#i didn't know how to describe it though SO THERE'S YOUR VISUAL

[utilitycaster]

I think people sometimes go REALLY deep into like, either symbolism or "what does it mean that this character always wears the same color, what does it all mean" in actual play and on the one hand I get it's not visual or limited by budget, so in theory characters could wear any outfit of any color at any time, but it's still very convenient in terms of painting a verbal picture, and serves as a shortcut for your players. Like, take the following two examples:

(from 2x80)

(from 3x45 and 3x57)

Now, there could be a reason why Matt initially picked blue for these two characters (though my hunch is that mage=blue is a very common trope, especially in gaming) but once they are established as "blue" characters, there is a vested interest in keeping them blue because it allows him to (as you can see) successfully hint at who they are to the players or permit an explanation for how they're able to connect the dots. Especially because neither of them have particularly unique descriptions physically (elves and humans with light-colored hair are not uncommon) it's an easy way to say across years and campaigns "yes, this is Allura; yes, this is Ludinus, and based on the looks of it this seems like his tower." (Worth noting for the tower that Matt doesn't even repeat the color, just says it matches his aesthetic). If Yussa were to show up in C3 or a future one-shot, I bet he'll be wearing gold. It's not a bad thing! But it doesn't mean that they only wear one color all the time or that it's necessarily very important; it's a quick code. It's not unlike the TAZ Barry Bluejeans reappearance; the bluejeans don't actually mean anything other than "Griffin didn't feel like saying Sildar Hallwinter, and came up with a joke name" but by describing the character, instead of just going "oh it's Barry" the GM makes it a much more special moment by letting the players figure it out, especially in cases where they can't introduce a character by name because the current party doesn't know them.

[trainsandkitties]

"Too late Icarus realized

his wings were melting. He had flown too close

to the Sun. With every desperate swoop of his

arms, more feathers fell and soon his arms

were almost bare. Down and down and down

went Icarus…"

(for best experience, play the video linked below in the background)

"With the entire world as our witness, the Countdown begins at Cape Canaveral, Florida" says a deep man's voice, the camera pans out, showing the launch team. The image is grainy and the voice echoes through the dark room. Only light coming from the telly.

The documentary goes on, recounting the events of the 1962 Friendship 7 mission- the first time a human orbited the earth. 5 years later, on a cold autumn evening, one soul seems to care for the broadcast. Observing with envy, as John Glenn set foot upon the spacecraft that would take him around the orbit. Glenn. That man refused to be confined to the Earth's face. How lucky he was. How lucky indeed. For so many are not only confined to the planet, they're confined to their beds, sometimes, their own bodies too.

The countdown begins. The clock strikes 9.47 and Friendship 7 ascends into the sky.

-Christ, are you watching that thing again?- Thomas entered the room

He was a stumpy lad, cheeky little pest. He hid his guilt well, as he felt at fault for his colleaugue's nearly fatal accident. Had he not mentioned streamlining to Sir Topham Hatt, maybe nothing would have happened. The race would have ended in disappointment, maybe even joy! Not such a tragedy. A tragedy that shook Britain to it's core.

He remembered those weeks that felt like years, when he avoided the gaze of The Flying Scotsman. A man he truly admired, but now- you could say feared. How could he look into the eyes of someone this distraught? The man who just 5 years ago buried his little sisters, now with another possible loss looming over him, all because of Thomas. All because of his pride and need to win.

-Must you all complain?- Gordon croaked -First Scott, then Victor and now you. What's wrong with watching it again? It's one of the very few things that make me happy.-

-Hey man I didn't mean it like that.- Thomas scratched the back of his neck- I just would have gotten bored already. So uh.. How- How are you feeling?-

His question was met with a look that could only be described as a visual representation of "if I could, I'd shove a crutch up your sorry arse."

-Nothing's changed.- Gresley murmured -Whole month's been the same. I think I'd rather sleep through it though.-

-Shucks, I think you've had enough sleep.- Thomas chuckled -Though I saw a guy down the corridor who's been sleeping for a few years now. Am I glad it's not you.- he paused -You're not hurting as much as you were though, right? Did Victor say when you can go back to work? Err.. I don't mind Rebecca!-

-I think I'm better.- the man looked down -Victor doesn't know yet. I'd say he thinks I won't work again.. You... you can go tell Rebecca she has a permanent job, I suppose.-

-Oh. Oh no, man, I'm not telling her that. You'll go home soon, get all better and you'll be back with your express.- Billinton seemed panicked -You're not going to just- give up, because your fucking leg hurts!-

-My crew is dead. And I don't want any dead passengers,, I don't want to die! I wish I could go back, but I can't! I won't recover. Nobody has ever recovered from a goddamn boiler explosion! What if it happens again? What if I can't do it because of the pain? Life isn't some fairytale where you bounce back from everything it throws at you! Sometimes.. You don't bounce back and.. you just need to accept it.- Gordon turned away from his friend and wrapped himself in the sheets -Goodbye, Thomas. I'll see you when I go home..-

-But..-

-Goodbye. It's time you leave.-

"Across Africa, races Friendship 7, at 17 545 miles per hour, 300 miles a minute, 4 miles for every heartbeat of John Glynn. Frienship 7 streaks through the nigth of tomorrow, and to the dawn of yesterday..'

[herecirmsims]

Questions For Storytellers

I have (I think) finally caught up on my list of poses to make, so I wanted to do something a little fun (for me, not for anyone else LMAO) and entirely self-indulgent. I read stories and tell my own over on Instagram, but of course it's harder to post long-form text like this over there.

Special thanks to @freezerbnuuy as I'm copying their post. ❤️

What’s the last screenshot you’ve taken for your story?

This is from the middle of my last post, but it's the last screenshot I took because I went back and added this scene in after finally caving and making my own stupid poses for it hahah.

2. Describe your story in three words or less: Needlessly long tbh

3. Describe (insert character here) in three words or less: Uhhh I'll pick Saxen since he's my MC... wet cat energy (which I think is something @nefaricussims said actually??). Or "90s cocaine chic" as @southernsimmin so beautifully described him. 🤣

4. How did you choose the name of your story? It's called The Cottage because it's... based in and around a cottage. 🥲 I have a very imaginative mind!! 🤣 But also, the cottage plays an important role throughout the whole story and especially in the upcoming finale.

5. How do you choose your characters’ names? My Sim story is based on a novel I never had the confidence to finish - in that version, Sax is an ælf based on Anglo-Saxon belief. I made him a vampire in Sims because that was the only pack I owned at the time, besides base game, and for gameplay purposes I thought vamp put him close to how I imagined him. I now realise I could have easily used CC and my own damn imagination to make him an ælf but I didn't know much about CC at the time, either. 🤣 Because of this, the original story leant into fae lore and the stuff about never revealing your true name. Saxen isn't his real name anyway, but for an added layer it also isn't spelt how you might imagine if you heard it spoken. The same for Thom and Jac who are also characters who came over from the 'original'.

6. How long have you been working on your story for? A little over three years! I have learned soooo much in that time.

7. Whats the biggest risk you’ve taken with your story? Did it pay off? I dunno that I've taken any risks, other than putting it out there in the first place.

8. What about your story are you proud of? I think the fact it exists at all. I've been writing stories since I was a kid, but at some point I lost confidence in myself and have never finished anything/wanted to share it with people because I end up overthinking and deleting it. So I am proud of myself for having maintained a continuous story for three years, and for having other people read it. I think because there was no pressure with a Sims story - with a novel I kept thinking, this has to be perfect and polished so that I can publish it someday. With a Sims story, I'm free to just write the silly tropes I enjoy and allow myself to suck and learn and get better at it.

9. What about your story are you looking to improve on? I read a fantastic article about ma - including pauses in your visual storytelling, space for the characters to sit and breath and reflect. It's ma that makes Ghibli movies so wonderfully distinctive. Being able to make my own poses means that I can show a character's expression or body language in response to a situation, without the need for overlaying text. I'm trying really hard to move away from the "talking heads" style that reads more like a script, and letting the visuals tell the story for me instead. I'm not very good at it because I enjoy my blah blah, but it's fun to try!!

10. Is your story fully planned or are you still working things out? Is there a definitive end? I'm approaching the end of it now, which has been planned for the last three years, so yes - I know pretty much everything that's going to happen. Sometimes the characters still throw a little surprise for me though.

11. Why have you decided to tell this story? Are there any messages or meanings within it? When I got the Sims almost 4 years ago, I had absolutely no idea that there was a) a whole community around it or b) that people used it for storytelling. I'd already made Sax, Thom, and Jac in the game, because I'd wanted to see them come to life during gameplay. Then I discovered poses and started sharing random staged screenshots on Instagram, and became friends with the exceptionally talented TheSimmerKay (now making machinimas!) who showed interest in my silly little characters and suggested that I try telling a story too. I owe her a lot!! As for messages and meaning... I'm very interested in what makes people do the things they do, and how the hero of a story often depends on whose POV we're hearing the story from. There's a fine line between hero and villain sometimes, and a hero acting out of love can cross from protectiveness into control.

12. Do you actually play the game or do you just use it as a storytelling medium? Yep - I have a designated story save, which is the one I take all my screenshots in and which never has gameplay. Then I have a Happy Ever After save for Sax and Fen and another save for for my Globetrotter Challenge Sim, both of which are gameplay only. I think it's important to have that outlet; I can work on my story, make poses, or just play the game, depending on what I fancy.

13. From basic planning to a finished post, how long does that take you? 2-3 evenings. I tend to get everything laid out and text added, then let it sit for a day because I inevitably think of a way to do something better if I give it chance to breath. 🤣

14. Do you have any regrets about your story so far? If you could go back in time, how would you fix these? Not regrets, really, but there are some threads that I put in - fully intending to complete them later in the story - but never did, due to them just not fitting with the story or wanting to try and bring things to an end sooner. But similarly, there are times when I was going to put in a little hint or foreshadowing in and didn't, and then later in my story have wished I had! The tricky part of serialised storytelling is you have to just live with what you have (or don't have), you can't go back and remove or add scenes like you would with a drafted novel.

15. What have been the highlights of creating your story? I've met so many incredible people due to it, oh my goodness. Truly extraordinary Simmers who've shared their time and knowledge with me. We have a little mutual reading group on Insta where we all read and geek out over each other's stories and it's just wonderful. I was honestly shocked when i went to other platforms and realised how much drama there can be in the Sims community. 🤣

16. What about the process do you enjoy? Not that I don't enjoy the process... but I mostly love it when it's finished and I can share it, hahaha.

17. What about the process do you hate? I don't hate any of it... it's a hobby and I do it because I enjoy it. That being said, it does fuck me off when I have multiple Sims in a scene, everyone is in place and has poses queued, and then MCCC Dresser FREEZES MY GAME NOOOOOOOO WHY

18. Choose a song that reminds you of your story:

This is the unofficial theme... specifically this version in Old English, which is Saxen's first language. "It's our destiny then to find love again / Where we failed once before now we'll win"

19. Choose a song that reminds you of (insert character here):

Another one for Sax I guess because he's special. 😌🤣 "But you, a cinder of the fire that's yet to come / Will you just sit and mourn this fragile thing that you've become / Or instead will you consume the very things you can't outrun / Until you finally see all of the strength that you draw from?"

20. Choose your favourite shot from your story so far: Hmmm I think this one, which was me being lazy and reusing a screenshot from an older scene during a flashback-style narration. 🤣 I was trying to achieve something else with the editing but did this by accident and liked it.

21. Choose your least favourite shot so far: Too many to pick from LMAO

22. Choose a favourite character from your story so far: Sax, obviously, he's my lil chew toy/punching bag. But then there's also Idris, for whom I only wish the best. She's going through some trouble right now and I don't enjoy it. It's much more fun to bully Sax.

23. Choose your least favourite character so far: I don't have one! Although Vlad makes me deeply uncomfortable tbh. I find him to be a really creepy villain, and unlike any of my other villains, he's not in any way misrepresented or redeemable. I'm using a makeover version of him by WistfulCastle (I would link, but I don't think he's available anymore?)!

24. Are there any characters who remind you of yourself? No... well. Whenever baby El randomly info-dumps on a niche subject, that's mostly me taking advantage of a captive audience to tell them about karkadanns or medieval torture items or dead bodies on Everest. 🥲

25. What inspirations have you drawn on for your story? I honestly don't know - I can't name anything that I've consciously drawn on, though I know for sure I must have. Funnily enough people have told me things like "oh that's like in Vampire Diaries" or "that's like that part in the Harry Potter films" and I haven't watched either of those, so I think what's happening is we're all drawing from the same well of folklore and mythology and trope. There is occasional story drama about being copied and the thing is... unpopular opinion alert... many of us aren't as unique as we think we are. 😅 What we are unique at is taking a trope and telling it in our own distinctive way. No one else can tell your story quite like you can.

26. Have other sim stories inspired you? I have soooo many talented friends who inspire me to do better when it comes to visuals and storytelling!! @callmedomino is the queen of silent storytelling and a huge inspiration on my journey to discover ma. I really love how well she can tell a story with no words.

27. What genres would you describe your story as? I call it rural fantasy lmao

28. If you could reproduce your story in another medium (movie, novel, comic, etc.) what would you choose and why? I mean obviously I'd say movie because HOW COOL would that be?! Especially an animated one!

29. What would your story’s rating be? (G, PG, M etc.) Ummm probably M because there is the occasional spicy scene. Sometimes three a year LMAO.

30. If you were leaving simblr Simsta and had to choose another creator to continue the story for you, who would you ask? Well tbh I've given Sax and Fen to several good friends already; some of them have them in ongoing cameos in their own stories. I wouldn't ask anyone to continue mine, but I like to think that Sax and Fen could live on in my friend's stories and games if anything were to ever happen to me.

31. Drop some random trivia about your story: When I started I only meant to do short, random vignettes about daily life at the cottage. Somehow it snowballed into a three year epic. 🤣

32. Give a light spoiler: "This is who I am. If I was any other way, I would not be myself."

[weirdmarioenemies]

I've been thinking about Snood a lot lately. Never did I expect I would suddenly become so Snoodpilled! Exactly one week ago, I decided I didn't want to talk about each Snood individually. But I can't help it. I'm gonna do it! I'm about to Snood! I could go on and on about the history of Snood but other people have done that already and you can find it if you're interested. I am just going to explore the designs of each of these little disembodied heads (they are officially referred to as such. I don't know where their bodies went) and you're going to watch! I want you to imagine this happening physically. You sitting in a room while someone plays a slideshow of Snoods while analyzing them. That's what we do here!

Jake is the Main Snood! The simplest, the most straightforward. He is sort of just a face, and I know all the Snoods are, but this is even more straightforward than most! He is pretty striking, though, with his deep blue and intense stare, compared to the more expected yellow smiling face. Despite his simplicity, Jake has served as the mascot of Snood from the beginning, and I guess he's a good choice for that. I don't actively enjoy the designs of many Snoods, so maybe I would say that about any one declared as the mascot, though.

Zod is already much more of a freak than Jake! He's angry, his sclerae turn cyan, and he bares his sharp teeth. My favorite part is that his nostrils glow! What's going on in there? Little creatures throwing a raging party? Or maybe it means it works as an electrical outlet! Most of all, Zod's most interesting feature is his shape. He has four flat-looking protrusions, as if he could easily stand on any of them. Or maybe they're suction cups. Or maybe they're open holes! Stick your arm in and wave at someone from through a Zod! If you cover all but the top one, you could drink a beverage out of him!

Midoribe heard someone say "be there or be square", and let me tell you. He was not there. He is the Snood who fills up most of the space of his sprite, which gives him an interesting vibe of being the Biggest One. I feel like the characters all being radically different shapes would lead to aiming being a bit more difficult depending on which one you're launching. There could be a Snood Visual Clarity tier list! Awesome. Midoribe's face isn't all that interesting, besides his fascinating nose. The bridge is oh so thin, but the nostrils so builbous, looking almost like two tunicates attached to a stactite! Pretty cool of his nose!

Geji is my favorite Snood! The face isn't that exciting compared to the other Snoods', though I like how happy she looks in the standard expression. I say "she" because Snood HD made Geji a very standard Girl Snood design, but look at this original one and tell me that isn't an awesome and epic girl. The best part is all her tendrils! Geji is like a bacterium or something, with all these cilia emerging from her relatively small main body, and filling out the space of her sprite! I bet those could catch plankton if they needed to. They even droop like mammal ears when Geji is sad. But Geji has much reason to smile, and that includes her very interesting widely-placed but tall teeth. Look at them!

Sunny is, I think, the most conventional Snood. A yellow smiley guy with sunglasses, and he's named after the sun. Pretty standard! However, he is the only standard Snood to wear an accessory, which I guess is notable of him. He has the default Mii nose and that is funny to me. The more I look at him, the more I like him! I really like his lopsided smile, and I reasonably like the way his mouth widens SO much when grinning. He is so happy. Lastly, I like how he reminds me of Cheez-It Gripz. Remember Gripz? Gripz were just okay.

Mildred has a really wacky shape! I am not sure how to describe it. Actually, now that I look more closely, she's shaped like a baby's shirt and diaper at rest, and like a somewhat poofy dress when frowning. I don't think that was at all the intention, she is just very oddly shaped! I like it. Mildred has easily the most striking eyes of all, with cyan sclerae, black irises, and pink pupils! They look like they would give her some kind of ability along the lines of X-ray vision. Their positioning makes me think of a hammerhead shark! Mildred's upper lip has a funny little nubbin that seems to lock into a funny little nubbin-shaped slot on the lower lip, and it feels almost beak-like to me. Mildred could chomp a prickly pear pad pretty easily if she wanted to.

Spike is the last of our regular Snoods, and I think he might be my second favorite! His worried expressions are so endearing to me. I think he would be the big tough guy with a heart of gold. He looks like he would be a monster living under a kid's bed, and he would be more scared than the kid when they encounter each other. His horns are kind of the most creature-like of a trait that any Snood has, which is interesting! I think if Spike had a full body, he would have hooves.

AAAAHHHHH!!!! EEK!!!!! This is Numbskull, and Numbskull is a BAD SNOOD! Numbskull cannot be matched with itself and gets in the way and is evil and a bad guy. At first glance it looks like a standard skull, but the more I look at it, the more it looks alive, actually! It has lips. It has nostrils. What I thought were cracks are brown, as if hair! Skin vibes from this Snood. Not only is it an obstacle, but if you don't manage to save all the Snoods, they will turn INTO Numbskulls! Not only did you kill them, you made them bad guys. Nice going, PAL! Luckily we have some MAGIC SNOODS to help deal with them...

Rowbuilder will build a row of all the same kind of Snood, giving an easy area to clear, and transforming other Snoods, including Numbskulls. They can become nice again! They put redemption arcs in Snood! Rowbuilder himself is a weird sort of guy, with a very gaunt face, even more gaunt than the actual skull guy. He has weird Rayman hair on top, and two big ol' arrows on the sides of his head that can stick out to show you that, oh yes, this is a Horizontal Ability guy. I don't have much opinion on him. That little triangle under his mouth could just be a gradient thing, but I think it would be really funny if it was a Snood Soul Patch.

Stone, on the other hand, I love! What's going on with this thing! It is honestly frightening-looking! A strangely-textured orb, entirely out of style with the other Snoods, and a face that's just some vacant, featureless depressions. This would give uncanny valley vibes to a sentient bowling ball. Even though it's a rock, the texture looks like an annelid worm's segments to me. Also even though it's a rock, it explodes! I really don't know why it isn't a bomb (and it would in fact be replaced by a bomb in a later game) but I'm glad it's an unsettling rock instead!

Then there's Wildcard. This goofy guy. This chucklehead. He is playing one of his trademark Tricks on us by not having a unique design in the original game, forcing me to use his sprite from a different game, completely disregarding the consistency of this post! The rascal! He is on our side though, and can turn into whatever Snood is needed to make a match, so don't kill him with hammers. He's alright in the end. The real shame is that he wasn't the Joker in Snood Solitaire! Joker's Trick!

And last, and arguably least, we have Odin. I like Odin, but Odin does not appear in any "mainline" Snood games, just a few spinoffs! Their design is much less upsetting than any other Snood's. This is easy to look at. So obviously I would love to see what Odin would look like if they were a gradient freak like the other Snoods! I think peach is a good color choice for an additional Snood, and the expressions are fun and distinct, but the arrow-shaped horns (?) do evoke Rowbuilder, so something a bit more distinct would have been nice. Maybe antennae, or ossicones!

And that's all the Snoods! I will not be going over their various redesigns, because none are nearly as visually striking and distinct as the originals. Especially the Snood HD ones, who are cohesive and have more mass appeal, at the cost of actual interesting designs. In the end, I still feel none of the Snoods are my style, but they sure are Interesting!

[eoieopda]

FORCE QUIT // EPISODE I: SCRAPS

you didn't have "anti-capitalist revolution" on this year's bingo card, but you never turn down a good time.

pairing: lee felix x reader | series masterlist (1/4) | next episode series summary: it's 2077, and life's a fucking nightmare. corporate titans ate the state and shat it back out, leaving citizens of the new republic to fall in line, or fall to their knees. a reckoning is coming — where will you fall? au: series — dystopian, cyberpunk; episode — childhood friends to strangers to something ➢insp. by: cyberpunk 2077 + the true lives of the fabulous killjoys genre: smut + angst + some fluff word count: 15.4k rating: 18+— minors do not have my consent to interact. series warnings: violence (hand-to-hand, firearms, explosives), depictions of injuries (blood/bruising/burns), some characters have cybernetic modifications, class conflict + poverty, surprise - corporations are bad!, unethical medical/tech experimentation, self-indulgent references to non-skz idols, reader is afab and uses she/her pronouns. episode warnings: above + trainer!felix, edgerunner!reader, pov switches, time skips, reference to food insecurity + reader living check to check, reader experiences temporary vision loss after being knocked out, oral sex (f receiving), unprotected p in v penetration. reader notes: afab & uses she/her pronouns; has cybernetic retinal mods + one in her hand; grew up in (what is fka) korea and speaks korean — however, it’s not stated that she is asian and/or that her family is; does not speak fluent english; has tattoos; has long enough hair to put in a ponytail & use bobby pins (hair not otherwise described). ➢ notes added/expanded upon during 8/6/24 inclusivity review. a/n: each episode features a different member x reader pairing, but the plot is linear, so you'd need to read them (in order) to get the full picture! you can sign up for the taglist to be notified of the next uploads. thank you to my beloved @sailoryooons for beta'ing this and @jihopesjoint for being my emotional support internet wife even though she doesn't stan skz. ily both endlessly!

You don’t deal in absolutes, but you know two things for sure: vending-machine burritos are a crime against humanity; and Han Jisung is a dirty, rotten bastard.

The firm stance you’ve taken on the latter may or may not have something to do with the former, but you can’t draw that conclusion now — not with the abuse your taste buds are currently suffering, anyway.

“Who the fuck —” 

You cut yourself off to spit a mouthful at the ground. Notably, the remnants of that half-chewed abomination look just as awful on the way out as they did on the way in.

 “— Replaced this queso with battery acid?”

Chipmunk cheeks stuffed to bursting, Jisung blinks back at you. He says nothing — suddenly too polite to speak with his mouth full — and shrugs, unbothered. That’s when the realization hits you like a boot to the skull. Drenched in disbelief, your muttering comes out in slow-motion: 

“You spent the last of our cash on these.”

He swallows, though you don’t know how he could bring himself to do it. That act alone makes the rage you’re simmering in bubble over. 

You repeat yourself through gritted teeth, pausing emphatically between every word, “The — last — of — our — cash!”

“My bad?” He eventually offers. Tongue flicking out, he tries to gather the unidentified sauce that clings to the corner of his mouth. He fails. “Not sure what else I was supposed to find with that little money in this part of town, but go off, I guess.”

You bite your lips together to hold back the guttural yell you’re seconds from releasing. At your sides, your empty hands clench tightly. Instead of snapping — with your words or your fists — you close your eyes, inhaling slowly through your nose. Deep breaths won’t do you any fucking good in this smog, but your brain tends to work a little bit better without visual interference.

I can go another twenty-four hours, you think. Maybe.

It’s been a while since you’ve last eaten and even longer since your last job. This isn’t out of the ordinary; gaps are to be expected when you live on the fringe, jumping from thread to thread. Still, it isn’t like Changbin to leave you hanging the way he has been lately. It sure as shit isn’t like him to dodge your calls, either.

So, you figure, if you make an unsolicited visit to his office — the stock room of a bar you know better than to frequent — he won’t have a choice. He’ll have to look you in the eye and explain the dry spell, personally. He owes you at least that much.

With your plan finalized, you hold out your left hand to Jisung. In the few moments you’d taken your eyes off him, he’d apparently gone from sitting on the hood of your car to reclining fully with his own eyes closed. Basking like a little lizard in the sunlight, it’s a miracle the hot metal hasn’t burned a hole in his shirt.

“Come on.” You nudge his bent knee with your knuckles to no avail.

As Jisung is wont to do, he pouts. “But it’s so nice out — and your car still reeks, by the way.”

The absolute, rakish audacity.

If you didn’t love him, you’d probably kill him. 

Strike that. 

Love is irrelevant. You wouldn’t kill him unless and until there was a price on his head. After all, your mother taught you better than to do the things you’re good at for free.

“Do we want to talk about whose fault that is?” You ask with a roll of your eyes. The affection’s still there; you know he sees it. “If I recall correctly — and I think I do, having been the only sober person present — you were the one who got blasted and barfed on everything I love in this world.”

“I got blasted and barfed exclusively on the floor of your car.”

It’s your turn to shrug. “Exactly. End of list.”

Groaning, Jisung rolls his eyes as far back as they’ll go, but he still takes your hand. He always does, always has. With your help, he scoots his ass down the hood and lands with both boots — precisely where your ejected burrito bite did, not five minutes earlier. You can’t stop the satisfied grin from spreading when he whines again, this time louder and with twice as much despair.

After playfully shoving your passenger towards his door, you unlock your own. You don’t dump yourself into the seat, however; not yet. A wall of horrible heat is waiting for you the second the door opens, and you know better than to run into it, headlong.

Jisung is less patient. He’s also more regretful, face twisting in self-imposed anguish when he drops down onto the sun-scorched leather seat. And, to your delight, the hits keep coming. You watch with a smile when the consequences of last weekend’s actions hit his nostrils. The look he gives you falls somewhere between humbled, apologetic, and absolutely dead inside.

“Not one of my finer moments, I’ll admit it.” He acknowledges with a wave of his hand. Resigned, he sighs, “I’ll scrub the shit out of the floor mats the next time we can afford a wash.”

Satisfied, you finally climb behind the wheel. Pushing through the slightly-muted sting of the seat against the backs of your bare thighs, you put your foot on the brake and lift your right hand to press your thumb to the ignition port. The roar of the engine covers the way your breath hitches, but Jisung doesn’t have to hear it to notice the grimace that accompanies it.

“Still sore?” He asks. 

To his credit, he looks genuinely concerned as he reaches across the center console and takes your hand in his. It’s gentle, the way he tilts your palm up, but the movement burns in every single one of your tendons. This time, you know you have a captive audience, so you don’t flinch. 

Despite the trouble it’s giving you, you have to admit that the new enhancement looks beautiful in the sunlight. In the center of your palm, two rectangular, silver brackets refract iridescence. Their shine contrasts sharply with the matte, midnight black cybernetic plating that now covers the majority of your palm, spreading to the first knuckle of your fingers but coating the length of your thumb in its entirety. 

More than beautiful, it’s deadly — and it aches like a motherfucker.

“I read a study about these ballistic co-processors last night while you were knocked out,” he hums. 

Classic Jisung. 

He has no medical or academic background whatsoever but wastes his time reading crank doctors’ research for fun. And, of course, he makes sure to mention it — casually and apropos of mostly nothing — in order to impress.

Gingerly, he runs his finger along the edge of the cyberware, mumbling, “It usually takes five days from installation for the musculoskeletal inflammation to chill.”

Your fingers twitch of their own volition, which prompts him to look up at you curiously. 

“Yeah, well…” You grunt.

Less carefully than you should, you pull your hand from his, tap the gear shift, and throw the car into reverse. Peeling out of the lot, you scoff without even bothering to look his way:

“It’s been ten.”

When the War came and went, it took the old way of life with it on its way out. You might’ve been late to the party by fifty or so years, but you’ve got the gist now. It goes something like this:

Korea, as it was once known, crumpled like a beer can in the face of a corporate uprising and was quickly kicked curbside with the trash. In its place came the New Republic — in all its stolen, neon glory — promising technological revolution, profit in excess. Although the world’s eyes were trained on the peninsula then, not everyone stuck around to watch democracy die in real time. 

Not up close, anyway.

Some people had enough cash to run but not enough to make staying worthwhile. With their tails between their legs and their life savings in hand, they left before the capitalist rot could set in fully; chose willful blindness and headed for countries where corporations rule from the shadows rather than broad daylight.

Most people, however, didn’t leave. People like your grandparents, who hadn’t looked up long enough to notice things going to hell in a hurry. And if they did — well, maybe they saw things for what they were: shitty, same as anywhere else. 

Five decades later, that fact hasn’t changed much.

Regardless of why a person opts to stay in the New Republic, their options for survival are effectively limited to two. Simply put, a person can sell their soul to the very corporations that strangled the state, or they can starve.

Nobody ever chooses the latter.

You can safely assume everything you need to know about a person based on where their next steps take them.

For example, those who crave both chic, penthouse apartments and blood-soaked streets are most likely to fall in line with WraithCo.. The name suggests that it’s a criminal enterprise run by fucking ghouls because that’s essentially what it is. More than that, it’s the arms manufacturer monopoly that out-manned and out-gunned the national military without breaking a sweat. 

The high-powered, highly-paid WraithCo. executives find joy in three things and three things only: designer suits; missiles that explode into clouds of fiberglass upon impact; and testing said missiles out on non-violent nomad encampments outside city limits.

Fucking ghouls.

Despite being the most openly violent of the major players, you find WraithCo. to be the most boring. They lack nuance, don’t bother with a false front or a positive PR spin — it’s all a little too predictable. Thanotech, on the other hand, is subtle; the perfect  cover for those who like to convince themselves they’re doing more good than harm.

In furtherance of that delusion, Thanotech replaced all public hospitals with state-of-the-art, for-profit rejuvenation centers. Worse, their lobbyists ensured that medical licensure was limited to employees of those centers, outlawing the provision and receipt of medical care outside of authorized Thanotech facilities. 

In short, those who can’t afford Thanotech’s astronomical rates — specifically, poor fucks like you — are left to fend for themselves in back alley clinics; to pray that they don’t wind up worse-off than they started, that the police don’t sniff them out, and that their new modifications aren’t just garbage-tier knock-offs.

Of course, some people give more of a shit about these designer mods than the patients who may or may not wind up with them. In that case, the last of the three titans has them covered.

It’s no fucking surprise that the Ulsan Corporation is the crown-jewel of the New Republic — it’s primarily responsible for killing the old one. As the world’s premier technology and cybernetics conglomerate, Ulsan is also primarily responsible for the research, development, and distribution of cybernetic enhancements.

Like the one your body is currently acclimating to.

No such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism, right?

Ulsan may be less obvious with its bastardry than its counterparts, but as far as you can tell, it’s not good guy behavior to eat an established state and shit it back out. Even if you can’t tie any specific, ongoing atrocities back to them, you have no qualms about adding the desperate state of the union to their indictment.

You can blame them for the desperate measures they’ve necessitated, although you won’t give them an ounce of credit for the spark of resistance they so recklessly lit.

Despite it all, there are still people out there who refuse to accept things for what they are. They find an alternative to the comply or die ultimatum — run along the razor’s edge, taking what they can get, whenever they can get it.

Like Changbin, one of Seoul’s best-connected fixers.

Like you, a gun for hire. 

Like Jisung, sitting in your passenger seat as you drive across town, who’s just happy to be included.

Generally speaking, piss and vinegar don’t mix well with club security.

If you were anyone else, rolling up to The Crypt like you own the place would be ill-advised. More than that, it would be asking to get your teeth kicked in faster than you could say, “I’m on the list.”

Thankfully, as it often does, your reputation precedes you. Nobody in the block-long line bats an eye when you cut right to the front, a fact that has Jisung smirking in a way that might otherwise get him killed. Still, the bouncer shoots you a look that says you’re more trouble than you’re worth; and you agree.

Before your friend can change the muscle’s mind, you grab Jisung by the wrist and tug him through the front entrance. You don’t let go when the door shuts behind you, although it’s more for convenience than concern for his safety. He has a tendency to wander, and you don’t have the patience.

“Haven’t been here in a while,” he muses as you drag him towards the main bar, head turning to look in every direction except the one you’re moving in.

You don’t slow down.

Winding your way through the drunks at the counter, you inch closer to the large booths along the far wall. Inside, draped nonchalantly over the plush benches, sit the big guns — mercenaries with far more sway than you, far fatter wallets. They’re living the high life you’ve always dreamed of, and they don’t even notice you staring as you pass.

“Oh, shit!” Jisung waves overhead to one of them, reminding you without trying that he — unlike you — has other friends.“S.Coups, where have the fuck have you been, man?”

You still don’t slow down.

Not when you reach the stairwell at the far side of the main floor. Not when you shuffle down the steps to the employees only section. Not even when the security camera overhead silently demands that you do.

There’s only one locked door amongst the few; you fly to it like a homing pigeon and beat against the metal with your free hand. It isn’t until the burning ache sets in that you realize you chose your right.

“Goddamn it.” You growl down at it, as if your hand will apologize for hurting. Turning your vitriol towards the door, you kick it hard, steel-toed boot forcing out a thud. “Changbin, open this shit up!”

Jisung glares as he scolds you, “Manners, maybe?”

You roll your eyes, but his expectant expression doesn’t budge.

“Fucking — fine, okay? Fine.” Hands thrown up in defeat, you take a deep breath. Your next words come out saccharine, accompanied by fluttering lashes that can’t even be seen. “Changbin, darling, could you please open this shit up?”

The two of you wait in dead silence for several seconds before Jisung’s hands fly up to your hair, unprompted. Your surprised yelp doesn’t faze him. He grabs the bobby-pin from where you’ve stashed it under your ponytail, drops to his knees, and starts to work.

You snort, “Well, damn. Look at you!”

Truly, you’re impressed. Jisung normally leaves the dirty work to you, yet here he is — breaking and entering.

They grow up so fast.

He tries not to look proud of himself, but his cheeks blush a shade of sakura and rat him right out. Though you’re sure he’d love to, he can’t even lift a hand to wave you off before the lock clicks. With a quick twist of the knob, he pushes the door open.

Changbin’s office looks close to normal, with a few notable exceptions. For starters, he’s not in it. The man you’re dealing with never sees the light of day if he can help it.

Jisung pipes up first: “Okay, what the fuck?”

The office chair Changbin normally occupies is spun to the side, as if his ass left it in a hurry. Even odder than that is the small, green light which indicates that he didn’t shut off his computer before leaving it unattended. It’s not a decision someone like Changbin — neurotic and paranoid to a borderline clinical degree — makes on his own.

That, you know outright, is a problem.

Cautiously, you slip past Jisung and walk on eggshells towards Changbin’s desk. You know it’s stupid, that no one would bother rigging the floor tiles to blow under the weight of your boots, but you can’t ignore the way your gut twists with every step. That dread only gets worse, the closer you get.

To the right of his primary screen, there’s a half-eaten vending-machine burrito that’s so covered with ants, you almost mistake them for pepper flakes. That sight makes bile rise in your throat, in and of itself, but it’s the untouched cup of coffee that sends a tingle of panic down your spine. Around the base of the glass, hardly visible on the sheet of paper underneath, is a water ring. 

That coffee — at one point, however long ago — was iced.

Changbin would kill you for it if he were here, but he isn’t, so you drop down into his chair. You pause as soon as your ass settles onto the leather, still not convinced that one wrong move won’t set off some sort of trap. The breath you’ve been holding leaks out slowly when your actions go without consequences.

A quick glance up at Jisung confirms that he looks exactly as spooked as you feel. You watch his Adam’s apple bob when he swallows hard. 

He knows the answer before he asks, but that doesn’t stop him. It comes out scratchy, riddled with hesitation that says he doesn’t really want to hear the response. “He hasn’t been here in days, has he?”

You shake your head, just barely, then turn to the desk. Bottom lip pinched between worried teeth, you scan the surface for anything you missed on your first pass.

Give me a hint, you motherfucker. All I need is a breadcrumb.

It’s the absence of something that grabs your attention. Eyes narrowing, you lean forward in your seat to get as close as possible to his monitors.

“Does that…?” You start to ask but your voice trails off before you finish; thoughts moving too quickly to inventory before the next one arrives.

Though black, the screens in front of you aren’t lifeless. If anything, they’re still backlit, glitching subtly in a way they shouldn’t — not if the system had been locked, powered off, or otherwise put to sleep. You don’t have to be a netrunner to know that someone is running an opp, fucking up the computer’s processing and leaving it brain dead.

It’s so small that you almost miss the minimized window at the bottom left-hand corner of his secondary monitor, screen otherwise barren. Hesitantly, you reach out your hand and press a trembling finger to it.

Jisung is hovering so closely over your shoulder that you can practically taste that burrito on his breath. You elbow him once in the chest, hard.

He coughs, pointing to the screen as he sputters, “What the hell are those?”

“Numbers, Jisung.” You deadpan. “They’re called numbers.”

Ignoring the way he grumbles in response, you grab your mobile from your pocket. It springs to life at your sudden touch and broadcasts a holographic home screen in the air just centimeters above the glass. Just as fast, it tracks the movement of your eyes flicking through the list of applications. With the faintest shudder, the GPS navigation consumes the screen.

You repeat what you hope are coordinates:

35.2029, 128.6001.

As the map loads, you and Jisung exchange glances that are underscored by tense swallows. He knows it, and so do you: 

No matter where that pin ends up dropping, you have no choice but to go.

It takes three hours to drive from Seoul to Changwon. Although it’s not a route you’ve taken in years, or one you ever expected to take again, you still know it like the back of your hand. You can still navigate every turn — every crater and curve — with your eyes closed, even now. 

Despite that fact, your decision to race to the southeast this time has nothing to do with sentimentality for the hometown you left five years ago. 

This is just for Changbin, you repeat like a mantra, pressing harder on the accelerator. 

With every stoplight and thought you race through, the background grows blurrier but the big picture gets clearer. Changbin himself has nothing to do with it; and you’re not as selfless as your inner monologue keeps claiming. You correct yourself:

This is for me and my empty bank account.

Really — who could blame you?

You need steady contracts in order to eat. Without Changbin, those get fewer and farther between. It’s the transitive property, or whatever; basic math. You might starve without him, and that is the one thing in this life that you’re unwilling to do.

In the passenger seat, Jisung stirs. When he speaks, his voice isn’t weighted down with exhaustion in the way it usually is, halfway through a car trip. For some reason, it makes your stomach turn to consider that — for what is probably the first time ever — he isn’t sleeping through a drive.

“He left in a hurry,” he quietly notes.

Out of the corner of your eye, you glance at him and confirm the presence of that worried crease between his eyebrows. It’s not accompanied by the usual, furiously-bouncing knee. That makes your stomach turn, too. Clearly, he’s vaulted over mere anxiety and landed somewhere close to shutting down.

You nod. “He did.”

It spooks him when you take your right hand off the steering wheel and give his elbow a brief squeeze. You’re not the affectionate type; you both know this. It always makes your rare touches more ominous than comforting.

“Do you think he was running to something, or running away from something?”

Leave it to Jisung to say the quiet part out loud. 

Normally, you have an answer for his constant questions; and if you don’t, you resort to lying or guessing. This time, however, you don’t bother with either of those tactics because it doesn’t matter. Whatever the correct answer is, it’ll still feel wrong because Changbin doesn’t run.

Period.

Full stop.

So, the conclusion your brain keeps trying to come to is that he didn’t — he wouldn’t — if it came down to choice. The only reason Changbin would’ve disappeared like this, suddenly and wordlessly, is if he was taken.

Pulse hammering loudly in your ears, you don’t hear Jisung announce that your destination is only a few hundred meters down the road. Without his emphatic pointing out the windshield ahead, you simply would’ve continued racing forward, taking the speed limit as a suggestion to be ignored. Thankfully, your lead foot switches to the brake with enough time to make your turn. Tires hit dirt; your car fishtails as it transitions from the road to the worn-out path to your right.

“The fuck is this place?” You mutter, more to yourself than to Jisung.

It’s obsolete, you know that much. 

Something akin to an industrial park, but one that clearly hasn’t been used since before the War. There are electrical towers dotting a perimeter around the space, none of which are operational; the grid system was replaced by wind power, then by solar energy no fewer than fifty years ago. The driveway below is so cracked that patches of weeds have overtaken most of what remained of the pavement. All the rest is weathered, reduced to broken bits of cement and dirt.

Your car slows to a stop halfway down the parkway, surrounded on both sides by empty storage units with doors either broken or missing entirely. Hair raising on the back of your neck, you park but don’t kill the engine. Slowly, you rest your right hand over top of the holster strapped to your thigh and open your car door with your left.

The sun set a few hours into your drive. Its absence hasn’t done a damn thing to break the thick heat waiting for you outside. Humid air settles on your skin and leaves a sheen of sweat behind like a handprint, sticky.

“These were the coordinates,” Jisung affirms with a sigh. He stays seated inside the vehicle, leaving you to wonder why. He’s either too panicked to move, or correct in assuming you’d tell him to sit his unarmed ass back down before you made him.

You don’t respond. 

Instead, your eyes continue to scan the property for signs of — well, anything. Movement, a heat signature, whatever might register on your optical mods. There’s nothing, save for the stray tumbleweed somersaulting across the empty lot. You narrow your eyes to zoom in, heart pounding with anticipation.

You almost scream when you see it, but you swallow the urge. Fear won’t do you any good, but the semi-automatic strapped to your thigh might. It’s in your palm before you can blink, cocked and aimed at the figure ahead. At the bottom of your field of vision, your ammo count glows in translucent, block letters.

So, the ballistic co-processor is worth the pain.

Their posture is casual, legs dangling from the metal catwalk they sit on. Their elbows rest against the railing in front of them, as if they’re leaning on a counter in a bar and not spying on you from a scaffold four meters overhead. The way they’re watching in silence is unsettling enough; the wooden tal obscuring their face is fucking nightmare fuel, if you’ve ever seen it.

Head tilted curiously to the side, the stranger stares down at you through small eye holes, wooden mouth frozen in a hand-carved smile. Whoever they are, they’re immersed in the bit. They exaggerate every slow movement for their audience of two.

Good for them, you scoff to yourself.

Gloved hands come up to pantomime “don’t shoot” mere seconds before they grab hold of the railing in front of them. Just as quickly, they swing themselves underneath with a kick of their legs until they’re falling, falling, falling towards the ground below. They land easily on their feet without so much as a grunt. All the while, dust swirls in pirouettes around their ankles, spot-lit by your car’s headlamps.

“What — what the fuck?” Jisung squeaks. 

You don’t answer, but that doesn’t stop him from repeating his question, over and over.

Hands still raised, the stranger slowly closes the distance between you. Their fingers wiggle slightly in some demented version of a wave; they’re taunting you. The unhealed part of you wants to shoot those fingers off, one by one. 

You’ve never been fond of clowns.

“If you like having kneecaps without bullets in them, I suggest you stay still, chingu,” you scoff, now more annoyed than alarmed.

To your surprise, they listen. Their feet still, side by side; and their hands stay where you can see them. That is, until they curl all of their fingers into their palm, except for their right index finger. With it, they point silently over your shoulder.

As soon as you can whip your neck around, a gloved fist collides with your temple. The last thing you see before your vision goes black is a second, wooden smile looming over you.

A hushed tone manages to nudge you awake.

“You really can’t keep doing this. Seriously, your people skills are awful.”

The whole world’s blurry, and you can’t make out the source of the sound, but you’re coherent enough to know it when a second voice chimes in. It’s much less gentle than the first, higher in pitch and twice as exasperated. It snaps, “She was armed.”

“I had it under control,” the first voice huffs. 

The two seem to be too lost in their argument to notice your eyelids fluttering or your fingers twitching. Your wrists aren’t bound, you realize, but that fact doesn’t help you much in your current state. Back resting heavily against the thin nylon cloth of a cot, it’d take more energy than you have to spare in order to get to your feet. Worse, your eyes don’t seem interested in cooperating.

They should be by now. 

They’re open, you’re conscious, and —

Motherfucker.

The more awake you become, the more the ache in your temple reverberates down your jaw. You know without looking that the right side of your face is bruised to hell and back. Scraped up, too, if you had to guess; you hit the gravel like a bag of bricks.

They must’ve done it on purpose, hitting you exactly where they needed to in order to scramble your visual input. The most you get is shapes, black and white static. It wasn’t the hardest knock you’d ever taken to the head — not by a long shot — but it was perfectly targeted and timed. 

Clearly, they’re no amateurs.

One such shadow kneels down next to you. Gentle fingers tuck a strand of hair behind your ear while their other hand tilts your drooping head to the side. 

They tut, “Just look at what you did to her face.”

“From what I’ve heard, she’s been through worse,” the second voice scoffs. You watch the shadow’s shoulders as they shrug, wishing you could focus on their face well enough to bash it in.

The retort comes quickly, but it doesn’t come in Korean. 

“That doesn’t mean you can’t do better.”

The hands that gently cradle your face pull away, leaving you cold. The action itself isn’t as jarring as the sudden use of English, though — especially the accent it’s spoken with. You may not be fluent, but you can sense what’s missing: the consonant on the end of that last word.

You sense something else, too, but you’re still too disoriented to follow that thought from start to finish. It’s on the tip of your tongue, just out of reach.

Who — ?

The bastard that broke your brain must notice your face scrunching in confusion because their next words seem to be aimed at you. Clipped and unapologetic, they mutter, “Should be fine within the hour. Already been out for —” 

They suck in a breath through their teeth. You can’t tell if they’re stalling in order to toy with you, or if they’re genuinely doing the math. 

“— Seven hours or so, now.”

Fuck!

One of the two snorts out a laugh; it’s the only reason you piece it together that you spoke out loud. Emboldened by the confirmed functionality of your voice, you speak again without thinking it through first. 

You don’t care where you are or who you’re with. You only have one question:

“Is Changbin still alive? Because if he is, I’ll kill him myself.”

The man kneeling next to your cot chuckles, soft and low, but he doesn’t acknowledge your question beyond that. Instead, he addresses his hamfisted friend. “Can you please get her some water?”

“Am I a waiter now, Yongbok-ah?” The other snips, though his tone is devoid of any real heat. If his face wasn’t blurred out of existence, you’d likely find a sneer on it. “Should I roll some gimbap for her, too?”

“Actually, you should,” counters this Yongbok. His response is buried so deeply under his breath that his back talk may as well be a secret for your ears only. “Punched her clean into the next weekday — so, yeah. It’s the least you could do.”

It grows silent enough that you can hear every incredulous footstep as the waiter storms off.

The remainder says, “Sorry about him,” and for whatever little it’s worth, he sounds like he means it. You say nothing, simply marinating in your resentment. 

Meanwhile, he shifts from his knees in order to sit fully on the ground next to your cot. Elbows extended, he leans back onto his palms and sighs gently, “Minho’s not as bad as the first impressions he makes.”

You scoff so forcefully that you feel it in your sinuses. “This is the second. His first is the reason I can’t see who’s holding me hostage.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” The shape beside you sits up suddenly. He sputters, “You’re not a hostage, and this isn’t a kidnapping —”

“Then what the fuck is it?” You snap, “Huh, Yongbok?”

Blindly, you throw out a half-balled fist in a half-baked attempt to even the score. It misses by a mile, nearly knocking you off balance in the process. Your wrist is encircled by the same warm fingers you felt before, doubling over but exerting no force.

“We were scouting you. You know, like, soccer?” He chuckles sheepishly. “Changbin mentioned that you were a free agent, so to speak, and we thought you might wanna join the team.”

What the fuck?

“And — it wasn’t supposed to wind up like this.” His shadow’s hands gesture vaguely at the room you can’t see. “I did try to warn you. You just didn’t turn around in time.”

There are too many questions swirling around in your skull to choose from. One of them must break free and nudge your retinal chip back into place because something turns the lights back on. Glitching wildly, your vision flickers from low contrast to high definition. It doesn’t hurt, but the surprised gasp you choke out could easily be interpreted that way.

The man next to you is back on his knees in a second, both hands finding your shoulders to either comfort you or immobilize you — and you aren’t sure which. Against your better judgment, you ignore the reflex that tells you to fight or flee. Instead, you reach out and touch his cheekbone to confirm that the faint spots you see are freckles and not lingering sensory damage on your part.

He doesn’t even blink, much less say a word. There’s no jerk to get away, and there’s not a single question asked about what the fuck you’re doing — just tolerance. Far more than you’d be extending if the roles were reversed.

Freckles.

You aren’t embarrassed, but you drop your hand quickly and scowl at him until he does the same. Once again, he raises them as he leans back. Notably, he doesn’t wiggle his fingers like the first time you crossed paths.

That reminds me —

Abruptly, you draw your arm back to deck him in earnest. 

Just like the last time, he catches you before you can strike him; however, instead of capturing your wrist, it’s the entirety of your fist. His palm absorbs the shock, fingers closing around your hand. It’s the gentlest trap you’ve ever been ensnared in, which you hate.

Smart of you to prevent another attempt.

“Can I finish explaining myself?” He asks, voice soft. 

Bright doe eyes scan over your face cautiously as he contemplates letting your hand go. It’s disarming, sure, but you’d rather die than admit it. 

You give him absolutely nothing to work with, so he adds, “You can hit me when I’m done, if you still want to.”

All you give him in return is a glare, which he somehow correctly interprets as permission to keep going. The grip on your fist loosens, although it wasn’t constricting to begin with. Like nothing happened, you pull it away and cross your arms.

As if nonchalance has ever been your strong suit.

He stares at you, deep in thought, for longer than you know what to do with. Eyes sweeping over your features like he’ll be quizzed later, taking in every detail. It’s unsettling — what about you is even worth gawking at?

When he frowns, that spark of light in his eyes stays put. “You don’t remember me.” 

It’s not a question because he isn’t asking; he’s telling. And you have no goddamn clue what he means, no matter how loudly the voice in your head screams that you should. The familiarity buzzing through your brain can’t place him — not the button of his nose, not even those fucking freckles.

“I don’t know anyone named Yongbok,” you counter, frustration evident.

You wouldn’t be this harsh if you know how not to be. Part of you feels guilty when you see the hurt flicker across his face, but both emotions — his and yours — are gone as quickly as they appear. Consequently, the walls stay up, refusing to give. Despite you, the corner of his mouth hitches up in a lopsided version of a smile. 

That’s familiar, too.

“Never really went by it,” he chuckles. As he does, he tilts his head quizzically. 

Another bell rings, yet you can’t name the note.

Shyly, he takes his half-smile with him and looks anywhere else. The anticipation is spinning cartwheels in your stomach, tingling down the back of your neck, and you’re seconds away from trying to smack the trapped words right out of him. 

Who are you to me?

After a deep breath in and out, he glances back at you from the corner of his eye. His hesitation does nothing to prepare you for his response, which isn’t his name at all. It’s yours — a nickname, more specifically. One no one has used in damn near a decade.

“Been a while, Scraps. Hasn’t it?”

Felix has never seen anyone freeze the way you do when the realization finally hits. For a minute, he worries that Minho did more damage to your poor brain than either of them initially diagnosed; it wouldn’t be the first time. Minho’s never been known to be careful or tactful.

Your silence — and your total lack of physical response — doesn’t last, though. He nudges your kneecap with his knuckles just to make sure you can feel it. You blink rapidly, as if you’re just now remembering how.

He starts to ask, “Are you ok—?”, but your fist flies out, pops him right in the jaw, and he chokes on the rest of that question. Hands flying up to cover his face, he collapses back onto the floor with a groan. When the initial shock wears off, it dissolves into laughter that shakes his shoulders.

Honestly, what did he expect?

In a flash, you shove yourself off your cot. You’re on top of him before he can blink, pinning him down. You grip his shirt in one fist and raise the other. He braces himself for impact but doesn’t flinch, too taken aback by the fury you’re capable of communicating without a single word.

“You’re fucking with me,” you spit, breaking the silence.

Your glare is borderline feral — burning — and that makes him laugh even harder. 

“You haven’t changed a bit, you know that?”

To both of your surprise, you don’t hit him again; you don’t even try. You freeze, but unlike the last time, your eyes are shaking. Your raised arm is, too, like it’s taking all you have to keep whatever you’re feeling to yourself.

Classic Scraps.

You mutter, “You’re dead,” and it’s not a threat. 

Not even close, really. It’s a declaration, one accompanied by an expression that’s as close to vulnerable as he’s ever seen from you. All at once, you lower your arm; the rest of you slumps, too. Whispering, you repeat, “You’re dead.”

Something about your tone hurts worse than the burgeoning bruise near his mouth. It aches, even more so when he frowns. You deserve an explanation — an apology, too — but Felix doesn’t know where the fuck to start.

Maybe he should cash that reality check first.

“Is that what people are saying?” He asks.

He’s not sure what about that trips him up. It makes perfect sense that this is the conclusion people wound up jumping to. After all, he left without a word and never came back — didn’t leave a trace, either. 

Felix wasn’t the first teenager to slip through the cracks, so he’d figured that his would be another run-of-the-mill disappearance. Sure, people tend to notice when kids go missing; but that doesn’t stop the world from turning. Sooner or later, people stop looking, either too busy or too hopeless to keep holding a torch.

Eventually, they forget.

At least, that was the reality Felix had subscribed to — that, after a while, he’d slipped through the cracks of collective consciousness. It was easier to tell himself that he wasn’t missed. His guilt couldn’t keep him up at night if nobody remembered that he existed in the first place; especially when a decade slipped past in his absence.

But you did remember. 

You missed him.

You lift your knee so that you’re no longer straddling him and drop onto your back at his side.

It’s funny, he thinks as he stares up at the ceiling. The two of you spent years just like this, albeit on the hood of some junkyard sedan. Two pairs of wide eyes were always fixed on constellations, dreaming of something bigger than both of you. Of some future where you weren’t still stuck in the gutter.

“There was no trace of you anywhere.” You speak so softly that Felix is left to wonder whether you’re talking to him or yourself. “No records that you fled, no word from you, no hits on CCTV — nothing. The cops said there’d be a trail if…”

Your voice fades out before you can finish that thought, so Felix picks up where you left off: “If I was alive to leave one.”

There’s a long pause before you speak again. 

“This is where you disappeared to?”

He feels a shift beside him. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the way you’ve tilted your head to gaze at him. By the time he does the same, the moment is gone, and you’re taking in the room around you. 

It’s not much, but it’s all he has: A small room in a decommissioned factory, smelling faintly of sawdust despite not containing any. The cot you just sprang from is where he’s spent most nights since he was fifteen. 

The floor underneath it — underneath you — is more dirt than concrete now, no matter how many times he’s scrubbed it; and the few iron shelves that hang along each wall are just as gross. So are the knickknacks he’s set on them, but he doesn’t mind.

The site itself is long forgotten. It’d be an eyesore if anyone ever looked, but no one bothers.

Even satellites have stopped paying it any attention, leaving it to fade into dirt and obscurity, not even a shadow of what it used to be. Once plush and inviting, the surrounding forest was leveled in a firefight that ended with ninety-percent of the nearby buildings getting blown to shit. 

The New Republic could’ve easily organized a relief team to dig through the shattered city. At any point in the last fifty years, they could’ve rebuilt what burned in that failed uprising, but they didn’t; and Felix knows they never will because that rubble has a function. Apart from burying one of the country’s most impoverished districts, it serves as a cautionary tale. A threat left behind to the masses: this is what happens when people pose risk to profits.

Still, flowers can grow within cracks in concrete. After all, his life with you started just a few kilometers away.

“Are we still in Changwon, or did you and that asshole drag me out of the province?” 

That edge of yours is ever present, and Felix is glad. It’s one of the million things he’s missed about you; a feature on the long list of reasons he wishes he could’ve called — messaged, sent a smoke signal, anything — to keep you around in whatever capacity he could.

But he didn’t. 

He couldn’t.

Felix feels the weight of a lost decade sitting heavy on his chest, so he does what he always does: he chooses light. Smiling brightly, he asks, “D’you remember that junkyard we used to run away to after curfew?”

You roll your eyes. You don’t have to say it out loud; he knows you do. The two of you spent more time there than you did in your own homes, lining glass bottles along the wooden fence posts and firing stones at them with a homemade slingshot.

“We’re a few kilometers up the road, actually.”

At this, you sit up so that no part of your body stays pressed against his. Dead silence settles in the space between you like a brick wall. You bristle, then you snap, “All that time you were dead, you were still within spitting distance?”

Felix opens his mouth to respond, but your rigid posture makes it clear that you have no desire to listen. He closes it again without saying a word. It’s what he deserves, isn’t it?

“Traded in your family, your home, your — Me.” You clear your throat to hide the fact that your voice breaks. It’s too late. “And for what, Felix? To haunt some abandoned building like a ghost?”

You clench your fists, like a grip tight enough might keep you together. That part of you hasn’t changed either, it seems. Neither has the extremely unsettling way you get quieter, the more upset you are. Just like that, he’s reminded of what you used to say: the more it hurts, the less it shows.

“I couldn’t pick you out of a fucking lineup despite all of that history,” you whisper, deflated. “And you were here the whole time.”

Talking won’t do him much good, so Felix opts to show you. Palms pressed to the ground, he pushes himself to his feet, and he doesn’t bother dusting off the back of his pants once he stands. It won’t make a difference, anyway, when the whole damn city is covered in it.

Once he steadies himself, he extends his hand to you, half-expecting you to slap it away. You don’t budge. You never do, he recalls fondly.

“One chance?” His eyes are pleading, even though you don’t look up to meet them. “It’s hard to explain, but it’ll make more sense if you see it.”

Without looking, you lift your arm and slap your hand into his. A small concession, but it’s enough to make his smile reappear. He’s practically beaming when he hauls you to your feet, and you grip his forearms to keep steady.

“Fine,” you concede with a huff. 

Then, you round on him with one pointed finger, jabbing him in the center of his chest with force. It’ll bruise, but he supposes that’s the whole point. 

“This better be worth all the fucking theatrics, or I swear to god —”

“You’ll make me swallow my own teeth?” He rolls his eyes with a low chuckle and tugs you along after him on his way to the door. “Yeah, yeah, yeah — Heard that threat a thousand times, Scraps, and you’ve never once made good on it.”

Just to emphasize his point, he looks over his shoulder at you and grins with all thirty-two of them.

All things considered, you take everything in stride. You don’t react much at all when you discover that the abandoned building is anything but; refuse to bat an eye when the two people you woke up to are revealed to be a tiny fraction of the whole.

You even keep your hand in his as he ushers you from room to room — through the clinic, the makeshift and woefully under-equipped armory, the Hub — and introduces you to whoever you come across. He might even go so far as to call you friendly, which is a first. Receiving any kind of warmth from you typically requires high-level security clearance. 

Or, at least, it used to. Felix has to remind himself more than once that, small echoes aside, there are parts of you he doesn’t know anymore. This could very well be one of them.

Halfway through the tour, you finally offer up more than a lukewarm greeting and your name. It’s just the two of you now; you don’t have to make yourself palatable anymore. Blunt as ever, you throw out, “This is a cult, right? You ran away from home to join a cult?”

There she is, he thinks.

Felix pulls a face in disapproval, which you either don’t catch or don’t care about. Instead, you turn your head in the opposite direction and let your gaze sweep over the loading dock you currently stand upon.

It’s the closest thing they’ve got to a sitting room, filled with the only comfortable furniture they could get their hands on — half-busted arm chairs, ratty old couches, tables held together with duct tape and a prayer. You drop suddenly onto one such couch, jerking him back until his ass winds up next to yours on a tattered cushion. 

Felix can’t tell if you pulled him down on purpose, or if you simply forgot that you were holding onto him. Either way, he doesn’t mind, but part of him hopes it was the former.

“It’s a collective,” he corrects you, lips flattening into a firm, straight line.

“You don’t have to sugarcoat it. If it’s a sex cult, just say so.”

He tries not to laugh — really, he does — because the last thing you need is an enabler, but your deadpan delivery has always hit him where he’s weakest. He tries again while swallowing a chuckle: “It’s the Black Screen, home to the most talented and ungovernable motherfuckers on the peninsula.”

You don’t look impressed. Felix doesn’t take it to heart.

“We’ve got a reconnaissance team, netrunners —” 

As if he’s doing a roll call, he points to nearby stragglers with every position he names. 

“— corporate defectors, combat vets, medics, ex-fixers —”

He nudges you with his elbow, wiggles his eyebrows and murmurs, “— Edge runners —” 

If that look in your eye is any indication, you still hate it when he does that.

“And a couple of wayward drunks who — well…” Felix pauses for a moment to think. It doesn’t help, so he shrugs, snickering, “I dunno how they got here, and they don’t contribute much, but they’re fun to have around!”

The corner of your mouth twitches, ever so slightly. He grins down at you, as if to say gotcha. 

“So, it is a sex cult,” you repeat flatly after a beat.

Felix can’t beat your bit, so he may as well join you in it. Bested, he sighs, “Yeah, pretty much.”

You hum in acceptance of his defeat, clearly amused by how easily he still gives in to you. 

With pursed lips, you continue to take in your surroundings. Your brow furrows while you process the information you’ve been bombarded with so far, but you don’t offer up any further questions or snide comments. Thankfully, the silence that falls over you both feels a lot less like lead than the previous one.

Felix’s gaze stays fixed on you, though you’re too busy looking elsewhere to notice. Maybe you couldn’t recognize him, but shit — he’d know you anywhere, anytime. You’ve gotten older, of course, finally grew into those features of yours. Still, there are hints of the kid he used to know hidden all over your face.

Original traits aside, the new additions — the tattoos, for starters — all read like you. In fact, Felix is fairly confident that he’d know who they belonged to, even if the other context was removed. After all, the cyberware installed into your hand can’t undermine the familiarity of it resting against his palm. 

And it sure as shit still hits like it used to.

He considers it a blessing, really, that so much of you survived the years that flew by without him. That the scrawny girl next door — ready and willing to fight God over a single slight — still rolls her eyes the same way, still speaks in that satoori his non-native tongue could never mimic.

“Maybe I’m missing something,” you announce suddenly. The unexpected sound of your voice startles Felix so much that he jumps, knocking his shoulder into yours in the process. You ignore his reaction and continue, “This just looks like someone is collecting people as a hobby. What are you all doing here?”

Oh.

Yeah, that’s a fair question.

“We’re… starting a fire,” Felix muses. 

You arch an eyebrow expectantly, although the rest of your face remains impassive. It’s less of a demand for him to continue than it is permission for him not to stop.

“And we’re going to burn it all down.” He hits you with a devilish grin, drops his voice low in a way that makes you shiver involuntarily. “The corpo-rats, the lies they sell — all of it.”

“Sounds like anarchy,” you say, tilting your head to the side. There’s a beat, then you grin to match his. “Sign me up.”

Felix stands at the far side of the dining area with his arms crossed and his head leaning back against the cinder blocks behind him. His legs are crossed at the ankles, knees aching from the sheer amount of time he’s been holding the wall up. 

As much as his body wants to sit, the rest of him is out of options. The only table that isn’t full is the one you’re occupying with Changbin and Jisung. After the day you’ve had, you deserve time alone with something familiar. He recognizes that he isn’t that. 

Not anymore — and not yet, either. 

He finds it hard to stray too far, though. You’ve always been able to fend for yourself — that black-and-blue jaw of his is proof enough — but it’s a role he can’t help falling into, looking out for you. Muscle memory.

Although Felix can’t quite make out anything that the three of you are saying, it’s clear as a damn bell when you slam your palms down on the table. Just as obvious is the split second in which your anger gives way — when the pain in your right hand finally registers in your brain.

“That one going to be a problem?”

Hyunjin, as usual, seems to appear out of thin air. He sidles up to Felix and takes up the spot next to him along the wall. All it takes is one quick glance to confirm it — he’s exhausted. Dark half-moons sit in the wells beneath his eyes like ink, silently informing Felix of yet another all-nighter; still keeping secrets as to where he goes at night when everyone else is sleeping.

But Hyunjin isn’t a mystery Felix will ever be able to solve, so he looks back in your direction and asks, “Who, Scraps?” Then, with a shake of his head, he sighs, “No. She’s a cherry bomb, but she’s reliable. Far more than most, actually.”

It’s odd, Felix thinks, that Hyunjin didn’t already know the answer to that question. As the reconnaissance leader of the Black Screen, there isn’t much Hyunjin isn’t aware of. Felix doesn’t comment on that piece, however. Instead, he does his best to interpret your reaction.

“If I had to guess, Changbin just told her about the fake kidnapping.”

And Hyunjin doesn’t do a damn thing to conceal his smirk. That was his plan, after all. 

Two weeks ago, Seo Changbin stumbled upon a lead by accident. While Felix isn’t privy to the details of what Changbin dug up, he knows it must’ve been significant. That’s the only explanation Felix can come up with as to how Changbin wound up at the rendezvous point. Nobody — not the corporate ghouls, their war dogs, or any other sorry soul  — finds the Black Screen unless they want to be found. 

Felix is privy to what happened next because it’s the only reason he wound up involved in this at all:

Whatever intel Changbin had was groundbreaking enough to score an invitation to the revolution, but he had more to offer the higher-ups than that. He dropped the name of someone who could be an asset, under the right circumstances. Someone who wouldn’t follow a breadcrumb trail for free but would tear the peninsula apart to find whoever owed them.

For what it’s worth, Felix disagreed with that characterization the second he heard it. Despite the mask you like to wear, you’re incapable of being self-centered. You’ve never been profit-driven, heartless, or attachment-avoidant. Just hellbent on survival for you and the people you feel responsible for, even as a kid. 

The only reason Felix hasn’t asked you about your motive outright is because he knows you’d lie. The truth is simple: Unless it was for someone you care deeply about, you wouldn’t waste gasoline on speeding back to a place you hate.

Hyunjin clears his throat, pulling Felix out of the daze he’d fallen into. Given the pointed look on his face, Hyunjin must be repeating himself when he says, “She got you bad, huh?”

Confusion forces Felix’s brow to furrow. 

“This?” He takes a wild guess and gestures to the bruise on his jaw before waving dismissively. “Nah, her form is terrible. Truly garbage-tier follow-through. I can teach her, though.”

Hyunjin pushes himself off the wall and moves to exit the dining area. As he passes by, he gives Felix a patronizing pat on his shoulder. “Not what I meant, Yongbokie.”

Felix frowns, unsure how to take what he’s being given. 

The fuck?

“Not even close,” Hyunjin calls over his shoulder. 

He shoots Felix a wink, and then he’s gone, disappearing out the door the same way he entered it — like a goddamn apparition.

“Wow. Recruited? That’s — wow.”

Jisung is doing a terrible job of pretending he isn’t blushing. He clears his throat to keep his voice even, but it’s useless. He’s not fooling anyone. 

“I didn’t realize we were so sought after.”

“You’re not,” Changbin responds bluntly. He gestures across the table to you but maintains his eyes on Jisung. “She is. You just happened to be present, and they couldn’t leave a witness behind.”

Jisung doesn’t bother to hide the way his face falls. When he opens his mouth to whine, you raise your hand and silently demand that he spare you the earache. It seems to work; he slumps dejectedly and leans with his elbows against the tabletop. You proceed to ignore him.

Affect flat, you stare straight ahead at the source of all your fucking problems. The half of you that wants to hug Changbin for being alive and well is significantly quieter than the half of you that wants to grab him by the nape of his neck and shove his face into his yukgaejang.

Bastard.

“I no longer give a shit how I ended up here,” you state coolly. Liar. “That ship has sailed, and to keep it a buck with you, Binnie —” 

He cringes at the nickname, which is exactly the reaction you sought. 

“— I’m not interested in stroking your ego for getting one over on me. It won’t happen again. What I’m still waiting on —” 

The only reason you leave that clause hanging in mid-air is to see the anticipation stir in his eyes. From where you’re sitting, it’s what he deserves: a little bit of unnecessary suspense. Really, it’s a form of reparations for the giant fucking inconvenience he’s been lately. His balance is way past due. 

Jisung, perpetually along for the ride, shovels shrimp chips into his mouth while his eyes dart back and forth between your face and Changbin’s.

You shoot Changbin a sly smile and grab his beer, tilting the can his way in lieu of a bow. His eyes narrow, visibly annoyed with your stalling, but he doesn’t audibly complain when you down the rest of his drink. Resigned, he accepts the empty can that you hand it back to him

At long last, you clear your throat.

“— is an explanation for why you’re here,” you finally sigh.

Changbin rolls his eyes so hard that they go all-white for a moment. Then, to your surprise, he glares across the table at Jisung. 

“You know, my life was way more pleasant before you dragged this one,” he huffs, gesturing to you with his chopsticks, “Into my bar.”

Just for a moment, Changbin sits with his annoyance. He’s entitled to some of it, you’ll concede. You’re not easy to love — you never have been — and you’re occasionally even harder to like. Despite that, he’s been known to look out for you in his own, mostly useless way; even in moments like this, when you’re being a fucking gash simply because you can. 

But the fact remains that you dragged your ass across a peninsula for him. He knows damn well that you accept payment in the form of secrets when cash is too hard to come by, so…. 

“Spill,” you demand.

That tough exterior of his collapses like wet cardboard, just like you knew it would. He glances around the room quickly to confirm that no one is listening in, then he pushes his empty bowl out of the way. With the threat of staining his white t-shirt neutralized, Changbin leans in and asks, “Do either of you know Jung Wooyoung?” 

Simultaneously, you and Jisung respond:

“The boxer?”

“The biter.”

Just the same, your friends turn to you with identical looks of bewilderment. You shrug, declining to elaborate because Changbin asked if you knew him, not how or how intimately. Truth be told, you’re not sure that he’s prepared for that answer.

“Anyways,” Changbin segues after clearing his throat. “He’s not up to either of those tasks these days.”

Genuinely curious, Jisung asks with a frown, “Did someone finally kill him?”

Fair question, you think.

With the way Wooyoung runs his mouth, it’s a wonder he’s lived as long as he has — assuming, of course, that he’s still alive. Beyond picking fights with people three times’ his size, his specialties include fixing matches and swiping other fighters’ significant others. If he’s not dead yet, you figure, it’s only a matter of time until the consequences of his antics come calling.

Changbin shakes his head, and the look on his face seems weirdly solemn, like the answer is even worse than that. It’s sobering; it knocks the smirk right off your face.

“He was short on cash, so he signed up for some clinical trial promising a million won for participants.”

Jisung, the resident non-doctor, sits up at this development. “Thanotech?”

You’re in the middle of rolling your eyes when Changbin intercepts, grimacing: “No, that’s the fucked up part. Well, one of the fucked up parts.”

Two pairs of expectant eyes lock on him.

“It’s Ulsan running the trial.”

You don’t pretend to be well-versed in any of the biomedical, cybernetic shit going on around you, but you do know that this particular corporation never leaks details of its research and development — not ever. Doing so would run the risk of a lesser titan swooping in to try and to dupe it. 

But that’s not the only revelation that smacks you upside the head.

“Ulsan pays for lab rats now?” You scoff, surprised by your own interest. “Here I was, thinking they used ex-employees for that shit.”

It sounds callous when you say it out loud, but it’s a universal assumption. Part of the New Republic’s mythology, so to speak.

In your lifetime, you’ve never come across a single person who used to work for the Ulsan Corporation — not one. Just the same, you’ve never heard about anyone leaving; no one you’ve ever met has. It’s beyond the realm of possibility that a corporation like that has no turnover, so where do people go when their turn is over?

The dumpster out back, some say. According to others, they wind up in a secret mass grave in the oil fields.

“When he came back, I didn’t know where he’d been or why; I just saw him wandering around like a fucking zombie.” Changbin shivers. “He’s empty now, all sucked dry.”

Jisung looks pointedly at you, shit-eatin grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Is that what happened when you —?”

An elbow to the center of his chest stops his question before he can finish asking it. He yelps instead, scooting his chair further down the table to get away from you, your sharp edges, and your even sharper glare.

“It freaked me the fuck out, and I didn’t have any answers, so I started poking around for something — anything — that might make sense of it.”

“So, that’s how you got pulled into the web.”

The voice from nowhere makes all three of you jump. You whip around to find yet another stranger. 

How many fucking people do I have to meet today? 

This particular wild card sits on top of the table directly behind yours with arms gently crossed over her chest; not closed off but cold, judging by the goosebumps making themselves known across her bare arms. Her boots rest on the chair in front of her, one chrome leg shining next to flesh-and-blood.

Whoever she is, she’s beaming. That fact confuses the shit out of you because you’re not often met with friendliness, especially from unknowns. Or maybe, you think, it’s a well-concealed effort to disarm you. Whatever it is, it’s working; the urge to snap at her for intruding is dead on arrival. 

You open your mouth to ask what she means, but you can’t get the words out before someone else interjects. 

Minho, that bastard, shouts from across the room, “Spider! Got a minute?”

Her eyes light up in a way that says she has several, so long as he’s the one asking. Without another word, she hops to her feet and pushes the chair that held them back under the table. As she heads his way, she sends you an apologetic smile, like she somehow owes you anything.

“I don’t know what they unraveled by pulling that thread,” Changbin sighs, nodding towards the pair exiting the room. “But this place has been buzzing since I got here.”

You need something to chew on that isn’t this, so you reach over and grab the bag of shrimp chips from Jisung’s unsuspecting hands. The frown he gives you is cartoonish, but as usual, he doesn’t put up a fight. Your version of an apology is holding a spare chip out to him, which he happily accepts.

After shoveling a handful into your mouth, you mumble, “So now what?”

“I don’t know about you, but if these guys —” Changbin gestures vaguely around the room with his index finger pointed. “— Give me a target to point at, I’ll pull the trigger.”

You snort, “That’s a lot of trust.” 

It doesn’t mean much, coming from you. Your metric is beyond fucked, and you know it. That word is foreign, though; so far out of your grasp that you can’t wrap your brain around it.

“Maybe it is,” Changbin mutters while he looks down at the empty can in his grip. 

For a moment, that’s all he says. All he does is stare into the black hole of its opening, as if there’s some answer lurking in the emptiness below it. He must not find it, though, because he crumples the aluminum like a piece of scrap paper. 

When he glances back up at you, you see the uncertainty in his eyes. It reads like fear, which manages to unsettle you.

“I just — I can’t see what I saw and do nothing.”

Your second month in the compound starts with a bang — no, a thud. 

With your body being forcibly ejected from your cot, crashing onto the ground, and your jaw clenching shut quickly with a click of gritted teeth.

“How many fucking times are we doing this?” You growl, less than half-awake. 

Already past today’s quota for rage, you form a fist and swing your arm back violently against the capsized cot; it scrapes along the cement floor and skitters further away from you. The sudden burst of movement doesn’t do anything to make you feel better, but it was worth a shot, you suppose.

Felix, whose sunshine smile is too goddamn bright for this hour, crouches down in front of you. He at least has the decency to look apologetic when he lilts, “Until you learn to wake up to an alarm, I fear.”

He pauses, eyes scanning for any genuine distress beyond your shitty mood.

“Does that hurt?” He frowns.

Bleary eyes follow his pointed finger to your elbow, now prickling with blood where you skinned it against the floor. It doesn’t; and you’re not even remotely concerned about it, so you swat his hand away without answering his question and shove yourself to your feet. Once standing, you wander over to your steamer trunk to grab something clean enough to wear. 

The shadowy one, Hyunjin, brought your shit to you a week ago —  thank god. He provided no explanation whatsoever for how he knew where you lived or how he managed to get inside your building, but you’re a beggar, not a chooser. You’d rather enable his burglary than keep wearing the same, re-washed clothes you came here with or borrowing from people you still don’t know well.

As you peel yesterday’s tank-top up and over your head, your gravelly voice flies out to Felix, who stands and moves to lean against the wall. “You at least going to feed me breakfast before you bore me with more target practice?”

That’s most of what your time together has been so far, anyway. The chain of command is sorting out details above your pay grade; and you condition yourself to jump as high as they may eventually ask you to.

Felix doesn’t answer you, which isn’t like him. You look at him out of the corner of your eye and find him staring up at the ceiling, like his life depends on it.

“What are you —?” 

Oh.

You glance down, cutting your question off midway through. He’s giving you and your semi-exposed body privacy, that’s what. 

Sensing blood in the water, you swim in to scoff, “You have no problem flipping my bed when I’m in it, but bras are where you draw the line? What kind of gentleman are you?”

Still averting his eyes, he rolls them. You do him the favor of tugging on a different, slightly wrinkled tank-top; but you don’t give him the courtesy of letting up.

“Where do you stand on ass, Felix?”

“Are you always this annoying, first thing in the morning?” 

Amusement slips through the cracks despite his efforts to conceal it. You slip out of the cotton shorts you slept in, dip your toes under the fabric pooled around your ankles, and flick them at him. He concedes his staring contest to the panels overhead in order to catch them.

Impressive reflexes.

“I’m this annoying at all hours of the day.” You grin impishly for just a second, then shrug. “You’re just less able to handle it, first thing in the morning.”

Bending back over your trunk, you dig through for something denim. You land on black, high-waisted shorts with a triumphant, “Aha!”, and make a big show of raising your trophy overhead. Once again, you glance at Felix to see if your attempt to get a rise out of him was successful. In a way, yes, it was — just not in the way you expected.

Based on the way his gaze lingers on your thighs and the curve of your ass, you don’t think Felix even noticed your theatrics. You don’t think he means to stare, either. As far as you can see, it’s the perfect opportunity to fuck with him further.

“Admiring the tattoos?” You arch an eyebrow and wait for him to blush out of panic at being caught. “I can recommend the artist, if you want to hit them up.”

To your surprise, you don’t rattle him. Dark eyes flick up from your body to your face, and they don’t seem ashamed of where they’ve been. Your plan backfires. More than that, it blows up right in your face, which is starting to heat up.

“The cantine closes in five minutes. Training starts in ten,” he states matter-of-factly, holding your gaze. “So, you can either eat, or you can keep pretending you’re not trying to flirt with me.”

Your mouth drops open, but you can’t even snap back at him before he chirps, “The choice is yours, Scraps,” with a playful smile.

With nothing more to say, Felix leans away from the wall. On his way out the door, he gives you a lazy, two-finger salute. Dumbstruck, you stand there, watching him leave; wondering where the hell your bumbling, sweetly shy friend from back home managed to disappear to. 

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about.” Felix waggles his finger at you. A smug smile toys at his lips when you let out a frustrated grunt. “That’s the problem.”

He takes a step away from you, raises his fists to mimic your posture, and throws a right jab out into the air ahead of him. When he draws it back, he pauses with his shoulders even.

“D’you see the issue with this?” He asks, loosening one fist so that he can gesture from shoulder to shoulder.

You roll your eyes. “Is it that nobody’s currently hitting you?”

Felix, to his credit, is completely unbothered by the attitude you keep giving him. He’s far more patient than he should be with you. You, however, do not take criticism well.

“You square yourself off instead of retriggering an attack,” he gently corrects you. “By not turning and leading with your shoulder —” He twists slightly backwards, so that his body is angled similarly to the way it was when he struck in the first place. “— you leave all this surface area open.”

Okay, fine. 

You’ll concede that this makes sense, but you will not admit to poor blocking. In fact, deflecting is what you’re best at, so that’s precisely what you do. 

“And how exactly am I supposed to block hits that aren’t coming?”

Felix relaxes his stance with confusion scribbled all over his face. You don’t wait for him to ask what you mean, plunging right into your notes for him:

“This sparring shit doesn’t feel real because you refuse to hit me. It’s been weeks, and there still aren’t any stakes. If you’re going to insist that I learn this — which, by the way, feels pointless when I’m already armed —”

You gesture down to your thigh, where your pistol is normally strapped. 

“— then you have to make me care.”

He doesn’t say anything for a minute, opting instead to quietly chew on the challenge you’ve raised. For a split second, you think you’ve finally grasped the straw that’ll break his back. He turns towards the door and walks away, seemingly giving up on trying to teach a rabid dog new tricks.

But Felix defies your expectations yet again, grabs your gear off the counter at the far side of the room, and heads back to you. As he walks, he pulls back the slide to fish out the round that waits in its chamber. Bullet still in hand, his focus shifts to the magazine, which he easily removes from the base of your pistol’s grip. After tucking your ammunition into the back pocket of his jeans for safekeeping, he holds your now-empty firearm and thigh strap out to you. 

“Gear up.”

Now, it’s your turn to be confused. You accept the items he pushes into your hands with both eyebrows raised.

“Are we giving up on hand-to-hand, then?”

“Absolutely not,” Felix snorts with a shake of his head. “I’m just going to prove the necessity.” When you don’t budge, he waves his hand to hurry you along. “C’mon, Scraps. Strap in.”

Eyeing him suspiciously, you slip the vertical strap over your belt loop and fasten it before doing the same to the horizontal piece around your thigh. Once it’s nestled snugly against your skin, you slide your weapon into its resting place. 

Holding your hands up, you fire off a saccharine smile like the brat you are. “All done,” you chirp.

The smirk that appears on his face makes your stomach flip for two reasons, the least of which is the anticipation of his next move.

“You want it to feel real, right?” His voice drops so low that you feel it deep in your abdomen. “Fine by me.”

Like before, Felix steps slightly backwards. With a nod of his head towards your firearm, he challenges you, “Draw.”

It’s unfamiliar, seeing him counter you like this. Growing up, he was content to go in whichever direction you nudged him in. The version of Felix you knew back then was passive, agreeable to fault. You may not know what the fuck he’s planning now, but he radiates newfound authority that you almost want to respect, so you listen.

“Fine,” you demur while your fingertips trail over the cool, metal grip. “Make your point and move onto something useful.”

The next sequence of events flashes by so quickly that your brain can hardly keep up. 

Just as soon as you pull the gun from its holster, Felix turns in his spot, channeling the momentum into a strong push off the ground. He’s in the air before you can even level the barrel; and in the blink of an eye, the side of his boot collides with your hand, forcefully ejecting the gun from your grip. The power behind his kick sends the weapon flying several meters away, where it clatters to the floor with a smack amidst the quiet.

Gasping more so out of surprise than pain, you recoil your stinging fist and clutch it to your chest. He reads your expression incorrectly, if his widened eyes are any indication. Immediately, Felix breaks his stance to step across the distance in between you.

Worried hands come to rest on your biceps, squeezing gently. He urgently asks, “You alright?”

You blink back at him, throughly stunned by how fucking fast his reflexes are, and he misinterprets that, too. 

“Shit, I’m sorry,” he sputters. His next words come out so frantically that they bleed together over the course of one breath. “I really didn’t want to hurt you; I just needed you to understand that your gun can’t always save you. Sometimes, you have to —”

“That was insane,” you blurt out.

Felix’s eyes widen, caught completely off-guard by your interruption. It’s understandable, you think. After all, it’s the closest thing to a compliment you’ve given him over the past few weeks. 

He peeps, “Oh?”

You nod vigorously — and there’s that sweetly shy boy from down the block, blushing slightly under the weight of your attention. 

Somehow, seeing him this way feels like home; the one you knew before he disappeared, that you might actually admit to missing. Acting solely on instinct, you unfurl your right hand and seek out the warmth of his cheek, like it’ll flip a switch and turn the clock back.

It doesn’t. Of course, it doesn’t — but you can’t help feeling like this is fine, too.

Until you realize what the fuck you’re doing, and you see the starry-eyed look he’s giving you. Then, you do what you always do.

You dodge.

Patting his cheek patronizingly, you breeze, “I guess I’ll let you train me, then,” before turning to retrieve your gun.

“Oh, really now?” He laughs, like he’s already forgotten the way your mask just cracked. You can’t tell if you’re grateful for this, or disappointed. “Is violence all it takes to win you over?”

Disappointed. 

You wish he’d called your bluff again, like he did so long ago in that closet you’re currently calling a bedroom. Once wasn’t enough; you want to be caught out, to have someone refuse to let you get away with the bullshit you’re always trying to pull. For some proof that you’re not the bulldozer you pretend to be.

Felix raises an eyebrow as he tilts his head teasingly to the side. “Are you actually going to shut up and take instruction this time?”

Like that.

“Maybe.” You crouch down to grab your discarded pistol off the ground, lips pursed to keep the satisfied smile off your face. “Are you going to stop pulling punches?”

Three weeks of sparring tick by before you manage to clean his fucking clock.

It came as a surprise to both of you; not just that Felix slipped up in the first place, but that you were fast enough to capitalize on an opening he’s otherwise never created. You might’ve gasped even louder than he did when you managed to seize the opportunity — but that memory is fuzzy already. It doesn’t matter, anyway, not to him. Either way, the point stands: 

You actually learned from the shit he’s been trying to instill in you.

Having hobbled from the training room to his bedroom, Felix now sits on top of the old, metal counter that once served as a workbench. It’s not comfortable by any means, but he’d rather die than move from his current position. Between his knees, you stand close to him, holding a frozen sponge to his left eye with your right hand. 

Funnily enough, that particular hand is the reason he needs an ice pack in the first place.

For a while, the pair of you exist in comfortable quiet. It’s nice, he thinks, just being present. He would’ve been happy to carry on that way for as long as possible, but the shitty voice in the back of his brain keeps yelling that he’s letting more moments slip by than he has to spare. Wasting time that he should be making up.

He clears his throat to shake off the rust, prompting you to glance down from his forehead to his eyes. Your expression is hard to read, but there’s anxiety in there, somewhere. Felix worries that you’re worried; you’re searching for a sign that you’ve somehow injured him further.

“You’re a quick study — if and when you want to be.” His teasing sounds pathetic because his voice is barely more than a groan. Still, he smirks, “Those corporate mercenaries won’t stand a chance.”

With his good eye, Felix watches as your mask cracks a little further in the shape of a smile. 

For once, you simply nod in acknowledgement and let the compliment slip through your defenses without trying to deflect it. He wants to compliment you for that progress, too, but he’s hesitant to push his luck when he’s already flying half-blind by the seat of his pants. 

Then again, it might be worth the risk to push the envelope — even if you succeed in punching his goddamn lights out for good. He doubts that he’d complain, if that were the case. You’d be an incredible last sight to ever see, wouldn’t you?

His internal monologue pipes up again, demanding that he gamble.

Every single muscle he has aches after spending hours sparring with you, but that’s not at all what he’s talking about when he says, “You’re a knockout, Scraps.”

It’s a cop out, but it’s something. 

Just for a second, Felix wonders if you heard what he meant, and not just what he said. All his doubt disappears when that shy smile tugs even harder at the corners of your mouth.

“Shut up.” You roll your eyes, chuckling quietly. “If you want to get technical, you didn’t even lose consciousness —” 

Carefully, you bring your free hand up to his forehead and brush flyaway strands of hair out of the way of the makeshift ice pack. By contrast, your fingertips are warm enough to simmer on his skin.

“— so you’ll have to try that joke again when you actually do.”

Although you could, you don’t take your hand back after unsticking his hair from the condensation on his skin. You lower it gently, let it rest on his shoulder, and leave Felix to wonder if it’s a choice, a convenience, or a reflex. 

This eats at him.

A long time ago, this little gesture wouldn’t be something he’d have to guess at. He used to just understand, never once needed to be told. So far out of practice, he’s no longer fluent in your body language — and he hates it.

Unwilling to leave anything else up to interpretation, Felix looks up at you with one, unobstructed eye. “Wasn’t joking,” he murmurs.

You freeze without meeting his eyes. 

If he didn’t know better, he might think your retinal mods had been knocked loose again. You don’t seem to see him, and that’s all he wants. All he gets is quiet, so he tries again: “And I’m not bullshitting you, either.”

It’s his low voice speaking your real name that finally draws you out of hiding. Surprised for just a moment, your expression softens when you notice the way he’s studying your reactions. You don’t speak at first, but your bottom lip is pinched between your teeth; a telltale sign that you’re trying to.

“Since this is apparently honesty hour,” you start with an exhale.

Felix braces himself for whatever evasive maneuver you’re going to throw next. 

Shockingly, you don’t throw out a joke to change the subject. You take the ice pack off his eye so he can see you properly, set it down next to his thigh on the counter, and scrub your hands sheepishly over your face.

“You freak me the fuck out.”

You laugh despite yourself, and then you pause just like that; like you’re waiting on him to laugh at you, too. When he doesn’t, you take it as your cue to keep going: “Am I insane, or does this feel easy?

“I think both things can be true.” You shoot him a look that could — and might — kill him. He holds his hands up in surrender, but he keeps his eyes locked on you. “And I know you’re not used to easy.”

Felix doesn’t know what he expects you to do next, but your next move isn’t one he would’ve guessed. In the end, it’s your still-chilled palms reaching up to meet him, and your fingers filling the empty spaces between his. Brow furrowed, you study the way you fit together, like the words you’re searching for are hidden somewhere in the gaps of your chain-linked knuckles.

“I’m not used to it because I avoid it,” you correct him, frowning. “Easy scares the shit out of me. It just feels like a trap, you know? Like, the second you stop looking out for it, the other shoe will drop and knock your unsuspecting ass to the dirt.”

Keeping his fingers interlaced with yours, he lowers your joined hands until they rest against the tops of his thighs. You watch them go; he watches you, and he can’t help thinking that he’s the reason you armored up in the first place. That him leaving was the blow to the head that taught you to wear a helmet.

“I’ve got good reflexes,” Felix whispers, squeezing your hand.

At this, your eyes flick upwards. A microscopic crease forms between your eyebrows, and he knows exactly what’s coming next, so he says it first: “Excluding today, obviously.”

When you smile, it hits him even harder than your right hook did.

“What are you saying, exactly?” You ask, head tilting to the side as you narrow your eyes.

“Fuck the shoe.”

The look on your face suggests that he can’t possibly be serious, but he’s never been more so. Maybe he can’t promise you easy in a world like this one; and he can’t keep that fucking shoe from dropping, but he swears he’ll catch it when it does.

Felix has to let go of your hands to hold you properly. You lean into his touch when he snakes his arms around your waist; and you rest your forehead against his, careful not to press into the bruise that borders his eyebrow.

“I’ll make you a deal,” he whispers. You hum in reply, confirming your willingness to trade. “Kiss me now, and we’ll batten down the hatches later.”

Felix may have called you a quick learner, but you have to wonder what his basis for comparison is. From your vantage point, it’s him that catches on in a heartbeat, like nothing unexperienced is truly new to him. 

Coincidentally, it’s also him that’s kneeling between your thighs, bearing the weight of your hinged knees over his shoulders and making you shake with his tongue alone.

“Fuck, fuck — nngh — fuck!” 

It’s all you can say because it’s the best you can do. 

Over and over, too drunk on the sensation of his mouth, you let profanity spill out of yours. He has you dripping in more ways than one, pooling on that godforsaken counter, and you can’t spare a single thought about the mess you’re making.

Every neuron fixates on him, the cotton-candy blue strands gripped tight between your fingers, and the way he devours you, like he’s making up for skipped meals.

“F-Felix,” you beg, breathless.

Looking up at you from under his lashes, he feigns innocence. It’s bullshit — he knows you’re on the brink of death, knows your whole damn body is buzzing — and his sweet smile doesn’t match his actions. You jolt, wailing, when another kitten lick trails over your clit.

“Hmm?” That low timbre of his vibrates through you when he pulls back, panting.

God, you’re spent already, but you can’t collapse until you know what he feels like, buried to the hilt in you. Something about that need makes you shiver; has your bottom lip quivering when you manage to squeak, “Please.”

Absolutely boneless, you slump against the wall behind you. With far more grace than you, Felix maneuvers his way out from under the tangle of your legs. He ensures that they fall gently back into place on the countertop.

“Gotta work on that stamina if you’re gonna help wage a war,” he teases.

The half-powered glare you shoot at him doesn’t stop him from leaning in and pressing a kiss to your forehead. It doesn’t keep his fingertips from tracing languid lines down the lengths of your bare thighs, either.

Your voice is fucked out and weightless, far softer than you’ve ever heard yourself sound. “Is that what this is? Conditioning?”

The hand not caressing your thigh comes up to cradle your jaw, like it’s something fragile. It’s the first time anyone’s touched you as if you’re breakable, worth protecting — and motherfucker, you’re one soft smile away from crying.

“No.” 

He states it much more firmly than he kisses you. So gentle that you can’t believe it’s real until you taste yourself on him, so warm that you dissolve like a sugar cube on his tongue. 

Fuck any other person that’s ever pressed their lips to yours and called it a kiss. They’re liars, all of them. One by one, their names disappear with every passing second in which you know better.

“Need you,” you moan into his mouth. 

Fistfuls of his shirt can’t bring him close enough. Even when his head dips down and his lips are at your throat, the ache wins out. You crave him anywhere — everywhere — all over you. 

“Going crazy —” You gasp when his teeth nip at your collarbone. “— waiting on you.”

Greedy hands drop to the button of his jeans, fumbling to no avail. Apparently, your dexterity flew out the window two orgasms ago. A frustrated whine jumps out after it, pushing your head back as it goes.

Felix’s low chuckle soothes you, but it’s nothing compared to the relief you feel when his hands nudge yours out of the way. That, too, is a drop in the bucket; bliss crashes in waves when there’s no denim left to separate you. His hands land on your hips, fingertips pressing into your flesh as he guides you further down his length. 

Never — not fucking ever — have you made a sound quite as pathetic as the one you bury into the crook of his neck. You can’t classify it, not as a moan or a whimper. It’s desperate — loud. It’s an air raid siren; every fucking barricade you’ve built over the years being blown to smithereens.

This is it, you think.

Fuck your bank account. 

Fuck staring at the sky and waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

Fuck your contracts, your shithole apartment, and the million different ways you were set up to lose in this life.

This isn’t about you at all. It’s about you and him; all the space and time you’re dead set on reclaiming.

This is for us.

a/n: thank you so much for reading! i’ve been working on this since JUNE, and it’s a much bigger undertaking (creatively and….. mentally) than anything else i’ve done before, so i’m scared and also excited to start sharing it with y’all.

while likes are appreciated, comments/tags/reblogs with your thoughts are really what make my brain go brrrtt.

tagging: @saintriots, @mal-lunar-28, @dabiscrustyfeet

wanna be tagged for future uploads? sign up here.

[galedekarios]

good day! thank you for beautiful visuals and metas of Gale, its great to find fans who care about him so! You got me thinking - for a character so romantic, so delighted to be in love Gale knew little about it with Mystra. He spoke about being her lover like it was a highest honor, losing her favor, being cut off described as fate worse than Netherese Orb itself. Gale agrees to die for her forgiveness no questions asked. All this while he realises deep down even through it was voiced later - he was her plaything, another mortal falling under her spell, no love requited ever could be there, gods don't feel it. It's very sweet and a little heartbreaking, how open and smitten he can be if romanced, how happy he becomes loving and being loved in return.

thank you for your wonderful and very sweet message, anon. 🖤 i really do appreciate it.

yes, that is everything that i find very touching about gale's romancce.

to me, gale is someone who hasn't truly known what love is yet. he has known worship and obedience, wonder and pleasure. i think, considering how young he was when mystra came into his life, it's perhaps no surprise at all that once their relationship changed, he may have thought it was love between them. it was most certainly for him. in fact, i do remember a particular line from early access that always stuck with me and truly showed the imbalance at work here:

Player: What did Mystra’s attention feel like? Gale: Love. 

and

Player: Teacher’s pet, was he? Gale: He fancied himself much more than that. He fancied himself favoured above all others. Perhaps it was not quite love, but you see, the wizard was but a very young man. It was most certainly love to him. Mystra showed him the secrets behind the veils. The gossamer veils first, draped across the Weave. The delicate veils next, draped across her body. ‘Chosen One’ she whispered, as she slipped them off completely.

and even now, in the full release version of the game, that sentiment still lingers. he wasn't just her chosen, he was her lover - and we learn throughout the game what love truly entails for gale: heart, mind, body and soul.

Gale: I'm many things to many people, but I'm never a man to throw the l-word around lightly. I said exactly what I meant: I love you. You should never, never doubt that. - Gale: We didn't just make love. We bonded, body and soul. I got lost in you.

with mystra casting him away, he not only lost his power, his status, but also one of his most central relationships with the goddess who was his teacher, mentor and love all at once, all at the same time.

but we also know that he had relationships before mystra and before the protag:

Gale: No, you are not the first. Though you are the first since my relationship with Mystra came to its ignominious end.

i think this quote is just so interesting, especially if you pair it with:

Gale: To know you love me for the man I am, and not the magic I command... None have loved me so purely before.

and:

Player: I love you. But for the man that you are. Not the god you'd pretend to be. Gale: But think what I offer. The vastness of eternity to explore, the Weave at our fingertips... You would really prefer me as I am? Node Context: Genuine, vulnerable - the player just told him they loved him in a way that no one else has

so whatever these relationships before were, it's clear that something was missing from them for gale. something that gale sorely needed.

all of these little puzzle pieces combine to a larger whole of why we find gale as he is when we meet him in the story: someone who very much is struggling to find any worth in the person that he is outside of what he can provide to be useful.

Gale: Let me make myself indispensable. - Gale: I'm indispensable, aren't I? - Gale: My best is yours. - Gale: Please - continue to believe in me. I want to show you the wizard I am capable of being, rather than the poor excuse for a man who's kept you company thus far.

there are so many more of these, following the same vein, even in act iii.

gale is only now learning how to be loved, how to allow himself to be loved, and under that continuous reaffirmation given by the protag, he opens up to it, strains towards it, like a flower to the sun.

Gale: You truly are a soul that steels my own. From all my new-rallied heart I thank you. I stand at a precipice, but if you do not give up hope, neither shall I. I'll fight, I'll resist - as long as I can. - Gale: You give me hope, and I've not had that in some time. - Player: How are you feeling? Gale: Worried, if I'm being honest. I have so much to live for - more than I thought I'd have again, after Mystra. - Gale: It's been so long since I used it. Gale Dekarios cuts a poor figure next to the wizarding prowess of 'Gale of Waterdeep'. Player: Gale Dekarios. I think I like him more. Gale: You like so many things about me I'd have sooner discarded... Your generosity is quite wonderful. - Gale: You see me as I am, and do not find me wanting.

he still has a very long way to go, to heal, it's not a process that's completed by the time his quest is completed or the game ends - and depending on your protag, they too have things that still weigh heavy on them as well - but it's a beginning.

[focsle]

have you written anything about tattoos? is that relevant? don't know how your niche lines up with generic "sailor" tradition, but wikipedia simply says on knuckle tats that deckhands may get "HOLD / FAST" as a charm to support their grip on rigging, and i thought that was kind of cute.

I haven't written anything myself, mostly cos if you throw a stick out in the internet you'll find any number of articles about the symbolism of sailor tattoos, like hold fast and pigs and roosters and swallows and all that!

In my narrow window (the middle decades of the 19th century), I don't see tattoos mentioned all too often, compared to late 19th and throughout the 20th century where they became more common. For instance, this register of seaman's protection certificates (which are admittedly limited in the scope of things, since they're only from a few specific ports) from 1796-1871 rarely list tattoos as distinguishing marks, beyond the odd mention of being marked with an inked anchor, eagle, or letters here or there. Here's a neat jstor article (if you have any more of your 100 free monthly articles to read with a google account) that goes into late 18th-early 19th c tattoos that has some tables and visuals. The research was also done using seaman's protection certificates, with the following stat:

"The SPC-A records start in 1796 and include tattooed men born as early as 1746. There were 979 tattooed men out of a total of 9,772 men whose records survive from 1796 through 1818.26 These men were marked with a total of about 2,354 separate designs."

So, not a large number, but also 10% isn't insignificant. The protection certificates while a reliable source, also only describe the man in one specific moment. I'm sure a few of those men who just have their moles and scars and crooked fingers listed eventually picked up a tattoo or two in their time. Most journal keepers perhaps didn't think it important to mention who had tattoos or what of, though the typical motifs of anchors, nautical stars, girls, religious & patriotic imagery, etc. were certainly a part of the visual language at this point. Whaler William Abbe who sailed in the 1850s, devoted considerable attention to describing the physical appearance of some of his shipmates. In one instance, he wrote about the tattoos of one 'Johnny Come Lately' or 'Jack Marlinspike' (Real name, John Hewes of Buffalo NY)

'from beneath this cap his face looms out - while beneath supporting his comical head is a bare neck and breast — hairy + brown —the upper timbers to a stout hull of a boat that boast a pair of arms all covered with India ink tattooings — the figure of American Liberty — Christ on the cross — an American Tar holding a star spangled banner in one hand + a coil of rope in the other — a fancy girl — + anchors, rings, crosses, knots, stars all over his wrists + hands — the memorials of different ports he has visited — for Jack has been in all kinds of vessels from a man of war to a blubber hunter — + has consequently been to many ports.'

From the logbook of another whaler who sailed in the early 1840s, James Moore Ritchie, he had a page of his drawings with prices included. This potentially may have been a tattoo flash sheet for his shipmates:

American whalers also noted the tattoos of indigenous people who had signed on to whaling vessels, particularly in the South Pacific. William B. Whitecar, whaling in the 1850s wrote: "Several New Zealanders in the respective crews of these vessels attracted my attention from the tattooing on their bodies" making mention of "figures on their face and breast".

I'm too sleepy to have a conclusion lol. Tattoos! They existed! Though perhaps not as ubiquitously as the pop culture sailor designs would imply, at least prior to the late 19th c.

[becauseimanicequeen]

WHAT I’M CURRENTLY WATCHING

It's been a while since I made one of these lists. But here I am with a new one, including the queer shows I'm currently watching. (As always, they're in alphabetical order, because that's just how I am, lol).

4 Minutes (Thailand):

This show is my current obsession. Period. The content on my blog being 99.999999999% about 4 Minutes right now says it all.

Addicted Heroin (2024) (Thailand):

I've seen both the original as well as Stay With Me, which were both fine. I was curious enough to see what Thailand would do with it, which is why I'm watching. And I'm loving it, so far.

I like Hero, even though he's an idiot. And I like the supporting pair. Hero's dad, though... No.

Battle of the Writers (Thailand):

I still have no idea what this show is about except for a couple of writers, two of which have a history together. But, I got to see three of my Playboy babes, so that's a win for me.

First Note of Love (Taiwan):

I'm spoiled with my beloved Taiwanese QLs right now. I'm even more spoiled that I have yet another very rare show where I can actually listen to the music played and sung without muting the damn thing. And I'm spoiled fucking rotten because I've got Charles Tu on my screen again.

I love everything about this show 5 episodes in, and it makes my Mondays a lot brighter (and my Mondays were fine before this, btw).

Happy of the End (Japan):

I like my Japanese shows dark and complicated. So, I'm obviously loving this.

Hidden Moon (Thailand):

I'm only one episode into this one so I don't really have much to say other than that I like the vibe and that it's visually stunning so far (always a plus for me).

I Hear the Sunspots (Japan):

I'm a bit torn with this one. But I love the representation of the deaf community because my great-grandfather was deaf.

(Kind of unrelated, but kind of not: My great-grandfather didn't know sign language, he just read lips. And he was always most comfortable around people who treated him like just anyone else.)

I Saw You In My Dream (Thailand):

Considering I only started watching this because I saw a gif of Ai wearing a Dream Theater shirt (which was my dad's favorite band before he passed away), I wasn't expecting much. But it's surprisingly enjoyable.

The only critique I have is that they ended this week's episode right in the middle of Ai and Yu kissing. Not that I think they'll go all the way in that particular scene. One of them will probably stop. But cutting the scene there... That's just rude. (I'm joking... But kind of not.)

Kidnap (Thailand):

I'm just one episode in so I don't have much to say other than that I love that Papang is in it. I always need more of him on my screen.

Live in Love (Thailand):

This is another one I'm only one episode into (the second one comes out today), so I don't have much to say other than that I really like the vibe so far.

Monster Next Door (Thailand):

I'm a simple girl. I would watch Big in anything as long as he's kissing boys, because this boy knows how to kiss boys.

The On1y One (Taiwan):

Again, I'm spoiled with my beloved Taiwanese QLs right now. And this one is everything to me.

I knew it would be amazing (it's from the same director who made Your Name Engraved Herein) so, no surprise there. And if I wasn't so busy screaming about 4 Minutes during the little spare time I have now that I'm in the middle of a big art project, I would be screaming about this show.

I only needed 10 seconds of the first episode to be hooked (them looking at each other was all I needed to be sold). 6 episodes in, and I'm in heaven.

Seoul Blues (Korea):

This is from the same creators of Blue Boys and Bad Guy and I'm watching it solely for the chemistry and the... how should I describe it? Mellow vibe?

The Trainee (Thailand):

I had a hard time getting into this one. Mainly because I can't relate to the whole office environment thing (I've always worked for myself). But somewhere around the end of the second episode or the beginning of the third, I was sold. Mostly due to the dynamics between the characters and that everyone is unique and flawed in their own way. Plus, the colors are amazing.

It's been a while since I had at least one new episode to watch every day (I think it was sometime before the summer), so I'm starting to get back to normal again. And I love it here.

[rockermazy]

All singing in the show is canonically diegetic - meaning that all singing 100% takes place in-universe, for all the characters to hear and potentially participate in.

In the first (non-pilot) episode, the " Story of Hell" book, as read by Charlie, states that Lillith "empower[ed] demon-kind with her voice and her songs - and as the numbers of Hell grew, so did its power." After the extermination began, Lilith's "dream was passed down to her precious daughter, the Princess of Hell", who is presumably Charlie herself. Two scenes later, Charlie is in musical-notation hammerspace with other denizens, being the cognito hazard that she is.

In episode 7, Rosie invites Charlie to rally Cannibal Town in defending the hotel during the upcoming extermination. When Charlie initially fails, Rosie asks how she normally explains her hotel. Charlie replies, "Through singing". Singing is canonically a gift of both Charlie and every demon - both Hellborn and Sinner.

Which leads me to a theory: One thing that's been nagging me since the pilot, is how Lucifer and Lilith have been fucking for nearly 6,000 years, but only NOW decided to have a daughter in the 21st century. It makes Charlie's existence look almost Mary Sue-ish*. After watching Helluva Boss, it made more sense that Charlie might be an "insurance baby", much like Octavia is to Stolas' lineage. Lucifer might not be unkillable. Carmine and the hotel battle of episode 8 have both demonstrated that angels can be killed with the right ammunition. But why was Charlie born now, in the 21st century? My theory is that Heaven asked Lilith to leave Hell, hoping she'd take her song with her. Heaven knew that Lilith was the one making Hell stronger through her songs. Charlie uses song to rally the people around her.

Husk used song to heal.

Song, even when used to butt heads, (ex: Lucifer vs Alastor), will make combatants drop valuable info, basically outing themselves to everyone within earshot in this universe.

My guess is that a conversation sometime in the past went something like this: Heaven: Lilith, bitch - we see what you're doing. Stop teaching Hell how to sing - the bonding and wholesomeness is threatening our status quo." Lilith: No. Heaven: Fine, we'll exterminate. Lilith: (years later, looking at Carmine's charts) hmmm... the number of sinners getting exterminated each year seems to be climbing. Heaven might want all of us dead. Hey, Luci-boo... get your depressed-ass over here. You wanna make a kid this time? (Waits til Charlie is somewhat grown, and asks Heaven for a "meeting".) Lilith: ok, I have got an offer you cannot refuse - I will never EVER sing again, and my power will leave with me - IF you give me a spot in Heaven (or Earth - I should technically be immortal since I never touched the Forbidden Fruit). Heaven: um... win for everyone? ok! Charlie herself (for lack of a better term) might be Lilith's "ace in the hole" herself. Also, this makes me wonder if the only way to avoid lying is to avoid singing on the topic XD

*I have nothing against mary sues. I'd been wanting for years now to do something visual describing the internal turmoil that religious trauma caused in my The-Cell-starring-J-lo --like inner worlds. Telling personal stories and Mary Sues are inextricably intertwined. This show has inspired me to either keep pursuing that or just quit. Because picking apart past trauma for analysis can be more trouble than its worth - especially if you are ready to forget. u.u I still get deep chills every time I hear Emily and Charlie's duet in "You Didn't Know", even though I've officially considered myself atheist for like, what, three months?" This shit was an essay. I'm just going to play Warframe instead. Peace.

[odessa-castle]

I'm bouncing around a larger post about Nishiki and the mortifying ordeal of being known, but in the meantime I'm thinking about Nishiki and Kiryu and how the clothes make (or don't make) the man. Like, beyond my visceral horror that Kiryu begged Nishiki to pick out a safe and boring suit for him in Y0 and then said he was envisioning something purple with gold stripes.

I'm thinking about Nishiki's incredible sensitivity to image and his need to control how he's perceived. I'm thinking about Kiryu's inability to let go of the past. I'm thinking about how KIryu dresses like who he thinks he is, and Nishiki dresses like who he thinks he wants to be.

There's some interesting incidental dialogue between Nishiki and Kiryu in Y0 while they're en route to the men's suit store. I wish it wasn't so easy to miss, because there's a lot to unpack here. (I'm just transcribing the English in-game subtitles here; I don't speak Japanese so I have no idea how loose vs. direct the localization is in this part.)

NISHIKI: …now that I think about it, you've been dressing like an old man since we were kids. KIRYU: Have I? NISHIKI: Yeah. The few times we got to pick our clothes, it was always like, "you're choosing THAT?" NISHIKI: I wouldn't say you're a plain guy…You'd pick shirts with weird prints though. KIRYU: Guess I forgot all that. It's weirder to me that you haven't. NISHIKI: Well, confession time. You're why I started caring about fashion. I swore I'd never go out dressed like you. KIRYU: Come on, I'm not THAT bad. [we have already discussed why kiryu is, in fact, that bad.] NISHIKI: [laughing] Aww, did I hurt your feelings? NISHIKI: Well, this time you've got me with you. I'll see my bro gets taken care of. KIRYU: Heh. What an honor. NISHIKI: Leave it to me.

Nishiki doesn't bring up Sunflower Orphanage much; when he does share memories of his childhood, those memories are kind of painful (see: "do orphans not get to dream?"). Kiryu's surprised that Nishiki remembers how they dressed as kids, but it makes sense that wearing a limited selection of hand-me-downs stuck with Nishiki so strongly. His clothes announced his poverty, and they weren't even his -- he had to share them with the other orphans, so what he wore showed he belonged to yet another stigmatized group. And I'm sure people picked up on those visual signals, especially other kids. Kids can be vicious, and appearance is an easy and immediate target! We don't know for sure how young Nishiki interacted with his peers and teachers, but given what the Morning Glory kids go through in Y3 (and given, like, everything about Nishiki), he probably didn't have a great time.

Kiryu frames his childhood as poor but loving, and places much more emphasis on the latter. There might be some rose-colored glasses at work there -- let's look at the flashback where Kazama tries (and fails) to violently dissuade Kiryu and Nishiki from joining the yakuza.

KIRYU: I owe you everything, but this isn’t about that. [...] We’ve looked up to you for all this time. Your car. Your confidence… The way everybody bows to you. We idolized you. I want that life, too. Is that so wrong!?

Nishiki doesn't really speak in this flashback, but like, Kiryu uses "we" enough for us to draw some obvious conclusions about Nishiki's own motivations. That being said, I don't think Kiryu's being dishonest or disingenuous when he describes his childhood as happy, and himself as well-loved. He's not ashamed of his upbringing, and he doesn't hide where he came from. Nishiki seems to have the inverse view. It's not that he doesn't love (at least some of) the people he grew up with, but what comes up first for him is what he didn't have. He didn't have money. He didn't have respect. He didn't have a cure for his little sister. He didn't have a lot of choice, right down to the clothes he wore.

(There's a whole other essay here about why Kiryu's and Nishiki's perspectives diverge on this, but I'm trying to limit the scope of this post. Suffice to say that, while I don't think game canon gives a timeline, I do think Nishiki was a little older when his parents were killed -- old enough that he actually remembers them, at least.)

The same mindset fuels Nishiki's interest in fashion. Yeah, part of it is that he's ribbing Kiryu, but I think it goes deeper than Kiryu wearing ugly shirts. Nishiki doesn't want people to look at him and see what's missing. Fashion isn't a means of personal expression for him, really. It's a message. It's the interplay of knowledge and resources and presentation: knowing what clothes read as successful and trendy and expensive, being able to afford those things, and convincing people that your successful important outfit makes you a successful important person. And he's not wrong about the social dimensions of fashion.

NISHIKI: Try sporting a suit that runs 500 grand for once. Trust me, you’ll see the world in a whole new light. KIRYU: Fashion’s not my thing. Besides, Kazama-san never wore flashy clothes. NISHIKI: You do realize he’s the family captain, right? Number two in the whole Dojima operation? You get to that level, you can wear whatever you damn well please. But for the rest of us, “flashy” is part of the business. KIRYU: So that fancy new car you bought was just “business”. NISHIKI: Yeah, and that fancy lighter of mine, too. Which you still haven’t given back. KIRYU: You want to play the rich guy, quit being so stingy. NISHIKI: But you get what I’m saying, right? People see the expensive car, the designer jacket, and the gleam of that little Dojima pin, they pay attention. A yakuza’s only as good as his image. [...] Take your buddy today. These squeaky-clean idiots, borrowing money just to blow on tits and booze… Nobody in this town gives a crap about substance. What you see is what you get.

That's our first take on one of the major themes of the game: what does it mean to be yakuza? Again, there is truth to what Nishiki's saying here, particularly in terms of the ethos of the eighties. I'm not an expert on the bubble era, but the worldbuilding in the game speaks for itself. People hail taxis with 10,000-yen bills. You punch money out of punks during random street battles. Nishiki keeps a personal bottle of high-end booze at a bar he's visited twice, mostly because he "can’t stand being taken for a bum." The act of spending is important, not what you're spending it on.

Nishiki's outfit in Y0 is perfectly suited (heh) to that outlook. And look, I might be inviting controversy here, but in context, I think it's a werq. Yes, it's loud. But the silhouette -- squared shoulders, single breasted, thinner peaked lapel -- is right on trend for the time period, and it fits him well. The colors look good on him. The bold pattern (no, it's not animal print) under the solid maroon is a risk, but he pulls it off. And excess aside, he knows when to pull back on the accessories. It's bright and confident and memorable, and boy would Nishiki like to be all of those things.

Also -- and importantly -- Kiryu would never go out dressed like that. Because we can't talk about Nishiki and Kiryu without talking about Nishiki's Mt. Fuji-sized inferiority complex. Mastering image doesn't just make Nishiki stand out; it makes him stand out from Kiryu. Let's go back to the beginning of the game.

NISHIKI: I’ll admit, though, you’re finally starting to look the part. You make a pretty convincing yakuza. You’re done with collections today, right? KIRYU: Yeah. NISHIKI: Good. That should put Kazama-san’s mind at ease a bit. KIRYU: Heh, dunno about that. But he always knew all I could do is fight. You’re the one who’s good at the dance.

Nishiki then calls attention to the "rags" that Kiryu's wearing, which...is not an unfair assessment. (TUCK IN YOUR SHIRT, KIRYU. HEM YOUR PANTS.) As the two of them walk around Kamurocho, Nishiki offers Kiryu plenty of hot tips, from meeting girls to making big bucks to cozying up to the brass. But even when Nishiki's opining on his area of expertise, there's a competitive edge to it. "You asking me to pick out clothes for you means you admit you have terrible taste," he tells Kiryu on the way to the suit shop. Kiryu tells him to shut up, but there's no actual hurt behind it. Kiryu doesn't really care that his taste in clothes sucks. Fashion isn't important to him. Most of the things Nishiki knows so much about don't really matter to Kiryu. And that makes Nishiki feel more insecure! Because if Kiryu rolls out of bed looking like a yakuza, if Nishiki's image counseling sessions aren't helpful or meaningful, if Kiryu can skip the dance and get to the top on the strength of his fists and convictions, then who cares about Nishiki's 500 grand suit or his hourlong hair care routine? If image isn't what makes a yakuza, what does that make Nishiki?

At the end of Chapter 6, Nishiki tries to look out for Kiryu again -- this time, by granting him a merciful death before the Dojima Family drags him to the Hole. It's one of my favorite scenes in the game. Nishiki's crying too hard to aim the gun properly; Kiryu tells him to man up and shoot. Finally, Nishiki collapses.

NISHIKI: Can’t do it… How could I shoot you!? Without you, I’ll always be nothing. Can’t make it as a yakuza… No. I wouldn’t even still be alive now if I didn’t have you beside me! I’m just… If you’re not with me, I’m useless! Nothing means anything!

Mastering image hasn't granted Nishiki anything of substance. At the end of the day, Nishiki's playing dress-up, and he knows it.

And I'm almost certainly getting into overthinking-this territory now (if I haven't gotten there already), but I kind of like the spin this puts on Nishiki ripping his expensive suit off in Chapter 14 when he decides to fight the Dojima Family at Kiryu's side. Like yes, ripping off your outer layers to get at the naked (so to speak) truth -- your irezumi, and what it represents -- is just Yakuza Storytelling 101. It's decisive, it's kind of dumb, it's great, it gets me hyped every time. But I like that Nishiki's honest answer to "what does it mean to be a yakuza?" isn't about looking the part. I am genuinely trying not to end this paragraph by saying that Nishiki must become like a dragon, but like...you get where I'm going with this.

Of course, Nishiki's back to playing dress-up in Y1/Kiwami. I'm not the first to call the Patriarch Nishikiyama look a glow-down (though I like the patterned white tie). Like, fashion-conscious Nishiki would look good in a Hedi Slimane/Tom Ford-esque skinny black suit. But he picks a silhouette you'd expect to see on a much older man, torso-swallowing pants and all. The slicked-back hair doesn't help. He's just so transparently trying to look bigger and broader and older, and he doesn't pull it off. Big Bad Patriarch isn't a good look for him, in any sense of the phrase.

A final thought: Kiryu's clothes, and Nishiki's commentary on them, are the subject of their first conversation in Y0 -- and of their last. Kiryu's costume progression in Y0 is a pretty obvious commentary on his journey, to the point where Kiryu and Nishiki explicitly call attention to the color connotations in their final exchange. As a Dojima grunt, he wears black, and it doesn't look good on him because "brutish thug who keeps his head down and does what he's told" isn't a role he's comfortable with. He wears white when he works in real estate, but the change in color isn't enough to sell anyone on his transformation into a civilian. Although it's a little rich for Oda "Red Clown Shoes" Jun to chide someone for not wearing a proper suit. At the end of the game, Kiryu's in his classic grey suit, and well, the game spells it out:

KIRYU: I’m not feeling black or white these days. This is where I’m at right now. I chose it myself. I’m making it a fresh start. NISHIKI: Fine, fine. See if I care! Wear it the rest of your life!

Nishiki, dismayed, tells Kiryu that the grey suit already looks dated, but for Kiryu, "fresh start" doesn't mean "on trend". His image might be out of step with how other yakuza view themselves, or want to be seen, but if he's always going to look like a yakuza, he might as well stake his claim on what being a yakuza means. Still, it's telling that, even as a young man, Kiryu looks like a throwback to an earlier era. As the series progresses, the games hammer this home more and more. How many antagonists tell Kiryu that he's out of touch with the modern world, that he represents a version of the yakuza that no longer exists, that it's time for him to make way for the next generation?

"Wear it the rest of your life!" is a funny little in-joke, yeah, but...it's a little sad when you think about it, isn't it? Kiryu gets new outfits from Y3 on -- and in every game, he ultimately puts the suit back on and heads to Kamurocho. It's exactly of a piece with how Kiryu views being yakuza. We, and he, can debate the exact extent of his retirement from the Tojo Clan's affairs, but the yakuza isn't a career for Kiryu, it's a set of beliefs he carries with him. He wears the suit the same way he wears the dragon on his back: as an indelible part of his self-image.

[heartbeatbookclub]

I think it's sorta weird how the Protagonist (MC, Y/N, Stinky, whatever you wanna call him) is treated within the context of DDLC's meta.

That sentence came out weird. What I mean is that on terms of DDLC playing with the 4th wall (in other words, on terms of its actual existence as a visual novel in universe), the nature of the Protagonist's...well, entire existence, is up in the air.

Dan Salvato literally stated that he doesn't actually see him as a character in the same way as the girls. He's a "blank slate that says whatever is convenient." In a different statement, he's described as the "nameless, faceless self-insert character that you find so commonly in romance games", which I think is a good way of putting it. It's a good way of justifying why he kinda...sucks, because he's meant to be a typical VN protagonist. He's shallow, and responds with little more than what makes sense in context, because he doesn't have much character on his own, which is what makes him pretty bad at dealing with delicate issues like with Sayori.

In DDLC+ (spoilers, I guess?), it's a little bit vague about it, but in one of the mails, it states that Monika has literally "manufactured" a new character to "force interaction between her and the user". This character is heavily implied to be the Protagonist of the main DDLC visual novel that we know, and he is, as stated, noticeably absent from the Side Stories, because Monika didn't actively create him to be there.

Except...he isn't.

He doesn't physically appear, but in Trust, though he's obviously not mentioned by name, it's implied that he does exist, because when asked to act like a "normal person" responding to the Literature Club, she imitates a friend of hers who says "Literature is stuuupid. I'm joining the Anime Club."

...Remind you of a certain someone?

I feel like I'm overexplaining this, but my point is, it suggests that the Protagonist as a character isn't just something Monika invented out of thin air, or at least he's heavily implied not to be.

I think there's a larger conversation on the vague way the game itself treats the world outside of what is defined within the limited scope of Doki Doki Literature Club. Fans have filled gaps of different characters and events, but it's important to acknowledge that they're gaps filled by fanon, not canon. I think those gaps are left very intentionally empty, mostly to play into the conceit of the world, being that literally nothing actually exists outside of its boundaries, because it's a visual novel. It's a limited, constricted reality, where things are implied to exist outside it, but they actually don't.

In other words, Monika did apparently generate all that makes up the Protagonist as a character and vehicle for the player in the main game, based off the limited concept implied by their interaction in the Side Story. Or, rather, probably by something else, since the side stories are inherently a "Control Simulation" where Monika doesn't have any sense of meta awareness. It's a prequel set before the main story, but...well, if you really think about it, it's implied to tie into the main story, but they don't directly link up, do they? If it's not explicitly shown on screen in the main line Doki Doki Literature Club, did it even happen?

Either way, the Protagonist is a character independent of Monika's creation, he's just given absolutely nothing, and technically doesn't even exist outside of what's implied of him. Technically, the character Monika creates as a vehicle for the Player has no real relation to him, outside of being Sayori's friend and wanting to join the Anime Club. Or, depending on your view, he does! Since he's the literal manifestation of that character concept where it didn't exist previously, it's fair to say that he is that character given life!

I don't know, I think it's just kinda fascinating in context. I don't really like a lot of the extra lore surrounding the whole thing in +, but there are plenty of interesting things like this which have been given just enough flavor to be interesting.

Obviously I don't think this means the Protagonist is a complete non-character and any & all fan interpretations of him should be defenestrated (quite the opposite actually, reality can be whatever you want, I have a few concepts with him floating around my head which I find fun to play with), but I think this sort of thing is probably important to keep in mind on terms of actual investigations of canon.

[chemblrish]

hii how are you? I'm currently studying inorganic chem, mainly coordination compounds but it's proving difficult. I'm unable to fully grasp what's going on. Can you please advise me on coordination compounds and inorganic chem in general? thank you!!

Hi!

Inorganic coordination chem is part of my thesis, you've come to the right place :) Also, I'm going to make this a university-level thing - I didn't study coordination chem in school, so I'm assuming that's the level you expect - but if you actually need advice on studying high school inorganic chem, please let me know!

First, a textbook rec: I studied off Cotton's Basic inorganic chemistry a lot and I liked it. My professor recommended Atkins' Inorganic chemistry too; I admit I didn't use it that much bc I also had some Polish textbooks I found very helpful, but from what I did see, it seemed very comprehensive and in-depth - so if Cotton isn't enough, Atkins might be better for you.

Inorganic chem

orbitals matter: I think it's important to grasp orbitals and hybridization before going any further. This stuff keeps coming up again and again, so if you find yourself struggling with understanding concepts in inorganic chem, I'd suggest making sure you understand atomic and molecular orbitals first.

periodic table trends: please don't memorize them. Please. Understand them. There's a reason why, for example, atomic radii decrease within periods even though both electrons and protons are added as you move to the right (the screening effect - and again, orbitals!). Once more, I liked the way it was explained in Cotton's textbook.

I found flashcards very helpful for studying the properties of the elements and their compounds as that's mostly memorization. Same for HSAB, really.

if your inorganic chem course covers elements of group theory too, here is a website my thesis supervisor told me about :) I think it's pretty great. If you're digging really, really deep into it, Cotton has a whole textbook on group theory in chemistry (Chemical Applications of Group Theory), but I doubt you'd need it for a basic inorganic chem course.

I've also answered an ask on studying chemistry in general - perhaps you'll find it useful too.

Coordination chem

surprise, surprise: ✨ orbitals ✨. Once more, to understand what's going on with coordination compounds, first you need to understand the molecular orbital theory well.

metals oftentimes have a preference for a specific coordination number. Frequently, a whole group will have a preference for the same CN (group 7 ions, for example, prefer CN = 6). That doesn't mean other CNs don't exist, but knowing there's a pattern can be helpful while studying.

coordination numbers aren't totally random. The rules may not be strict and foolproof, but again, there's a general pattern that's worth keeping in mind: bigger ion usually = higher CN (duh?), CNs are usually even (and we still don't really know why that's so! Although it may have to do with geometry and symmetry) and sometimes depend on the charge of the ligand.

crystal field theory. Okay so CFT is really cool, but I see how it can be super confusing too. I'm not sure how deep you have to dig into this stuff for your course, so apologies if I go a little overboard 😅 My advise for studying it would be:

try to visualize the given complex, actually see the position of the ligands in relation to the orbitals

remember: it's all about lowering the energy. That's the core of CFT. Pauli's exclusion principle always, always stands, but CFT tells us coordination compounds are systems that "want to" have the lowest possible energy so bad they'll sometimes break Hund's rule to obtain it

keep in mind CFT is only a model. Some parts of it may not make any sense to you (like the fact it treats all metal - ligand bonds as purely ionic). It just so happens that despite its many simplifications that are obviously not true, CFT still accurately describes many complex compounds

I've had an ask on studying nomenclature, too.

again, I don't know how complex (pun not intended) you need my tips to get, so if you have any specific questions, feel free to hmu :) I'll try my best to explain

[lilywily143]

I'm gonna give you guys just a few of the ideas for ALL the voices before I draw them. Because I wanna share so muchhhhh I'm so excited working on all this!

Both spoilers and just long

Hero: Superhero appearance with wings shaped like a cape, even if he's most "human" Though I can make an argument being a superhero to help people is the most human out of the voices.

Broken: hhhh he's my comfort guy. I do have a lot of doodles of him with plucked feathers. [and I don't just mean bald spots, the stems are still in the body] But I wanna add more... diving offering based things for his...opinions on the Tower Princess

Cheated: Oh he needs a X on his chest as a general princess parallel for her being cheated from life too. Also cuts from the Razer princess. Past that, not sure.

Cold: I abandoned the idea of making him look like he was made of icicles, to be wrapped in his wings "But he's a voice numb to the cold, he is the cold itself, why would he be getting himself warm with his wings-?" Because I like that he is cozy within himself. ah? that cool? No? don't care, i'm commited

Contrarian: God I wanna do more past the jester idea and something with his Stranger route arc BUT UGH IDEA MAKING IS HARD. I have a draft of him like a jester for now...

Hunted: I'm gonna reuse the ripped off feathers idea for him. My chickens fight for domanice sometimes so I have a good reference for the appearance. probably bite marks on his wrists and an additional claw. not like a new hand, it's like this thing

Opportunist: EEEHEHEH it's hard to describe without devolving but it's.... a illusion to a Devil pretending to be a Angel thing in visuals, but in representation he isn't a devil just mischievous.I also added the fun ribbons from the Princess and the Dragon chapter.

Paraniod: Heart. Lungs. Liver. Nerves. Oh come on how could I not add them??? also just ruffles up feather coat and wings. he's gonna get a REALISTIC heart design on his chest btw, not a cartoon one [unlike another voice~]

Skeptic: little hard to figure out i'm still thinking about him maybe detective since he doesn't know what's true and wants to find the truth?

Stubborn: KNIGHT. He is a knight. Warrior!!! the willpower to fucking come back to live is badass. I might make a colored drawing JUST FOR HI because I would love him to have some orange for a Phenoix vibe

SMITTEN: MY BELOVED VOICE. HE'S MY FAV Cupid. He's a Cupid and no one can convince me otherwise. Cute cartoon heart imagery, dainty angel [like cartoon cupids] wings, a nice gown. It suits him

i wanna also say. I am not dressing up the voices, I thought feather shaping language would be fun. Though I didn't have that as a "hard rule to follow". Smitten was the first I drew and he's gonna keep the gown

Also part of me REALLY wants to do "evolved forms" of the voices because of the paths they have a huge role in. Like I saw @beartitled with a Goth Smitten form from the Happily Ever After Chapter because of the HUGE role he had and how much of a evil voice he was. [loved your art btw if you see this, it's inspiring to see :D]

Btw I love the Smitten even more because of that route. Not because I like his actions as the epitomy of "Amatonornativity Standards in the World" but because it shows how much more depth he has and also how too much of this one voice/feeling can be super bad. Like it's such a interesting arc on his end alone and the entire chapter is amazing but now i'm rambling.

[veintrry]

TAINT THIS PAPER WITH LOVE

writer!kunikuzushi x gn!reader, fluff, romance, love letter, nervous kuni bcs feelings.

part one (wink wink)

an: RAHHHHHHHH

Writing was something that had come so easily to Kuni, till he had to write a letter that would appeal to you. When did this pen feel so awkward in-between his fingers? And just when did these string of words he wrote sound so foreign to him... Love isn't easy to express.

Kunikuzushi doesn't think he has ever felt so uncomfortable at his desk, staring at a blank paper, blinking in hopes it would write itself with heart melting words that would make you grin. Yet, that never happens.

He lets out an exasperated sigh. This was far worse than some writers block. The words- Well, the feelings were so easy to sense, but to put them down on paper? It seemed like an impossible task. Folding over, he groans into his hand as his elbow stays rested on the dark wood of the desk, it's polish still refined.

Why did he have to give himself such a short time period too? A day, just a day. No, not even 24 hours, way less. He picks up the pen again, his thumb on the top as he repeatedly pushes it down letting the sound fill the room as he thinks. Just let your mind wander...

And it does. Like it always does, his thoughts trail back to you. Not actual words or things that may describe you but visual images of you or at least the vague image of you. He didn't care before but much to his dislike his ability to visualise things isn't as potent as he'd like. Yet, he still can see fragments, the lines of your smile, the depth of your eyes and the way you move. There were smaller details he took note of, the shape of your ear, the style of your hair and the state of your nails.

He wishes he could just translate this onto paper.

There was a gentleness he felt with you when he wasn't freaking out about these emotions. There was a calm that he absorbs but he fears at the same time, worrying there was a storm arriving and he'd be the cause of it. But, asking you to come again tomorrow, that was a ray of light from the gloomy clouds, it sprouted hope. Maybe. Just maybe. There is no storm.

He lets his head fall back, staring at the ceiling pointlessly before sighing. He's being doing that a lot lately.

...Technically, this wouldn't be his first time addressing a letter towards you, though the past times he's done it he was unaware of the fact you'd be receiving it. Maybe, he could try to do the same? Just harbour the same emotions, Kuni. Don't think, just write.

If you were in front of me, what would I want to say?

_

Familiar bells jingle, declaring the entrance of someone new and each time he hears the sound his eyes shoot up. He can't tell if he's anticipating your arrival in excitement or fear. Whichever one it is, he knows that one thing for sure is that he feels nervous. Insanely so, that he barely can keep himself occupied writing others letters.

He thought actually finishing the letter was bad, but waiting to give it to you is even worse. So. Much. Worse.

He's beginning to think his chest is going to explode from the anxiety. Though, there is some joy to it, as if he is looking forward to your expression.

Biting his bottom lip, he rests his chin on the palm of his hand, almost daydreaming about it. Surely, your reaction will be positive? Your past letters were from him on purpose so you'll like this. What if it's a lukewarm reception? What if he doesn't make you understand how he feels and the words he had repeated a multitude of times and the phrases he's crafted a thousand times don't work? There's a million thoughts in his minds and none of them are reassuring. He can feel his stomach being stirred like a cauldron of the worse concoctions and it's making him sick.

Till the bell rings.

Would you think it's weird if he ever told you that he began to recognise your footsteps? He'll keep that to himself. A hand is placed gently on the envelope holding his feelings, though the fingers that wrap around the folds are almost possessive, unsure if they should allow this letter to be given away. Unsure if he should offer his emotions just to get shot down. Yeah, maybe this is a bad idea and he should just-

Two knocks resound from beside him, he turns to you, your hand above his desk as your finger taps the wood.

"I'm here."

You're smiling.

Curse this world.

"You took your time." My tone comes out dry, almost scolding in a way. You give me a sheepish smile. "I didn't want to seem too eager." So in turn he was the one made to do so when he had been waiting for you impatiently.

He simply gives you a hum of acknowledgment, then sits there for a while. You don't move, awaiting to be given your letter but he doesn't seem to budge. A hesitant voice comes out, "Uhm, Kuni?" Archons, how he cherished the sound of his name rolling off your tongue. Indigo eyes spare you a glance, encouraging you to continue. "The letter...?" Would it be stupid to say he hoped you forgot.

"The letter. Right, right..."

Despite his words he seems to hesitate before finally letting out a deep breath as his hand reaches to the storage below the desk and pulls out a perfectly folded envelope. He turns his head away, just slightly, handing it to you wordlessly and without a glance spared towards you.

On the other hand, you were left admiring the envelope. It was nothing special, yet the contents of it were.

You take it excitedly, the pads of your thumb and index rppessed against the smooth texture of it. Your hand moves and your fingers begin to open it. This catches his attention. He quickly turns to you with an expression of disbelief and a hint of redness on his ears. "You're going to open it here?! At least open it outside of the store..."

You tilt your head slightly, "Why?" You continue speaking, conveying your reason, "It's better if I do it in front of you, right? That way you can get my honest reaction." The tone you speak in is somewhat teasing as though to say that this is a way of seeing just how well he did.

He opens his mouth, attempting to rebuttal, though all that comes out are incoherent noises, earning a chuckle from you. A defeated sigh leaves his mouth and he turns away once more, his other hand waving you off as in to quickly open it already and you oblige with ease.

The next few minutes are silent. Sure, there was the slight rustling of papers when the wind of the turning fan met them and the sounds of breathing, but it almost blended into the background as you read his letter...

"Dear moron,

I love you.

I wanted to get that out of the way, just to make this clear. Writing this or at least, trying to, has been a hindrance. I keep trying to form words I think you'd like. I keep trying to make this appealing to you, but just what do you like? I know you have a rather odd way of thinking, I know your taste in books and I know that you're dense. Immensely so. Maybe I am too. I also know you like me. If I'm right, which I don't doubt I am considering your little trick with those letters... I'm free after this.

Yours truly,

Kuni. (ps. turn the paper around, loser.)"

And you do so, you do just that and turn the letter around to where you find more writing, this time lengthier and clearly written with a different intent. Your words glaze over each word, intaking the tone and you swear you can almost hear it. You peek over the letter gazing at the violet-haired man but hiss face is turned away yet, the corner of your lips quirk up seeing the red of his ears.

It feels like you're taking a century to read what he wrote, he had stolen a few glances but the moment you turn the letter he fully committed to averting his gaze, a hand to his mouth as he muttered curses, his mind flooded with what the hell you could be thinking right now.

Two knocks sound out, you've tapped his desk again. As he is about to turn around there's a warm blow of air at his ears and he feels his ears rumble at just the proximity of your breath. "You're really forward." He couldn't tell if you were being sarcastic or not but that was the last thing on his mind as he finally faces you, seeing so close to him. He doesn't think you've ever worn such an expression before. If anyone else was looking they'd think you were up to no good and he'd have to agree, though, he can tell there's some glee in your eyes. "I could say the same for you... Then, is that a yes?"

"No." He swears he feels his heart sink.

"It's a definite yes."

Kuni begins to regret ever giving you that letter, "You jest too much." You let out a sound of agreement, "Yeah, but you don't seem to dislike it." Taunting. How fitting of you.

Though, he can't help but focus on the fact that you actually agreed to this... especially when you're donning such a prideful appearance too. Even if you're teasing him more than you ought to, he doesn't mind, in fact, he thinks he likes it. It just means he's closer to you now. "I don't. It means you really like me. Don't you?" There's a moments hesitation from you as you observe the change on his demeanour, a playful smirk on his lips as his eyes glimmer with a certain amusement. Earning a gentle nod from you, you reaffirm his words.

"I do."

back contents of the letter;

"Sometimes I believe you're killing me just by merely being around me. It feels as though you're making me go through torture each time you let me catch a glimpse of you. I begin to think that you must be driving me insane because there's no other way I can explain this. But, you're divine. To me, you are everything and more. I don't think I could ever put into words the way I honour you, that smile of yours, your voice that puts my thoughts to a halt and has me anticipating the next time I'll get to hear you.

I wish I was closer to you, as close as I can be. I wish to express my love easier, to tell you it how it is without worrying about you'll take it. Tell me, is the only way to explain how I feel sappy words and deep analogies? You like me, right. You have letters from me. But they're different from this. This is truly from me. My words aren't sophisticated or smart, they don't pierce your heart at my ability to deduce what you want to hear. This is a mess, uncollected and disorganised. Yet, I don't want to sell you a fantasy. My love for you is a frenzy, much like the one you set my heart on, so I won't pretend to be tame. I want you, I love you. That's how it is, and I intend to devote myself to proving that to you it I must, because when I tell you that I like you it's not just an overused phrase but the closest way I can tell you how I feel even if it only shows an inkling of it.

Maybe I'm not right for you. But I want to be."

[freebooter4ever]

is the corset comfortable enough to wear everyday? or at least more comfortable than the pooling blood? I'm curious about what will happen after consistent use and then removing it all. the blood pooling happens right away when the compression isn't happening?

it's interesting that it would work similarly to compression tights. I don't really understand how that would work considering how much your torso moves at any given moment while you breathe. at first I was going to say I'd like to read a long paper about it, but realistically I'd prefer a youtube video with visuals. I'm a slave to technology.

It certainly feels comfortable enough to wear it all day so far - though I am starting small and plan on wearing it in the early morning when the brain fog is the worst and in the evenings until I get used to it. What I have on isn't a corset btw, it's shapewear. Which i bought as a test before i invested in a full blown corset.

The interesting thing about POTS is that it is literally different for everyone - there are commonalities but seriously mine is SO different from anyone i've talked to online and that seems to be the 'norm'. My only advice would be to try everything because you don't know what will work and try to make sure every piece of gear you buy is returnable. Once you find something your body tolerates then you buy a bunch of it (i started with 1 compression tights, now i have 4).

I genuinely have no idea scientifically how compression works - I asked my cardiologist and he didn't really explain it to me just kept repeating the type of compression i should wear. I do know that i have been wearing the tights for about two months now and still the minute i take them off the blood starts pooling (and it dont stop pooling). As i gain muscle, as i get rid of the bacteria in my intenstines, this could change. Or i could be dealing with this for the rest of my life. Doctors haven't studied it. Cause it doesnt kill you it only disables you and takes the joy out of your life because it slowly depletes your brain of oxygen and your body cant function like that 🙃. Plus up until covid it mostly affected women, and you know those women - anxiety ridden delicate creatures clearly faking these symptoms for the attention.

Side note: i have learned i get frustrated with friends and strangers who try to talk about 'how brave' and 'resilient' i am and how they 'admire me' for fighting this. I call bullshit lol, this isn't some bravery on my part this is just me fighting to survive. I got lucky in that my body seems to respond to at least some treatments. I've read too many stories of people whose body didnt.

Ironically i did record a video essay last night in 3 parts, but it wasnt about compression, it was me rambling about how with all the evidence i gathered plus the tidbit i learned yesterday im 99.9% certain i met geno in 2012 in a pittsburgh nightclub when i was clueless and he was young and hot in a tight shirt. I might post it later today. I had to do multiple takes on the last video trying to describe exactly how well i vividly remembered the shape of this guy's body (i kept blushing)

[pinkrelish]

I know many people though the romantic relationship aspect in FOI was unnecessary, and whilst I partially agree with that, I also kinda liked it because it was some of the only time in the book we got to see Eddie happy.

As you said this actually a pretty sad book and Eddie spends most if his time in it anxious or angry, so seeing any happy moments weaved in there made me happy too.

so, i'm gonna use this as a jumping point to talk about my take on the paige plot line. this is just my interpretation, and if you read the book differently, then that's your take. our views are shaped by our individual life experiences, and those factors influence the lens which we digest media in the context that it is given. if you don't agree, then that's your experience.

that is to say—

i felt bad for paige for most of it. eddie kinda sucks lol.

i hesitate to even call it romance because that has a certain connotation, and as someone who almost exclusively reads and writes romance, very little about their relationship comes across as romantic to me.

to build context, at the beginning of the book schneiderhan makes a nod* at a popular fanfic trope: girls using eddie because they want to know what it's like to 'get with the freak'. he says he doesn't mind this because "he's not looking to be anyone's boyfriend anyway," and this self-reflection rung true to me.

eddie's initial attraction to paige stems from 1) her being pretty, 2) she treats him like a person and not a "munson," and importantly, 3) she could get him infront of an important record producer.

in his monologues where he's visualizing his future and what he's looking forward to: being a rock hero, hellfire, getting money from his dad's scheme, california... he never names her. in fact, there's several opportunities for him to think about her, but he doesn't. she's a vehicle for two of those dreams, yet he forgets her. i'm a big romantic softy, so there were two times in particular it felt deliberate he didn't mention her when he thought about what he was excited for in the future, and it kind of stung ngl. he describes how happiness washes over him from the way she looks at him, and when they're together (in a sexual context) he remarks in his head about how he wants it to last forever, but it's like once she's off the page, she's gone.

at one point he runs inner commentary about how he never saw a future for himself where he'd do the whole meeting-someone's-parents thing, so he defaults to what he sees in romance movies. he opens the van door for paige and helps her inside. he gets flowers and expensive chocolates for her mom when he's invited over for dinner. but he rarely like... talks to paige about anything that's not related to the record deal, or what she's doing in town lmao. we as an audience barely learn anything about her. and maybe that's because it's the plot line in the book the least, or because the book itself is short, but *shrug*.

they clearly both like each other, that much is clear. he gets nervous around her, it's sweet. but it was equally clear from my interpretation that she likes him more than he likes her, and while they're both using each other (him for the record deal, her to move up in her industry's hierarchy by proving to her boss that she can provide him with a rockstar in the making), their relationship is very shallow and just sex, especially on his part. "not looking to be anybody's boyfriend."

i don't know if all that sums into it being unnecessary because i personally appreciate and pour over any context we're given in how he would treat potential romantic partners, but it did make me feel bad for paige since by the final reveal at the end of the book, it comes across like she invested more into the "relationship" than he did, and his last interaction with her probably felt extra shitty, even if both of them hesitated referring to each other as anything more than a friend or future roommate.

if anyone's not reading the book because they don't want to read about eddie falling in love with another girl, don't worry, it's not that deep for either of them lmao.

/* i don't know if the nod is intentional, but i've also used popular fandom tropes ("reader comes to eddie wanting weed, but is out of money and pays for it with sex") in my own work and thought it was a neat inclusion.