassed to witness so much acting from everyone else and was unable to participate because he struggles with things like this, but the moment Chanyeol blows his candles to comemorate his birthday seems sincere enough for him to fondly smile.

This ties in so well with everything from Mama Era. He's just unable to keep acting/people pleasing on the same easy way that Chanyeol does, but this time he's not as nervous about it as he was on his earlier-early days, where he probably felt pressured to actually do stuff. Now he just doesn't do **it, he just doesn't do something that he dislikes doing, and that sadly creates a distance between them on camera and probably on a deeper level in their relationship as well, because both are just realizing how different their perceptions over their jobs is.

There's also this moment that the mods on lets-talk-baekyeol pointed out.

On the Christmas episode, when the members leave the couch to go get their presents, Chanyeol stays seated while Baekhyun gets up to fetch his. This is the sitting arrangement before (almost) everyone got up:

But when Baekhyun comes back, there's free space next to Chanyeol, however he's hesitant to sit by his side. He actually hesitates and doesn't sit down. Jongdae even gives him a little push right after.

Baek just seems hesitant to do things on camera, to interact with Chanyeol in front of an audience. For this moment, I feel like he's afraid to sit next to Chanyeol and end up having to over act. It's not that Chanyeol himself makes him uncomfortable, but the image of the friendship that they ended up creating for fans demands a lot from him.

And when I say hesitant to do things on camera, I really do mean it, because when Baekhyun thinks he is not being recorded/seen, here's what he does:

Here and here.

Their relationship clearly changed, and I think the reason for it is actually simple: both of them were under the impression that they were compatible with each other when they actually were not. Their personalities are extremely different, even if the way they present themselves is sometimes similar. Wolf and Growl era was our way, as fans, of watching them navigate around each other and finding out how their relationship was supposed to work.

And you know what's nice about that? The members watched all of it unfold. Their reactions to some of ChanBaek's interaction is a gold mine when it comes to analyzing them, because they clearly know, just as we do, that their relationship is kind of complicated. But I want to talk about it on the next part.

I am sorry for cutting this off again! I don't know if the next part is going to be the last, because after Growl there's Overdose and we all know what happened on 2014 [coughs] dating scandal [coughs] god help me I don't want to talk about it [coughs] so there's a lot to uncover and I need time to organize stuff.

Thank you for reading!

#chanbaek #baekyeol #baekhyun #chanyeol #park chanyeol #byun baekhyun #exo #kpop

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lettersformiah · 2 years ago

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9:37am, 4 aug

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY !!!!!!! MWHA MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH WAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWHA! 18 kisses for your 18th <3 <3

i love you sosos much and i hope youre sleep is good!! im so sorry i wasnt really around yesterday but sometimes life just gets me like that yk? but! im here now :D i love you i love u i love u i love u hehehe i hope you get spoilt and i wish i could do something more for your bday >:( its so painful that i cant have a dinner or just hug you :( i miss u so much. but! january! we make up for all the things in january! we can get a little mini cake and celebrate both of our bdays! and we gotta do valentines day then too! im excited for all of the things we are gonna do even though its literally like 4? 5? months away heh. getting ahead of myself but only bc i miss u so much! i want to do all of the things with u. and! we will get our cute airport meet too!!! heheheheh im so so so excited!!

im in geo right now and mrs haggart isnt here and the work is boring as os i dont want to do it hehe. maybe ill do it in french. but i dont think ill be doing much of anything then. i gotta take out some money before work for next week and ill need to buy a drink or smth. but when its slow i can buy a chocolate! or!! i really wanna try the new v so i might get one of those. the warehouse is so chill and i really like working there! shitty im working on ur bday :( but im excited to see sophie and aj again bc they are so sweet and they make working there not so bad. hehe i love you so much. i want you to be able to read this soon so i gotta remember to upload it asap. so hopefully i did that. i love you.

i dont have much news other than that. i still need to handwash a shirt for tomorrow which i think i can do before i hop on my bus. i also really wanna call u before work but i dont know if you will be around. might die if i dont talk to you for like 18 hours though >:(

im so excited to pick my subjects and im so so excited for next year. i was looking forward to year 11 last year (my mistake smh) but year 12 will be purely subjects i want to do or can do and there will be no english or science or french or silly fuckin algebra. and im excited ! apart from exams. im a bit worried about those this year because i dont think ill be able to do drama? bc i wanna focus on the alice in wonderland stuff. soo i think ill do geo and english? bc english sucks but i can ramble about techniques in a poem and answer some questions about it i think. i think i can do that okay. im excited to get a few extra weeks off too!! ill have an extra couple weeks as study leave but obvs only doin 1 exam sooo?

only a few mins left of geo! i did a little bit of work but honestly id rather spend my time thinking about u >:) i do that all the time. but been doin it a bit more today. i miss you and i love you. wake up soon darling cause i wanna talk to u agaon hehehe

i love you so much lovely

-mads<3

#letters

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lyndiscealin · 3 years ago

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AFTG Collaboration Experiment

The story behind the story

This is highly inspired by this youtube artist collaboration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCpScnyLOh8&list=PLjvuq1J91QkZpevHWcdlMwFqaMX8fuq3L

An artist (ten hundred) started a painting on a canvas and gave this canvas to a fellow artist and that artist added to the original picture and then gave it to another fellow artist and so on. I highly recommend the video series, the picture isn’t finished yet.

As soon as I saw this, I thought I wanted to do this, too, but with writing. I quickly came to the realisation, that I should start smaller than just ‘any story’, because there are too many genres out there and I couldn’t come up with a beginning that was open enough so any author I admire could continue it. Starting a Slice of life romance story and giving it to a horror author just might not work. It could, of course, but it would be far more unlikely to turn out as something that worked.

So I decided to do this inside of a fandom. The AFTG Fandom is crazy creative and the one I am most involved in right now.

The rules are simple:

Look at what the other authors have written so far

Add something of your own

Document your thought process behind what you added and link it at the beginning of your piece (it can be a google doc, a tumblr blog or something else, as long as you can link to it)

Ask another author to continue this

Upload your piece to AO3 and give it to the collection (https://archiveofourown.org/collections/AFTG_Collaboration)

If you don’t have an AO3 account and don’t want to create one, write me on tumblr @lyndiscealin and we will figure something out.

Don’t forget to add the name of the next author at the end of your piece, so I can verify that the addition to the Collection is valid

Be as creative as you like, there are literally no restriction, as long as you don’t ‘overwrite’ things authors before you wrote already

If you write 18+ stuff post a summary, too, so people who are underage don't have a problem continuing the fic

A summary at the end of every piece would be great so the next authors don’t need to spend too much time rereading to search for major plot points

Any author is allowed to finish this, if they feel like it! No reason to hold back!

This should be self explanatory, but I will say it nevertheless: This is supposed to be fun, so no hate, no pressure, nothing that makes anyone uncomfortable. No one has any responsibility for whom he has given this work to. Which means that there is no policing and no asking ‘when will you finish your piece?’ or anything. You give this to the next person and that’s it.

So this was done and I created a Collection on AO3 for this: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/AFTG_Collaboration

This is an experiment. I hope it will work, but the nice thing about experiments is that even if it fails, you get something out of it.

I love to gather experience and even if this gets stuck right after my contribution, at least I tried it.

I’m a tiny bit nervous about this, because I saw too many times how people turned something good into something toxic, but we will see. I have trust in this fandom. We can do this. Let’s show the world what we can create!

But, how to start this?

The thought process

So I wanted something open enough that it was easy for nearly anyone to contribute. But even inside a fandom the diversity is very high. There are so many pairings, so many different interpretations.

I settled on Andreil as the main pairing, because it is by far the most popular and I trust people to not give this to someone who can’t work with it or for people to accept this without being able to contribute. I am a big believer in the concept of being responsible for yourself and trusting that people are able to be responsible for themselves.

So Andreil. But Andreil and then what?

What Scenario? What premise? How can I even give a premise without forcing others to follow that path? How can I keep the beginning open enough so others can be as creative with this as they want? Is there even a concept that allows that?

I was stuck.

The thing with a canvas and artist is that you have a canvas. If the canvas is full the picture is likely finished. Of course you can make more out of it, but in the beginning you have just a canvas. That in itself is hard enough to manage, but it is manageable. A far far universe without any direction is destined to get stuck somehwere. But I wanted this to be as creative and open as possible.

So I was completely stuck there.

Until today!!!

Because the Fandom is amazing and crazy and I love it so so much!

Some of you just presented me the perfect idea: Neil as a fanfiction author who writes about the Foxes.

Done. Perfect.

Why? Because this way you can contribute anything!!!!

You can contribute blog articles from Neil.

You can contribute news articles about the foxes.

You can contribute chat fics about Neil communicating with Andrew or someone else in the fandom.

You can even write a whole piece about Neil being on tumblr and AO3 interacting with his fans.

You can write the fanfiction that Neil is writing, so even if you are a JereJean fan, it is no problem at all to write a fanfiction about them and then let the next author write how the Foxes or Andrew or just fans reacted to it or whatever that author wants to make of it.

It’s really really perfect.

It gives me a canvas where I can outline some restrictions, give a bit of a path so the next author can do something with it, without restricting too much.

So what will I do?

I will write the end of the story and then go back to the beginning. I want to let the end be open enough so people can still contribute to it (if we ever get there). Like develop it in a Kandreil fic for example. Or add cats. Or whatever.

It doesn’t even have to be the end. Everyone is free to contribute anything, even a chapter after my ending. But it is at least some kind of frame. A good starting point.

So, I really am not a planner. Either an idea hits me or I can’t write. My idea is:

Start with the day Neil sees a tumblr post where someone theorizes ‘what if Neil was a fanfiction author and that is how he and Andrew met?’

He finds it very amusing, because it hits bullseye and he starts to drift off to the beginning of it all.

That’s it, that’s the idea. Let’s see how it will go from there.

The next author

I am in contact with some very very good authors. And I kind of want to ask them all to contribute. But there is one of them who had the displeasure of being online when this idea hit me and they got the full extent of me obsessing over an idea. And because they happen to be one of these great authors I asked them first. Additionally they were one of the contributors to the thread I linked above, so this was even more reason to ask them.

They said yes!!!

I am so excited and at the same time a bit sad I couldn’t ask the others. But I think eventually they will be part of the project, too. Hopefully.

I will reveal the next author at the end of the chapter^^

(I will reblog this with the first chapter, I just have to post this here first)

#aftg #all for the game #aftg collaboration

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shittylongcatposts · 4 years ago

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anonymous asked:

Hi, I LOVE your writing! I was wondering if I can make a request about Jumin and what would happen if MC went back to the apartment after meeting him and is faced with the bomb issue? Love over protective Juju! (it can be an hc or whatever you feel like writing❤️)

heya nonnie, thank you for your kind words!!! <3 I loved your idea sooo much and I got a little carried away and what started as shitty headcanons got way too exciting for me, so i turned them into a little story. I really hope you’ll enjoy it! As always i am too exhausted for proofreading and I will regret it later on- sorry.

Edit: I did regret it, wow the original is so messed up???!!! WHY???!!! Tumblr???Why? :(

TW: swearing, mentions of a fight,

Bad Timing (New Upload!!)

The days you had spent with Jumin had quite the impact on the both of you. Neither of you would have thought that there were so many things you could talk about. You laughed a lot, and for the first time it felt good for you to be able to laugh with somebody again. Jumins laugh was different, different from others laughter, because it was full of honesty. To be honest you really liked his laugh, not only because of this, but because it sounded adorable, a little deep and raspy but cute in his own way. It could not even be compared to that fake laugh of your ex. No, Jumins laugh felt right.

You were glad for all the troubles you went through the last couple of days, the fight with your ex, who kicked you out of your apartment in the middle of the night and left you out there, wandering through the city, alone. Then this Unknown person, who texted you and suddenly you were connected to a charity group and had a place to stay.

Never in your life you would have thought to stumble upon a new group of friends like this and even if you only knew them for a few days, they already felt like family to you. Maybe this was a new chance for you, a chance to be happy.

After getting to know the dark haired man more and more you noticed how lonely he was. How much he must’ve gone through when he was younger and how much pain he hid from the outer world. And even though Zen always tried telling you what a cold hearted jerk he was, you couldn’t believe it. The Jumin you got to know and started to fall in love with was kind, warm, emotional and caring.

******************

When one afternoon Jaehee contacted you, saying that Jumin wasn’t himself at the moment, you wanted nothing more but to help him. Especially since it was him. You really started to like him more and more, so you felt even worse, when you realized how much of a hard time Jumin had. You gathered your courage, went to his penthouse and stayed there for a few days.

He cared so much for you and your safety that he asked you to stay with him until the hacker issue is solved completely and Jumin would be feeling better.

*****************

A few days later you found Jumin in a more stable state, it hurt you a little bit to think about going back to Rikas apartment but it had to be. You still had lots of work to do and V confirmed that the hacker issue has been solved for now. So you sat down with Jumin talking about your return to the apartment.

“Jumin, you heard Jihyun, he said it’s safe and you know how much work there is left for me, I still need to answer some emails and prepare the invitations etc etc…”, you sat across from him, softly letting your fingers wander over the back of his hand.

“I know, and I don’t and can’t keep you locked in forever, and I am sorry I’ve done it in the first place. I just have this bad feeling in my gut. Something is telling me that you’re still in danger.”, he sighed, while his free hand ran through his onyx locks.

“I will be fine. I promise. I’ll call you as soon as I get there ok?”

“Ok.”

*****************

But soon after he let you go, the red threads pulled tighter and tighter around his chest, leaving him nearly unable to breathe. Deep down he knew something was wrong, The hacker issue may have been solved according to his best friend, but what if he was wrong?

The ringtone of his cellphone pulled Jumin out of his thoughts. It was Luciel, he seemed quite off in the last chat rooms, he behaved so differently, Jumin tried calling him not long ago, but only Sevens voicemail answered. He took the call immediately.

“Hey Jumin, I hope everything is fine with you and Mc. Is she still with you?”Jumin could hear a sniff at the other end of the line, curiously he tilted his head. Did he cry?

“Luciel, what’s wrong, you don’t seem to be alright? Are you ok?”

“Yeah. Kind of, but that doesn’t matter now… Is Mc still with you?” he asked again, sounding a little bit more concerned than before.

“She’s on her way back to Rikas apartment, apparently she’s going there by the subway, even though I offered her a driver. But… why do you ask?” Jumin felt the red thread creeping around his neck choking him, his voice was about to get shaky, hopefully Luciel wouldn’t realize it.

“W..What? Couldn’t you at least give me a call before you let her run off? W-we need to find her asap! My god…” the red haired man sounded nervous, not only nervous but frightened. So there was a problem, Jumin thought to himself.

“Luciel, pull yourself together, and tell me what the hell is wrong!”

“I... There… ok… Rika… she told me to install a detonation system and I just logged back into the system of the apartment and the whole system is currently unstable, which means that everybody who walks through the door is in great danger. Fuck, Jumin, I’m so sorry...” Luciel mumbled, Jumin heard him sobbing again.

“Are you just telling me that there is a bomb in the apartment?! I… I can’t believe it. Tell me the address now. ...and don’t even start pulling out the classified-information- card, I’m having enough of this. I’m going to pick you up. NOW!”Jumin couldn’t see clearly, a fog seemed to cloud his mind and he could barely hear his own voice, but he knew he was nearly screaming. Breathe in… and breathe out, we’re saving her.

“Jumin?...Are you still there?” he heard his friend's voice saying.

“Yes, I’m sorry for getting so loud...I don’t know what..”

“doesn’t matter now, I’m picking you up, you won’t be able to drive anyway. We will make it in time, Jumin.”

The boys sat in complete silence. They both stared through the window, focusing on the cars that flew by. Luciel drove fast, and Jumin was glad to have him at his side at the moment.

“Luciel?” Jumins raspy voice finally broke the silence.

“yeah?”

“Why did Rika make you do this? Nothing could be so important that you have to blow the whole place up in order to save some data.”

“I, I don’t know, she never told me why. Maybe It’s because she hid other information there as well.” Seven chuckled nervously, he seemed to be unsure how to continue this conversation.

“Other information?”

“I’m not in the place to explain that to you, ask V, when or should I say if he is going to return. Hopefully he will, because I have to pick a bone with him.” the ginger sounded dead serious, leaving Jumin alone with his thoughts again. When he looked at seeven again, he could have sworn to see tears in his amber eyes. But Jumin chose to stay silent.

*******************

You finally arrived at the building, it was a pretty long trip and you were exhausted. You already started missing Jumin. But you had work to do. A lot of work.

Looking up at the building again you sighed, let’s go inside Mc, you thought. When you suddenly saw a red flash at the corner of your eye. With screeching tires it came to hold and two figures jumped out of the car. A large shadow ran directly towards you, a slightly smaller one followed right after it.

You recognized Jumin pretty quickly and let go of the door handle which fell back into it’s lock. Click.

Before you even knew it you found yourself in a tight embrace. His hands stroked over your hair and you felt him sobbing.

“My god, Mc, I’m so glad we made it in time. You’re safe, I... I prayed so much that nothing would happen to you.”

“wha… Jumin what’s going on?” You asked, wondering what got into the boys for appearing in such a rush, as if your life was on the line.

“But, guys… what’s wrong?” You asked once again. The dark haired man took your hand to guide you to Saeyoungs car.

“C-can I join in on the hug?” the young man next to Jumin asked, you felt your crush nodding on the top of your head. You felt another pair of arms holding you and Jumin together, then Luciel shuffled his hand through your hair.

“Thank you, I’m glad you’re safe. Surprise~ hehe…” Saeyoung chuckled nervously, the tears in his eyes disappeared. He let go of you two, only to receive another quick hug from Jumin, who mumbled a quick “thank you!”.

“We’ll explain it later my dear, let us calm down first.”

#reupload #god i duuno why it was so messed up #mysme #mysmes #mystic messenger #jumin han #shitty longcat #juminxmc #saeyoung choi

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ahatintimestorybook · 4 years ago

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AHIT Twin AU- Missing Brother

(Had to re-upload since I posted in the wrong blog)

Hey guys just an heads up. The next few chapters are going to be angst related. This one being the start to all the angst.

@winterpower98

Since day 1, since the day she met his twin brother, since the day his twin brother announced he and her were dating, since the day his twin brother saved up some money to buy a ring to propose to her, MJ never liked or trusted Vanessa Queenzel. MJ felt something was up with the woman, like an never ending blizzard when she passed by him.

Luka never felt it, he was so mesmerized by Vanessa, and MJ wished he could get into his brother’s head and find out why Vanessa was his one true love, his princess from the fairy tales they read when they were kids.

MJ had asked his brother countless times if Vanessa was the one and he always got the same answer. “She is, and I know it.” It made the older twin furious at his younger twin that he was just looking out for him. No one in their right mind can be this perfect especially someone like Vanessa.

Its been a month since MJ and Luka’s parents had died, and both twins were dealing with struggles. Luka was going to tell Vanessa to postpone the wedding till next year, and MJ was dealing with the fact their parents are gone. As you can tell stress lingered both brothers and were ready to snap at one another, despite never snapping or fighting once in their lives.

Soon Luka’s phone rang, which caught both twin’s attention. Luka reached for the phone and saw it was Vanessa was calling him. Luka gave a small smile and picked up the phone. “Hey Van.” Luka said. MJ looked up at his younger twin. His eyes showed he barely got sleep and with the glare written all over his face it made him look angry.

“Van, I need to tell you something its about the wedding.” Luka mentioned. “See, MJ and I spent a lot for the funeral, and I’m just wondering if we can postpone it till next year?” He asked giving a sheepish smile. Soon that smile faded and soon yelling was heard. It made Luka flinch, sure he’s heard his finance yell before, but never like this.

Luka sighed. “Look I know your mad, but we just spent a lot plus I just need to be there for MJ.” He tried to reason with her. Soon Luka heard the phone hang up. “Hello? V-Vanessa?” He asked. Luka looked at his phone and saw she did hang up. He groaned and slammed his head on the table.

Since their parent’s death Vanessa’s behavior towards Luka changed as well, she only comforted him when he revealed the devastating news and the funeral between that and after Vanessa didn’t seem to care about Luka grieving or trying to be there for MJ and insisted, showering him with gifts to make him feel better.

“Just don’t call her back Lu.” MJ spoke up. Luka turned to her brother giving a small glare. MJ looked up and saw his brother’s facial expression. MJ glared back, “do we have to argue about this again? Luka, the warning flags are right there!” He shouted.

Luka sighed. “Look, I know Vanessa has been...pushy lately but its only because I’ve been pushing all this mom and dad stuff onto her.” He replied as his defense.

“Its not that! She’s been like this months before mom and dad died!” MJ yelled back. “Remember she dyed your hair blonde?”

“Only because she dated you on accident! Hence why you changed your hair!” Luka replied. “Plus I didn’t mind it.” He mumbled.

MJ growled. “She did it without your consent!” Luka flinched, jumping back from MJ’s sudden anger. Luka glared and got up from the table and marched over his room to put on a jacket. “Where are you going?”

“To Vanessa’s and hopefully going to talk to her!” Luka shouted. He was about to make it to the door until MJ grabbed his arm using his magic. Luka looked down at his arm and looked up to his twin brother holding him back with his magic. “Let me go Micahel.” Luka growled, his eyes too starting to glow bright yellow.

“No.” MJ replied. “I’ve told you countless times, Vanessa is nothing but trouble. I don’t trust her! Mom didn’t even trust her! And for the past few days its nothing but you two arguing and making up!” He shouted. “Can’t you just open your eyes and see Vanessa is not the girl you should be with!”

Luka’s eyes turned back to normal but didn’t look at his twin brother in the face. MJ sighed and loosened the strings off his brother as his eyes turned normal too. “I’ll be back.” Luka whispered and slammed the door making MJ flinch. MJ stepped back, shaking that he just yelled at his brother. They argued before, but it was never this tensed.

Though MJ did understand things have gotten difficult thanks to the death of their parents and all the anger, sadness and stress just came down on both of them. He looked back at the door before heading to the couch to watch TV. “Come home safe bro.” He whispered.

By nightfall, Luka never arrived home and MJ started to worry. He checked his phone to see if Luka left him a phone call or message, but nothing only his lock screen wallpaper of him and Luka on their birthday, the last birthday to celebrate with their parents.

MJ decided to call Luka to see what’s up with him and Vanessa, but the call went straight to voicemail. Knowing Luka, he’d call back in under five minutes. “Hey Luka, listen I’m sorry about yelling earlier. Call me back where you are. Night bro. Love you.” MJ said before shutting off the phone and TV before heading to bed room.

Once there, MJ stared at the ceiling worried for his little brother. Luka should of called or even texted him by now. MJ thought Luka was mad at him for being mean to Vanessa, but he was telling the truth he didn’t trust her. The older twin felt something was wrong, Luka never ignored him or not answer his calls. This was unlike him.

MJ sighed and tried to fall asleep hoping that Luka would call him in the morning or at least show up. He hoped so.

Days passed, then weeks, until it was over a month and not a single call or anything from Luka. MJ wasn’t just scared, but horrified that something was up with his brother and he wasn’t getting anything from him. He hated to do this, but he had called Vanessa, but she would respond with:

“He’s not home,” or “He isn’t feeling too good, right now.”

Even though MJ didn’t like her, he didn’t want to fight with her. Knowing her status in town, it would make him look like the bad guy then Vanessa. Though he didn’t want to do this, it was his last resort. He needed to head on over to Vanessa’s manor.

MJ took a drive to the Queenzel manor and knocked on the door. As he waited he did his best to keep his cool so he wouldn’t go off on Vanessa. It felt like an eternity till Vanessa opened the door. “Oh MJ hi.” Vanessa said with a smile.

“Look Vanessa, do you know where Luka is?” MJ asked.

“He’s not at home, he went out for the day.” Vanessa replied.

MJ knew this was a lie, but he tried to keep cool. “Do you know when he’ll be home?” He asked. Vanessa didn’t reply and just shrugged. MJ sighed feeling his cool level head slowly leaving him. “L-Look if you see him tell him to either call me or see me!”

Vanessa sighed. “That’s only if he does show up. One night he didn’t come home for at least two days.”

MJ wanted to strangle this girl so much. He could sense she was lying. She knew something about Luka’s fate and was just staling MJ so he can leave or do something to her so she can be the victim. “Look! I may not like you, and I know you may not like me.”

“I do like you. You are going to be my brother in law.” Vanessa replied.

“But, we both like Luka. I just need you to talk to him and tell him to see me. I’m worried about him.” MJ begged. “Please Vanessa. Just let me talk to him.”

Vanessa went quiet as she looked down at MJ. “Alright.” She sighed. “I’ll try to get a hold of him and let him know you want too see him.”

MJ gave a small smile. “Thanks.” Vanessa nodded and closed the door as MJ went back to his car. Once he was back in drove back home, revealed he was out of that place and hope he didn’t have to go back there to ask for Luka again.

When he got home he slammed the door and collapsed on the couch and cried. “Where are you Luka. I miss you. I-I can’t loose you. P-please come home.” He cried and repeated those words over and over again.

MJ woke up his eyes red and a bit puffy from crying. He sniffled and wiped away the stray tears from his face. He looked outside and saw the sun was going down and that he was asleep for at least five hours. MJ checked his phone and saw no messages from Luka. MJ sighed, but got out of his thoughts hearing a knock on the door.

MJ sat their frozen hearing the knocks. Flashbacks to the day he heard about his parent’s death repeated in his head. Now the anxious older twin sat there waiting on some sign that this isn’t the police, he didn’t want to answer the door, see the officers and tell him that they found Luka’s body.

He couldn’t, he just couldn’t deal with another death! He snapped out of his thoughts when he heard a familiar scream.

“MJ! MJ!” MJ flinched, those were Luka’s screams. Quickly, he got up and unlocked the door only to be tackled by his crying little brother. MJ held his brother and slowly made back to the door to close it.

Luka was here, and alive! But where was he all this time?

MJ looked at his twin brother and was in complete shock. His hair was a mess, bloodshot and tired eyes from crying, his wrist were bruised like he was chained or something and his clothes were a mess. MJ looked at his brother from head to toe, and he just knew who did this. “D-did Vanessa do this to you?” He asked.

Luka let out a sob and nodded hugging his brother tight. “Don’t tell her where I am!” He cried. “Please.”

“I-I won’t!” MJ promised. “I won’t.” MJ hugged Luka tight holding his twin brother close to him as he cried. MJ was sad yet relieved Luka was alright, but had to suffer in Vanessa’s hands. He’d ask his brother what happened, but he just needed to comfort his little brother.

#ahit twin au #ahit au #A hat in time AU #ahit #A Hat in Time #Moonjumper #ahit snatcher #ahit the prince #Queen Vanessa #Snatcher

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kristenbeeapples · 4 years ago

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fic writer interview!

tagged by the wonderful @nonbinarywithaknife (sorry it took me so long whoops) under the cut bc it got longgg

name: macaronidoodles on ao3 i made the acount when i was like thirteen and truly have no memory of why i chose that name lol

fandoms: only d20 and mostly just fantasy high so far, but i am loving the new naddpod season so there may be some eldermourne content in the future :eyes:

where you post: here and on ao3! mostly i crosspost here to promote work but i have a couple shorter prompts from when i first started posting fic that i’ve never bothered to upload to ao3 (you can find them if you scroll far enough back in my fic tag, if you’re interested)

most popular oneshot: apparently it’s still oh, there is thunder in our hearts which is kristen’s pov in the nightmare forest after sacrificing herself for riz. it’s the first d20 fic i posted that really took off and i’m still really proud of it!

most popular multi-chapter: by virtue of being the only one, it’s my bbfic let the wolves sing which follows tracker and ragh’s adventures in fallinel! i worked really hard on it and the response to it so far has been great so i’m v happy :)

fics you were nervous to post: a gentle rage which is a 5+1 of gorgug and ragh talking and falling in love. i was nervous both because it was a gift for the d20 gift exchange and because it was my first time writing a fic that was strictly romance? people did enjoy it but for a variety of reasons i think i prefer writing platonic content to romance in general.

how do you choose your titles: standard choice of song lyrics, but in my more recent fics i’ve been using a line i like from the fic and i think i’ll do that more in the future!

do you outline: not really? i normally have a vague idea of scenes/sections but i had to have people walk me through how to do it properly when i had to submit one for the big bang (thank u bbdiscord!)

favorite story i’ve written so far: my head is still full of let the wolves sing because i published it most recently but i think my favourite and the one i re-read most often is frame the halves, call them a whole which is kristen coming out to her little brothers :’)

complete/in progress: again i just have the one multichapter and it’s complete!

coming soon: more bad kids friendship content! i’ve been itching to write something about fabian and kristen and also maybe an equivalent to the boy’s night one shot with the bad girls + ayda. probably will also write some unsleeping city content as the season ramps up and again hopefully some eldermourne soon (i am SO excited for the new arc with lou!!)

prompts: if this means can you send me prompts, absolutely! no guarantee that i’ll get them done but it’s so fun when people send me stuff !

tagging: like all my fic writing mutuals have been tagged in this already but if you want to do it and haven’t been tagged yet please say i tagged u!!

#my writing #my fic #tag games #long post #i did realise whilst i was writing this that i've had my ao3 account for nearly ten years.................................. wtf

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oblivionscribe · 5 years ago

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Why don't you link your Twitter account to your other social media? What about your posts? Once you upload it here you link the NS4W version (twitter version) below. It's kinda easier I think .v.

Hey Anon, I could try to link my other social media accounts more often when I do post here but to be honest I can’t promise to link every post I make outside Tumblr to my Tumblr posts here. I am more active on Twitter and do recommend that if you’re 1/8+ and wanna see a majority of my art, follow me there. I understand that not everyone has or even wants a twitter account (trust me, I understand keeping up with so many different accounts gets daunting) but it’s where I’m most active outside of Patreon and Instagram (which barely allows risque artwork) art-wise. I have been meaning to make a page where interested parties can see where else to find me instead of relying on a post I reblog every few weeks, give or take. Tumblr also has, or had I barely keep up with how messed up this platform has gotten, a habit of burying posts that have outside links - my Patreon and Commission links are redirect pages to circumnavigate that issue, so it really just became habitual to just include those two links. I’ll try to remember to link my Twitter account when I post new pieces, though it won’t be direct links to each post, just my Twitter profile. TL;DR - I certainly could do that but I suggest, if possible, to follow me on Twitter since I’m more active there. I’ll try on my end to have a better way to reach more of my content, hopefully soon. Thanks for the question, it took me a while to respond because I didn’t want to come off as douchey? Interpreting context is something I struggle with.

#anon #answers #let's pray i get more organized by the end of this year #Anonymous

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dracjoonie · 6 years ago

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BTS Reactions - They Have A Crush On Their New Tour Photographer (Photographer!Reader)

I tried to have some fun with this one, I’m not sure if its 100% what you wanted but hopefully its still entertaining <3

Tags: Just fluff and awkwardness

Requests are open ! 𝕄𝕒𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕝𝕚𝕤𝕥

𝕊𝕖𝕠𝕜𝕛𝕚𝕟

You would have caught his eye immediately. He’s a grown ass adult so idk if “crush” would be an appropriate word to use, but he’d definitely be interested. And not at all afraid to show it. From day one of meeting you he would be walking right up to you to make small talk.

“Hi, I’m worldwide cutie guy; Jin. What’s your name??....Y/N..? I like that.. it suits you.”

“I hope you like it here, let me know if any of the other guys give you trouble though, I’ll knock em out.” He’d say playfully throwing up his fists.

When it came to you going on tour with them he would find excuses to talk to you, or would catch you as you were walking down the hallway. He would never be so persistent that he made you uncomfortable, but his interest would definitely be known.I think he would also make sure you were always taken care of(made sure you were fed, that you were getting enough sleep, that your hotel accommodations were up to pare) , adding that same concern to the rest of the staff as an afterthought/cover-up. When it was time to perform and you were taking pictures he would be very aware of where you were located. Every single show he would find you and his eyes would only leave your camera when the choreo forced him to look away, or while he was interacting with fans. It would be 1000% more intense while he was singing his solos as well because it would be like he was singing to you. The little staff member in the corner with the big camera.

“Hey Jin..? I know this is a strange question… But have you..perhaps.. Been flirting with me?”

“Did you only know realize that? Sweetheart, you’ve got a lot to learn.”

𝕐𝕠𝕠𝕟𝕘𝕚

He would probably be a little shy upon meeting you. Maybe waltzing into the meeting late/last and noticing you in the room, and then he would have a hard to looking away. Might even start daydreaming while looking in your direction. I think someone would probably notice him staring and bump his shoulder, and he would get all embarrassed about it. That classic gummy smile. He would say “Hi..” under his breath, and might awkwardly reach out his hand for you to shake.

He’d say~ “I’m Su-Yoongi, What’s your name?... Oh..Nice to meet you...Y/N.” Just before he bowed his head to you, smiling.

“Guess I’ll see you around.”

I think once tour started he would kind of keep tabs on you, but super lowkey so nobody would suspect anything or tease him. He would just want to know if you had showed up yet so he could compose himself in how to act around you. I don’t think he’s the type to catch a crush easily, so I think he wouldn’t really know how deal with one. New territory. But he would mostly try and act like it didn’t exist, or he would put up his typical cool/tough guy persona thinking that would make him seem more attractive to you.

During shows I think he would try and avoid eye contact with you as much as he could, but he would be hyper aware of your presence. Might even show off, or make sure when he was crowd pleasing it’d be at a good angle for you to take the best pictures. Mostly I just think he would pretend crushes were above him, but if he were ever confronted on it he would be super smooth about it.

“Hey, so I notice you always leave the room when I enter… have you been avoiding me.?”

“Truth is, I’m just a busy guy, but I’d be willing to tell you all about that over drinks some time..” *internal screaming*

ℍ𝕠𝕤𝕖𝕠𝕜

Like Jin I think he would be pretty unfazed. As soon as you met he would be all sly smiles and confidence. Wouldn’t be his first rodeo. He knows his strengths, and he would know how to use them to catch your attention. He would have no problem walking right up to you and introducing himself personally. Would also probably find and excuse to touch you.

“Hey, I’m Hoseok but you can call me Hope. We don’t usually get new staff as cute as you; I’m sorry, what was your name again?....Y/N? I’ll remember that.” Winks.

“Oh, let me just..” As he reaches out to move a misplaced strand of hair.

“There you go. Let me know if you need anything, I’ll take care of it personally.”

So confident he gets called out by the other members for his boldness. Honestly if he had a crush I think “Jay” would take over, and we all know how that goes. I think on tour he would be the most obvious. He’s already rude on stage, but he would be worse. And always in full view of you, making eye contact at the most spine chilling times before licking his lips and flinging water all over the crowd. He’d also be gauging the way you would look at him off stage, especially after a show. Guy would 100% know what he was doing to you at all times.

“Hey, so Hoseok? I think I’m gonna have to delete most of tonight's photos.. They’re very….”

“Very what?” He’d say getting closer, eyeing you as you fiddled with your camera nervously.

“Um…. risque.”

“Hmm, You know.. You’re even cuter when you blush.”

ℕ𝕒𝕞𝕛𝕠𝕠𝕟

He would get real stiff as soon as you entered the meeting room, probably nothing too noticeable, but he would be moving his hands around a lot or pushing his chin out a little more than usual. Probably would just try and remain professional and not give you much attention. Wouldn’t have too much trouble introducing himself, mostly from all the years of being the leader and having to get past his shyness.

“I’m RM..But you can just call me Namjoon.. This is-” Starts introducing all the other members. “I’m sorry, what was your name again? Y/N..hm.. so um.. How long have you worked as a photographer for? OH, well, we’re lucky to have you as part of the team.” And that would fill the quota for his social interaction with you that day. Nailed it.

During tour he would try not to be as much of a goof in front of you, wanting to give a good impression. But his goofiness would always follow him in the end. He would try to make small talk with you and wouldn’t be paying attention and would drop something, or be banging his hands on the table until things started falling. Or you would walk in while he was dancing around or making dorky sound effect and every time he would just hang his head in embarrassment. Probably would say sorry a lot, even though he hadn't done anything wrong. He would be thankful for the concerts because he could show you his cool side for once. Having the time of his life doing what he’s good at. And I think he would smile whenever he spotted your camera tracking him. It’d probably boost his confidence, and he would do more crowed pleasing because of it.

“So Namjoon.. I can't help but notice that you get really shy around me.. You wanna tell me something?”

“I..umm.” Gets really bashful.

“You caught me..” Gathers the last of his courage. “I can tell you about it over dinner some time if you’d like.. You can say no but.. I’m sorry, can I start over?”

𝕁𝕚𝕞𝕚𝕟

He would be shy and smiley, but would play it off too well. When you entered the room I feel like the members would tease him immediately because of the way he would be looking at you. But he would just laugh it off, maybe looking back to you and raising his brows. Pushing his hair back per usual as he composed himself. Probably would wait for someone else to introduce him. Always teeter tottering between actually being shy and faking it.

“Nice to meet you Y/N. Wow you are soo cute.” And then he’d laugh really shlyly...sorta...kinda...on purpose.

“Well, cya around.” He’d say before waving to you and biting his lip; totally would be pressing his hair back again per usual.

This kid would be such a lil shit on tour around you. From not so subtly flirting with you, to impromptu dance practice simply because you were in the same room working. Oh he’s sweating? Might as well lift up his shirt to wipe the sweat away. Oh did he flash you? Woops. In the midst of him being evil he would also be very attentive and sweet. He would/does always thank the staff after a show, but might lingering on you a little longer. Always making sure you were ok, maybe even asking if you would ever want to tag along with him and the gang on group lunch breaks. During the actual concerts though... He’d be dragging the other members into his thot antics too, no one is safe. He’d be all body rolls and lip bites, totally just for the fans though.

“Hey Jimin?.. so ummm.. I wanted to show you this shot of you I took tonight.. The spotlight made you look like-”

“An angel? I know. But why don’t we grab some Soju Bombs and I let you take some close ups instead?”

𝕋𝕒𝕖𝕙𝕪𝕦𝕟𝕘

He would be pretty awkward at first once he knew he caught a crush, but I think he’d warm up fast. He would probably just be sweet and quite once he first met you. Might ask Namjoon to help introduce him, but I think if he was being that obvious Namjoon and the members would just push him to do it himself.

“Hi!... I’m V!..”

“Hi V, I’m Y/N”

“Oh!... but I knew that..”

He would be super smiley around you, and would just bounce his hair around super content. He would probably ask you a bunch of questions about your cameras and how you got into such a profession. Would be really interested in seeing your other works as well. Wants to be your #1 model.

I think during tour he would probably find excused to be around you a lot. Or would ask you to take aesthetic pictures of him wherever you were traveling. Would insist it had to be you because he loved your style. Would ask for ways to credit your work when he was uploading pictures, being especially respectful if you were older. During shows he would always be striving to do his best (does that anyway but) wanting to show you all of his talent and stardom. Would pose especially for you and would smile cutely when you’d give him a thumbs up after getting a good shot. I don’t think he would show of too much, just hoping you would like him back when he showed you his genuine self. Overall pure as gold, protect him.

“Hey, Y/N? There’s this museum I heard about in this city.. I was hoping you would go with me? We could take pictures… Maybe it could be… a date?”

“I thought you’d never ask~”

𝕁𝕦𝕟𝕘𝕜𝕠𝕠𝕜

He’s another one I think would be really awkward about it at first. Awkward and obvious as hell. As soon as he knew, he would stand as far away from you as humanly possible. The other members might even have to physically drag him over to you to introduce himself.

“Hi! I’m JuNgkook!” He’d say overly loud, maybe his voice even cracking in the middle. And then he would just be awkwardly darting his eyes around the room to everything but you. That classic awkward smiley Jungshook face that falls into a 1000 yard stare when he thinks about it too hard.

“You ok there Jungkook?”

“Uhhhhh.. YeAh I’m gR8, you how are?... I mean…*cough* What’s your name?”

“Y/N.....?”

“coolcoOolcool..”

Once he realized having a crush wasn’t gonna kill him he would get a little more confident. Might take some encouragement from the members, but he’d get there. Might be a dozen shows into the tour, but who’s counting? Eventually he would start acting more normal in front of you, slowly bringing in his jokes and his goofiness once he knew how much he liked making you laugh. Lots of slapstick. Probably would stare a little too long if he made you smile/laugh though. Mildly Jungshook at all times. During concerts he would try and put his underlying awkwardness aside and play it up 1000 for the fans. He’d probably try not to keep making eye contact with you in the crowd but it would happen anyway. And if literally ANYTHING mildly embarrassing happened on stage, full on Jungshook mode would be back and he’d just malfunction thinking about how you just saw that. Might have to pinch him.

“Hey Jungkook, whatcha daydreaming about?”

“OH! Uh.. I.DON’T.know.. “

Anyone else in the room→ “Dude just ask her out already, this is getting hard to watch.”

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margridarnauds · 6 years ago

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A, F, G, M, S, T, V

THANKS AVERY.

A. If you could rec a piece of music to accompany one of your fics, what would you pick? Why?

Yakety Sax for Goosefic.

Alright, seriously? It’s totally not like I have a playlist or something stored anywhere, because that would be insane, right?

Illuminated by Hurts - Ah, Ça Ira. “Time waits for no one/So do you want to waste some time/Oh, oh, oh, oh/Tonight?” AKA “Ronan realizing that he might not make it back the next day and trying to get Laz to come to bed and reconcile with him, not necessarily because he wants to SLEEP with him, but because he wants his boyfriend there with him. “Swim with your sorrows/And try delusion for a while/It’s such a beautiful lie” Lazare frantically scribbling out his justifications on the paper, even though he has to KNOW that Artois’ going to abandon him and it’s going to be worthless. “Suddenly my eyes are open/Everything comes into focus/Blinding” GENERALLY I get Laz vibes from this line, with him gradually realizing how important Ronan is to him and that some part of him WANTS the new world that Ronan was, but the last few lines also work for Ronan’s (unstated, in-text, but there in canon) decision to charge in front of du Puget, realizing that he HAS to save Olympe from being orphaned like he was.

Either Dream of Sky (Dancing Line OST) or Forbidden Friendship (HTTYD OST) - Le Cri. Both of them have that sort of tentative, new feeling where things start out so soft and with that kind of innocence but as time goes on, it becomes so much MORE.

I’ve Seen Hell (North and South OST)/Ashes (Celine Dion) - Pour la Peine. I’ve Seen Hell is one of my go-to Period Drama songs, but I LOVE how it has that bleak feel while also not being COMPLETELY bleak and miserable, there’s that idea of PUSHING through in spite of it. And Ashes also kind of has a similar vibe, as far as openly asking how...there can be any GOOD after that kind of devastating tragedy (even though a part of me will always seen Ryan Reynolds doing interpretive dancing to it, tbh). Ashes is much more...RELIGIOUS in bent than Solène generally goes with, but I think it WORKS as far as that general feeling of despair and abandonment that she starts off with “Every word shot down in flames/What’s left to do/With these broken pieces on the floor?/I’m losing my voice/Calling on you”

Wicked Game - Personally, I favor it for A Pressing Matter, though it really works for Peyronan in general. “What a wicked game/To make me feel this way/What a wicked thing to do/To make me dream of you” AKA “Peyrol’s ENTIRE thought process when he realizes that, against his own judgement, he’s gotten attached to Ronan and that that’s a MAJOR weakness.

F. What stories are you planning for the future?

I have. So many WIPS that I’m DYING to release soon. One is very obviously the Fairy Tale AU, which I’m very pumped about. There’s the one that’s just called “Madame Roland is a Lesbian” that I’m excited for. At some point, I’m going to have to expand the Abomination and the Verse it encompasses, stretching from where we start off in the Beauce in 1777 to at LEAST the early 19th century, possibly into the 1840s.

Between the Waves is going to get a LOT more added to its Verse, hopefully. I already have at least two WIPS that are partially finished and give a little bit more context to things that are happening in the next few chapters, one from Olympe’s perspective on the pre-canon events that stretches to the post, one from Artois’ on some of the events of PLP, and I either have an Afterlife AU, a Reincarnation AU, or both to wrap it up, possibly with us ending up where we began. (No, not on Marat’s printing press.) I’ve also toyed with fleshing out a little more about how Peyronan got to where we see them in A Pressing Matter, to round out the series. Either way, though, I do intend for this to end up being a VERSE, not necessarily just one or two stand-alones. There’s a lot that’s...going to pop up here or there that I INTEND at least to expand on. I rarely like to leave things HANGING like that.

There’s also the Peasant Lazare AU which, even though it’s basically a laughing stock among my friends IRL at this point, is still very important to me and I’ve never fully given it up.

I’m definitely going to expand the Ripples in the Rockpool Verse, HOPEFULLY dipping more into the historical events that are happening around this time and a little more on how the OT3 ended up where they get to be in Back on the Shore.

There’s a Vampire AU that I’ve been toying with back and forth, and I STILL haven’t given up on The Zombie Apocalypse AU, though I’d like to focus on that one more when I have a fewer WIP count and I can more thoroughly outline it. Also @lehetsz-kiraly and I have toyed around with a Superhero AU that I would 100% like to see get off the ground, and I also am totally planning on toying with the TN crossover as time goes on. I obviously have no idea....WHEN or HOW, but it’s somewhere nebulously on my To-Do list.

And, of course, the Disneyworld AU. One day, I will finish it.

G. Where do you think you grew the most this year?

Honestly, I think the drabble challenge was a GREAT opportunity to throw myself into a variety of things that I NEVER would have considered before. I’ve gone from EXCLUSIVELY writing 1789 and Irish Mythology stuff to really working with anything that really vibes with me, which has been VERY exciting. And, between Le Cri, A Pressing Matter, and Back on the Shore, I’ve gotten several things that I’ve been talking about and tossing around for YEARS on the page and out there in some form or another. I’m still going to stick around 1789, of course, that’s still my BABY, but I really got the chance to work with a lot of things I’d have never normally have thrown myself into and had the chance to toy with my style in a way that I normally wouldn’t.

M. Meta! Have any meta about a story you’re dying to throw out there?

Oh God, there’s ONE THING that I WANT to write the meta for but SPOILERS. That I don’t even know if it’s SPOILERS anymore. (I should honestly get into the habit of asking people “SO WHAT DO YOU THINK’S GOING TO HAPPEN NOW” like a thirteen year old who’s just uploaded their first Wattpad fic, but alas). But, since I’m working on PLP at the moment, have this:

No, she gets no sleep tonight, her eyes locked on the bayonets as they gleam in the moonlight. She lays and waits and thinks.

Several hours later, a shot rings out in the dark. All the demons of Hell break loose, the only thought on Solène’s mind being that of another night, another volley of shots.

They mean to massacre them all.

The Queen has changed the King’s mind again and they will all be killed.

Every part of her knows it, screaming in her mind as they make their way for the Queen’s quarters, all else, all other thoughts disappearing.

A panicked voice asks them what they think they’re doing and another voice, she doesn’t know if it’s hers or one of the women with her, replies, “We’ll cut off her head, rip out her heart, fry her liver, and that won’t be the end of it!”

They are done with this, done with the queen, and they will take whatever they can get.

They have endured too much pain at this point to just curl up and die.

This wasn’t a fight they wanted to begin, but if it was a fight they needed to survive the night, they could give it to them.

They could give and give and give as they had always done, all of their lives.

A few guardsmen try to stop them, but they disappear beneath the wave of bodies flooding the palace. One of them breaks free, runs and pounds on the door, his bloodied hand staining the expensive, gilt wood as it slams against it before he’s tossed aside. “Save the Queen!”

A door slams ahead of them as they reach the room, the room itself is deserted, except for one woman who rushes in front of them all.

“I am the Queen!”

Solène recognizes the voice even before she can see her in the light of the torches, still wearing the clothing that she’d worn the night before, and she freezes.

So, for this section, I ripped a LOT from the historical record, as far as the threats the women made on the life of Marie Antoinette, the guard slamming on the door, the shot in the dark panicking the mob, BUT I also actually did look up at least one article on mob mentality to try to understand HOW someone would get involved with something like this. And the first thing I focused on was the INDIVIDUAL getting pushed aside in favor of the group. And the main way I ended up TRYING to get that to show through was in Solène’s reaction.

At first, she starts off as a singular: “She lays and waits and thinks” “The only thought on Solène’s mind,” etc. But then, immediately AFTER that, as the panic sets in, she becomes a PLURAL, “They mean to massacre them all” “They will all be killed,” “they are done with this” “they have endured too much.” And it really reaches its height when they enter MA’s chambers, as she doesn’t even know WHO is speaking. It could’ve been her, it could’ve been the woman by her side, likewise with the guard who’s severely hurt (also, the “wave” of bodies, going back to the overall theme of water that’s there in PLP). She doesn’t know, because at this point, they’re one whole body acting out at the same time. (There’s one brief point where Solène becomes a “her” again, but it’s only to say that her brain is NOT necessarily...its usual self, “all other thoughts disappearing,” which repeats what she’d also said when the shot first went off; she’s very much acting on INSTINCT here.)

When does she become Solène again? When Olympe runs in front of her. She and Olympe are not a Thing per se, not at this point, even though Solène’s recognizing that she’s “a little bit in love with her,” but Solène does care enough for Olympe that she was able to be snapped out of it. In the chapter that I currently have sitting in my drafts and that SHOULD be published in the next day or so, there’s a bit where Olympe questions whether Solène would have continued on if she hadn’t been there. Solène says that she doesn’t know, because to HER this unlocked a part of herself that she didn’t really know was THERE, the kind of radicalism that she tends to associate with Ronan and the other revolutionaries (ESPECIALLY Maillard, who is kind of Ronan-By-Proxy here as a vanqueur of the Bastille who is ultimately ineffective when it comes to Solène’s complaints.) Personally? Even though I fully leave it up to interpretation, and everyone’s free to say “No, you’re wrong,” I wrote it with the idea that Solène probably would have done a Hell of a lot more harm had Olympe not been there.

This is also fully intended as a parallel to Peyronan. (”NO, RACHEL, PEYRONAN ARE A THING? I HAD NO IDEA! THE SPOILERS!”) Both Peyrol and Solène had the same choice in this chapter, at its core: Their goal at hand, or the person they love. Peyrol let the army and his loyalty to the Monarchy get the better of him, Ronan ended up paying the price for it, and, as we see both at the funeral and at the trial at the beginning of the chapter...Laz is BROKEN by it. Solène doesn’t realize why he’s broken and even doubts that he is, because she doesn’t have the perspective, but...LOOK at him. He is not doing Well. He didn’t gain anything from what he did. In a snap-second decision, he chose his career and decades of indoctrination over Ronan, and he ended up losing both. Solène chose to break out of it and save Olympe, even if she was personally endangered by it. It doesn’t mean that one loved their person more than the other one, but it DOES mean that they get very different results. There’s a climb to the light for Laz as well, I’m not going to just...LEAVE him, but it’s going to be much, much longer than Solène’s.

S. What’s the sexiest thing you wrote this year?

I’ll be honest: I know I have (2) Official Smut Fics to my name now, but I honestly don’t FEEL like anything I’ve written’s particularly SEXY so much as Describing Sex. This isn’t me being a Pretentious Literary Author who Does Not Write Porn, oh no; it’s that I genuinely don’t believe that what I write...qualifies as “sexy”. That being said, despite being only 100 words, “Honey Plunged Into Water” is probably the sexehiest. Which is hilarious because it’s also the kind of thing I would NEVER have written otherwise. There is one...unpublished fic for A Passage Through the Light that features Madame Roland/Marie-Anne that is....very, very gay and is probably honestly the sexiest thing I’ve ever written even without them actually doing the do.

T. Themes, motherfucker, do you have them? What are they?

Earn Your Happy Ending, the question as far as the difference between society and what someone’s been conditioned to be like VS the individual, uncertainty, unease, that question of how much you really CAN know someone else, that general feeling of the calm before (or even during) the storm and how people can find intimacy then. There’s a lot of the gothic element there as far as the past, and the people who were THERE in the past, never really being...GONE from the narrative. Like, one way or another, they have the tendency to come back, whether it’s as a literal ghost or whether it’s just their skeleton buried underneath a tree somewhere.

V. Which story was the most viscerally pleasing to write? Tell us your narrative kinks.

This is painfully predictable, but I THOROUGHLY enjoyed every second of writing Forgiveness. To this day, it’s probably the ONE piece of Peyronan stuff (besides Fowl Play!) that I’ve written where I’m, like, 95% happy with the final result, which is REMARKABLE for me. I really, really loved getting to WORK with their relationship and what makes it WORK at the heart of everything, the progression of it, the gradual increase in intimacy, the way they come to have that moment of “We’re in this one TOGETHER,” and an ending that’s HOPEFUL even though there’s still the ever-present promise of the Revolution in the background. All of that is a LOT of what I tend to like in my Peyronan to begin with, so it was really fantastic to just get that all out on the page. It’s one of those moments where I just want to gesture all over the page and go “THESE TWO LOVE EACH OTHER SO MUCH” even though they still have their bickering and their petty little moments.

Another one that’s a WIP but that I feel’s far enough along to actually TALK about is the Fairy Tale AU (It has a name, but I tend to feel like announcing its name is jinxing it and I DO desperately want to get it out soon) and...it’s not my usual writing style, it’s not my usual way of doing things. There are some things that I do there that I wouldn’t necessarily do in a usual, realistic fic because it’s a FAIRY TALE that’s being given the 1789 treatment. It was really, really interesting to get to work with some of my favorite fairy tales, see some of the ways they’ve been told and retold throughout the years, especially looking for the ones that focus on commoner protagonists, elements of the gothic and dark fantasy mixed in there with the light. I’m not really that USED to getting to go wild, so it’s been a lot of fun to have one project where the research is less on the minutiae of 18th century life and more on...like....the similarities between the Italian and the Breton versions of The Travelling Companion folkstory.

#janetcarter

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fordarkisthesuede · 6 years ago

Text

At the Brink of Midnight - Chapter 9

*Arrives two days late with Starbucks* ‘Sup, guys! σ( ▼∀▼)σ These past 96 hours have somehow filled me with a weird chaotic energy, and I pumped out the longest roller-coaster of a chapter I’ve ever done in such a short amount of time!!! Thank you, whoever sent all the writing vibes my way!!!! ★>d(,,･ε´-,,)⌒☆ I’m sending out strong vibes to everybody in return! *May you get hit by the writing bug and have the opportunity and energy to completely translate your ideas to printed words!*

Buuut a big note before we get to the good stuff: I realized too late that the original events of S2 take place in Spring. Like…April. I was writing all of this with the thought that S2 took place in fall; I mean, the characters can wear a leather jacket or a couple of layers comfortably, so I thought “yeah that sounds like early autumn”. Nope! So that means that for this story’s timeline, everything gets shifted into where it should be. On the downside, that means I had to go through and edit all the bits where it said “it was totally spring, you guys”. On the upside… IT’S NOW OCTOBER!!!!! THE SPOOKY SEASON THAT COMPLETELY FITS WITH WHAT’S GOING ON!!! And coincidentally, it’s my favorite time of the year, so I love writing about it even more! I get to add in a thing here and there about the spookiest time of the year, so I’ll have a nice list of what those little changes are uploaded here soon if you don’t feel like re-reading the whole thing. A re-read isn't necessary though, just keep in mind that the humid air of rainy spring in the city is replaced with chilling fronts and even more cloud cover than usual. Why am I bothering with this? Because I’m a stickler for keeping with canon as much as possible and I feel like an absolute fool for not remembering what goddamn time of year it was to begin with. (I mean, I went so far as to download all of TeamFourStar’s play-through because I watched it so often, you think I'd remember to go back and watch the very beginning once in a while…)

Anywho, thank you all again for your continuously loving support!!!

♡~(ɔ ˘3˘)˘⌣˘ c)

Important Spoiler Tags: drugs (mentioned), swearing, canon-typical violence, electric shocks (mentioned), torture of flowers, flirting, almost an excessive use of emoji, crying, romantic dirty thoughts

Read on Ao3 or continue below:

Chapter 9: Grapevines

Bruce Wayne couldn’t remember the last time he’d conducted a meeting from his home office. It wasn’t as if he didn’t use it – the desk surface had hardly any dust settled on it and two empty coffee mugs he’d forgotten about on two different occasions just happened to be stacked behind the monitor – but it felt strange, like a lot of things did lately.

He knew part of the reason for that was watching houses down in the Batcave right now. Knowing he wasn’t alone in the house was comforting, but knowing there were two cops outside the Manor’s front door just waiting for a chance to grab his best friend-cum-houseguest was not, and knowing that they were both close to being thrown in hot water was even less so.

He figured the other reason he felt strange was because he was slipping back into his old habit as if it had never been shelved in the first place. He had time to kill before the video meeting started, so he’d been scouring for information on “Pam”, Jonathan Crane’s ‘old friend’.

There were a few Pamela’s in Gotham, but only one fit within Crane’s age-range and attended Gotham University at about the same time: Pamela Isley, a forty-four-year-old former botanist with a record that ran the length of his arm. Theft, assault, threats, and attempted poisonings all done in the name of extreme environmentalism and social activism were sprinkled in her history before and after her days as a researcher, and according to GCPD records, she was now suspected of running her own drug-ring under the moniker of ‘Poison Ivy’. (Bruce found several recorded instances of people claiming to be Poison Ivy, most of whom were already arrested.)

Bruce would’ve wondered why on Earth she hadn’t been thrown in prison when she made a bomb-threat at a wealthy businessman several states away nearly a decade ago if he hadn’t seen her mug-shot from back then. At thirty-five, she looked every bit as beautiful as a top-billed Hollywood star, with natural orange-red curls cascading over her pale shoulders and ample bust in chemically-tamed waves, flashing the camera a come-hither stare that made it look like she was trying for a part in a high-budget porn flick rather than standing in front of a height chart for her criminal record. Pamela’s charges were mysteriously swept under the rug.

The latest photo he found of her reminded him a bit of those ‘cougar’ dating ads he’d seen – the older Pamela was blowing a kiss to the camera with a mocking look in her dark green eyes. Bruce glared at it. There was little doubt she was using people to cover for her constantly, and when she was in trouble, she managed to wriggle out of it with her looks.

Not this time. She was friends with Dr. Jonathan Crane, and that meant she wasn’t going to get out of this unharmed. The second his virtual meeting was over, Bruce was heading towards Toxic Acres, and hopefully the wounded Crane would still be there to see Batman’s fist hit his –

Bruce snapped out of his thoughts at the buzz of his phone. A message from the BatComputer…?

I’m bored :/

Bruce blinked down at the screen. John had found the emergency messaging system. Of course he had. He was just grateful that the encryption software on his phone was still up to date. Just what else did John poke his nose into down there…? (There was the chance that John would see files he shouldn’t, but Bruce kept those under a thumbprint encryption. He shouldn’t even entertain the thought.)

Stake-outs are usually pretty boring.

It wouldn’t be so bad if you were down here tho! :)

Bruce hovered his thumb over the keyboard, unsure of what to say. The feeling was kind of mutual, if he was being honest; having another person around on a stakeout would at least keep his mind wandering into the worsts of what-ifs and double-checking every last security issue…

No movement on either houses btw. Been reading Crane’s docs in the meantime but it’s DREADFUL!!! I feel like I’m reading a sleeping pill… =_=

You finish your WE stuff yet?

Meeting’s not for another 20 minutes. Been looking up stuff on Crane’s “friend”.

Oh??? :o Do tell!!!!

Bruce couldn’t help but smile at the enthusiasm.

Pamela Isley, former botanist w/ criminal rec., mostly extreme protest kind of stuff. Good chance she’s the head of a drug-ring that moved here a couple months ago; their leader goes by “Poison Ivy”.

They went to college together, but Pamela moved back here recently.

hMmMmm…. That means no burning the place down if we’re stuck! Bad fumes everywhere xP

Bruce focused on the word “we’re”. He hadn’t been planning on bringing John along. He wanted him safe, at home, where no one had a chance of seeing him and he wasn’t put in harm’s way…

Oh!!! You’ve got a bunch of sticky electro-shockers around - do you mind if I tinker with them? :3c pleeeeaaasssee?

What are you thinking of doing with them?

Making one BIIIIIG shock-bomb, of course! ;D I can wire them together so the shock spreads evenly in the space while it’s discharging.

Bruce reconsidered bringing John. He was still learning to curb his impulses, so being outside in a fighting environment would be a serious gamble, but... Maybe that could be their advantage, too. Bruce made a mental note to go dig out the spare bullet-proof vest from his closet’s secret panel.

You can do that?

I played around with making something like it before, but……well, you know.

Time + supplies for that project were low att. I figured I could always go back to it later anyway.

Bruce felt like his heart had deflated and swelled in such a short time that it hurt.

I mean I’m fine with throwing knives around too but I figured that would be less discrete ¯\_(ツ )_/¯

He’d been thinking of different methods of entering the “house”. Most of them featured a silent slip-in and as little combat as possible, but he knew that there would likely be some muscle around to stop any would-be intruders, and getting a quieter jump on them would certainly be helpful. He would certainly be lying if he said he wasn’t impressed that John had thought that far ahead even back then.

If you think you can get it done within 1.5 hours, then yes.

Ha ha ha with these supplies I can get it done in like 40 mins! >:3 just you watch!!!

Btw have you seen the news?

Not yet. Why?

I was on the morning edition! At least they used a good pic ;D

But also saw a guy getting fished out of the harbor. Your handy-dandy invasion software said he’s a registered Ryde driver.

I told you not to fiddle with that.

Sorry, but I only used it the once! Promise!!!

Bruce sighed through his nostrils.

Besides I thought you’d want to know. Think Crane stole his ride and dumped him by the docks? :v

Probably. I can get the plate from up here to verify. DO NOT TOUCH THAT PROGRAM AGAIN.

Yes sir ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Bruce wasn’t sure if that message was supposed to be flirtatious or mocking.

The incoming call from Iman Avesta stopped him from responding. He figured it had to do with John’s escape and the extra security added at Wayne Tower this morning, but why was she calling him now, rather than several hours ago?

“Iman?”

“Hey, Bruce. Hold on a sec – there we go, now we can both -”

“Bruce, what the fuck?” Tiffany asked over the line. “Are you at home right now?”

Bruce almost sighed at the attitude. “Yes, Tiffany, I’m at home, in my office.”

“Uh-huh. I keep getting alerts that your basement’s messaging system is being used. Care to explain that?”

Oh. Of course. He’d forgotten Tiffany had linked her phone to that, too. It’d just…been too long, he supposed. (She couldn’t read them, though, could she? He was fairly sure it didn’t give out mass-texts unless prompted.) “…where are you right now?”

Iman responded instead. “We’re in your second office.”

“…the line’s secure?”

“Of course.” Iman paused, and Bruce knew his new CSO was choosing her words carefully. “I’m guessing you have John Doe in the Batcave?”

“Yes.”

“Bruce, did you fucking break him out?” Tiffany asked with no shortness of impatience.

“I rescued him,” Bruce said firmly. “I know what you’re thinking, and I have a pretty good idea of what you’re going to say, but listen: I had no choice but to take him with me. One of the doctors working at Arkham has gone rogue – he’d been doing experiments on patients, and I have a feeling he’s going to continue them on civilians. I need to find him before then, and John has been helping me.”

“Helping…? You’re not bringing him in the field with you?” Tiffany said disbelievingly. “After that psychopath almost killed us?”

Bruce could still see Joker running at Tiffany, knife in hand, his psychotic breakdown in full force. He could still see him being smacked against the railing, sheer madness played over his long, bloody face as he desperately fought to stab what was his hero.

But John and Joker were as much the same as Bruce and Batman were, and they were constantly changing.

The Joker in the Batcave wasn’t the same one from Ace Chemicals.

“I know what John did,” he answered, trying to breathe even as something wanted to hitch in his throat, “and I know how far he’s come since then. I know you both regret-”

“No, I’m not listening to this right now,” Tiffany scowled, her voice fading in the middle her sentence like she was leaving the room. “Talk some sense into him.”

Bruce heard Iman’s voice call after her, and then nothing for a beat.

Iman sighed. “I’ll talk to her. But Bruce,” she started seriously, “Tiffany isn’t the only one worrying about you. Six months can’t possibly cure everything wrong with a man whose spent his life in an asylum.” He could practically hear her chew over her phrasing. “I need to know… If John goes too far – if he shows signs of regressing…or just becoming more volatile – I need to know you’re going to put your foot down.”

“I’m more than capable of handling him, Iman.”

“Please, Bruce, I’d rather not have to pull you off another broken pipe lodged in your kidney.” She paused, and Bruce let her continue, feeling the scar in his side twinge at the painful memory. “I know you care a lot about him,” she resumed in a softer tone, “and I know you trust him. But if you doubt him at any time, you need you to step back and re-evaluate your choices. I don’t want him to regress back into the Joker.”

That was a different Joker, Bruce wanted to say. He knew that wouldn’t sound the way it should. “I promise I won’t let that happen.”

“Good to know,” Iman replied, sounding somewhat relieved. “This doctor you’re hunting – is there anything we can do to help?”

Bruce shot a look at the clock in the corner of his monitor. He didn’t have as much time left as he would’ve liked before his virtual meeting started. “Tiffany can fill you in a bit, I had her help searching Arkham’s records before. Can you run a plate for me? I think Dr. Crane is running with a stolen car; I’ll send you the details in a bit.”

“Sure. We can check traffic cams for it, too, if you’d like.”

“If you would. And the second I have anything concrete on Dr. Crane, I’m sending Tiffany the details – I need her pull as Oracle to get the word out to the GCPD before anything happens. They’ll listen to their number-one informant more than a vigilante coming out of retirement.”

“…you’re…?”

He could almost see the shock in her face. They’d had a short discussion about his alter-ego when he decided to quit the first time; she’d been incredibly understanding about the whole thing. It was almost as if she’d seen it coming.

“Are you sure?”

He was as sure. She didn’t know about the instincts broiling underneath his surface every day. She didn’t know he never really stopped being half of himself. She wouldn’t know or really understand that he just shoved it all down and aside like he did so much else just to get through things. “I don’t have any other options at this point.”

“…you know you can count on us if you need the help.”

“Of course I do.”

“Right. Well, in the meantime we’ll keep the fort over here running as smoothly as possible.”

“Thank you. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Good luck.”

The line went silent, and Bruce pulled his phone away, catching a glimpse of three unread messages.

Sorry, buddy, I was just kidding around, you know? Ha ha

Bruce???

Hello???????

Sorry, had a phone call and couldn’t reply. It’s fine.

Seconds ticked by, and Bruce began changing out of his black t-shirt and into his button-down. It wouldn’t do to appear as a CEO in anything less than a proper suit. He could leave the jeans on, at least.

“Oh! Uh…sorry, Bruce…”

He felt his heart stop for a second. That was definitely John’s voice, even though it crackled slightly from the speakers. The monitor didn’t show anything out of the ordinary. John must have been using the spy-camera feature on the Batcomputer; it was linked to most the devices in the house, and Bruce’s webcam was no exception. He’d almost forgotten it had a loudspeaker function, too.

“I didn’t realize you were…um, changing.”

Bruce glared at the webcam’s lens. “John, what did I tell you about fiddling with the Batcomputer?”

“…sorry. I was worried when you didn’t answer me.”

He sounded genuine, at least. Bruce could easily picture him running upstairs to find him, if there wasn’t a chance he would’ve been seen. “I answered you a minute ago. I was on a call with Iman,” he stated plainly, fixing the buttons on his sleeves.

“…oh, ha ha, there it is! Uh, I guess I’ll just…go, then…”

Bruce almost questioned why John was sounding nervous and distracted, but it wasn’t until he saw the webcam light wink off again that he realized his shirt was wide open, the scars littering his torso half on display from the waist up.

Thankfully, no one was around to see Bruce bury his face in the palm of his hand for a moment, feeling like his face was on fire from first and second-hand embarrassment.

It didn’t last long. Bruce took a few deep breaths as he fixed himself up, and dialed into the meeting with a fixed expression of calm, firmly ignoring the heat that had settled in his stomach that threatened to go lower at the thought that John was bound not to forget any of that.

Driving the Batmobile in full gear again was certainly something else. Bruce felt the weight of the Kevlar body armor press against his limbs as he sped down Gotham’s twisting alley streets, no one any the wiser that the Wayne’s red sports car was hiding Batman behind it. The city’s CCTV signal was scrambled with the flick of a switch as he came into driving distance of the alley’s camera, making him almost untraceable.

He’d given the Honda Accord a head-start; it couldn’t go nearly as fast as the Batmobile, and Bruce had to find a spot to safely change before going to go pick John up from his drop-off point, and the post-working-hours traffic had already gotten its usual early start. It was a slower drive than he’d like it to be, even with Bruce’s shortcuts.

The setting sun was completely obscured by a dark overcast. It made the orange streetlamps glowing over the decorations sitting here and there in windows and doors even more energetic, like every corner of Gotham was slowly growing with the energy of Halloween.

Bruce clicked the communicator in his cowl. “John, are you there yet?”

Silence for a few seconds, and then a rustling noise. “Sorry, I had to take this off for a bit. What?”

“Are you there yet?”

John giggled slightly. “Oh, yeah, I’m here. Just waiting on you, pal.”

He was already at the meeting point? How did he get there so fast? “You put everything back where it was supposed to be?”

“No, I stripped the seats and threw everything into the garbage,” John grumbled with dripping sarcasm. “Of course I did, it’d be rude not to put Jerry’s stuff back. What do you take me for?”

“…I’m just making sure you didn’t forget anything.”

“I didn’t.” There was a loud slurping noise, like the last of a liquid being sucked from a straw.

“John, where are you right now?”

“In the alley, waiting for you.”

“Did you make a stop?”

John giggled, a little louder, but not at all nervous. He was enjoying himself. “What can I say? Going out on the town with you like this makes me thirsty,” he said with a strange purr. “Besides, no one bats an eye at me when I look like this anyway.” He paused. “Well, no, I’ve gotten some eyes on me, but, uh, I think they’re more the appreciative type. I guess ZZ Top was kinda right about the sharp-dresser thing.”

Bruce felt his brows knit together. “You’ve always looked sharp,” he said truthfully, turning down a narrow alley.

“Yeah, but not thousand-dollar-suit sharp. There’s a difference! Plus I think this bullet-proof vest makes me look a little bulkier than I actually am.”

Bruce spotted him leaning against the graffiti-covered wall, a Burger Lord cup in one hand and a plastic orange bag in another. Just how much time did Bruce lose while he was changing?

John tossed the drink in the dumpster and practically jumped into the car, shoving the orange bag behind the driver seat and slamming the door shut as Bruce switched off the communicator. He took one look at Bruce’s questioning glower and gave a nervous sort of grin. “Hey, don’t look at me like that, there’s something in there for you, too.”

Bruce almost asked what, but decided that a lecture on keeping a low profile and not taking money from his house’s various hiding spots would have to wait. (Though he supposed whatever John got wasn’t expensive. He was quite frugal, and it wasn’t as if Bruce couldn’t afford to buy John whatever he wanted anyway.) He concentrated instead on heading down the twisting path towards Toxic Acres. At least the traffic over there was a hell of a lot lighter.

“Hey, when you drove me to the Batcave, did you go in fourth gear, or third?”

He wasn’t sure why he asked, but he honestly couldn’t remember. He just recalled putting his foot to the floor and keeping his eyes on the road, occasionally reaching over to check John’s pulse. “I wasn’t really paying attention to that; I concentrating more on driving as fast as possible.”

“Oh – so you didn’t know you could punch the shift down into third whenever you wanted? It was so fun! I can say I literally punched it out of the Batcave!” He laughed. “I’m guessing you can’t do that in this car?”

“…I’ve got paddle shifters.” They were starting to travel into the more deserted road leading into Toxic Acres. Bruce took a sharp turn onto the hill with the broken Do Not Enter sign, and checking that no one was behind him, flipped the switch to shift the car into armored plates and pressed the wheel-paddle for a lower gear.

They flew down the road with a whirring whine of the engine, John’s notorious excited laugh mixing with it, and Bruce allowed himself to smile a little at it, knowing his own little joyful thrill wouldn’t last very long.

John was soon tapping his fingers together in some kind of rhythm as they passed by more empty houses, Bruce moving a little slower to keep his eyes out for trouble. Sitting close to the river on the outskirts of the city, they were originally meant to be a long neighborhood for the middle and upper class to build their lives, but as the unemployment and crime rates rose, the place became abandoned. It didn’t help that the piping structure to carry water there had been faulty, making either lead poisoning or unfiltered dirty water a prominent problem and giving the section of Gotham its nickname.

“How do we know which place is the botanist’s?” John asked, his green eyes scouring the houses in front of them.

“I sent out another drone earlier for some aerial shots. There’s a place with camouflaged green-houses in the back on Aster Place.”

“Wow, you did that before I left? That was fast…”

“It was a quick job. I’m not picking up the other drone until later.”

They turned the corner onto Aster Place; the road would dead-end in a while, but Bruce knew the house wouldn’t be situated at the end.

“Oh, there’s the spot Jackie got shot at!” John pointed ahead. “I wonder if there’s a bloodstain left…!”

Bruce tightened his grip on the wheel. “We’re close.”

It was oddly quiet out there. There was no other sign of life in what was a hot-spot of criminal hide-outs. Bruce turned on the thermal vision in his cowl; a lot of the houses were actually empty for once.

Except for one. 1801 Aster Place. There were a group of people scattered around on the bottom floor and what appeared to be a lot of heat-lamps running on the top floor. If one of the people in the group wasn’t Pamela Isley, then she might have been holding up in the basement…

They left the Batmobile out of sight down the road, and Bruce and John moved swiftly behind the backs of the houses in the chilly night air, the taser bomb safely in John’s coat pocket; John was surprisingly quiet, only humming a familiar tune here and there. (Wasn’t it the theme from that old spy-thriller…?) Bruce managed to quiet him with a look, and John mimed locking his mouth shut and throwing the key away.

Two unknown people were standing in what used to be a kitchen; three more people were up in the front room of the house. There were no security cameras to be seen.

“Stick close to me,” Bruce whispered, the modifier in his cowl deepening his voice. “We go in through the back window, take out the two in the kitchen quietly and throw the bomb up front so we can cuff the lot. If none of them are Ms. Isley, we find the basement.”

John gave him a thumbs up, pulling out the riot baton he had hidden away. (Bruce had still not remembered when he or Alfred bought that, but vaguely remembered stashing it in the towel cupboard with some other emergency gear. He wasn’t surprised John found it.)

The bathroom window’s locks weren’t difficult to break. They looked like they had been broken several times already. Bruce slid the insect screen up and slipped in through the thin opening feet-first, twisting his limbs just right to softly land on the floor. He had to help pull John through the rest of the way after he smacked his head on the bottom of the window; thankfully he hadn’t made any noise, but he did give Bruce a strange look as brushed himself off where Bruce had gripped his sides.

Bruce didn’t have time to think about it.

The two people in the kitchen stood in semi-darkness, watching through the patio windows with rifles leaning against the wall. There wasn’t so much a bare bulb to give off light. Bruce figured their eyes might have adjusted to the dark, and signaled John to follow as he crept up behind the two goons.

“I dunno, with all the hype surrounding episode four, you just know those guys are going to mess up somewhere. Remember when they decided to let Celestyne drop to his death back in season one?” The one with dreadlocks asked.

“Oh, come on, that was just to test the game’s limits. Besides, Celestyne couldn’t die; I don’t think Jane can, either,” the second person responded in a higher voice with a casual shrug.

“Dude, you know the game’s gonna make her a villain in the end, though, right? She might die…”

Bruce was ready. John was gripping the baton with a widening grin…

“Are you kidding me? They have her affection meter up so high I’m surprised the game doesn’t have a dating opt-”

Bruce slammed dreadlocked goon’s head into the wall just as the baton crashed down on the other goon’s skull, little smears of blood marking the plaster and paint with a satisfying crack.

John clutched the collar of the goon he’d struck, gripping the slightly bloody baton a little harder in his other hand. He seemed to be thinking.

Bruce took a zip-tie out and cuffed the goon’s hands behind their back, and wondered just what John was staring at until he’d turned the person around and caught a glimpse of them in the light of the window.

They were both women with little tattoos of vines creeping along the back of their necks.

If Bruce guessed right, those were ivy leaves on the vine. Poison Ivy had a loyal gang.

John zip-tied the wrists of the woman he’d struck and patted the part of her head that wasn’t wounded. “Sorry,” he whispered as if she would hear it. “Lauren’s ex,” John mumbled, gesturing to the woman on the floor as if he knew Bruce had raised his eyebrow at him.

Bruce simply swept onward, spying the door for the basement. There was a light on in the front room, and three women who looked like they could be professional boxers of different weight categories were sitting in different areas. One was sharpening a knife at the table, and another was cleaning a semi-automatic rifle as the third kept watch over a monitor showing security camera footage; three looked to be by the greenhouses (Bruce recognized the Foxglove variety growing in one under an opening in the glass, sitting next to something that looked primeval), and two were watching over the plants upstairs (marijuana, by the looks of it) and in the basement.

There was a figure in the last screen, working over a row of potted plants with low lamps. A zoom-in with Bruce’s lenses showed long red hair.

Bruce felt a hand on his shoulder, and John crept ahead him, the taser-bomb in hand: it looked like a mass of the sticky-bombs grouped together, colorful wiring connecting them all like some kind of net, and before Bruce could do or say anything, John threw it into the living room, where it tumbled into the middle of the floor.

The group began to shoot out of their seats in a second, and in the next the ball seemed to expand like a geometric toy, the wired tasers being thrown in the air with a flash before smacking people and surfaces alike as they discharged. All three people fell to the floor in trembling heaps, and John dashed out and started to cuff them, Bruce close behind.

The electric bombs were safe to touch now that they had fully discharged, so Bruce had no qualm about stomping on the lightly-burning sections of carpet underneath some of them to prevent any spread of fire as he pushed them aside. The bulkiest goon wasn’t quite down for the count; she was still conscious.

She yanked John off her fallen comrade by his shoulder and threw him into the table’s edge. Bruce threw a Batarang at her arm just as she was about to punch, and John gave a swift knee to her stomach as she flinched.

She fell to the floor with a louder crash and a grunt, pulling the Batarang out from her arm and letting it drop to the floor. “You fucker…” She said, glaring up at John before looking over at Bruce, her eyes widening as he approached with more Batarangs at the ready. “B-Batman…?”

“Yup! He’s real,” John said playfully before smacking the side of her head with the baton. “And so am I,” he added with a growl. He decided to tie her wrists behind the nearest table leg. “I hate not being able to call myself Joker like this… Really sells it better.”

Bruce felt his heart twitch at the name. “You can call yourself that, if it helps,” Bruce said gently, tying the monitoring-station woman’s wrists together, “Just not to people’s faces.”

“Kinda defeats the point,” John grumbled.

Bruce shot a look at the security monitor – Pamela Isley didn’t seem to have heard anything. Still, precaution should be used. “Let’s go,” he said plainly, sweeping out of the room with a swish of his cape.

John tucked a hand into his pocket and followed.

The basement stairs were carpeted and quiet, but Bruce was careful to walk on the outsides rather than the middle. Spiders had clearly made themselves right at home in the damp corners of the walls, and he had to duck to avoid getting the tips of his cowl’s ears stuck in one of their webs. A soft sort of click was heard behind his back, and Bruce figured John had gotten out his grappling gun.

Pamela Isley was bent over a row of exotic-looking orchids posed under heat lamps, dabbing something into the center of a blue orchid’s petals. Bruce saw several troughs full of hallucinogenic mushrooms sitting on the other side of the wall.

“There you go, my darling,” she cooed in a honeyed voice, acting like she was carefully painting the center of the flower, “You’ll soon be the belle of the ball…”

Bruce eyed the electrical box on the other side of the room. It wouldn’t do to drown the place in darkness; he’d be able to see, but John wouldn’t. The best bet was to tackle and restrain her.

Or…

Bruce took out his own grappling gun, and aimed it at Isley’s collar. One click, and it snagged her shirt with practiced ease.

“What the-?!”

Pamela Isley was suddenly dragged yelping through the air at an angle, smacking hard into one of the tables and spilling several unusual potted flowers to the floor.

Bruce grabbed her and threw her to the concrete floor, standing over her with several Batarangs in his hand as John cackled beside him.

“Jonathan Crane,” Bruce growled out, “Where is he?”

Pamela Isley sat up, shock written all over her face as she processed exactly what happened – it quickly morphed to a steely stare. “Batman,” she said slowly in a sweet voice, “I thought you were an urban legend,” she continued, wiping the corner of her mouth where a dribble of blood leaked out. “Do you always treat a lady this way?”

Bruce dragged her up by her collar and threw her against the wall, keeping her at arm’s length. “I know he bought plants from you today. Tell me where he is.”

“Or what?” She taunted, smirking widely at him. “You think I haven’t been knocked around by men before? I’ve been in whole worlds of hurt, honey.”

There was the distinct sound of the grappling wire rushing through the air, and then an enormous crash – John had taken out one of the mushroom tables, the fungi now breaking and bouncing against the floor it the scattered in the dirt.

“Whoopsie,” John hummed, a wide unnerving grin on his face, “butter-fingers.”

Isley looked rather taken aback, but the expression quickly warped into a mocking glare. “You think destroying my inventory is going to intimidate me?”

John shrugged, leaning back against a table and knocking over a several small tropical plants with a slide of his hand, shattering the clay pots and sending the plants scattering to the hard floor.

That definitely got her attention; her face paled slightly and there was tremble in her. “Stop that!”

Bruce glared at her, mentally thanking John for his quick thinking. “Tell me where Crane is and I’ll consider stopping him from tearing this place apart.”

Her dark green eyes glared at him with a slow-boiling dislike. “Let me go first.”

Bruce did a very quick once-over; she didn’t seem to have a gun holster on her, and she was definitely a lighter build than the rest of her gang. Knives were still a possibility. He decided to let go, keeping a Batarang between his fingers just in case as he stepped just out of her reach.

Pamela dusted off her green turtleneck. “I don’t know where he is, and I don’t care. He bought a few of my flowers and left,” she said, crossing her arms.

John laughed, fingering the leaves of the blue orchid she’d been attending. “With a hole in his shoulder? You didn’t even offer a band-aid for that?”

Pamela was closely eyeing the plant in John’s hand. “What if I did?”

“I know he’s a friend of yours, Isley,” Bruce growled. “You’re the only one who could know what he’s planning.”

“I told you, I don’t know,” she stated, “and I don’t care. I’m not his mother.”

“I can see why you were paying such close attention to this one,” John hummed, fingering the petals with a gloved hand. “It’s so pretty. You put a lot of effort into keeping all these, huh?” He grinned at her, almost looking like his usual self. “It’s not just some financial scheme for you, is it?”

“Of course it is,” Pamela stared at him, trying to keep her voice level; Bruce noticed her eyes kept flicking slightly downward, like she was watching the plant. “I breed and sell rare plants to collectors on the side.”

“Oh good! So this won’t bother you!”

In a swift move, John cut the blossom off the stem with the bowie knife one of the group upstairs had been sharpening.

The blossom fell to the table, and Pamela Isley looked as if she’d seen a ghost.

John picked up the blossom. “Let’s see – she’s honest,” he said playfully, plucking a petal from the stem, “she’s not!” He pulled another.

“STOP IT!” Pamela shrieked, making to rush at him – Bruce pulled her back and pointed the tip of the Batarang at her face. She glanced at it fearfully, but then looked back at the flower being torn apart in John’s hand, and it looked like she was watching a child die before her eyes.

“Stop that,” Bruce instructed; John hummed and held it still. “Talk, or my partner and I crush every plant in this place.”

Isley stared at the flower in John’s hand. “I… I don’t know what he’s planning,” she said quietly, her voice cracking slightly. John only touched the tip of a petal before she spoke again – “But-! But I know… He’s building something. He didn’t say what, but he asked for some muscle - I hooked him up with some of Maroni’s old boys.” She shut her eyes and took a breath before glaring at John like he was a complete monster. “I hope the lot of them tears you limb from limb.”

Bruce forced Isley’s hands behind her back and zip-tied them. “Down on the ground,” he growled, pushing down on the top of her head. John pointed the grappling gun in her face with a smirk; a good insurance if she decided to try and elbow Bruce in the face.

Pamela shot them both a hateful glare as she knelt down, and it didn’t waver as her ankles were tied, too. “I won’t forget this,” she spat.

Bruce sent off a message to Tiffany regarding the coordinates of “Poison Ivy”’s headquarters from his gauntlet. He knew she’d get the word out before he could even get back in the car. “Tell it to the judge,” he taunted, leading the way out of the basement, not missing the sparkle in John’s eyes as he followed, the severed, torn orchid blossom having been carelessly thrown at Pamela Isley’s feet.

John gathered up the sticky bomb device before they hustled back to the Batmobile, and it wasn’t until the doors closed that he spoke, and when he did it was in a tone Bruce would almost call revered.

“So, what do we do now, partner?” He asked, a definite glow on his face.

“We go look at some of the Maroni gang’s old haunts and see if we can find anyone recently hired,” Bruce said, the voice modifier in his cowl now disabled. He glanced at his recent text messages: one from Tiffany giving the ok on Poison Ivy, and another from Iman with the last known location of the stolen Ryde car. “After we look into the motels in the red-light district. Crane might’ve stayed there.”

John laughed to himself, but for once he didn’t share the joke; instead, he pulled out a packet of jerky from the plastic bag he’d brought along. “I knew this would be a long night,” he said cheerfully, as if he was really looking forward to the whole thing.

It was well past one in the morning when Bruce arrived back home through the front gate, the Batsuit stowed away and the plates flipped back to red. The two patrol officers were only somewhat surprised to see him arrive back. Naturally, they reported nothing new, since John had been dropped off in the Batcave first.

Sore muscles were nothing new to Bruce. The old strained climb back up to his bed was just as annoying as ever. He honestly didn’t feel like he wanted to sleep, but after following several empty leads over the city and bruising a few heads alongside John, he did admit that he was physically exhausted. He knew lying down was better than nothing, and he still had to go to work in several hours like he didn’t have a double life. At least he wasn't starving, thanks to John thinking ahead and buying him protein-and-carb-filled snacks.

He forced himself to go through his usual nightly routine, despite the temptation to just flop into bed and lay there. He looked at the bruises on his back and ribs from where John had struggled against him under the influence of Crane’s drug, and decided not to bother putting the bruise-away cream on them, nor on the new ones forming on his shoulder from where one of the former mobsters had hit him.

When he did finally collapse onto the master bed in nothing but his boxer-briefs, his brain still decided to chat away at him.

There were no leads as to who exactly Isley had hired for Crane. Bruce cursed himself for not trying to work the specifics out of her. At least he knew she was arrested for drug possession and manufacturing, as well as smuggling illegal fauna.

There was no word on the whereabouts of Jackie Lant. Her car was missing, and she’d called into work sick. Her apartment hadn’t been visited in the entire time Bruce had his drone’s eye on it, and neither Tiffany nor Iman had seen anything when they looked into Jackie’s friends’ places, either. All Bruce knew was that she hadn’t called an ambulance to fetch her from Toxic Acres, that she hadn’t been admitted to a hospital, and that there was no sign of her body either in the Acres or in the Gotham River.

She was alive, somewhere, and Bruce didn’t know what she was going to do next. He hoped she was just going to lie low until he caught Crane.

Jonathan Crane was nowhere to be found. His house was still empty. He didn’t seem to be staying at any of the motels – or hotels – around the red-light district or its surrounding streets, and nothing had come of a quick credit-card check. The Ryde driver the GCPD fished out of the River that morning had been shot in the head, and his car was so common that if Crane could’ve switched the license plate with anything and been completely invisible. They’d done a quick search of the warehouse district and found no sign of him there, either.

Bruce had the nagging feeling that he wasn’t going to find Crane until the doctor reared his head.

The billionaire rolled onto his stomach, shoving the anxious thought away as he pressed his cheek further into the plush black jersey pillowcase. There were a couple more places he could check tomorrow…

The bedroom door creaked, and Bruce’s eyes shot open, a second away from grabbing the billy-club under his pillow – he could see John’s messy hair in his dark silhouette.

“Bruce? You awake?”

“Yeah,” he mumbled.

“…can I come in?”

“Sure.”

Bruce noticed he closed the door behind him. Like he was planning to stay there.

That definitely put a new light onto the situation. A tense thrill was building in his shoulders as John deigned to sit on the edge of the mattress, his back to Bruce.

John was only wearing his Arkham-regulated pants, and the pale white of his bare skin almost shone in the light streaming in from the window. Bruce saw several bruises forming, one of which was from where he’d gotten grabbed by the shoulder by a Poison Ivy goon, and several more where he’d gotten knocked into.

“…I don’t think I can sleep in that guest room,” John sighed. “I mean, I tried my usual methods of sleep induction, but… It’s too big…and empty. I’m really not used to that.” His voice came out quieter and more contemplative. “I know it’s weird, but do you mind if I sleep in here?” He asked, turning halfway to look right at Bruce.

He felt trapped. If he said no, at the worst John would sulk, and at the best John wouldn’t get any sleep, and that was definitely worse for his mental health. John had mentioned before about how regular sleep cycles were supposed to help with that.

If he said yes, though, he’d know he was sleeping next to John, and there was the tiny worry in the back of his head that John might…try something. Or at least roll over too much.

“I promise I’ll stay over on my side,” John muttered, not tearing his eyes away.

“Alright.”

A sweet smile stretched on his face. “Thanks, Bruce. You won’t regret this.”

“If you keep talking, I might.”

John giggled as he slid beneath the covers on the far side of the bed, flopping one of the extra pillows down between them. “There – a no-roll barrier,” he said as if he had to explain the concept to Bruce.

It did not escape Bruce’s attention that John had decided to lie facing him and rest his arm on top of the pillow. John had pulled the covers up to just underneath his armpits; Bruce could see John's sharp collarbone and the lean wiry muscle of his chest. (Bruce made sure not to look for more than a moment's curiosity would allow.)

God, John’s face was actually his for the first time that whole night. Bruce had gotten used to seeing it in the natural makeup, but it was almost a relief to see it in its normal borderline-luminescent white. He looked like the man Bruce knew.

Acid-green eyes stared at him, flicking slightly and growing soft. “I…did want to talk to you about something, though. If it’s okay.”

“I suppose I’m still awake,” Bruce said in an attempt to lighten the tension in his arms. “Sure.”

“Do you ever…look back on something, and think about the worst thing that could’ve happened in that situation?”

He didn’t like to admit it, but he had. Usually in his worst moods, he’d think about how everything could’ve gone wrong. He’d usually think about everything he could’ve done better, too. “I try not to, but…sometimes, yeah.”

“I’ve been thinking about our fight a lot, lately,” John confessed, “At Ace. I used to think about it a lot when I got recommitted, but… You started visiting me,” he said softly, a light smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “You remember when I told you I thought I’d messed things up for us?”

“Yeah.” It was Bruce’s first visit to John. He never forgot the sheer hopeful joy on John’s face upon seeing him. It was practically engraved in his memory.

“Ever since I started sessions with Crane, I kept going back to that night. He always tried to weasel my worst secrets out of me,” he said with a low scowl, “but when he started using that…toxin on me… I kept…thinking about what could have happened back there. I… I know I almost killed you.”

The sheer pain reading in John’s eyes was enough to make Bruce want to wrap his arms around him. It was beautiful and raw and honest, and Bruce found himself holding stock still, almost captivated by the expression.

“I kept seeing it. Over and over – it was like I could see myself throwing you over the railing or-or stabbing you, or...” Bruce saw tears welling up as John clenched the pillow between them. “I don’t want to come close to that again, Bruce,” he managed to say, his voice starting to hitch. “I don’t… I don’t want to kill you.”

Bruce threw his pride away and grabbed John’s hand in his. “You won’t.”

“You…you don’t know that,” John said with a light sob. “If…if I…go back to how I was… If I mess up...”

Bruce squeezed his hand, feeling the soft skin twitch under his fingertips. “I won’t pretend you’re perfect,” he said, honesty seeping through every word, “but I know you, John. I know you’re not going after Crane out of revenge, like you did with Waller. You reached out to me for help – but you were already trying to find a way to stop him without resorting to just stabbing him with the nearest shiv.”

John sniffed, a tiny twitch at the corner of his mouth like he was almost smiling. “Yeah…”

“So you’re not the same person you were then, are you?” He soothed with a supportive smile. “Even if you feel you are going backward, I know it won’t be to that same point.”

“Maybe…” he said with another sniff, looking more serious. “But Bruce, you know there are things I can’t ever really stop, right? The auditory psychosis is pretty much going to stay with me the rest of my life,” he started, clutching Bruce’s hand back, “and I’m not going to lie here and pretend my pulse wasn’t pounding a mile a minute when we were fighting those mobsters out there.” He sported a small knowing grin at him. “You know what that’s like, though, don’t you…”

(Yes, he did.)

“…you know what’s funny? I used to think one bad day could turn a person completely upside down.” John managed to stroke his thumb against Bruce’s knuckle, sending a little shiver over the skin, and Bruce wondered if John knew how incredibly intimate that gesture felt as he stared softly at him from the pillow. “Especially after Waller came to town… But…I never really thought things could go back up after it. I guess it just…takes a while.”

Bruce knew there was something right in John’s line of thinking. It only took one day to turn his life on its head, and he felt he knew, despite John having no memory of his life before Arkham, that something similar had happened to him. “Well…they say time heals all wounds.”

“How much passed before yours started to heal?”

He almost didn’t want to answer. The truth was that he wasn’t sure at all if he was ever going to fully heal, despite knowing what his parent’s really were. Maybe it was because he knew the terrible truth about them that they wouldn’t ever heal right. Maybe he’d always have that miserable note in the background of his life.

“…I’m still healing.”

“I didn’t say you stopped, buddy,” John chuckled with a knowing look. “Still…got good days and bad days, huh?”

“Feels like it, yeah.” Today…was definitely more of a mixed day. Looking at John across from him, though, all honest and open, and thinking back to how it felt to fight alongside him again, and investigate with him, with that warmth and instant familiar comfort between that never faded away, he almost felt like he wanted to call it a good day. “Today might have tilted things right-side up.”

John laughed, a genuine, humored one that was almost infectious. “Now I know I’m rubbing off on you; that sounds like something I’d say!”

John slipped his hand away and turned to lie on his back, still chuckling to himself. The warmth still burned in Bruce’s palm, and he found himself reluctant to pull his hand away at all.

John turned to him once more, an all-too-familiar affection shimmering brightly in the green depths. It pulled Bruce in and made him feel like he should inch close enough to feel the warmth and security it promised. “’Night, Bruce.”

“Goodnight, John.”

John turned over, leaving Bruce to stare at the bruises forming on his shoulders. There was the terrible temptation in his hands to shove the pillow between them aside and wrap his arm around the man’s middle so he could lean into that pale, battered back and bury his face in a head of soft, green hair.

There was a worse urge, one so vivid it almost made Bruce’s head spin – he could just reach out and touch the bruises, feather-light, and trail his fingertips down the curve of spine until it arched with a pleased shudder, and Bruce could follow that trail with his mouth as far as John would let him.

Bruce turned his head away, the memory of John’s lips on his coming to the front of his mind, and he shut out the mental image of repeating that kiss right then and there, telling himself that he really shouldn’t feel that way towards someone who desperately needed support, nor to his best friend who he’d left scarred in more ways than one, and certainly not someone who was both.

It had been a long time since Bruce shared a bed with someone, and far, far longer when he shared one with someone he didn’t have sex with.

He hoped that was all it was. Just the bed’s memory getting to him, and nothing else…

Notes: Super-sexy-plant-person-in-her-late-twenties Ivy is OUT. Cougar-aged-mobster-botanist Ivy is IN! >:)

I really wanted a different Ivy. I’m tired of the young, uber-sexy walking plant-human-hybrid that’s immune to all toxins and diseases; plants get diseases, too, and she’s so plant-like she should have some kind of physical humanizing weakness! It’s much more interesting to have a human who’s just built up an immunity and uses her babies for weapons and business; I kept her serious environmentalist trait, though, because while I dislike the anti-hero thing she’s got going on lately and would love to see her as a straight-up villain again, we do have to relate to her somehow, and her love of nature is always going to be a good part of her. Since Harley’s older, too, I figured it would be alright if they had a ten-year gap between them, so when Pam eventually goes to Black Gate one day, they’ll be pals. ;)

And Bruce you complete fool!!!! You should’ve kissed him!!! Why do you do this to yourseellllfff? D:

I'm sorry it took so long, but as you can tell, I had a lot to work on, and I’m doing my best to write the next chapter as quickly as I can while this nutty energy in my brain is still fresh. I’m trying to keep with my weekly schedule, but I hope you guys are okay with having a gap day, as appears to be the habit now. ( ._. ) I mean, no one yells at me or anything for being late, but I aim to please with my work, and part of that is being consistent.

I shall continue to try my hardest! (*｀へ´*) 彡3 See you next weekend!!!

#batjokes #telltale batjokes #juce #atbom #at the brink of midnight #fordarkisthesuede writes #I had a lot of fun coming up with a different ivy!#i like the idea that she heads her own gang despite being rather anti-people #like she doesn't even consider them when the JUCE force shows up #then again goons are rather expendable in the batman universes aren't they?#i can't believe i worked in a nod to TFS's playthroughs of TT bats #i still laugh when i rewatch the first season and they just let Selina drop #all because they were curious to see what would happen #so will ivy's info have an impact on future events?#only time will tell.........#also i'm serious about those writer vibes #i'm sending 'em all out #you'll all do great this week i can feel it #p.s. the ao3 chapters are already edited properly so i'll fix the tumblr ones asap

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astrotranslations · 6 years ago

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'Refreshing-dols' 'Beagle-dols' ASTRO Have Returned

You’ve continuously been holding overseas performance like in America, Canada, Kazakhstan etc. in the time you took a break from domestic promotions. Is there anything memorable? Cha Eunwoo: Before we left for our Kazakhstan performance, it was a country that we’ve never been to until then so I was a little worried if we’d have fans there. But when we reached the airport, a lot of people were already there. "JinJin, Rocky," they were loudly chanting all 6 of our names to the point that we could hear from inside the arrival hall so I was really thankful. It was a nice memory.

I heard that you have a lot of fans in America. Apparently there were people who even recognised you on the streets, MJ: There weren’t many but there were some (laughs). The six of us were on Broadway Boulevard to buy hamburgers together and I could hear people around me going, "ASTRO, ASTRO." Someone even came up to us and asked if we were ASTRO. We were taken aback too. Moonbin: We wrapped up our American performances and were at the airport waiting for our plane so we could leave for Canada and there was a foreigner who was staring obviously at us. We wondered if they recognised us but they came up to us and asked if we were BTS (laughs). I thought that we’ll have to work harder (laughs). Cha Eunwoo: I saw an electronic displace of BTS sunbae-nims on the streets of New York’s Broadway. It was really cool. I thought that we should work harder when I saw that (laughs). But still, we gained a lot of energy when we performed this time round. Before we left, I thought it’d be a lot of Asians coming down but actually seeing the performance venue, 80-90% of the audience were people of different ethnicities. They sang along to our songs and danced passionately… You could tell they knew a lot about us. I was happy and grateful.

There’re a lot of K-Pop groups so what do you think is the reason people like ASTRO in particular? Yoon Sanha: There’re a lot of people who tell us that the friendship between the members and our teamwork on stage are good. We take self-cameras and upload them on V App and international fans get sad if the intervals between the uploads grow long. I think that people like the members’ natural selves and each of our characters. Moonbin: There’re a lot of 'killing points' in the songs which we’ve released thus far. There are parts which linger in your memory if you listen to them once so I think people find those memorable. I’ve also heard a lot about how others like our bright atmosphere. We’re now slowly growing so we want to show an image that’s a little more developed through this album. You’ll be able to feel a slightly more pop vibe in our music. Rocky: ASTRO’s members have distinct personalities but there’s a synergy which forms when we’re together. If you notice our music preferences, Eunwoo hyung likes ballad, MJ hyung likes trot and Sanha likes acoustic. I like hip-hop. The things we each like and are good at are this different yet we complement each other on stage so I think there’re fans who like that.

All the members are 'talented-idols' who are good at singing and dancing. Wouldn’t that be ASTRO’s strength too? Moonbin: When we promote, there are sometimes moments where we’d have to prepare for stages within a short period of time. The time we had to prepare was really short when we went on 'Immortal Song' and 'Sugarman'. We wondered if we could do well but when we gathered together and prepared zealously, we managed to do a good job in the end. Times like that I can feel how we’ve grown a level higher and makes me proud of ASTRO. Rocky: Our trainee periods were long. We prepared a lot within that time and there’re many things we’ve yet to show. I think there’ll be plenty of moments in the future where we can show a better side of ourselves.

ASTRO’s famous for their solid fandom. Is there a memorable fan? JinJin: When we were in America for our performances, we met a female fan through the 'Make-A-Wish' foundation who applied saying she wanted to meet ASTRO. It’s a foundation which fulfils the wishes of children with terminal illnesses. The young fan came to our practice room before the performance started and burst into tears the moment she saw us. We took pictures together, chatted about various things and we told her, "Get healthy and let’s be sure to meet again." I think about that moment a lot. I really hope she gets better.

Is there a country you’d like to perform at in the future? Rocky: Africa! I think K-Pop groups don’t often go to the Africa region. I hope that ASTRO can pave a new road. I want to go to countries like Egypt. Moonbin: I want to go to the UK. It’ll be nice if ASTRO becomes popular in the birthplace of pop. JinJin: There’re a lot of regions ASTRO have yet to go to. I want to go to those kind of places. I worried a lot the first time we went to Mexico. Like with Kazakhstan, I wondered if we would have fans there but when we actually went, it was to our amazement that there were so many people cheering for us. They usually merrily enjoy themselves so we got pumped too. I want to go through that kind of experience a lot. MJ: I want to go to Dubai. I also want to go to Spain and perform the opening stage for their Bull festival (laughs). We’ve yet to go to China but I’d like to go there soon. Yoon Sanha: It’ll be nice if we go to Australia too. I hope we could go to all the countries we haven’t gone to before.

Are there any goals you’d like to achieve in the future? Please tell us the goals you’d each like to fulfil as ASTRO and as an individual. MJ: It’s my dream to hold a solo concert under ASTRO’s name at our Gocheok Sky Dome, at Japan’s Tokyo Dome, at America’s Super Bowl Stadium, etc.. Personally, I’d like to try trot if the opportunity arises. I’d also like to stand on stage in a musical. Yoon Sanha: ASTRO have yet to win no. 1 on a music broadcast. I also want to hold a concert at the biggest venue in Korea. I hope to be able to enjoy myself together with even more AROHAs. Personally, I like acoustic so I want to one day release a calming album like Roy Kim sunbae-nim’s style. Rocky: Of course as ASTRO I’d like for us to win no. 1 on music broadcasts and stand on big stages. But that isn’t everything. To be honest, I don’t think there’s a specific definition to "an amazing singer". Aren’t singers already no. 1 to their own fans? I don’t want to obsess over that, my real goal is for all our members to get along well like we are now and promote for a long time. Personally, I’d like to challenge myself in different fields. I want to become an all rounded entertainer who’s good at song composition, acting, everything. I believe that an opportunity will come my way if I work hard. I’ll prepare myself well now so that I won’t miss the opportunity when it does come knocking. JinJin: Like Rocky mentioned, I hope for our members to promote together for a long time. I hope we’ll rise together as we experience everything. You’ll grow stronger when you go through difficulties. It’s during times like that when I can feel how our team is growing. It’ll be nice if we can get a no. 1 quickly but more than that, I hope that we could slowly go up the steps and one day become a team who’s capable of playing at big concert venues like BTS sunbae-nims. Personally. I’m studying up on song composition. Rocky and I have our own workspaces. It’s just the start now but I’ll study hard, take part in albums and hopefully produce an album on my own someday. Moonbin: I also want to become a singer who promotes for a long time, an idol of longevity. And I hope that ASTRO will be remembered in the minds of people as "the ones who are cool when they perform". I believe that a singer should be the coolest when he’s on stage. Like the members said, I hope that we can slowly rise as we go through various experiences and when it someday comes the time for us to stand on a big stage, I want us to show everything we’ve got without sparing anything. I also want to try song composition. I have the desire to go on variety programs too. I think I’ll be able to do well in active programs like "Laws of the Jungle" or eating broadcasts. Cha Eunwoo: Personally I’m in the midst of filming a drama. I’ll do my best and do well, I want to show a good side of myself to the people who are cheering me on. As a member of ASTRO, I want to give my all in things that can help the tea,. The six of us are one entity. I’m ASTRO’s Cha Eunwoo. I want to do my best at that role. I also want to challenge myself at ballads one day. I’ll talk it over with the members and it’ll be nice if we can include it in an ASTRO album (laughs). Moonbin: I’d personally like to become someone with influence. I want to become someone who’s able to protect what he want to. It creates a big influence when singers comment whenever setting heartbreaking or unfathomable happens at home and abroad. I want to someday become someone with that kind of benevolent influence.

Lastly, please say something to your fans. JinJin: Our special album is coming out in late July. We’ll be having a Japanese concert in August and probably be preparing for another album after that. I want to meet with our fans as soon as I can. I’ll regularly show you how we’re doing through SNS, V App, etc.. Yoon Sanha: The hiatus period after wrapping up promotions for our 5th album is long. You’ve waited for us for a long time. I hope that we can enjoy ourselves tougher once the special album is released. I want to create lots of good memories. Rocky: I’m always thankful to AROHAs who put their faith in us and like us. Thank you for waiting for us even though there was a hiatus period. Moving forward, we’ll become an ASTRO who won’t disappoint fans. JinJin: I think of it as ASTRO being on a trip with AROHAs. I hope that fans can lay down their burdensome feelings and enjoy us. I hope that they’ll build on happy and nice memories thanks to us. I’ll put in effort so that I can become that kind of singer. We’ve been reorganising ourselves so now we’ll really work hard. Moonbin: Thank you for waiting for us and looking for us despite the long hiatus. The ups and downs the team ASTRO has experienced will be of help to us in reaching a position we want to be at. I’m just apologetic that fans have to share that pain with us. I’m thankful at the same time. As much as it’s been hard, I’ll work harder so that I can think of ourselves as valuable singers really worth liking. I hope that you’ll continue to stay by our sides. Cha Eunwoo: I’m thankful but apologetic. Its a hundred times better proving through actions than words so I want to repay you with better promotions. It’ll be nice for you to anticipate a little more. MJ: We’re putting in effort so that we can meet with fans as soon as we can. I’m only thankful that you’ve waited for us. The comeback getting pushed back is so that we can show you a perfect and cooler side of ourselves so please look forward to it. We’ll meet you the fastest we can.

Source: https://m.post.naver.com/viewer/postView.nhn?volumeNo=16305088&memberNo=39094895

Translations by @99pmh Take out with full credits

#MJ #Myungjun #JinJin #Jinwoo #Eunwoo #lee dongmin #Moonbin #Rocky #Minhyuk #Sanha #ASTRO

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