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the-clock-of-the-time-dragon · 18 hours ago

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Man, for someone who keeps invoking media literacy, you sure seem to be struggling with accurately addressing the points that I've been making.

1) He is good at lying to people about who he is, all while being able to make himself likable 2) He is secretly unhappy and has been thinking about the day with the Lion Cub a lot

Here's part of where I think we fundamentally disagree: I don't think he's much of a liar tbh. He doesn't care enough to lie. If anything, he seems almost incapable of it at times. He has coping mechanisms — namely: telling himself (and others) that even though life is pointless, that's actually awesome because you can do whatever you want and not have to worry about anything — and one could, I suppose, argue that he's lying to himself in that sense? But he does clearly WANT to believe it, and acts accordingly. True, Elphaba sees discontent within him and assumes he must be hiding some inner depth (because how can he possibly be unhappy if he's empty inside?? selfish and shallow people don't feel bad about stuff or help others!), but I think his later actions actually show how shallowness can sometimes have its own kind of depth, and selfishness can have its own kind of beneficence. I'm aware this isn't intuitive or prima facie stuff — that's why I posted an analysis about it.

I think it’s a much more plausible headcanon that he has always been working as a double agent than your headcanon that he’s decided instead to randomly embrace being a fascist.

Honey, here's the thing: contrary to what you suggest, mine is not a headcanon in this case. At all. He became a fascist soldier. All ulterior motives (speculative or not) aside: that is simply what he did. It's text. I never said he "embraced" it in the sense that he liked it. It's directly stated that he doesn't like his situation. But that didn't stop him from quite literally choosing to be in that situation. Sucking up whatever other feelings he has and doing it anyway.

Maybe it’s hard to “reconcile the compassionate boy we saw in the woods with a fascist commander” because he isn’t one?

Except he literally is. That is what he became. Your insistence that he worked his way through the ranks of a fascist military without ever doing any of the actions that make someone fascist is beyond belief. Like obviously I understand that your contention here is that he didn't "become" a fascist on an ideological level. He just went through the motions without internalizing or identifying with the fascists' ideas. But I'm afraid plenty of German (or hell, Confederate) soldiers were "just fighting for their loved ones" and "didn't actually believe in all that stuff": but they fought anyway. And they fought on the wrong side, and did the things that came to define what we think of when we talk about their regimes. You are doing exercises in idealization. Becoming a fascist is as much (or more) about physically carrying out the acts of fascism as it is about adhering to what it proposes. Rejecting the latter does not erase the former.

Maybe if you “read by sheer text; on the actions and statements on the page” you’d realise that his actions in act one don’t make sense in act two if you read him as part of the regime?

He. Is. Part. Of. The. Regime. You don't get to say he was somehow set apart on some abstract level from the force that he commanded. Good Lord.

My point about the challenge of reconciling Fiyero between Act I and Act II was not "wow, this doesn't make sense, he must have changed so drastically!!!" I literally explained my point. He hardly changed at all — and that's interesting. The ways in which he did change are equally interesting — because they aren't positive, contrary to what one may usually expect from a character arc of a male lead in a fantasy story. In most such stories the male lead confronts his flaws and he either overcomes them or makes peace with them. Fiyero does neither — which is completely in character and honestly a perfect and natural evolution from where he began — and from a writing perspective I absolutely love it, lol

Oh sorry, Fiyero should have just gone down to the resistance job shop and got a top post there!

I know this is tongue-in-cheek, but the fact your unironic insinuation underneath it appears to be that... *checks notes* rebellions do not have job openings for charismatic men of action...??? Where were you going with this??? lol

The resistance that, as far as we know, basically doesn’t exist, as it doesn’t seem like Elphaba has got much help either (we know there’s rebel Animals that shelter her, but she’s also at the point where she tries to beg her father for help and seriously considers just giving up and joining the Wizard).

Hon... has it occurred to you that by the time we get to Act II... the rebels are fringe and weak because they've been repressed for years by the forces Fiyero volunteered in? Like, we are TOLD that there are rebels. That's a fact. We know that one of the primary activities of the Gale Force is violent repression against Animals. Come on. You're good at extrapolation. Put two and two together here.

But in all seriousness: no movement? Start one then. If it's really that deep. Sounds like a skill issue to me.

Someone has to do this job, if it’s not Fiyero it’s someone a lot worse. We know Fiyero has compassion for Animals, we know Fiyero wants to protect Elphaba (we literally see him doing so three times in act 2). If Fiyero places himself in command, however grim it might be, he now has some degree of control over Oz’s army and how much damage they can do to the Animals and Elphaba.

The damage has been done though. On his watch. To some extent on his ORDERS even. The Animals are all but erased from Oz. Elphaba is so deep in hiding that Fiyero, with all the resources at his command, hunting her desperately, still turns up nothing every time. "Someone has to do this job", when the job is fascism, is not a defense. In fact, "I was just doing my job" is a very well-known and infamously horrible non-defense particular to this exact context. It'd be a better overall argument if him being captain instead of someone else had actually made some objective difference to the end results, but we don't see that. Like I guess you could really stretch things and credit Fiyero for there still being a small holdout of rebel Animals around at all?? Like maybe if he hadn't been there, they'd have been dealt with a bit more aggressively or something? But that seems like a pretty meager end to try and justify his means.

It wasn’t planned that he’d meet her in the throne room, no, but it certainly was planned, by putting himself as the head of the search for the Witch, that if she was found in a dangerous situation he could get her out of it. He manages to get all his guards away and for her to escape safely, he couldn’t have done this if he’d been in any other position.

And he couldn't have achieved anything comparable in ANY other way besides doing fascism? Really?

Imagine, if you will, an alternate scenario: Fiyero doesn't join the Gale Force, and instead joins with the rebellion. Elphaba finds him. They're working together to save Animals again, like old times. They do stuff together and they have each other's backs if either one is caught in a tough spot. Fiyero never gets engaged to Glinda. Is that not a MUCH less convoluted, far more sensible plan? The fact that all explanations for why Fiyero chose anything OTHER than that seem to boil down to weird borderline fascist apologia, is how I know my points are valid.

you told me him being in the Gale Force achieved nothing, it saved Elphaba’s life and allowed the ending to happen.

The logic here is just... Okay. Hon. If he. Had chosen. Something else. The sequence. Of events. Would be. Radically different. And Elphaba. Would not. Have been. In the. Situation that. You give. Him credit. For saving. Her from. At all.

If you joined the Mafia "to protect your family", and then your cousin follows you into a meeting one day and almost gets shot, but you stepped in and stopped it, that doesn't somehow mean things went according to your plan; you only "protected" them from a scenario they would never otherwise have been in had it not been for you, lol

Even her sad verse in Thank Goodness imply she joined because she wanted it (and only later found out it wasn’t quite how she planned).

And y'know a very particular way it wasn't like how she'd planned? She didn't plan on getting it as part of her abuse. Being showered with nice things is a well-known abuse tactic, because it's enticing and allows the abuser to insinuate that their victim was consenting and enthusiastic about what happened to them. There's more to it, absolutely — Glinda is perhaps the most complicated character in the show — but the fact you insist on victim-blaming over and over is... wow.

No one was going to imprison her,

The guards physically detained her and Elphaba had to break the laws of fucking physics to get them to let go, wtf are you talking about, lmfao

there’s literally no reason at all to enslave her,

Except that she's the closest person in the world to their new Public Enemy #1, and can be leveraged in about a million different ways in their favor. Glinda has intel. Elphaba might have been tempted to try and come back and get her. She's a perfect bargaining chip in case Elphaba got too aggressive too: the Witch might back off if Glinda's life were threatened. And, as the Wizard quickly discovers: Glinda is really likable and sociable and boosts morale wherever she goes. So they made her theirs, and dulled her pain by trying to appease and cater to her in every superficial way available. This is Abuse 101, hon.

But ok, let’s take your “enslavement” fantasy scenario. Fiyero is literally the next candidate for Morrible to “enslave”, she knows he and Elphaba were at least tentative friends, she might even have realised he was also absent after the day with the Lion Cub, he’s dating Glinda and his royal connections and fame and likeability make him a useful asset. If Morrible really is blackmailing people to join her on trumped up charges, it would be very easy for her to either use the Lion Cub situation to blackmail into it, or threaten to hurt Glinda if he does not.

"Fantasy"... jfc dude, lol

Fiyero wasn't literally in the palace in the clutches of the guards as a perceived accomplice to the Witch at the end of Act I. The situations are apples and oranges.

Tbh as far as we know, Fiyero didn't really know a ton about Elphaba to begin with; certainly no specific useful intel. There's no reason to think Morrible ever put two and two together vis-à-vis the cub — a slacker student like Fiyero being absent from class isn't weird. And even if for some reason she did get suspicious enough to press the matter, there's so little she'd have to go off of that he could literally just say he ducked out when the whole class started spasming, and that's pretty much that. And yeah sure he's "dating" Glinda, and may under the right circumstances be manipulable if she got threatened: but let's not forget this is also the dude who abandoned her the very first chance he got, and then pointed a gun at her as a bluff without a second thought. He doesn't care enough about Glinda for that to be really leverageable, and it's not like Morrible wouldn't know that: his unenthusiastic response at their engagement announcement would tell her, if nothing else had by that point.

But then... Fiyero didn't ever need to be coerced to become what he became. He volunteered. Glinda was caught in the attic and knew a certain regime-delegitimizing, worldview-shattering secret — I fail to see how there is any scenario you can seriously propose in which the Wizard letting her go with that knowledge, with her closeness to Elphaba, etc., could even be halfway tenable from the Wizard's perspective. It actually defies belief that you can misread her situation as badly as you are.

This is headcanon.

Nah. He literally sang two separates songs about it. Dancing Through Life's whole thing is "nihilism rocks because you can just do stuff and never worry about it", and his part in So Long As You're Mine has him going "I don't care about anything except acting on our desires in this fleeting moment". I don't need to headcanon anything to simply point out that those sentiments are neither deep nor considerate (and, as I have said: don't have to be), lol

This is canon: he pointed a gun at the Wizard to help Elphaba escape. He had to escape too.

He spent years specifically trying to find her, with the heavily implied desire to run away with her. And what did he do the second he saw her? Ran away with her. Say she hadn't been in danger: say she was either undiscovered, or was reconciled with the Wizard. Do you think — based on your own version of him, double agent headcanon and all — that he would have been content NOT to leave there with her then? That after years of searching, he would just let her fly out of there and leave him behind again? Did we watch the same show?? At this point your take on him is even more reactive and thoughtless than mine, if you think his character would allow him to not only deny his passion for her but also to stay in a situation he regards as meaningless and insufferable. As I said to begin with: he can be protective of her AND do so shallowly and selfishly. Reread my original post if you need a refresher on what makes his attachment to her shallow and selfish; and friendly reminder that my saying these things is not a diss, I'm a fan of Genuinely Self-Absorbed, Deeply Shallow Fiyero.

“He doesn't think about the potential consequences of abandoning Glinda; for never cared about either his own safety or hers,” I’m sorry, are you really blaming Glinda telling Morrible and the Wizard to spread a rumour about hurting Nessa on Fiyero? Talk about fucking victim blaming.

Genuinely baffled as to your thought process here — I never said one word about what you're referring to, I was literally just pointing out that Fiyero didn't remotely consider that his fiancée could potentially catch some flak for his unexpected treason, or that leaving her totally alone with her abusers could worsen her situation (as we actually do see by the time of March of the Witch Hunters, where Morrible is far more directly and openly cruel to her than she was when Fiyero was there). This should be familiar to anyone who's seen abusers behave differently when other people are around, but flip a switch as soon as they have their victim all to themselves.

Not the Elphaba faking her own death plan! That must have taken days as the scarecrow. And careful manoeuvring of everything involved!

Cute, but you do realize you're agreeing with my point, right? Unless you're NOT being sarcastic, in which case... Okay. Fiyero did not plan the Melting. We aren't told how far in advance Elphaba planned the Melting, or what degree of input Fiyero had in it (hard to coordinate beforehand considering she was in a whole different part of Oz than he was, he was with Dorothy at the time, and, y'know... she only just learned that the Scarecrow was him MOMENTS before the Melting) but the pieces were all there and so simple that he could intuitively figure out basically what she was trying to pull off. Secret passage. Fire. Water. Rumor. Literally all he had to do was play along with the stage she'd set. It doesn't exactly take a Doctor of Thinkology.

Well I have happy news for you! He no longer has a hollow existence! That’s literally what act two is trying to tell us! Elphaba: Fiyero, you frightened me. I thought, I though you might have changed. Fiyero: I have... changed. * You’ve got me seeing through different eyes Somehow I’ve fallen under your spell and somehow I’m feeling it’s up that I fell

I hate to burst you bubble... but he hasn't changed for the better. I already said that. He still has a hollow existence — he tells us just how hollow it is in Thank Goodness — he just looks to Elphie as his one and only solace. I've elaborated on some of the layers behind it, but basically I argue that he chose Elphaba as his object of desire precisely because that is what she represents to him, in its purest form. Desire. She's "the one that got away"; the one he can't find; can't reach. The only thing in his meaningless life that's unavailable — and therefore tantalizing. She's the only one who doesn't swoon over him or get caught up in his carefree dissociative escapism. She's the one with a sexual tension so palpable but so frustratingly unresolved (until As Long As You're Mine ofc). She's the only challenge in his life that isn't an ineffable internal conflict between his id and superego: and in fact soothes that conflict because she stimulates them both.

[Wicked Act II spoilers]

[edited for tone and clarity of purpose, apologies for initial crudeness and frustration]

Okay, obviously I'm biased, but I'm gonna need the Fiyeraba shippers to please set a lot of your people straight about some things. I've seen way too many people trying to say that Glinda is just a selfish bimbo and that Fiyero is a virtuous and selfless figure more worthy of Elphaba's love. I'll set aside for now the idea of "worthiness" in this context. But let's start off with Fiyero joining the Wizard. Hoo boy...

Yes, he was initially somewhat less tolerant of the propaganda against Elphaba than Glinda was; yes, he was secretly trying to find her so he could run away with her or whatever. But honey: those facts DO NOT fully absolve his actions as the Wizard's top officer, or selfish recklessness throughout Act II. I see so many popular threads and posts romanticizing and whitewashing with "oh but he didn't REALLY join the Wizard, he just pretended so he could try to get to Elphie! It's all for love, and he sacrificed everything for her!" As if the literal captain of the literally fascist forces responsible for the oppression of Animals wasn't equally responsible for said oppression?? Hello? Fiyero really didn't think of seeking out Elphaba in ANY other way that DIDN'T involve becoming *checks notes*... the trusted leader of the troops committing all the abuses she's fighting against in the first place???? Like it's cool and all that he helped with Brrr, and it's all well and good that he planned on betraying the Wizard as soon as he found Elphaba (which took literal years, so I guess we're left to assume he was prepared to just keep doing fascism indefinitely if she didn't show up????), but uh... it's kind of concerning to how eager some of you are to make excuses for this dude volunteering as the head of the Ozian Gestapo??? smdh

He didn't accomplish anything from it either, by the way — like yeah, we get it, he did everything he did whilst silently fantasizing about running away with the Witch he was being paid to hunt. Fine. But I can't be the only one who doesn't buy that as an actual excuse???? Like, guys: nobody forced him to join the fascist army — even with crazy ulterior motives. He wasn't coerced into it; it wasn't his only choice or anything. Searching for Elphaba did not somehow compel him to go and volunteer to follow (or to give!) orders in the name of the dictator who was trying to have her assassinated the entire time. He could have just not done all that. (Genuinely so curious how the second film plans on covering that material tbh)

Glinda made several questionable decisions that can be (and have been) debated, but she is still very unambiguously a victim. Her position in the Wizard's regime was foisted upon her. There are things we can discuss, but I find that many folks need reminding that Glinda would undoubtedly have been disposed of (or worse) if she failed to make herself useful. I mean hell: she wasn't even supposed to meet the Wizard in the first place — she was only there because of Elphie. If she'd tried to resist, it would have immediately gotten her labeled the Witch's accomplice. As soon as she'd chosen not to get on the broom, her fate was out of her hands, and all available options were varying degrees of horrible.

That's not the case with Fiyero. He went to the Wizard all on his own; no one ever cornered or forced him into it. Thinking Animals are people, and having a crush on Elphaba, simply did not stop him from carrying out the regime's orders — for years. It's not clear exactly how long he's been captain at the start of Act II, but the clear implication is that he's been a soldier for most of the time skip. I've seen Fiyeraba accounts with headcanons about him acting as a double agent, secretly doing stuff to help Animals — and that's a great idea, it would indeed serve to make a lot of his actions way more palatable — but until we actually get to SEE some of that (maybe they'll add it for the movie version of Act II; we'll have to see), there is nothing in the story to suggest that. He certainly didn't do a damn thing for all those Animals who were enslaved and caged in the Wizard's palace — and we don't see a single other Animal outside of there in Act II, so as far as we know Fiyero has participated over those years in the near-total removal of Animals from Ozian society. In the name of "finding Elphaba". Not fighting for her cause. Just finding HER. For HIMSELF.

It's fine to have a ship you like, obviously — and there is genuinely a lot to like about Fiyeraba, I don't dislike the idea of them as a couple or as friends — but come on guys: please stop those out there idealizing Fiyero as somehow a clear "morally-superior" alternative to Glinda, lol. The dude had power, access, and opportunities, for years, that he could have wielded in any number of really selfless, revolutionary ways. He didn't. And I propose (apparently controversially): he simply didn't want to. And that — at the end of the day — is (much as some would like to deny it) true to his character. He always WANTED to be self-absorbed and shallow, and all his actions are consistent with that. Elphaba saw depth and discontentment in him, yes: but (and I cannot stress this enough) when given the chance, he channeled that in the wrong direction. He didn't confront that and become a better person — for the most part he just displaced and projected it onto Elphaba as an object of obsession, and put on an even thicker pretense than before.

All his actions — regardless of the complexity he has deep down — are those of a man who never gives one fuck about anything or anyone, except (kinda sorta) Elphaba. But even then: at no time does the care he has for her seem to extend to caring about any of her wants or needs outside of sexual validation from him, or how she might feel about his actions, or indeed the impacts of those actions upon her, her cause, or anyone or anything else. I don't think it should be all that controversial to say: he doesn't think through the wider repercussions of anything he does — thoughtlessness is just one of his core character traits. He doesn't think ahead or see meaning in anything outside of what can temporarily excite him, in the moment. I think people place a little too much weight on Elphaba clocking him with regard to his internal pain, and seem to expect (understandably of course) that she is not only right, but moreover that he will grow from that in a positive direction, based on her influence.

But he doesn't. If anything, we get a surprising inverse: he pretty much proves her wrong. Not to say he didn't have hidden depth and all that, like she said: but his hypothetical heart of gold proves not to really amount to much in practice. He doesn't grow out of his shallowness and his self-centeredness: he grows into it in a way that he hadn't quite yet in school. Where once he was only masking an internal listlessness, after he's been cracked open by Elphaba he decides to be genuinely self-absorbed and deeply shallow, not just coasting by. He performs in new ways — as a soldier, eventually as a "fiancé", etc. — but by Act II we meet a Fiyero who has staked the last remaining shred of humanity in him on the vain pursuit of the only object of his desire that has ever been unavailable to him, and firmly chosen to say to hell with everyone and everything else.

When put to the test, Fiyero sacrifices Glinda, the Animals, and all else that Elphaba actually cared about, to pursue his own unresolved crush from college. Mostly to get in her pants, really — as harsh as I'm sure that sounds. But let me be frank: that is literally all he ever accomplishes in the show. He gives her dick one time, and one of his castles, and that's it. That's the culmination of his years trying to find her — years in which he actively worked as one of the stormtroopers (or even the one commanding them) committing untold crimes against Animalkind (who, again, it seems have been all but erased from Oz by Act II): y'know, the very crimes Elphaba sacrificed her life to try and stop????? He spent the most important time of his life — of his own free will — being a fascist soldier, but he "did it for her" somehow, so according to some, it's perfectly fine. Heroic, even. Yikes??

But let's make something very clear (since my original version of this post caught a lot of flak, including slurs and other rudeness):

I like Fiyero. I find his role extremely interesting (I could do a whole dissertation on him, but I'm especially a fan of the way his proving Elphaba's assessment of him wrong presents a fascinating parallel and contrast with Glinda, which I think is lost on a lot of people). But PLEASE stop with all the misguided Glinda slander and idealization of Fiyero. By all means, thirst! But don't give me all this bullshit about him deserving Elphaba more, or being super deep, or being really principled or noble or whatever else. He does have layers, and quite intriguing ones, but his insides are straw — he isn't meant to have some deep, overwrought emotional core or motivations; he has passions that he acts upon when given the chance. That's it. And that's fine. Actually kind of refreshing in a story rooted in simple children's fantasy but rife with intensely complicated personalities. Fiyero makes it his mission to represent denial of depth and embrace of raw, spontaneous desire — and I for one love that, and wish others appreciated it.

And in all seriousness, shipping wars aside: by the end of the story, it's Glinda who is ultimately vindicated, and has — for all her faults — made the necessary choices to fulfill Elphaba's wishes, bring down the regime, etc. And all that despite herself. She's miserable: not just because of the mistakes she made, but because of her correct moves as well. Fiyero is simply not — and could never be — that person. And that's okay! Like I said: I am not anti-Fiyero. Fiyero's willingness to throw it all away for the sake of sheer, overriding passion is a huge part of what people like about him, of course — and it's an obvious factor in the attraction between him and Elphaba, because she has her own flavor of that impulse as well — but I'd actually argue that it's not romantic, it's his fatal flaw. And thematically that's fantastic! But I just don't believe that it somehow means he "deserves Elphaba more" because he "gave up his life for her" or whatever. In part because NOBODY truly "deserves" Elphie tbh, not 100% (and I question anybody who claims otherwise), but ultimately because I don't accept the idea that his fleeting acts of passion make up for all the shit leading up to them (or even proceeding after them tbh). At least Glinda managed to do what Elphaba always wanted in the end — but I would die on this hill even if Gelphie didn't exist.

You don't have to agree with my analysis of Fiyero and his choices, relationships, etc. — that's fine. What isn't fine is trying to portray Glinda as some kind of spineless traitor whore for the Wizard and Fiyero as a conscientious hero who earned Elphie through self-sacrifice. That's just not the story that was written. It's WAY messier and more interesting than that.

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cassylost-inspace · 2 days ago

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The object show community has honestly become so unsafe and toxic. I’ve only been in the community for a year and a half ,but the difference between now and then is honestly drastic. People don’t even enjoy the media anymore, all everyone does is criticise. While criticizing is fine, I don't think a community should be based on that. I have barely seen ANY positive posts about the ii movie, everyone treats it like it's meant to be God tier and I get that everyone thinks they should get what they deserve, but holy shit you guys have nothing good to say. Shipping has also become such a difficult point of discussion in the community, considering that everyone believes that their ship and their ship ONLY is good. Most of the shipping stuff wasn't relevant to me, because I'm a multi-shipper but the fandom takes ship wars to an extreme,honesty speaking. Another point is the fact that people are mad at ii for making canon ships,, again this doesn't bother me,because I have always liked all of the popular ships but it's honestly not that deep. I think I've seen like a million posts about the payjay scene from ii 18,, and people got SO mad over fan service despite the fact that it was like 3 minutes long 😭 Another thing is, I haven't talked about c2bc on here b4, but Cole getting cancelled proved how fast the fandom is willing to act immediately on a show's downfall. "I never really liked the show" that's really not the point here. I feel like people should take the situation of cole being racist more seriously instead of just taking this as a chance to bash the show. Moving on,, I remember seeing a post of someone saying "how could you even cry to object shows,, they're so unserious" why do you care? Genuinely WHO is it hurting.Moreover people saying stuff like only "12 year olds watch object shows" is dumb; because have you ever been in a fandom before??Teenagers literally keep fandoms alive, also who DO you want to be in this community. My last point is how almost everyone acts like object shows are meant to be "amazing works of art",, like they literally started off as terrible. These shows are indie and run by an even amount of people, stop treating the shows like Hollywood. Reminder that these people can do WHATEVER they want with their characters. Animationepic is one of the most listening teams out there, they sacrifice a lot for their fans and I personally think that they're allowed to do anything they want with their characters especially since they put so much effort into what the fans want. As someone who uses object shows and animation in general as a way to escape reality,, it is evident that most of you do the same. So I don't understand why there is just SO MUCH negativity coming from the community,, when os fans are so clearly talented and instead of putting effort into being hateful they can use this energy to make art, amvs, maps and animation memes and help uplift the community and it's overall impact on others.

Ik I normally don't post stuff like this, but the osc is REALLY important to me and I feel like this should be brought to more people's attention.

-Cassy

#cassy lost in her speaking 🥺#osc #object shows #ii #inanimate insanity #ii movie #ii 18 spoilers #ii 18 #object show community #rant #rambles #ramblings #important #not art #text post #long reads #i ain't reading all that

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whimsimille · 2 days ago

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Our Bond Reaper

Minsung x Fem!Reader

Soulmate AU

Words: ~10000

contains mentions of 18+ content, sex, drug use, abuse of substances, nsfw undertone, established relationship (jisung x minho), oral (f and m receiving), piv, mxm, threesome, overstimulation, handjob, dry humping,

a/n: should i continue?

Chapter 2: The Ritual

"Are you... Are you really going to let this happen?" Minho's voice trembled as his feet traced obsessive circles across the empty flower shop parking lot. His fingers, restless like butterflies trapped in a jar, found an old receipt at the bottom of his pocket and began folding it obsessively into increasingly smaller triangles, scratching the thermal paper until it was almost torn.

Looking down, the asphalt was still wet from the morning rain, reflecting the streetlights that would soon turn on, creating small rainbows in the dirty puddles that smelt of oil and urban loneliness.

"Of course I will. What's wrong with that?"

"What's wrong with that?" Minho let out a hysterical laugh, his free hand grabbing and pulling at his dark hair. "Chan-hyung, for heaven's sake— It was a disaster when we both came out as soulmates! Remember the scandal? The headlines? The sasaengs trying to break into the dorm?" He stopped abruptly and spun on his heels to face Chan. "And now you're here dragging me to buy flowers for a ritual that could be completely fake? A ritual he didn't even tell me about?" His voice rose an octave. "Since when do you let Han Jisung get into your head like this? You of all people, hyung! Hell, you literally sacrificed everything so we could stay eight! Gave up everything!"

Chan sighed heavily, his fingers drumming against the car hood in a rhythm that Minho recognized as the chorus of "Haven."

"Minho-yah," he began, his voice hoarse from exhaustion and sleepless nights in the studio, "first: lower your voice; people live here." He nodded toward the buildings around them, where an elderly woman in a floral robe was watching them curiously from the third floor. "Second: your boyfriend is having increasingly worse nightmares. Felix told me he found him sleeping in the bathroom last night, curled up between the toilet and the sink, shaking and mumbling about wars and spirals. Third: even though you're here spewing all this in my face, you were the first to get ready and grab the car keys when I said we needed to talk about the possible 'third' person. Didn't even brush your hair properly," he gestured to the bird's nest that was Minho's hair. "If you really wanted to give up on this ritual, you would have gone home to confront Han about not telling you anything. But here you are, destroying a receipt in your pockets and pretending you're not dying of worry."

"I'm not—"

"Fourth," Chan continued, ignoring the interruption, "I don't care about JYP and his minions. They can come at me with their contracts and threats all they want. I did it once for you all, didn't I? Faced that packed room, signed my own artistic exile sentence." He laughed. "Why not a second time? Binnie and I are already used to meetings in empty cafes at three in the morning and stolen kisses in airport bathrooms."

Minho swallowed hard, his fingers finally tearing the abused receipt into tiny pieces that danced in the wind. "Channie, don't do this. Don't sacrifice yourself again. I already feel guilty enough about the first time."

Chan pushed himself off the car. The smell of old coffee and energy drinks finally enveloping the younger one like an ungiven hug.

"Guilty? Why the hell do you feel guilty? I made a choice. I always knew that one day I'd have to choose between being an idol or..." He vaguely gestured to his own chest, where Minho knew his soulmate mark—a complex pattern of sound waves that matched Changbin's musical notes mark—pulsed under the black t-shirt. "This."

"But you chose us. Chose to hide your relationship with Binnie so we could..."

"So you guys could be together? Yeah, I chose that. We chose that, him and I. Besides, being hidden is fucking great." The blonde's fingers found the pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes in his denim jacket pocket—he'd sworn he'd quit months ago but always came back in times of crisis, like a stubborn ex-lover who refuses to return the apartment keys.

The pack was crushed, probably from playing with it while listening for two hours to Han Jisung venting about Minho's rejection of trimarks and about how he had found a dusty book in the library that contained a ritual that could prove if he and Minho really had a third soul—preferably alive, because dealing with ghosts would be too much even for them.

"And I'd do it again. And again. And again." He took a cigarette from the pack but didn't light it, just twirled it between his fingers like an invisible baton. "Now there's someone out there suffering. Having nightmares, feeling phantom pains. And if I can prevent someone else from going through that..." He shrugged, finally bringing the cigarette to his lips and lighting it with a silver lighter that had the initials CB97 engraved on the side. "Well, fuck JYP Entertainment. Fuck all of them."

As the first puff of smoke rose in slow spirals against the night sky, it danced with the first snowflakes of winter. A flake caught in one of Chan's hairs, and Minho saw it melt instantly against the warmth of his skin.

"Besides," Chan continued, "it's about time I stop pretending I can control everything. That I can protect everyone." He laughed, the sound mixing with the cigarette smoke. "Look at me: trying to micromanage even my members' soulmates. Typical."

"Chan-hyung..." Minho stepped forward, his hands automatically reaching out to... for what? To hug? To hit? To beg? To tear that resigned smile from the face of the man who had sacrificed everything for them? He didn't know himself.

"No." Chan raised a hand, effectively freezing Minho in place. "Don't look at me like that. Just... let's go into this damn flower shop, buy the flowers for the ritual, and hope that this time..." He took a deep drag, smoke escaping through his nostrils, ashes staining his shirt. "That this time everything works out. And maybe... perhaps it's time for more people to be openly happy."

A car zoomed past on the wet street, its headlights creating elongated shadows that danced on the building walls. The elderly woman in the window had disappeared, probably bored with the drama unfolding in the parking lot, but her black cat still watched them with golden, judgmental eyes.

"Fine, but if this goes wrong..."

"If it goes wrong," Chan stubbed out the cigarette against his boot sole with more force than necessary, the smell of burnt rubber mixing with that of snow, "you can punch me. Right in the face. No consequences. Changbin will probably help you, actually. He's been complaining that I need a few slaps to put some sense into this thick head."

"Promise?" Minho raised his pinky.

"Scout's honour." Chan intertwined his finger with Minho's, raising the other three in a mocking salute.

"You were never a scout, hyung." Minho rolled his eyes but didn't let go of Chan's finger.

"Details, details..." Chan smiled, his dimples appearing like small craters in his pale cheeks—too pale, Minho noticed with concern, making a mental note to force him to take vitamin D. However, before he could say anything, Bangchan threw an arm over his shoulders, cold fingers finding the warm skin of the younger's neck. "Now let's go, before I change my mind and go back to the studio to sleep with my man's voice in the background. Binnie recorded three new tracks yesterday and..." He paused, the tips of his ears turning red as he bit his lower lip. "Well, you don't want to know the details."

"Oh God, definitely not." Minho pretended to shiver dramatically. "It's enough that I've caught you guys making out in the equipment closet like teenagers on their first date."

Chan laughed, the sound echoing in the empty parking lot. "It was just once!"

"Three times, hyung. I counted." Minho raised three fingers emphatically. "And the last time you were shirtless and Binnie had glitter on his neck. Glitter, hyung. I still find sparkles on my headphones when I go to record."

And so, under the first snow of winter and the lights of the flower shop sign—purple twinkle lights that tinted their skin with ethereal shadows like actors in a film noir—the two entered the shop. Like a portent, the bell above the door chimed.

"Fine." Minho wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans, and his eyes scanned the shelves filled with flowers, each one more exotic than the last. He was fucking pissed, wanted to leave, but knew Chan wouldn't let him, so fuck it all. "I don't know anything about this ritual. When will it be, what will he do, how will it be, where will it be. What do we need? What if he blows up our apartment? Or worse, what if he summons a demon?"

Chan rolled his eyes, but his lips trembled with a contained smile. He took a crumpled notepad from his back jeans pocket and flipped through the pages until he found the list he was looking for. "According to Hannie, we need purple flowers—preferably lavender or iris—rose quartz crystals, and red candles. My God, there are items written in Latin here! Oh, and coarse salt. Lots of coarse salt. Like, enough to make your blood pressure rise just by looking at it."

"Sounds more like my grandmother's cleansing bath recipe mixed with a beginner cultist's shopping list." The smell of wet earth and fresh flowers was starting to make Minho dizzy, his head spinning as if he'd had too much soju. "And where will this happen? In a cemetery? Because if so, I should warn you that my gothic wardrobe is at the laundry."

"No, you dramatic donkey." Chan flicked Minho's forehead, who groaned theatrically. "At your place. Jisung has already prepared everything, including doing an energy cleansing with sage and removing that horrible One Piece poster you insist on keeping in the living room."

"What do you mean? And our children?" Minho's eyes widened. "Will they witness everything?"

"Felix went to help Jisung with the floor writings and took all four to his dormitory with Seungmin. Soonie was especially happy to sleep in the king-size bed. And before you ask, yes, they have enough food for a week."

"It's today?" Minho's voice cracked on the last syllable. How could his soulmate have planned all this with the other members, and he, the one involved, know nothing about it?

"My God, he really didn't tell you anything!" Chan scoffed as he ran his hands through his bleached hair, making some melted snowflakes drip onto the wooden floor. "Typical Han Jisung, planning a mystical ritual without telling his fucking boyfriend."

Like a shadow materialized from his darkest thoughts, a young attendant approached them with steps so silent they could make Soonie die of envy. Her name tag, attached to a cord decorated with small dried flowers and crystals, identified her as "Yeeun.". She had dirt stains on her moss-green painted nails, a silver ring with an amethyst, and smelled of wet earth, fertilizer, and something sweet that reminded of jasmine incense.

"Can I help you?" Her voice had a musical timbre, like wind chimes on a summer afternoon.

"No."

"Yes, ignore my friend, please. He's kind of pissed at life." Chan quickly intervened, nervously rolling up his denim jacket sleeve until it formed a small crumpled tube at his wrist. "We need lavender. Lots of lavender. And Iris too, if you have any. It's kind of urgent. Like, really urgent. Matter of life and death. Or at least of a relationship."

"For a soulmate ritual?" Yeeun asked casually, as if commenting on the weather or asking for the time. When both stared at her open-mouthed, she smiled and pulled aside the turtleneck of her wool sweater, revealing a crescent moon. "My girlfriend is a witch too. I recognise the signs." She smiled, revealing braces with purple elastics. "Come with me; we have a special bed for these occasions. Chaeyoung insisted we keep a separate stock. Said something about specific energies and moon phases."

As they followed Yeeun through the fragrant corridors of the shop, Minho poked Chan's ribs.

"See? Everyone has a witch soulmate except me. I have a music producer who's obsessed with wars and swords and will probably end up blowing up our apartment trying to do a love ritual or whatever. I can already see the headlines: 'Idol dies in mystical ritual gone wrong; neighbours report smell of lavender and regret.'"

"At least he doesn't try to convince you to record demos at four in the morning," Chan muttered, rubbing where Minho had poked him. "Binnie has this annoying habit of calling me in the middle of the night saying he had a musical epiphany. Last week he wanted me to record a rap about mushrooms and astral travels."

Minho's laughter echoed through the shop, startling a hummingbird that was lazily drinking from a vase of orchids. The tiny bird shot away in a blur of green and blue.

"And did you record it?"

Chan blushed to the roots. "Maybe? The melody was good, okay?"

"You guys are ridiculous," Minho declared, shaking his head. A rose petal fell on his shoulder, and he absently blew it away. "All of you. And I'm even more ridiculous for being here, about to spend my salary on flowers for a possibly fake ritual that my boyfriend found in some dusty book. If this goes wrong, I'll make you eat each of these flowers."

"Ah, but it's not just any book," Yeeun commented over her shoulder while bending down to pick up a particularly beautiful lavender vase. "If it's the same one my Chaeyoung uses, it's an ancient grimoire from a poor soul who was exiled and tried to burn the evidence when she was discovered. It's been passed from witch to witch for generations. The rituals there are legitimate, even if what you're reading isn't the original book. They're copies."

"Oh yeah, cool." Minho drummed his fingers against the nearest shelf. "Then answer me something, please. Do any of these rituals end with my butt where my head should be? A tiger's tooth in my armpit? Death?"

"For fuck's sake, Lee!"

Yeeun tucked a rebellious strand of hair behind her ear, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. "No, nothing so dramatic. The worst that can happen is a strong headache and maybe some strange visions. Like watching an 80s movie after taking cough syrup."

"Visions? What kind of visions? Because if I start seeing JYP naked, I swear I'll sue everyone."

"Shared memories, mainly." She looks at Chan's notepad that he placed open on a table and starts separating other listed branches. "Sometimes fragments of the past, other times glimpses of the future. Chaeyoung says it's like tuning an old radio—you get some stations clearly; others are just static."

Chan stopped playing with a hanging stone amulet. "And what about the... more permanent side effects?"

Yeeun raised an eyebrow, her astute eyes catching something in Chan's tense expression that Minho couldn't decipher.

"Ah," she said softly. "You're worried about burnt marks."

"Burnt marks?" Minho ran his tongue over his dry lips. "Is that possible? What about Psyche? Isn't that a betrayal to the goddess?"

"Technically yes, to all your questions." Yeeun sighed, shoulders dropping slightly. "Soulmate marks can be burnt, and the bond between the people involved will be broken without the approval of the three sisters of fate, but it's not that simple. The person who wishes to remove the mark would need to contact Psyche, offer her one of their future lives after this one, and only then would the bond be broken and the mark disappear. It's like trading your future for the present, you understand? If you don't complete all the steps, you die and lose the right to reincarnate. And believe me, death is the easiest part of this process. That's why it's illegal, both in our country and worldwide. However, there are rumours in the city that there exists... well, a peculiar person who survived the goddess of souls' wrath and is capable of burning the connection in severe cases. Some call it a gift, others a curse. Personally?" She shrugged, making the flowers in her arms sway. "I think it's more of a haunting than anything else."

"And what about the ritual we're planning to do? One of... reconnection." Chan asked.

"If you wish to perform the attunement ritual, you must understand that the person you're seeking might have ended the bond. There's no certain answer about what might happen in these situations. Some report only hearing buzzing in their ears, like television static; sometimes there's no burnt person at all, and they communicate naturally. Others..." She hesitated. "Others say they hear the burnt person's scream while the mark reforms and the connection is reconstructed. I believe these cases of reconnection are rare; maybe they happen when souls have a very strong connection and channel. But, well," she smiled, a sad and knowing smile, "I don't know much beyond that. Some things are better left in mystery, aren't they?"

"No, miss. I don't need any more mystery in this life. It's enough trying to understand how Han Jisung knows how to wield a sword without ever having practiced fencing in his life."

"In this life, you mean."

Minho swallowed hard, his fingers unconsciously gripping the edge of the shelf until his knuckles turned white. The old wood groaned under his force. "What do you mean, this life?"

Yeeun began wrapping all the branches in different papers to facilitate identification. The sweet and herbaceous aroma intensified with each manipulation of the flowers. "Ancient souls carry memories. Abilities. Sometimes they're just fragments—like knowing exactly how to hold a teacup correctly without ever having learned etiquette or recognizing a song in a language you've never studied." Her eyes met Minho's through the branches. "Other times they're bigger things. Like knowing how to handle a sword."

Chan made a strangled sound, nearly dropping the crystal he was examining. "So you're saying that..."

"That your friend was probably a warrior in a past life? Yes." Yeeun tied everything with a purple ribbon. "And by the way you're looking at me, that explains some things, doesn't it?"

Minho ran his hand over his face. His temples were throbbing. "Great. Perfect. My boyfriend is the reincarnation of a medieval warrior. That explains why he insists on sleeping with that ridiculous sword under his mattress." He paused, frowning. "And it also explains why he cried watching all those documentaries about the Crusades."

"At least he doesn't collect shurikens," Chan muttered.

A melodious sound filled the shop—Yeeun was laughing.

"You really have no idea how special you all are, do you?" She began separating some iris stems, their petals such a deep purple they seemed to absorb light. "Ancient souls gravitate toward each other. It's like... imagine a masquerade ball where everyone is blindfolded. You can't see the faces, but you recognize people by the way they move, by the echo of their footsteps on the floor."

Once again, the hummingbird perched on a nearby orchid, its tiny wings glinting in sapphire and emerald hues. Its bright, bead-sized black eyes examined the environment before darting back to the glass ceiling of the greenhouse, leaving behind only the soft echo of its wings. Some things seemed to exist on a different plane of reality, like that iridescent little bird, transitioning between two worlds.

Exactly like Han Jisung when wielding a sword, his eyes focused on something only he could see, his back straight and chin slightly raised in a posture that screamed years of military training. Sometimes, on the quietest nights, Minho caught him murmuring orders in an ancient language while sleeping.

Exactly like Minho when dancing, his movements carrying an elegance that didn't match someone who grew up in the streets of a small town—it was something more refined, older. Something that made his hands unconsciously search for rings that no longer existed and his feet follow the steps of dances that no one else remembered.

Exactly like callused fingers from so much sewing and a gentle smile that warmed any environment. She who drew on any surface—on market walls, in beach sand, even on the tanned skin of the two men who always followed her like devoted shadows.

Damn! There was no third person; there was no woman between two men! Fuck, this was all Jisung's delusion! Why the hell was he imagining a third soul?

No. No, no, no. It was all nonsense. Schools taught—with colored graphics projected on holographic screens and all that scientific crap certified by the International Academy of Psychic Studies—that soulmates were rare. As rare as a diamond meteor falling in the middle of Times Square. And always, ALWAYS in pairs. It was basic: one plus one equals two. Like a pair of shoes, like the hemispheres of the brain, like fucking DNA with its two intertwined helices. Psyche, the goddess herself—that immortal creature who decided to play puzzle with mortals' souls—had split a single soul into two halves so they would find each other on Earth. Two. Not three. What kind of experimental mathematics was Jisung trying to shove into his head?

Cold sweat ran down his neck like ice snakes, dripping onto his shirt collar while his eyes fixed on a random point on the shelves in front—an amber bottle with what appeared to be salamander eyes floating in formaldehyde—without really seeing.

The chemical reaction that allowed telepathy—documented in thousands of brain scans, studied by crazy scientists in white coats—happened between TWO brains. Neurotransmitters: dopamine and serotonin intertwining in a perfect tango between two minds. The cases were so rare they needed to be registered with specific government agencies, each pair catalogued as if they were specimens of endangered butterflies.

Minho ran his hand through his already disheveled hair, pulling some strands hard enough to make his scalp protest. His fingers trembled slightly—not from fear, he mentally insisted, but from exhaustion. The air in the shop seemed denser now, as if Yeeun's words had materialized an invisible mist that made each breath a conscious effort.

"What if..." he began, his voice coming out hoarser than intended, "what if someone... hypothetically speaking... could hear more than one person? Like, more voices than they should?"

Chan turned so quickly he knocked over a bottle of essence, his agile hands catching it millimeters before it hit the floor. Yeeun, in turn, remained completely still, her hands frozen in the middle of tying a bouquet of lavender. The only movement in her face was the slow blinking of her eyes, like an owl contemplating its prey.

"More voices?" she repeated softly. "Like a... chorus?"

"Not exactly." Minho moved restlessly, his fingers drumming a nervous rhythm against his thigh. "More like... a conversation. Between three people. Sometimes they're just fragments; other times they're entire dialogues. And there's this feeling..." He gestured vaguely with his hands, searching for words to describe something he barely understood, "like there's an empty space. An unoccupied chair at a dinner table."

"There are stories, yes, about souls that were split not into two, but into three parts. Even four. They're rare. So rare that most scholars consider them urban legends or mystical delusions. But... some things are rare precisely because they're too powerful to be common."

Yeeun picked up Chan's notebook that was still open on the counter as she moved through the shop like a silent dance.

"If you want advice, in case the ritual is successful and you find a partner without bonds..." Her eyes met Minho's. "Know that the person will burn from within in the real world. Their body will writhe, scream, beg while the organism reconstitutes itself to receive the bond again and the mind dives into ancient memories."

"And how will we know if..."

"Try to find the frequency," Yeeun interrupted Chan, now separating small crystals that chimed like tiny bells in her hands. "The frequency in which their soul will be immersed, even if you can't see their face or hear their voice clearly, maintain contact. Don't let them get lost in their own memories."

Minho bit his lower lip until he tasted the metallic flavor of blood. "And if they get lost?"

Yeeun stopped her dance through the shop, turning to face him. The cobalt-blue crystal in her hands pulsed when she answered, "Then you dive in together. It's risky, but..." Her eyes, now with a supernatural glow.

Chan swallowed hard. "Is that... is that possible? To dive into someone else's memories?"

"Possible?" Yeeun laughed. "Darling, you already do it every night. The shared dreams aren't just dreams—they're memories leaking through the cracks between realities. The ritual will just... open the floodgates completely. All memories, all lives—everything will surface at once."

The hummingbird returned, its wings creating small whirlwinds in the incense-laden air before landing on Yeeun's shoulder. She stroked its iridescent feathers as she continued: "That's why you need to be prepared to anchor whoever is drowning in their own memories. When the memories start flowing, don't fight against them. Let them come like waves. They're just echoes of the past; they're no longer your reality."

"And if... if we discover something we don't want to know?"

Yeeun's smile was as enigmatic as a sphinx's. The hummingbird on her shoulder tilted its head, as if also waiting for her answer.

"Ah, but you already know, don't you? In the depths of your hearts, in the shadows of your nightmares—you already know. The ritual will merely bring to light what your souls have been trying to tell you for centuries."

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

Everything ready. Finally.

Han let his body sink into the sofa, the soft leather creaking under his weight while every muscle protested against the effort of having dragged furniture for hours. His eyes, heavy as molten lead, scanned the room, cataloguing the items set aside for the ritual—pure black wax candles arranged in a perfect circle, crystals aligned at the cardinal points, empty spaces awaiting the herbs and other items Chan promised to bring.

The sweat stuck to his shirt, and the dense smell of sandalwood incense was already making him slightly dizzy, making the edges of his vision ripple. He needed to take that damned iris bath that the grimoire had specified with such emphasis (three whole pages just about the ideal water temperature, for god's sake), but his limbs felt like concrete, and the damn flowers were still with Chan.

It didn't help that his mind was a whirlwind of worries: the four children he had to leave with Felix (Doongie particularly indignant about the temporary change, that little furry dictator), the exact position of the moon that was rapidly approaching the necessary apex, and especially... especially the expression he would see on Minho's face when he arrived.

He tried, for the tenth time in the last twenty minutes, to reach the older one through the mental channel they shared but found only that characteristic silence—like waves hitting against an invisible wall, the kind of blockade that Minho only erected when he was truly furious. Kind of silence that made his stomach twist into impossible knots to undo.

With a sigh that seemed to come from the depths of his soul, Jisung fished the phone from his pocket, his fingers trembling slightly over the screen before opening the conversation with Chan.

han: hyung, where are you?? the moon's almost at the right point! did you manage to get min out of the dance room? did he agree to go to the flower shop? for the love of all that's holy, tell me he's not planning to kill me. or worse, ignore me forever.

wolf: breathe. just dropped him off at the dorm; he's heading to your place. and stop biting your nails, i can hear it from here.

han: ...alive? like, he's still breathing and everything?

wolf: well... he's SLIGHTLY pissed that you hid your plans and ritual readings. MODERATELY pissed that i took your side and promised to serve as anchor again if needed. CONSIDERABLY pissed about only now understanding this whole soulmate thing that no school bothered to explain properly. and EXTREMELY pissed about not being able to get this triad marks story out of his head.

han: ...so i'm more screwed than an ant at a rodeo.

wolf: not necessarily. i managed to calm him down a bit. i think deep down he wants to help, he's just scared. but han-ah, listen to me: when he gets there, SIT and TALK to him first. don't jump straight into the ritual. he's got his head full of conspiracy theories, needs to vent.

han: but the moon... it'll only be in the right position for like, 3 more hours??

wolf: the moon will be back in the right place next month. you three have waited so long, a few more weeks won't kill anyone. and for god's sake, don't try to solve everything with kissing and sex this time either.

han: hey! when did we...

wolf: last week at the boxing gym? month before last in the kitchen? that time in the elevator that traumatized poor seungmin? the new year's party? the broom closet incident? do you really want me to keep listing? i have a drive file just for this.

wolf: anyway. love you both, you stubborn idiots. good luck! and han? he'll understand. just... give it time.

Jisung stared at his phone until his eyes burnt, until the familiar metallic sound of the elevator cut through the silence, making his breath catch in his throat. The characteristic hum of the motor echoed through the empty corridor—one, two, three floors up. Each second stretched like old gum while his heart hammered against his ribs.

The soft beep of the electronic lock cut through the silence, and Han felt every muscle in his body tense in anticipation.

"Min?"

Through the dark reflection of the turned-off TV, he watched Minho slide into the apartment like night water—silent, fluid, dangerous. Snowflakes melted on his broad shoulders, staining the black shirt that outlined every tense muscle under the thin fabric. A bulky package of flowers and ritual supplies balanced in his arms like a reluctant offering, the crumpled kraft paper whispering secrets of iris and something more pungent, almost metallic.

"Don't even think about opening that mouth." Minho's voice came out controlled—but Han knew that cadence that carried promises of storms to come. While kneeling to untie his shoelaces, his movements were too precise, like a feline preparing to pounce.

"Love, if you'd just let me—"

"I said," Minho raised his eyes, and through the TV reflection, Han saw that particular gleam, like turbulent waves under moonlight, that made his knees weaken. He silently thanked that he was sitting. "That I don't want to hear a single word from your mouth."

"How do you expect to understand if you won't let me explain?" Han felt his own energy responding to Minho's, sparks of frustration igniting under his skin while his fingers dug into the leather of the sofa. "You're being ridiculous."

"Ridiculous?" Minho stood up, eyes meeting Han's through the dark reflection. The succulent pot on the small table trembled when he passed, but didn't fall—Minho never completely lost control; that was the worst part. "Then explain to me, Han Jisung, how it's not ridiculous to discover that my boyfriend spent weeks conspiring behind my back."

Han watched, hypnotised, as Minho hung his soaked coat on a random chair. Water drops dripped from the sleeve, forming a small puddle on the wooden floor.

"Min, I..." Han swallowed hard. "I know I should have told you before, but I was afraid you wouldn't understand. That you..."

"That I wouldn't understand?" Minho's laugh sounded like torn silk. "Ah, now you want me to understand? After days of planning all this insanity? After involving Chan-hyung and the others in this..." His fingers contracted in the air, as if searching for words they couldn't reach.

Desperate, Han extended his consciousness through the bond that united them, seeking that familiar connection—and almost screamed. It was like diving into an arctic ocean, waves of icy fury exploding behind his eyes. His temples throbbed in protest while Minho's anger leaked through his mental defenses like ink spilt in clear water, tinting his own thoughts dark blue and silver.

"You have no idea," Minho murmured, and there was something new in his voice now—a raw vulnerability that made Han's heart twist, "what it's like to discover that your soulmate, the person who should trust you above all else, was hiding something like this. Planning a ritual that could..." His voice failed, and for the first time Han saw beyond the stormy waves—saw the pure, crystalline fear that made Minho's hands tremble while he practically threw the flower package in his direction.

"Min, please." Han tried to stand up, but his legs wouldn't cooperate. "If you'd just listen to me—"

"Listen to what exactly?" Minho ran his fingers across his face in an almost violent gesture, leaving pink trails where his nails met skin. "How you want to play with ancient forces we barely understand? How you want to risk everything we've built because of some dreams?"

Something inside Han's chest twisted painfully as a result of the behavior. His Minho, his safe harbor, who would normally envelop him in warmth and comfort as soon as he crossed that door. Who would bury his nose in his neck and breathe deeply as if Han were pure air after days of suffocating?

"They're not just dreams, and you know that very well!" Han stood up in a sudden movement, and the flower package slipped from his lap. Iris petals scattered across the floor like fallen stars, being crushed under his bare feet as he advanced. "They're memories, Min. Our memories. Why are you so afraid of discovering who we were? Of what we meant to each other in other lives?"

On any other day, any other argument, Minho would already be pushing Jisung against the sofa, his eager fingers leaving trails of fire on his skin, his body moving beautifully while mounting his lap and bouncing. He would beg with that hoarse voice for Han to fill him with his cum completely, to make him think only of jisungjisungjisung while he held him by the throat and buried himself deeper, until the nightmares that haunted them dissolved into pure pleasure.

But not today. Today, Minho backed away as if Jisung's touch burnt, his footsteps echoing down the hallway as he headed to the kitchen.

Jisung hesitated for three heartbeats before following him.

The switch clicked under Minho's fingers, bathing the kitchen in fluorescent light that highlighted the dark circles under his eyes.

"There is no woman drowning in a frozen river. There is no us walking until our knees bled. There is no woman drawing symbols on our skin. There is no woman feeding the poor with blessed bread. There is no-"

"Wait." Jisung interrupted, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion as he watched Minho from the kitchen doorway. The older one moved like a caged predator, his eyes frantically scanning every drawer and cabinet. "Drawing on our skin? Feeding the poor? Love, I never... never dreamed of any of that. Just of her drowning. How can you know so much about her if it's all in my head?"

The sound of glass against glass echoed through the kitchen as Minho searched the cabinet under the sink. His hands trembled imperceptibly as he knocked over two empty bottles. "Where the hell did I put that bottle of Macallan? I'm sure that..."

"Min." Jisung took a step into the kitchen, maintaining the distance he knew Minho needed when he got like this. "What else are you hiding?"

"Ah." A sharp smile cut across Minho's face when his fingers finally found the neck of the bottle they had barely touched in months. He held it up against the light like a macabre trophy, the amber liquid dancing hypnotically. "Fifteen years. What a pathetic waste." His lips curved in disgust as he studied the label. "But necessary, isn't it?"

"Lee Minho."

"No." Minho poured a shot, and the crystal clinked against his teeth in a dissonant note as he downed it all at once. A single drop escaped, tracing a tortuous path down his neck. "Don't use that tone with me. Don't dare use that cheap therapist tone thinking you can fix what you don't even understand."

Jisung watched in silence as Minho poured another shot.

"Why won't your hands stop shaking?"

"Fuck off." Minho slammed the glass—not hard enough to break, of course, but enough to make the amber liquid dance.

Jisung moved. His fingers found Minho's nape, where the muscles formed a map of tension he knew by heart; he pressed there, right where the pain always accumulated after endless nights in the studio, feeling the tendons protest under his palm.

"Let me see your eyes." The words slipped against the damp skin of Minho's nape. "Please. Just... let me see what you're hiding."

When Minho remained motionless, his eyes fixed on the half-empty bottle as if it were a private oracle, Jisung slid his hand forward. His fingers spread across the older one's throat with a familiarity that crossed lifetimes—not a threat, but a collar. An anchor.

"Jisung! No!” Yet, Minho's body betrayed him as it always did, responding to Jisung's touch like a compass finding north. It took just a harsher squeeze and his head fell back in a silent surrender that hurt in its familiarity, exposing the vulnerable line of his throat where Jisung could feel his pulse running like a panicked animal. "Han-ah... I can't... I can't go through this. Not again."

"Breathe with me." Jisung pressed a little more, his fingers finding that specific point that made Minho melt—right where his jugular met his jaw. "Slowly. One-two-three, in. One-two-three, out."

"I..." Minho's fingers closed on Jisung's sweatpants like claws. The fabric protested. "Fuck. Shit. I can't... can't lose you both again. Not like this. Not this time."

Jisung's fingers froze against Minho's throat while his own heart stuttered in his chest. "Again?"

"There was this duty..." Minho's voice sounded distant. "It was... it was sacred, you know? Like..."

When Minho started to lose himself in old memories, Jisung tightened his grip on his throat. "Continue. I'm here."

"It was my responsibility." His shoulders—always so proudly straight—curved inward as if trying to protect himself from a blow Jisung couldn't see. "The people were my responsibility, but there was you... you and her in the temple gardens and..." A violent tremor shook his body. "I lost her that day. Not you, never you, but her..."

"It's okay." Jisung murmured against his nape, his lips brushing the sensitive skin there where sweat was starting to accumulate. "You were amazing. We don't need to do the ritual; we can leave this behind if it means our happiness."

"No!" Minho turned abruptly, and his elbows knocked over two glasses. The sound of it shattering against the floor echoed through the kitchen. "Han-ah, no. I... we need to do it. Now."

"Minho," Jisung held his face between his hands as if holding something too precious to name, his thumbs tracing gentle circles on his cheekbones where the skin was too cold. "You're not in any condition. There's another moon in a few days; we can wait and—"

"I need her now, Han Jisung." Minho's hands found his wrists.

"Shh... breathe."

"Now!" It was the first time Minho truly raised his voice, the word coming out like a contained sob. His knees gave way. He slid down the counter to the floor like a puppet with cut strings, dragging Jisung with him. "Please, please, please..."

"Minho, enough." Jisung knelt in front of him, ignoring the shards digging into his knees. "You're going to take a shower, and when you're calmer, we'll talk about—"

Suddenly, like a dam breaking, Jisung felt the older one finally release the mental connection that united them.

A flood of ancient memories hit him—fragments of past lives mixing like a maddened kaleidoscope. His vision darkened at the edges as images overlapped: Minho and him, pale skin against tanned skin, calm against destruction, duty against war. Candles lit in circles of salt, molten gold chains flowing down their wrists like liquid blood, screams echoing through ancient stone corridors. The smell of incense and death mingled on his tongue as Minho seemed to finally relax, Jisung's love flowing through the mental channel like warm honey, trying to calm the storm of memories.

The flame mark on his left side began to burn as if being branded again, and he could swear he felt the waves tattooed on Minho's abdomen rippling in response, their bodies recognizing each other across centuries.

"We need..." Minho took a deep breath. His fingers involuntarily contracted against the fabric of Jisung's shirt. "We need to take an iris bath first. If... if we're going to do this. Your subconscious is saying this."

Jisung didn't even question how Minho had access to his subconscious. His own thoughts seemed distant, as if observing everything through a veil of murky water.

All he knew now was that they needed to do the ritual. Today.

"Come." He murmured, his voice coming out strangely velvety, as if someone else was speaking through him. He lifted Minho with supernatural strength that made his own muscles protest.

The older one's body trembled against his as they crossed the hallway. The iris flowers lay scattered across the floor like small purple corpses, their broken stems leaving a trail of fragrant sap.

In the bathroom, Jisung undressed Minho with fingers that no longer felt like his own, his knuckles cracking with each undone button. Each movement was guided by muscle memory too old to belong to this life. The warm water fell over them like a ritual blessing, purple petals floating on the surface while steam rose in lazy spirals. Minho sobbed softly, words in ancient Sanskrit flowing from his lips.

"Han-ah..." Minho grabbed his wrist with enough force to leave crescent moon-shaped marks, his teeth chattering from cold despite the hot water.

But Jisung was already floating somewhere between lives, his body moving of its own accord while his consciousness observed through a veil.

"We need..." Minho tried to speak, his voice breaking. A drop of water ran down his tense jawline, hanging for a moment before falling. "The circle... the candles..."

Later, Han guided them back to the living room, now dressed in white robes that seemed to absorb and reflect the moonlight, fabric thin as a spider web against their still damp skin.

Minho's kiss came like an electric shock—their teeth accidentally clashing, the taste of metallic blood mixing with salt—and suddenly Jisung blinked, violently returning to consciousness. He found himself standing in the middle of the circle of candles, all lit by his own hands at some point. The antique silver lighter still burnt against his palm, metal too hot to be natural.

In silence, as if moved by invisible strings pulled by an ancient puppeteer, both let the white robes slide from their bodies, the fabric whispering secrets against their skin as it pooled at their feet.

Minho shuddered when his feet touched the circle of coarse salt, a strangled sound escaping his throat that reminded Jisung of a wounded animal. His fingers contracted involuntarily, joints cracking like dry twigs, as if responding to an invisible electric current.

"Lie down." The words escaped Jisung's lips, his voice unrecognizable even to himself. "Let the salt embrace you, hyung."

"Jisung-ah... What if... what if it goes wrong again? If she... if this time we lose everything? The energy feels different, wilder somehow."

"Look at me," Jisung commanded, his hand finding Minho's chin with surprising steadiness. "This time is different. We are different. We're stronger now, aren't we? Together."

"Together."

They lay face to face in the center of the circle, their bodies forming a perfect mirror image, like twin flames dancing in the darkness. The coarse salt scratched their bare skin, leaving tiny red marks that mapped across their flesh.

"Your heart," Minho whispered, his hand hovering over Jisung's chest. "It's beating so fast. Like hummingbird wings."

Jisung raised his hand, his fingers tracing the contours of Minho's face without actually touching him.

"Do you trust me?" Jisung asked, his breath ghosting over Minho's lips.

"Until the end of time itself."

Always.

"Psyche..." The ancient words began to flow from Jisung's lips like sacred water: "Mother of lost souls, guardian of eternal bonds, keeper of memories that time forgot..."

A violent tremor shook Minho's body, his spine arching off the ground like a drawn bow. His fingers dug into the salt, leaving deep furrows as his nails scraped against the wooden floor beneath. "J-Jisung... it's burning..."

"Shh..." Jisung continued the chant, his voice taking on impossible layers and textures, as if multiple versions of him were speaking at once—past, present, and future converging in a single moment. His hand found Minho's, intertwining their fingers despite the older's trembling.

The air around them began to vibrate with an ancient frequency that made their teeth ache. The candle flames flickered and danced, casting shadows that seemed to have lives of their own on the walls, twisting into shapes that shouldn't exist in this reality. The smell of ozone filled the environment, heavy like before a storm, mixed with something more ancient—the scent of incense and snow.

"Han-ah," Minho gasped, his free hand clutching at his abdomen where the mark of waves rippled beneath his skin. "I can feel her. She's... she's so close..."

Before darkness engulfed Jisung, he last saw Minho's eyes, which were no longer black but instead glowed with an unearthly blue that he recognized from other eras, lives, and rituals. Those eyes held universes of memories, lifetimes of love and loss.

And then, like a door being violently broken down by the fist of Psyque, their consciousness plunged into darkness, the echo of ancient temple bells reverberating in their bones, calling them home to a place they had never been in this life.

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

"Your Highness!"

"Your Highness, are you alright?"

"Prince Minho?" A second voice, softer, almost maternal, joined the chorus of concern. "You seem... distant."

Minho startled violently, his head hitting the golden vessel from which the mute nursemaid, Hyejin, was pouring water over his hair with a dull thud. As the metal reverberated, the young girl retreated, almost spilling the elaborate pitcher.

"Careful, Your Highness! You could have hurt yourself."

For a bizarre moment, he felt as if his hands weren't his own. There were tiny ripples in the perfumed water as his fingers shook against the bathtub's edge, their nails scraping the solid gold, which for some reason reminded him of a much smaller bathtub in a modern room.

"Your Highness looks pale," observed Yerin, the royal healer, while pressing specific points on his shoulders. "Your meridians are disturbed. Perhaps we should call the royal physician?"

"That won't be necessary."

He blinked several times, each movement of his eyelids seeming to drag sand. Similar to a pendulum, his vision shifted between two overlapping realities: the opulent bathtub in his royal quarters and the touch of at least five pairs of hands applying Oriental fragrances to his skin. But why did part of him expect the artificial scent of market soap?

The soulmate mark pulsed below his navel like a second source of life, burning with an intensity that made his entrails twist.

"Yah! Lee Minho!" The voice pierced through the heavy oak door carved with protection symbols, making the chandelier crystals chime. "I know you're in there, you royal idiot! Open this door before I break it down!"

"By all the ancient gods," gasped Sana, the visiting priestess from the eastern temple. "Such insolence! In my temple, such behavior..."

"We should call the royal guard!"

"He is the guard!"

"Oh!"

Ah, yes. Han Jisung was practically breaking down the door, each impact sending waves of energy through the bond that united them. The connection between them pulsed like a freshly opened wound, leaking raw emotions;

"If you don't open this door right now, I swear by Psyche I'll invoke the ancestral portals right here!"

"Minjoo-yah," he called softly to the younger nursemaid, who was kneeling beside the bathtub like a devotee in prayer. His fingers, wrinkled from the perfumed water, found the young woman's cheek in a casual caress. Still, it appeared that her gaze was more interested in exploring the area where his nudity was barely concealed by the purple water.

Minho couldn't blame her—it was no secret in the palace that his beauty was considered a blessing from the gods, though sometimes it felt more like a curse. Black as a night without the moon, his hair fell over his chiseled shoulders, water dripping down his alabaster skin in hypnotic patterns that seemed to both reflect and absorb the candlelight.

"Minho, don't make me break the protection seals!"

"Could you open the door for me, dear?" His lips curved into a smile that made the young maid blush to the roots of her black hair. "And Seulgi-unnie," he called to the older maid, who remained near the window like a silent sentinel and watched with a concern that went beyond the present moment. "Please, prepare more towels. I have a feeling I'm going to need them."

A faint creak of the door opened, and a flushed and panting Jisung, still in his training clothes, emerged. At his waist hung the ceremonial sword, its elaborate scabbard clinking against his thigh with every sudden motion. His black hair was stuck to his forehead with sweat from sword training, and there was a dirt smudge on his cheek that made him look younger, almost like the boy who used to steal peaches from the royal gardens with Minho.

"You..." Jisung began, his dark eyes traveling over Minho's naked body in the bathtub with a familiarity that made the maids avert their eyes, embarrassed. "Missed the war council meeting."

Minho tilted his head back, letting a drop of water run down his neck like a provocative caress. Through the bond, he sent flashes of the previous night—Jisung sneaking in through the secret passage behind the carved wardrobe, their urgent kisses, fingers covering Minho's mouth.

"Ah," Jisung swallowed hard, understanding tinging his cheeks red.

"Ah?"

"I... might have contributed to your delay."

"Oh... you might indeed."

Since childhood, when Jisung, son of the queen's head nursemaid, followed Minho like a shadow through the palace corridors, their lives had intertwined like threads in a forbidden tapestry. Whenever possible, the young prince evaded calligraphy lessons by hiding in the gardens with Jisung, where they stole flowers and made up stories about dragons and warriors.

At sixteen, during the Lantern Festival, their soulmate marks appeared simultaneously—waves for Minho, flames for Jisung. The panic in the queen's eyes was instantaneous; a prince could not have a servant's son as a soulmate. That same night, Jisung was sent for military training, a desperate attempt to maintain appearances. But not even distance could break the bond that united them.

"All of you," Minho waved his hand, "may leave. Captain Han will help me with the rest of my bath."

The maids exchanged hesitant glances. Only Seulgi, who had been his nursemaid since birth, allowed a small knowing smile to play on her lips before bowing and guiding the others out of the chamber.

"You're impossible today," Jisung muttered as soon as the door closed. "The entire council was waiting, including the ambassadors from the southern kingdom."

Minho observed his lover's movements with half-closed eyes, appreciating the way the muscles in his arms rippled under sun-bronzed skin. "And since when do you care about protocols, love?"

"Since there's a war knocking at our door with its drums of death," Jisung growled. "And a marriage—no, a sentence—that you insist on pretending doesn't exist, as if you could erase reality as easily as you extinguish the candles in your room every night." His dark eyes shone with a mixture of anger and fear that made the bond between them vibrate painfully.

"Don't you dare mention that wedding," Minho hissed. His fingers found one of the towels that Seulgi had left, the soft fabric absorbing the water as he wrapped himself in it. "Not today. By all the old and new gods, not today."

"Then when?" Jisung followed him into the main chamber, his training boots leaving damp tracks on the carpet imported from the western kingdom—that same kingdom now burning under Chrysalis's siege. "When their armies cross our borders with their machines? When their war towers spit fire? When they discover the ancient tunnels?"

Minho stopped in front of the ancient wooden wardrobe, his fingers tracing the dragon carvings that decorated the doors—first the head, then the wings with their delicate membranes, then the serpentine tail, in a pattern he had repeated since he was small enough to hide inside it during storms. That same wardrobe, which now hid the hidden passage Jisung used to sneak in each night.

"They found someone. For the ceremony attire."

This caught Minho's attention. His kingdom, Lunaris, cradle of lunar crystals and enchanted forges, had always been better known for its weapons than its textile arts. Every craftsman had become a manufacturer of weapons, every weaver a manufacturer of military uniforms, and every child a potential soldier as a result of the never-ending conflict with Chrysalis. Needles had been exchanged for swords long ago.

"Who?" Minho asked while donning a black silk tunic.

"One of the refugees from the royal kitchen. Y/N," Jisung replied, taking two hesitant steps toward Minho. "They say she crossed the Red Plains alone. The border guards found her nearly dead from thirst."

"From the east?" Minho froze, his fingers stopping over the silver buttons.

The eastern kingdom—formerly known as the Garden of the World—had fallen to Chrysalis three moons ago. Its famous hanging gardens had been transformed into training grounds, and the fountains that once spouted holy water now leaked a dark, viscous liquid that made the earth scream.

"The war isn't just coming, Minho," Jisung approached, his hand finding Minho's soulmate mark through the thin fabric of the tunic. "Chrysalis has already devoured the east. The south," his voice faltered, "the south knelt during the last new moon, preferring enslavement to total annihilation. And the west burns since it refused to surrender the Twilight Crystals."

"And you think marrying the princess of Chrysalis will prevent this?" Minho turned so abruptly that his tunic billowed like black wings. "That exchanging vows with those who corrupt the very essence, who transform our sacred crystals into fuel for their machines, will save our people? That lying in her bed while you..."

"No," Jisung answered, his hand rising to touch Minho's face. "But it will buy time. Time to fortify our defenses, to evacuate the border villages, to hide our own crystals."

"To say goodbye?"

Jisung sighed. "Don't say it like it's final. You know I always find my way back to you."

A sad smile played on Minho's lips. "Like a stray cat that always returns home?"

"Like a soulmate who accepts no other destinies," Jisung corrected. "Come. The seamstress must be waiting, and I," he stepped away while heading to the desk near the window, "pilfered something from the meeting that might improve your mood."

Minho arched an eyebrow, watching Jisung retrieve a wax paper package from behind a stack of official documents. The seductive aroma of fresh bread and melted cheese made his stomach protest loudly, a cruel reminder that he had missed breakfast due to his... nocturnal activities.

"You stole food from the war council meeting?" Minho asked, a genuine smile finally illuminating his face. His fingers found Jisung's when he handed him the still-warm sandwich.

"Actually," Jisung began, adjusting the golden buckle of his military uniform, "I saved this poor sandwich from a terrible death by neglect. No one was really eating—too busy shouting at each other about fortifications and defense lines. General Kim almost spilled a wine jug on Counselor Park."

Minho took a bite of the sandwich, an involuntary moan escaping his lips when the melted cheese touched his tongue. "You are impossible, Han Jisung. Completely impossible."

"Says the prince who missed a crucial meeting because he was too busy taking a petal bath," Jisung teased, his hand finding the small of Minho's back as he guided him out of the room. "And before you say anything, yes, I saw the death glares Counselor Jung was throwing at the door every five minutes."

"He was always too dramatic," Minho muttered, cleaning a crumb from the corner of his mouth with his thumb. "Remember when he nearly fainted because he found Jeongin practicing archery with the guards?"

"Now let's go," Jisung chuckled softly, the sound reverberating through the empty corridor like music, "before the poor seamstress thinks she's been abandoned. And Minho? No matter what happens, remember: some things are stronger than political agreements or wars. Our mark is proof of that."

They walked together through the palace's silent corridors, their steps echoing against the polished marble like a melancholic duet. The afternoon sun entered lazily through the high windows, creating golden patterns on the floor.

"Can you hear?" Minho tilted his head slightly. The king would certainly be in another endless meeting with his counselors—the raised voices leaked from the council chamber. "They seem more agitated than usual. Can you make out what they're discussing?"

"Something about the northern borders," Jisung replied. "The queen must be too busy with wedding preparations with your future mother-in-law to calm the king now. You know how he gets without her around." His eyes met Minho's for a moment before quickly looking away. "And Jeongin? I haven't seen him today."

"Stuck in his lessons with Seungmin," Minho replied, a weak smile playing on his lips as he ran his hand along the ancient tapestry decorating the wall. "Probably trying to convince our dear tutor to let him escape to the lower city again. You know my little brother—always preferred the company of commoners to nobility."

"As if you were any different. Remember that time you disguised yourself as a flower seller just to..."

"Shh," Minho interrupted him, his fingers finding Jisung's lips for a fraction of a second. "The walls have ears, Captain Han." His eyes scanned the empty corridor before his voice dropped to a whisper. "So... Tell me, do you think she's trustworthy? A seamstress from the east, appearing just now... It seems too convenient. Especially considering the rumors about Chrysalis spies infiltrating through trade routes."

Jisung pressed his lips together, his fingers drumming restlessly against his sword hilt. "Chan verified her background personally—three times, actually. But keep your eyes open. Not all spies carry daggers," he hesitated, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper, "some carry needles and thread, as my mother used to say."

From the corner of his eye, Minho observed how Jisung tensed at mentioning his mother.

Through their bond, he felt Jisung's memories float—his mother singing while sewing uniforms for her son, teaching him to use a sword, telling stories about spies and heroes while preparing jasmine tea for the queen. And then, the distant echo of screams, flames consuming the village, his mother pushing children into a secret tunnel while facing a dozen Chrysalis soldiers alone.

Minho discreetly slid closer and his eyes swept the empty corridor before placing a soft kiss on Jisung's temple.

I'm here, my love. I'll always be.

Jisung breathed deeply and his lips curved into a small but genuine smile as he nodded his head.

I know, baby. I'll always know.

In silence, Jisung guided the way through the ornate corridors to the seamstress's room, their fingers occasionally brushing when they were sure no one was watching. His hands, calloused from years of wielding swords and climbing walls, could still make Minho's heart leap like a lovesick teenager. While being escorted, the prince fidgeted with the silver ring that was set on Jisung's ring finger in the shape of a crescent moon.

When they arrived, it was Han who opened the door, his body freezing instantly in the doorway as if struck by a paralysis spell. Minho noticed the immediate change—Jisung's broad shoulders tensed under his uniform, his breath caught, and his lips parted in silent surprise.

"Jisung?" Minho called, his own hand instinctively reaching for the dagger hidden in his boot. "What is it?"

Jisung didn't answer him.

Intrigued, Minho gently pushed him aside, only to perfectly understand his soulmate's reaction. The seamstress—Y/N—had her back to them, hanging various fabrics and drawings on an ornate folding screen. As though Aphrodite herself had sculpted each of her features, the afternoon light streaming in through the high windows cast a golden halo around her, and her precise movements and posture evoked Athena's wisdom.

When she turned, Minho felt his soulmate mark burn as if touched by live embers. Beside him, he heard Jisung stifle an exclamation. Y/N gazed at them with eyes that seemed to contain entire galaxies, deep and ancient as the universe itself.

For a moment, the prince completely forgot how to breathe, his throat closing as if he had swallowed desert sand.

"Your Highness," she made a graceful curtsy, her melodious voice carrying a slight eastern accent that made something inside Minho vibrate in recognition. "Captain Han. I was expecting you."

#imagine #lee minho x reader #minho x reader #minsung x reader #minsung #stray kids minho #han jisung x lee minho #lee minho x you #han jisung x reader #han x reader #han jisung #soulmate au #soulmates #bang chan #binchan #romance of the three kingdoms

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rutadales · 1 year ago

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people who participate in hate-fandoms need to get an actual hobby I'm so serious 😭 not to be a hater but for the love of God log off. genuinely humiliating to be spending that much time caring about something that makes you so miserable that is ultimately so meaningless

#root talks #just saw an entire blog dedicated to ''''critique'''' of hazbin hotel and honest to God. from the bottom of my heart.#that is so embarrassing #like why. why why why dedicate that much of your time to something you hate #like this can't be FUN for you.#why spend literal years of your life complaining about something I genuinely can't understand that #why stalk and obsess over news and updates of a show you admit you hate. that only came out a couple weeks ago.#I'm sorry it's just like the dream shit 😭#WHY CARE!! that much about something or someone you hate!#that shit can not be healthy I just don't understand 🙄#like what do you do when you realize you have spent entire years of your life #logging on and obsessing over something that only makes you feel. Bad.#I just don't understand hatedom at all like being a hater is fun briefly but it gets draining #there's a lot of media I dislike #like sander sides I can't stand it anymore used to be a huge fan #haven't thought of it besides in passing in years #because WHYYY would I think about something that makes me miserable when I could think about something I like instead #people need to learn to let go man 😭

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space929 · 1 day ago

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So this ask is genuinely unreadable so forgive me if I struggle with the following translation. I will mention here that, while I can go looking for sources on a lot of what I'm about to say, that would take a lot of time and effort that my dyslexic ass does not want to do. Feel free to look it up yourself. I'm already taking more time than I need to with this. Sorry about that. Hope it's all good that I did this.

TW: politics, gun violence (including schools), and I'm sure you can tell the rest from the above ask.

First off, I am an American citizen, so you, gloomwalkers, can't claim that I don't know because I'm not from the US. I learned the way you did, I just took it upon myself to listen to someone other than right-wingers who have everything to gain from my ignorance and stupidity.

Point one: I believe you're trying to say that Elon did not do the Sieg Heil? And also that our previous leaders have done the same - which was not a Sieg Heil but was worse than what Elon did because it makes you look better. I must say that I have no idea as to the context of the other photos (I guess you only wanted to provide Elon's?) And I would go searching for it but I do not know where to start with that and I don't feel like it so we're going to leave those accusations untouched as I am not doing my proper research.

The second one, however, we are going to talk about. Elon, at the very least, did an act that looked close to a Sieg Heil and then attempted to scrub it from the internet, not address it directly, and agree with multiple posts about how we should not be labeling people as Nazis, while having supported things that have been labeled akin to Nazism for years.

So I'm sure we can make a guess here. Not to mention that your context literally supports the claim you're arguing against. I suppose I should thank you for that. Makes my life easier.

And just to mention the "But he has autism" claims - so do I. And y'know what I do when my autism creates a situation in which I accidentally respond in a very bigoted manner? I apologize. I acknowledge my mistake and carry that around with me so I don't make it again. I do not go online and get mad about the fact that people are calling me out on my bullshit. I understand that all autistic people are different, but we are not incapable of learning or self-reflection and implying that we are is infantilizing and ableist.

Point two: do you... do you think that's a good thing? Do you think it's good that we allow hatred that will very likely end in violence fester and grow until it seeps into our laws and comes out as the situation we're dealing with now? Are you kidding me? Hate speech kills people. You realize that, right? You're good with that? Okay.

But onto our proof otherwise. A lot of people have been jailed for words. I know this is an old one, but the Sedition Act of 1918 literally made it so you could be jailed for up to twenty years for so much as denouncing a war. Also, for a more recent example, Briana Boston is currently jailed for telling a healthcare company "Delay, Deny, Depose, you people are next." Despite there being no proof that she would've done anything.

There are others, however I can't remember them and don't feel like research as I mentioned earlier so. Sorry.

Point three: did you like... get worse? With the grammar? Are you good? Do you need a doctor? That was genuinely concerning to read. Anyway, I guess I'll stop being condescending and respond. I'm trans. Hi! It's nice to meet you. That means that I Know Things. For example, I know that I have never been pressured to be trans. I have, however, been pressured to be cis. Do you care as much about that? I've had teachers ignore my pronouns - I'd say that is pushing an agenda. I've had a teacher tell me - to my face - that I should not be allowed in bathroom or sports - is that not pushing an agenda? Do you care about those?

The only agenda people using my correct pronouns are pushing is something called basic human respect and decency. It's a wonderful concept that you should look into. One of my favorites.

You would be correct. I can't force people to use my correct name or pronouns. It's not practical. But I believe that you're missing the part where this isn't a disliked nickname - something that is harmful and if you think that disregarding someone's wishes isn't a bad thing then, once again, are you good? Because this is concerning. Have you heard of empathy? I urge you to look into the basic human respect and decency I mentioned earlier. But more than that, this is that other concept that you don't believe in. Hate speech. That thing that literally kills people.

"[N]ext part of this is [you] wanting tax payers to fund trans medical issues that are not life threatening[. That] is not our way[,] not because they [are] trans but because they have no right to my money."

So we shouldn't pay for yearly check ups. Or X-rays, if we aren't positive the person will die without it. Also ear infections and appointments from them - that probably won't kill anyone. Dentistry. No one needs mental health help - yeah, my res stay was life-saving but we can't be sure that's the case with everyone and we need to run it by you, specifically, before we can be. Obviously those surgeries that greatly increase quality of life are useless. Our tax money is not to help the American people! Obviously. (/S, if it wasn't clear.)

"[A]lso th[re's] proof [that] this has been forced on kids ie people under 18 which is[,] in fact[,] grounds to remove and sue a teacher for forcing their views on kids at school."

So... I notice that you didn't source this? I actually did look this up (not in great length, I will admit) and I found two of ten articles discussing this point. One of them was from the POV of a mother, and the other was from known transphobic site Transgender Trend from the POV of a fourteen year old. This supports everything that I have both heard and experienced during my time at ten different schools. Four of them being on the west coast, tyvm. This also lines up with what my friends from different schools in different areas have experienced.

I'm trans because I'm trans, not because my teacher forced me to shave my head and do man things. In fact, I was a very feminine child. And yet... I'm still trans. Interesting.

I'm also confused as to the 180. I thought, at the beginning, you were talking about medical procedures - something that is almost exclusively done when it is abundantly clear that it will vastly improve quality of life for the minor. And if we're talking about that, then we must talk about how some people have joint surgeries or brain surgeries "forced on them" so we should definitely ban the use in children for those. Some children get their ears pierced without their permission! We need to stop this madness!

Or maybe you only care about trans people. Maybe you're just transphobic. Would you care to admit to that? It would make this conversation much shorter.

Point four:

"[Y]ou clearly listen to USA media[. W,]ell d[id] you know that ABC[,] NBC, CNN[, and] MSNBC all paid out 100s of millions of dollars in just 3 lawsuits for openly [lying] about the story and people in it. ABC even had pay Trump 15 million for a lie they told about Trump. [S]o frankly trusting them is not really an option[. E]ven [] liberals have had to admit they [were] wrong[.]"

I didn't even have to quote this one. I just needed to rewrite it because I physically could not understand it without doing so. I don't like to judge or shame people for literacy, it does nothing but make people feel bad, and this is genuinely painful. There are free grammar checkers online. The grammar makes this feel like a troll.

Anyway, you realize that there are more news sites than these? Again, I don't know anything about this besides that the lawsuits existed at some point. I do, however, know that Fox News has had lawsuits of the same caliber.

On a different note, allow me to just put this right here (https://app.adfontesmedia.com/chart/interactive - imbed wasn't working) for all your validity and bias checking needs.

Point five: Are we being legit right now? My right to my body without having to go through a legislature is a right. My right to my body without having to go through you is a right. My right to my body not being used as a political ploy is a right. And before you say shit about religion: I'm not religious. Keep religion off of my body when I am not religious. Okay? I have a right to religious freedom and taking away my rights based on someone else's religion isn't religious freedom.

And for your gun control point: Please, I beg you, set foot in a school the day after a child brought a firearm in his backpack. Set foot in a school the day after a child has been murdered. Set foot in a school and know that that could be you. That's not even mentioning mass murders by firearm or murders by firearm or the amount of children who accidentally shoot themselves or others because people can't be bothered to lock up their firearms.

When I was in in-person school, I had at least one threat to my school each year from first grade onwards. I had teachers stand at the front of my class and tell us their plan for if someone broke in. I had them tell us to shove books in our backpacks to protect ourselves if it ever happened.

I had a person literally come to school with a firearm in his bag.

Please. Tell me why we need more of these. Tell me why you won't listen to the easiest solution to our biggest problem. Tell me why I had to go to school, scared out of my mind, day after day, because you wanted your rights so badly while denying us ours'.

It is my right to go to school and come home in the afternoon. If your right to owning a literal death machine is invaded because of that, then maybe you shouldn't have had it in the first place.

This is proven to work. This would work. And yet you people act like it would never work and so you just send us your thoughts and prayers while we get to sit in our schools and wonder if we won't come home that night because we all know that fence and those locks won't protect us.

You were nothing but disrespectful that entire ask. I am not OP and I cannot speak on that part of it, but I can say that I understand your takes. The picture really showed where they come from.

You think that you are the center of the universe. Everyone outside of Texas doesn't need to be acknowledged or known or respected.

Your love of the country does not negate the hate you just spewed. You say no hate and yet you sent this. You read this. You think this. You say no hate and yet you just spoke against so many people.

No hate doesn't dispute this. You realize that, right? You can't say no offense and have something not be offensive.

I hope this helped you understand the points. No hate.

Thank you for your time.

Howdy, let me start off with no hate for you just here trying to help clear up a few things it seems from your post you dont know which is normal since you no a US citizen. again just trying to help you understand not an attack just trying help. 1 on the whole nazi wave https://www.tumblr.com/busterballsblog/773398848248987648?source=share also post is not the full clip here https://youtu.be/5e5Dz2EvuOY?si=NPvB0sq5Qjk2NHDK these should help you better see the whole story and facts. 2 UK, CA, GR,FR all have hate speech as a legal thing in the USA its already been ruled by highest court and even liberal judges agreed no such thing as hate speech in this USA. where each of the nations i listed have jailed people based on their words some where even jokes on stage. but in USA we have the right to say anything but a DIRECT call to action. but just as we each have the right of free speech means all sides have a voice to say as they wish. something that very different our rights listed out in black and white cant be taken away by government for any reason where yours and UK, FR and GR can and have been in name of "Greater Good". in USA its about the 1 not the Greater Good when it comes to rights. 3 on whole trans topic here the the issue its illegal to force someone to talk a set way in the usa. just as your name is Erica you cant force people to call you that they can say HEY YOU or they can call you E all they want and no law is broken in the USA. next part of this is wanting tax payers to fund trans medical issues that are not life threatening is not our way not because they trans but because they have no right to my money. also their proof this has been forced on kids ie people under 18 which is in fact grounds to remove and sue a teacher for forcing their views on kids at school. 4 you clearly listen to USA media well do you know that ABC , NBC, CNN , MSNBC all paid out 100s of millions of dollars in just 3 lawsuits for openly lied about the story and people in it. ABC even had pay Trump 15 million for a lie they told about Trump. so frankly trusting them is not really an option even for liberals have had to admit they wrong. 5 you bring up removing of rights https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/bill-of-rights-transcript please take a look at our rights and can you link abortions to any right you see listed. ( i am assuming this is right you talking about due to your words. mind you while your looking at our rights look at 2A and then notice how liberals seek to remove rights on guns. i use this as example of how the very view that the right seeks to take away rights is not based in any logic and in fact the left is seeking to remove a right openly. again i hope this helps you understand our system in a fair and balanced way. btw i been from quebec to toronto i will say being that im Texan i understand qubec people the best in CA i have a number of pals up their and yea. to give you idea why people like me love your snow is my city just got 3 inches of snow that all the snow we gotten since 2018 and my summers are 110 F or in the 40s C in the shade with 100% humidity. anyway hope this helps you understand better again no hate just trying to help and i will leave you with how Texans see the rest of north America LOL hope you enjoy the fun joke again no hate just trying help you smile. and if you have any question here or DM me is fine just trying share some help.

^^ I give you, the American education system

Look, I disagree with everything you are saying.

If you want to talk about taking rights away, I'll give you this. A lot of pregnant women have died recently because the hospitals are not able to perform abortions. Today, there was a school shooting in Nashville that killed a 17 year old and injured another. If abortions were legal, and you have gun laws in place that weren't written in the 17th century, many people would still be alive. This isn't opinion, this is fact.

Deaths in Canada caused by guns in 2023: less than 300

Deaths in USA caused by guns in 2023: over 43,000

There's honestly too much wrong with your entire message. I don't think I'm the right person to respond so I will leave it to everyone else.

Also, just so you are aware, your "map" did not make me laugh. It offends me. Canada is my home and I would much rather live here (with free healthcare, gun laws that weren't written over 200 years ago, the right for me to make a decision on my own body, and a place where my transgender friends are free to be who they are) than live in fucking texas.

#this is exhausting #politics #idek

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