#i also fear that for how much i write i dont have anything important to say

[afairycreature]

[moonxytcn]

Hii could you write a gluff/comfort billie x fem reader who is from europe (non english speaking/ dutch speaking but idk if you know dutch so its not that important) and they speak english but have a very obvious accent and is insecure abt it and struggles with pronounciation and like finding the right words and it gets really frustrating for reader? I know this is a very long request and if you don't like write things like this then dont feel bad or anything also i love your writing so much! <3

having an accent sucks

Billie Eilish x fem!reader

Summary – reader is insecure about her accent when speaking English.

warnings – fluffy, more cute content.

word count – 851.

a/n – hello, I hope this is what you wanted when you requested it, thank you very much for that by the way. and this comment about my writing made my heart warm, thank you anon <3

English is not my first language so there may be some errors.

This gif isn't mine, I found it on Google

–––

As the sun dipped below the horizon, casting a soft golden glow over the room where you were getting ready with Billie, you felt your anxiety growing with each passing second. In a few minutes, you would be heading out to meet Billie's friends, and it would be the first time you'd meet them. You couldn't help but feel nervous. You and Billie had been together for 5 months, having met her parents in the first 3 months of the relationship.

The reason for your nervousness? Simple, you were Dutch, and despite being in the United States for a while, it seemed like your accent had decided to stick with you, and it was very evident when you spoke. This had become an insecurity of yours since with the added accent, you ended up having difficulties with English pronunciation, stumbling over words and always desperately searching for the right one.

Finishing fixing your hair, all your mind could think about was whether Billie's friends would understand you, and if you would embarrass yourself with your awkward pronunciation. There were so many 'what ifs' running through your mind that you had to stop for a moment and catch your breath. Looking at yourself in the mirror, you began to unconsciously murmur words in English to practice pronunciation and avoid embarrassment, trying to imagine how it would sound to someone who had heard English all their life, fearing the judgment that could come, whether verbal or not.

Billie paused for a moment upon hearing a murmur coming from her girl beside her, glancing briefly at her through the mirror and seeing what she already imagined was happening. She always knew that you struggled a bit more than others to learn and speak English. And although she knew you didn't like how you sounded when you spoke, she always found your escaping accent absolutely adorable. She remembers it was the first thing that caught her attention when she heard you ordering coffee in line, she knows very well that's when she fell in love with you, it might as well be love at first sight, if you believe in that.

"Babe." Billie called softly, wrapping her arms around you from behind, looking at you through the mirror.

"Yes?" You answered softly, knowing you were caught and already knowing she knows what you were doing.

"You know you don't need to worry, right? They're my friends, they would never make fun of you if they know what's best for them. And even if they did, I'd be by your side and protect you. Always." She says, looking into your eyes with those beautiful ocean blue eyes.

"I know, I just— you know how diff-diff neuken!" You speak, already getting frustrated because you can't pronounce it right again. (neuken - fuck)

"Difficult?" Billie says softly, leaving a light kiss on your neck, you just nod, playing with her fingers that are on your belly. "I know. Believe me. But all I see whenever I hear you speak is how perfect your voice is and your accent just makes you more unique. Love, your accent is the cutest thing ever, I'm serious. Okay?" She says.

You nod, letting a small smile escape. "I think I'm ready to go. Just, promise me you'll stay by my side, always."

"I promise, darling. Always. You don't even need to ask me that." She says turning you and giving you a chaste and soft kiss on your soft lips.

–––

Arriving at the restaurant where Billie arranged to meet her friends, she parks the car and turns to you in the seat and grabs your hand giving it a squeeze to let you know she's here. "Ready?" She asks. You nod and take a deep breath seeing her get out and come to your side to open the door for you. Getting out you go straight into her arms and give her a tight hug, she hugs you with equal force knowing you need it.

"It will be alright, love. I love you." Billie says breaking from the hug and looking into your eyes holding your face with a softness that only she has.

"I love you, so much." You say giving a peck on her lips.

Entering the restaurant you soon find the table where her friends are. Approaching they soon see you. "Hey guys, this is my girlfriend Y/n." She introduces you.

"Hey everyone." You say already noticing your accent is very visible.

–––

Opening the door to the house together with Billie you can't wipe off the huge smile that's plastered on your face. When the door closes you jump into her arms and shower Billie with kisses while the last one becomes a slow and full of love, happiness and affection.

"I'm so happy! I didn't mess up any words today, did you see?" You say excitedly to her. While she can only look at you with adoration in her eyes, mirroring your smile and watching you ramble on about how good the night was, how much you liked her friends, and how happy you were for not messing up anything today.

"I'm proud of you, love." She says softly to you. Stopping your rambling upon hearing this, you look at her for a moment feeling tears of happiness wanting to spill. Closing the distance between you, you hope she understands everything you want to say to her at this moment.

"I love you Billie. God I love you so much, you're an angel in my life." You say softly against her lips, not wanting to separate yet you just grab her like a koala. And she understanding, takes you to the bedroom where she lies on the bed and hugs you as tightly as she can, whispering praises in your ear and saying how proud she is, and happy for you.

[in1-nutshell]

Hello!! I love your writing so much!

Could i request TFP bumblebee optimus and rachet with Buddy being a ghost? Buddy keeps it a secret cuz they dont want to scare the other humans and not confuse the bots out of their wits... but as time passes they notice buddy rarely eats or sleeps and sometimes if they look REALLY close they see buddy floating ever-so-slightly from the floor? Their cover gets blown when a vehicon shoots directly at buddy but the bullet goes right through them.. buddy out of fear fades out but comes back later to the base

how would the bots react? Would they be mad that buddy's been lying to them? Buddy does feel a bit guilty for hiding this from them

Ghost Buddy thought they could go so far in this war before without getting hurt.

Hope you enjoy!

Human Buddy being a ghost with Bumblebee, Optimus Prime and Ratchet

SFW, mention of injury, Buddy is a ghost, Platonic, Human Reader

TFP

Buddy didn’t remember how long they had been a ghost for.

Time sort of blurred together after a while.

When they came across the Autobots, they decided to tag along for the ride.

They didn’t expect to get so attached to them and the humans.

They were way too far in the rabbit hole to tell them about their… situation.

So, they figured if they played their cards right, they could pretend to be ‘normal’, at least for a little while longer. Until they found the right conversation to talk to them about.

The bots did find it a bit odd seeing Buddy wide awake at all hours of the day. Also, well as never seeing them eat any sort of food.

But they figured that they probably did while they weren’t looking.

Then the Vechicon attack happened. The shot went straight through them.

Now they all know that that isn’t normal for anything living.

Buddy has some explanation to do.

Buddy does feel a bit guilty from not telling the bots, their friends, about this, but at the same time they don’t.

They have been on this Earth long enough to know that not many people react well to seeing a ghost.

Buddy just didn’t want to lose their only friends right now. They needed this to last a bit longer so they didn’t have to roam the Earth alone again.

Who would be mad at Buddy

These Bots have the right to be angry with Buddy. They essentially lied to them, withheld most important information from them. There is a good chance that there will be a bit of hostility towards Buddy for a bit. It won’t last long though. They would be angrier with the fact they didn’t realize this sooner. They will be more open to hear Buddy’s reason’s when they have calmed down.

Ratchet

Bumblebee

Who would be more surprised than mad

They would be more surprised than upset by the realization that Buddy is a ghost. They have been communicating with a ghost for a long time and they never knew. More questions start coming out concerning Buddy’s life than their reason why they kept this a secret. They know that Buddy kept it for a reason, and they want to know why, but they won’t force it out.

Optimus Prime

Bumblebee

[writersblockended]

Miguel O’Hara - HC

Warnings: no translated Spanish, other than that none??? Just fluff

Miguel O’Hara x reader

First of all that man is extremely romantic

He comes off as a serious man but did you see how he’s able to get bat shit crazy like he did for miles?

So he’s 100% capable of feeling intense emotions and SHOWS it. He’s got no problem with it

So he will shower you with gifts, sugar daddy style

One day you’ll see something in your closet or outside your door and think…I’ve never bought this before did i?

Honestly it didn’t take much to put two and two together, so you would just ask him about it

“Miguel, what did I tell you about buying me things, I’m not gonna have enough space for everything at some point you know?”

“I don’t dont know what you’re talking about.”

You’ll just roll your eyes, he’s never going to learn is he?

He is also jealous, but not controlling

He respects you and trusts you, but he doesn’t trust others

So if you’re in HQ to visit him and you find yourself talking to the different spidermen…

Hobie would be talking to you about politics and the importance of unions for workers, you would animatedly reply

And then walks Miguel…he saw you both and he knew you were going to surprise him

But he couldn’t help but feel jealous

Why couldn’t you go straight to him?

I think those feelings of jealousy come from his fear of losing people

You turn around and see Miguel, you smile

“Hey babe, cómo estás mi amorcito? Te quise sorprender pero ya veo que ya me viste”

“Hola, i see you two are talking, but that can wait. Ven contigo amor.”

You follow him to his lair (or rlly was is it …an office?)

And you go “okay what is it, did you need anything?”

“No, I just wanted you for myself.”

This makes you laugh, honestly Hobie is harmless and Miguel knows this. But he can’t help but feel threatened

He just wants you for himself really.

He’s also a huge cuddle bug, but he doesn’t show his affection in public. He doesn’t have an image to maintain doesn’t he?

At HQ he won’t kiss you unless everyone’s distracted, or he’ll have you sit on his lap while no one’s around.

Honestly it’s so easy to take naps while he’s working on things, those arms are quite literally pillows.

But at home? Oh my god, he’s like him stuck to your hair on a hot day

He will drop that persona and just simply attach himself to you and the nearest piece of furniture.

He will kiss you up and want to lay in bed so he’s fully on you

Sometimes he will fall asleep on you entirely, and he will wake up in the middle of the night panicking thinking he’s hurt you with his huge body

“No te hecho nada no mi amor? Fuck you should’ve told me I fell asleep on you babe”

“Oh my god Miguel you act as if you’ weight a ton, besides it’s no big deal”

He’s honestly such a worrier with you, he just wants you to be happy with him, so sometimes he will overanalyze every aspect of his relationship and you can see the gears turning everytime

Thats when you’ll reassure him and let him know he’s doing great, that he’s an amazing man who should not feel as if you are going to leave him. That simply won’t happen.

He also loved it when you take care of him, mostly bc he’s neglecting himself and it feels good to have someone do that for you u know?

If you give him a massage after a particular long day or tend to his wounds if he’s injured

He will just look at you with these loving glazed eyes and he will just melt under your touch

He acts tough but inside he’s like melted butter, softest guy you will ever meet.

He’s actually so emotional, he’s just good at hiding it

So if you guys argue, he’s upset and will look cranky at work

Once he gets home he sees you and your cold gaze and he will absolutely beg on his knees for your forgiveness, it makes you feel bad instantly, so you forgive him

All in all, your relationship with him is super stable and loving.

So yea this is me attempting to write after two years 😭🫣

Let me know if you guys like it cus idk I’m thinking of going back to writing fanfics and drabbles and all that good stuff ;)

Requests are open!!

[entities-of-posts]

i know this blog takes a lot of inspo from tma, i havent listened to it in a while but i wanted to hear your thoughts on the eye and the fear of being watched in general, if you dont mind! im writing a thing with those themes rn and i thought it might be helpful to ask some other people about what their input was on the matter, since that way i could see how diff ppl thought abt it yknow? sorry if theres any bad english here by the way :p

“Takes a lot of inspo�� is a little light, this is in fact a Magnus Archives fanblog, but of course!

Personally, I have always been deeply afraid of being watched. It doesn’t matter how innocent or mundane my actions are, if I expect to be in private, I need that to be true. Something as simple as someone entering my room or looking at my camera roll makes me very anxious. It’s not that I believe I’m being spied on by the government, or anything like that; I just am someone who very much wants to get to choose what I show to others, and the idea that there would be no moment where I could stop performing is haunting.

There is also the fact that I have a lot of awful intrusive thoughts, and the idea that someone might see even into the private sanctuary of my head and get a peek at the horrible things in there makes me nauseous. I am not joking when I say that if I learned someone out there could read minds, my immediate reaction would be to start planning murder. Someone with even the capacity to intrude like this cannot be allowed to exist.

I am also very curious. If I had the opportunity to take for myself the power to violate others’ privacy in exactly the way I get sick thinking of someone doing to me, I would take it in a heartbeat. To get to know anything I want, to get to watch so closely the tapestry of others’ lives, is so alluring to me that morals seem so much less important. In addition to this, the moment something is hidden, even when I know it is hidden because it would upset me to see, it takes Herculean efforts not to look. I think this urge is also part of the fear of the Eye. I need to know. Even when I’m aware that curiosity will kill the cat.

[hms-no-fun]

i just want you to know that i read... i think Most of godfeels and had to stop because i was not enjoying it. but i think its really good and i really respect what you do. i think it's all too easy for people to mix up "this is not my cup of tea" with "this is bad and/or problematic". they dont take the time to see the artistry in it, why it is what it is, what it might be saying beyond their surface level read and the kneejerk reaction to it.

i also wanted to note that ive always been kind of scared of sharing fanworks for fear of writing "out of character" - and ive also even been afraid of it in original works. character isn't real and concrete, so anyone can decide something's out of character. so your exploration of that concept gives me more confidence as a writer. i really appreciate that and everything else you do. :)

thank you so much for this message! i'm glad you tapped out rather than force your way through something you weren't enjoying, that's a very mature response and something i wish more folks would recognize as a perfectly valid option. in fact i think pushing through and reading long after you've given up on the material, so to speak, is a great way to wind up angry at a writer for having "forced" you to endure such a trying experience. as i've said before, an author can't force you to do anything. you can close the book any time you like.

as far as the tension of "in character/out of character" goes, i think a lot of people in fandom struggle with the fact that "character" is very much in the eye of the beholder. sub-groups form within fandoms based on identities, politics, sexual predilections, etc, and typically gather around the fire that is their particular interpretation of a character. but from within that sub-group, it's rarely considered "an interpretation" so much as the obvious intended truth of the text. it's that intoxicating mood of finding people who share a perspective you rarely see elsewhere, like oh my god, you GET it, finally someone GETS it!

in homestuck fandom, for instance, quite a lot of people hate vriska and think she sucks, with a vocal sub-group of that sub-group still actively beating the drum that everything about her arc after [S] Game Over is the worst part of homestuck. but i love vriska, and my corner of the fandom very much organized around a full-throated defense of her. some folks think homestuck did tavros and gamzee dirty and that this is a fatal flaw in the text; when i countenance these people, i am convinced we read two very different comics. who's right and who's wrong? there are degrees. i can pull out any number of quotes from andrew hussie about the importance of vriska and the weenieness of tavros, but then, authors love to say things, and there's plenty of stories i love in ways that directly oppose to the authors' stated intent. the debate can never end because we are only ever talking about the version of a character or story that exists in our heads, based on the things that stuck with us when we read the thing (however long ago that was-- which is important because i find a LOT of people adamantly defending their headcanons haven't read the source text in a number of years. as time passes, your perception of the media you've experienced in the past morphs and distorts. someone who was right five years ago can be wrong today and not even notice the difference).

something i've realized in the last year is how much godfeels emerged from a very specific milieu, not just in terms of how we interpreted certain characters but in our approach to analyzing and talking about the text altogether. i believe most of the important stuff in godfeels is "in character" in most of the ways that matter, but it's built on a very specific meta that centered vrisrezi and transness and radical leftist politics and experimental hypertext. really, it's a post-Epilogues fanwork even despite the fact that godfeels 1 predates their release by a few weeks. and i think to this day a lot of homestuck fans haven't read the epilogues but have read fandom posts about how terrible they are (quite a lot of which will have either been written by teens, by people who already didn't like homestuck very much, or by one of the regressive stalkery weirdos prominent in the homestuck reddit/discord), and that misapprehension keeps them in the dark about just how many amazing tools the epilogues introduce to the homestuck formula that exponentially expand the expressive possibilities of attentive fanworks. and it of course elides the fact that the homestuck epilogues are a story about being in your 30s. i think we'll be getting a big re-appraisal of the epilogues in 5-10 years. it'll be the "twin peaks: fire walk with me" of homestuck, just you wait.

so these readers see my version of dirk being an unhinged murderous dick to a newly-out trans woman and go "he would never do that." then if i point at the epilogues, they'll say "i didn't read them/they're not even canon/that wasn't in character either." at which point there's nothing really to say, because we have two completely different perceptions of the text. who's right and who's wrong is almost always infinitely subjective, a circumstance that humans are notable for being very good at handling in a mature and politely discursive manner.

so i've got an "author's introduction" to godfeels baking in my docs to provide some context about the meta this story is built on, the milieu it came out of, that sort of thing. it won't make much of a difference in practical terms, but it'll at least be something i can point to.

in any event, thanks for this message. all i ever want is for people to give it an honest shot. i hope you can continue harvesting confidence from wherever it can be found. it takes a lot of audacity and backbone to be an artist, especially when you have something worthwhile to say. remember that you're not writing for the haters, you're writing for the kind of person, like you, who wants to see more stories like the thing you're writing. they're the ones who'll get it, they're the ones who'll stick around long after the haters have lost interest.

[remusawoooo]

anon here, excited to read the essay! i asked you because i really like your takes and i see people in the more canon-adjacent parts of the marauders fanbase to complain about the extremes of the fanon one, though personally ive never really seen anything Too extreme, tho thats probably just tantamount to how well i curate my spaces i suppose (ive seen people say that fanon makes remus really “alpha” or makes sirius “bimbofied” and while ive seen hints of those extremes here and there, mostly it looks like it varies from person to person. ive just seen remus be more assertive than he probably is in canon, or sirius being more dramatic and “fem” than he probably is in canon). from what i know people like exaggerating events (the prank, etc.) or shifting some personality traits, but i dont really think thats a bad thing - i personally enjoy it. as long as they dont completely turn characters into stereotypes (though its a pitfall of every fandom, i fear), then whatever its just camp.

people are allowed to criticize stuff like that though, not taking that away from anyone, i personally just dont really care enough to be totally accurate esp since this hyperfix is kind of the bottom of the barrel for me LMAO. but i ask mostly bc im just curious to see what other peoples opinions are, and bc i think - especially in a fanbase like this - that its incredibly important to be at least a little critical with your media experience and reflect on it. saying “oh fuck canon we’re just having fun” is fine and all, i dont think anyone is stopping you, i think the personalities people have made up for characters that have zero screen time are super fun and the little ships are not everyones tea but like its fine. but even still, people should be way more aware of what characters theyre dealing with and from what franchise, and like reflect on any biases you may have. if youre making shit up for a random DE character, or retconning some sutff, okay, whatever, but be sure to not defend or like suddenly turn to really weird rhetoric. idk i think its the bare minimum in a fanbase like this

i definitely rambled way too much here, super sorry op! i hope this doesnt bother you, feel free to reply or feel free to not. i just really like hearing peoples thoughts on things, and i like your takes and your blog so i hope i didnt catch you by surprise. i really am just an outsider trying to look in LOL

hello anon, I'm sorry I lost your ask. I was writing on my laptop and saved the draft (but apparently had to press on alt, and didn't do it) so I basically lost your question and half of my initial response. Ty for sending in another ask!! Not a bother at all, i find this very lovely :D 

I was mortified to find that someone who isn't really a part of the fandom was perceiving me while I was complaining about fictional characters ahahaha. still, thank you for validating me and asking my thoughts on the mischaracterization of marauders!! I do talk about it daily, unfortunately, and without any prompt too. I'll try to gather all my thoughts here. I don't necessarily come across fanon as much as I did when I reentered the fandom and honestly, I can not be more with you about curating your space !! at the end of the day, I am just here to have fun, and really, pointing out these issues is not a good time at all! But I do post a lot about these, I can't be bothered to bottle up any thoughts lol.

I think the major issue I have with current interpretations is the underlying bigotry that comes along with it. There is a lot of unchecked problematic content that doesn't sit right with me.

Flanderizing characters in fandom interpretations is not limited to marauders fandom obviously. any popular media will face this because so many of us want to interact with one character so their traits are simplified for easier consumption and to find a common ground. this is also not limited to new marauders fandom. even in the older era, leather jacket-wearing, motorbike-driving quintessential bad boy siruis was a thing. so I won't nitpick on silly simplifications.

I just want to say that this isn't about me wanting everyone to have the same interpretations as I do about the canon. I follow so many lovely people and I don't agree with all of their posts. But, we all just simply share the love for these characters in the text and form an imaginary community. So, if we were to remove all the issues I will mention, it is still very well possible to have different personal takes.

Here are some of my issues:

Queerness, Gender roles, and misogyny:

My biggest problem is the representations of queer relationships. the fandom packages these couples in a strange and obvious heteronormative mold where the individuals fit into male and female gender roles. mlm and wlw are now an “f/m”* stereotype and characterization gets affected by the ships. Heterosexual relationships shouldn't have these limitations either, anyway. There is no one way to be a woman or a man. With queer relationships in particular, we have reclaimed the word queer now but it was used to describe the unconventional weirdness in the relationship. We didn't fit into the normal portrayal of a loving relationship. So, it really bothers me, even in fiction, that queer ships are popularly consumed in a way that represents a traditional template. (*this is not about gender itself but the gender roles! f/m can very well be queer!). 

Let's take the biggest victim in this fandom: sirius.

Sirius’ portrayal concerning his gender and sexuality has heavily changed his characterization in the fanon. We have a character who is popularly headcanonned as trans and is it a coincidence that all their traits have changed from the og material? Sirius is suddenly vain, whiny, and dumb. Canon doesn't suggest this interpretation, it has to have stemmed from somewhere. It's the implicit bias. Sirius becomes a caricature of what a woman “should be”. When we focus on sexuality, there is the suddenly short twink sirius who has the same new traits- proving the point of fulfilling gender roles. These characteristics are a stand-in for the “female” role of the traditional relationship and it becomes more clear in the example of new age wolfstar. Remus is now the big alpha stoic manly man- the obvious stand-in for the “male” role. I could go on, it is apparent in the way you can see remus becomes a caretaker and sirius is taken care of.

The point I am trying to make is not to discourage gender/sexuality hc. I love them, keep them coming. But, why is female sirius not tall suddenly? It is not inherently bad at all to have a feminine and masculine pairing! But why do we need to change the constitutions of these characters to consume their relationship?

I'll keep dropping disclaimers because I hate being misinterpreted: I don't obviously mean every single person is doing this or that doing one of the things means doing the other too. 

Race:

It is related to the point above. I was personally so excited to see the popular desi james hc. Even in fanon, I have never seen such a prevalent and encouraged brown rep, it was quite sweet to come back to that. But the problem is the change of characteristics that comes with race hc. Desi james is also a manly dude who is big and buff as opposed to the white petite and delicate regulus within jegulus ship. The melanin is directly proportional to the manliness here. 

This is a propagation of race stereotypes. Maybe jegulus was a bad example because usually there are seen as blank templates. I will raise the argument that this can't be all we can come up with for blank canvases then. Either way, my point about race still stands when you repeatedly design interracial queer relationships so they fall into heteronormative roles. Anyway, same issue with wolfstar when there is a brown remus.

Canon, JKR, and hypocrisy:

Refusing to engage with source material is funny when we are picking characters out of it. the interpretations of the characters will be from their book. otherwise, they are just original characters with the same name. you can add onto the traits and a lot of the time fandom comes to a consensus regarding a few things! This is common in every fandom but I don't think I have seen such reluctance to not only critically engage with media but also shame others who do. We are surely in special circumstances with this fandom but I really do think jkr and how we navigate the fanon should be two different things.

Most of us don't condone jkr or even remotely agree with any nonsense she spews on the daily. Most of us can see the problematic nature of even consuming this media and staying in this fandom. It is one of the reasons I even left the fandom. Most of us are simply doing our best to engage carefully while distancing ourselves from her. So, it is quite laughable when some love to take the moral high ground for rejecting canon while still engaging with the same characters. (the rejection of canon in question being sirius’ height, lol)

(Sirius' height is quite a polarising fact apparently. Unfortunately, the point about height is also discussed so disingenuously. When I talk about sirius’ height, it is not really about him being 6 or 7 feet. It will not really impact my life. It is about what it represents. He is bimbofied as he becomes short. It's an issue of "WHY" again.)

Of course, this isn't an accusation of intentional bigotry from everyone here. The problem with this fandom is that the people in it tell themselves that it is progressive and to run away from the problematic creator as much as possible. We are not progressive if all we do is co-opt queer and racially diverse identities on such a superficial level. The bias manifests in subtle forms. I just wish we check ourselves from time to time, that's all. 

There is a lot of hostility when we try to discuss issues in the fanon. Things are interpreted in the most misguided way to just win the argument. Like I said in the beginning, we all just want to have a good time. That also means creating a welcoming space for vulnerable groups (especially when the same identities are used to pat yourselves on the backs for inclusivity points). I didn't even cover everything btw, I just wrote about the issues that concern me. queer and poc also partake in biased representations, I also probably have some biases that I didn't identify yet. I just think it would be super neat if everyone tried to make an effort to unlearn and engage with media without hurting anyone. 

I have other issues but they are all just super subjective opinions and smth I can ignore when others do. ex: I really don't like giving tragic backstories to bigots in the story. Not every supremacist loser has a trauma that forced them into oppressing people! There is also "tropeyfication" of all major ships. Just an overall issue in the reading world I think, though.

Anon, I didn't mean to make it preachy in any way btw. You probably asked for a silly little rant and I went full lecture mode, so I apologize for the tone shift!! I mentioned these because every other issue can be brought down to these imo. Like you said, I also don't have any fixation on everything being canon-compliant. I only complain by asking about the thought process behind certain kinds of changes, if that makes sense! I hope this wasn't a drag really and you can see where I am coming from. If I misspoke anywhere, pls lmk. Thanks for sharing your opinions too!!

This is a long long rant, anyone who read everything, you are wonderful and patient. Thank you for taking the time. This huge post and the content can make you think, “who cares this much?” or “it's not that serious” and yaa it really isn't that serious. The characters aren't real but we all are. the identities projected are real. so, it does matter to talk about this.

Everything said this is a fun place to be once you find your own corner in the playground.

[cowboy-robooty]

good evening. instead of writing 1000 words of futanari on male smut tonight to settle in, i shall add "homophobic gay man" to my laundry list of allegations (gaslighter, manipulator, thumb rhythm game player, the stealing candy from babies incident, etc).

guys imma be so ngl rn i #won because they took the bl tag off the summer hikaru died 😄

MY LEGAL NAME IS FUDANSHI SUPREME BUT THE SUMMER HIKARU DIED IS MILES BETTER WITHOUT THE BL TAG BECAUSE WELL..... ITS NOT REALLY ABOUT BOYS LOVE LIKE OBVIOUSLY ITS SO INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT HOW YOSHIKI WAS IN LOVE WITH HIKARU BUT LIKE JUST BECAUSE ANNA BEING MADLY IN LOVE WITH TANUKICHI IN SHIMONETA IS A MAJOR PLOT POINT THAT DONT MEAN SHIMONETA IS A ROMANCE ANIME.

look the summer hikaru died is absolutely fucking fantastic it is incredible the story is gripping the characters are wunderbar the art is gorgeous i think that the yokai elements are wonderfully mixed in and you feel a genuine sense of fear and unease at times imagining yourself living in this town thats slowly unravelling at the seams. theres no debate about how fucking amazing the summer hikaru died is okay genuinely it rises above the rest but also i think that taking off the BL tag was such a win because yoshikis ongoing mourning of hikaru is literally the main plot focus and its so much more interesting when you can see it as more than just "doomed yaoi". yoshiki obviously regrets never being able to tell hikaru his romantic feelings and definately mourns the boy he loved but its so much more than that because more than missing his crush he misses his best friend. hikaru was yoshikis best buddy they were for real best friends and people tend to always act as though romantic feelings are superior in depth to platonic ones when thats not true at all. if anything i think yoshiki misses "hikaru my best friend" more than "hikaru my crush" because he had two sided best friendship and they were eachothers player one and two. Sometimes your crush will move away and its heart breaking but when its one sided you can endure, but a best friend? Your best friend is the shoulder you cry on. the guy you give the other half of your popsicle to. the guy who remembers you prefer extra ice in your drinks and dislike cola for the weird feeling it leaves on your teeth. Hikaru was yoshikis right hand man and now hes been replaced by someone who looks and walk and talks and has all the same facets of hikaru except his soul. In fact I think the only reason Yoshiki can't accept Hikaru *IS* because he was his best friend. Because despite the fact that this "Hikaru" is exactly the sams to Hikaru in practically every single way; yoshiki still can't accept him because his best friend can't be replaced. This manga has put Yoshiki is such an interesting and complex deliemma. Because yoshiki is stuck in this strange mix of convoluted feelings where he begins to love "Hikaru" as a seperate entity from Hikaru, but it feels as though this love is being pried out from a sticky sludge that is his original love for the real Hikaru. Yoshiki initially could only go through all of this out of his internal desire to cling to Hikaru, despite the fact he bears the knowledge everyday that he's just spending time with something that just reminds him of his best friend. And his care + empathy for the "Hikaru" next to him is something that originally was only a by product from his love for the original goods, but by now in the story he literally has admitted that he has grown to love "hikaru" seperately. When I started writing this post it was April lol and then this sat in my drafts forever, so now this got said out loud, but before it got said out loud you really could feel the jumbled and confused emotions Yoshiki was enduring regarding "Hikaru". It's something I don't even think I can put into words, but it was communicated so well through the author's story telling abilities. All these feelings can't be summed up in just Yoshiki having a crush on Hikaru. He feels so much more than that. To me at least, I think that this story is elevated by Yoshiki having a crush on Hikaru, but could still have happened if he didn't. While the vice versa could not be true. It makes me upset when this story gets boiled down to toxic yaoi and everyone ignores the fact that their best friendship is so deepy important (if not MORE important than the romantic intentions) when it comes to Yoshiki's emotional strife regarding the original Hikaru.

[ereyies]

i love your of mice and men oc. let me tell you i was scrolling thru the omam tag after reading that book for class because GOSH that ending destroyed me. bronwyn is so cute!!! and i love the ideas you have for her character and how she’d add onto the book. is there any more of your character that u thought of?? i’d love it hear it! ur art is stunning btw!!!

artists and writers are the backbone of dead fandoms. but i dont know if you could even call this fandom dead cuz i dont think it even had a life 💀

THANK YOU SO INCREDIBLY MUCH!!

this means the entire world to me you have no idea just how touched i am that you love my oc 💖 💖!! be VERY careful going through the of mice and men tag because unfortunately there are a LOT of nsfw bots!!

as for anything else relating to Bronwyn and her character, I don't have much else written/in mind other than that I have already shared other than maybe two things (copied and pasted from a document i made just to keep track of her lore):

Candy and Bronwyn probably wouldn't be close despite Candy having worked at the ranch for years. Not because of anything bad that happened between them, however I imagine that Candy was initially the main contributor to all the gossip said about her on the ranch and later on he learned she wasn't a bad person at all and just a lonely ill child, but by that point he had both immortalised her as a legend but condemned her from ever making real connections with people again. Knowing what he started and how he unintentionally isolated her and prevented her from being easily able to make friends with people on the ranch, the guilt would probably prevent him from forming any close connections with her.

I feel like if she were actually a character within the novel, her presence within the story would be similar to Andrey Bolkonsky in the musical Natasha, Pierre, & the Great Comet of 1812 (brilliant but strange musical btw, if you're interested in musicals it's definitely worth a listen!!). She is this looming presence amongst all the characters, always being mentioned in passing during conversation, this figure that everyone is aware of yet never sees, never actually being present in person up until the very end.

Candy would probably be the reader's introduction to Bronwyn, since Candy is a known gossiper. She'd be this influence in the story but is never truly there. I'm not too sure how she'd be important if that were the case though? Perhaps she'd be a figure symbolic of a 'point of no return' for all the characters. They all have a dream that isn't totally impossible which they come very close to achieving, and could very well leave their situation, but Bronwyn never had a chance and can never truly escape, locked up just to be forgotten about. Maybe she'd be a warning of the terrible fate which Lennie would have faced if he had lived and been institutionalised.

ANYWAYS moving past all of that; i have only made very few drawings of Bronwyn since my last post talking about her (admittedly due to extreme art block). But I’ve mostly been brainstorming about Curley and Bronwyn, the similarities and differences between them, mostly differences. Here is some of my recent art:

I always love experimenting and playing around with my style, trying out new brushes, techniques and colours <33 The last isn’t exactly my favourite mostly because i was just getting a feel for how to draw Curley and had little to no references for the pose and so it looks a little stiff. But!! I made many notes for my ideas while I was doing the sketch:

Thank you once more for your ask!! It means the world to me <33 I was so embarrassed when I first made her and feared being called ‘cringe’ or that people wouldn’t like her or something else along those lines, but the reception so far has been nothing but positive and encouraging!! I definitely plan to make more art and potentially even write some short fanfics including her in the future!!

oh one final thing, i also made a spotify playlist for her!! https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0qrBhwqopc6KrC7RouFxOZ?si=GPudTv12S92QwBBXqxw0Bg&pi=khdpmOzjTfeQP

Thank you once more for being so kind <33 I hope you have the most wonderful day/evening/night!!

[ego-sum-ex-altiora]

TMP predictions (I know I’m a wee bit late, as of episode 5)

- Sam is going to continue investigation the magnus institute, and we’re going to learn about what happened to it in this universe

- Sam (possibly alone, although i feel there’ll be a “convincing the others that this is serious” whole thing) is going to go into the magnus institute’s tunnels

- there are people in the computers, but they are NOT john and martin (although I think the computers are in love 🥰🥰🥰)

- i think there’s going to be romance, but i don’t think it’s going to involve sam or alice (not counting just flirting as romance)

- i also think the romance is going to be super significant to the plot or anything (similar to tma)

- Gwen being a bouchard is going to either help or hinder sam’s investigation of the magnus institute (i’m leaning more towards hinder)

- the computer voices are going to slowly become more emotive and going “off the script” (ie, asking for help in the middle of reading)

- i DONT think they’re going to get the people out of the computers, but they’ll still be very helpful/important to the plot

- the real world characters are going to develop an emotional connection to the computer people

- either they don’t learn about the Entities system, or they learn a different set of classifications

- while TMP is independent to TMA, i think there’s going to be a detail or something that will make all us TMA listeners go “OHH” or make some kind of connection/realisation

- Sam is gay. not bisexual/pan/ace/anything. he’s going to be a gay man and nothing else.

- there’s going to be some weird development that leads to character/s questioning either their humanity or their existence

- assuming it will have multiple seasons like TMA, the magnus institute will slowly become relevant and something significant about it will happen at the end of season 1 (ie; my prediction about sam visiting the tunnels)

EXTRAS added after relistening to episodes so far

- i take back what i said about the fear Entities not existing. they exist and Celia knows about them

- Celia is either a) an ex magnus institute employee/relative or friend of one, and wants to learn more about what was going on. or b) and avatar, trying to work out how much people know about the paranormal and stuff

- Celia is gonna be evil. Jonny would not just write a super lovely and cheery character to simply lighten the mood.

- might be a bit far fetched but i think colin is going to try to upload himself into the computer (or get uploaded against his will)

- in TMA it was clear that actually paranormal stuff would get distorted trying to digitally record in any way. I think colin’s camera paranoia is related to this, perhaps he has already been taken by one of the fears

- i don’t think anyone is going to have a john-esque “am i a monster” crisis, but i think whoever is in the computer is going to have a “am i even a person” crisis

thank you for coming to my ted talk.

[journey-to-the-attic]

bold of you to assume we (or atleast i) dont want to read paragraphs about ik's and belphie's dynamic 😈😈

if you feel like writing that, i'd absolutely love to read about it!!! ^^

RIGHT YES this took me a hot minute but let's go!!!!

so the main points that this is all built around:

belphie is someone who is absolutely shit at understanding himself

ik is someone who has a knack for understanding anyone she talks to for long enough

belphie's first resort is usually to leave things to someone else, but easily asserts the things he wants

ik will actively pursue you if she thinks she can help, despite usually feeling guilty about requesting anything

they both have very simple views of very complicated things

building from point 1: this is not entirely belphie's fault - i've talked about this before, so i'll just paste the pertinent bits here:

belphie, as the youngest brother, has been detrimentally coddled in regards to these things, and has NO fucking idea how to properly deal with loss the others haven't tried to talk to him about his grief for lilith, nor about their experiences during the celestial war; when they all had to support each other after the fall, they comforted him, but never ever discussed the pain of it all it's like the doctor refusing to talk about your actual symptoms because they're afraid of making you uncomfortable, and instead just soothingly going "it's okay, just take some ibuprofen and see me in the morning"

belphie underestimates himself and, at the start of the year, is convinced that there's no way forward - 1. he feels he's left it too late, 2. he feels he's the only one still hung up on lilith's death, which only makes him more bitter, and 3. he thinks that the hatred and grief is just who he is now

now take ik, who finds him in the attic and takes worryingly little convincing to help him - even more concerningly, she decides to go through with it even upon finding out he was lying about his identity. this is a direct contradiction to his conviction that humanity is selfish and cruel - more than that, the more ik visits and chats with him, the more he remembers why he'd been so fascinated by humans as an angel

except it also reminds him of how much lilith loved humanity. belphie doesn't think he's capable of letting go - he doesn't think he's allowed to, and to him befriending a human and moving on is the same as betraying his sister's memory. so he represses any feelings of good-will and continues to nurse his hatred

i think it's important to note that belphie's hang-ups have always been self-destructive before this, but the more he lets his own grief fester, the more it threatens to burst. his threat to lucifer about destroying humanity is an early indicator of this, and it culminates in a moment of extreme emotional distress where it finally all implodes

so ik - in the wrong place and the wrong time (in the literal sense) - finds him in the middle of a nightmare, wakes him up, and gets murdered for her troubles

belphie shuts down immediately after, because to him this is a point of no return. he's already convinced himself that nothing can be done for him, and this is the proof. except then everyone else forgets what's happened, and, panicking, he goes along with it - out of fear of losing his family if he comes clean.

so: point 2 - consider that a big thing with ik is that she just doesn't get why belphie acts the way he does after killing her. she's been able to get into the heads of his brothers before him, and even now can somewhat rationalise them forgetting, but she has no idea why belphie - who first killed her and then acted like he'd forgotten about it - would suddenly seem so wracked with guilt upon finding him in the dreamscape

belphie does not think he is strong enough to move on. ik, somehow, intrinsically, already knows this is not true. this is why she's so bewildered by belphie telling her lilith's story. he's convinced this is some kind of damning evidence, but ik doesn't get how this explains anything. and because she doesn't understand, she seeks answers.

now take point 3 and 4. belphie does not attempt to seek forgiveness - he just sits in the cell solomon locks him in. he doesn't try to get out, he doesn't attempt to repent, and he doesn't want to, because as far as he's concerned there's nothing to be done

ik, on the other hand, is going to put her home back together by force if necessary, so she goes to find him. multiple times, she climbs up the tower stairs to rescue him from a waking nightmare - the same thing that killed her - because her family is still his family, and she knows too well what it's like when you go without.

belphie has been sitting stagnant for millennia on end, and now ik has decided that she is going to KICK him along until he figures out that he can stand on his own two feet and keep going. and it works, because for some reason digging demons out of emotional pits of their own creation is ik's specialty

and now point 5: ik and belphie fall quite easily into a typical sibling dynamic of the "i'll make fun of you constantly, but if anyone messes with you they're dead" kind. they never really sit down to talk out all the residual Baggage of everything, because neither of them are the type to overthink these things

but EVEN THEN. they may be simple-minded but the complication of the everything that led up to this means there's little hidden meanings even in the normalcy of their behaviour, and neither of them ever register it

for belphie it's "i'll never understand you. thank you for understanding me. i don't know what to say, so i'll tease you for tripping on your laces instead. i'd throw someone down a gorge if they made you cry. let's go shopping. i think i'll spend the rest of my life wondering if i can ever close the wound i tore in your soul."

for ik it's "i'll never forget what you did to me. i see you in my nightmares sometimes. thanks for waiting for me after school. quit making a show out of helping me reach the top shelf. sometimes i'm glad you regret things so much. can you help me with this homework? i think we're alright."

and for both of them it's "i like hanging out with you. sleep well. i'm glad we're home."

in conclusion,

i am crazy about things i made up entirely. perhaps i am cringe but i am free

[teronsrickman]

Again I draw how father and son are hugging, but this time the father does not have a gun behind his back, THANK YOU (a reference to the fact that I drew a moment from the ending of FarCry6)

Before the spoilers I will write a "SPOILER", before that the text without spoilers

AAAAAAAAA I.. I have already spammed the entire offtop in VK and Twitter with emotions! I've never cried over a game so much in my life. Even over the last part of GoW, even over those games that I also immensely love. But the most important thing is that I have never cried SO much with happiness in my life. Not from grief, not from pain or fear. But from happiness and love. I've never experienced anything like this so much. My great respect to Santa Monica Studio.

Usually, when I like the game so much, I roll up a write of pages of criticism, (yes, you saw how I reviewed FarCry6 and the DLC for it), but here I surprisingly have nothing to say. With the exception of comments about the overload and prolongation of the game by events and too frequent monotonous battles. But these are just remarks, and not so weighty disadvantages that I drop the game. We have already joked with friends about some similar parallels between GoW and FC6, from dictatorship and uprisings, to character relationships, and agreed that GoW is an example of how it was necessary to build emotional cutscenes and the plot as a whole in FC6. Ubisoft, please learn. And of course it's a pity for the cut-out content with Sinmara. Thanks to her, Atreus could again evoke controversial feelings, show himself from an interesting side, and Kratos' words about the heart would play stronger. It would be possible to shorten any quests like collecting pear or going for the moon and thanks to this dont cut-out Sinmara, but we have what we have. After all, GoW is one of the most powerful, in my opinion, in terms of the concept and its artistic interpretation, the game. Scandinavian mythology is a very popular topic, but the way developers adapt it, intertwine the plot and gameplay, make incredible designs and environments, bright characters is priceless in the gaming industry.

And that's all I could say about criticism. And if I start to remember and look for all the little things, including replicas that I liked so much, then I really will roll 20 pages again, but I don't need it... So if you want to see how I yelled from certain points, they are in the twitter @TeronsCock and maybe I will still draw something. Moreover, I am already bursting with headcannons as I returned to Midgard 4 years later, not without the help of Heath or Tobeas, as always, and again went all this way and emotions with characters that I already missed from the last time. Well, this time my friends are with me, who can even nullify Kratos' patience :)

SPOILER NEXT

Another note - I've also never cried in my life from the fact that the character just stayed alive I had previously jumped with happiness and screamed like hell when Vaas turned out to be alive, when Pagan did not die in the end. But that's exactly CRYING so hard, this is the first time.. Literally since 2018, I've been waiting for Kratos to die, all the characters have been waiting and afraid, and we're with them, and in the end I'm just.... AAAAAAA I haven't seen such a happy ending even in a Disney movie ..... I just love these characters and the game

[snowball-doie]

cringey wattpad tropes or not, i'm just desperate for more content ahahahah i'll literally read anything you post about it

Bahahahaha OKAY BUCKLE UP PUPS! *cracks knuckles* We’re taking a Time Machine back to 2012!! Back to my roots, yippeee!!!

(i finished writing this like 9 hours later... it's giving "my mom sold me to one direction" pffttt but once you read it. you'll prob realize why this ISNT canon and also that im insane)

So this is in the future only slightly ‘cause TY and Jaehyun are in the military….. Also I’ve never mentioned this before I dont think? But canonically, a few weeks or so after Reyna’s born, she gets really really sick one night when she’s sleeping in Jungwoo’s room, and he panics and they take her to the hospital. She’s fine after spending a few days in the NICU. That’ll be mentioned / made important here 🫡

You know how busy the boys have been, solo schedules, group schedules, working themselves to the bone before another inevitable enlistment. They’re never all home together anymore. That’s hard for Ahri. She’s so used to having 8 men terrorizing their home, giving her a hard time, giving her so much love, never letting the house get quiet… But it’s been eerily silent without them, especially while they’ve been doing concerts as only 6 members in Korea, and they’re about to hop over to Japan for a few more shows— And Yuta’s not even around in between those because he’s busy with an encore to his own solo stage; and Hyuck and Mark are busy with Dream content!! Hmph… She misses having them around. She doesn’t like forcing herself to get quiet to an empty, quiet home.

The boys are gone again for a few days this time- Johnny, Doyoung, and Jungwoo doing some kind of press tour in the Southern part of Korea, a couple hours outside of Seoul; Yuta’s in Japan, and the Dreamies are all the way in Taipei for their own press tour… It’s been a while since Taeyong or Jaehyun have called. Nowadays, the WayV boys are the only ones still in the country, so they’re on stand by if Ahri or Reyna should need anything.

“Okay, baby, we have to get up early, so I’m gonna call it a night,” John tells Ahri, the two of them FaceTiming just before bed. Reyna’s already sound asleep in her bed in Johnny and Ahri’s room.

Ahri nods and lays in bed, plugging her phone in while wishing goodnight to Johnny, and Doyoung who fell asleep on John’s lap about twenty minutes ago. The house is quiet again after their call ends. Reyna’s snoring quietly. Ahri’s exhausted from work and keeping up with a baby alone, she falls asleep fairly quickly, tangled up in Johnny’s sheets, shoving her face into his pillow just to remember what his cologne smells like.

Reyna’s always been a fussy baby. She’s infamous for waking up every hour or so throughout the night in need of something, no matter how big she gets, or when she should have outgrown the habit according to doctors. She’s been a handful, much like some of her dads……. So Ahri’s body naturally wakes her up sometimes to check on Reyna to check on her— Especially since silence was Ahri’s worst fear after the hospital visit earlier in the year. Usually if she wakes up and Reyna doesn’t need anything, she’ll just pace around for a bit until Reyna does wake up, whining for food or crying about a nightmare… But Ahri stops when she leans over in bed to find that Reyna’s crib is empty. The fuck? She wasn’t an escape artist like Hyuck thought she’d be. Sure, she tried a few times when she was smaller to climb out of her crib, but she sucked at it, so she always gave up before just crying for one of her dads to pick her up. Reyna never escapes her crib. So Ahri turns on the lamp and starts to look around, checking under the bed, going into the bathroom. Nothing. So she ventures further, checking all of the boys’ rooms, under their beds, in the bathrooms, in closets, in drawers. Nothing. So she runs downstairs. On the couch, under the couch, under the table, behind the floor lamp, under the kitchen table, hiding between chairs, in the kitchen cabinets— Hell, even in the damn fridge! Ahri checks every single inch of the house and there’s no sign of Reyna. She doesn’t understand. She checks for a few more minutes, calling out for Reyna, cooing that it’s time to get back into bed… But nothing.

Panic strikes as soon as the reality settles in. And rather than call the boys who are hours away from helping, or the cops who would probably laugh at Ahri for being an overdramatic, hysterical mother the second Reyna would crawl out of some hidden crevice of the house, Ahri rushes to call the WayV boys who show up within minutes once they hear what’s happened. They’re half asleep, albeit, but they’re there, trying to calm Ahri down, splitting up to check the house again. Maybe there’s somewhere Ahri missed. Maybe Reyna’s just damn good at playing hide and seek. There’s a reasonable explanation for this, according to Kun who’s hugging Ahri and rubbing her back to calm down her growing panic attack. The boys come back one by one with no baby in hand….. They checked everywhere. They’ve done everything they can think of. The house is turned over, it’s a mess, and there’s no sign of Reyna. The police are the next solution.

Honestly, life is a whirlwind around Ahri as she sits in the living room, Ten beside her, rubbing circles on her back while a police officer stands in front of her, asking questions, while his partner checks the rest of the house with the WayV boys who try to explain that they already checked!

“And what’s the purpose of your stay in this house?”

Ahri doesn’t know how to answer that.

“Her husband lives here,” Ten replies on her behalf, like the quick thinker he is.

“And who’s her husband?”

Ten does all the answering while Ahri stares at the ground, trying to think of all the places Reyna could be. The yard? No, the boys would have seen her, or maybe even the cops? She couldn’t have even gotten out of the house. Yeah, okay, maybe Ahri was so tired that she forgot to set the house alarm, so she wouldn’t have known if the front door opened, but how the hell was an infant meant to unlock the door, open it, and make a grand escape? It wasn’t fucking possible!

“Yeah, she’s not here, hyung,” the other cop says after returning to the living room.

“Miss, do you know of anyone who’d want to take your daughter?”

“Take?” someone questions, but Ahri doesn’t know who because her ears start to ring and her breathing stops.

Ahri just sits in silence for a while as the boys go back and forth with the police, doing their best to help while also not trying to get anyone in trouble by revealing too much. After all, the police know who lives there. They know who used to live there too, the famous Taeyong and Jaehyun… They know who they’re dealing with. One slip up and everything’s over. But they can’t lie completely or else they’re of no help to the cops either. It’s a dangerous game to play, a slippery slope they have to navigate together while Ahri silently considers the worst.

“Ahr, look at me,” someone coos gently, pressing their palms to her cheeks. She looks up to find Doyoung on his knees in front of her, his eyes filled with worry, his face red from crying. “You okay?”

The boys are in Busan, there’s no way Doyoung was actually in front of her. No way. It’d only been a few minutes since she woke up and called the boys over for help.

“Ahr, talk to me.”

And then the couch cushion to her left sinks in under the weight of Jungwoo who is even more of a mess than Doyoung.

“How’re you here?” she croaks.

Doyoung sighs and slumps before explaining that Winwin called the second she called them, and the boys got on the first flight out of Busan. Ahri doesn’t believe it. That still two hours away at best, with an hour long flight, and getting to and from the airports…

“Baby, the cops have already been here almost two hours,” Jungwoo whispers.

Ahri looks around slowly. There’s more police now, swarming her home, investigating the little details of their private lives, like the family photos on the mantle beneath the TV, or the baby toys scattered around that make their way into evidence bags, or the dead security camera in the corner that faces the front door and the entirety of the living room— Johnny promised weeks ago that he was going to charge it… Doyoung offered to do it for him, but Johnny kept insisting that he’d get around to it eventually… Johnny’s standing in the entryway, the door propped open to accommodate the flow of traffic in and out of the house while he talks to an officer who’s jotting down notes and asking more questions. John looks… put together. While Doyoung looks like he cried the whole way home and tried to be presentable before looking at Ahri, and Jungwoo is crying at her side, clinging to her desperately… Johnny is standing tall, his head held high, not a single thing wavering about while he answered the tough questions, like why his girlfriend is seen kissing his group mates in framed pictures around the house.

“Where’s Reyna?” Ahri asks Doyoung.

Jungwoo presses his forehead against her shoulder and cries some more while Doyoung replies that he doesn’t know. The cops are looking. But they don’t know. They’ll know soon, though, he promises, she’ll be back home before Ahri knows it, and everything’s gonna be okay again. Yuta’s even on his way from Japan, and Mark and Haechan are trying to see if they can sneak out of their duties in Taipei to come home.

“I need to go look for her,” Ahri insists, pushing herself up to her feet. Doyoung and Jungwoo panic, both of them trying to sit her back down, telling her that she needs to relax or she’s going to hurt the baby. “I’m fine.” But Doyoung’s hands are glued over her baby bump as he has her sit back on the couch. “She’s probably just down the street or something. She’s been trying to push herself up to her feet recently—“

“Wait, she has?” Jungwoo questions.

“Maybe she took her first steps then wandered out.”

“Ahr, let the cops look for her, you need to relax,” Doyoung says adamantly.

But she’s up again on her feet, trying to make her way out of the house. Johnny’s attention is caught, and he’s what suddenly stands between Ahri and freedom through the front door. He’s saying the same thing Doyoung is. The baby this, the baby that. The cops are looking, Yuta’s on a war path on his way home from Japan, someone’s gonna find Reyna, but Ahri needs to sit down.

“Baby, you’re pale—“ Johnny puts a hand on her forehead. “Shit, Ahri—“

The boys have a tendency to be overdramatic when it comes to Ahri. Well, at least that’s what Ahri says. They feel like they’re completely in the right for having her taken to the fucking HOSPITAL after she passed out. She’s fine. It’s just the stress and exhaustion, and it doesn’t help that she is pregnant, like they tried to remind her of when she wouldn’t just sit down like that asked! Johnny’s giving her that look. The silent judging one that says if they weren’t in a hospital, and she hadn’t just woken up, and there wasn’t other things to worry about like finding their daughter, and she wasn’t pregnant, Ahri was in so, so, so much trouble. They flew back from Busan in the middle of the night to look for Reyna. How could Ahri get them all worked up and worried like this? But then he gives her another look, a softer one that’s filled with relief as he inches closer to her, his torso practically lying on the hospital bed as he kisses her knuckles. He’s just relieved she’s okay.

“Yuta’s almost here,” he says quietly, trying to keep her docile. “Mark and Hyuck are on a flight home.”

“Reyna?”

“They’re still looking. They checked the camera we have facing her crib… Someone was in the house while you’re sleeping—“

Ahri moves to push herself out of bed, but Johnny’s stronger than she is, and he has the upper hand, so it’s easy for him to just. Push her by the shoulders back onto the bed. Gently, of course. And she lays there, giving him a look that says she wants to be useful, she wants to do something, not just sit around and wait for someone else to find their daughter. But for the sake of not giving her any bad ideas, Johnny doesn’t give into her adorable eyes.

“Let me grab the others.”

He leaves her side for just a moment to open the door, and immediately a group of boys are flooding in. Doyoung, Jungwoo— And then a wave of relief washes over Ahri when she sees both Taeyong and Jaehyun, wearing civilian clothing.

“How?” she croaks as they both lean down to hug her.

“Emergency leave,” Jae replies, his hand on her baby bump. “I listed you as my next of kin, so they notified me when you were admitted. My commanding officer… I think he put the pieces together…”

And as he leans down to kiss Ahri’s belly, she looks at Taeyong.

“I have extraordinary performance leave of absence rewards saved up, because I was going to use them later to Reyna’s birthday.”

No one says anything to that. Instead, Ahri sits up comfortably, even though the boys look displeased. Overdramatic. So the police checked one of the only working cameras in the house— Because Ahri charged it before the boys left so that they could check on Reyna whenever they were gone and missing her— and someone walked through their home… Quietly went past Ahri to get Reyna, and walked out? How? Why? The alarm wasn’t set… No one else was in the house… And they picked the front door lock easily. Still doesn’t answer why, though. None of the boys have an explanation. The cops don’t either.

“A sasaeng?” Ahri breathes out the forbidden word.

To them, saying that is similar to the weight of “Voldemort” in Harry Potter. They never talk about sasaengs, never care about them, never make it seem like their actions will change a thing. Sure, sasaengs were the reason Ahri could never go out in public with the boys, and no one could ever know about Reyna. But that was a given from the first day Johnny asked out Ahri… Sasaengs did plenty of things to the boys since then, but they never let that impact their relationship. Ever. Maybe they should worry about them more… Fear them, even. Someone broke into their home and took their daughter. That doesn’t just happen. How could a random person know that the boys lived there but weren’t there, and why would they take Reyna without bothering Ahri? It doesn’t make any sense.

“She needs her medicine soon,” Ahri continues when no one says anything. “The prescription on the counter, it was still there when I was looking for… She needs it every twelve hours…”

The boys slump into their own chairs, hiding their faces in their hands while considering all the possibilities.

“It’s going on six hours since you noticed she was gone,” Johnny says. “The police aren’t going to do anything ‘til they have a lead, but maybe we can rush them along if they know we’re racing against the clock…” He bites his lip— A bad habit he has behind closed doors when he’s anxious. “Sasaengs are detectives too, right? They can find anyone.”

Taeyong shakes his head. “Absolutely not.”

“It’d rush things along.”

“No.”

“It would just be me… I’ll do it alone—“

“No.”

“What are we even talking about?” Jungwoo questions.

And before Johnny and Taeyong can continue to duke it out, the door opens again, a frantic Yuta running in to kiss Ahri before turning to Johnny.

“Who do I have to hit?”

Johnny gestures for Yuta to sit and cool off. He only just got back, he doesn’t know that for hours they’ve been sitting around, waiting helplessly for the police to do something, all of the boys left to ponder what they’re going to do to the asshole who took their daughter once they get their hands on him. Yuta seems on the side of torture. Johnny’s not…. against the thought… But he’s the one who has to keep them together, so he tosses up his idea again, but rather than leaving it as a potential solution, he’s adamant he’s going to go through with it.

“I’ll take to the police. They might set up a press conference, or I’ll do it at the company. Either way… We just need the fans to know what’s going on.”

“What do you not get when I say no?” Taeyong argues. “It’s a bad idea. It’ll ruin you, Ahri and Reyna won’t be anonymous anymore, you put Reyna at risk even more—“

Yuta takes a seat on Ahri’s bed rather than in a chair like the others. “What the fuck did I miss?”

“He wants to hold a press conference to ask for help finding Reyna.”

“Wait, like… Tell everyone about us?” Jungwoo’s eyes go wide.

“No, no,” Johnny insists. “Just me and Ahri. Listen, it’s inevitable, don’t you think? My name’s on Reyna’s birth certificate, the damn marriage license with Ahri so that she doesn’t have to lift a finger, so that we can take care of her. Every doctor we’ve seen knows I’m her dad. They sign her paperwork with my name all over it. Nurses see us in these hallways every few weeks for check ups… Everyone at the company knows about me and Ahri, they know about Reyna. What do you think is gonna happen when she gets old enough for school and we have to put her in day care? All those fancy private schools are going to ask to know who her father is, and they’re going to interview me and Ahri, and do background checks. People are going to find out. Either someone’ll leak it to the press, or we get ahead of it, I take the shame and blame, and instead of asking for their forgiveness, we ask for their help. All those girls out there who love us and have their ways of finding people will take pity on us, and help us find Reyna. If they want to keep shaming me for having a family after that, then… We deal with it then. But for now, if I do this, we find Reyna, and no one has to find out about all of us. All the doctors, nurses, and teachers will just think that my group mates are supportive and help me and my wife out with the kid. Right?”

Taeyong shakes his head still, refusing to look at Johnny. Because he’s right. A baby makes it next to impossible to stay a secret forever, but if they can change the narrative, and if it’ll help Reyna, then how can they not try?

“What if the other sasaengs get upset too and try to do something to Ahri or Reyna again?” Jaehyun asks.

“The cameras weren’t charged, hyung,” Doyoung says flatly. “And the alarm wasn’t on… and the lock is old… We did everything wrong, and that’s our fault. Whatever happens, we don’t let it happen again.”

Yuta shifts slightly to face Johnny. “What about your career, hyung?”

“I don’t care. I want her back.”

Taeyong’s less than happy about it, but after that, Johnny goes to talk to the police again to see if they’ll let him hold a press conference. Parents do it all the time when their child goes missing. They use the news to ask for help searching for a suspect and their kid, so why couldn’t they do the same? Being idols doesn’t mean they can’t ask for their daughter back.

Ok blah blah Aurora is skipping a bit cuz I'm over this part and want to move the plot along yada yada-- anyhow. I'm gonna go back to summarizing for a second. Bear w/ me plz <3

So Johnny goes through with it, making a heartfelt plea in front of the police station, facing the cameras, a letter in his hands. Ahri hardly ever sees Johnny waver. But when she and the rest of the boys watching on the TV see him shaking like a leaf, it sends a shiver down her spine. He's always so stoic... But not now... Not as he reveals that he's legally married to a woman he really loves, and the cameras start clicking more and more as he reveals that he has a family, a beautiful baby girl who went missing in the night. His plea for help, for their baby to come home because she needs her meds breaks Taeyong. Mark and Haechan get to the hospital just after the press conference, the two of them in shambles. Hyuck hardly keeps it together while cuddling in bed with Ahri, and Mark crumbles the second the others take turns hugging him.

"There's no updates," Johnny says after he gets back to the hospital. He sees Mark sitting in the corner, and the two of them meet to hug. Hyuck doesn't even try to get out of the hospital bed. "The police said they'll call me if there's anything else..."

They wait. A long time. Most of them didn't sleep the night before, and even with their anxieties over the situation and how they are trying so hard not to fall asleep, but it's next to impossible at some point to keep their eyes open... Hyuck falls asleep first, then Jungwoo, Doyoung, but then the fluttering eyes stop there. Johnny's sitting with his phone charging in his lap, staring at the dark screen, waiting for it to light up at any moment with news. Jaehyun and Taeyong are talking quietly, and Mark is picking at his lips while staring at the closed door, hoping that someone'll run in with Reyna, saying that she's home and she's safe, that whoever took her somehow got her meds for whatever impossible reason... When Johnny's phone does ring, the whole room wakes up, listening for what's going to be said on the other side after Johnny turns on the speaker. It's not the news they were hoping for. Not the news they wanted.

Side note from Aurora again: I think someone asked me before if Mark ever finds out that he's Reyna's dad. Canonically, no. But here we go.

Well, bringing it public worked, but not in the way anyone expected-- A demand was made, a simple one. Money? No. Did they have some kind of blackmail? Kind of. What was it? They want Johnny to be honest about who Reyna's dad is, and the truth about their relationship. The boys are petrified. What? Why? They don't even know who her dad is, so what does it matter? How does the person who has her even know about them, about how Johnny might not be Reyna's biological dad? What would this person get out of it?

"I'll call you back," is all Johnny says before he hangs up on the officer calling.

"How would we even know the truth?" Jaehyun asks. With their second kid, they know who the dad is, they know Jaehyun is the one responsible for that-- But with Reyna, they promised that they would never know the truth in order to be fair.

"She had a bunch of tests done when she was in the hospital this year, you remember?" Johnny sniffles, staring at the ground in shame. "I had them run a DNA test, just in case she was sick with something hereditary, I don't know, okay, I was panicking, and as her dad, I didn't need to do anything but ask the nurse to just... do it..."

"Fuck, Johnny," Yuta curses angrily.

"None of you even noticed when I took your used coffee cups or toothbrushes for the samples."

"Jesus," Jae whispers.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know what to do, and I didn't think it would matter!"

"Who knows?" Ahri asks.

"Anyone in this hospital, and then anyone they could have told, and so on."

The reality was crashing down on them. Fuck. Shit.

"We didn't know why she was sick! I was scared!"

"You can't just go behind our backs like that, though!" Jungwoo cries.

Taeyong stands and paces for a moment, catching everyone's attention, drawing the room to silence again before he speaks, "So who is it?" Johnny gulps. "You know the truth, and they're demanding we say something, so it can't be you or else no one would care. So who is it?"

Johnny bites his lip momentarily. "Mark."

Everyone's gaze shifts to the second youngest who goes pale, his eyes wide, his breath stopping within an instant like it had been knocked out of him by Johnny himself. Mark. Out of all of them, the one who was most nervous about having Reyna, the one who doubted himself the most, but also the most worried about her when she got sick was Mark, and all along, Johnny knew the truth.

"We can't tell anyone," Haechan immediately insists. "If we do, it'll be over. Everything. He's been working for all of this for too long, harder than most of us, giving up more than all of us combined-- If Mark's name is dragged into this, it's over. Our groups, his album, his career. We can't."

"We could lie," Doyoung offers.

"And if the person who has Reyna knows we're lying, then what?" Taeyong bites rudely, still pacing and shaking his head. "It's over."

"We can wait for the police to catch a lead," Jaehyun says.

"And if that takes too long, then what? She's already past when she needed to take her meds... If we wait longer..." Taeyong chokes on a sob that he swallows after a deep breath.

Mark finally lets out a shaky breath while leaning backwards, his head hitting the wall behind him with defeat. "We have to do it."

"Even if we don't say who her dad is, and even if we lie, they're still demanding we tell the truth about our relationship," Johnny adds.

"They have no proof, though," Ahri says, letting out a defeated scoff. "They're probably just guessing, or trying to make you say something they don't know is true in order to ruin your careers and reputations. There's no proof! So why do we have to listen to them?"

"The pictures in the house, Ahr," Johnny says. "They were in our home, you think they didn't gather evidence about our lives first, digging for something else to blackmail us with?"

"Okay, the pictures show us hugging and kissing. So what?"

"Idols have been burned for worse," Haechan croaks.

Silence again for a minute.

"I'll do it," Mark finally says more confidently as he sits up straight. "I'll do it just to get her back."

"Mark--" Hyuck tries to protest.

"I can't speak for the rest of you, so I'm not going to, but I just want Reyna back safe, and if that means giving up our glory days, then... fine... I'll gladly give up the spotlight for her."

Taeyong sits again. "Me too. All they know, and all there's proof of is that we've all had a relationship with Ahri, and that's not against any laws, especially if we don't fess up to a timeline or that we're all... You know..."

They can't be that honest. Even if they wanted to, admitting the reality would land Taeyong and Jae in jail, and the others would face too many concequences to count. It was true, there were pictures in the house of their family, but it was mostly just them standing around while Ahri posed as she held Reyna in her arms. Others were of her kissing one of the boys, or one of them kissing her cheek. There is no timeline for anyone to form out of those images, and the hope is that those pictures will never make it to the public anyhow. So... the best thing to do is say that they all dated Ahri, and that Mark is Reyna's dad. It meets the demands, and it saves their skin for the most part. Their careers were going to be over, but Mark seems certain that he doesn't care, and Taeyong's right behind him.

"Okay," Yuta agrees.

Jaehyun, Johnny, Doyoung, and Jungwoo are all nodding. There's just one odd man out, one person who's frozen in place, shaking like a chihuahua in Ahri's arms. Haechan. Being an idol is all he's ever known-- All most of them have ever known, but it's his life, it's where his family is, and being on stage is what he was born to do. Giving it all up in an instant is terrifying.

"Do we all have to say it?" he asks quietly.

Johnny shakes his head. "I can do the talking, and maybe Mark'll have to, too, but you won't."

Haechan gulps. "Do I have to stand in front of the cameras?"

"We have to apologize, Hyuck," Doyoung replies shyly.

Because of the shame of what they've done, they all have to get up there and apologize to the fans-- Even though they shouldn't have to, and the whole situation is so stupid and unfair to them! They aren't hurting anyone. They were happy living a quiet life with Ahri and Reyna behind closed doors while still going out and performing for the fans who love them so much. Apologizing feels wrong... But it's necessary, unfortunately.

Hyuck nods with a deep breath then turns to hide against Ahri who holds him and tells him that it's going to be alright while Johnny and Mark get up to call the police back, to set it all up.

"I'm so sorry," Ahri says.

No one blames her. It's not her fault they fell in love with her, and it's not her fault that they all agreed to dating each other. It's not her fault that this happened to them, that some fucked up person decided to intrude on their personal lives. She doesn't have to apologize anymore than they do... But like them, she feels like she has to.

Ok Aurora's back to check in on how we're doing. Do we need a drink? I got vodka in the cabinets. I can get soju or something if you need to get through the rest of this. How about some snacks? Maybe a anti-delulu pill? No? We good? Okay. Let's run it. We're gonna be switching to the boys' POV now wowowweewow (I'm going crazy)

Ahri doesnt watch the news when the boys leave for the press conference. She can't bear to see what's going to happen, even though it's the boys who have to endure the worst while she lays uselessly in a hospital bed as the reason that all of this is happening in the first place. If she never met Johnny, this wouldn't have happened. If she didn't have that threesome with Yuta, she and Johnny never would have talked about being in a polyamorous relationship. If she'd stopped eye-fucking Taeyong, Doyoung never would've gotten drunk and confessed his feelings for Ahri, and then Taeyong wouldn't have asked her out too........ If she didn't wear that short blue skirt on her birthday, then Reyna wouldn't have been born, and another babby wouldn't be on the way, and none of this would be happening. Their careers would be in tact. They wouldn't have to constantly worry about getting caught with Ahri or Reyna, or being seen being intimate with each other. It doesn't matter what the boys say, Ahri knows that all of this is her fault, and she just can't bear to watch it all crumble for that reason.

When the press conference is over, the media's trying to ask all kinds of questions while the boys are corralling each other off-stage. They had it set up at the company this time, the big logo behind them, some of their friends watching from the office windows, gossiping about what was going on. Johnny did most of the talking, like he promised. They admitted to the relationship with Ahri, and he said that his daughter isn't his, but actually Mark's. He didn't offer up any more details than necessary, and they refused to answer questions or make more comments. They are all so good about keeping their shit together in front of the cameras, even Haechan who is shaking uncontrollably and reaching to hold Mark's hand while they bow after after apologizing-- But the second they're inside and building and heading upstairs, perhaps for the last time before the company decides to kick them to the curb, he breaks. Haechan feels like he's being suffocated in the confines of the elevator. The second the doors open, he runs out and rushes to the locker room they always used after practices when they needed to shower... The boys follow. Haechan's already peeling off his clothes, running hot water and dipping under the shower head while crying, hoping the warm water will stop his shivers, and that the water will cover up his tears. But nothing helps. He holds onto the wall to balance himself while trying to control his breathing.

"I've got you," Taeyong coos, taking off his jacket to keep it try before reaching to keep Hyuck on his feet.

Yuta closes the locker room door behind all eight of them, then sits on the floor, his back against the door so no one can get in. Mark silently navigates his way to another shower in the far back corner, and without even taking off his shoes or stripping out of his clothes, he turns on the water and falls to his knees, facing away from the room so no one can see his face. Doyoung, Jungwoo, Jaehyun, and Johnny gather around the benches where they used to set their bags down while they changed clothes or stripped before showering. Now it's used for all of them sit in silence except for Johnny. He stands, his back pressed against a wall full of unused lockers.

They're all trying to think of something funny to say to lighten the mood, but nothing comes out. Not while Mark is isolating himself in the corner and Haechan's having a panic attack. Now all there's left to do is wait. Wait for news about Reyna... Wait for the public reaction to their scandal... Are they going to be shunned forever, forced out of the industry, never to show their faces in public again... Or will the fans be split on the situation, allowing the company to keep the boys on but at least put them on hiatus for a bit until things die down... And what about Mark and Haechan participating in Dream? Will the fans call for their removal or will no one give two fucks?

"Should we go talk to the police?" Doyoung asks.

The police were downstairs, still talking to the media, not about the boys' relationship with Ahri or the scandal itself, but asking for more help finding Reyna, trying to get information about who took her.

"Let's just... sit here for a bit..." Jaehyun responded. "Nothing matters in here..."

Once Yuta would move out of the doorway and they'd step outside, reality would hit again. They would have to face the consequences of their actions, apologize some more, explain themselves to questioning executives, talk to police officers who were practically useless trying to find Reyna. But in that locker room, the eight of them were just... them. The same locker room where they used to snap towels at each other, or where Johnny would find a way to turn off the hot water so all of them jumped into freezing showers unexpectedly, or where some of them kissed for the first time because there was no one around and it was guaranteed that there were no cameras watching them. In the locker room, Taeyong could take care of Haechan without worrying about someone catching onto why he was actually doing it. Inside, Yuta could guard the door to protect the others while they grieved what should have been the most successful years of their lives-- Despite their shitty company who never did them any favors. Inside, Jungwoo could start to sob as he worried about Reyna. Afterall, he was the one who had her in his room when she got sick, and he spent every day since then worried to death that something else would happen to her. He kept track of her meds, he made sure she ate enough of Johnny and Doyoung's cooking, he made sure that none of the boys were in contact with her after traveling abroad because that's what the doctor ordered. His worst fear was having her get sick all over again. And while this was worse nightmare than that, the anxiety of thinking about what was happening to her without her meds made it impossible for Jungwoo to think straight.

Minutes later, Johnny's phone rings. He frantically answers it with a worried croak, "Ahri?" that catches everyone's attention except for the three boys in the shower room. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, J. I have her."

"What?"

"I have her. Reyna. She's fine. She's here with me, she's safe, she's healthy, she not sick. I have her back."

Johnny suddenly slides down the lockers before sitting on the floor with a loud thud that leaves the rest of the boys even more concerned. "How?"

"I don't know," she says. "I was asleep after you guys left, and I just woke up, and there she was, in a hospital crib next to my bed, asleep and babbling happily."

"Someone just... left her there?"

"I guess? I don't know."

The ever so stoic Johnny falls apart, sobbing into his free hand while still holding his phone up to his ear. It worked. They took a gamble giving into the demands, giving up everything they've built together, but it worked.

"Ahr has Reyna," he announces to the boys with a cry.

Jaehyun lets out a sigh of relief into his hand as he leans forward. Doyoung's able to cry again after trying to hold back in front of Ahri ever since they got back from Busan. Jungwoo's crying more, but he has enough in him to ask if she's okay. Yeah, she's okay. She's the happy baby they know and love.

Yuta abandons his post at the door to go to the shower room, kicking off his shoes before walking over to Mark who's still drenched in his own clothes beneath the freezing cold water that makes Yuta hiss when he reaches out to caress Mark's back lovingly. Mark jolts when he's touched. He looks up, eyes red and puffy, obvious tears streaming down his face despite his attempt to hide them in the shower. Yuta turns off the water. He crouches down besides Mark and pats him on the head.

"Ahri has Reyna back."

Mark's lower lip trembles, then he grabs Yuta's shirt and starts to cry against him.

Taeyong turns off the water and helps Hyuck out of the shower finally now that he's calmed down and isn't shaking so much anymore. The good news comes as an overwhelming relief to all of them. Hyuck gladly accepts help getting dried off and put back into his clothing because he knows that the sooner they're ready to leave, the faster they can go back to the hospital to see Ahri and Reyna. Mark's a bit slower. It takes him a few minutes to be convinced by Yuta to be lifted to his feet as he's still crying, and when they walk into the locker area where the rest of the boys are, Doyoung's already supplied one of the stupid company merch T-shirts and a pair of gym shorts that are always in the locker rooms for whenever one of the boys stupidly forgets to bring practice clothes with them. Usually that only happens to the trainees... Still, the extra supply of clothes helps them in the long run because they manage to peel Mark out of his sopping wet clothes and into dry ones.

"I'm gonna talk to the police before we leave for the hospital," Johnny says, already off the phone with Ahri since nurses wanted to check on Reyna. As he weaves his way through the group, he gently holds the back of Hyuck's neck and presses a kiss to his temple, then continues on towards the door.

alright, squad, let's take a breather... *pops an anti-delulu pill* that'll kick-in in about 30 min, so let's finish this puppy

Later, when the boys arrive at the hotel, Johnny's first mission is to see with his own eyes that Reyna is in fact there, alive, and okay, before he finds the doctor and starts asking about how the hell someone walked through the hospital with their daughter in a hospital cradle, dropped her off in Ahri's room, and walked out without being seen. No one knows. The police are checking cameras, trying to figure out who's responsible, and how and why this all happened... But no one knows anything. And that irritates Johnny. How's he supposed to keep his family safe when they don't even know who or what he's supposed to be keeping them safe from?

The other boys rush Ahri's hospital room like a fucking stampede. Everyone's trying to be the first to see her, all of them asking a million questions that Ahri has few answers to. Yes, Reyna's healthy. The doctors can't find anything wrong with her... It's almost like she did take her meds, which is odd, because they're prescriptions, and they're in the house still, according to the police who went to check earlier. No, she's not upset. Hell, Reyna doesn't even know what the fuck is going on. The second she's in Taeyong's arms, she's giggling and reaching to poke the little divot spot under his eye. She's not exactly happy to be in Jaehyun's arms, which is the only unusual thing, but they realize once she tries to reach up for his now non-existent long hair that she's just pissed his hair is still so short. Like mother, like daughter.

"Can I?" Mark chirps up, stepping forward between Taeyong and Jaehyun.

Their smiles falter slightly at the realization of what this means to him now, after everything, but Jaehyun willingly surrenders her to Mark who accepts her with a heavy, scared sigh. As she settles in his arms, Reyna coos happily again. And then she hiccups. She whines uncomfortably, squirming around in his arms, trying to get comfortable as she hiccups again... But Mark's giggling at her.

"Welcome home... Our little Reyna..."

Back then, when she was born, Mark held her in his arms, and he was giggling and cooing at her the same way when the name "Reyna" accidentally slipped out of his mouth. He hadn't meant to name her. He figured that should've been left up to Ahri, or Johnny, or someone else, but never him. It just happened so suddenly. "My Reyna," that was what he said back then. But now, after everything, she was their Reyna.

good job, squad, we survived! hope you enjoyed this non-canon retelling of a dream i had about poly!ilichil x ahri lol

[blood-teeth]

05.19.23

howdy everyone! it's been a long time since i've done one of these. also this is going to be a long post, so if you're like "i'm not reading allthat but stay safe tho" im sorry in advance.

i was going to wait until the two year anniversary of TMITAWH to post this, but i've been getting more and more asks about the status of this game, why it's on lockdown, when it's coming back, etc. largely, i've been dodging these questions or answering them with a vague "oh, i'm working on it!" which is very much the truth. just, not the entirety of it.

the truth is this: the story is done.

the real truth is this:

actually, before i get into that, i wanted to mention something else. i know i've waxed poetry over and over again and maybe it's getting annoying to hear it - so i'm very sorry - but it really is important to me to mention this because it's the motivation and the life-force behind everything that i do on this blog. i wanted to say thank you. i remember typing up the intro post to TMITAWH after getting the second COVID shot, delirious, but bolstered by a fever that had rendered me brave. i've been writing this story since 2019, i had the vision, the characters, the aesthetics and the understanding and i wanted to desperately to share. i never expected the level of support and love from so many of you. i've never had people genuinely vested in my worlds or characters. i remember getting the first comment about the prologue and slamming my computer shut and freaking out. i cried when i got my first ask telling me how much they'd love it, despite the small amount of content. the fever may have given me the courage to post it, but y'all gave me the courage to continue. and that means more to me than anything means to me in this world. for two whole years!! you've dealt with my wildly out of pocket thoughts, long absences, and have continued to show your willingness to continue the exercise in patience. i dont have people in real life that would do that for me. so thank you, thank you for being here, thank you for caring, thank you for the sweet comments. i wasn't lying when i said that i keep most asks unanswered because i go back and read them, hold the words close to my chest, and convince myself that i can do what i want to do when it comes to storytelling. thank you. forever and always. i know this feels maybe so much like im baring my soul, but i think it's important. TMITAWH saved my life. I mean that in every understanding, with the breadths and depths of my soul. I mean that with all the fibers and cells and atoms that make up me. This story saved my life. it's important to me that you know that in so many ways you all did, too.

so much of the reason i've been sitting on this is honestly mostly fear. it's choking me now as i write this. i'm scared of y'alls reaction, i'm scared of potentially disappointing anyone, and i'm scared of people just being overall pissed off. which i would get! this is not why the majority of you are following me. i'm asking for grace, for understanding, for mercy.

so, the real truth is this:

Tell Me If There's A Way Home is complete. there's a beginning, of sort, a middle, an end. but, it is not complete in the way you might expect an IF to be complete.

this is, simply, because Tell Me If There's A Way Home has been re-written and re-formatted into a novel.

over this past year, i was struggling with the story. things had along the way stopped making sense. this WAS the story i wanted to tell, i knew what had to happen in order to get the whole point of it across. is it better to get back what you've lost, what does it look like when you do get it back? but there was something that wasn't working. i could force the scenes, have The Traveler spend time with Cain in his little house talking about his past, or provide the option to explore the peaks of a mountain looking for a legend of old. i could do all this. but it was all wrong. the story had become corrupted along the way and the vision of it that i held onto so desperately was fading into obscurity.

so i opened a new word document and just wrote. i wrote for a whole year, and the story unveiled itself to be in the way i believe it was always supposed to. i understand so much more of this story than i did two years ago. sitting at 90k words, book 1 is officially done. it's essentially the same story you all had read, but different somehow. more than it ever could have been in an IF format. there are the characters you love. there's cain. there's silas. alice of course. there's the traveler as *her* own character. and there's the reverie. but the reverie is no longer Ezio/Elena. it's just elena now. its beautiful, gorgeous elena with her quick smile and hemlock eyes and her memories.

what happens now?

i'll be spending the next few months making the book as perfect as i can make it. i've been working through the rough draft - or alpha draft- and then i will ask some people to see if they want to read draft 2, draft 3 , draft 4. however many drafts it takes until i feel as though i can do no more. after this, i'll query agents and pray to god that in the hellscape publishing is in right now that im offered representation. after this, i'll pray to god that an editor likes the book enough to want to work with me on it. after this, i'll pray to god that a publishing house likes the book enough to buy it, put in on shelves. there's going to be a lot of praying to god. a lot of luck. so i think it'll be a while before anybody gets to hold the book in their hands, but god i hope y'all get to. i really hope you get to. more than that. i hope you want to.

after all of this, i'll be working on book 2. i already have the title. i already have the first chapter. i know exactly what happens and how.

i know there's maybe some confusion, so please feel free to send me asks about it. i will happily and gladly answer what i can and discuss it.

i'm so so sorry for the long post. this all felt important to mention and it felt important to be transparent with y'all. this was becoming a secret too hard to keep and i'm glad that i dont have to anymore. i hope you're not mad, disappointed, etc. that would really suck ass. i hope you're excited, maybe. i hope you're curious.

anyway. thank you for getting this far, if you did. thank you. i love you. i'll talk to you soon <3

[mayhems-cannon]

hey, i know it might not help your fears, and the other asks said some of this, but i just wanted to hop on and ask: does portraying gabriel in the way you do help you? like, does it make you feel happy or comforted in even a little way? because that's what's important. people are always going to pick up different things from media. no matter how "canon accurate" someone tries to be there will always be a twist in it somehow, everyone's perceptions and fulfillment they get from media is different.

yapping ahead so tune out now if you want but:

I don't think it's possible to "portray him wrong" unless you're super strict about canon. even you said it yourself: we don't really know anything overly personal about him.

there's already a piece of media portraying him in the way they want, and it's the game! the fun thing about fanon is it explores different aspects and view and it's new! if people dont like some of the fandom portrayals, they have the option to walk away and just play the game.

i think we all see ourselves in characters we really like. and there is so little representation of people with mental health issues that struggle in the less accepted "cutesy" way in media that sometimes you need to make it yourself. It's treated like this thing to be ashamed of, and that honestly gave me a sour taste when i was reading the original post talking about making him an "overly sensitive crybaby".

characters and people are multifaceted, and they can have a sensitive struggling side and also an angry, protective, fierceness. those things can both exist in the same space, life is not black or white. there shouldnt be shame in trying to show a character in a way that comforts you, makes you feel seen, and not so alone.

people love your art. and it has made ME feel much less alone, undesirable and ashamed in my life of mental health struggles as a trans man, and of my recent bipolar diagnosis.

well, it does help calm my fears a bit, thank you a lot for writing this. i know it's rather silly and extremely childish to fawn and melt myself mentally over how i draw or portray a character, how obsessive and immature it is, but at the same time it's like i owe him so much, it's really odd to try to explain. i am a bit more clearminded now, but i'm still glad you sent this. thank you again so much.

characters and people are multifaceted, of course, but again that raises my fear of flattening him to simply "mentally ill and depressed to the point he cannot function properly alone anymore". admittedly that isn't really... flat saying it like that, but what i mean is simply to say i'd just reduce him to be a piece for suffering, which so far i don't seem to have done seeing people's positive reactions to what i draw of him (something that i'm still not fully used to).

what the original poster might've meant is the way he is written possibly being overly dramatic due to circumstances surrounding the work, stuff like being the usual teenager unable to fully understand emotions and reactions and thus going with extremes as a way to get their message through (i know that because i tried doing it as a 13 year old). but that's only one example, among a sea of possibilities, and even then it doesn't remove that stigma you mentionned, that gave you a sour taste. not everyone is depressed to the point of barely being able to function but at the same time why judge people who do write him with any sort of mental illness? be it as a form or projection or not, be it done "well" or "nor", it's not worth judging it in the end, right? (what does being an "overly sensitive crybaby" mean anyway?)

I write Gabriel like that not only because i want to see myself in him but also partly because, in a way, i do want to "make him my own" while also listening a minimum to the people who enjoy it. i don't know if i'm writing or drawing anything that's all that accurate in the end, but the least i can do as a trans guy who's just projecting is to take note of my surroundings and reactions and while i put them onto Gabriel see if i understand things right, coming from anyone around be it friends, mutuals or anyone. in a way it's serving as a "save state" of the stats and mental state i'm currently in, if that makes sense and isn't too much idiot rpg talk .

i'm gonna try to keep drawing Gabriel the ways that help me before anything though, it's just rather anxiety inducing to see someone you respect agree against something you fear you might be doing do all the time.

again, thank you for telling me this. it's hard to keep on going when you forget what makes you happy but this genuinely helped me quite a bit.

[neyliaart]

hi hello talk to me about junmei :3

i prefer post-canon stuff but i will gladly take anything!! also. do you perchance know of any jun wu redemption fics because i could only find one on ao3 ;;

yes he’s a villain but. it’s fanfic! he comes with a complimentary sad backstory! he’s stuck under a mountain to think about his actions! he’s stuck there forever, he has plenty of time to reflect on his behavior

First up @witch-is-writing do you know?

I only remember ones that vaguely count as redemption really but in my defense I woke up a minute ago, saw "Junmei" and scurried to write this text. Also do tell me which fic you found so I can check if I read that pls :3

Jun Wu is just the personification of 'hurt people hurt people' for me and if you wish I may write an essay about that thazs vaguely structuered and more of a ramble. I do however very much consider mei nianqing to be important to his healing. I dont even call it a redemption arc but oh boy that man needs some Healing. Mnq does too and they really should do that together because their issues are so intertwined. I have so many loose thoughts about this right now oh ma god.

The path to Jun Wus redemption or healing will always lead through the vassal that stayed longer and the vassal that left in the end. The one man he couldn't kill in two thousand years. The one man who knew him before he put on one mask after the other.

And truly they have all the time in the world for that post-canon. Let nianqing (...nian...nyan....nya... Yeah i didnt sleep enough.) visit him in the mountain. Return day after day to make it stick a little. That hes there now. Bring tea, bring books to read, whatever really. They are both so incredibly hurt it makes me sick (positive) and it would be a journey. One thats hard and rocky. One where JW still falls back to lash out and bite because its what saved him for hundreds of years but MNQ stays now no matter how he growls.

Yes JW is just a rescue dog to me and I will never get that thought out of my head ever again but I have one and the similiarities of it are striking. Funnily enough that also means most people should just ignore him (for now). Let one person get closer for now, more than that would be too much and if he starts to feel cornered he will growl and then he will bite. Its an intricate play ot trial and error to figure out when to actually step back and give more space and when to take him by the scruff even if he tries to bite. So MNQ got a lot of work and figuring that out ahead because thats his rescue now (has always been really) and JW will always remain a little more at ease with him than the rest of the world.

At last those who caused the pain have died and after that, by all means, it was all a grasp for control because for as long as he has control he can never be hurt. I believe we all try to hold control over at least something in our lives and its natural to do so. We are all scared to be hurt. But nobody can control everything (much less forever) and he needs to learn to live with that fear and uninternalize the mask of anger that hides it.

No matter what he needs to feel safe first. Not ultimatly safe but at least safe to show that hes afraid. Safe enough to stop wearing a mask of stirkes to hide the vulnerabilty. He needs to be scared and he needs to be vulberable and it need to be safe and okay for once.

And who better to grant that safety than that started the whole tale of his demise and his crimes by telling our main character to the face that this man shone so much brighter than he ever did. A fact i will never get over. The contents of what MNQ tells XL and us is like: War crimes, attempted murder on me, wiping out the heavenly capital, bringing ruin to Multiple kingdoms and how does one start such a tale best? Logically by refering to the man in question as the sun. But thats not enough. He wasnt just any source of light. He outshone you and all of us and all the other gods which are now dead because he murdered them.

MNQ is crazy for that and I absolutly adore that and that is literally all it will ever take for me to ship this. You can not tell me that is not a subtle love confession?? JW attempted to murder him multiple times i don't think people normally talk about such a guy like that??

Uhhhhhhhhhh anyhow

*subtly slides discord link*

I also made this where witch is also inside and so far nobody else but uh yes in case you want that because I dont know how to tell people.