#i'm surprised people still like him even though I haven't posted any writing about him in like a year )) :

[ugh-yoongi]

ex-conomics | csc

you supported seungcheol through years of being an aspiring athlete, and all you got to show for it was your undergraduate degree and an awkward, stuttered apology when he dumped you to go semi-pro. now he’s back after an injury derailed his career, and there’s only one problem: you’re the only one available to tutor him. you - 0; the universe - 1. talk about no return on investment.

⚽ pairing: choi seungcheol x f. reader ⚽ genre: exes to (lite) enemies to lovers; university au; angst, fluff ⚽ rating: while there is nothing explicit in this fic, there are two brief references to smut. while i can't stop anyone from reading this, i would prefer minors do not interact with this or any of my work. ⚽ warnings: cheol is some degree of famous, reader is a grad student/TA, mentions of an injury and coping with the aftermath of it, lots of economics talk that even i do not understand, swearing, one mention of alcohol, some misplaced jealousy, rom-com tropes, dino is kind of a loser but we love him anyway. probably a lot of other things i missed, but this is actually pretty tame for a fic of this length. ⚽ word count: 13.4k ⚽ thank you: a lot of people looked this over for me in the process and i'm sure i will forget some of them so if i do i'm sorry: @the-boy-meets-evil, @hot-soop, @highvern, and @haologram, who also gave me some wonderful ideas for the vlogs. thank you to MIT for opencourseware existing. i took microeconomics and dropped it, so i couldn't have done this without you. everyone in the discord server for helping me along the way and keeping me motivated. ⚽ author's note: i haven't posted a fic in nearly seven months, so i think it goes without saying that there are parts of this i like and a lot more i'm not 100% happy with. i'd love if this was more fleshed out and 10k longer, but i was able to write anything at all so it's good enough. this was written for the back to school with seventeen collab, hosted by @camandemstudios. thank you both for letting me participate! please make sure to check out the rest of the stories! everyone worked so hard and this collab was a ton of fun to participate in. <3

You look down at the paper. Back up at who handed it to you. Down at the paper again.

“You’ve got to be joking.”

The poor freshman kid laughs, all nerves, and even though the sound is grating, you remember what it’s like to be forced into work study. How far away graduate school seemed; how large your professors loomed over you with all their power and knowledge and credentials; how you constantly felt like the dumbest person in nearly every room you walked into for four straight years.

“Um—”

You sigh, just barely resisting the urge to slam your head onto your desk. “I—it’s fine, don’t worry about it.” Your words do little to ease Freshman’s nerves. He’s still hunched over in the doorway of your office, wringing his hands as he shifts his weight back and forth, in for a lifetime of body pain with the way he’s squaring his shoulders. “You’re sure about this, though? Like, I’m really not being set up?”

“I don’t think so?” he offers, slowly starting to turn green right before your eyes. “Dr. Lee ga-gave me the paperwork himself, I don’t think he would’ve messed it up? Oh no, did I mess it up? Should I go back to Student Services and conf—”

Good god, this kid’s anxiety is gonna stink up your office for weeks. “No need!” you interject. “I’ll just…” Sign it, you want to say, but the longer you stare at the sheet of paper the quicker you’re losing your resolve.

TUTORING REQUEST FORM Student Name: Choi Seungcheol Degree: Undergraduate Major: Business Course: ECON04101 Introduction to Microeconomics Instructor: Lee Yeonseok, PhD. Recommended Tutoring: High (3-4 hours per week)

You curse under your breath. Of the two names on the paper, Dr. Lee’s does not come as a surprise. He’s a notorious hard-ass with an infamous attrition rate—most students don’t last more than a week in any of his classes—but he’s also the sole reason you were able to pay for someof your grad school tuition out of pocket with all the tutoring money you made.

That, however, was two years ago.

“Does he know I don’t tutor anymore?” Stupid question. The kid stares blankly back at you, as if to say I don’t know any more than the people in Student Services, let alone Dr. Lee. It is literally my first year here. “I’m Dr. Ahn’s TA this year. I’ve got my hands full with her bullsh… stuff—”

Immediately, you know you’ve said something wrong, because the kid’s eyes light up, all that previous anxiety disappearing like smoke. “Wait, the same Dr. Ahn that teaches the crypto course?”

“No, that one died,” you say quickly. Kid deflates. “Anyway, I don’t really tutor anymore, especially for econ. As you can see”—you gesture vaguely around the cramped four walls of your office—“they’ve upgraded me. They even put my name on a little placard by the door! Go look! They spelled it wrong! If that doesn’t sum up this university I don’t know what does.”

You heave another sigh. Try to school your face and tone into something that exudes professionalism and finality. “Look, I’m sorry I can’t help you. I tutored Dr. Lee’s students for, like, three years in undergrad so I’m sure they just… forgot that wasn’t my actual job here. Who’s in charge of tutoring these days? I’ll shoot them an email and explain all this.”

Freshman gives you a name, and it takes less than a second to find them in the employee directory. You expect that to be the end of it, but he’s still taking up space in your doorway. You quirk an eyebrow. “Yes?”

The hand-wringing returns, along with an embarrassed flush that disappears beneath the neckline of his school-branded sweatshirt. “I just—um. Maybe you could, uh. Send that now? Before I get back there?”

You blink. “Don’t you have to go all the way back across campus? How slow do you think I type?” He shrugs, and you give up on the idea of getting rid of him. “Fine. What’s your name, anyway?”

“Lee Chan. I’m a sophomore. Do you know that guy?”

“Oh. I thought for sure you were a freshman, but you’re gonna need to be more specific, Lee Chan, Sophomore.”

“The guy they want you to tutor.” You freeze. The guy they want you to tutor is—“Choi Seungcheol,” Chan tacks on, and, yeah, you know—knew, you correct yourself—someone with that name, once upon a time.

But there are a lot of Chois and a lot of Seungcheols. It’s been years since you’ve spoken to the Seungcheol you knew, and that was when he’d broken up with you to—“I heard he’s a football player? Well, used to be, I guess. The girls in the office were freaking out so I guess he’s pretty famous, but I don’t know anything about sports, do you? They said they have photocards of him. I thought they only did that for idols.”

You think about being kids together in Daegu. Think about the exasperated looks you’d share when your parents would drag the two of you to festivals: Palgongsan in the autumn, Biseulsan in the spring; transformation and rebirth. Think about being eight years old and watching your father cram into the small space of the Chois’ living room, standing around the TV with Seungcheol’s dad, shouting at Park Jonghwan. Daegu FC made the FA Cup quarterfinals that year, and you think, of everything, that’s what you’ll remember for the rest of your life.

You think about falling in love slowly. Sixteen and clueless, the pair of you were. Didn’t really know any different, just that you’d look at him and feel butterflies. That you’d hold hands in secret. Text beneath the dinner table. That you’d watch him on the football pitch and be consumed by pride. That the future felt impossibly far away, that life would never catch up to the two of you.

You think about all the football jargon you didn’t understand—the academies, the teams, the implications. You think about, I’m thinking about trying out for the FC Seoul U-18, I just don’t think there’s much more I can do here in Daegu. You think about replying, Oh, I applied to university there.

You remember thinking it must’ve been fate, how easy that had worked out. How easy that first hurdle had been overcome.

You think about how fast everything happened. The try-out, the acceptance, the explosion. Remember being unable to go anywhere those first few months without seeing Seungcheol’s face, touted as the next big thing. Think about applying for scholarships when he was applying for international visas. Think about studying for midterms when Seungcheol was studying English for interviews.

You think about the last few weeks of your relationship, when it felt like you were desperately trying to cling to ghosts. Think about how Seoul had once felt endlessly big, both in opportunity and size, and how it now felt suffocating. You think about, So you’re just giving up? Is that what you’re saying? Think about, I don’t know what else to do. It doesn’t feel fair to you.

You think about all the places you’ve watched him. On countless football pitches; shy glances in school hallways; in the passenger seat, wracked with nerves on the drive to Seoul; poised above you in bed, hairline dotted with sweat as he rolled his hips, telling you how much he loved you.

You think about watching him walk out the door, and how you never watched him again.

So you fire off your email, concise and to the point about why you can’t tutor Choi Seungcheol in Introduction to Microeconomics, and turn to Lee Chan, Sophomore.

“No,” you finally answer. “Never heard of him.”

For all intents and purposes, your rejection should’ve been the end of it.

A few days go by. You hold office hours, attend lectures, work on your thesis when you have both the time and the energy. Try to ignore the feeling of bees beneath your skin, anxiety needling each time you check your email. You were well within your right to decline the tutoring request, but you can’t help but feel like you’ve done something wrong. That someone somehow knows who Seungcheol was to you and will pull you up on it. That those girls who’d gushed about him to Chan are somewhere laughing at your expense.

But you don’t hear anything at all about it… until you do.

Sunday evening. You haven’t moved from your couch in hours, some variety show playing in the background, barely audible over your keyboard clacking. Much to your detriment, you don’t write many papers these days, so you’re out of practice. Feels like you haven’t done anything besides formulas in years, all of your academic knowledge reduced to fucking math, so you’re about ready to toss your laptop out the window long before the email even comes through.

You see, From: Lee Yeonseok. You see, Subject: Choi Seungcheol - Tutoring.

Your stomach plummets to the floor.

You scan the body quickly. You see the words personal favor… friend of his father… urgent matter… and your hands start shaking. Whether it’s from the sheer audacity of this man or anxiety, you aren’t sure, but it’s not like it matters. There aren’t a whole lot of people on campus brave or dumb enough to go up against him twice.

“Motherfucker,” you spit, bitter the only taste in your mouth.

Where did you go wrong to wind up here? You’d followed the script: got the grades, passed the exams, received half of the required education for the Respectable Career, helped a few others along the way chase dreams that may or may not have been their own. You’d fallen in love. Only had a broken heart to show for it, but that’d been in the script, too: The First Love, followed by The First Heartbreak.

The split from Seungcheol was supposed to have been the end of that chapter. You’d planned on never seeing him again, and you never would have, had it been up to you. Apparently the universe has other plans, participation required.

“Did you spill onion dip on the rug again?” You startle, sending your laptop flying. Kaori, your roommate, is perched halfway in between the living room and the kitchen like a cryptid, clearly not expecting your reaction. “Oh. Were you watching porn?”

Face burning, you fetch your laptop from the floor. “In a common area? Kaori, please, I have far more decorum than that.”

She snorts, resuming her trek to the fridge. “See, that’s what I thought, but then I walked out here and you threw your laptop so fast it was like watching my ex get caught watching furry porn all over again.” She pries the lid off a large container of yogurt. “You think this is still good?”

“Dunno. What’s it smell like?”

She sniffs it and pulls it back to check the label. “Vanilla, I think, which is concerning because it’s supposed to be strawberry.”

You shrug. “What’s the worst that can happen, you get extra”—you pause, trying to remember the correct order of things, before giving up entirely—“...biotics?”

“Mm, so close. Care if I just eat this with a spoon?”

Nose scrunched, you wave her off. “Couldn’t pay me to eat yogurt on a good day, let alone if it’s expired. All yours, babe.”

Spoon in hand and a pleased smile on her face, Kaori collapses onto the couch beside you. You try to return your attention to your paper, try to find your momentum again, and it works for all of ten minutes before you’re groaning and slamming the top closed.

You don’t even need to look over to know Kaori’s staring. “What’s up with you?” she asks. Before she can answer: “Wait, is this serious? Because I can’t have a serious conversation in this t-shirt.” You steal a glance sideways. Ask Me About My Hemorrhoid! it says, and you exhale loudly. “Don’t breathe at me, I lost a bet.”

“And continued wearing it?”

She jokingly rolls her eyes. “God forbid a girl has hobbies.” Nudges you with her foot. “C’mon, spill.”

Kaori doesn’t know about you and Seungcheol. Most people don’t, aside from a few old classmates from Daegu who found you on social media and tried befriending you once he started making a name for himself in Seoul. After that, it was just easier to keep things private while you were together. New friends knew you were seeing someone but not their name or how long you’d been together. Any curiosity surrounding why the Choi Seungcheol was following you on Insta had been waved away easily. Our parents are friends, we grew up together. Then you broke up, and there wasn’t any evidence to delete, and he wasn’t following you on Instagram anymore, and it was easier that way.

So, yeah—even though you hadn’t met her until years later, Kaori knows you have an ex. She knows you’ve had a few flings and situationships in the time since, too, and it’s why she’s none the wiser when you ask, “It’s nothing, really. Just—do you follow football at all?”

“Nah, not really. The new guy’s pretty into it and keeps trying to get me to watch the games with him, but it’s so fucking boring? I dunno, I can’t get into it. Not in real life, anyway—I binged all of Captain Tsubasa in an embarrassingly short amount of time, though. Why?”

“Student Services asked me to tutor someone the other day and I had to turn it down. I just don’t have the time, you know? This semester’s already killer, and Dr. Ahn’s been riding my ass nonstop about grades. Turns out it’s some football player, so Dr. Lee emailed me asking me to do it as a personal favor, which means, on top of all the other shit I have to do, I’m now tutoring some football player four hours a week in Microeconomics.”

Her face distorts. “God, that guy’s such a prick. Like wow, you’re good at the economy! Good for you! Who cares! Why don’t you go balance the national debt or something instead of torturing university freshmen!”

You also wrongly assume that’s the last you’ll hear of it from Kaori.

Two days later, after Student Services replies to your email with the days and times you’ll be tutoring Seungcheol, she materializes in the living room to harass you.

“You didn’t tell me your football player was Choi Seungcheol.”

The panic is instant. You know how she means it, but it’s not how your body interprets it. All of a sudden it feels like an interrogation, an accusation, and a whopping serving of guilt takes up residence in the middle of your chest for not being entirely honest.

“Explains this weird text Ken sent me.”

She slides her phone over to you, open to her text thread with her current flavor of the week. Beneath an article about Seungcheol enrolling in classes at your school:

doesn’t ur roomie TA there Why are you calling her “ur roomie” like you don’t know her name?? Rude. Also yes. ask her to get me an autograph No babe pls he was my fav player before he got injured No 🙄 fine. can i come over later? Starting to think you’re using me for my roommate. Get your own job 🙄

You hand her phone back. “I didn’t think you’d know who Choi Seungcheol even is.” It’s the best you can do, even though it just digs you a deeper grave. “You said you’re not into football.”

“I’m not, but unfortunately I am into that stupid man.” She sighs, wistful and longing. “Babe, you have to understand. His dick is so big.”

You hadn’t wanted to stay in Seoul for your graduate degree, let alone the same university you’d gone to for undergrad.

You’d applied to schools all over—Japan, Europe, even a few in the States. Romanticized the hell out of NYU, went window shopping for an overpriced apartment, picked a favorite pizzeria based on nothing but vibes and online reviews. In those few months after graduation, there wasn’t a whole lot tying you to Seoul. Your and Seungcheol’s relationship had been old history by then, your parents split. Your dad stayed in your childhood home and your mother moved a few hours closer to her sister. They’d waited until your brother was old enough to be out of the house.

And it’d just been… a lot. Overwhelming. Some days you could barely shower or feed yourself, let alone move halfway across the world, so you’d stayed in the familiar and tried not to let it feel like failure.

But the good thing about familiarity is you learn its tricks, figure out the hiding spots. Early on, your first or second week of grad school, you laid claim to a study room on a floor of the library everyone else ignored. You write notes on the whiteboard with faded blue markers that are still there days later. The chair on the opposite side of the table is always exactly where you left it, the space between it and the table enough to only accommodate you. Sometimes you leave books—old paperbacks littered with notes in your writing—or papers, just to see if they move.

They never do.

And all of this is why it feels like a punch to the gut when that sanctity is tainted. When you’re halfway through a stack of Dr. Ahn’s exams and the doorknob rattles behind you. When you don’t even need to turn around to know who it is, because he still sounds the same, still has that overwhelming presence. You’ve always sensed him before you felt him.

“There you are,” Dr. Lee says, ambling into the room before you can protest. He, too, is overwhelming, just in different ways. Immaculate posture that anchors his slight frame that’s always dressed impeccably and expensively. Wears a watch that’s triple your tuition. Shoes polished so bright they’re nearly blinding. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

This time it is an accusation.

Well, you found me, you want to say, but just knowing Seungcheol is behind him, lingering in that half-study room, half-hallway space, is enough to keep you quiet. Like if you speak you’ll summon him closer and you’ll no longer be able to pretend this is nothing more than a nightmare.

You plaster on a polite smile. Say, “Ah, here I am, kyosu-nim,” and put all your energy into trying to glue Seungcheol to the floor with your mind.

Which is fruitless, because Dr. Lee moves further into the room. Gestures for Seungcheol to follow him with an impatient huff, and the study room is small, sure, and with three people it feels cramped, but that’s not the reason it feels like all the air’s been sucked out of the room.

Seungcheol looks… different. He looks as anxious as you feel, and he sticks close to the wall like he’s trying to disappear. Dr. Lee introduces him with grave importance, unaware of your history, and the forced smile he offers you almost looks embarrassed.

You know Dr. Lee is still hammering away, probably giving you a stern talking-to for rejecting his request the first time, but you can’t tear your eyes away from Seungcheol. Feels like the world around you has reduced to a pinhead, all hyperfocus; feels like your lungs are sucking in stale air one at a time.

“...his father is a very good friend of mine, so I expect…”

You expected to feel nothing. Seungcheol had left to chase his dream—one you’d always been so supportive of that it sometimes felt like your dream, too—and, perhaps naively, you thought the distance and the years would’ve been enough. You expected your heart to have hardened. You expected all those nights you spent crying to hit you at full force. You expected anger, hurt—indifference, at the very least.

“...as many hours per week as you both can manage…”

But you should’ve known better. Should’ve expected the butterflies, the way your palms grow clammy, the way your heart rate spikes. Should’ve expected everything to feel upside-down. You should’ve expected to look at Seungcheol and feel sixteen and in love all over again.

“...you are responsible for his academic progress…”

And that simply will not do. You’ve spent the last few years pulling yourself out of that hole, clawing your way back to something resembling normal. You’ve purged the thought of him from your mind—let his scent fade from your sheets, an old sweatshirt he’d left behind; forgot the way his lips felt against every inch of your skin; forgot the way his entire being lit up when he laughed; forgot the safety he encompassed, the way he whispered all those sweet nothings.

You cannot go there again.

So you roll your shoulders back, smile politely. Say, “Ah, kyosu-nim, Choi Seungcheol-ssi seems very intelligent, I’m sure he is capable of being responsible for his own academic standing, don’t you think?”

Dr. Lee cannot disagree without all but calling Seungcheol an idiot, so he hovers before you in shocked silence. Makes a show of huffing and checking his watch, like he’s all of a sudden remembered he’s late for something and being inconvenienced by this conversation he started, and then he’s halfway out of the library with a terse, “Discuss and figure this out amongst yourselves,” thrown over his shoulder.

You have an entire dramatic exit planned in your head. Gather your things, fake a phone call that makes you sound authoritative and important, and brush past Seungcheol wearing your nicest perfume as if all of this is so far beneath you you can’t even bring yourself to care about it.

Of course, you actually have to brush by him for any of that to happen, and since you’ve already decided you will not go there again, you quickly scribble your email address onto a piece of paper and slide it across the table at Seungcheol, who has steadfastly remained planted just outside the door. “Here’s my email. I don’t have time to discuss this right now.” Seungcheol cocks an eyebrow. You start throwing things into your bag haphazardly. You know you look frantic and affected, but there’s not much you can do about that. “What? Send me a copy of your syllabus and what you want to prioritize. It’ll be easier to get through this if we have a plan instead of winging it.”

He seems to catch on to your distaste because he mirrors it. Scoffs as he rolls his eyes and says, “Yeah, no use spending more time together than we have to,” and if you hadn’t gone years without speaking, you would’ve seen right through it.

But you did, so it stings all the same.

As it typically does, the planet keeps spinning after your run-in with Seungcheol.

You grade Dr. Ahn’s coursework. Try running off your anxiety at the gym, even though it’s pretty good at keeping pace with you these days. You meet Kaori’s maybe-boyfriend sneaking out of your apartment early in the morning and he has the good sense not to mention your ex, but you chalk that up to the mess of hickeys covering his neck and not any sense of social decorum.

Other people’s embarrassment saves you a ton of your own, you’ve come to learn.

Throughout all of this, Seungcheol only emails you once to send you his course syllabus. Doesn’t mention tutoring or provide you with his schedule or ask for yours, so when you’re sitting in a bar with your friends, three or four drinks deep and feeling a little petty, you forward him the original tutoring request and make sure to bold, underline, and highlight the “Recommended Tutoring: High” part for good measure.

He doesn’t take your bait—electronically, at least—but he does show up to your office hours the following Tuesday.

Bag tossed onto the floor, he flops unceremoniously into the chair across from you and says, in lieu of a greeting, “They spelled your name wrong. On the door thing.”

“I know,” you reply, your smile polite and terse. Incredible how he has the ability to raise your blood pressure in milliseconds. “What can I help you with?”

“Depends. How long do you have?”

“Well, considering you’ve shown up to my office hours on time, I’m assuming you already know I’m here every Tuesday and Thursday from four to six. So”—you glance at the clock above the door—“assuming no one comes by who needs my help more than you do, you have approximately one hour and fifty-eight minutes.”

Seungcheol is quiet for a moment as he takes you in. His stare is weighted; it makes you feel a little green around the edges. Clinical and sharp, so far removed from the way he used to look at you. You clear your throat. “I looked over your syllabus. The good news is there’s only a midterm and a final and the rest is problem sets. The bad news is there’s only a midterm and a final so they’re weighted quite heavily. You really need to know this stuff inside-out to have any hope of passing.”

“That’s why you’re here, right? Dr. Lee specifically requested you.”

You huff a breath through your nose. “I’m here as supplemental help. I can’t take your exams or do your readings for you. What else are you taking this semester?”

He sighs, sinking further into the chair, very much playing the part of the heir who has no interest in any of this. Which… is unlike him, you think, if you’re even allowed to. The Seungcheol you knew years ago took everything so seriously. Never clipped corners or took shortcuts. Anyone else would think him a spoiled, petulant child. “Business Accounting and International Trade.”

“Could be worse,” you note. “At least those three courses are tangentially related.”

Seungcheol rolls his eyes. “Easy for you to say. I haven’t taken a fucking math class in years.”

You return it. “You remember how to add and subtract, don’t you?”

“I ruptured my ACL, not my…” He trails off, looking a little embarrassed that he can’t name a part of the—“Brain.”

Whatever you were going to quip back with dies on your tongue. It's the first time Seungcheol has broached the topic of his injury—the first you’re hearing of it at all, actually—and he says it like it’s a joke, like it’s not a thing at all, but the pain is all over his face. The bitterness of the situation he’s found himself in. The unfairness of it all.

And there are so many questions you want to ask that aren’t your place: if it’s fixable, if he’ll ever play again, how he’s coping. But you don’t really need to—you can’t imagine how you’d feel if someone suddenly pulled the rug out from under you. If everything contained within the four walls of your office suddenly disappeared.

Not that the man sitting across from you hadn’t already done that, but.

“Right,” you continue, as if he hadn’t said anything at all. You know Seungcheol—know he wouldn’t want you prodding, sticking your fingers in that particular wound. “I want you to take a look at this,” you say, handing over a printout you have saved from your undergrad tutoring days. “Tell me what looks familiar, what doesn’t; what does and doesn’t make sense.”

He looks down at the paper. Back up at you. Down at the paper again. “What the fuck is this?”

“I—what? Cheol, it’s my old notes on recitation. Surely you’ve already covered this—the syllabus says this is week one stuff.” He looks down at the paper again, and it’s so familiar, watching the life drain entirely from someone’s eyes.

You barely resist the urge to slam your face onto your desk a second time.

You meet Seungcheol at the sports center for your next tutoring session.

He likes the humidity and the smell of the chlorine by the pool. He also likes that it’s not the football pitch, so the two of you sit in the bleachers there and go over his lecture notes. Much to your surprise, Seungcheol talks a mile a minute. Has stars in his eyes when he says he finally understands elastic demand curves, supply shock; tells you he spent a whole hour making flashcards.

It’s the first time you’ve seen him so excited since your tutoring began—the first glimmer of hope you’ve felt since Dr. Lee cornered you in your library hideaway. None of this surprises you. Seungcheol has always been smart, even when football was his primary (and sometimes only) focus. He has more determination and grit than anyone you’ve ever met, so you’re not surprised he’s doing well, excelling, but you are surprised—

“Can I ask you something?” Seungcheol shrugs, shoves half a protein bar in his mouth and swallows without chewing. “Why are you… uh. Here?”

“At this university?”

“Not exactly. I mean, I am wondering about that, but I guess… why business?”

Seungcheol hums. Tucks his good knee to his chest and stares down at the pool. No one’s using it, and truthfully the two of you probably aren’t even allowed to be here, but you understand why he likes it. It’s nowhere near as secluded as the library and definitely not as air conditioned, but it is peaceful. Calm. The water laps against the coping in quiet, small waves.

“Ah, I don’t know. You know how it goes.”

You quirk an eyebrow. Never, in all the years you’ve known him, has Seungcheol done anything he didn’t want to do. All that grit and determination. “What about your father, then? Dr. Lee mentioned this was a favor to him. He’s a pretty important person to have in your Rolodex of favors.”

Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see what this is: Seungcheol’s father has new money; worked from the bottom up, made some smart investment decisions that finally panned out after Seungcheol left for Seoul. Started doing his own thing, made a name for himself. Last you’d heard from your mother, Seungcheol’s brother was second-in-command. Hell, even your own brother did an internship there.

So you know what this is: a father helping his son after his dream was shattered, life turned upside-down. You can’t blame him, even if you’ve heard the whispers from all the way across campus. That Seungcheol is washed up now, trying to nepo his way into his father’s company because of it; that all he knows is sports and he should’ve stuck to that, what does he know about business, why is he the one Dr. Lee went out of his way to help.

Doesn’t stop any of them from smiling at him, though; doesn’t stop them from asking for autographs or selfies.

But you also know this isn’t something Seungcheol seems willing to discuss, so you crack a joke—“I mean, business. God, who’d wanna go into that?”—and go back to what he was willing to talk about.

You’ve never hated elastic demand curves so much in your life.

Deep in the throes of tutoring—when you can’t tell if it’s week two or week twelve—you make it back to your apartment just before ten, head pounding.

The door flies open just as you’re about to punch in the code, and there stands Ken, looking far more put-off than you’ve ever seen him. Looks defeated, if you’re being honest, like someone mopped up all his emotions and wrung them out like dirty dishwater.

“Oh, hi,” you say hesitantly. The man in front of you seems too much like a caged animal to let your guard down. “Everything okay?”

He aborts a nod halfway. Mutters an apology as he brushes by you and stalks down the hall, disappearing around the corner to the elevators. Usually he’s a talker—you haven’t been able to avoid a Seungcheol-related conversation in weeks—so you’re a little stunned. Stand there stupidly for a while, and that’s where Kaori finds you a moment later.

“You gonna stand out here all night, or…?”

“Oh—yeah, right.”

You follow her inside. Toe off your shoes and put them in the rack. Focus on the sound of the kettle whistling instead of the overbearing tension in the room. Drop your bag off in your room, throw on a sweatshirt three sizes too big and a comfy pair of socks. Rummage through the fridge for leftovers, contemplate what mindless show you’ll watch as you eat, and you do not, under any circumstances, ask Kaori what happened.

You don’t have to. You knew what this was going to be the first time Ken spent the night—the way he looked mortified to be meeting you in the shared kitchen at seven a.m., wearing a look that begged you not to tell your roommate he was sneaking out.

I, uh, have an early class, he’d said. You know how it is.

Maybe you should’ve called him on it then. Issued a warning-but-not-really. She’ll get attached if you don’t tell her. She should know it’s different for you, if it is.

But you’d convinced yourself it wasn’t your place. Kaori wouldn’t want you in her business like that, so you stayed quiet, just nodded before watching him slip his shoes on and close the door behind him so quietly you wouldn’t have known he left at all if you hadn’t been looking. Gone, just like a ghost.

So, yeah, you know exactly why your roommate looks haunted.

“I’m a few episodes behind on this if you want to watch with me,” you offer, pointing at the television with the remote. It’s a lie—you’ve never watched this show a day in your life, which Kaori seems to know—but she contemplates it nonetheless. “Also, my mom mailed us some cookies. I think they’re in the fridge.”

“Why are there cookies in the fridge?”

You huff a laugh. “They were outside the door this morning before I left for campus. I don’t know—just saw who the package was from and was like, oh, this must go in the fridge.”

She nods. Grabs the container and joins you on the couch. Sticks her feet beneath your butt and doesn’t mention a thing.

The closest she comes is a few days later. Catches you right before you head out to campus and asks how tutoring is going.

“Not bad, actually.”

Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes when she says, “That’s good. I’m glad things are going well for you two.”

Lee Chan, Sophomore makes his unexpected return at your office hours on an unsuspecting Tuesday.

“Can I help you?”

He doesn’t answer right away, just helps himself to the seat across from you. “Maybe,” comes his cryptic retort. “I was thinking about signing up for that crypto course next semester.”

You narrow your eyes. “No, you weren’t.”

He sighs. Looks a little panicked, like he can’t believe that didn’t work. “You’re right, you’re right. I, um—I wanted to come say thank you.” He pauses. “You know, for that… email you sent.”

You blink. “No, you didn’t.”

Lee Chan, Sophomore cracks immediately. Thunks his head on your desk and lets loose a pained sound. It nearly sounds like he’s wailing when he says, “I’m sorry! They put me up to it!”

What you’re able to piece together is this: Lee Chan, Sophomore has become a bit of a celebrity in the Student Services department ever since he met you, Choi Seungcheol’s tutor. And, like any smart, previously unpopular university student would do, he took advantage of it. Might’ve stretched the truth a little to make it sound like he knew more than he did, so now here he is, angling for information the girls with the photocards may or may not have paid him to get.

“They want to know about his girlfriend.”

“His what?”

What you’re able to piece together is also this: the Photocard Girls are certain Seungcheol is dating someone, based on little more than vibes. You suspect these vibes are their three degrees of separation, considering there was an abnormal amount of Change of Major files formed after his enrollment, but you tell Lee Chan that you don’t know anything and, even if you did, you wouldn’t put his business out there like that.

But some part of you still has this inexplicable urge to protect Seungcheol, so you match their offer with interest and tell him to say there’s nothing to report—not that you didn’t know, not that he couldn’t get anything out of you. Seungcheol isn’t dating anyone.

You don’t know if it’s true, but you figure that if it isn’t, he still deserves privacy.

Which is a notion you have trouble explaining a few hours later, when Seungcheol strolls into your office with a grease-stained paper bag full of cheese coin bread, offering one to you with a proud smile that drops slowly when you just stare in return.

“What’s wrong?”

Your mouth opens, closes, opens again. Nothing comes out, even though it should be simple. Some sophomore kid was just in here angling for information or the Student Services department is taking bets on whether or not you have a girlfriend would both suffice, but you cannot bring yourself to say the words.

What you settle on is, “Sorry, I just… had an interesting meeting before you got here.”

“Oh. Are you okay?”

You sigh. Tilt your head back to stare up at the ceiling. “It was about you, actually.”

Seungcheol chokes, starts stuttering over words you can’t make sense of. Says, “Me? Why? I passed my last exam—I mean, barely, but I still passed. And that wasn’t your fault! I didn’t study enough! I’ve been losing my mind over my International Trade class, that shit sucks—”

“It wasn’t about your grades, Cheol.”

“Oh.” Then, slowly, a lopsided, pleased smile overtakes his face. “Haven’t heard you call me Cheol in a while.”

“Seungcheol,” you correct.

He seems to forget all about the meeting. Tries again to offer you a coin bread before he threatens to eat them all himself, so you acquiesce mostly to shut him up, say you’ll bring the extras to Kaori. For some reason, you tell him about how much she’d loved the cookies your mom sent, and the nostalgia sets him off, gets him talking again, asking if they were the yakgwa she used to make when you two were kids.

They were, but you can’t seem to tell him that, either.

Seungcheol: sorry it’s last minute - running late. can you meet me at my place instead?

Seungcheol shared a location with you

You’re halfway to replying—I don’t think that’s appropriate—before you sigh and delete it. Midterms are only a few days away and you don’t have time to argue over where your tutoring sessions will be, so if Seungcheol wants to meet at his apartment that’s where you’ll meet him.

You read over the midterm notes on the train. Once, twice, and then a hundred more times until they’re nearly memorized, all so you can ignore the voice in the back of your head saying what a bad idea this is. That you have no business being on your way to your ex’s swanky part of town or integrating yourself into his life beyond tutoring at all. You shouldn’t know where he lives. Maybe you shouldn’t even have his phone number or answer his texts.

Not that there’s much you can do about it now, two stops away.

Seungcheol greets you warmly, if not a little rushed. Apologizes for the mess once you step inside, although it’s less “mess” and more “haven’t finished unpacking,” but there’s enough clear space to study at the dining table, so that’s where you set up, determined to keep things professional.

“Sorry again about this,” Seungcheol says, placing a can of cola in front of you as he takes the seat across. “I had to meet with my father and lost track of time, I guess.”

“Oh. How’s he doing?”

Seungcheol sighs, leans further back in the chair as runs a hand through his hair. A light brown, now. “Same as he always was, I guess. Talked about the business, about my brother. Can’t get him to shut up about that stuff most of the time.”

“The business is doing good, though.” You cough, clear your throat. “My, uh. My brother interned there during undergrad. I don’t know if your father told you that.”

You don’t know why you say it, because it’s clear from the brief flicker of pain on Seungcheol’s face that he hadn’t known, that no one had told him. And it hurts you too that they felt the need to keep it a secret, to protect Seungcheol from you even in tangential ways.

“He didn’t,” he admits, “but I’m sure he was happy to see him. He was, uh—he was glad to hear you’re my tutor. Said you were always smarter than all of us boys combined.”

You laugh. Hope it sounds casual instead of strained. “Well, no need to prove him right. Come on,” you say, tossing a study guide in his direction, “let’s get to work.”

Everything is alright for a while—nearly an hour at least. He has the formulas memorized and attributed to the correct equations. He can explain supply and demand, preference and utility, but things start to fall apart around budget constraints and constrained choice.

The formulas get mixed up. He grows frustrated when he doesn’t know the answers to your questions right away. Rolls his eyes and gets a little snappy when you correct him, try to explain things differently in a way he understands. At first he’s able to temper it, collect himself before things truly start spiraling out of control, but the longer the two of you sit there the more it all unravels.

He snaps, you snap back, and you can’t figure out why. You’ve survived this long in Seungcheol’s orbit even though you never thought you’d be around him again, and perhaps it was bound to explode eventually, but…

It’s the familiarity, you realize.

You and Seungcheol aren’t friends, though you’ve been playing at it for weeks now: meeting outside of the library or your office, the personal conversations bordering on reminiscing, being in his personal space. You don’t belong here. You don’t want to be his friend—you can’t be, not for real or pretend.

“That’s not what I’m say—”

“Then explain it better,” Seungcheol fires at you, eyebrows creasing. “You’re the tutor here.”

You roll your eyes. “I’m trying, okay? All I meant was—your answer isn’t wrong, but I know Dr. Lee and he’s going to want more than that in a response.”

“Right—not good enough, like I said.”

“I’m just asking you to expand on your answer—”

“And I’m telling you that’s all I’ve got. I’m not like you, all right? I don’t have all this shit just floating around in my head all the time. I’m not smart, I barely have any idea what’s going on half the time, and you sitting here being condescending about it is doing fuck-all to help.”

You inhale sharply, taken aback at the hostility in his voice. Suggest calling it for the night, say neither of you will be productive if you keep going like this, and neither of you bother to apologize.

So much of your relationship with Seungcheol was marred by clichés.

The two of you passing notes back and forth during class. You in the bleachers of all his games, screaming along to the team chants, waving a sign around with his name on it. Not realizing you had a crush on him at all until he liked someone else and it made your stomach hurt. Childhood friends turned lovers.

Another cliché: that it’s starting to feel like that all over again.

Seungcheol sits across from you in the library, econ textbook cracked in half in front of him as he pays no attention. Keeps grabbing his phone each time it vibrates across the table. Can’t fight the smile that forces its way onto his face when he reads whatever’s there.

Stupid, you think—both to do this and to think it’d play out any other way. Seungcheol left years ago. Probably lived ten lifetimes while he was away while you were here in this exact spot doing this exact thing. Barely lived half a life, just stuck your nose in textbooks and forced your way through.

“Cheol,” you say, trying to drag his attention back to the study guide. No use. He’s typing away, presses his tongue into the fat of his cheek as he responds. “Seungcheol,” you try again.

Also fruitless.

You have no claim here, you remind yourself—not to his time, not to him. He’s only here because someone else mandated it. You’re only here because someone else mandated it, but it stings all the same. Another reminder of what used to be, of what ended regardless of what you wanted. Another reminder that the role you used to play in his life is not the role you play now. That the space you used to take up created a vacancy, and eventually it was going to be filled.

And if this was anyone other than Seungcheol, if you were more emotionally evolved when it came to him, it wouldn’t gnaw at you as much. All of this would roll off your shoulders.

But it isn’t, and you’re not.

“If you’re not going to listen, then—”

“I am listening,” he interjects, but he’s not looking at you. Not looking at his textbook or his study guide. Keeps laughing and smiling at his phone, and it’s sick how bothered you are by it. That it feels like your stomach’s been turned inside-out with jealousy; with annoyance, because you don’t want to be here anyway, don’t want to do this anymore, and you’re wasting your time on someone who doesn’t appreciate it.

Perhaps he never did.

“What are we discussing, then?”

Still not looking up: “Consumer theory.”

You laugh—more a huff of air than anything, grin sardonically out of one corner of your mouth. Seungcheol sees none of it. “Wrong,” you answer, already expecting the way he shrugs it off. “I’m gonna skip ahead a few chapters, though. Consider it a freebie for your business class.”

It must be your tone that finally grabs his attention. Cutting, precise, purposeful. Seungcheol lowers his phone, quirks an eyebrow, wonders where this is going to go. It’s clear he’s pissed you off, that you’re itching for a fight. It’s clear the years of silence are finally coming to a head.

“Let’s talk about ROI. You know what that is?” You barely give him a second. “Return on investment. A performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment or compare the efficiency of several investments. So, let’s say I make one-hundred-thousand won on a ten-thousand won investment: my ROI is 90%. Are you following?”

He nods.

“Great, now let’s try something a bit more hypothetical.” You suck in a breath. “Let’s say I invest years of my adolescence into someone. A friend at first and then something more. Let’s say I played cheerleader, supported every hope and dream he had—went to every game, cheered him on, helped him practice his English. Held his hand and talked him down when the pressure felt overwhelming, when the only thing that felt inevitable was failure. Now, let’s say all I got in return was a stuttered, awkward apology as he dumped me and walked out the door. Let’s say that guy showed up again after years of silence just to once again waste my fucking time.”

The thing about pain is it’s not linear. What hurt five, ten years ago might not hurt today, but it might tomorrow; what hurt yesterday may never hurt again. The thing about pain is it lets you stick your head in the sand until it can’t anymore, and that’s where you are now: that window of time between Seungcheol walking out the door on the assumption you’d never see him again before he bulldozed his way back into your life has been slammed closed, locked up tight.

So you don’t even notice you’re crying until the room goes deathly silent and you can hear the drip drip drip of tears on paper. Until you watch Seungcheol’s hands flex and unflex in mid-air, stuck in that liminal space, wanting to reach out but knowing he has no right to. Until your chest aches so bad you’re sure you’re either about to break into stardust or cease to exist.

Until you say, “What, Choi Seungcheol, would you say my fucking return on investment was?” and he has nothing to say at all.

Kaori invites you to a party.

Just something small to celebrate the end of midterms and a classmate’s birthday. Nothing out of control or raucous, not even the kind of thing that’d earn a second glance from campus security. I won’t even make fun of you if you leave before eleven, is how she sold it to you, in addition to a small amount of begging and bargaining and a powerful set of puppy-dog eyes.

After everything the two of you have been through, you find it hard to say no.

So here you are, nearly eleven o’clock on a Friday, a cup of cheap beer in hand. A friend of a friend of a friend is wailing into a karaoke machine and although your ears are bleeding, it does feel nice for that to be your greatest worry. You aren’t thinking about your classes or how you’ve been prioritizing everyone else’s academic success. You aren’t thinking about whatever’s going on between Kaori and Ken. You aren’t thinking about Seungcheol.

At least you aren’t, until he walks through the door.

You’re going to continue not thinking about him at all—not about the fact he’s alone or how good he looks in a simple black T-shirt that’s a little taut in the shoulders. You’re not going to think about the way the air shifts, like the universe knows he’s important and is willing to accommodate. You’re not going to think about how Kaori catches your eye across the room, recognizes him from all her internet searches, and the way she mouths oh my god he’s so beefy at you.

You’re not going to think about how guilty you feel that she doesn’t know, because if you do you’re certain it’ll take over.

You watch Seungcheol work the room; watch as he floats between conversations, as strangers fall over themselves at the sight of him. How eager everyone is to give him something and how reluctant he is to take them. You watch as he winds up in the same circle as Kaori and how she must mention you, oh, your tutor is my roommate, because there’s a question in return before he turns and meets your gaze.

You wonder why the distance between you feels more insurmountable now than ever before.

Seungcheol finds you in your office.

It’s not a Tuesday or a Thursday, far later than four to six in the evening, but he doesn’t even bother knocking before he’s barreling in, stifling your space with his bad energy.

You haven’t seen him in nearly two weeks. Not since the party, if that even counts. Hasn’t bothered to reply to any of your texts or emails, and that was just fine by you, if that’s how he wanted to act, but it isn’t until he’s brooding on the other side of your desk that you realize you’re still aggrieved, too. Feels a little too familiar, him leaving you behind and in the dark.

So you don’t mean to—typically have much more professionalism than this—but when he tosses a stapled stack of papers with a barely-passing grade on your desk and says, “This is your fault,” the words come automatically and without forethought.

“Fuck off, Seungcheol.” It’s not your words that take him by surprise; more so the roll of your eyes, the accompanying huff. The impression that all of this is beneath you and nothing more than a mere annoyance. That however affected you were two weeks ago is not how affected you are anymore. “That’s what happens when you blow off your tutoring for two weeks because you’re a coward.”

He laughs, incredulous; unable to help the sound the tumbles out of his mouth. “I’m a—I’m a coward?”

“Yes,” you reply, tone giving away nothing. All he sees is feigned nonchalance despite the hurricane you feel brewing beneath the surface. “This,” you continue, pinching the corner of the paper between your fingertips and disposing of it in the trashcan beneath your desk, “is all on you, but do please let me know if there’s anything else you’d like to blame me for. I’m all ears.”

You don’t miss it: the way Seungcheol’s eyes grow wide at your ‘I’m all.’ The way he thinks you’re going to punctuate that sentence with yours, and it nearly has bile rising in your throat. Makes you want to scream, rip at your hair. If the last few months have taught you anything, it’s that you are still hopelessly in love with the man across from you—the man that continues to leave before he’s left, always at your expense.

So, yeah—Seungcheol is a coward, but only when it comes to you.

But he doesn’t look much like one now, gripping so hard at the edge of your desk that his knuckles have gone white, baseball cap pulled down low enough his eyes are barely visible. He’s always been overwhelming, always carried himself with an exaggerated arrogance even when it wasn’t warranted, always took everything so seriously, and maybe that’s why you’d thought he’d treat you the same way. Take you seriously. Wouldn’t just throw it all away on a maybe thing, and that’s why it's been years and you still aren’t over it.

Maybe Seungcheol is a coward, and maybe so are you.

Because not once since he’s been back have you been able to say what you mean. Can’t seem to tell him about the anger, the hurt, the heartbreak. Played it all off as petty nonchalance because you foolishly thought that would hurt him, that you’ve been reduced to simmering ash, no hope left for a fire.

“I could never blame you for a goddamn thing,” he says, voice so deep you could drown in it.

You so desperately want to know. You don’t want to know anything at all. You want Seungcheol to explain everything to you in detail and spoil the ending, but only if it’s guaranteed to be happy. Enduring another loss like the first time—you’re not sure you can take it. Not after you two have crossed paths like this, because you’ve never quite believed in fate but you think that has to mean something. That so much time and life had transpired and you two came back together.

Today, though, it doesn’t look like you’re going to get any answers.

Seungcheol straightens, looms at full height. Digs into the pocket of his sweatpants and pulls out a thumb drive. Wordlessly, he hands it over, and then he’s gone just as abruptly as he’d arrived.

Again.

Kaori wants to spend the weekend moping, and you can’t come up with a good reason not to join her.

She doesn’t mention Ken once. Not when she’s sobbing over A Silent Voice and Toradora! after that. Not when she keeps glancing at her phone every couple minutes to see if she has any texts. Not when you—only halfway paying attention between grading and your own assignments—suggest ordering something for delivery, maybe that new burger place down the street you heard was good, and Kaori shuts it down so vehemently you can only assume it was Ken’s favorite place.

Kaori just cries over the man with the big dick she never expected to take so seriously, and not even your stonewalling makes her feel ashamed of it.

And there’s respectability in that kind of openness and vulnerability. At least whatever she’s feeling is honest; at least she can admit she’s sad. You think watching Kaori process her breakup might help you process yours too, years too late, so you suck in a breath and ask, “Can I tell you something or is now not a good time?”

Kaori looks over at you. Dabs a soggy tissue at her eyes. “Well, I guess it depends,” is her answer, and she doesn’t shy away from how waterlogged her voice sounds. “If you’re going to tell me you’re a Takasu and Kawashima shipper, maybe, but if it’s anything worse I’m not sure I could take it.”

“I—what? Who even are they?” She gives you a half-hearted thumbs up. You sigh in response, sink further into the couch. “It’s, uh.” Clear your throat. “Do you remember when we met sophomore year? At that party? And I told you I wasn’t looking for anything and you said, and I quote, why not, I have a sixth sense for this kind of thing and I know that guy will have a huge—”

She hides her face behind her hands. “Ew, god, yes I remember that. My dick whisperer era. How embarrassing.”

“Right. And I told you I wasn’t looking for anything because I’d just gotten out of something.”

“Not really by choice, if I remember correctly. I told you if it was quiet it should’ve been loud, and then you never talked about it again.”

You nod. “I—yeah, that sounds like something I would’ve said.” You suck in a deep breath. “Listen, this is probably gonna sound bad considering I did never talk about it again, but—”

“Hey,” Kaori says, nudging you with her foot. Meant to be comforting, somehow. “It’s okay. There’s a lot you don’t know about me, too… most of which I’m not sure you should, actually.”

A laugh forces its way out, gives you a nice reprieve from the anxiety of the conversation you’re about to have. The need to explain it all, the need for advice. Maybe it’s not her—or anyone else’s—business, but you think you’ve kept this to yourself long enough. You and Seungcheol loved each other, once, and it seems foolish that no one knows.

Maybe Kaori had been right. Maybe love should be shouted from the rooftops; exist out in the open. Maybe something hidden in the shadows can never thrive in the light, and you knew it back then, deep down, but now it seems so obvious.

You think back to a few days before the library. Think about how things didn’t feel good but they felt okay. Think about the frustrated crease between Seungcheol’s eyebrows as he stared down at his textbook and how all you’d wanted to do was smooth it. Think about how you’d rolled your lips and tried not to laugh; how you thought it’d take a miracle to help Seungcheol pass this class.

Think about: What is the difference between the short-run and the long-run from the perspective of production theory?

Think about the short-run of your and Seungcheol’s relationship—that you’d burned bright and fast, even though it’d felt like a million years. Hadn’t dared to consider the long-run because anything beyond that bubble felt impossible.

Think about: Which of the following is not a property of isoquants?

Think about the way Seungcheol’s eyes lit up when he knew the answer. That they’re always linear, he said, and you smiled at his enthusiasm, raised your hand to high-five him and dropped it when he hadn’t noticed.

You think about the explanation—isoquants can be linear when inputs are perfectly substitutable—and what those graphs look like. Downward sloping, left to right. Think about how the graphs change when the isoquants are perfect complements.

L-shaped. Less straight as the inputs become poorer substitutes.

You know what your and Seungcheol’s graph would’ve looked like back then.

So it’s easy, almost, to tell Kaori everything. You tell her about growing up in Daegu, about the smell of the azaleas at Biseulsan in the spring. You tell her about how your parents had befriended the neighbors, how they had a kid your age, that that kid was Seungcheol—yes, that Seungcheol.

She’s able to anticipate the rest from there, but you fill in the blanks of what she can’t: being sixteen and falling in love, holding hands, the clandestine notes. All those football matches and how your throat would be hoarse from cheering. How nauseous you’d felt applying to university in Seoul, how excited you were when Seungcheol said he was coming with you. That, after you arrived, it felt like you were living in fast-forward. Barely any time to breathe or adjust; no time to just be you and Seungcheol. You had to be a student, someone responsible; Seungcheol had to be a phenom.

“Could you feel it was going to happen?” Kaori asks, now sat ramrod straight, all her attention on you. “Like, did you know?”

“I don’t know,” you admit. “Maybe I did? It’s hard to say now, all this time later. I know things definitely felt different, like life was pulling us in opposite directions.” You laugh, bitterness coloring the edges. “You couldn’t go two blocks without seeing him on some billboard, and I was just… normal, you know? I wasn’t some rising star athlete like he was, I just went to my classes. How was I supposed to compete with something like that?”

Your roommate hums, leans back into the pillows as she stares up at the ceiling. “I don’t think you were. Maybe that’s why Seungcheol was worried—maybe he felt like you were losing your own identity feeling like you had to keep up.”

You want to push back, argue that you weren’t, that you didn’t, but the truth is that it’s possible. That the shadows created by Seungcheol’s dreams were so massive you wouldn’t be surprised if they unintentionally swallowed you up. “It still wasn’t his choice to make,” you say, voice barely above a whisper.

And Kaori already knows all about your hurt, listened as you explained it all and laid everything bare. So when she says, “Sometimes that’s just how it goes, though, babe,” it doesn’t feel condescending. “We do the best we can with what we’ve got at the time. You can say now it wasn’t Seungcheol’s choice to make, because it’s been almost five years and you’ve made a life for yourself separate from him. But the—god, this is gonna sound so patronizing, I am so sorry—but you guys were so young. No one has it all figured out at that age.”

She snorts, runs a hand through her messy hair. “Shit, I’m nearly halfway to thirty and I still don’t know anything.” Adopts a frown. “What do you want now? Do you want closure? Want to try to fix things and become friends?”

“I don’t know,” you admit, biting at a hangnail. “He actually, um. The other day when he stopped by my office, he left me a USB drive? And before you ask, no I did not already look at it.”

“A USB drive? Who does this guy think he is, James Bond?” A pause. “Are you gonna look at it, though?”

You do.

Not until the silver, midnight light creeps in through your bedroom curtains and you’ve stared at the ceiling long enough; waited long enough for texts that never came, for divine intervention to, well, intervene. It never did—fair enough—so you decide to take fate by the reins. Grab your laptop, instant headache from the screen, stick the drive into the port.

It takes a second for it to load, but when it does: dozens of videos, organized by date. Vlogs, by the look of them—some from before your breakup but the majority of them from after.

You’re not sure what you expected, but it wasn’t this.

You click on the first one: a month and a half before both of you moved to Seoul. A fresh-faced Seungcheol appears on your screen, cheeks still round with adolescence. He’s in his room back in Daegu, can’t get the camera angle right. Nostalgia hits you like a ton of bricks as it pans to the side, to the wall behind his bed, and you see all his old posters. Mostly football players you couldn’t name, some girl group he used to love, a few movies. Just below them are some of the notes you’d written him in school, and they’re all you can focus on as he talks about how excited he is for the move.

The next: a few weeks after you’d started classes. By then, Seungcheol was well into the swing of things with Seoul FC. Already a big fish in a small pond, tryout offers from European teams starting to roll in. You can hear yourself in the background stressing over your first exam, wishing a generational curse upon your calculus professor. In the video, Seungcheol laughs, whispers like he’s telling the camera a secret as he talks about how nervous he is for his future. I don’t know why, he says, but it just feels like everything is about to change.

There’s a long pause between that one and the next. You understand why when you look at the date: three months after your breakup. Your hands hover uselessly above your keyboard. Whatever answers you’ve been looking for the last few years are probably in this video, but you can’t bring yourself to open it. Not right away, at least.

You click on a different one at random. Seungcheol’s somewhere in Europe, judging from the language on the signs behind him. Snow falls quietly—whenever he filmed this, it must’ve been early. No one else is around, and he cracks a joke that it’s a good thing, people would probably think he was crazy if they saw him. He doesn’t tell you where he’s going but he narrates the entire walk: points out a cafe he’s grown to love. The way to get to his practice stadium from where he’s standing. Pauses near a restaurant and laughs ruefully, shakes his head, says, I don’t know why I’m telling you this, but one of my teammates set me up on a blind date here and I got stood up. You’d probably think that was funny.

(You do. It also makes your chest ache.)

One from two years ago: Seungcheol in a hotel room, clearly nervous. He raises his hand to wave at the camera and you can see the corners of his nails bitten raw. Dark circles beneath his eyes; cheekbones more pronounced than you’ve ever seen them. On the screen, Seungcheol sighs, rakes a hand through freshly-bleached hair. Sucks in a deep breath as he says, I’m so nervous. I’m so—so fucking nervous and I don’t. Fuck, I don’t know what to do. I want to call you because you always knew what to say but that’s so fucking selfish. God, we haven’t spoken in years, and it’s my—that’s my fault, I know, so I brought this all on myself. I just want to hear your voice.

Another from a week after that: the color’s returned to his face, and he’s recording from what looks like a penthouse apartment. Sleek, modern; a small white dog napping on the bed beside him. He smiles, looks like he got his teeth fixed, looks like he’s no longer carrying around the weight of the world. Talks endlessly and excitedly about some tournament. Talks so fast you can barely keep up. Talks around words tinged with languages you don’t understand.

Seungcheol wins a championship. Records a drunk vlog from the same night, hair soaked through with god-knows-what—water, champagne, you don’t know. But he looks radiant. Looks like the culmination of two decades of dreaming. He looks happy, free, at peace. He looks like the reason he let you go, why he had to go away.

You scroll to the bottom of the files. Pause at the last video, dated seven months before the term started.

“Hi,” he says, and you can immediately tell everything is all wrong. Seungcheol’s in the dark, face only visible enough to see the tears tracking on his cheeks. “This is going to be the last one of these I make. I don’t know if you, uh—I’m sure you aren’t paying attention to me—my career—anymore, but. I, um. I got hurt. Ruptured my ACL. They’re not sure I’ll…” A sob escapes him. Has you wanting to climb through the screen to hold him, thumb away his tears, tell him everything is going to be okay. “They don’t know if I’ll ever play again.”

Seungcheol no longer looks happy, free, at peace. “Maybe you’ll be happy to hear that,” he continues. “Maybe it’ll help you to know I threw away our relationship for nothing.”

Cut to black.

The sudden silence is deafening. Has you desperately clicking back to the video you’d skipped, the one from just after your breakup. Seungcheol looks the same in that one, too, like the life has been drained out of him.

I don’t know why I’m doing this. It’s not like I’ll ever show these to you now, since I…

I’m sure I owe you an explanation. To be honest, I don’t know what I’m doing, I just—things have been so hard, and I’m still trying to make sense of it all. I feel like my life went from zero to a hundred before I could even blink and now I’m scrambling. I didn’t think it was fair to—to drag you through that. Me being away, moving to an entirely different continent. I have faith we could do it, I just. I don’t know, baby, I don’t…

You deserve to have your own life. Be your own person. I’m so scared that the world will never see you for who you are—so beautiful and intelligent and kind. You don’t deserve to be reduced to my partner. And if you ever see this, I know you’re gonna roll your eyes. Probably call me a mean name because I took the choice away from you, because you think I’m trying to be selfless and heroic, and you’d be right. It’s not fair, and I wish I could tell you I’m sorry.

I wish I could just… pluck out my brain and give it to you, because even if it killed me to do it, at least it makes sense to me. And I don’t—I don’t want you to think I’m not hurting. I’ve been sick to my stomach since I left. I know I’m making a mistake, I know I am, I just—how do I do what I think is right in the long-run when it’s not what I want right now, or ever?

I don’t want to get over you. I don’t want you to get over me, and that’s how you know I’m not acting selflessly, because you should. I want you to always be happy, I just… wish it was with me.

So, I’m going to keep making these. I’m going to take you along for the ride, wherever it takes us, because you should be here but I can only hope you can one day understand why you’re not. I’m so—I’m so sorry, I don’t…

I’m sorry.

I love you.

You fall asleep and dream that you were the one meant to meet him at that restaurant.

The first thing you do is make a call to your mother.

“Could you send another container of yakgwa?”

On the other end of the line, your mother tuts, motherly intuition audibly kicking into overdrive. Is probably wearing that all-knowing, sly grin she always does when you try to be coy and evasive. “What happened to the last container I sent?”

“Ah, you know Kaori loves those. They barely lasted an hour after I told her what was in there.”

She hums an acknowledgement. Sounds like she takes a sip of tea. “I remember someone else being quite fond of those cookies, too.”

“Well, they are the most popular cookies in the country, so.”

After haranguing you into admitting they’re for Seungcheol and not your roommate, your mother promises to send them quickly. A few days at most, which buys you enough time to figure out how you’re going to approach the man in question.

The vlogs have turned your entire world upside-down. Answered questions you hadn’t even known you had. Took all that anger and resentment you’d been holding onto and set it free, and now you’re just left with… a void. Want to mend things, and it makes you wonder if such a thing is even possible, if it’s too late, but you don’t let those thoughts get very far.

Instead, you let them spur you into action. Have you sitting in front of your laptop at your desk, office hours long since over, silence creeping in the more the department empties. The thrum of the airconditioning and the tick-tick-tick of the clock are all the only company you have.

You worry if it’ll show on camera, how out of sorts you feel: sweating from the nerves, dabbing at your hairline; cheeks warm to the touch. But you suck in a breath anyway, steel yourself. Look at your webcam and the daunting red circle…

And start recording.

He hadn’t gotten it at first. Not really.

There’d been a container of yakgwa outside his door with his USB drive taped to the top of it. No note—not that he needed one to know who it was from, but he wasn’t sure what it was. A goodbye? A please fuck off forever and never contact me again?

He’d just taken them inside. Ate too many of the cookies while feeling sorry for himself. Maybe had a glass or two of wine to compound the issue, and never, ever considered contacting you. Didn’t think he could bear it if you never wanted to see him again, but he just…

Well, he was drunk and alone and he missed you, and he’d rewatched all those videos he recorded a million times before when he was like this, so what was a million and one?

It’d been the same as every time before: he smiled at the happy parts, cried at all his old wounds. Wanted to reach through the screen and strangle his past self for including that part about the blind date, because he never wanted to date anyone who wasn’t you, why would he say that, felt mortified at the thought of you watching that—

And then there it was.

All the way at the bottom. A new video. One that hadn’t been recorded by him—

Hi, Cheol, you say, and that’s all it takes to reduce him to a sobbing, yearning mess. I’m not sure what to say here. I don’t really record much—sometimes for lectures when the professors are too busy, but never anything personal like this, but I watched every single one you made for me and I thought I should return the favor.

I wanted to tell you everything I’ve been up to since you left, but it hasn’t been much. I got my degree. Tutored a lot in undergrad—the same thing I’m tutoring you in now, actually. I was good at it and it felt good to have something that was mine, you know? I almost moved for grad school. Thought for a while I was going to wind up in New York, but then my parents divorced and it felt like too much, too scary, so I stayed. Kaori also stayed, so we got an apartment together. It’s not much, definitely not as nice as your place, but it’s good enough.

I don’t think I ever told you, but she was seeing a guy for a bit and he was… obsessed with you, to say the least. Thought you were the coolest person in the world. They aren’t seeing each other anymore. Ended pretty badly, but—speaking of which, maybe steer clear of Student Services for a while, too.

Sometimes it felt like failure that I wound up staying here. That I had scholarships from all these far-away, prestigious places and didn’t take advantage of them. That I gave into my fear. And now… I don’t know. Maybe there’s a reason I stayed behind. Maybe there’s a reason you ended up back here, too.

Whatever happens—I don’t want you to think I still blame you. Kaori says we do the best we can with what we’ve got at the time, and I understand now that’s what you did. Even though it hurt me, you were trying to protect me. I get it now. And I’m sorry you had to go through all of that alone. I can’t imagine how hard it must’ve been to go to all these places you didn’t know. To have to deal with your injury, the loss of a dream.

You said in one of your videos that you just want me to be happy, and that’s all I want for you, too, whatever that looks like.

Here’s my address if you ever want to come by to talk.

I love you, too.

—and then he’d been up and out the door, feeling stone cold sober, running to the front of his building to wait for his ride.

Felt like the drive took hours. Must’ve hit every red light between his apartment and yours. Took the steps two at a time just to get to your door faster.

There’s a man already standing outside your door when he gets there. One that looks shocked to see him, stars in his eyes, and when Seungcheol says, “Oh, you must be Kaori’s ex,” he looks more like he wants the earth to swallow him whole. Embarrassed in front of his idol.

He knocks on your door and gets no response. Knocks again, harder this time, and he has to try really hard to stifle his laughter when your voice yells from the inside, “Fuck off, Kenji, I already told you she’s not here!”

“It’s me,” Seungcheol yells back.

There’s quiet again. Just enough time for it to feel like his heart is going to beat right out of his chest and follow Kaori’s ex down the hall.

Then you’re yanking the door open—slowly, so slowly, like you’re scared it’s not actually him. Your eyes are brimming with tears when they meet his own, and he doesn’t let himself think, just goes on instinct, when he grabs for you, hands on your cheeks, and presses his lips to yours.

Somehow you taste the same.

Somehow you taste like redemption.

You taste like home.

Seungcheol kisses you until the tears slow. Kisses you until the universe realigns, until he could map your mouth in the dark. Kisses you until all you’re all he knows again.

When he pulls away, you’re gripping at his sweatshirt, don’t want to let him go. He presses his forehead to yours, offers up a million more apologies, starts talking nonsense. Says he’s going to drop microeconomics, what the hell does he know, he barely has a passing grade anyway, what does it matter, he’s such an idiot—

And then you say, “You came back,” and nothing else matters.

“I always will.”

(Later on, as you’re trying to steady your breathing, slick with sweat, your thigh thrown over Seungcheol’s hip as he stares down at you, dopey smile on his face, you say, “Choi Seungcheol, don’t you dare drop that class. I have worked my ass off to get you to barely-passing.”)

if you’ve made it this far thank you so much for reading! i am still very new at writing for seventeen, so i hope this was acceptable. i'm now going to throw myself into the warped tour vernon fic and will hopefully not go another 7+ months without posting anything. ��

i would love to hear your thoughts! <3

[skyfallscotland]

Some updates since the last summary post. I didn't go to the convention on Sunday, but @caitm1 did and she said the workers told her that Rebecca's wrist swelled up from the amount of signatures she was doing (already, one day in!) and she had it taped up.

Rebecca also mentioned last night (Monday) at the second event I attended that she'd had a vestibular migraine just before and couldn't walk in a straight line a few hours ago, so I mean, I felt like I wanted to mention that first because as a chronically ill girlie I know how fucking hard it must be and I don't think a lot of fans appreciate what she does for us and how much she puts her body through.

Her signings this weekend were free and even though we paid for a ticket on Monday night, if you bought the ticket with the pre-signed book, that was at cost. $20 for a signed paperback. So yeah, just...I know it's a business, but she does a lot, ok. Don't be unappreciative of the extra mile.

Now, I recorded both Saturday's panel and Monday night's, I'm trying to figure out how to post it, but no website wants to cooperate with such a big file, so stand by, or like...help if you know tech things 💀

If you haven't seen my post with what we learned from Saturday's, it's here. Below is a summary of what we've learnt since then.

Bombshell alert: @caitm1 tells me that on Sunday, Rebecca said one of her original ideas for the end of Iron Flame was for Violet to become venin and not Xaden. *crickets* let's just take a moment here together... 😨

Honestly, I'm all for it, I low key feel like I would have liked that better, it would have been so good, but alas, we have venin-Xaden now, so we have to deal 🥲

Now, about Monday. A lot of the questions asked and things spoken about were the same as Saturday. The host picked the fan questions she asked and didn't really pick much that was plot or character related. She didn't pick any of mine and yes, I'm still mad about it. WHAT ARE THEIR NAMES

Here's the quotes, questions and tidbits I found interesting:

• Her editor for Fourth Wing and Iron Flame, is the head of Red Tower, so she's the publisher. I did not know this. I don't think I've seen this in practice before? She's also involved with the Amazon series because of this.

• "I'm not afraid of hurting you." That we already knew. 💀

• "Because we knew what had the television series when I was in edits, so we had to write out a synopsis and when I first thought it would be five books, I immediately sent the synopsis to my editor, who, you know, we sent it to Amazon because we needed to tell them; this is the definitive vision for the story. I can tell you, in Onyx Storm, I've already deviated from like...who I thought would pass in that book, as opposed to...I've already deviated some from that."

Sorry, what? Who was meant to die? My money is, as always, on Rhi or Garrick. You know I have thoughts/feelings about that. Look, if I've learned anything this weekend it's that someone important is going to die, a lot of people are going to die, ok? She's very frank about death and the realities of war and if you're worried about your favourite side characters for the next few books, well...you should be.

• She loves writing Ridoc. @yanny-77 no chance to ask about bodoc, sorry! 😂

• On Xaden and people's perception of him: "It's always funny because I always hear...he gets compared to Rhysand a lot? Xaden's like twenty-two at the beginning of Fourth Wing; Rhysand's like what? Five hundred? Ok, twenty-two, so it's very much like—it is a college. It's a college romance and that first love."

• She was surprised at how much people loved Aaric, given how little he's on-page.

• She also defended Dain again 🥳💗 #DainApologistsClub

• She expanded a little more on Jack. So perhaps what she meant on Saturday about his reasons, was simply that his reason will be touched upon in OS, but it's clear. "Jack's motivations are clear-cut, which makes him so easy to write. He's such an example of the hunger for power and what happens when you aren't selected for the power you think you deserve, which is one of the themes of Fourth Wing. So Jack's an easy character, he's straight-on."

• Are there any easter eggs that you put in the first two books that you don't think were caught by fans? "Violet's second signet! I totally thought it was obvious. Um, I did, to the point where my editor was like 'hey, we should probably put a line in here' and I was like dude no, people will catch it." Y'all know my thoughts on that so I'll stay quite over here in my corner.

Someone asked "what is it then?" and she replied, "no, no, no, now we're having fun with this, now."

• The hardest scene for her to write in Fourth Wing was the battle scene, because it was her first fantasy and so her first one. She wrote it and her editor said no, it has to be a little longer than this.

"So that was really hard for me to write, especially because in the moment she loses Liam, she has to get up and go. And I'm used to being able to give my characters this moment to grieve, this moment to take the news, this moment to absorb it and really feel it. And it's hard to get the reader to really feel that emotion when death is coming straight for you. So that was really difficult. And I was crying."

ME TOO, TBH

• If she was to describe Onyx Storm in two Taylor Swift songs, it would be Who's Afraid of Little Old Me? & So It Goes.

• If Empyrean was written in interconnected stand alones, she would have already jumped to Rhi or Imogen.

• Her favourite sections are the epigraphs that she writes above the chapter headings. "It's my most valuable real estate, the fact that you guys skip over them sometimes, I'm like—I'm wicked funny in there, ok?"

• If Violet and Xaden visited Australia, what would they do for fun? "I'd say go visit places they can't catch on fire. I guess they could find a beach." @empyrean-thrones there you go, we're on point! 😂

And that's about it! Happy theorising! 💗

It was a wild weekend, but so worth it. I was in my feelings a lot. I hope you guys get a chance to meet her or hear her speak in person one day, too 🫶

[sepublic]

The Owl House's Ending Anniversary...

So it's officially been one whole year since The Owl House ended.

One year ago, I wondered how I would move on. How I would keep going. But I also knew I would, no matter what, because time keeps going on. Things will eventually pass, they always do, that's how so many moments and days for me have gone. Even entire periods of my life.

So I'm not surprised how things have gone on since then; I still had plenty more things to say about TOH, and I still love it just as I have. I've gotten new hyperfixations, and even returned to old ones as some of you can see with recent posts, so it's only a matter of time before TOH circles back again.

And man does it feel so slow, only to feel so brief, it really feels like this anniversary has snuck up on and surprised me! And once again, we have some other, appropriate event lined up; A solar eclipse on this anniversary! Luckily there's no sigils nor coven heads gathered to make me worry. But dang, it was raining in Connecticut when Luz returned there, and it was the rebirth of Jesus when Luz was resurrected.

Makes me wonder if anyone of the Boiling Isles, justifiably, has had PTSD from solar eclipses, and dreaded any that showed up, despite knowing it couldn't happen again. People must've held their breaths the entire time during the first eclipse, panicked at even the slightest fatigue, and then it passed and they realized it really was impermanent and over. And that there was another step towards moving on, which I guess I can relate to now, though this is something I'm much less happy to see gone.

I think a lot about how TOH has influenced both me and my writing, how I approach characters and stories now. I've found myself gravitating more and more towards personal, character-driven stories and situations now. I still have a bit of a taste for grander-scale stuff, but TOH was special for me in that it feels like the first time I really got and understood a show and its characters from the ground-up as I experienced it all in real time. The first time I truly grasped themes and character arcs and could make reasoned predictions based on those, some of which came true! It really feels like THE big start of my media literacy in a way?

It's been fun looking back at TOH as a 'whole' work more or less to reevaluate, and learning other things behind-the-scenes about the show. We've had a few more livestreams and stuff confirmed. Dana's done more drawings, including on her Patreon.

I haven't been writing as much TOH stuff lately, and tbf I've already said soooo much. I might have other, new things to say later down the line, and I do have a few thoughts I've written in notes that maybe could be fully-fledged posts in their own right. I've found comparisons to protagonists of other media, like Miles Morales, or Arin from Ninjago.

The Owl House still is and will probably always be something truly special to me; It feels like my first real fandom experience. My first time understanding and learning a show, appreciating it as it develops and even as I speculate. It broadened my tastes and horizons, my ability to participate with others in stuff.

I miss it; I miss new episodes, new developments. I'm still agonized over things that could've been, things I would've loved to see more of. I'm apprehensive over whether we'll get that Raeda prequel because I don't wanna get my hopes up. Plus Dana needs a well-deserved break and is trying and experimenting with new, different things. And I get that.

It's bittersweet, it's scary, it's freeing, it's sad, it's happy. I've gone so far, this show and fandom has gone so far. And it'll keep going, it has to, time keeps marching on. Luz had to lose her father Manny, process that, but still keep going and must be surprised looking back how much she's adjusted since then, how much she's still grown and gained and learned, while still holding him dear; The same applies for the Titan and the magic she once wielded. With grief and acceptance being a core theme in this show, I'm not surprised that it prepped up the viewers to do the same, and now we have.

And you know what? I'm gonna keep going on, like Luz Noceda, possibly my favorite protagonist of all time, one of the greats and a huge inspiration now for how I really want to write and focus on my own protagonists, too. I'm gonna keep doing this like it never ended. The rate and frequency might fluctuate, but every now and then I'll have things to say, and stuff to drop by and check, such as with the tag and the occasional trending post, others' reblogs, and so forth.

So again, thanks to Dana and the crew. Thanks to Luz Noceda, Eda Clawthorne, King Clawthorne, and the other many, many characters! Luz's story is one where it feels like the show really is about her at its core and wraps around to her, and I want to do a story one day that accomplishes the same feeling. And as I see how Dana has been inspired by past influences, I can't help but look forward to future generations and stories that will themselves have been inspired by The Owl House, I know I've been already, retroactively applying it to things that were already fairly compatible to begin with, and really needed the fresh breath of new inspiration.

I'm repeating a lot of the same things I've said last year. Will I say the same stuff another whole year from now? I'll see. But until next time... BBBBYYYYYYEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!

[mariyekos]

New DMC Anime Trailer Breakdown Part 2

Hit the image limit on Part 1 so to a new post we go!

This guy that Dante punches has a bunch of metal on his face, and what might be a prosthetic, might just be a metal glove. What's interesting is this anime has Dante fighting a lot of humanoid characters, which is a little bit of a departure from some of the games, but honestly not that crazy. He does fight people from time to time across various media, and in the DMC1 Novel we even hear about the people who hunt him down. What has me interested here is whether this guy is fully human, or if he's been modified in some way, and if he's been modified, if he'll have any demonic traits or it'll just be the metal. It would be interesting to contrast a human trying to transcend normal human limits through human means (by making themself into a machine) with Arkham, who is a human trying to transcend humanity by using demonic power to achieve godhood.

Skipping a bit so if you want to see the things between the last two images please go to my previous post where I ran out of room. As for the two green/turtle-like demons Dante fights on the rooftop, I've got to say I'm a little disappointed in some of the demon design. I love how creepy/demonic a lot of DMC demons are, and while some of them would probably be hard to animate, I feel like they still could've been more...I don't know. Creepy looking? Compare it to the Hell Gluttony from DMC3, which is a much creepier/more scary DMC cloaked enemy. Not sure if the demon above was meant to call back to these guys, but I think it would've been fun to have some references to DMC enemies even with the generics.

As for the shot above this, seeing this shot all I could think was "infested chopper" and I haven't even played DMC2. I've just seen the memes. '

Zooming in I'm not sure who this guy is supposed to be. (Right image comes from later in the trailer). It can't be Agni because we've already seen him and the blade doesn't match. This demon wields a sword and has something in the middle of his chest though. I have a feeling that's going to be important. (Also complete crackpot theory: this guy's hair is a similar color to the pendant(?) from earlier, but surely this can't be related). He looks mutated, with more spikes emerging from his right arm, so I wouldn't be surprised if this was a human turned demon or something.

Looking at the gatling gun and missile heading toward an armored truck, I wonder if the military is going to get involved in this one. Police officers showed up a few times in the old anime, and the military DID come for the Qliphoth incident in DMC5, so it's possible the military may intervene in this one. That the missile is heading for an armored truck is interesting though. Are there two human factions at war with each other? Will this missile be deflected? Will it be just the military, or will there be groups like the ones we see Dante fighting that may get involved? The giant portal to Hell that opened up in the sky could definitely draw attention.

Then we have red eye/ red sclera Dante while fighting mysterious red guy from above! Interesting. We see that in the DMC3 manga too (assuming his sclera are meant to be red here instead of black). Both he and Vergil do it.

I'll probably also do a write up on overall thoughts, but I'll cut it here so I can link these posts. Edits to come!

[friezaglasiencold]

I know this might be out of the blue (and this somehow turned into a ask Algid blog ) but this is a question for Yamcha

What do YOU like about Frieza or what draw you towards him

(Since ya know he’s a villain)

Hey, it's me. Told Frieza to look away until I post this, haha. He gave me the computer and just said 'go nuts,' so that's a good sign? I'll put it under a cut, cause I'm probably gonna go long, and there's a good chance I'll get a little sentimental. I know he's not into that stuff, so I don't wanna clog up his blog with it.

I haven't gotten the chance to talk about this, really, since the guys don't approve of us 'being together' and all--for obvious reasons--so, I guess first I gotta thank you for asking! It means a lot that you'd think about that, or be worried about that, or whatever. Because, yeah, he is a villain, and it's a pretty big deal.

I know he's a really bad person, basically as bad as it gets (he's kind of like if you put a bunch of real estate scumbags in a blender and then poured the result into a really sexy cup, and then that sexy cup had anger issues??), but there's a lot there that I think maybe nobody's ever seen before, or cared to look for, or maybe he's just never wanted to show to anybody...

For one, I just think he's really cute! Like, not even in a sex way. He's just cute. He does this thing with his face when he's thinking really hard where he'll scrunch up his nose and totally zone out. I don't think he notices it, but he does a lot of stuff with his tail, too. It's pretty easy to tell how he's feeling once you get used to reading him, and if he's in a good mood it, like, wiggles? Not wagging, not like a dog or anything, but almost like one of those wacky inflatable tube dudes. And I know this isn't really a "good" thing, but when he's frustrated with something, he stews about it, and crosses his arms and stomps around for a while, and he'll go on these little tirades about stuff that doesn't matter, and it's adorable how into it he gets. He's pretty easy to tease.

And he's really smart. Genuinely totally on the ball. Not the kind of guy you'd come to to vent or something, but if you give him a problem he'll hand you a solution in, like, ten seconds.

I'm always discovering new things about him, too, like these skills or hobbies he has that he doesn't even think are worth mentioning... he's killer at the violin, and he's a really good singer, and he likes to do all these little creative projects when people aren't looking. I think whatever he sets his mind to he just does, and I like that in a person. It's part of why I got with Bulma all those years back--she was really headstrong, just like he is. I'm into the type who knows what they want and who they are and stays honest about that.

Frieza's a lot less dramatic about it than she was, though. He'll do something, and he won't like, get all up in your face and start wagging a finger about it. He just does it, and then tells you it's done if you notice, because he's pretty used to being solitary, so he's not a needy kind of guy. As long as you give him what he wants, you're basically golden.

He's really up front about it, too. Who he is, I mean. He's never pulled any punches with me, or lied, or given me the runaround. He sat me down and said look, Yamcha, this is what my deal is, and this is what I'm looking for, and if you're interested we can make arrangements. I like that I know what I'm getting into, y'know? Like, yeah, it's a little disappointing that he's not into the idea of marriage, but we haven't been dating long, and there's always time down the line if we wind up staying together. What I'm really surprised about, though, is that even if we didn't, I think I'd still wanna be friends? Which isn't the kind of thing you'd normally think about with Frieza. I know Vegeta would flip his lid if he heard me say that.

There's a ton more I could talk about, but I don't want to wind up writing a novel, so I'll just end it on this:

He's a bad person, yeah, and there's stuff I've gotta talk with him about if we wind up making this a permanent thing, but a lot of my friends started out as bad people, including me. I can say for a fact, though, that he's got a heart in there somewhere, even if nobody else thinks that's true. I've seen these little glimpses of it, and it makes me really happy, and I wanna keep seeing it. That make sense?

I hope so.

[lovingseventeen]

hello,, if i can, may i request jeonghan with reader who likes celebrating others' birthday but not theirs. just because they feel like theirs is not even worth it to be celebrated ; perhaps bcs of low self esteem? like, reader even hope that their birthday doesnt exist

( im sorry if i failed to understand your "do i take requests" on your navigation post, please feel free to decline this ask if anything. but if you do decline it, could you please perhaps randomly send 🩷 emoji so i could know whether my ask is accepted or not?? im sorry 😭 )

jeonghan when you don’t enjoy your own birthday

a/n: hi hi, so sorry this took a bit to come out. i'm not writing requests in chronological order just because some of them are easier to write for some reason ?? but ANYWAYs i hope you enjoy this even if it's a bit late <3

*reader and jeonghan are not explicitly in a relationship, i just thought this could be taken platonically or romantically

✧ was lowkey offended that you didn’t even tell him. he had no idea on the day of because you didn't do anything out of the ordinary, not even a little celebration on your story!

✧ he didn't know because you haven't know each other too long, but still! how could you not tell him!

✧ he also felt awful because you surprised him on his and he was waiting for his chance to do something nice for you

✧ you had casually asked him if it was okay to stop by the hybe building since you were *coincidentally* in the area

✧ when he met up with you on the first floor to go up together, you had greeted him with the brightest smile, a small cake in a box, and a small bouquet

✧ "i thought i'd meet you upstairs! you're ruining the surprise!" you exclaimed as his eyes glanced over everything that you were holding

✧ "y/n.. you didn't have to do all of this.." he said, but he couldn't stop smiling. all of this, for him? he thought

✧ "let me help you carry some of this" he offered, not knowing what else he could do to express his gratitude (this day becomes one of his favorite birthdays)

✧ he had only found out that he missed your birthday when you had to show your ID at a restaurant. he jokingly took it from the waiter to see if you were younger in your photo and if you looked different before

✧ it was all fun and games until he saw your birthday, surprise and disappointment filling him when he realized it was last week

✧ he looked at you sitting across from him as you sipped your drink, unaware of every emotion coursing through him

✧ "your birthday just passed?" he asked, turning to look at you, before looking back down at your ID

✧ "yeah" you replied, a blank look on your face further surprising him. you just reached over to get your card, even if he was still staring at it

✧ "y/n, why didn't you tell me?"

✧ "because it isn't a big deal?" you shrugged, placing your ID back in your wallet

✧ you wondered why he seemed so passionate, meanwhile he wondered how you were being so casual

✧ "of course it's a big deal, i'd want to celebrate you on your day" he looked at you sincerely, you could hear the slight whine in his voice but you could see how serious he was

✧ it was hard to hold eye contact with him. "i um, don't really like celebrating it?" you said softly

✧ "can i ask why?" he continued, his voice gentle as he didn't want to push your boundaries

✧ "i mean, i like celebrating other people, people i love, you know? but it feels weird when it's about me, i don't know.. i don't need to be treated any differently on that specific day"

✧ he nodded, accepting your words even though he felt like he was bubbling with more questions. he still wants to make it up to you in some way

✧ you could tell he was a little off for the rest of your meal, he was sort of stuck in his thoughts. you really didn't want him to do anything but he still felt bad

✧ by the time your bill comes, you plan on splitting it with him when he closes the checkbook with just his card and hands it to the waiter before you could object

✧ "h-hey! you don't have to do that, you know" you called out, "it passed already anyway so you have no excuse"

✧ "who said it was because of that?" he asks coyly, "the last album did well so i want to celebrate that, don't worry"

✧ you rolled your eyes but you couldn't fight him on this one because the waiter already took his card. "just don't do anything else, jeonghan. it's really okay i swear"

✧ "then i won't"

✧ "good" you replied, eyeing his intentions anyway

✧ "good" he copies

✧ the next week, a package comes to your house, a very nice oversized denim jacket, with a card saying: NOT a birthday present, i ordered it for myself but it's too small so you can have it - jeonghannie :)

✧ you shoot him a text telling him not to get you any presents in the future and he only replies with it's not a present because it isn't even wrapped

✧ the jacket is totally your style and not his, so you know he's lying but you also can't be too mad

✧ he never really brings up why you don't like your birthday again. he never tries to organize a gathering or even a planned celebration dinner with you. he doesn't want to ever put you on the spot

✧ he figures if you ever feel more comfortable you'll tell him

✧ in upcoming years, he has his little jeonghan way of being a little kinder to you when it's coming around

✧ on the day, he'll do something for you without admitting it's for your birthday. it's something relaxed and besides, all he wants to do is spend time with you

✧ maybe he "randomly" tells you that he's craving your favorite food and he ordered way too much so you have to help him finish it

✧ or maybe he just so happened to be invited to an idol's concert and he can take you because he has an extra ticket ("you've literally never interacted with them" "yes i did on mnet in 2015" he literally sends a prepared clip)

✧ he always has his little explanation as to exactly why something is not a birthday celebration/present

✧ maybe he won something on going seventeen by cheating and wants to give you the prize because he won't use it

✧ the "non-presents" always come spontaneously so you technically can't say that they have a correlation to the actual day

✧ "i accidentally ordered the wrong shoe size" - it's literally a shoe you mentioned 5 months ago

✧ "they let us keep the accessories we wore on stage" - no they don't

✧ "i'm an ambassador for that brand anyway so i always have free stuff from them" - he would have had to post a thank you to that brand on his story

✧ but in the end, he just wants you to know he cares for you and wants to thank you, regardless of what day of the year it is

[july-19th-club]

Fic writer interview

@goingsparebutwithprecision tagged me in this one and then i had it in my drafts for six or eight months so now it is out of the drafts and into the queue

How many works do you have on AO3? a grand NINE

What's your total AO3 word count? 82,429, which is almost the length of a short novel.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Grace (SPN), Between Friends (Magnus Archives), Yellow Asters (SPN), In the Valley of the Ever Young (Umbrella Academy), and The Steward (Discworld)

I guess i'd hoped Another Journey (The Untamed) would do better - but I'm not at all surprised that my quick and dirty post-finale (by like a DAY) Game of Thrones thing didn't do well. On the other end of the spectrum, my quick and dirty post-finale-by-eleven-hours SPN thing did great it's my top seller. That's 600ish kudos so we're not talking phenomenal, but still. Goes to show I think the difference between how game of thrones fans handled the ending (buried heads in sand, wept and gnashed teeth, rent hair and clothing, ranted for hours on a slow monday worknight shift to me while i listened, horrified and enraptured) versus how spn fans, who never had expectations to gradually and then all at once disappointing, handled the ending (shrug, make some jokes, cry not because it's ending but because it happened, and then crack open the laptops for some quality writing about the whole thing). We were already prepared for things to be bad, so when they were even more bad than all THAT? We were actually, I think, in a way kind of pleased and satisfied. If it had ended well i think it would've been a bit of anticlimax after all that time. Whereas in Game of Thrones there was still the slim chance that they might turn it all around at the eleventh hour, so when they didn't the viewers just wanted to hide and lick their wounds. Produced much less immediate fic.

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? It really totally depends on the comment and my mood honestly. If it's especially long and glowing I try to give it at least a little bit of attention but it might not be right away.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending? Tie between Another Journey and In the Valley - In the Valley ends RIGHT before a character death in canon, Another Journey ends right after a non-canonical character death. So take your pic. I don't tend to do death for death's sake, but for these two stories it felt cheap to avoid it.

What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending? FINISHED fic? That people can SEE the ending of? Grace, which I now don't like because it's not complex enough and I completely mischaracterized Jack, but that's what Wishes Were Horses is for. Whenever I get around to it. You know.

Do you write crossovers? Not really. I love worldbuilding but trying to marry two disparate worlds is too much for me, I don't like having to do all the logistics. Probably a less pedantic writer would just not care about the logistics but I also don't READ crossovers because the logistics or lack thereof is such an issue for me, so.

Have you ever received hate on a fic? No but back when I was regularly updating Book of Gold (which I'm linking even though I'm probably going to retire that version at some point and start working on a better rewrite) I had a reader who REALLY liked Steve, a character I had no plans to write from the perspective of because I barely remembered him and did not care about him, and still don't really, and that reader would constantly ask me with waning hope if I was gonna do anything Steve related. And I'd avoid saying a definitive no.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Prev apparently has some good Cyrano de Bergerac smut which I now want to read. I personally have never posted any sex in fics, but not for lack of hoping someday to tastefully get it all out there. I just was raised catholic so if I say anything sexual where people can see it i get embarrassed.

Have you ever had a fic stolen? I hope not I haven't checked lol but I only have nine and they're not well known so who give a shit

Have you ever had a fic translated? No.

Have you ever co-written a fic before? Nah. When it comes to writing I don't think I could ever split the work I'd want too much control.

What’s your all-time favorite ship? I do not have favorites because the other ones might get sad . this extends to foods, stuffed childhood animals, and books in my reading stack . also fountain pens

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will? At this point any of them lkajslkdjfasdf but i really REALLY doubt the immediate future of the Book of Gold, which is a shame because I have all the major beats mapped out in my head. It's just so much more ambitious than even the other long fics I have in my documents files, the scope is years instead of days or months, and it's a lot of planning and prep work that I can't help but feel I should instead spend on either quicker-to-finish stories or original ones.

What are your writing strengths? I think I have a strong voice, a good turn of phrase, that sort of thing. I also think that after years of trying I have gotten good at realistic dialogue that's not TOO realistic as to be unreadable, and I've learned how to be funny. Worldbuilding.

What are your writing weaknesses? Complex plotting, which sucks because I love complex plotting and want to do more of it. Also punctuality, which is not a writing weakness so much as a regular one, and the really big one is character relationships and consistency over time. I struggle to fit all those pieces together/remember whether they fit together when I started. This probably has to do with my social struggles in real life lol it's very hard for me to write characters thinking/believing/philosophizing/reacting differently than I would, at least without falling back into the 'everybody is me' mode that risks them coming off flat. I think my way around this for most of my writing life has been to write from one person's first-person perspective, which helps alleviate that problem, but I'm trying to do different things and expand my skill set/comfort zone.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic? It's cool and I like it but I only know one other language than the one I speak and I speak it at a second grade level. So I don't do this much but I enjoy reading it. Love to copy and paste the language I don't know into a dictionary of words and parse it out it's like a fun secret treat.

What was the first fandom you wrote for? Discworld TECHNICALLY . but really The Outsiders and really really even before that I have an unnamed undescribed thing that I hope to turn into a short story that is almost not at all like the fic. so i will not discuss it

What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to? Star Trek (I've written for it but haven't finished and posted yet). Perhaps True Blood. I have some ideas.

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written? Again I cant play favorites BUT. It's probably Another Journey. It just came together so easily and the structure fell right into place and I managed to do a lot of stuff that was challenging in a way that felt successful. Book of Gold is next to my heart so close that I'm sure it's not actually GOOD and I don't wanna call it 'favorite' because it's a different thing. It's a sibling.

@whileyoureinschoolidothisallday do you want to do a tag game? and any of the other writing mutuals on here who've plied their hands

[rogerswifesblog]

Drabble request for Steve Rogers and reader:

Men in readers life (dad, grandpa, family friends etc) haven't worn wedding rings. They also didn't have very loving relationships with their wifes. So she thought it was normal. But her new husband Steve wears one. He wears it all the time. He has a silicon one for missions so his "real" one doesn't get broken. He's also very very loving to her and reader is kinda surprised by it? But she loves it

[ I had this in my drafts and since I have nothing to post rn, here you go, enjoy<3 I’m currently writing another Drabble for the special (finally 🤣)]

Thank you for the request! Its so so cute 🥺🥺

You never really talked about your family- well at least not about the male part of your family. Not your father or grandfather, even their friends were the same as them and you just never liked thinking about them.

Seeing how they treated their women scared you of getting married but then you met Steve.

He was sweeter than you expected him to be but maybe that’s how the beginning of a relationship was supposed to be? Your mother told you that’s how her and your fathers relationship was. Very sweet and caring the first year but after that he became cold. She married him anyway- sometimes you thought you were the reason for that but she always told you they married out of love.

Even though they never spend time together or go on dates. He didn’t even wear his ring anymore.

You always waited for the moment when Steve would start to become just like your father: colder, distant and would stop caring about you.

It never happened. Not even after proposing and marriage. He treated you so differently from the way your father treated your mother.

Steve always made sure you were happy, cuddled you and showed off his wedding band proudly.

It was… weird. But also nice. You hoped it wouldn’t change. At least not so quickly.

And it didn’t. Even after two years he was still the same sweetheart he always was.

He was currently putting on his suit for an upcoming mission, also taking off his ring- and replacing it with a silicon ring that looked the same as his gold band.

Steve noticed you staring at the ring with furrowed eyebrows. He sighed quietly. „I’m sorry for taking it off but I don’t want to lose it- so I thought it would be better wearing something like this“ he held out his hand to you, showing you the ring.

It only made the grimace on your face harder and Steve felt his heart shatter. Had he insulted you? Oh God. He didn’t want to make you mad.

“Why don’t you just take it off? I know it’s uncomfortable, you don’t have to wear it” that’s something your father has always said, rings were uncomfortable, why should he wear something that was uncomfortable? “It’s okay if you want to stop wearing it. I won’t be mad, I know how it works” you said with a slightly sad smile on your face.

There, you said it. He’d stop the game and finally be just like any other man you’ve ever observed, cold, distant and - “What are you talking about?” His words made you look at him, a bit unsure.

Steve didn’t know how you thought about marriage- how the people in your life treated each other and their relationships. You never talked about stuff like this, always dismissed talking about your family- he actually hasn't even met them, even though he really wanted to. He wanted to ask your father for permission to marry you but you never really wanted to even talk about your family.

You sighed quietly, grabbing his hand you brushed with your thumb over the silicone ring. “You know what I mean, I… I know you’re probably fed up with wearing it all the time and you… don’t have to be so… so sweet. We’re already married. You’ve got me. I won’t leave you anymore, you can just be-" ''Sweetheart, what… why do you think I don’t like wearing the ring or being like I am? I love you. I want to treat you right- I'm not doing it to… to keep you. Even if you’d want to leave me, you could do that” he whispered gently, pulling you to sit down on the bed.

Slightly confused, you looked at your hands. “You’re just so different, Steve. Every marriage I saw was so much… colder. I don’t remember the last time I saw my dad give my mom a kiss- or even wear his ring” while you tried to explain everything, Steve gently put his arms around you, pulling you into a tight hug.

Steve kissed your head gently, rubbing your back with his hands. You could feel the silicone ring against your back. “I want to be a good husband, I’ll never treat you badly, baby. I love you so so much.” Once again he kissed your head.

You looked up at the man, a small smile spreading over your lips. “I love you too, Steve. You promise you’ll always love me?” you asked quietly, making the blond chuckle quietly while he pulled you onto his lap. “I will always love you, you're my princess- my queen” Steve grinned into your hair, leaving many kisses behind.

Laughing you pulled Steve into a passionate kiss but his phone ringing interrupted you two, making him sigh. “I’m so sorry, but I should go. We’ll talk about it later, okay? We need to discuss it all, sweetheart. You deserve all the love I can give you” with that he laid you gently on the bed, standing up after and putting the rest of his suit on, finishing with strapping the shield on his back.

Before leaving the house he gave you a last kiss, once again telling you how much he loved you.

[lulamadison]

So last night I had a drunk idea for a fanfic. It was miserable as hell, but I seemed very excited about it, judging by my tumblr posts 🤣

Today I found a text file named "Anti Lawrusso fic" on my phone, and it was filled with notes for this fic, so I decided to actually write it... (I am a huge Lawrusso fan, so this fic idea took me by surprise when I read it lol)

Sorry about any mistakes. I haven't even read this through, but I'll fix them tomorrow

I'm actually going to warn for dub-con on this one, even though everything is consensual.

Summary: Johnny will do anything to keep his kids safe, even if it means lying to Daniel.

I Was Made For Loving You

“I love you,” Daniel sighed as he tenderly brushed his fingers through the hair at Johnny's temple.

Daniel was laid on top of him, his weight pressing down, trapping Johnny's spent cock against his damp belly.

Johnny stared up at him, grateful that Daniel was was still with him.

He'd do anything to keep Daniel happy.

No matter what.

It was strange the way it started, Johnny thought.

Daniel had confessed his love in the dojo one day and it had taken him by surprise.

“I love you,” Daniel said, as he reached out and placed his hand on Johnny's arm. “And I know you feel the same way. I've seen how you look at me.”

Johnny took a step back, his mouth opening and closing, before he finally said, “You love me?”

Daniel's face fell, like a sudden and crushing realisation had just hit him, and Johnny couldn't figure out what the hell was going on.

“Oh my god,” Daniel said, as he closed his eyes

“What?” Johnny asked, his head still swimming in confusion.

Daniel looked down at the floor, his face flushing red, as he quietly said, “You don't feel the same way.”

“Wait,” Johnny said, holding up a hand. “You love me?”

“I need to go,” Daniel said, as he turned and started to walk away. He glanced back, over his shoulder and said, “I'm sorry. Just forget this happened.”

“Daniel!” Johnny shouted after him, as the door closed.

Johnny bought a six pack on the way home. He already had one in his refrigerator, but six beers wasn't going to cut it. He needed to get wasted tonight.

Three beers in, sat on his couch, and he still couldn't get it straight in his head.

LaRusso was in love with him.

They were good friends now, yeah, but love?

How the hell had that happened?

Johnny was just thankful every day that LaRusso seemed to have forgiven him for what went down between them back in high school, and he really valued the friendship that they had now. Daniel was someone he could rely on, and he didn't have many people like that in his life.

Sure, he was a loud mouth cocky little shit at heart, just like he'd been at 16, but he knew if he needed help, or simply just someone to grab a beer with on Friday night, Daniel would be there for him.

Apparently Daniel had seen their friendship as something more than that though.

“Shit,” Johnny said, as he sat upright.

Daniel had split with Amanda just a couple of months ago.

Had Daniel left his wife for him? Had LaRusso blown apart his own marriage, only for Johnny to shoot him down in flames?

Daniel wouldn't have done that surely, not without finding out if Johnny felt the same way?

“And I know you feel the same way. I've seen how you look at me.”

That's what Daniel had said, just after his big confession.

“Fuck,” Johnny whispered to himself.

He went to the refrigerator and took out the second six pack.

He really should have bought more beer.

Daniel didn't come to class for the next week.

“He hasn't been answering many of my messages. I think he's sick,” Sam said with a frown, when Johnny asked her where her dad was. “I haven't seen him much to be honest. Since he and my mom split he hasn't been the same.”

“OK, well if you talk to him will you tell him I was asking after him?” Johnny said.

Sam shrugged, she turned away, and over her shoulder she bitterly said, “Tell him yourself. You probably see him more often than I do.”

After class Johnny stopped off at the Mini Mart for more beer.

There was something in Sam's reply that filled him with dread. Did she know her dad was in love with him? Did she know that Daniel torpedoed his own life for a guy who didn't have a clue how he felt?

Johnny picked up his beer and took it to the register, then said, “I need a bottle of Whiskey too.”

The guy placed the bottle on the counter and rang it up, barely looking up as Johnny handed over the cash.

Johnny grabbed the bottle and headed out of the door, walking quickly across the lot towards the van.

As he rounded the corner, pulling his keys out, he came face to face with John Kreese, and dropped the bottle of Whiskey.

“Fuck!” Johnny shouted as the bottle hit the ground and shattered.

“It's for the best,” Kreese said. “You drink too much.”

“What the hell, man?” Johnny asked, staring at him. “What are you doing here? The cops will be looking for you.”

Kreese shrugged. “I'm sure they have more pressing matters than searching for an old man.”

“I'm going to call them, you know?” Johnny said, as he jabbed a finger into Kreese's chest. “You need to be rotting in a cell.”

“I came with a warning,” Kreese said, his face growing dark.

“Oh yeah? What's that?” Johnny asked. “You gonna try something?”

“Terry is getting out of jail tomorrow,” Kreese said. “And I know that he has his sights set on your boy.”

“What?” Johnny gasped. “How is he getting out of jail after what he did?”

“Money will buy you a lot of freedom,” Kreese said.

“Why the hell is taking his shit out on Robby?” Johnny asked. “He should be coming after me or LaRusso.”

“He's not really interested in Robby,” Kreese said. “Taking Robby away from you is your punishment for your part in his downfall, especially now the boy is without a Sensei.”

“What the hell's that supposed to mean?” Johnny asked, taking a step forward. “Robby is my student.”

“No,” Kreese said. “LaRusso is his Sensei and with him in the wind, Robby will be easy to poach.”

Johnny stiffened. “What do you know about LaRusso?”

“I know you've had a falling out and he's no longer on the scene,” Kreese said. “It's a shame because he was really the only thing keeping Terry away, now he knows how to beat him.”

“Daniel?” Johnny asked. “Silver is scared of him?”

“As close to fear as someone like him can feel,” Kreese said with a shrug. “And without LaRusso it's open season on you and your students.”

“You're lying,” Johnny said angrily.

“Am I?” Kreese said, raising and eyebrow. He turned and began to walk away, then turned back and said, “I guess time will tell.”

“Shit,” Johnny said, as he paced his living room.

The kids were in danger. Robby was in danger, because Johnny had scared away the one person who was keeping him at bay.

He had to do something. He had to bring Daniel back.

He couldn't do this without him. He couldn't imagine a world where Miyagi-Do didn't win, and he couldn't do it without Daniel.

He knew what he had to do.

Johnny sat in his car outside LaRusso's new place, downing the last of his Whiskey. He'd drank the small bottle while sitting nervously, trying to get the courage to knock on the door.

His head was swimming with the alcohol, blotting out his thoughts.

He had to do this.

He dropped the empty bottle into the footwell, then climbed out of the car.

He walked down the path and rang the doorbell, praying that Daniel would answer.

The door opened.

“Come to watch me embarrass myself again?” Daniel slurred, holding a bottle of beer in his hand.

“No,” Johnny said as he took a step inside and closed the door after himself.

“So what are you doing here?” Daniel asked, swaying on his feet.

Johnny took a deep breath, then he reached out and grabbed Daniel, as he said, “I came for this.”

He pushed Daniel against the wall and kissed him, pressing his tongue past his lips and into his mouth.

If Johnny kept his eyes closed it was no different to kissing a chick, he reasoned. As long as he ignored the scratch of stubble against his chin.

Daniel groaned into his mouth, raising his hands and threading his fingers through Johnny's hair as he pulled him closer and kissed him hungrily.

Daniel stopped, squirming away, and putting a hand on Johnny's chest, pushing him away.

“No,” Daniel said. “You don't love me.”

“You took me by surprise,” Johnny said, as he reached out and gripped the front of Daniel's shirt, pulling him closer.

“Bullshit,” Daniel said. “I thought you felt the same way, but you acted like you'd never thought about me like that ever.”

“I'd been ignoring my own feelings for so long I'd gotten used to denying them,” Johnny said desperately. “That's why I acted like that.”

“You really do love me?” Daniel asked, his eyes lighting up.

“Yeah,” Johnny said. “I do.”

Six months.

They'd been together six months now.

Daniel didn't seem to notice or care that Johnny was drunk every time they had sex.

It was what he had to do to get through it.

The fact was that Johnny wasn't gay. He didn't find men attractive. He didn't find Daniel attractive, but a man's hand on his dick was still a hand on his dick, so it looked like he enjoyed the sex at least.

The first time Daniel suggested they try anal Johnny knew he wouldn't be able to get it up, so he let Daniel do him.

It felt strange and awful, but he still came.

The rest of the time, it was just like before. They were like two best friends who just happened to live together and sleep together.

Johnny could still count on Daniel to be there when he needed him. They still taught classes together. They still had a drink on Friday night's and watched movies together, just like before.

It was worth it to keep Terry Silver away, Johnny thought.

“I love you,” Daniel breathed again, his fingers still tenderly brushing the hair at Johnny's temple.

Johnny looked up at him, seeing Daniel's eyes so full of love and care.

It was worth it.

It was worth it to keep Daniel happy and the kids safe.

It was worth it to keep Robby safe.

“I love you too,” Johnny lied.

[modgryphonrambles]

I love TAOCC so much!

It is 5-6 in the morning, and I'm feeling emotional and affectionate. So I'm gonna ramble about how much I appreciate people. Apologies if you don't want to be tagged in this or if I'm not making any sense because I'm sleepy.

@silhouette-anon Soup, thank you so much for running the Gangle blog, if it wasn't for you, I would never have found this silly little RP community. I was so scared to interact for so long, I lurked and only sent a couple of unsigned anon asks, but the way you interacted with your regular anons gave me the confidence to also try and become a regular. You were just so kind to everyone, and it was wonderful to see. Love your art, love your RP, love how you make me smile in one moment and then make me cry in the next.

@sh4tt3rg1rl Basil, Soup may have been how I found TAOCC, but you are the reason I wanted to get involved with actually RPing in it. I don't remember how I stumbled on Mix's blog, but he was the first non-canon character in the group that I followed. I just loved his story, his design, the way you RPed, everything. Again I was too scared to actually approach you, instead I watched for a few weeks without making a single RP post. And even when I did start RPing, I was still a little intimidated by how amazing your writing was, so even though I still followed your blogs, it took me way too long to finally ask if I could interact with one of your characters. And of course your art blows me away all the time!

@the-moth-from-elsewhere Elsie, you were the first person in TAOCC I actually RPed with, though I never intended that. But I was so intrigued by Aoki's interaction with Mix, he seemed like such an interesting character, and I was blown away with how you RPed him. I wanted to follow that OC, but I didn't know what his blog was. I just knew yours. When I asked you if you had a list of OC blogs, you not only gave them to me, but pointed me in the direction of Dusk as a nice OC for me to introduce Grif to. In a rare burst of confidence, I sent an actual RP ask. I haven't looked back since. Your art style is so adorable, and you kinda scare me with how many characters you have, but I'm impressed by all the thought you put into TAOCC and I could listen/read your rambles for hours!

@shot-of-hopes-and-dreams Hope, I've already told you before how much I appreciate you for being the first person to send a character ask to Grif completely out of the blue. But I don't think I ever told you that you were also the first person I DMed to ask about joining a plot. DMs always scare me, I think because of how private they are, and it took me a good few days to work up the courage to send the message, but I'm so glad I did! Every time I get a message, or ask, or @ from you, I get excited, and sometimes a little nervous, you do love being evil after all! You surprise me a lot, keep me on my toes and really make me think when we RP together, and it's a ton of fun! I do love your sketchy art style too, and in my opinion it doesn't get nearly enough attention.

Star, Feiar, and everyone else that I've talked to outside of RPing (including the people I singled out above), thank you for all being so sweet and kind and welcoming. I really do struggle with social stuff especially voice calls, I always feel a little awkward by how I'm mostly non-verbal, and I often avoid calls because of it, but just you guys being so understanding has really helped me get over that fear!

And for everyone in TAOCC whether I've talked to you before or not, thank you for being such awesome creative people, you've given me so much joy over these past few months, I am so glad I found this community! Whether it's the writing, the art, the silly little memes, all of it makes me so happy (or breaks my heart in a good way when you decide to be angsty). All of you, never change, keep being such wonderful, amazing people!

[fiepige]

Heya thank you so much for your ask!

I'm guessing you're referring to the deleted scene where Gwen and Miguel talk about how Hobie quit/took time off:

Since it's a deleted scene it should be taken with a grain of salt but since nothing they say here actually contradicts anything that happens in the movie (and I find it fitting for Hobie's character to abandon the spider-society while still looking out for Gwen) then I personally headcanon that something similar at least happened prior to his introduction in the movie.

When you say he was inactive I guess you mean in the spider-society (English isn't my first language so please let me know if I misunderstand/misinterpret anything you said! I'm not trying to put words in your mouth I'm just trying to show how I understand what you're writing but please correct me if I'm wrong <3).But yeah, it would make sense that he was still somewhat part of the spider-society since he's still wearing their watch when he makes his entrance:

(Also did you know that Hobie is the ONLY spider-person that wears his watch upside down??? I didn't before I was getting screenshots for this post lol, here is a screenshot that better shows it compared to Gwen:)

(ALso he's NOT wearing any watch in his introduction scene:)

(Just a fun fact I wanted to share)

About the portals:You make a good point here! We never see the portal Hobie appears from when he enters:

"If anything, he's running in from some place else. And we never see if the portal he comes from is HQ issued, or one of his."This is really interesting, cause at one point I thought he'd just use the HQ portal, but if that's the case then why:

1. don't we see him enter?

2. Is he running like he came from somewhere else? Like you said the watches are pretty precise and put people close to where they need to be.

This made me think that maybe he used one of his own watches (since I think he'd already made some at this point). BUT if that's the case then again:

We should still see him enter right?

If he appeared nearby we should see the effect his watches have on their nearby surroundings like we see when Gwen uses hers:

Maybe he just didn't want the HQ to figure out that he'd made his own watches yet, or maybe LYLA would be able to track him if he used the HQ watch so he used his own one instead and either:

Used it to end up far away from the others as he knew they'd all be able to see the effect his watches have on their surroundings and since Miguel apparently has everyone under constant surveillance he'd be able to figure out that Hobie was planning something behind the scenes. When he got there he then put on his HQ watch (which he hadn't been wearing since LYLA haven't been able to track him, according to the deleted scene at least) to cover up the fact that he made his own.

He used his own watch but it's not as precise and that would also explain why he had to run to get to the others. (Though it seems pretty precise when Gwen is using hers later)

Maybe he was already in Pav's dimension. This might explain why Pav asks if Miles knows about Hobie? But then again why does Pav greet him like he didn't know he was there (and also why didn't Hobie join Pav and the others sooner if that was the case)? In a way it would make sense for Hobie to hide in Pav's dimension if he's hiding from the spider-society and LYLA as hinted at in the deleted scene (which might not be canon though!), so maybe he hid there without Pav even knowing? And then he maybe saw/sensed what was going on with the gang fighting The Spot?

Cause yeah how did Hobie know they needed his help at Alchemax?

As you said, Gwen seems happy/surprised to see Hobie.The deleted scene tells us that Hobie gave her a way to contact him, so maybe she did and she's just happy to see him and maybe suprised he arrived so soon after she reached out? (Though idk when she would have done that, but since we don't know what means Hobie gave her to contact him we also don't know what to look for, for all we know it could've been a small device that just sends some kind of signal to him?)I don't think HQ contacted him either. BUT, we actually see Jess and Gwen talk briefly for like 2 seconds when they're trying to break the barrier at Alchemax:

So I guess another explanation could be that Jess could tell that Gwen was lying here and thus asked Hobie to go help her out as she knew he was looking out for Gwen?

But if Hobie was hiding from HQ then how did they contact him? But that's also only if you consider the deleted scene as canon. (though I don't think Jess contacting Hobie is the case but I'm just writing every theory I can come up with in case anyone wants to maybe look deeper into it).

For the moment I personally headcanon that Hobie either got a message from Gwen somehow or, like I theorised earlier, he was already nearby and his spider-sense alerted him to what was going on.

But I'd LOVE to hear what you or anyone else thinks <3

Once again thank you so much for your ask, I hope I answered it properly. Please let me know if there's something I missed or got wrong! And feel free to message me about Hobie (or atsv in general) I love asks like these as they make for a lot of fun speculation!

Also thank you so much if you read all of my ramblings!

@the-cat-and-the-birdie

[boundlss]

here's my full comprehensive post about how i feel about writing my canon muses, combining 3 of my favorite things (talking, lists, making people read shit only i care about). yaaaay.

shirogane kei - he is both one of my easiest and favorite muses to write. i'll never ever complain about people asking me to write him more, nor will i ever leave or abandon him no matter how few people are left to enjoy him. i love shiroe so much.

minagawa kanami - she actually is a lot harder for me to write even though i love her. her voice tends to be inconsistent, i think, and i struggle to write high energy characters in general, but i still love getting to explore her dynamics.

nyanta - SLEEPER PICK!!!! i looooove nyanta. he's awesome. writing him is fun because of his unique voice and dialogue quirks and i love characters like him in general. like, older gentlemen archetypes hehe. it helps that he's a cat man. i love cat men. and catboys. but cat men are a good flavor. middle aged men who are cats or catlike ... nyanta san ....

abe no hirari - my little meow meow ... he is not the most consistent muse but he gets to stay here because i love him. the second muse i've ever picked up who proposes marriage to people he's just met ... anyway, i love him and i love plots with him. hirariiiii ...

lee seung-gil - i actually love writing him. i like when muses aren't very energetic and tend not to talk as much hahahah ... he doesn't get asked for but i wish he did !! i love him. he's easy to write.

roland fortis - VERY energetic so i can't write for him alll the time but he has a very unique speech pattern that makes his dialogue interesting. i can't bring myself to get overwhelmed---he's roland. he'll stay on my blog forever hahaha. he was one of my first muses on tumblr after i left bnha that WASN'T a bsd muse, and anyway it was the first time i picked up a muse from something recommended to me by a friend ... anyway, writing him is very special to me so i will continue to.

jim hawkins - i have not written him much at all but i would liiiike to. i've always related very deeply to him---i stumbled across treasure planet for the first time just after my dad left me and i was about jim's age so it sort of stuck with me. he seems like he'd have a somewhat challenging voice but i love him so i'll write through it hahaha.

sokka - to be honest writing him actively scares me. i like him, but he has a difficult voice for me to pin down sometimes, and i'm not really a person who writes major characters in popular media so the idea of having attention for my sokka muse is something that makes me nervous ... liking him is not always enough to lessen that fear hahaha.

jet - my actual favorite atla character though i'm also very scared to write him. i just struggle with larger fandoms in general but his voice comes more easily to me and he's more within the realm of the type of character i normally write and enjoy.

ty lee - i love writing ty lee as long as i have the energy for it. she's easy to get down and i like having muses with energetic voices! i am also scared to reach out with her but again, larger fandom, more worries. haha.

stolas - it might surprise even my friends to know that really love stolas ... haha, well, the hellaverse fandom intimidates me and i see fantastic stolas portrayals out there so i tend to ummm never reach out with him. ever! but i LOVE writing stolas! i love thinking about stolas! he's by far my favorite part of helluva boss and his voice comes very easily to me!

striker - a close second to stolas ... i've been trying to take baby steps with my hellaverse muses and that's writing striker more, apparently, not that i've done any of that quite yet ... well, i love cowboys and antagonists and he has a great voice to write. i am just very scared!

stella - well ... she's only here because i wanted to rewrite her and i haven't gotten the opportunity to go that in-depth yet ... it's hard to say.

vox - haha. well, he's actually my favorite character in hazbin and i think about him a lot, but i am even more scared of writing him than of stolas if you can believe it! he's only here because a friend of mine was emphatic about my adding him being a good thing, but that friend already has a different main vox so mine doesn't really have a place with the group i'm a part of or really with the groups i'm not a part of, so it's extra scary to even try saying anything about him hahaha. i think he'd be really easy for me to write as one of my homebrew dnd deities i do a lot of musing about is very much like him, but ... well. haha. the fear and such.

mukuhara kazui - i love writing him. it's fun, it's easy, he's a cat man if you read deeply enough into the cat metaphors, he's lived his life as a servant to the expectations of people who don't deserve his time ... that is to say, he's perfect for me.

kaito - i LOVE LOVE LOVE kaito, and i wish more people did too! i love kaito! he is my favorite vocaloid ever i love him so MUCH! i love writing him, i love talking about him. ahhhhh. kaito san.

yuezheng longya - you know i also really love longya, probably as much as kaito ... the chinese vocaloids will always have my heart but longya's design always captivated me hahaha. his voice is middling and sometimes hard to pin down but nevertheless ...

gumi - sleeper pick! i love gumi. i'd love to flesh her out more, she's so nice to think about. please write with my gumi hahahahaha.

five pebbles - ever since i got into rain world he's been my very favorite!! he's a little difficult for me to write but i don't mind because i love him and his themes a lot. um, i think everyone should interact with him, ever.

aalto, encore, rover, jianxin, chixia - i'm excited to write them all but the game just came out. i think i'll enjoy it but it hasn't been a week hahaha.

the long quiet - a fun and challenging muse. it's hard to write something that isn't really anything, but is also everything. i like the ordeal and i love the long quiet conceptually. slay the princess is awesome.

the princess - same hat! ^

vernon roche - um ... a polarizing muse. i like writing him but i hesitate to engage with a lot of people who write witcher muses using roche because his character is widely misinterpreted as being more sinister than he actually is. not that he's a good person, but ... anyway, i do love writing him a lot. i just don't like when people i don't know jump in with him and expect me to play into fandom views.

cahir aep ceallach - my favorite son boy, he is both easy and fun to write, i love you cahir!!!! <3 <3 <3 <3 no further notes.

dandelion - sleeper pick! i love writing dandelion and find him the most fun out of ALL my witcher muses ahahaha. he's the greatest of all time. i love you dandelion.

milva - she's new to me, so i'm anxious to write her but alslo excited. it will probably be challenging as i don't write a lot of characters like her but she brings me a lot of enjoyment so i'm ready to handle it ahahaha.

isengrim faoiltiarna - i love him, but he's a little difficult to write and i always worry i'm doing it wrong, which is insane because he has like 3 canon appearances. he scares me but i love him. i will endeavor to be less scared of him.

tom sawyer, huck finn - actually they're the only muses of mine to have received no votes on my interest checker so i know people don't care for them, but i love mark twain a lot and have voraciously consumed everything about his books, so they're probably staying no matter what. i find them both middling to write but they're staying.

aradia megido - sleeper pick. i love her and i love thinking about her. she wasn't one of my favorites until my most recent reread and then i fell in love very suddenly haha. middling to write but i love her. worth.

latula pyrope - very easy to write but naturally tends to draw less attention ... in any case i love her.

feferi peixes - the hardest to write and lowest activity of my homestuck muses! she's one of my favorite characters but it's so difficult for me to find her voice sometimes!!! argh!! and i am afraid of getting her wrong because of this.

jade harley - about as difficult to write as feferi. i find jade very complicated and worry i'm leaning too far in one direction whenever i try to write her, but i'm doing my best and i love her so i'll continue to try hard.

dirk strider - i'll be honest ... i hate writing dirk. he is very complex in both dialogue and character and i struggle to feel like i'm doing him justice. i enjoy dirk a lot, don't get me wrong, but every respoonse i write with him is a self-doubting struggle. if it weren't for the people i know want to write with him he probably would have been removed because of this, but i will keep trying for your sake!

vriska serket - i'm scared to write her but i want to so so so so badly hahahaha.

shang qinghua - my favorite hack author---easy to write, easy to get, no complications. i wish there was more interest in him! i love him!

shen qingqiu - it's been pointed out to me that i'm a lot like him in most facets of my personality so i hate him. that said, he's frustratingly easy and fun to write and think about, so he'll be staying hahaha.

luo binghe - it's not helping the sqq allegations but i actually love binghe, i love writing the type of character who is so singularly obsessed with something ... anyway, easy to write, easy to think about.

all of my CATS muses - well ... i expected no one to write with them, but i wish people would. it's my favorite musical and there's a lot i could say about these cats!

[ell-vellan]

WIP Wednesday

I haven't done one of these in a long time because it feels like everything I write lately is dull and boring, but I'm trying to break out of the little box I've put myself in.

Tagging a few people who I thought might have a bit of work to share, but no pressure: @thebookworm0001 @the-grandest-plan @thegoblinwitchqueen

And please take this as an excuse to post your WIP even if I didn't tag you!

Content warning: this is a "should we have a baby? and how?" conversation between El/Bull with...unconventional options, lol. so it's under the cut!

They'd talked about it, just the once. When El had gotten her courage up and tentatively asked what he’d meant that time, way back in the beginning, that they didn’t have to worry about pregnancy. 

Bull had explained the way tamassrans perform a reversible sterilization procedure on every Qunari when they got their assignments around age 12 as though it were a normal mark of growing up. Something like her vallaslin. The tamassrans, of course, would not allow any unauthorized reproduction under the Qun. Everything was strategically, meticulously planned, even the bloodlines of their people. Children were not simply born, but created with a purpose already in mind. Breeding stock. Like her people did with halla.

Unless they were specifically chosen later in life to be part of the breeding program and the procedure undone, there would never be any accidents or surprises, he'd told her. 

She hadn't expected the strange mix of emotions that welled up in her throat, choking her. Couldn’t control the strong reaction from showing on her face that arose before she could hide it.

“Hey, hey, come here,” Bull said with surprise as he pulled her into his arms. “I'm sorry, El, I should've explained a long time ago. This conversation usually comes up earlier. Or not at all.”

“No, I’m fine.” She shook her head and tried to step out of his arms, but he wouldn't let her leave. “It’s not like it was a surprise. It's just..."

“There was a reason you asked."

El sighed. “It's foolish. Go ahead, you can say it. I know. Obviously I should ever have expected…Of course we can’t have children. What a ridiculous notion. I mean, at the very least, our jobs--”

“It’s okay,” Bull murmured. “You’re allowed to want stuff for yourself, El.”

“I want you. That's enough. I shouldn’t still be holding onto silly dreams from childhood. Yet somehow...until just now, I hadn't yet confronted the fact that my life will never be as I once thought it would."

She was irrevocably on a different path. Even if she could have a family with Bull, it wouldn't be a Dalish one.

“Your future looks a little different than you imagined,” Bull finished quietly. “I know. Same here.”

“Nothing about my life now is how I imagined it. Not just this. It's not the first time my plans have had to change.”

Bull made an unhappy sound. “You want kids, though? Even if it’s a ways down the line?”

Ellawyn hesitated. “I want children in the same way I want most other impossible things. I want to be rid of this anchor in my hand. I want to not be Inquisitor. I want my normal life back. It's just yet another reminder that my life isn’t my own…But it doesn't quite matter what I want. I’ve learned better than to make plans.”

He made another sound of dismay. “Yeah, but this is one thing that’s not impossible for you. And I don't like you giving up shit you wanted from life. You already got dealt a crappy hand with everything else. The war's over, the Inquisition doesn't need you anymore. You can do whatever."

She turned in his lap to face him, her expression grave. “You’re acting as though this is still possible. When you just told me that it isn't.”

Bull hesitated. “I...could get it reversed." Slowly, deliberately neutral. A statement of fact, not necessarily an offer. "It's possible, in theory. Tamassrans leave that option open on purpose."

She stared at him. “But you don’t want to.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“But it's what you think.”

Bull looked at her, lips pressed tight, and exhaled a sigh through his nose. “I’m wary, is all. It’d be dangerous for you. And there’s no guarantee it would even work.”

And then he told her there was another option. 

She balked, immediately. “You want me to sleep with someone else?”

Bull held up his hands placatingly. “Only way to have an elven baby is for that baby to have two elven parents,” Bull said evenly, watching her carefully. “You told me how precious elven children are in your culture. And I’m not the jealous type. You know that.”

“But…” 

Everything felt weak and watery inside her. He was right. She couldn't have an elven baby and Bull’s. It wasn't possible. 

She would have to choose.

Bull was entirely too calm. “I'm saying it's an option I'm okay with, that's all. Not something you have to do. And nobody's saying you have to decide anything right now, either."

[exocynraku]

thoughts on a starless clan so far

i don't know if anything i said here has any definitive spoilers in it but i'll put it all under a cut for safety

short answer: it's ok. frostpaw's plot & the stuff with riverclan, riverstar & the COTP, splashtail & curlfeather are all REALLY COOL. I liked sunbeam in the beginning and have grown to dislike where her story has gone. I like the concepts surrounding nightheart's plot but dislike the execution & the reaction from the community. I am still excited for star. long answer:

frostpaw and splashtail's plot is really really good and ive been enjoying it a lot (probably because it reminds me of tpb). i liked sunbeam's plot with blazefire and lightleap and berryheart in the beginning but have gotten bored of her & her plot since nightheart showed up in her life & she moved to thunderclan. nightheart's plot has good concepts behind it but i don't like the execution & i don't like the 2 cross clan relationship plot in a row. i think it could've been better if they focused less on cross clan relationships and more on clan prejudice & xenophobia & the corruptness of the code system as a whole (though i know it's incredibly unlikely the writers would do that i still want To Hope) instead of just the romance part since we did that last arc (though i don't think it really got us anywhere as i personally dislike the 'trials' thing that was developed & don't think it's particularly useful). especially because it was specifically a cross CLAN relationship in a row. i'd be a bit more lenient if it was a clancat x kittypet/loner relationship as that hasn't been done in a bit (like if nightheart fell in love with a COTP cat or something). 

i like the pacing per-book but i think the pacing overall could be improved upon as it feels both sunbeam and nightheart's plots have been too separate from & slow compared to frostpaw's plot and haven't really been meshing well in the later books as the erins try to tie them all together. i also don't know if this is just my bad memory but i dislike the change of sunbeam and nightheart's personalities over time. they both feel like they are becoming cardboard cut out main characters to me. i liked sunbeam's relationship with lightleap blazefire & her family and thought it all was really realistic and especially in the lightleap/blazefire department was a surprising change of pace. i dislike what has become of both her plot and her personality as i feel they totally abandoned the lightleap/blazefire plot and turned her into a flat love interest. i do think it makes sense for her as a character to yearn for love but i think it'd make even MORE sense if she had a much more complicated relationship with love

i'm not going to speak further on nightheart because i know no matter what i say someone WILL be telling me to kill myself in one way or another so i'll keep in brief: no matter what you think of him, you at Need To Acknowledge & Be Conscious Of The Fact That Very Bad Things Have Been Said About & To Both Women And Disabled People Because Of His Plot In This Community. yes some very good & well-thought out conversations have been said in response, yes the majority of these things were said months and months ago when asc first was starting, But That Does Not Mean You Can Ignore That They Happened. If you want the community you are apart of to not be perceived as jackasses you cannot Ignore The Hatred Towards Women And Disabled People That Festers Inside Of It. you don't need to write a 9000 page essay about it, that's not what i'm asking, you just need to be CONCIOUS of it okay that's it. also while thinking about this i thought of how i'd rewrite sunbeam and the third pov (which i'd give to sparkpelt) so if anyone wants to hear about that send me an ask i'll make another 4 paragraph post about it

[cirrus-grey]

I have now finished watching Good Omens Season 2

If you haven't already, please block the tag "good omens spoilers" - I won't post anything else until Friday night at the earliest, but after that all bets are off.

@albertinesimonet, I did not manage a full liveblog but I did jot down my reactions after watching each episode, and those are compiled under the cut :)

(SPOILERS!)

Episode 1:

Holy flipping fuck are they actually making the ineffable husbands canon???

Okay.

Look.

I saw that it was trending alongside Supernatural and OFMD. I suspected it was going this way, and the season had ended with some sort of confession/immediate separation.

That did not prepare me for the season to open with Crowley saying "hello gorgeous" to a nebula and Aziraphale being disappointed that Crowley wasn't talking to him. Or for Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy to be playing while Crowley rushed to Aziraphale's aid, like-

This is a fanfic. This is a motherfucking fanfic, and I am pleased to say that my brain is processing it as such, a well-written but ultimately non-canon fanfic (*puts on my "I still have book!omens brainrot" shirt*) that just so happens to have been written by one of the original authors.

Anyway, outside of my snorting disbelief that the first ship that I ever shipped is apparently going canon in one 'verse, I do actually have some legitimate theories, which run as follows:

A. I know this season is the plot-bridge between the original novel and what would have been the sequel, and B. I know the sequel was going to involve the second coming of Christ, therefore C. I suspect this Resurrectionist group that kept getting hinted at in the promos is trying to bring Jesus back, Gabriel found out and tried to stop it, and that's why he lost his memories. I'm a tad bit surprised Heaven as a whole doesn't seem to be involved in the return of their special boy, but I guess we'll see how that plays out as the season goes along.

Episode 2:

Oh hey, I've read this one before! "It's ancient Biblical times and Crowley and Aziraphale are angsting about their orders and finding solace in each other's company" may have never gotten its own tag, but there are certainly enough fics about it that it could.

"Can I be a blue one?" Weird kids are the best.

So the Resurrectionist is a pub, not a group. Still think they have something to do with the second coming, but I'm open to being proven wrong.

Gotta say, I didn't expect Every Day to be plot-relevant. I knew they had it for the soundtrack, but I'm really liking this sort of spooky-mystery-music-mixup they've got going with it - love the way its incorporated into the end credits, too.

Totally down for master-thief Jane Austen, btw.

How many people are writing fics about Crowley and Aziraphale getting caught in a rainstorm and hiding under an awning even as I type...

Episode 3:

How to run a bookshop, a guide by A.J. Crowley: Carry large stacks of books around aimlessly and then toss them on the floor when you get bored.

I'm honestly surprised his awning plan nearly worked. Curses be upon weak awnings, I suppose.

I do like that the Bentley recognizes that it has to play nice with whichever one of its dads is in the driver's seat lol

Okay so they keep drawing attention to the fact that there's flies in the bookshop, and now Beelzebub is acting off. Are the flies like... telepathically communicating Gabriel's worldviews to them? Is that how they figured out he was there?

That bit he said when Crowley mentioned tempests is definitely from the Revelations. I unfortunately don't know enough about the Revelations to draw any new conclusions from this. I know they deal with the apocalypse and the antichrist, but that was S1 stuff so there must be something else...

(That bit definitely sounded like Rapture stuff though, just saying)

Lotta talk about people coming back from the dead, here. It's doing little to dissuade me from my idea that this is all related to the second coming. Their "little" miracle was strong enough to bring 25 people back? Okay. How did Gabriel add his own power to it... and who did he bring back? (Does 1 Jesus = 25 normal people?)

...Okay yeah I just googled it and the second coming (and the rapture) is definitely in Revelations. Apparently the appearance of the antichrist is its herald. *insert 'oh yeah it's all coming together' gif here*

...

Several-hours later addition: When they were talking about gravity Gabriel seemed upset that the book didn't stay where it was put, "it goes down." And that flies go up.

...did he "go down," turning into a human, and is Beelzebub "going up," and that's why they're so worried about finding Gabriel? Figure out what happened to him, so it doesn't happen to them as well? Hmm...

Episode 4:

"The rumors that you two are an item..." Yeah holy fuck they're actually doing this. I don't know why it keeps catching me by surprise??? I guess it's not like, the forefront of the plot, so every time it comes to the front it feels a bit like a new thing, but still.

Aziraphale's smug fucking little eyebrow raise at that "I didn't think you were his type." He's like yeah, and what do you know, hm?

Did not expect the entire episode to be backstory, but that was very cute, especially given how much people fixated on the church scene in S1. That little showcase of their trust, both of them worried it'll go wrong but still willing to try because they feel safe with each other. I like that they managed to keep the tension of the setting, that "I'm pointing a gun at my best friend and this could go horribly wrong" feeling, even when it's well-established that the worst that could happen is paperwork.

Also, Crowley trying really, really hard to give Aziraphale positive feedback on his magic tricks even when he knows they suck. That's true love, right there.

Another showcase of people coming back from the dead. We've had the kids getting "brought back" from shape-shifting, the "resurrectionists" digging up dead bodies, and now actual honest-to-god zombies. I am Sensing A Theme.

...are the zombies still around? What's-is-face the demon did say eternal undeath...

Aaaaaand there's going to be an army of demons dropping in on the local business association meeting. I hope Aziraphale has enough tea cakes for everyone.

Episode 5:

SEAMSTRESSES SHOUTOUT ITS A FUCKING DISCWORLD REFERENCE

I know most people are probably going wild over the Dr. Who references but. It's the seamstresses guild...

I'm sure Mrs. Sandwich and Rosie Palm would get along famously.

In other news wow they're just being blatant about the ineffableness of these husbands now, aren't they? The great thing about that is I'm watching it with my parents and I don't think either of them have clicked that it's going canon - like, they're just interpreting it as a running bit, 'haha isn't it funny that everyone keeps mistaking them as a couple' kind of thing. The same thing happened when I showed them OFMD, neither of them realized Ed and Stede were actually going to be a real canon thing until the kiss. I mean, maybe they've worked out that this is going somewhere by now? But I don't want to ask in case they haven't, because I'd love to see their reaction if it blindsides them.

I am Not Normal about the dancing. Aziraphale's giddy little grin when he drags Crowley to the floor? The fucking. Hand presses. I've probably read too much Jane Austen if I'm going this insane about them just pressing their palms together.

And just... that whole fucking scene. The amount of queer people - either queercoded or just flat-out obviously queer - is making my heart feel full. When Aziraphale referred to the magic shop owner's partner using 'they' before we met them I thought it was just, you know, being polite, he'd never met them and didn't want to assume, but then they showed up in person and folks were still using they and they were so obviously giving a huge middle finger to gender norms I just-

Man I need to watch more queer shows I love this feeling.

And the army of demons is more of a large crowd but, well, still threatening. I like the use of masks to hide demonic traits, clever costuming detail there.

But. My dudes. Don't split up, what the fuck are you doing? You've been here for all of human history, you know how stories go, surely you know things always go wrong when you split the party??? I love protective!crowley, I do, but my dude taking off to bring this mess to heaven's attention is not the way to go about saving your angel. And Aziraphale, buddy, I don't know what you're planning to summon there but I really don't think it's going to go well.

...Maybe he's planning to teleport himself, Gabriel, and the humans up to heaven, too, to get them away from the demon crowd. It would be funny if Crowley and what's their name, Muriel, step out of the elevator and Aziraphale is just. There already.

(I don't think that's gonna happen though. I think everything is just gonna get Worse)

Anyway sidenote Lottie if you've read this far, when Gabriel started talking about feeling like a house I immediately thought of you, I know that's a theme you like ♡

Episode 6:

Jesus Christ!

(Called it!)

So I got a lot of the details wrong, but I was spot on with my two big predictions from the beginning. (Hey that ending reminded me of OFMD and Supernatural, I've got a great idea, why don't we all blog about the three of them and get them trending together-)

Gotta say, I'd only given a passing thought to Gabriel and Beelzebub being a Thing, their shippers must be going wild.

I knew there was a reason they kept drawing attention to that fly.

*Spots fire extinguishers* "Hey is that a Magnus Archives ref-" *Is brutally murdered with a lead pipe before I can finish*

I actually kind of love that Nina and Maggie didn't get together at the end of it all? I had felt like it was all going a bit too fast for them and I'm so glad they acknowledged that. They've got time, now, to work things out, and I love that they left it with the certainty that they'd be there for each other in the future... but not quite yet.

Oh! Oh! Oh! And they fit in the halos-used-as-lethal-frisbees-sequence! That was fabulous, I want to see more exploding headgear.

...anyway I think that's all the little bits I wanted to mention before getting to the Main Event.

I'm actually... not all that devastated about that ending? Like, okay, my heart was breaking watching it, the miscommunication and assumptions leading to a dramatic separation, it's tragic and angsty and oh my god my ship kissed my first ever ship kissed they did it they did the thing-

But. Two seconds after the credits started rolling my mind was already flying to, "oh thank goodness, they've got a Source On The Inside now and they might actually have a shot at stopping the end of the world instead of, you know, being blindsided by it because no one in heaven or hell is talking to them"

Like, sure, major breakup here, Crowley's gonna be pissed and Aziraphale might have to do their silly little "I'm sorry" dance three or four times before they can actually get down to business, but I don't think there's a question that both of them still trust each other immensely and know they can rely on each other to help out in a pinch. They'll be walking on eggshells for a bit, but it's pretty obvious that Aziraphale wouldn't have taken the promotion if he'd known Crowley wasn't going to come with him and as soon as he manages to properly communicate that fact they'll be fine.

(Sidenote, this, right here, exemplifies the difference between Book!Aziraphale and TV!Aziraphale. Book!Aziraphale is way more cynical about the whole heaven-and-hell system, he'd never say "heaven's still the good guys," and he'd be very, very suspicious of a sudden promotion landing in his lap after such a tumultuous sequence of events. TV!Aziraphale might not be the sweet little innocent bean fandom makes him out to be, but damn is he naive compared to his book counterpart. Makes me wonder how much of the hypothetical sequel has to change to work with this plotline - I'd bet my ass he wasn’t an archangel in that one.)

Can Crowley... hear the soundtrack? "No nightingales" like how does he know that's significant? Sir you are breaking the fourth wall-

(And how powerful is he? He's a nobody in hell but he keeps stopping time and could access classified documents up in heaven, something made his and Aziraphale's miracle blow up and apparently it wasn't Gabriel, and he also just brought a whole ass dude back from the dead??? Maybe those "Crowley is Raphael" theorists from S1 had a point)

Anyway, to cap it all off: my current predictions for S3 are the aforementioned ineffable husbands makeup and subsequent spy shenanigans as they scramble to try to stop Apocalypse 2: Jesus Boogaloo; they fail and Jesus comes back, but instead of following the Great Plan he instead chooses to side with "all of humanity against all of heaven and hell" (maybe Adam shows up too to help out?); and Crowley, despite his repeated protests, actually does end up running a bookshop because he doesn't trust Muriel to do it properly.

I summation, yes I am still alive, and very excited for the next season, whenever it happens. Also I need gifsets of the dance scene and that kiss ASAP please and thank you.

[mtdthoughts]

(Rough) Script of Migi & Dali Sequel Manga

Harta, the magazine that serialized Migi & Dali, released in its 110th issue (Dec 2023) a short booklet containing some artwork from Migi & Dali as well as a short 4-page sequel manga that takes place after the final chapter of the manga or final episode of the anime.

I won't be putting up the manga in this post, but if you look hard enough I'm sure you'll be able to find it somewhere. It was a fun read, and here I'll put a translated script of what happens and what is said, which includes some of my own observations and notes.

Of course, *spoiler warning* below.

PAGE 1

Migi is at his desk writing a letter to Dali, and is struggling as he has already trashed several drafts. He has the same haircut at the end of the story and is wearing a hoodie. Also, some of his artwork is on display. The window is open, and it is a bit windy, and leaves can be seen falling. It's likely that this manga takes place during the fall/autumn.

First letter: To Dali: Dear Dali, How are you doing in this season when potatoes are delicious? (*Note: This might be a mistranslation as Migi likely introduced grammatical errors. Regardless, this can be roughly interpreted as a "How are you doing?" to Dali. The potato remark is consistent with the earlier observation that the manga takes place during autumn.)

Second letter: To the arrogant jerk: Hey! Why haven't you written to me in half a year!? (*Note: This manga likely takes place roughly six months after Dali left in March 1993, which is consistent with the earlier observation that it takes place in autumn.)

Third letter(?): I'm lonely. (*Note: He writes "さびしい" or "sabishii" which could be interpreted as "I miss you" or "I'm lonely because you're not here." It's pretty sweet that despite being confident that their hearts were always connected, Migi still wants to see Dali and misses him, even though Migi was the one who stayed behind with his friends and family. I guess Dali was more confident than Migi about the claim they've made.)

Migi is visibly frustrated with his tongue out, leaning back while ripping up the letter. Migi: "Agh I can't get it out!!" (*Note: It's funny how surprisingly shy Migi is when it comes to just writing a letter to his brother)

Migi notices something. Migi: "Huh?"

PAGE 2

Sardine is at the door. Migi: "What is it Beast? There aren't any sardines here."

Migi has an idea. Migi: "Ah."

Cuts to Dali's dormitory. His roommate(?) comes in with a letter in his hand. Dali is reading a book which seems to be titled "ふたりの証拠" (roughly translated as "The Proof of Two People") Roommate: "Dali, there's a letter for you." Dali: "!"

Dali has the letter in his hand. Dali has the same hairstyle at the end of the story and is wearing glasses and his school uniform. Dali: "Huh?"

The envelope says: "From: Golden Beast"

PAGE 3

Dali reads the letter with a warm smile on his face, knowing it's from Migi and is able to read Migi's feelings through this coded language. The letter says: Dear sir: It's the season for delicious sardines right now! That's right, it's me, Sardine! Are you doing well? My hair is still soft and fluffy! Well, now that you're gone, the house is a bit emptier now… (*Note: There is a wet spot and is labeled by Migi as dog drool. I wonder if it's actually dog drool.)

Cuts back to the Sonoyama house. The phone rings. Youko: "Hello?"

Youko answers the phone. Youko: "Oh, Dali!? How have you been!? Uh huh… uh huh. How about I put Migi on the phone for now… huh?"

Youko looks surprised. Youko: "You want to talk to Sardine!?"

PAGE 4

Youko puts the phone over Sardine. Dali: "How have you been, Beast?" (*Note: It's funny and heartwarming to see Dali indulging Migi's silliness by playing along with his Sardine act)

Migi suddenly appears, kneeling and with his hand over Sardine's mouth, and pretends to be Sardine. He is now wearing a sweater and has a playful look on his face. Migi: "Woof!" (*My interpretation: "Great!")

Dali responds. Dali: "I see, I see. You aren't causing any trouble for Mom and Dad, are you?" (*Note: it's heartwarming to see Dali acknowledge the Sonoyamas as his parents)

Migi answers, with another playful look on his face. Migi: "Ahnn!" (*My interpretation: "No!")

Dali answers, and Migi continues to answer like a dog. Dali: "I see, I see." Migi: *More dog noises and panting* (*Note: I have no idea how to interpret this. I guess Migi's conveying his joy and excitement at talking to Dali)

Dali, who clearly knows he's talking to Migi, reciprocates Migi's feelings by saying that he misses Migi too. Migi is surprised, and his eyes are wide open. Dali: "I miss you too, Migi." (*Note: He uses "会いたい" which can be translated to, "I REALLY miss you" or "I want to meet/see you." Given his use of "too," Dali knows that the feeling is mutual. Migi seems to be surprised that Dali not only has completely read his feelings but also stated his own feelings directly over the phone. This isn't surprising to me since Dali was always perceptive, especially to Migi, and this shows that Dali has always been and still is the big bro)

The whole Sonoyama family is here, including Osamu and Fidelite. Osamu smiles and Youko chuckles, while Migi is frozen, visibly flustered and blushing. Sardine: "Woof!" (*Note: It's pretty cute that Migi gets bashful when it comes to his brother, like he was with Sali. This goes to show that Migi has always been and still is the little bro.)

Final thoughts: It was very heartwarming to see that even though the twins were confident that they would remain connected even when apart, they still craved interaction and company from each other, which shows that their love hasn't waned one bit.

It was interesting to see the differences in how the twins conveyed their feelings, and it really highlights the older/younger brother dynamic. Migi is the first to convey these emotions, albeit in a bit of an awkward and indirect way by pretending to be Sardine. He also chose a letter maybe because he felt a bit insecure or awkward about saying "I miss you" to Dali and perhaps was afraid of being seen as a baby. Meanwhile, Dali is more reserved but clearly feels the same way as Migi given his reaction to the letter, and is able to return these feelings directly to him via phone. Unlike Migi, Dali has no fear or shame whatsoever and is far more confident in conveying his feelings to him.

Hopefully, Dali will actually come home sometime, maybe during Christmas for example. That'd be something that I would love to see written, drawn, and/or animated.