#ii. setting : default.

[stephantom]

I’d need to watch it again to confirm this, but I’m pretty sure that Thomas Becket is the only character who independently initiates touch with Henry?

There are plenty of people whom Henry touches, and it’s almost always possessive or threatening: the villager woman in the first flashback scene, the Saxon peasant girl (and possibly the old man? I think he prods at both of them with his riding crop), Gwendolen (holding her shoulders/neck), the French prostitute (kissing, leaning over, sitting on, slapping her butt), his sons (pushing and kicking them), the bishop (strangling), his barons (clutching onto one, tapping one’s head to indicate his vapidness), and Thomas too—(clasping his shoulders when he realizes Thomas is hurt, holding his hand to put on the chancellor ring).

Interestingly, I don’t think we ever see Henry touch or be touched by his mother or his wife. There’s the moment when he grabs/kicks their needlework, and later on he knocks all the plates off the table, possibly vaguely in their direction—so there are two physical interactions which are violent but still sort of… distant? And still the direction is just Henry to them (in terms of physicality, anyway—verbally, they do initiate conversations/fights with him).

Does anyone touch Henry? There are the monks who whip him in the end, but Henry has ordered them to do it. Likewise, there’s the servant/valet/page who begins to wipe him dry in the bath scene, but again, that’s someone performing a duty. Thomas Becket though, cuts in and takes over the drying, and the dialogue tells us explicitly that he’s not expected to do this, and doesn’t have to (“You’re a nobleman—why do you play at being my valet?”) but Becket seemingly wants to do it, and he knows Henry likes how he does it: enthusiastically, confidently, warmly, and freely (“No one does it like you, Thomas”). He towels Henry’s head, helps Henry put on his boots, and then casually uses Henry’s legs to push himself up to stand.

There’s the scene in Henry’s tent, after the French prostitute has left and the two of them are sitting on the bed: Becket sort of leans in and briefly clasps Henry’s arm where it’s lying in his lap, casually and warmly.

There’s also the getaway horse ride, where Becket is holding onto Henry, arms wrapped around him, and they’re both laughing and smiling. Henry’s shirt actually falls open a little and Becket’s hand winds up on his bare torso.

And then there are the thwarted attempts at touch, after the split: the two scenes where Henry accuses Becket of not loving him. Both times, Becket moves toward Henry and reaches out to touch him, and both times, Henry moves away and tells him to keep his distance.

They’re quick little things, but if they are actually the only instances of anyone touching Henry affectionately (or even of their own volition) that we see over the course of the movie, it does support an impression of Henry as fundamentally isolated—maybe there is truth to his claim that Becket is the only person who’s ever loved him.

What’s tragic is that 1) Henry doesn’t really know how to express love himself (see: Henry expressing nothing but violence and entitlement to everyone else around him, and even to Becket for the most part), and 2) Becket’s love, albeit huge in Henry’s world, is conflicted and unfulfilling—for both of them.

Becket might be the only person who’s dared to reach out to Henry and meet him on something close to a human level, and Henry loves him for it, but why does Becket do it? Part of it may just be an instinct of Becket’s to fulfill a need where he sees one, if he can, and if it benefits him. I think it’s so interesting that Henry seems obsessed with the question of whether Thomas really loves him, when it seems the truth might be that Thomas actually doesn’t know; maybe it’s an unanswerable, even nonsensical question to him. Like, what else could he do? I don’t know. “Insofar as I was capable of love, yes I did [love you].” But the fact that his last words, unwitnessed and private, are, “Poor Henry.” Fuck me up.

Ok, that last paragraph got away from me and now I can’t stop. Tempted to draw comparisons to “Beauty and the Beast” (this is a sad version where no magical transformation happens… unless you take a particular Catholic stance and consider that both of them maybe took real solace and meaning in Thomas being made a saint and that Henry maybe found real absolution through his penance).

I also want to compare all of this to “The Lion in Winter”, where it feels like, rather than a story about one lonely monster in a castle full of people he sees as objects, it’s a whole microcosm of traumatized and power-hungry people, reaching out for power and security and love and stabbing each other in the back, over and over. (Like, of course his mother and wife and kids have complex feelings for him—some of which involve love!) I think that depiction is better and less myopic, more true to life and probably a more accurate portrait of the historical figures involved (even when it comes to Henry and Becket—Becket was of that world too, after all), but I think I’ve rambled enough about all of this, so I’m going to end this post now. I’ll just say that there’s something nevertheless appealing about the boiled-down fairytale melodrama of “no one else ever loved me but you!”

[thanksvideogames]

Quick Octopath Traveler 2 PSA: the description for one of the warrior skills, Enervating Slash, is currently incorrect

.

while the game says that the skill is supposed to nullify all positive status effects on a single foe, the reality is that opposite is true. the damage of this skill scales off of the amount of positive status effects of the user. In the first clip of this video, Hikari uses the skill against an enemy with a defence buff, yet their status effects do not nullify like the game says it should. compare this to the second clip, where Hikari does more damage despite none of his buffs enhancing physical damage. also note that all said buffs disappear following the attack.

It seems that this not a case of mistranslation, but an error of text also existent in the Japanese version of the game as well.

Enervating Slash has the potential to do more damage than Hikari’s ultimate skill, so hopefully a patch will soon be released that corrects this mistake.

[virtualtadpole]

A BL viewer's guide to Thai school uniforms

(This is an older one, originally posted at Reddit in 2022, but it should still be accurate. Hope you'll find it useful, as uniforms in Thai shows often provide context that international viewers might not recognize.)

To begin, here's a summary of the Thai school system. There are twelve years of basic education (after kindergarten): six years of primary school (prathom or P.1-6), and six years of secondary school (mathayom or M.1-6), the latter of which is divided into three lower and three upper years. The age range roughly corresponds to the US system, so the years P.1-6 will often be translated as grades 1-6 and M.1-6 as grades 7-12. Most stories set in school will take place during the upper secondary years, which is often translated as high school (though this is rather approximate as it spans three years rather than four). Students typically enter M.4 aged 15 going on 16, and graduate at the age of 18 (or nearing it).

School uniforms are almost universally compulsory, used by all but a few alternative schools (university will be discussed further below). They mostly follow a very distinctive form, which has barely changed since the end of World War II, as there's a default format that's mandated by law and followed by most schools (though schools may elect to specify their own style of uniform). There are official industrial standards that govern the material, thread count, etc. of student uniforms that can be sold, and an entire industry is built around them.

For boys, the (default style) uniform is mostly the same across all levels, and consists of a white short-sleeved button-up shirt, shorts (in either black, royal blue, navy, or khaki), a belt (brown or black), socks and shoes (brown with khaki shorts, white socks and black shoes otherwise). The shirt will have the letters of the school's abbreviated name embroidered at the right chest, in red for private schools, and navy for government schools. It's common for schools to also require student IDs or names be included likewise. In many schools, the upper-secondary uniform will also include the school insignia/logo as a metal badge pinned above the school's initials, or also embroidered.

The colours of the shorts typically reflect the school's status. Private schools will normally use blue or (less often) black, while government schools will use black or (less often) khaki, with very few exceptions. Navy is quite rare, mostly used by certain schools with historical royal connections. This colour-coding serves as a rather convenient tool for series creators to convey the social background of the characters. Blue shorts signify that they go to a private, presumably expensive school. Black is the default that tells the viewer that it's a regular, average school. Khaki shorts used to be the default long ago but have declined in use, and are now mostly seen as belonging to rural or temple schools (though there are also some famous schools that use them). You'll rarely see them in TV or film, unless the creators are purposely saying that the setting is rural, poor, or retro.

Let's look at some examples.

The school uniform in Bad Buddy is pretty much the bare minimum, with just the school's abbreviated name and no pin or ID. With black shorts and navy lettering, it's clearly meant to be a regular government school (though TBH the filming location doesn't really fit). The dot on the collar is a symbol used by some schools to indicate the year the student is in, based on the number of dots. One dot would mean they're in the first year of either lower or upper secondary, which might be differentiated based on colour, shape, or being on the left or right side. Here, Pran is clearly not 12/13 years old, so the year must be M.4.

In The Yearbook, the school uniform also includes the students' ID in Thai numerals below the school name, also quite a common thing. The navy lettering and the black shorts indicate that it's a government school, and the filming location and the teacher wearing the civil service uniform also hint that it's a rather provincial setting. The haircuts of the characters are also more realistic, as schools usually require a short tapered cut for boys.

The characters in 'Cause You're My Boy also attend a government school, in line with the working-class background. Mork is in upper-secondary, so his uniform as the school symbol embroidered above the lettering, while Gord and Morn's, who are in lower-secondary, don't.

Another example of a government school uniform with black shorts is found in Dew. This school also has the student's name embroidered over the shirt pocket. Dew's oversized shirt and long baggy shorts reflect the fashion trends of 1996, when this part of the story is set.

On the other hand, Hormones follows middle-/upper-middle- class kids at a private school. The uniform was directly copied from that of Assumption College Thonburi (ACT), where the series was filmed (so that its students could blend in as extras). As a private school, the lettering is in red, and the student IDs are in Hindu-Arabic numerals. As in the above example, the stars on the collar indicate the student's year (here, dots are used for lower-secondary and stars for upper). Also note the belt buckle with the school logo, which tends to be seen with fancier schools.

The uniforms in Love Sick are also copied from real life, though this was done not for production convenience, but to pay tribute to the source novel, which was inspired by student life at Assumption College (AC), one of the country's oldest boys' schools (AC and ACT both belong to a network of schools operated by the Catholic Church, hence their names). The novel's full title, Love Sick: The Chaotic Lives of Blue Shorts Guys, reflects its focus on the inside world of the school, of which it paints a semi-imaginary image that makes multiple references to actual teachers, locations and customs, stopping short only of referring to the school by name. This is toned down in the series, though the coat of arms and uniform are nearly direct copies of AC's, minus the belt buckle (which was a relatively recent addition and not part of the uniform when the novel was being written).

Notice how Noh's school badge is pinned on the corner of the shirt pocket just like baby Peak and Ohm's real-life AC uniform, which is unique to the school. (Beam is a junior of Peak and Ohm's by a year, and was probably in M.3 when the photo was taken, so didn't wear a badge.) The school also requires leather shoes, unlike most schools which allow either leather or canvas shoes (in which case almost everyone will wear canvas shoes).

As mentioned in my previous post, the current trend of students having their school uniform shorts modified to be very short probably originated with AC students, and spread more widely from the late 2000s. Naturally, the style is shown in Love Sick, though this is also generally well represented in BL media.

Make It Right, by the creators of Love Sick, used the same style for its student uniform, except the shoes (though pinning the badge at the shirt pocket didn't really make sense now that it wasn't meant to refer AC's real-life uniqueness). It's also a bit strange seeing student IDs running into the 60000s, as even the oldest real-life schools don't have numbers that high.

The use of blue-shorts school uniforms to signify wealthy characters/environments is a pretty common trope in BL (and also Thai series more generally). It's also seen in 7 Project, in a more typical appearance with the pin in the usual location, and the student's name over the shirt pocket.

In My Gear and Your Gown, the uniform (quite unusually for private schools) doesn't have any lettering other than the school's initials. It's most likely a cost-saving measure by the costume department, sacrificing a bit of realism to avoid the need to create individualized outfits for every character (though it does use leather shoes).

The uniform in My Dear Loser: Edge of 17 is rather confusing. It's clearly meant to be a private school, given the blue shorts, but this is contradicted by the navy lettering on the shirt. Looks like a mistake, unless it was a deliberate choice to introduce some sort of ambiguity (though this is unlikely, and even most Thai viewers probably won't notice anyway).

In Only Boo!, Moo originally goes to a private school with a blue-shorts uniform, but is sent away as punishment for neglecting his studies. His new uniform, with khaki shorts, emphasizes the provincial nature of the school.

Often, different-coloured uniforms will be used to contrast the characters' backgrounds. This goes back to The Love of Siam, where the blue shorts and leather shoes of Mew's school uniform reinforce its presentation as a Catholic school (and closely echoes AC, which also served as the school's filming location), while Tong's black-shorts uniform may have been a reference to Bangkok Christian College, a nearby school popularly seen as a rival of AC's. BCC is one of the better known private schools to use a uniform with black shorts, and The Love of Siam is one of the less common examples of this. (Note again the school badge, which isn't worn by some of the members of Mew's band, indicating that they're in lower-secondary.)

The colour contrast is also used in Love's Coming, though it doesn't really convey any significant background.

Somewhat amusingly, creators don't always try to be particularly creative with the school name abbreviations, and they will often be that of the production company's name. So here we have ม.ม. and ม.ม.ป. - MM and MMP for Mungmee Production. Above, there's จ.ท.ว. - GTV (GMMTV) in My Dear Loser, ค.ซ.ม. - CSM (Cosocomo) in Make It Right, and น.ด.บ. - NDB (Nadao Bangkok) for Hormones, the last of which is also the actual in-story name of the school.

I Told Sunset About You uses a very unusual colour pairing: Navy and Khaki. Oh-aew's school (and Teh's formerly) is private, while Teh's is the province's main government school. The colour choices are mainly aesthetic - while some main provincial schools do use khaki shorts (and private schools navy), they are quite uncommon. White shoes worn with the regular student uniform is also practically unheard of (they're usually for PE uniforms - more on these below).

Note also how the year-indicating dots above the school initials are differentiated by colour: navy for lower secondary, red for upper. So when Teh shows up at his old school wearing a uniform with three navy dots, that's him squeezing into his old uniform from M.3 to sneak into the school.

Sometimes actual existing schools serve as the setting of a work, and its uniform is used. For example, My Bromance (2014) is set at Wachirawit School in Chiang Mai and uses its uniform.

The Best Story likewise takes place at the Demonstration School of Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University. Demonstration or "Satit" schools are pretty much a class of their own. While they're technically government schools, they're operated by universities for their teacher training programmes, and have a higher degree of freedom in their operations. They also often have uniforms that don't follow the usual format, with no school name on the shirt. This is the case with Satit Suansunandha, which has its logo embroidered on the shirt pocket and pinned above the student's name instead.

Some Satit schools also use an unusual colour, charcoal grey, for their uniform shorts. This is seen with Praram's uniform in EN of Love: This Is Love Story, indicating that his school is attached to the university. Having just the student's name and no school initials isn't unusual in this case (though not having any logo at all kind of is).

On the other hand, the lack of any embroidered lettering at all, like in The Shipper, is very unusual. In real life this is unique to Triam Udom Suksa School, which is commonly regarded as the country's top school. GMMTV previously did this in The Gifted, which kind of made sense as it conveyed that the school was unique and special, but this isn't true for The Shipper, so the stylistic choice seems a bit lazy.

This is also the case with 55:15 Never Too Late. Even stranger is the uniform from Nanon's storyline, which has khaki shorts signifying a provincial setting but the top is just a plain shirt with no markings or pin at all. It looks rather like an error in the production process that they had to roll with due to some limitation.

Girls' uniforms are much more varied, as private schools follow a variety of different styles. The standard style is mostly only used by government schools. For the upper-secondary level, it's a white button-up shirt (or blouse? I'm not sure of the terminology) with short sleeves that are pleated at the cuff, a navy (or, uncommonly, black) skirt with three pairs of wide pleats at the front and back, a black belt, white socks and black strapped shoes. The shirt will have the same markings as the boys' uniform. We see Pa wearing this in Bad Buddy (and also Tarn in the ITSAY pic above). Note that they made a mistake with her collar dot, as she was in M.6 in this scene and should have had three dots instead of one. (The same mistake happens with the younger music club students in episode 10. I guess the costume department just created one style based on the main characters and forgot to factor in the others.)

I won't attempt to list examples of all girls' uniforms here, as they're harder to keep track of in BL, but if it's a high-school setting and you see a different style of uniform than the above, it should be quite safe to assume it's a private school (especially if it's long-sleeved, with a necktie, or a blue, red or other brightly coloured skirt, like in the 7 Project example above), or a Satit school.

International schools usually have a different style of uniform altogether. They may be variably coloured, use shorts or trousers, include neckties, and the shirts won't have the usual lettering but commonly feature the school logo. Girls' skirts will commonly have a plaid/tartan pattern. Bilingual schools - private schools featuring a bilingual curriculum, with mainly Thai students - will also often use this style of uniform to some extent. We see it in Brothers, where the setting is supposed to be an international school.

While schools may have a full uniform with blazers and all, they'd only be used on special occasions. If characters wear them on a regular basis, it probably signifies a fantasy setting, or one somewhat removed from real life. This is fully utilized in Great Men Academy, which is as fantasy as you can get with magical wish-granting unicorns.

A similar effect is achieved with sweater vests, as seen in Second Chance. However, this is to emulate the Japanese/Korean uniform style, giving the show something of a J-/K-drama aesthetic while moving it away from the grounded reality of Thailand.

Sometimes, as in Friend Forever, a novel style is created that doesn't really carry any inherent meaning but is presumably done mainly for aesthetic reasons.

In real life, the standard-style boys' uniform (with embroidered lettering) may also use trousers, but this is only done in Islamic schools and the vocational education system, which are pretty much outside the realm of BL stories, so you won't likely come across them. (Update: This is no longer true with the existence of Don't Touch My Gang, but it didn't feature regular uniform, only the workshop shirt, which is covered below.)

Apart from the standard school uniform, most schools will also have a PE uniform, used on days with PE (gym) class, typically once a week for upper-secondary students. These aren't legally regulated, so they come in a large variety of styles, though many government schools will follow the same basic style of a coloured polo shirt made with a woven fabric, usually with the school logo on the pocket. We see Teh wearing this (though with the school initials instead of a logo) in ITSAY, with his usual uniform shorts. Most schools will have students wear the PE top from home and change into the PE bottom (typically sweatpants) just for PE class. Don't expect to see school showers, though, as they're not done in Thailand. Different classes mostly have PE on different days, and in meticulously written shows like ITSAY, where everything fits into the calendar, you can tell the day of the week from the PE uniform (it's Monday if you see Teh in his blue PE top).

As mentioned above, white canvas shoes may be required for PE uniforms, as seen again in The Love of Siam. This is mostly a feature of girls' uniforms, though, as boys' uniforms will more often use the shoes that are already part of their regular uniform, but schools which normally use leather shoes are a natural exception. However, they will more typically have students wear white shoes from home together with the PE top rather than change shoes at school like Mew apparently does. The shirt style here, a custom-patterned polo shirt with a knitted fabric, is also common.

We see another example of the style in Dew. Except for shoe colour, PE uniforms are usually identical for boys and girls.

Since there aren't actual limitations to PE uniform designs even in real life, creators sometimes have a field day with them. In Make It Right, the PE uniform is quite obviously a piece of fan service. (There are real-life schools that do use shorts, though they're not quite that short.)

Another uniform you might encounter is the Territorial Defence Student uniform. In Thailand, men face military conscription at age 21, upon which they will have to draw a lottery to determine whether they must enlist for two years. But there's an alternative to that. By completing three years of military training as Territorial Defence Students (often referred to as ร.ด. - Ror Dor (R.D.)), which is offered to upper-secondary school students, one avoids the need to face the lottery completely. Naturally, most middle-class boys will take the training. It takes half a day a week for 20 weeks each year (which is half the school year), plus up to a week of field training around January-February. For the weekly training days, if the session is in the afternoon, school will typically have only morning classes.

The need to attend Ror Dor is probably the most universally hated aspect of high school life for Thai boys, not because of the training itself, which is hardly intensive at all, but because of the military haircut requirements. Naturally this is never portrayed realistically, and many works ignore the existence of Ror Dor altogether. What's kind of funny is that the above storyline concerns Tee needing a haircut to pass Ror Dor inspection, but none of the characters except Mork come anywhere close.

The Ror Dor uniform is a khaki green combat uniform, with the student's name on the right chest and the school patch on the right arm. The Thai numeral on the left collar indicates the student's year. Here, it's ๒ (2), indicating that they're in the second year of training, which means M.5. The green T-shirt worn underneath is often worn casually by some.

In stories that go down to the lower-secondary or primary years, you may also see the Boy Scout uniform. In most schools, participation is mandatory for students up to M.3, and takes place once a week. Here in The Love of Siam, we see young Tong in the Scout uniform, indicating that he's in primary school, while Eiw and Cake in My Only 12% are wearing the Senior Scout uniform (with the maroon shoulder boards) of lower-secondary students.

That's pretty much everything regarding school uniforms, I think. Onto university...

In Thailand, universities have uniforms for undergraduate students. Unlike school uniforms, which are very specific, university uniforms are more loosely defined. In most cases they will be a white dress shirt and black (or navy) slacks for males, with black dress shoes, and a necktie and a belt buckle bearing the university symbol. For females, it's usually a white shirt/blouse with the university symbol pin, a black (or navy) skirt, shoes, and also a belt buckle bearing the university symbol. Some universities will also have metal buttons with the university symbol that have to be attached to the shirt.

While most universities will have defined uniforms, in practice, the requirements vary across universities (and across faculties within the same university). Many require that uniforms be worn for attendance of all classes, but some don't, and expect them only on exam days or special occasions. Strictness and adherence also varies. Often, people won't bother with the belt buckle, sneakers may be allowed (or turned a blind eye to), and jeans may even be permissible. This gives creators more leeway in designing the costumes to a varied visual effect.

In the above scene from Bad Buddy, Pran's upright collar (GMMTV does seem to like these, though I don't quite recall seeing them in real life), Wai's short sleeves (some universities officially have them as a uniform option, some don't), Safe's jacket (which is totally normal, by the way - they do blast the aircon in some lecture halls) and Louis's workshop shirt (more on this below) combine to provide visual contrast. The costume design is also often used for characterization. In Love by Chance, the timid and deferential Pete always wears his necktie, while the brasher Ae is never seen with it, nor does his shirt ever seem to be tucked in. (Untucked shirts are also used for characterization with school uniforms, though it's pretty much the only option.)

Even where uniforms are more strictly enforced, the necktie is usually not worn outside of formal occasions. Some universities have a tradition of requiring them only for freshmen, and similarly female freshmen may be required to wear below-knee accordion-pleated skirts (and for some universities, white shoes) for the entire first year. All of this is shown in SOTUS, as the entire series revolves around these hazing traditions. As freshmen, M and May wear the full university uniform (May with pleated skirt), while the sophomores are seen wearing pencil/mini-skirts and jeans with no necktie. The necktie doesn't have a printed logo, though it's attached as a tie pin - some schools do this. (Quite a lot of series, however, don't bother with having any sort of logo on the tie or belt buckle at all, which is a bit unrealistic, but in some cases could be explained away by the above-mentioned variability in strictness.)

Also famously depicted in SOTUS is the workshop shirt/smock/overshirt, which isn't really an official uniform, but a protective garment meant for practical classes. In some schools, there's been considerable drama over their use, as students often use it as a cover for casual clothing instead of wearing the regular uniform, which the staff disapproves. As so many series show, it's indeed quite commonly seen as an engineering-school symbol.

And that's pretty much all I can think of. If you've made it this far, thanks and congratulations! :p Let me know if I've forgotten anything.

[flokali]

𓂆 | Write for Gaza

. . . . .

𓄷 Note: As a member of the Palestinian diaspora, I feel like this is the least I could do to help my people back in our beloved homeland. After 76 years of silence from the world, please do not look away and do not keep quiet – you can make a difference, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Due to the nature of the blog, I ask that you be at least 18 years old before requesting or interacting.

You can use the following links to pick a fundraiser of your choice to donate to: palestinescharitycomissionassoc, palestinian-fundraising, Hussein’s Masterpost and GazaFunds.

𓄷 Rules:

i. Take the time to read the post carefully and decide if you wish to participate. Pick a fundraiser from the list and make a donation considering the prices mentioned below, you are tasked with calculating the donation cost and what it translates to. For requests, make sure to check if there are slots available as I will only be able to take a small number at a time.

ii. Once you have made a donation to a vetted fundraiser, take a screenshot and blur out any identifiable/private information. The screenshot will be necessary for verification.

iii. Reach out to me via ask or DM with the screenshot of your donation, you can specify what it is you want to either [Sponsor a WIP] or [Make a Request] – slots can be reserved for MaR for up to five business days, please tell me if you wish to remain anonymous or not.

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v. Donations made to “Khaled and His Family” will be prioritised.

𓄷 Sponsor a WIP:

𓂃 $1 USD equals to 100-150 words; therefore, 500 words is $5 USD and so on.

𓂃 If you want to ask for smut to be added to a fic (all the included WIP have space for smut) , that’s an additional $10 USD and will be asked for only once; if the “Smut Fee” is paid, the word count will increase by default of 500-1000 words, additional words by the original donator will be added to the $10. If the SF has been paid, it will be noted in the post and won’t be required to be paid for the same WIP again.

[If the SF is paid and the donor wants 1.5k words added, they’ll have to add $5, making the total $15].

𓂃 All WIPs have a goal of a minimum of 3k words, the word count will be updated as well as an estimate for the final count – however, it may increase if necessary.

. . .

𓄷 Make a request:

𓂃 $1 USD equals to 100-150 words; therefore, 500 words is $5 USD and so on.

𓂃 For reactions: each additional character is $0.25 USD (¢25) maximum amount of characters is 6 ($1.25 USD). The first character is not charged.

[A request for three characters and 1k words would total $11 USD ; Example: “How would Kaeya, Diluc and Albedo react to a Reader who is cold?” + “1k words” *A request for a one shot does not have the “Additional Character Fee”]

— Available slots for requests: 1

More information down below;

𓄷 WIP

—#๋࣭. I love you, I Own you ; Part 3

Final part to the “ILYIOY” series, meant to tie up the story and finish telling what happens to Reader’s family, Reader herself, and Childe’s feelings about what he’s done.

Current word count: 600~ words • Estimated word count: 9k words

Sponsored:

—#๋࣭. Deus Vult ; Reworked (Part 1)

A complete rewriting and restructuring of my first fic on the blog, it’ll be longer and more thorough; after almost 2 years on the blog, if not more, I have mulled over the concept many times and wished to redo it and give it a proper setting.

Current word count: 500~ words • Estimated word count: 6-9k words

—#๋࣭. Love Virus

Boothill fic where a pesky USB with a “love code” gets mistakenly used on him, as the doctor/programmer in charge with overseeing this mess – you find yourself the target of his newfound affection.

Current word count: 1,700~ words • Estimated word count: 6k words

Sponsored:

—#๋࣭. 777

You’re one of the last remaining people of your species, now seen as a luxury to be passed around to the highest bidder. In a twist of fate, Aventurine finds himself with the key – or price – to your freedom, although he never fancied himself a hero he doesn’t mind the way you look at him as your saviour.

Current word count: 1200~ words • Estimated word count: 6k word.

Sponsored: NSFW paid + 1k (700 left) words — Remaining 4k~ words ; estimated.

𓄷 Make a Requests :

—#๋࣭. I will write: yandere, non/dub con, most kinks, death, cnc, gore, cheating, peggings, dom/sub, etc. We can discuss more through message but I’m not open to debating on anything that is specified below;

—#๋࣭. I won’t write: Underage characters, bodily fluids (mainly piss nd scat), cxc, necrophilia, beastiality, unhygienic, vore, ddlg, etc.

. . .

—#๋࣭. Fandoms: Genshin Impact, Star Rail, DoL, Spy x Family, Tears of Themis, Enstars, Love and Deepspace, Wuthering Heights, Twisted Wonderland, Persona 5, Fire Emblem 3 Houses, Ikemen Villains, Identity V, A Date with Death, Chainsaw Man, Haikyuu!!, and What in Hell is bad?

* I’ll also accept unique OC’s made just for the request that you will be able to request for again in the future.

[chocodile]

Amaranthine Magic System PART I: Remedial Magic For Beginners

This is Part III of a three-part worldbuilding set.

Part I (you are here) - Part II - Part III

Okay so… weird starting point, but do you remember these jerks from middle school math class? Function graphs! (I hated these things so much) The simplest possible function is a basic straight line, but by modifying the function, the graphed line can distort and take on all sorts of new shapes.

Magic is a lot like that.

The best way to describe spellcasting would be “filtering waves of energy”. Imagine a sine wave, oscillating up and down in a simple, predictable pattern. That is magical energy in its default state. It exists as background radiation throughout the whole world and permeates all living things… though some things conduct magic better or worse than others. (Magic has a lot in common with the electromagnetic spectrum in the real world)

What wizards do when they cast magic is that they amplify and tweak this ambient background energy in just the right way to contort it into a new form (lightning, a shockwave, fire, etc). The core nature of the energy doesn’t really change, but by exaggerating, filtering, and suppressing that oscillating wave in just the right amounts, in just the right places, in just the right order, it can be transformed into something very different than its base form. You could also think of it a bit like a musician playing a wind instrument, modulating the tone by covering and uncovering holes, or a puppetmaster pulling strings of a marionette—you need to deeply understand the physics at play and give each string just the right amount of slack and pull to make it do what you want.

The most common type of magical energy is magic in a neutral, passive state, just sort of existing passively as background radiation. Like the electromagnetic spectrum and gravity, it is deeply intertwined with how life evolved in this world, but also is so innate as to be largely unnoticeable. It is energy without a physical form. However, it can be harnessed and stored, given the right conduit. Under these circumstances it behaves similar to electricity.

Certain types of physical material are better at holding and manipulating magic than others. Substances that hold or amplify magic work because something about their physical molecular structure bends and filters the magic “waves” in a way that “traps” that energy inside of them, or amplifies the frequency of the waves. Nearly all crystalline structures and precious gems have some sort of magic-amplifying capability, with the best ones being highly prized and fetching crazy prices for large, pure specimens. Skilled Old Kingdom wizards could engineer such gemstones into Catalyst Stones, a special type of battery/amplifier that wizards could use to cast spells beyond their normal limits. Gemstones and crystals have been traditionally associated with wizards for this reason. However, they are far from the only material with a magical affinity—just one of the most easily recognizable.

…Additionally, other materials might have the opposite effect. Iron is well-known for its wizard-subduing properties. Simply being in a room with a large piece of iron makes a wizard feel ill and weakens their powers. Iron manacles and chains are commonly used to imprison criminal wizards. Not only do they aggressively drain magic from the air, matter, and flesh around them, they prevent the hand gestures that might allow a weakened mage to do any magical manipulation at all.

Magical energy is distributed throughout the world unevenly. Occasionally, the concentration of magic in an area is so high that the environment itself becomes effectively enchanted. A certain range of mountains might be rich in magical ores that have a subtle effect on how water in the region behaves, causing strangely shaped caves and ridges to form in the region. A woodland might be home to a large number of mushrooms that have adapted to make use of magic as a defense mechanism, causing the glen to disorient travelers who walk through it. Magic is infamous for distorting compass readings, too, forcing travelers to carry protective charms to keep their tools usable.

There are all sorts of weird subtle little things like that that can be caused by high concentrations of magic, and magically concentrated areas often have very unique biodiversity that evolved to make use of that specific environment. Discovering, exploring, studying, and documenting these regions is of great interest to many magical scholars (as well as the state interests sometimes backing them, of course).

Magic can do a lot of weird stuff in Amaranthine, but it isn’t as open-ended as most other types of fantasy magic. Things like turning oneself into a dragon are no more possible than they are in real life (unfortunately for some who may wish otherwise). You can get pretty creative with it, and there are surely techniques yet undiscovered that even Hyden doesn’t know about, but no matter how fancy your spellcasting gets, it’ll always just be “manipulating waves of energy”.

[whetstonefires]

You know I'm realizing one reason you keep seeing mdzs modern AUs where the Jiang parents are alive mainly so they can dramatically fail and betray Wei Wuxian by cutting him off financially--defaulting on his college tuition or formally disowning him etc--isn't just that people want to translate the Burial Mounds II arc into modern terms while keeping Jiang Cheng clean of it.

(Despite the fact that the internal logic of Jiang Cheng's character is largely built around him being a person who would abandon someone he intensely cared about under these specific circumstances.)

It's because it's hard to set up a modern analogue for the way that Jiang Cheng is responsible for Wei Wuxian, as his Sect Leader.

We live in a highly individualistic society. People are trying to write Wei Wuxian Tragically Wronged, and because there's a normative expectation that people in the position of parents will provide you with resources, and certainly won't withdraw them without warning, but no such assumption that people in the position of siblings necessarily owe each other support, making this work in modern setting with Jiang Cheng in his canon role would require a lot of extra work, just to get a less readily resonant result.

But I keep thinking about it. Because something that's getting lost here is, not just the nuances of character and relationship, but like...it's sort of key to the story that cutting Wei Wuxian off was, in fact, Completely Socially Appropriate.

The level on which it was a betrayal is subtle, and deeply cutting. And intensely tied up in the very different opinions each of Jiang Cheng's parents had about what obligations existed in their family wrt Wei Wuxian, and what these meant.

The level on which it was the obvious, normal course of action is blatant. That is to a huge extent why it happens: because Jiang Cheng's instinct to conform is a survival instinct, reinforced by trauma, and Wei Wuxian's choices meant he had no coherently compelling reason not to obey it, and enormous peer pressure to do so.

The fact is that Jiang Cheng was making a reasonable choice, the actual thing 'anyone would do in that situation,' unlike Wei Wuxian and Jin Guangyao's respective wildly warped ideas about what that is.

Wei Wuxian wasn't betrayed by Jiang Sect like your foster parents cutting you off because you're disobedient. Wei Wuxian was betrayed by Jiang Sect like your brother refusing to drop fifty grand to bail you out of jail.

Of course Wei Wuxian tells him not to. And of course the fact that Jiang Cheng already chose in the moment not to pay a cent because Fuck You Wei Ying still stands there glaring, a precedent that can never be taken back.

And then later he's betrayed by Jiang Cheng like your brother cooperating with a police investigation into a manslaughter you really did commit, that's being handled like domestic terrorism. And then like your brother calling the cops on you. And then like your brother helping the cops find where you're hiding.

I'm personally fascinated by the way Jiang Cheng's lifelong resentment for the way Jiang Fengmian reliably bailed Wei Wuxian out of everything informed those decisions to do the normal thing, the way he's reacting against his dead father as well as against Wei Wuxian and the actual situation.

But even without that daddy issues angle, the fact that the person who made that choice was Jiang Cheng, and that it was simultaneously the reasonable appropriate normal upstanding citizen rational thing to do and so shitty Wei Wuxian would be entitled never to forgive it is sort of. The Point.

Of the scenario, and also to a considerable degree of the entire finely tuned narrative construct that is Jiang Cheng.

[moonsaver]

The care Package III

Our production line seems to be having problems. Our users are asked to cooperate as the packages have been mixed and sent to different users who had not ordered for the received false packages. This is a guide in the case our users are unable to, or decide not to, return the package.

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Summary: refer to part 1 here! It contains Dr ratio and Argenti. Part 2 is here with Aventurine and Sunday. This part contains Kafka and Blade!

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The Velvet Package

The package shakes a bit, and then settles quietly. You stare at it for a while, but no other movement seems to take place. After a while, you decide to open it..

The package itself is very neatly tied – it's purple in color and highlighted by silver linings, however, the fanciful ribbons seem amiss.. perhaps it was an overlooked detail?

On the inside is a Kafka, who seems to be enjoying her nap. Users are advised to wait for Kafka to wake up instead of taking the initiative. Some users report a pleasantly humorous experience, while some users report a mysterious and eerie one, if they wake up Kafka by initiative.

Kafka is a very pleasant one! Her Beginner and Intermediate stages do not differ by much. She is conversable, and does not explore her surroundings too much in the absence of User. Beginner Kafka will need a comfortable and relaxed environment – preferably one that has a very lively but slow-going vibe. Beginner Kafka however, may continue to feel distant with the user. Users may level up Kafka from Beginner to Intermediate by spending more time with her, and trying to understand her personal taste, asking opinions, and engaging Kafka in more activities that may deepen your bonds.

Feel free to pick up Kafka however you'd like. But.. the user must also know that Kafka will remember it very well into her Advanced Stage.

Intermediate Kafka is not so different. She may grow more curious, however, and explore her gift box for the default accessories that may have been gifted alongside her. Some users state their experience with Kafka as blissful, and some express their annoyance, as users have stated Kafka may play her Violin Prop 2 whenever she pleases, which is often, and even may do so in the middle of the night. You may try to come to a compromise with Kafka by setting specific time frames for her to play the violin. As for whether she will listen.. that is up to her.

Intermediate Kafka will also interact more personally and frequently with User – especially regarding medias revolving around movies or cosmetics. Kafka is especially helpful if you have a date night. Her skill, Insightful Understanding [II] may help decipher the feelings of those around you, and of yourself. She will often listen to your troubles and try to give meaningful solutions, or a good ear to listen. However – Kafka is also prone to teasing the user regarding some of their choices and feelings, which may lead some users to feel embarrassed. This is simply Kafka trying to deepen her bond with user, so please be open and friendly to her.

Advanced Kafka experiences and brings many changes that users may deem extreme. Kafka at this stage is described to be “close but distant” at the same time. She offers good advice, as her skill, Insightful Understanding levels up from [II] to [III], also giving her a bonus skill of Strategic Fear [II], letting Kafka be able to manipulate others as the user pleases. Kafka also would like to play strategic games more often such as Chess. She is prone to utilising the Toy Gun accessories in a strange manner, and may set up false targets to “practice”. Users are advised to let Kafka do as such, as she will continue regardless of user's satisfaction. Kafka may also go through user's personal belongings and set up many outfit combinations for user, give cosmetic and clothing advice, and help user with their personal taste. However, Kafka herself has very expensive taste, so she may request silk or velvet cloths for her own use. Users are advised to order accessories to please Kafka's demands from our Website, instead.

Users do not usually have to worry about ordering extra accustomed accessories such as Violin Prop 3, Sword Prop 2, etc.. for Advanced Kafka, as she may do it so herself. She will become much more self-sufficient, and may even go as far as to take care of and repair User's belongings aswell. 

Congratulations! Now you have a Kafka. She may grow up to about 5’7-5’8 in height, and will usually lounge around. Users are advised to keep a close eye on Kafka and not let her abuse her skill, Strategic Fear [II], as it may level up to Strategic Fear [IV], and potentially cause legal issues. {Our company has advised our users thoroughly, and whatever issues may follow are not our responsibility. However, if we deem that the User is too morally bankrupt, we may take back Kafka}. Kafka is prone to Loneliness [I] and will often want to spend time with User whenever they are free – but she may not verbalize these feelings, so users are encouraged to set up a routine Kafka can look forward to, such as movie nights, sleepovers, etc.. User may be able to assist Kafka feel less lonely by her Companion Feature – Trailblazer, Blade, Silver Wolf, or Sam may be added and housed alongside her. However, users are cautioned not to let them be alone for too long, lest they end up causing trouble..

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The Black Package

The package is silent for the longest time. However, if it is left for too long, the package will start violently shaking, before bursting open and then staying silent once again.

Inside the package is a tired Blade – he is not comfortable or pleased with his circumstances of being tiny and inside the box.

Users are advised to immediately try and comfort Blade by using the accessories provided – First aid kit Prop 1, Music Box prop 1, Medicine 3, etc..

Beginner Blade may be standoff-ish, and very distant. He will be reluctant to leave his gift box, and interact with the outside environment. Users are advised to place Blade inside his box, and somewhere stable with dim-lighting, with little change and a lot of privacy and quietness. Beginner Blade takes a lot of time to adjust well to his surroundings due to his senses – Sense Enhancement [II], which makes him prone to sensory overstimulation and anxiety easily. He may growl if you try to force him out of his gift box.

Do not pick up Blade. He will not like it. It will increasingly stunt his growth if the user persists and insists on picking up Blade.

Users often complain it is difficult to level up Blade from his Beginner stage to Intermediate stage. We urge our users to be patient with Blade. You may help him by offering him comfort with Music box Prop 1, and converse often with him. Blade does not seem talkative, but he often finds comfort in User's personal daily life. Blade is prone to Loneliness [III], and may immediately delevel if neglected for even a day. Users are advised to keep Blade company for 7-8 hours a day – as long as Blade is within the user's vicinity, he will feel accompanied.

Intermediate Blade will continue his state of stagnancy, but will occasionally show some symptoms of growth – he may take the initiative and ask for User's day, hum along quietly to the Music box, explore his surroundings a bit more, and take a few trinkets of User to keep in his gift box. Depending on how often User may chose to have spent time with Blade, resistance against Loneliness [III] evolves it into Loneliness [I], and Blade will be able to feel more assured and less lonely in times of User's absence. He may also verbalize quiet and short appreciation if user chooses to leave by a small note of assurance in their absence.

Users are cautioned to be well prepared in advance for Advanced Blade. In this Stage, Blade is prone to Mara Deterioration [IV] which greatly affects his mental state. Users are advised to order for Medicine 2 as an accustomed accessory for Advanced Blade. You may also help Advanced Blade by his Companion feature, and bring in a Kafka or a Silver Wolf. They will help tether the Mara Deterioration to a level [II]. However, users are cautioned to not under any circumstances, house others with Blade's Companion feature – especially Dan Heng, Jing Yuan, and Jingliu. This may immediately delevel Advanced Blade back to his Beginner stage, and worsen Mara Deterioration to a [V] {Blade is at risk of permanent damage.}

Advanced Blade is quiet, and does not often converse, similar to his Beginner Stage. However, he is more open to exploring newer areas, and may take up an interest in his Sword Prop 4, and practice it on makeshift targets made of useless or waste belongings of the User. He does not demand much, except for the occasional pain medicine. However, Blade's Sense Enhancement [II] levels up to a Sense Enhancement [IV], and he will protect and warn User of any incoming danger or hazard that may pose a risk to their life.

Congratulations! You now have a Blade. He may grow up to about 5'10-6’1 in size. Blade offers a good ear for Users who often make light-hearted and easy conversation, and talk about their days. Blade may make an effort to verbalize his appreciation for User's support, so we urge user to remain patient with Blade. He may insist on being called Yingxing from time to time. {Our users are advised not to fret, this was the name of our previous Blade Model}. He may also offer to act as User's bodyguard.. as long as User is ready to take on the responsibility of his actions. {Our company has advised our users thoroughly, and whatever issues may follow are not our responsibility. However, if we deem that the User is too morally bankrupt, we may take back Blade}. Have fun with your.. Blade. 

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[drakorn]

Rewriting Veilguard Part 1 - The World State

Disclaimer: I don't hate the game, I actually think it's quite great given the development hell Bioware went through in those 10 years. This is more of a hypothetical universe where there was less of that behind the scenes drama. Just a fun writing exercise.

Expanding Veilguard's World State Editor

Like many of us, I was disappointed with the total amount of choices carrying over from past games being only three, one of which dealt with romance, two with decisions made in the Trespasser DLC, and all of them being from Inquisition. This already set the precedent that we shouldn’t really be expecting the game to be as connected to our unique Thedas as we have come to be used to from previous titles—no more uniquely flavoured codex entries, no more small but sweet cameos here and there that make the world itself feel like a larger place that we had helped shape.

Given The Veilguard’s very troubled production history of multiple delays, staff layoffs, and all-around restarts of the entire project, it is honestly a surprise that we even got three choices, so credit where credit is due. They made with what they had. But what if The Veilguard had this vision from the start? What if there wasn’t any of this meddling? What if Bioware simply had more time and control? What if they could truly let us import the World State this game deserved?

Now, for this hypothetical rewritten playthrough, I’m going off from the fact that the Dragon Age Keep will not be used; I actually found it a neat idea to tick my three choices in the character creator, and it would have probably been better had Inquisition done something similar. Why do I think that? Because it means we are not running into any dangers of servers potentially shutting down, leaving us trapped in the canon we happened to have imported last. Converting the Keep into an offline editor was a good idea, but unfortunately not executed nearly enough as, let’s face it, we all expected. So we’re gonna have some fun for Veilguard.

Disclaimer: I’m going to refer to the game’s title as Veilguard from now on, not “the” Veilguard. I really don’t like the change of having a “the” in a series of otherwise one-word, or one-number, titles.

Of course, we have to be realistic about this. It is virtually impossible to implement every single decision from across all three games, and those that can be implanted can’t alter the main plot too much. Certainly, we like to imagine and picture things, but let’s approach this from an actually doable point of view.

Right, so imagine you just finalised your Rook, and then get a screen titled “Past Adventures”. Not just “The Inquisition”. And it would take up the entire screen instead of being shoved somewhere in the corner of the final CC page, which many people missed. I could have missed it too, had I not known beforehand that it was going to be there!

It would say something akin to “You can customise the protagonists and several events from the games Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age II, and Dragon Age: Inquisition. These choices will have both major and minor effects on the plot of Veilguard. If this is your first Dragon Age title, you would be advised to skip this section for now, as you may otherwise risk getting overwhelmed. A default World State has been pre-generated for the game.”

Why did I add this disclaimer? Because it would show us, right from the get-go, that we respect both new and old players. If you’re a new player, feel free to skip this part as it won’t matter to you anyway and, quite frankly, you wouldn’t want to spend an eternity in the character creator doing things you might not even be familiar with. But if you’re a returning player or someone who has read up on recaps and watched countless lore videos, come on right in, we’ve got you covered, don’t worry! We know how much time you spent meticulously crafting your World State for Inquisition, so join us and customise to your heart’s content.

If you choose to not skip ahead (honestly the only time I would click “skip” on that shit is if I was a new player), you will be presented with three tarot cards, one shows the griffon, the Grey Warden symbol, one shows Kirkwall’s heraldry, and one shows the Inquisition’s banner. Here’s your previous three games. And now we get to customise them a little. The little gremlin in me would be quite gleefully rubbing his hands at this prospect.

Past Adventures: The Blight

We open the first slide and are immediately hit with a crimson screen and an ambient reprise of several of Inon Zur’s themes from DAO. I loved this part in the game, when you click to customise your Inquisitor and are immediately hit with “Calling the Inquisition”. Really great stuff for early emotions. Now let’s actually customise things.

The Hero of Ferelden

I do not expect us to actually be able to recreate the Warden in the flesh, but I believe they should be at least brought up in conversation or mentioned in codex entries and letters. Here are the things we get to customise about them specifically:

The Hero: Here, we get to tick the race, gender, class, and background for our Warden. Again, no character creator, just fancy tarot cards. But guess what? That would already be more than enough for what we can do. At least we know the game acknowledges their continued existence.

The Warden’s fate: Did the Hero of Ferelden perform the ultimate sacrifice?

Romance: Who did your Warden romance, if at all?

The Companions

Now that our Warden is set, we jump over to DAO’s companions. Each companion has their own little mini-section. The first few questions will always be “Did you even recruit them? And if so, did they survive? If so, were you on good terms or not?” These questions, depending on the answers, will immediately lock or open the more specific ones. Which are, as follows:

Did the Warden have Morrigan perform the Dark Ritual?

What is Alistair’s ultimate fate?

Was Sten reunited with his sword?

What happened to Loghain?

What happened to Marjorlaine?

The Battle of Ostagar

What happened to the prisoner at Ostagar?

The Arl of Redcliffe

What is Connor’s fate?

Is Isolde alive?

Did you help Bevin and return his sword?

The Urn of Sacred Ashes

What happened to the Urn?

The Nature of the Beast

How was the situation between the Dalish and the werewolves resolved?

A Paragon of Her Kind

What happened to the Anvil of the Void?

Who rules Orzammar?

Did the Warden help Brother Burkel create a Chantry in Orzammar?

Did the Warden prove the Legion of the Dead was connected to a noble house?

Did Orta join the Assembly?

Warden’s Keep

What happened to Sophia and Avernus?

Denerim

Did the Warden complete Slim Couldry’s crime wave?

Who rules Ferelden?

Who killed Urthemiel?

Awakening

What happened to Nathaniel?

What happened to the Architect?

What happened to Vigil’s Keep and Amaranthine?

As you can see, I have not included all the choices, just the ones I think can be carried over in both realistic and interesting manners. Not all of them will heavily feature in the game; in fact, many of them are for flavour and codex entries only, but there is still merit in those. We know there is a whole lot of stuff happening in the South thanks to the letters the Inquisitor regales us with. So let’s put some world-state uniqueness to those letters. But in this rewrite, some of these choices will, in fact, feature in a more substantial manner.

And that’s Dragon Age: Origins done! Moving on to the next one!

Past Adventures: The Tale of the Champion

When we enter this screen, the CC assumes Kirkwall’s orangey-yellow tone and we get a reprisal of the key DA2 themes by Inon Zur, the most prominent one being, of course, Hawke’s family theme. This one is not going to be as big as DAO, but there are a few important factors nevertheless, especially concerning possible deaths and survivals.

The Champion of Kirkwall

Unlike the Hero of Ferelden, Hawke will actually be customisable in this one. Because no matter whether or not they were sent to the Fade or Weisshaupt, there is always the potential for them to still be alive. So, here are the choices regarding Hawke:

The Champion: Here you can customise Hawke’s gender, class, and personality.

Who did Hawke romance, if at all?

The Party

Pretty much every companion’s card, aside from a few, will have the questions “Did you recruit them?”, “Are they still alive?”, and “Were they friend or rival to Hawke?” at the forefront. Most of it is gonna be flavour, but it’s still my flavour, dammit!

What happened to Bethany or Carver?

What happened to Isabela and the Tome of Koslun?

What happened to Fenris and Danarius?

What happened to Merrill, her eluvian, and Clan Sabrae?

What happened to Bartrand?

What happened to Anders when the Chantry exploded?

Did Hawke approve of Anders' actions?

Did Aveline marry Donnic?

The Tale of the Champion

Did Hawke protect the Bone Pit from all its dangers?

What happened to Feynriel?

Did Hawke let Zevran go?

Did Nathaniel survive?

Did Hawke side with the mages or the templars?

Fewer choices are carrying over here compared to DAO, but many of the events that occurred in DA2 are only relevant to Kirkwall’s immediate fate, which is already resolved by the time of DAI. Many of these will be flavour again, but some of them, I’m not going to say which, will definitely have a bigger impact.

Right, we’re done with DA2, let’s move on to the last one!

Past Adventures: The Inquisition

And here we get to the big one, the game that most directly impacts much of DAV’s story. We click on the last page and get the green shades and DAI’s ambience themes, a beautiful reprisal of Trevor Morris’ great hits. I would like to once again reiterate how emotional the CC music made me feel here when I was playing the game. Let us now customise our choices.

The Inquisitor

While the Hero of Ferelden will be a background figure in letters and codex entries, and Hawke more of a minor character with a significant role, the Inquisitor will have a much larger presence. Just how large, you’ll find out soon. But for now, let’s customise them:

The Inquisitor: Here you can customise your Inquisitor’s race, gender, class, and specialisation. Their personality as well, for while it wasn’t as apparent as with Hawke, the Inquisitor does still have a distinct range of dialogue choices. You can still be diplomatic, lighthearted, or even rough.

Who did the Inquisitor romance, if at all?

The Inner Circle

As with the other companion sections, pretty much all slides here will feature the “Did you actually recruit them?”, “Are they still around?”, and “Are you friends or not?” questions. Alongside a few specific ones that will definitely have more of an impact here.

Did Dorian resolve the issue with his father?

What happened to Blackwall?

Did the Iron Bull remain loyal to the Qun?

Did Cassandra rebuild the Seekers of Truth?

Did Cassandra discover the book of secrets and what did she do with it?

What happened to Harmond?

Which path did Cole choose?

What happened to Solas’ friend?

Did Varric track down the red lyrium source?

Did the Inquisitor give Vivienne the heart of a snow wyvern?

How was Cullen’s lyrium dilemma resolved?

How did the Inquisitor help Josephine resolve her family’s fortunes?

Was Leliana hardened or softened?

The Path of the Inquisitor

Did the Inquisitor embrace or denounce their title of Herald of Andraste?

Did the Inquisition side with the mages or the templars?

What was the general principle upon which the Inquisition was founded?

Who rules Orlais?

Who stayed behind in the Fade?

What happened to the Grey Wardens after Adamant Fortress?

What happened to Samson or Calpernia?

Who drank from the Well of Sorrows?

Did the Inquisitor respect the rituals at the Temple of Mythal?

Who became Divine Victoria?

The Inquisition’s Influence

Did the Inquisitor ally with the Hinterland cultists?

Was the rift in Crestwood closed?

Was Caer Bronach captured?

Did the Inquisitor make a deal with Imshael?

Was Suledin Keep captured?

Was Griffon Wing Keep captured?

Was Sutherland’s company formed?

What tone did the Inquisitor’s judgments take?

Jaws of Hakkon

Did the Inquisitor learn Ameridan’s fate?

Was Hakkon slain?

Did the Inquisitor share the truth about Ameridan?

The Descent

Did the Inquisitor stop the earthquakes from destroying the Deep Roads?

Trespasser

What is the ultimate fate of the Inquisition?

What is the Inquisitor’s final goal regarding Solas?

Again, this looks like a lot, and it is, but bear in mind that a lot of these will only have minor impacts on the story in the form of cameos and codex entries. However, there are several major DAI choices that will have significant impact.

For our hypothetical rewrite, I shall not list every single choice I made for my imaginary playthrough. Instead, I shall reveal them as we go along so as not to clutter the space too much. And it’s a bit more fun this way.

And that’s the World State editor finally done! I believe all of these choices are able to feature in some capacity, be it big or small. But no matter if it’s a big world-changing consequence or simple flavour texts and cameos, it will still be our Thedas, our own unique version of it that we helped shape.

Now that the past is dealt with, let’s look at the present. Next time we’ll talk about Rook, the six factions, and why a DAO-style origin story selection would have not only been beneficial but very doable.

Rewriting Veilguard Part 2 - The Shadow Dragons

[elizabethan-memes]

I feel like a lot of people discussing golden ages- usually saying Elizabeth's reign isn't one- tend to set a very high standard for what qualifies as a golden age.

A 'golden age' does not mean absolutely everything is great for everyone. By that standard there are 0 golden ages.

The Roaring Twenties was an era of gangsters, Prohibition, and the revitalised KKK had more members than ever before: 4m in 1924.

The Swinging Sixties saw major assassinations, riots, racist violence, the Vietnam War.

La Belle Epoque saw the scramble for Africa, colonial wars, the Dreyfus affair, state violence against suffragettes.

The Spanish golden age is defined as 1492-1700 - and during that time there were economic troubles in Spain and imperial overstretch. Philip II defaulted on his debts more than once.

And who could forget the Italian Renaissance? Italy being invaded and fought over with more machinations than my brain can possibly keep track of without notes.

[canarysage]

…make a psd look interesting?

aka, how to fuck up a psd no glue no borax. have you ever looked at your psd and gone, damn, this shit doesn’t fuck? happens to the best of us. here are easy ways to spice up your psds so you don’t end up with the editor equivalent of communion bread

for example purposes, i made a simplistic psd to test these methods on. they should work with most psds, but, as always, fuck around and find out on your own for best results <3

i. threshold + gradient map

this one is an easy way to add specific colors to your psds. step one: add a threshold layer, and adjust it your liking. typically, i set mine to somewhere between 60-40. if you’re making a psd to work on dark skintones, you may want to set it even lower, but if you’re working with, say, pjsk characters, you can go pretty high

wow flashbang. you can see on my example behind that it doesn’t work super well on irl pictures, and my pjsk images don’t have threshold at all lol. next thing you want to do is set the blending mode of your threshold layer to either multiply or darken—they’re basically the same thing

(psst, if you want to know more about blending modes, check out this post!)

waow crunchy! but still boring right? still boring. not to worry, here’s the fun part: add a gradient map layer, tap it, and go to the slidey icon on the side, which’ll bring up a page like this:

click the gradient in the middle there to edit it. once in, edit the black color to be at about 80-90%, and then change the white color to whatever you like. edit out, and tap the little square next to the text that says “reverse” which should make your gradient look more or less like this:

then change the blending mode on your gradient map to ‘screen’ which’ll axe all the black and just leave your color. now your image looks like this:

boy howdy, isn’t that fucked up! it is more interesting, but if you don’t want to be looking at that abomination, change your color in your gradient map to be darker, which’ll give you something more along the lines of:

…which is much more reasonable. this is a fun way to add color to your shadows slash lineart, and can be a quick and easy way to make a psd look less flat.

ii. noise gradient map

some of you may be thinking, but, canarysage, what the fuck is a noise gradient map? to which i reply: you’re boring. let me show you.

kinda fucked up, right? well, that’s the goal. unfortunately, there isn’t a way to directly edit a gradient map, but you can just click that little button that says ‘randomize’ a couple times until you get something you like! you can also mess with the percentages but i don’t do that because it looks weird

boy howdy, that’s weird looking. not to worry, though. once again, our best friend blending mode is going to come in handy

i typically go to soft light and set the opacity to about 20-30%, but, as with anything, feel free to mess around and do whatever you want. luminosity is also a fun setting for noise gradient maps, just make sure to crank the opacity way down for the sake of my eyes

wow, much better! you can see that the gradient map added a bit of purple coloring and a funky little texture. super cool! thank you, gradient map!

iii. channel mixer

i already have a post on channel mixer and i’m not rewriting all that so if you don’t know how channel mixer works check that shit out but the tl;dr is: ideally, all your channels should add up to 100 (including negative numbers) but that rule can be broken if it looks cool enough. capiche?

iv. color lookup

photopea has a few default color lookups that are pretty easy to use, but i have a couple of presets that i like to add if i’m feeling stuck. to make your own color lookup, open up a psd, and go to file > export color lookup

then save it and open it from your files. when you open a color lookup layer, you’ll see an arrow next to the text saying LUTs—click that and your new color lookup should be there

once you tap that, you’ll get a compressed version of your psd added to your folder. it’ll look something like this:

holy orange and blue, batman. luckily, you can apply blending modes to color lookups just like any other layer—mess around with them until it looks how you want!

waow much more reasonable! i set this one on color and about 55% opacity, but that is really dependent on what your color lookup looks like and how you want your psd to look. remember, there’s no right way to do things!

an additional note: if you want to, you can save the psd you’re working on as a color lookup instead. if it looks too simple or just isn’t turning out how you want, that’s a good way to incorporate it later :3 just follow the same steps as above!

v. no shame in starting over

if you’ve added and taken away, duplicated and removed, fucked around and found out, and your psd still isn’t how you want: it’s alright to just axe it. the edit police aren’t gonna kill you for it, i promise. if you’re worried about wanting it later, just save it as a psd and come back when your brain is refreshed ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

psd-making isn’t an exact art, so, obviously, there’s no real simple solution to making it look how you want. you just have to mess with it and see what you’ve got. these are just my methods of making my psds less blagh, but, obviously, my editing is moderately more deranged than your average editor.

…so that’s how you do it.

[saturnianoracle]

How to learn real astrology: what it is and is not

As above, so below, as within, so without, as the universe, so the soul.

It is VITAL that if you want to understand astrology properly, you come in with an open mind and forget everything you think you know. Especially, remove yoruself from the belief that astrology is some occultic mystical spiritual practice, and/or that it is solely some psychological tool.

I used to be quite the hater of astrology. None of it 'resonated', and it seemed like wishy washy hippie shit. In lockdown, astrology stuff kept coming onto my feed, and some of it made sense, but most still did not. I then initially wanted to debunk astrology. But when I properly stated looking into it, the deeper I went the more accurate it started to become. Equally, parts still remained highly inaccurate. But this was due to a mismatch of how 'influencers' out there synthesised and understood the traditional foundations of astrology and modern information. Thus, I committed myself to truly understanding astrology, and my life has significantly improved for it and I've only just started.

As an introductory post to what astrology really is, I have formatted it into the following sections: i. the problem with pop culture astrology, ii, the history of astrology, iii. how astrology works, and iv. where meaning in astrology comes from.

The problem with pop culture astrology

This is the type of astrology we see in newspaper horoscopes, online articles, tiktok viral posts, instagram horoscopes, etc.

This is borne out of the allure astrology holds for desperate individuals seeking an easy and quick answer to their life problems, and using it as a form of confirmation bias for hating their ex (for example). But this misuse of astrology will undoubtedly hit for most people, due to the barnum effect, but is ultimately inaccurate and those who think it true have now misleadingly correlated the pop culture reasons for why X happened to what astrology is.

The new moon in your 7th house is not a sign that your crush will leave his partner for you. Being a gemini sun does not mean you are a two faced, loyal-less individual. Having your sun sign the same as their venus sign does not mean you two are compatible. And so on and so forth.

Here are some key things to understand about astrology:

✎ Stop using co-star, and those websites which give you your astrology information like this:

-> This does not tell you anything remotely significant aside from standard archetypal and superifical meanings of having a sun in Sagittarius or whatever (which you might not even 'relate' to, because of a multitude of other factors this does not show). Your chart instead, should, at the very least look like this:

-> Even better, make a chart and add in decans, asteroids, and considers more aspects. Viewing your birth chart like this is essential for gaining a better understanding. Aspects are what brings everything in your chart together to give it more significant and individualised meaning, the houses and the angles are also explicitly identifiable this way. Also, always make sure your chart is in whole sign houses, I will make a post on this later on why, but you will have to go to settings for this as popculture astrology has made placidus the default (as well as other inaccurate takes).

✎ Sun sign is astrology is fake, no matter how much you think it resonates with you it is the wrong footing to base your understanding of astrology off of. Astrology is extremely complex, one thing might resonate for one person and not for another, because of house placements, condition of the planet, aspects to the planet, etc. Consequently, all basic and simplified delineations of a chart are unhelpful and will put you on the wrong footing for future proper readings you might wish to do. This is how astrology can be so inaccurate.

✎ Astrology is not about resonating. Although, this is a part of how we can test astrology, it is linked far too much with resonating with personality. Your birth chart is not a map of who you are specifically, we evolve all the time (as the universe, so the soul), it is a map of your entire life. It is a map of the sky and its energies the minute you were born. Some things you think you do not resonate with is because those energies have not yet played out in your life.

✎ Astrology is not a psychological tool, although it can give us insight into psychology when used and understood properly. Again, it is the blueprint of our life.

✎ Astrology is not spiritual. It is not a belief system, either. Although, one can use astrology to advance their spiritual practices.

✎ Free will exists. I will likely go into this in another post but the energies of our bith chart, solar return chart, profection year, progressed charts, transits etc, are merely indications of how things are likely to unfold. The energies are malleable within their themes' ambit, and it is up to us to decide how we choose to interpret what is/will happen and what to do with that information. A transit might indicate difficulty in a law suit, ok, how can I mitigate that then? What other charts, energies, and transits can I use? If I did not know of this then I would not know how to alter my behaviour to yield a better results, even if it might not mean a completely opposite result.

✎ Your natal chart will not show you everything. There are relocated charts, progressed charts, solar return charts, profection years, etc. All this goes into a holistic assessment. Your natal chart, however, will always remain the anchor of it all.

A brief history

Astrology is not some woo-woo, spiritual, new age, belief system. Astrology's history and use goes back to the Babylonians. It used to be intertwined with astronomy; Galielo and Kepler, for example, were simultaneously astrologers and practised it widely (even as court astrologers). People in positions of power have always consulted astrologers to time events, in the modern era many Royal families, celebrities, and politicans still consult astrologers. Carl Jung, JP Morgan, Nancy Reagan, and Roosevelt are examples of this. Of course, it might be argued that just because famous people have used/use astrology does not give it any more credit to which I say: ok please read my post below pls and ty xo.

Astrology's history has been relatively tumultuous, however. I have condensed this timeline from an article I found below:

- Astrology was a widely accepted practice but, in Europe, after the fall of the Roman empire and much of Europe, it fell into decline along with other disicplines. - The middle ages saw a renaissance of intellectualism with a particular focus on science and thus the astronomy part of it. This was largely due to the Church who viewed astrology as divination and going against free will. - However, in other parts of the world astrology was still a crucial element of daily life, and those in power would use astrologers to time events. - Astrology did re-enter the curriculum, though, in the 14th century, with a focus on being used for medical astrology in part due to the recently available Hippocratic Corpus. These texts were crucial to advancing our understanding of medicine, but Hippocrates emphasised that "a physician without knowledge of astrology has no right to call himself a physician". Astrologer still had a healthy dose of criticism back then, though. - Astrology was a major field of study in universities in Europe, well ingrained in daily life. - It died out in the 17th century, mostly due to the increasing emphasis on science being increasingly and misleadingly viewed as separate from astrology, the church, and astrologers falling into disrepute due to political involvement. - Its resurgence in the 19th century saw an oversimplified, and largely 'spiritualised' version of astrologer. This is because this period also saw an increased interest in the occult and mystic. - Since becoming conflated, astrology has become even further diluted, but this is not to say that every new discovery has been wrong; modern interpretation is crucial to informing the bigger picture of astrology and how we can utilise it. But it is vital to be critical and separate it from pop culture nonsense, aimed at lost and desperate people looking for quick answers and confirmation bias, and have some media literacy.

So, how does astrology work?

: ̗̀➛ Astrology has NOTHING to do with the physical constellations. Astrology is based on the signs on the ecliptic (the path of the sun amongst the constellations, which is the plane of the earth's orbit).

: ̗̀➛ The equator has 15 constellations, and the ecliptic has 13. So why do we have 12 zodiac signs? This is because babylonians divided the ecliptic into 12 equal segments of 30 degrees each thousands of years ago. The ecliptic was divided into SIGNS. 12 constellations were just used to identify where in the sky each sign would be, at the time for ease of astronomical mapping/calculation - it is merely symbolic. This is why Opphiuchus is not the 13th Zodiac SIGN, although it is a constellation (and has always been known).

: ̗̀➛ Another reason why they are not based off the physical constellations is because the actual size of the constellations vary massively in size. Below is a representation of this:

: ̗̀➛ As you can see, Virgo, for instance is huge, and on a literal view overlaps into the next segment because the constellations do not all equally fit a 30 degree division. Yet, we do not give scorpio like 5 days for its season, because the physical constellation does not dictate anything meaningful.

This gives us the tropical zodiac, which is to do with the earth's seasons:

: ̗̀➛ The solstices are therefore reference points for Capricorn and Cancer (tropic of capricorn and tropic of cancer), not the constellations themselves. Accordingly, the spring equinox is marked by Aries (with the sun entering the segment of Aries at 0 degrees until 29), and the autumn equinox by Libra.

: ̗̀➛ The precession of the equinoxes, are therefore irrelevant to astrology (and this is why vedic/sidereal is, in my opinion inaccurate). The slow change of the direction of the earth's axial tilt, over around 26000 years, cause a precession of the equinoxes. This means, the segment of the sky that used to be identified by the Aries constellation from the earth's position at the time, is now looking at Pisces. But as we know, astrology has nothing to do with the physical location of the constellations. Vedic astrologers use sidereal positioning, aka taking into account the precession of the equinoxes, yet they still divide the ecliptic in the same way. This causes problems, leading to many branches in vedic because few agree on where aries actually even starts. But, I will write an extension of this segment in a future post on tropical vs vedic/sidereal astrology.

Where does astrological meaning come from?

As explained above, constellations do not give us meaning, the planets in the signs do (of which the signs' names just derive from where the constellations were at the time, i.e. are merely symbolic).

Astrology operates in a heliocentric context, in that its setting is derived from the solstices (as the sun is what gives us life) and the ecliptic etc, but is geocentric in function in that the meaning comes from how the celestial bodies going through the signs affect us on earth; it is all about OUR relation to the planets, not constellations.

Returning to the quote above (as above so below...), what happens up up there reflects its energies down on us below. For thousands of millenia, astrologers have developed an accurate pattern recognition framework which aligns with the maths and astronomy. This was done using the ephemeris, which tracked the trajectory of celestial bodies against the context of worldly (mundane), or natal events. Eventually, this knowledge could be used for predictions, (to understand transits, or for electional and horary astrology), by utilising the knowledge of how the trajectories of the planets and their interactions with eachother in what sign and house affected what.

Why does it affect us? Well, all the things that happen above us radiate energies. But when I talk about energies, I do not mean it in some spiritual sense, it is quite literal. Everything has frequencies. As mentioned above, astrologers, since the Bablyonian times, have studied these patterns and created an objective framework to align with it. Physical energies or not there is direct causation. The moon for instance, affects the tides on the planet because of its gravitational pull. We are 70% water, there is little reason to deny that the moon cannot affect us either (it does). Perhaps you might understand your broken leg as because of being hit by a car. But astrology can assess the chart of the event, and transits to your own chart to provide further explanation of why you got hit by a car in the first place, and why it caused a broken leg etc. Subsequently, the energies of what happens above relate to the themes found in planets, signs, houses, aspects, asteroids etc - but these energies are not set in stone as explained above.

Ultimately, it is disappointingly small-minded to think that there is nothing 'greater' than the physical reality we tether ourselves to. We are in fact part of something bigger; and again I do not mean this in some culty spiritual hippy sense. It is literally a fact, the world and cosmos at large is so vast, mysterious, and beautiful, how could anyone deny the interconnected web we are all collectively a part of. We might never fully understand the mechanisms of the universe, but what we can do is use the information we do have to make use of it and help inform us on how to live better lives. The fact there is something 'greater' inherent in our lives, connecting everything, which is objectively difficult to truly grasp, is not a reason to reject it. A lot of people who are averse to astrology (which used to be me) are those who pride themselves on rationality and objectivity, yet are restricting themselves to a very particular interpretation of what rationality and objectivity means.

With all this said, I hope it has helped someone understand and appreciate astrology better. There is such a fascinating rich and deep history to it, spanning various cultures and eras, making it difficult to at least not enjoy learning about even if one still chooses to not practise it. I would like to reiterate, however, that to truly embrace astrology and its millenia of knowledge, evidence, and practice behind it, one must divorce its concept from pop culture astrology.

[ah-ga-seven]

The Naked Neighbor II

>>PART ONE<<

Pairing: Fem!reader x Choi Soobin

Word count: 16,6k

Genre: Smut, Comedy, Fluff, lighthearted Angst.

Synopsis: Life is dull, until a new neighbor moves in across the street. His name was Soobin, a mysterious loner who lived in his own bubble and was incredibly hard to get close to. One night, as y/n was in her bedroom, she saw Soobin through the window, freshly out of the shower in full view, which accounted for a series of interesting events as she notices a pattern in his nightly routine.

Warnings: mature contents regarding sex and especially voyeurism. Further mentions of drugs and alcohol. This story will also contain mentions of broken homes, parental issues and verbally abusive fights.

(A/N) It's been long overdue, but please read part one again if you haven't freshened up your memory, a lot of details from part one are mentioned in part two!

Soobin pulled you into him, guarding you from the atrocious sight that was too late to unsee.  

Your mother had already covered herself up, as did Soobin’s father who was quickly on his feet.  

“Son…” he tried with a soft voice.  

“Shut the fuck up.” Soobin seethed through his teeth.  

Your mother was quiet, carefully eyeing you to study your reaction but when she saw your face buried in Soobin’s chest she knew enough.  

Your breathing started to intensify but whatever alcohol was left in your system gave you the guts to look your mom in the eye with utter shock and disgust written all over your face. “First my mom, now Isabelle?” Soobin questioned as his blood started to boil even more than before.  

“Son..I-”  

“Please…shut up, nothing you’d say right now would make things better.”  

You ignored Soobin and his dad, still staring at your mother in pure disbelief as she looked at you with big guilty eyes. Being disappointed by her was the default setting of your relationship, but knowing that even a marital status didn’t stop her from getting with Soobin’s dad actually made you sick to your stomach.  

“Soobin let’s go.” You tug at his arm as you break eye contact with your mother, avoiding eye contact with his dad altogether.  

“Come on, let’s go.” You drag him out of the house, hearing your mom call for you but you slammed his front door behind yourselves and speed walked towards your house with your arms crossed over your chest. You were trying to walk faster than Soobin with your heart thumping loudly and irregularly from all the adrenaline but he had already caught up to you, hauling you back by your shoulder.  

“Hey, hey y/n.” He turned you around but you couldn’t dare look into his eyes. For some reason, you felt guilty.  

“Soobin I’m…so…so sorry for what my mom did. I can’t even begin to apologize. If you don’t want anything to do with me I totally get it. I-”  

“Hey, woah. Stop. They’re both at fault. My dad is, just as much as your mom. Nothing we said or did could’ve predicted this.”  

You bite your lip, staring at the liveliness in your house from just meters away. “I don’t want to go back in there,” you whisper, getting choked up. “What do we even say.” You were starting to panic a little. “We can’t stay here either, what if they come after us? I-I don’t w-wanna talk to them.”  

Soobin watched the brims of your eyes fill with tears, making his own widen in response. “Come here.” He pulled you towards him mindlessly, enveloping you in his warm embrace and all you could do was give in. You nuzzled your nose in his neck, inhaling his scent as you wrapped your arms around him too. It calmed you down fast enough because for once you weren’t alone.  

You were not ready for the aftermath of all of this. You never wanted to see your mom again, let alone talk to her.  

“There you guys are…woah…everything okay?” Beomgyu walked towards the two of you from the porch, noticing the tears in your eyes. He froze, not fully grasping reality since he was drunk himself. You quickly untangled yourself from Soobin and shot him a look that he immediately understood. Lie.  

Soobin straightened out his back, giving Beomgyu a reassuring smile. “She’s just emo because she loves you guys so much.”  

Beomgyu’s jaw dropped, smirking as he enveloped you in a hug. “AWHHH, me too.” You inhaled sharply, feeling the cool midnight breeze pierce through your nostrils as all the air got knocked out of your lungs from the tight hold he had on you.  

You awkwardly patted Gyu’s back until he let go of you in the weird chokehold-like hug he had you trapped in. He stumbled a step back, assessing both of you from head to toe. “No drinks?” he asks disappointed, throwing his hand up to his forehead to add dramatics.  

“No.” it was a swift and unified response from both you and Soobin, which had Beomgyu moping.  

“Ugh, well… most people are leaving anyway it's already 3 am.”  

Silence took over the atmosphere for a few painful seconds but it felt like forever in your head. You quickly snapped out of it though. Straightening out your posture after taking a quick glance at Soobin who was lost in thought as well.  

“H-hey. Beomgyu. Can we crash at yours?” you ask giving Beomgyu a hopeful look, hoping his intoxication wouldn’t question you.  

“Why? You literally live here.”  

Shit.  

“I know I just…” you pause for a second, taking a quick glance at Soobin who was giving you just as much of a confused expression as Beomgyu. “I don’t want to be alone in the house with all the mess everywhere.”  

You were a horrible liar. And Beomgyu noticed how you weren’t telling him the whole story. Something about the look in your eyes screamed of desperation. You really didn’t want to be home. And apparently, Soobin’s house wasn’t an option either.  

“Sure.” Beomgyu sighed, deciding not to go against you. He’ll find out later, and from the looks of it, it wasn’t Soobin at fault so who cares.  

You looked visibly relieved, as did Soobin who hooked an arm around your waist so you’d turn to him once Beomgyu stumbled back inside the house without giving the two of you a second glance.  

“Are you okay?” Soobin asked, his gaze softening once your eyes locked.  

“No. And neither are you. I’m in survival mode right now I don’t know what to do or think.” You sigh throwing your head back, kicking a random rock on the sidewalk.  

“Why can’t I have nice things happen to me for once,” you groaned.  

Soobin snorted, looking back at his house with a heavy heart which made his smile drop. If it wasn’t for you he would’ve gone back inside and punched his dad in the face. After everything, he still found new ways to fuck up. Hell, Soobin even started to feel bad for Isabelle.  

He scrunched his nose. “Should we just go to Beomgyu’s now? I’m not trying to linger around much longer for them to run after us.” He tucked a piece of your hair behind your ear, the sweet gesture pulling you out of the depths of your mind, mustering up your last bit of energy to crack a slight smile for him.  

“Yeah, let’s leave.”  

Luckily Beomgyu’s parents were on a trip to visit Gyu’s grandparents over the weekend cause it saved you A LOT of explaining and well…lying. The spare key was where it always was which made entering his house a no-brainer.  

You turned on the lights and took off your shoes, letting Soobin explore a bit in silence as you made some tea. After a minute he found you in the kitchen, taking out cups from the cabinet to then pour some hot water into both of them. “You really know your way around here.” Soobin remarks, sitting down on one of the barstools at the breakfast bar.  

“Yeah, I basically grew up in this house.”  

“Hmm…” Soobin once again realized the depth of your friendship with Beomgyu. He knew he had nothing to worry about but it was safe to say that he had a slight pinch of jealousy for the history you had with him and your other friends. He wished he could say he knew you better than them. But he didn’t…not yet at least.  

“What’s up?” you place the cup in front of him as you lean on your elbows opposite of where he was standing,  giving him a confused pout when you sense a change in his body language.  

He looked at you with a coy smile, slowly shaking his head as he fiddled with his fingers. “I was just thinking we’re not even that close.”  

You deadpanned at him, blinking in confusion. “You…you’ve seen me naked.”  

He snorted. “I know! But I mean, like I barely know you. The dumb trivial shit. From your favorite movie genres to your most embarrassing childhood stories, I want to know It all. I want to know you.”  

You looked at him with endearment, you could tell how sincere he was as he slipped back into his own train of thought. He has never felt this way about someone before. Liking someone so much so that it makes you openly desperate wasn’t really Soobin’s approach to dating. Usually, he’s the one being pushed around and sought after but you were different. If you’d ask him to jump, he’d ask you how high which basically meant that he was down bad.  

“I like dramas but also scary movies, and when I was seven years old I peed my pants during gym class. Luckily no one noticed but it was still really, really embarrassing.” Soobin looked at you with wide eyes, suppressing an obnoxious laugh that was boiling in his throat. Instead, he just huffed as the corners of his mouth curled upwards.  

“When I was 9 I slipped and fell face first into a puddle in front of my elementary school crush. She just laughed at me and I was so embarrassed that I started rolling around in the puddle to make it look intentional.” Soobin confessed, making you clutch your hand over your own mouth as you doubled over in laughter. He smiled with sparkles in his eyes as he watched your face contort with joy again after everything that happened tonight, and that’s how the rest of the next hour or so was spent. Telling each other stories about yourselves that didn’t matter anymore, though they did shape you into the people you were today. And, truth be told it was exactly the type of distraction that both of you so desperately needed right now.  

It was almost as if you two were going backwards. You were emotionally connecting with a one-night stand after the physical connection was formed, but there was so much more to your relationship already prior to sleeping together, so your dynamic was odd, to say the least.  

It was like hanging with an old friend, who you have a mutual crush on, but don’t know much about even though you’ve already made core memories with him. Hell, you even shared a traumatic night together already.  

Yeah…weird.  

Your conversation went on and on, shifting from the kitchen to the living room and by now the two of you had fallen asleep on opposite ends of the couch with both of your legs entangled.  

The sight was quite adorable from Beomgyu’s point of view who came home just a minute ago. He smiled softly as he draped a blanket over the two of you, leaving to go upstairs to shower and go to bed himself.  

“Dude I can’t believe you dipped like that. What the fuck happened? I get you’re horny and all but your mom literally came home in hysterics asking us where you were. She looked so worried and you didn’t answer your damn phone either.”  

You were awake for all of 5 minutes when you ran into Yeonjun in Beomgyu’s kitchen. You didn’t even know how he or when he got to the house, but you could only assume he came to find you because he was pissed, rightfully so.  

You opened your mouth and closed it again, not really knowing if Soobin wanted people to know about what happened yet.  

“If a lie comes out of your mouth, y/n. I swear to god.” Yeonjun growled.  

You stare at your fingers as you fiddled with them, not even noticing that Beomgyu came downstairs to join the conversation at the sound of Yeonjun’s nagging.  

He stood beside Yeonjun, ears perking up when he heard the shuffles of Soobin’s footsteps as he approached the three of you in the kitchen.  

You look up as you feel his presence next to you, and somehow you feel relief wash over your body. Even though he made your heart beat faster every time he was close to you, you also felt at peace with him in the room.  

“Wanna tell them?” Soobin asks you as he rests his hand on your lower back.  

Yeonjun gave both of you a look after searching for answers in Beomgyu’s eyes, but he just shrugged at his older friend, letting him know that this whole thing was a mystery to him too.  

You pout, raking your hand through your hair as your mouth becomes dry. “We uhm…” you start, but fall silent again trying to collect your thoughts.

“Babe, the suspense,” Yeonjun says crossing his arms to show his lack of patience, and that’s when Soobin took it upon himself to rip the inevitable band-aid off.  

“We walked in on our parents…having sex.” He says before pursing his lips together in anticipation of their reaction.  

You close your eyes at Soobin’s words. Feeling anger boil in your stomach at the thought of the cursed images in your head and the fact that you were going to have to face your mom sooner or later.  

Beomgyu’s eyes dangerously protruded out of his skull as Yeonjun’s hand clasped over his mouth to muffle a bewildered gasp. This is the last thing they expected to come out of your mouths.  

“There ain’t no way…how? What…” Beomgyu was left speechless for what seemed to be the first time in his fucking life and Yeonjun’s gaze immediately softened as he laid eyes on you. “You’re joking, is this a joke? Cause it ain’t funny.” Yeonjun tried to laugh but your stoic response made him realize you weren’t joking at all.  

“Y-your mom? With his dad?” Yeonjun asks pointing from you to Soobin and all you could do was nod avoiding eye contact.  

“Damn guys…that’s fucked. I don’t know what else to say.” Yeonjun says with a pout as he grabs your hand over the counter, squeezing it for assurance as a way of telling you that he’s here for you.  

“…Isn’t your dad like…married?” Beomgyu spits out without thinking. Yeonjun shot Beomgyu a glare but Soobin simply nodded for a lack of knowing what else to say. “Dad of the year am I right,” he says shrugging his feelings away. “I’m dreading going back there,” he adds looking at you to see you lost in thought. “Me too.” Your voice was almost inaudible, and watching you so pained by the whole situation made Beomgyu want to step in and do something to cheer you up.  

“You two can stay here, I just need to figure out what to tell my parents,” Beomgyu suggests, his tapioca pearl pupils seemed to grow with excitement by the thought of having you two move in here but it was short-lived.  

“No, I’m the worst liar. Thank you for the offer though.” Soobin says scratching the back of his neck.  

“Booo.” Beomgyu huffs giving you both a childish thumbs down, followed by a smack on his arm from Yeonjun. “But I get it. Totally.” Beomgyu quickly corrects himself, rubbing his tingling arm before giving Yeonjun a kittenish angry scowl.  

Soobin scoffed in amusement as you chuckle at the two of them before sharing your thoughts. “It’s going to raise suspicion. Plus, our moms are friends. She’ll call her immediately and I don’t want anyone to find out. This town is too small for something as big as this.”  

“Yeah. If Gyu’s mom knows, Tae’s mom knows, and if Tae’s mom knows Huening’s mom knows, and if Huening’s mom knows, my mom knows, and then the whole town will know.”  Yeonjun says dramatically counting his fingers with each one of their moms added to the list.  

“Then you take after your mom, for sure.” Beomgyu retorts rolling his eyes.  

“Proudly, and what about it,” Yeonjun argues, letting his index finger push Beomgyu’s forehead away.  

“Damn, it’s that serious?” Soobin asked wide-eyed, to which you all just nodded.  

“This town is like a gossip girl spin-off.” Yeonjun chuckled.  

You bite your lip, looking at the three of them. “I don’t think we have much of a choice other than to go home and…deal with it.”  

Soobin anxiously nodded at your statement. Sighing as he threw his head back in defeat. “Can’t wait...”  

You paced back and forth in front of your house for a good minute before entering, but just like you suspected already from the missing car in front; your mom wasn’t home.

You sighed in relief, and quickly inspected the after-party damage but to your surprise, the place was left spotless. You inwardly simped for your friends as you stood motionless in the middle of your living room, taking a mental note to thank Hueningkai and Taehyun for staying behind to clean up.  

You fluffed a random pillow and bit your lip, wondering if Soobin made it past the front door already. Just as you were going up to your room, the front door opened which made you freeze in place in the middle of the staircase. The sound of her heels on the hardwood floor confirmed it was your mom, followed by the sound of her voice.  

“Y/n!” she gasped, not expecting to see you back so soon. You tried to jolt back upstairs but your mom literally launched herself forward in an attempt to grab your ankle, which she did. You nearly tripped over, turning your torso towards her to send daggers at her through your eyeballs. “Really!?”  

“Next time you run away from home at least tell me where you’re going.”  

“That defeats the purpose of running away.”  

“Sweetie…”  

“Don’t sweetie me, I don’t want to talk to you. Let go of me so I can shower and ignore you for the rest of my life.” You were still spread out on the stairs with your mom clasped around your leg like a koala holding on to its sacred branch. It must’ve been a funny sight to see, but you wanted her off. You started to shake your leg with her still wrapped around it, and when you accidentally hit her in the nose she finally let go.  

“Ouch, you little shit.” She let go of you and got back on her feet again, giving you an annoyed scowl.  

“Deserved. Period. Maybe you won’t stick your nose in other people’s marriages now,” you tell her, knitting your eyebrows together to look extra mad. 

“…Oh y/n. Don’t make me the bad guy. I just took the bait. Don’t think I’m the only other woman he’s slept with during his marriage.” She scoffed, rolling her eyes.  

“…What.”  

“He’s a serial cheater. A piece of shit, but a hot one though. I won’t do it again if that’s what you want to hear. I’m sorry you had to see that.” She nodded, blinking slowly like a cat trying to show affection, but you shot her the same unamused glare from before.  

“I don’t believe a word that’s coming out of your mouth mom.” You give her a stoic look, not knowing whether to believe the first or latter part of her twisted apology.  

“Then don’t baby,” she shrugged, straightening out her dress as she walks down the stairs. “Dinner’s in the fridge buttercup.” She yells out before disappearing into the living room.  

You were holding onto the stair railing for dear life, frustration overriding your emotions. It was always like this. She’d brush over every disappointing situation with an insincere apology followed by pretending as if nothing ever happened. It’s like she doesn’t comprehend the depth of her actions and that they don’t just revolve around her alone. She made Soobin’s dad out to be the sole antagonist and even if he did sleep around, it doesn’t make your mom’s part in this whole ordeal any less significant.  

You were used to your mom and her antics. Her inability to feel for anyone but you and herself but it never affected people you cared for before, until now.  

She never stopped to think about how this affects you, Soobin, or Isabelle. How it could potentially wreck Soobin’s already broken home. Even though she knew everything he had been through she still decided to take part in ruining his life some more and that alone made you hate her.  

Angry fumes started to burn your earlobes. She’s not sorry she did it. She’s sorry she got caught.  

You dragged yourself up the stairs, wondering if your ability to feel empathy came from your deadbeat dad who abandoned you as a kid but that thought alone made zero sense.  

Maybe you were adopted.  

You looked at yourself in the mirror, sighing as you splashed some cold water in your face but when you came back up and saw the resemblance you had to both your mom and dad you nearly broke the mirror with your fist. The brims of your eyes filled with tears as you balled your fists on the counter, biting your lip until you tasted iron.  

You stepped out of your clothes and set the water temperature of your shower at a literal lava setting, hoping that the steam would not only clear out your sinuses but your mind.  

You had no idea what to do next, but all that you could really do was be brutally honest with Soobin and hope for the best as you continued to ignore your mothers’ existence. Your heart hurts for him more than ever, especially since he will start feeling the aftermath now that he’s decided to go home.  

Soobin didn’t even hesitate to walk into the house, his non-confrontational nature vanished when he saw his dad on that godforsaken couch, reading with his glasses on the tip of his nose bridge as if nothing happened. He took big strides over to him, ready to yell at his father and demand an explanation but a voice broke him out of his fury.  

“Oh, Soobin. You’re back.” Isabelle smiled at him. “Your dad said you were staying at a friend's? How was the party?”  

Soobin’s dad looked at Soobin with dilated, scared yet strict pupils. He was silently telling him to lie for his sake and looking at Isabelle’s twinkly pupils, Soobin just couldn’t get himself to continue. “Uhm…it was fun. Took a different turn towards the end of the night though.”  

He gave his dad a look with pursed lips and watched as his fathers’ shoulders tensed up. “Oh, what do you mean?” Isabel walked over, setting down a plate with cut fruits for both of them.  

Soobin took a piece from the plate, biting into it as he remained eye contact with his dad. It was a subconscious move to show that his dad had no business being relaxed now that Soobin’s back home.  

He won’t say shit with Isabelle around, just because he cared about her feelings. But once she’s out of view shit was going to go down.  

He forgot Isabelle was still waiting for Soobin to respond so he quickly looked back at her, though she was already onto something.  

“Did you guys get into a fight again?”  

Soobin simply shook his head and that’s when his dad got up, walking towards Isabelle to place a kiss on her temple. “No hon, nothing to worry about. I’m going to take a shower so we can go to your parents later today.”  

“Ah, so you didn’t forget?” Isabelle smiled at him, it was almost pathetic how in love she looked.  

Soobin’s eyes turned sad and looked away as he bit his lip. “Uhm, do you guys mind if I stay in? I have a lot of homework I need to finish.”  

Isabelle looked at Soobin a tad disappointed but nodded, giving him a quick pat on the back. “You always work so hard. Don’t forget to eat okay.”    

Soobin nodded as watched his dad move up the stairs without a word, followed by Isabel who had to get ready as well.  

He sighed, throwing his large self on the couch before realizing what happened here. He stiffened and rolled right off, suppressing a gag as he made his way to the kitchen quickly to quench his disgust with tasty snacks.  

He opened a bag of random sweets, sitting at the breakfast bar as he angrily chewed on the way too sugary biscuits. This house was a ticking time bomb, and he had to get out before he’d get buried in the ruins of it.  

You stared at the mess that was your bedroom with loss. Not knowing where to start with cleaning. Naturally, you moved all the mess to your bed and started putting things away accordingly. Once your sheets were revealed under all the mess, instant butterflies kicked in when you remembered what happened on them last night.  

You bite your lip, slipping into a daydream before you knew it you were already texting him.  

[Y/N, 5:56 PM]: Hi 👀  

[Y/N, 5:56 PM]: How’d it go?  

[Soobin,  5:57 PM]: Hey ☺️

[Soobin,  5:57 PM]: Isabel was home so I didn’t really get a word in. I couldn’t do that to her. I want him to fess up himself yk. Buttt,they left for some dinner a few minutes ago so I haven’t seen him really.  

[Soobin, 5:57 PM]: What I don’t get is how he can lie and pretend so fucking easily. It’s scary. It’s like don’t know who he is anymore.  

[Y/N, 5:58 PM]: ugh, I can’t. this is so messed up...  

[Soobin, 5:58 PM]: And you? How are things with your mom?  

[Y/N, 5:58 PM]: She’s…my mom. So, she gives me one insincere apology and pretends as if nothing happened. She even tried to blame your dad for all of it.  

[Soobin, 5:58 PM]: Damn…how so?

[Y/N, 5:59 PM]: I’ll tell you later, just don’t get how I came out of someone like her  

[Soobin, 5:59 PM]: Hmm ok, and same here. Can we talk about something else? Anything else? I would like some normalcy today.

You sigh, looking at your closed curtains, immediately getting the best worst idea ever. You walked over and ripped them open, seeing Soobin at his desk in front of his window.  

Really…he’s still living curtainless. STILL!?  

You shake your head, looking down at your phone again, and started typing.  

[Y/N, 6:01 PM]: Look up.  

As you press send you excitedly awaited his response and that’s when your eyes locked through your windows. A mischievous smile crept on his cute ass lips. He cockily leaned back in his chair and proceeded to rake his hand through his hair.  

He averted his attention back to his phone and looked your way again when your phone buzzed in your palm.  

You boldly kept eye contact until he lifted his phone up to your view, pointing at it to tell you to look.  

[Soobin, 6:02 PM]: cute jammies, what are those? Teddy bears?  

You looked down at your childish pajama set and felt your ears heat up. You didn’t even realize that you were wearing your most sexless sleepwear and laughed, doing random poses for him as you modeled your cute little outfit.  

Soobin bit his lip, chuckling at your antics with an amused glint in his eyes.  

You quickly grab your phone.  

[Y/N, 6.04 PM]: Don’t leave me hanging, show me your jammies.

Soobin looked from his phone to you with a dumbfounded look, giving you a  sassy smirk before he sent you another message.  

[Soobin, 6.05 PM]: Can’t do that. I sleep nude.

He eyed your reaction from afar and when your eyes got big as you look from your screen to him, he folded in laughter.  

You pout at him, giving him a thumbs down closer to the window this time while mouthing a stretched-out ‘Booo’  

He rolled his eyes at you, getting up to get closer to the window. You didn’t know what he was doing when you cocked your head to the side in confusion, watching him intently with a playful smirk.  

Soobin then lifted up his shirt, showing you his bare chest before sending you a sarcastic flying kiss and it had you rolling your eyes at him this time. He laughed at you. His eyes disappearing into crescent moons as he clapped his large ass hands together with glee.  

Oh it’s on. Mischief took over on your side of the window. You looked around the neighborhood but no one seemed to be around and that’s when you decided to just do what you initially intended to do.  

You maintained eye contact and lifted your top up, showing your bare boobs to him on full display for two good seconds as you mimicked his teasing from before. You dropped your top back down and watched his face go full tomato as his mouth fell agape. You were laughing so hard that you had to double over in order to catch a breath and that’s when your phone started buzzing in your pocket.  

You pick up with giggles, still enjoying the look on his face while he was frantically looking around to check if there were any neighbors out on the streets. “y/n!”  

Your laugh died down slowly. “Ahh, you should’ve seen your face.”  

“Omg, what if someone saw you? Are you crazy?”  

“Look who’s talking, you still don’t have blinds.”  

“It’s a delivery issue, they’ll be here soon” he pinched his eyes shut at a loss for words, looking at you rather lost soon after. “I- you’re insane.”  

“Dude. You mooned me on the first day, I just paid you back. We’re even now.” You smirked, but you watched Soobin grow more frustrated on his side of the window.  

“First off I wasn’t aware and SECOND, No, we’re not.” He growled pressing himself against the window.  

You lean forward to show some cleavage, unbuttoning the first button to give him even more of a show. “Why?” you coyly ask, biting your lip as you pressed your goods against the glass. “How bout’ now?”  

You watched him try to keep cool but the tent that was forming in his sweats was giving you the impression that it wasn’t working. He was flustered, yet didn’t want to lose control so easily.  

He licked his lips, staying silent for a second as he moved his phone from one ear to the other.  

“Get over here so I can suck on those titties.”  

His voice was low, serious, and demanding enough to make your knees grow weak.  

You choke on air, eyes growing wide as you swallow harshly. “U-uhm wow…C-can you give me like…3 minutes.”  

“3, not more.” He smirked at you and all you could do was nod as you watched him hang up the phone and walk out of his room.  

You quickly closed your curtains, changing into leggings and a top as fast as you could before collecting your toothbrush from the bathroom. You sprinted down the stairs, putting on your sneakers and a big ass trench coat that had pockets big enough for your phone, keys, toothbrush, and a set of fresh underwear.  

As your front door closed, his own opened. Soobin watched you cutely run over with soft smiles and giggles exchanged between the two of you. It was…disgustingly cute.  

Once you reached his front porch he lifted you off your feet, crashing his lips into yours as you clung onto his torso by wrapping your legs around his hips.  

The two of you made out as he walked both of you back into the house, crashing your back against the inside of his now-closed front door. You could barely see in the darkness of his hallway, letting your eyes get used to the dim lighting as his lips sensually moved against your own.  

His pillowy soft lips were tracing chaste kisses from your jaw to your chest and that’s when he ripped the coat off of you in one swift motion. His hands hungrily grabbed on to massage your boobs under your shirt when your lips reconnected with his own.  

It was messy but so good as you moaned into his mouth once his cold thumbs rolled against your nipples. “Fuck.” You huffed, rolling your core onto his hips to create the friction you so desperately longed for.  

Soobin grinned against your lips, leaning his forehead against yours as he lead you into the kitchen area. He propped you up on the counter of their breakfast bar and situated himself between your legs again. He bent his neck down to kiss you some more, slowly guiding his hands up and down your thighs. You were so out of breath that you broke the kiss, looking up at him through your lashes. He felt his heart swell as you did, smiling at him shyly before hiding your face in his chest. Damn you were cute. Fucking adorable to be exact.  

He chuckled and toyed with the hem of your top before lifting it over your head. Quickly discarding of the useless item of clothing and immediately got busy with your boobs, kissing and sucking on them just like he promised to. Your eyes lulled back, enjoying the divine feeling as a few strained moans left your lips. He stopped in his tracks, creating some distance to look at your body.  

“Shit.” He cursed, smiling down at you in complete awe of how gorgeous you looked right now. You returned the smile, your fingers nimbly curling around the waistband of his sweats and Calvins. “I want these off…” you whisper in his ear, making every hair on his neck stand up straight as a chill runs down his spine. “I still haven’t sucked your dick.” You confidently state, reminiscing back to what he said to you last night. “Blowjobs can wait” well…not anymore.  

“Then get to it” he mused, patting your hair adoringly as he tilted your chin upwards to look at him with his index finger.  

You paused for a second, “H-here?” you say looking around his large kitchen. It had a similar layout to yours, the only difference was that it had no windows. Thank god.  

“Well we can’t really go into my room unless you’re still into that whole voyeurism thing…so-”  

You shut him up with yet another kiss, pinching his cheeks together with your thumb and index finger as you guided your tongue into his mouth sensually and slowly. He closed his eyes for a second until you disconnected your lips from his, still pinching his cheeks together with a seductive smile on your shiny and absolutely swollen lips.  

“Where do you want me?”  

“On your knees.” His reply was short and hot enough to get you going as you let go of his face until he interrupted you. “But be careful, it’s a tile floor your knees might bruise.”  

You snorted, finding it cute how his sweetness always seemed to shine through even in sinful moments like these. “I don’t mind a few bruises.” You challenge him as you got down on your knees, looking up at him with big, innocent eyes and that visual alone pumped every drop of blood in his body straight to his dick.  

“You’re blue balling me.” He complained.  

“I’m not doing shit.”  

“That’s the problem.” He says and you chuckle lowly, finally pulling down his sweats when his hard, angry, and humongous dick springs free. It hadn’t even been 24 hours but you already forgot how big he actually was, and suddenly your confidence disappeared. Does your mouth even open wide enough to take him?  

“Hey.” He caressed your cheek with his thumb. “It’s okay, just go slow. It’s not like I’ll immediately shove it down your throat or anything.”  

“Hot, but no thanks. Not yet.” He scoffed at you playfully and you gulped, holding his shaft tightly. He was heavy in your palm and you weren’t shy to grab his whole sex from below his balls, propping him up for you nicely. He watched you closely, his gaze softening once your eyes found his again. You started collecting some spit in your mouth to then coat his tip with some so you could lubricate his length with your hand, twisting your wrist around to cover more of him. The friction wasn’t much but Soobin’s eyes were already closing, hearing a content sigh escape from his lips.  

You kept your eyes on him, licking from the start of his shaft to his tip to then take it into your mouth slowly. Sucking on just the head as you held his cock in place, eyeing how hot he looked as you slowly started to take him further into your mouth.  

You were fastening your pace and alternated from sucking, to licking and adding handwork when you felt like he needed the extra stimulation. You could tell the buildup was just right as he slowly started to lose control with being gentle, desperately rocking his hips forward from time to time as you did your thing.  

His moans were filling the room, bouncing off the walls in echo’s so soft and hot that it motivated you to take him further into your throat. He took a fistful of your hair, slowly guiding himself in and out of your mouth as he enjoyed the sloppy wet sounds of your suppressed little gags.  

He suddenly pulled out completely, taking over to pump himself really fast as he hovered his tip over your mouth. “S-shit baby, I-I’m-” he couldn’t even finish his sentence, you moaned to motivate him, placing your palms on his thighs, squeezing your eyes shut to prepare for what was to come and that’s when he coated your tongue, and chin with white spurts of his cum.    

You opened your eyes again, watching him see stars as he threw his head back for a second while he pumped out his high. It wasn’t long before you made eye contact though. Your sinful smile with strings of his manliness dripping down your lips almost made him cum a second time. He guided the lost droplets into your mouth with his tip so you sucked on it one last time, letting go with a pop while swallowing his load completely like a big girl.  

“Fuck…y/n, what the hell are you doing to me. Shit.” He kept cursing as he sweetly caressed your cheek again. You giggled and got up on your feet, turning around to rip off a piece of paper towel that was situated behind you on the counter and wiped your face and chest but it didn’t really do much. Soobin had literal twinkles in his eyes seeing the absolute mess he made of you, straight up looking like his personal hentai fantasy. “Damn,” he hummed contently trying to regulate his breathing so he could calm the fuck down.  

“I think I need another shower.” You sigh, looking down at yourself to assess the damage and once you locked eyes you both erupted in laughter.  

He laced his finger through yours, placing a sweet kiss on top of your hand.  

“I’ll lead the way.”  

After round two in the shower and round three under the sheets of his bed you knocked the fuck out. You were still situated on his chest when you slowly regained consciousness, but somehow waking up felt like hell. You were so disoriented and sore that it took you a minute to realize you weren’t in your own bed. You lifted your head from Soobin’s chest to look around but immediately regretted it. Squinting your burning eyes to get used to the obliterating amount of sunlight coming in through the window. How does he even sleep without blinds, you were seriously contemplating on dragging his ass to the nearest Ikea to come up with a temporary solution.  

Lost in grumpy thought you looked up at Soobin who was still sound asleep, his arm was wrapped around your waist tightly, the sheets barely covering him since you stole most of it in your sleep. His bunny lips were parted slightly, and from his breathing alone you could tell he was still far gone in dreamland. You couldn’t help but notice his beauty, softly smiling to yourself as you brush a piece of hair out of his eyes. You decided to let him sleep some more so you rested your head again, pressing your cheek flat against his chest with your eyes fluttering shut in peace but that same peace was soon disturbed when you heard voices coming from the hallway.  

“Is he ok? He usually doesn’t sleep in this late.” Isabelle’s voice was crystal clear and you were immediately alerted.  

Shit.  

Fuck.  

No.  

Please don’t check on him, please don’t check on him.  

“Should I check on him?” she asked again and that’s when you heard his dad’s voice.  

“No, let him sleep. Maybe he studied till late.”  

Your whole body relaxes as you let out a sigh of relief when you hear them walk down the staircase. You sit up, deciding to wake Soobin up because you still needed to have an actual conversation with him about your mothers’ accusations regarding his dad’s infidelity streak throughout his marriage.  

You seriously didn’t even know how to start, but waking him from his slumber was step one.  

“Hey.” You whisper as you shake him gently, but it only resulted in him mumbling something you didn’t quite understand as he stole the covers off of you, fully wrapping himself like a burrito as he turned his back to you. You chuckle, sitting up on your knees to violently shake him by grabbing onto his shoulders.  

“Wake uuuuuuuup” you nudge his back with your knee this time and that made him jolt right up, almost making you fall off the bed completely.  

He yelped but you quickly clasped your hand over his mouth as he stared at you in bewilderment. “Your parents.” You whispered as you took your hand off of his mouth and that’s when it struck him. “Fuck.”  

“Yeah.” You stare at his bedroom door for a second and almost scream out loud when you felt his cold hands wrap around your waist. He pulled you closer, moving you under him as he covered both of you with the blanket from head to toe. You were stuck beneath him in his makeshift fort and felt him nuzzle his face in your neck. “Now we’re invisible.” He muttered in his low sleepy voice, making you smile in defeat as you started to play with his hair.  

You felt your heart swell in your chest, realizing just how much of a simp you were. Fuck you might just be…falling in love.  

It’s like he noticed how hard your heart was pounding in your chest because he started rubbing your back in calming up and down motions and then it hit you like a brick wall.  

You haven’t felt this save in a man’s arms since…you were a kid.  

“I don’t want to get up.” He mumbled lost in thought, making you look up at him through your lashes. “Me neither.”  

You reluctantly let go of him, sitting up as you removed the covers from yourself and stared into nothingness for a second. Soobin eyed you carefully, putting his hand on your back for comfort. “You don’t have to talk to him or even look at him, I can easily sneak you out, it’s okay.” He was assuming you were stressed about seeing his dad again after everything but the actual thing you were stressed about was telling Soobin what your mom told you.  

You looked back at him and gave him a soft smile, grabbing his hand as you traced his veins gently. “Soobin I’m starting to really fucking like you.” You whisper with a slight crack in your voice which definitely didn’t go unnoticed.  

He sat up immediately, pouting at you as he pulled you close to him. “Ahwww” he furrowed his eyebrows. “Don’t worry okay? Me too. Me three. I do, I really do.” He smiled at you fondly, patting your hair before getting up out of bed. There was something so soft about his masculinity. He wasn’t scared to be affectionate or straightforward. It was one of his qualities you loved most which is what made you so comfortable around him.  

He quickly put sweatpants on and a random shirt he had laying around to then collect your scattered clothes around the room for you, handing them over to you with a shy smile and you instantly melted. You took the articles of clothing from his hold with both hands, and got up to get dressed, contemplating how to start a sudden loaded conversation with him. He watched you carefully, afraid you were going to vanish into thin air for some reason.  

It was scary how much he hated the idea of living here before, and now he couldn’t imagine ever leaving just because he met you. “I wish my mom got to meet you.” It slipped out of his mouth before he could even really think about it but that comment caught you off guard more than it should have.  

“I-” you swallowed harshly. “Me too.” Your eyes turned sad for a second and he immediately regretted what he said. “Ah, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to get all emo on you.”  

Your eyes widened. “Don’t apologize. You’re allowed to miss her Soobin. I really wish I could’ve gotten to know her too, so I could thank her for birthing you. ” you giggled which made  Soobin sigh in relief at your words, giving you a shy smile before he averted his attention to the sudden buzzing of both of your phones.  

Soobin checked his phone, and to his surprise he was added to a group chat with you and your friends, all of them wondering how you two were doing as they spammed both of you with multiple texts. He sighed, showing you the chat once you were completely dressed.  

“They’re asking questions.”  

“Of course they are…” You quickly grab your phone, letting them know that you will talk to them at Uni tomorrow to shut them up for a while. You set your phone down beside you, looking at Soobin as he did the same.  

You bit your lip. “Soobin.”  

“Hmm?” he sat next to you on the bed, biting the inside of his cheek as he waited for you to start talking. “Remember last night when I told you that my mom tried to blame your dad for what happened…”  

Soobins ears perked up, and his body language completely changed, he nodded, waiting for you to continue.  

“While that…of course isn’t completely true, she did tell me that…apparently your dad is like…a serial cheater…” you wish that sentence came out of your mouth more coherently but looking at how Soobin’s whole body tensed up you recon that it wouldn’t have made a difference in outcome.  

“What?” his tone was so different from how he usually talks that it sent chills down your spine. You pouted. “My mom is a lot of things but she’s not a liar…she wouldn’t accuse him of something this big if she didn’t have proof.”  

Soobin closed his eyes, anger filling his whole body as he started to shake. You tried to put a hand on his shoulder but before you knew it he jolted out of the room in a split second.  

Your eyes widened, unsure of what was about to go down but you didn’t hesitate and ran right after him. He nearly flew down the stairs, angrily stomping through the house to find his dad and Isabel at the breakfast bar in the kitchen. 

Both of their eyes widened, and his dad immediately knew something was up. Right then Soobin grabbed him by his collar, easily lifting him off the chair and pushing him against the refrigerator door like a ragdoll. He was seething. Absolutely fuming.

“SOOBIN!” Isabelle got on her feet just as quickly and that’s when she saw you equally as stressed and scared as her. She was even more confused as she locked eyes with you, not knowing when or how you got here.  

“Soobin let go…please” you carefully tried but the sound of your voice made Soobin crash his dad’s back into the fridge even harder this time. “YOU PIECE OF FUCKING SHIT!” He spits out. His dad was scared by now but how could he not be? His perfect lie was about to unravel.  “First my mom and now her huh!? Were you going to sleep with this whole town and hope Isabel dies of cancer too so you can fuck up a different family this time!?”  

Oh my god.  

“You’re not even denying it.” Soobin’s voice softened as he watched his father struggle to breathe in his hold.  

He soon let go of him, disgust was written all over his face as he calmly turned to Isabelle, followed by some violent coughs coming from his father’s throat. Your eyes quickly darted to him to see if he was ok, but your attention shifted when Soobin started talking again.  

“I’m sorry Isabelle. But my father slept with y/n’s mother the night of the party, on that couch.” He pointed at the living room cocking an eyebrow as he casually announced the news. And all you could do was watch as Isabelle’s whole world fell apart. You saw something break in her eyes as her gaze redirected to Soobin’s dad who was awfully quiet. Frozen in place with his back still glued to the fridge even though Soobin had already let go of him.  “And apparently there have been many more.” He continued, cocking his head to the side with a bitter smile.  

You couldn’t believe you were witnessing this. Your eyes scanned all of their faces at once as you stood frozen on your feet.  

“Is it true?” you heard Isabelle’s voice crack.  

Soobin wasn’t sticking around for the aftermath, he brushed past them and for a second you thought he was going to leave you there but he dragged you with him into the hallway and that’s when the yelling match started between them.  

You winced as you heard glass break, your eyes widening in shock and disbelief after everything that just went down. “S-Soobin I’m so sorry.”  

He was putting on his shoes, giving you a look. “None of this is your fault.” He said getting back up to look you in your widened eyes. He looked back at the kitchen, hearing the arguing get louder and louder.  

So much for the perfect family his dad tried to create. So much for the empty promises of how things were going to be different this time. But none of it was real. Not when all of this time his dad was living a lie.  

You bit your trembling lip, trying to keep it together when Soobin started to put on your shoes for you, grabbing your coat as he wrapped it around you before holding you at an arm’s length. “I need to go see my sister.”  

His what now? Soobin grabbed his keys, looking at the kitchen one more time before he opened the front door, gently pushing you out and closing the door behind him.  

“You have a sister?”  

“Yeah. She lives like two hours away, but don’t worry. I’ll be back for Uni tomorrow.” He reassured you that he wasn’t going anywhere for too long but the thought of all of this going down without him around felt so wrong. It’s like he was in panic mode. Rushing to escape and get you as far away from this mess as he possibly could.  

Of course you understood. But somehow things were going too fast to process right now.  

“Do we just…leave them alone? I-”  

Soobin opened the trunk of his car, throwing in his jacket before shutting it as you stood there and simply watched him as he paced around. He was completely struck with adrenaline, and you knew there was no way you could stop him from going. If anything, it might do him some good to talk to another family member.  

“Please…drive save okay.” You walked over to him and grabbed his arm to make him look at you and once his eyes landed on you his gaze completely softened. He nodded quietly, pulling you into him. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”  

“It’s…it’s ok.”  

“No, it’s not.” His voice was stern and all you could do was nod, avoiding eye contact altogether.  

He sighed, pulling you into him and nuzzled his nose in your hair, inhaling the perfumy scent of your shampoo once more to calm himself down. Soobin squeezed you in his arms to then let go and kiss you ever so gently, afraid you’d break.  

You reluctantly let go. “Text me when you get there, please…”  

He nodded, smiling at you fondly before getting into his car without another word. He reversed the car out of the driveway and sped off, leaving you feeling empty as ever on the pavement.  

Going home made no sense to you, so your legs took you to the only house that did make sense to go to right now. It started pouring rain in the middle of your way there, but you didn’t care. You were letting the water cleanse you of all the bad energy you just encountered.  

You were worried sick for Soobin, feeling knots form in your stomach as nausea took over. You knew he probably didn’t have a home to return to anymore once he got back and the thought made you feel like it was your fault somehow. He’s been through so much this past year and you knew exactly what it felt like to be alone in a broken home full of lies and secrets.  

You couldn’t help but think of your father. Though your mom’s existence was a good enough reason to leave, you never got a real explanation from either of them. It’s like he was Voldemort. You could never speak of him or ask about him, so you made peace with the whole thing years ago, though it still ate at you from time to time. But this…this whole thing was opening up old wounds that would just leave new scars and you weren’t ready for that. Especially now that you finally felt like you were able to let yourself love someone again.  

Why couldn’t it be easier?  

Your chemistry and dynamic with Soobin came so incredibly natural that it felt like all four forces of nature were trying to sabotage your relationship as some type of balancing act. It was unfair.  

For you, for him, even for Isabelle.  

You were fighting tears the whole way, but when you knocked on Beomgyu’s door and watched his big smile falter when he opened the door for you, you fully broke down.  

“Y/n…” his voice was quiet as he wrapped his arms around you, letting you cry in his arms as he comforted you on the floor of his hallway.  

“You’re soaking wet…did you walk all the way here in the rain? Shit.” He quickly looked around and grabbed his mother’s scarf, wrapping it around you in an attempt to warm you up, but your teeth were still chattering as silent sobs escaped your lips.  

“Let’s get you in dry clothes and then we can talk okay?”  

You locked eyes with him, slowly nodding as you watched his face contort from pure concern to relief.  

“Ok, come on,” he says helping you up.  

“…Soobin?” his sister smiled widely. “You could’ve called! I would’ve made lunch or something.”  

“I’m…I’m not hungry. I actually really need to talk to you.”  

Soobin organized all of his thoughts in his head on the car ride over, he didn’t really know how to break it to her, or how to articulate all the scattered words in his head, but he had to somehow.  

“…Well it must be damn important if you drove all the way here?” she moved aside and led him into the living room, making him sit down on the large sofa.  

He looked around for a second. Feeling how warm, cozy, and loving her home felt just by observing the place. He kicked himself for not coming over more often, but after the move and everything else, he just couldn’t get himself to do so for some reason.  

“Want a tour of the house? You haven’t seen the place since we bought it.” She smiled at him sweetly but the absence in his eyes didn’t go unnoticed by her as he played with his fingers in his lap. She moved her weight from one foot to the other, wanting to sit down next to him on the couch but the moment got interrupted by tiny little footsteps on the hard wooden floor.  

“Uncle Bin! Uncle Bin!” his nephew ran around the corner, making Soobin look up from his hands. His eyes lit up in a split second, holding out his arms for the toddler as he launched his tiny body into Soobin’s arms. “Hey little guy, look at you, you’ve gotten so big!” Soobin lifted the kid up and placed him on his lap, rocking him on his knee as he tickled his belly. “I missed you uncle bin!” Soobin melted, squeezing his eyes shut as he showed his dimples while pursing his lips together. Talk about a cuteness overload.  

“I missed you too, buddy.” He pressed his finger into the identical dimple the child had. They kinda looked alike. At least that’s what everyone tells him.  

His sister smiled at both of them and placed her son on her lap but he was fighting her, wanting to go back to Soobin.“Hey, listen, listen. How about you go upstairs and draw Uncle Soobin something really pretty, and then afterwards you two can go get ice cream? Okay?”  

The kids’ eyes had literal beams emitting from them out of excitement. “Okay! But only if you hang it somewhere special.”  

Soobin hands clasped over his chest where his heart was with a smile and nodded. “Of course! I’ll frame it and hang it up.”  

“At home!” the kid chirped, but Soobin’s smile faltered a bit. “Y-yeah buddy, at home.”  

His sister noticed his drop in energy and protectively moved closer to him.  

“Okay, deal!” the kid was easily convinced as he sprinted upstairs, making both Soobin and his sister sigh in relief.  

She averted his attention to him once more, firmly squeezing his shoulder. He seemed to be feeling better already, though the atmosphere got heavier shortly after his nephew left the room.  

“Why are you really here Bin?” she carefully starts.  

“You want the short version or the long version?” he asks giving her a blank stare.  

“Short…no long.”  

Soobin nodded to himself and inhaled sharply, speaking incredibly fast. “Okay so, I met this girl 'cause she almost hit me with her car and she’s amazing, we’re neighbors, by the way, total coincidence. But her mom is… uhm…well single and one time she invited us over for dinner to welcome us into the neighborhood and even though I connected with y/n, I felt like something was up with dad and her mom so y/n threw a party two nights ago, but the drinks were finished so me and y/n were going to sneak into the house and steal some of dad’s whiskey collection but then we caught her mom and our dad fucking on the couch.”  

With an open mouth, Soobin’s sister was trying to follow his story but the randomness of it all overwhelmed her. “Huh!?”  

“Yeah, so dad cheated on Isabel, and I found out that dad has been cheating on Isabel just like he was cheating on mom during her sickness so I kinda snapped and assaulted him in front of Isabel and y/n and now I’m worried that y/n might see me differently but I literally ran away to come here a minute after that all went down and I don’t know what to do or how to go back, I’m actually going insane” Soobin was gasping for air as he uttered that whole monologue in one breath, carefully awaiting his sisters’ reaction by knitting his eyebrows together as he anticipated her response. So much for organizing his thoughts in the car…  

“Soobin.” She closed her eyes. “what was y/n even doing in the house? Dude, I’m so lost you have no idea, and you left her? Right after you reconstructed dads face?”  

“I didn’t hit him. And why aren’t you reacting to the cheating part, aren’t you pissed? I-”  

“Oh baby bro.” she closed her eyes, leaning back on the couch at a loss for words. “Dad has always been and will always be a piece of shit. Nothing that man does will ever surprise me. I’ve known about some of this but I always tried to shield you from it. I guess now that you’re older the puzzle pieces are starting to fit.”  

Soobin just nodded, drifting back into thought. “I can’t believe I almost bought his caring act.”  

“You know, I don’t think it’s an act. He cares for us deeply but…watching mom die fucked him up…badly.”  

Soobin looked up in surprise. “I’m not saying that it’s an excuse, I’m just saying that he started grieving her while she was still alive in the worst way possible and Isabelle is probably just collateral damage…our childhood was great when they still loved each other…when mom wasn’t sick.” A tear tried to escape from his sisters’ eye but she quickly wiped it away, staring at the picture of their mother on the coffee table.  

He was looking at it too, his heart filling with both love and sadness as he studied his mom’s face. He drifted back into deep thought as the two of them stayed silent for a second.  

“Is y/n your girlfriend?”  

Soobin’s head snapped in his sisters’ direction, it’s as if she sensed that he was thinking of you.  

“We’re…pretty new. But it’s heading in that direction. This all just complicates things.” He swallowed harshly, nervously picking at his cuticles again. “I don’t know how I’ll ever go back.”  

“Soobin…she’ll understand.”  

“I know she does, that’s not what I meant. I meant going back to the house.”  

Her eyes got sad as she watched him and moved closer to envelop him in a hug. He fully gave in wrapping his arms around her frame. “You can move here?” she softly suggested.  

Soobin let go of her, raising his eyebrows at the sudden offer. “Huh?”  

“I mean think about it. I have an extra room now, you can go back to your old college and it’s not like you’re moving across the country…I’m sure that whatever it is that you’re trying to figure out with y/n could also work with a little bit of distance.”  

Soobin’s lips parted as he contemplated the sudden offer. It seemed…viable in some way, but he did have to admit that the thought of moving schools again would suck. Especially now that he’s finally settled and made friends.  And you…oh my god. He knew you well enough that the distance would fuck both of you up for sure. But he had to be realistic and chose between staying, being miserable at home for years to come with a potential relationship that could end because of that miserable situation OR running away and chose not to fight that battle.    

“Won’t your husband mind?” Soobin asks, knowing damn well what the answer to that question was already. But he didn’t know what else to say right now.  

“No, of course not. He loves you.” She shrugged, giving him a pat on the knee. “Just think about it okay? Let’s get that little monster his ice cream.”  

Soobin barely responded to your texts, telling you that he’d drive out early in the morning to go straight to Uni from his sisters’ house right before you went to bed. You barely slept, twisting and turning in Beomgyu’s bed as he took the inflatable mattress on the floor. He demanded you to stay over after you told him everything and decided to obey him just because you really didn’t feel like being alone right now.  

After a quick stop at your house in the morning to shower and get dressed you were headed out for your first class of the day already. Going to school felt odd but it was a blessing in disguise cause it offered some type of normalcy after this hectic weekend. Before you got in Beomgyu’s car you stopped for a second to look at Soobin’s house just to see the empty driveway. You knew he’d be at school when you got there but for some reason, you were more anxious than excited to see him.  

You were waiting for him in the parking lot, your eyes lighting up when he pulled up and got out of the car after parking it swiftly. He looked at you with the exact same sparkles in his eyes and wrapped you in his arms for a long, warm hug.  

You sigh contently, holding him at arm's length. He was wearing dress pants and a white loose-fitting button up…to school?  

“You look…different?” you chuckle to break the silence, fixing a wrinkle in the material on his shoulder.  

“It’s the only thing I could find in my brother-in-law’s closet that fit me.” Soobin snorted, leaning his back against the wall.  

“How was it?” you asked with a hopeful expression but somehow Soobin found it hard to look you in the eye.  

“Uhm…” he started, but paused again. “We talked about my parents and…where it went wrong and stuff. My sister made me realize that her death left different scars on our dad than the rest of us.”  

You blinked at him, not fully comprehending but also kind of understanding what he was saying. “After our talk, I spent some time with my nephew…he’s really cute.” He smiled, missing him already, and seeing the look in Soobin’s eyes you couldn’t help but reciprocate his enamored grin.  

“Did you talk to him yet?”  

Soobin shook his head. “He called me like a hundred times but I’m not ready, Isabelle texted me that I was still welcome and that my dad’s staying at some motel in town, so I won’t have to worry about running into him for the time of being.”  

You moved a piece of his hair out of his eyes. “Well…that’s a temporary solution.” You sigh. “We need to come up with a permanent one.”  

“…Yeah…” Soobin didn’t know how to tell you about the offer his sister made, but he also knew that decisions had to be made fast. “I have to get to class.’ He tells you, checking the time on his phone.  

Seeing how absent he was made your heart feel heavier than ever. It’s like his body was here and his mind was somewhere else. You wished there was more you could do. “I’ll see you in our free period, right?” you asked, and he simply nodded, pulling you in to kiss you softly.  

“Did you guys hear about the festival at school, they want us to dress up as characters,” Beomgyu announces showing you guys the post on the school’s Instagram page.  

“Seems fun,” Taehyun adds, followed by Hueningkai’s loud laugh. “Dress up? Like what exactly?” he questions.  

You were not present at all during this conversation, nervously biting your lip as you kept staring at the door, waiting for Soobin to walk in.  

“Hueningie can dress as a lifesize penguin, Tae as some fighter and I can just be a cowboy-themed stripper.”  

“What about me.” Beomgyu moped.  

Yeonjun shot Beomgyu a pained smile. “You don’t need a costume to blend in.” 

The table laughed and averted their attention to you. “Maybe you and Soobin could do a couples costume? Like batman and batgirl or something. That’s cute.” Yeonjun suggests trying to cheer you up. You broke out your trance, giving him and the others a quick smile. “Y-yeah seems fun.”  

Taehyun was losing his patience with you and rolled his eyes. The whole table was trembling just because you kept shaking your leg in nervousness.  

“Dude quit it. He’ll be here.” He said putting his hand on your knee to make you stop. Your head snapped back, instantly halting your nervous tick as you bit your lip. “Sorry. But you should’ve seen him.”  

“Give the guy some rest, he’s probably still exhausted both emotionally and physically.” You nodded, agreeing with Tae as you crossed your arms on the table with a pout on your face.  

“Do you think he’ll move out?” Hueningkai asks, making Beomgyu look at him funny. “Where would he go?”  

“I don’t know. He has a sister, maybe there?”  

You looked up at Hueningkai with dilated pupils letting your shoulders fall and Yeonjun immediately noticed how sad that comment made you. “Oh my god, Kai shut up, can’t you see she’s already going through it.” He pulled you into him and you just gave in, resting your head on Yeonjun’s shoulder as he patted your head like a cat.  

“His sister lives like two hours away,” Beomgyu muttered through his teeth while leaning towards Hueningkai.  

“Oh...sorry.” Hueningkai quickly apologized with wide eyes, awkwardly laughing the pained atmosphere away as he rocked in his chair.  

“Oh, there he is.” Taehyun cutely waved at Soobin who immediately walked over to your table. You lifted your head off Yeonjun’s shoulder, pushing him aside to make room for Soobin.  

“Ha, I see how it is,” he says rolling his eyes and acting all fake hurt but still proceeded to scoot over so Soobin could sit next to you anyway.  

Soobin gave you a quick peck before he unwrapped his sandwich, not noticing the silence that took over the table as everyone stared at him all at once. He lifted his head, looking around just to get flustered by all of your eyes on him. “…Uh…what?”  

“What do you mean what?” Beomgyu huffed, pushing Soobin’s sandwich aside. “what’s your next move?” he continues.  

“And let us know if we can help in any way,” Taehyun adds.  

Soobin suddenly got overwhelmed with all their pitiful faces but you looked at him attentively, waiting for him to speak.  

“I-I don’t know yet.”  

“Well, what are your options? Do you have options?” Yeonjun asks this time.  

Soobin sighed, staring at his hands. “My sister she uh…” he looked at you this time, pausing for a second. “She offered me to move in with her.”  

All of their eyes darted from Soobin to you. You pursed your lips together, swallowing harshly as you turned to him. “Why didn’t you tell me?” you whispered but of course, everyone could hear.  

“…I…I didn’t know how. But it’s not like I made my mind up yet, I just…”  

You childishly got up and stormed off to avoid either an emotional breakdown or a temper tantrum, leaving everyone at a loss for words back at the table.  

“Dude,” Beomgyu says wide-eyed, watching a frozen Soobin with a shocked face, still glued to his seat. “She came to me crying last night, worried sick about you. She even opened up about her dad for the first time” Beomgyu wasn’t one to get angry fast but he had a distaste for injustice. “What?” Soobin says turning into a statue.

“You do know her dad left under similar conditions, right?” Tae added.  

“I-” Soobin stuttered, eyes guilty and wide. How did he forget?  

“Oh my god, for the love of god, go! Run after her. Go!” Yeonjun says pulling Soobin out of his seat with all of his strength.  

Soobin didn’t fully grasp what was going on but his feet started to run in your direction automatically.  

He spotted you at the end of the hallway. You were speed walking out of the building, so he decided to take the short route in order to catch up to you outside.  

He ran through the large double doors, making a quick turn so he could grab you. “Y/n wait!” Soobin hasn’t run this fast since PE in high school. He was completely out of breath, pulling you into a random alley around the school building.  

You stared at him in bewilderment, quickly wiping your wet eyes so he wouldn’t notice but it was already too late. “`Y/n…” he sulked, grabbing your face with both hands so he could make you look up at him.  

You sniffed, removing his hands from your face and created some distance. “I want…I want to be alone.” You lied.  

The thing is that you knew what was best for him. You knew that moving in with his sister was what he needed to do for himself, but selfishly you wished he’d stay. You wished his future would be brighter with you in it, but not when there’s a dark cloud following him home every day. How could he heal if he couldn’t move on?    

“I thought that…maybe there was something more there than just…sex,” you whispered. It made Soobin’s eyes widen, taking a step closer to you so he could take your hand in desperation.  

“There is! Trust me you know I’d never hurt you like that. I told you how I felt about you so many times but this…y/n it's’ bigger than us. We’ve barely been in each other’s lives for two weeks”  

Ouch. That one rubbed you the wrong way, but in his defense, it just came out of his mouth miserably.  

“So that’s it then? Soobin…do you know how hard It is for me to open up to anyone!?” Anger started to take over as you yanked your hand out of his hold.  

“…You’re acting like there’s no way we can make the distance work.”  

“You’re the one who made it seem like our time together is forgettable enough to not even explore a different option other than moving across the state! We both know that the shift from being literal neighbors to being cities away is going to kill us.”  

“Well staying in that house is going to kill me!” Soobin raised his voice in frustration, making you take a step back in silence as you looked at your feet.  

“It's not fair,” you mumble as your voice cracks, which made Soobin soften up again.  

He didn’t want to admit that you were right, because admitting meant that he had to just be okay with losing you and he didn’t want that. However, deep down he had already made up his mind. There’s nowhere else for him to go other than his sister, and after everything, a family might just be the thing he needs most right now.  

“Y/n I don’t want us to end like this. I don’t want you to feel like I’m choosing not to stay and fight for you. It’s not that black and white. I can’t be a good boyfriend if I stay under their roof. It’ll consume me.” His voice cracked too as he stared at you with despair.  

You looked back at him, trying your hardest to fight your tears. “Then it’s best if we go our separate ways now before someone seriously gets hurt.”  

Why were you doing this?  

Soobin’s eyes widened. “What?”  

“Like you said, it’s barely been two weeks.” You shrugged. Striking first was always your way to cope so you wouldn’t get hurt. It was your way of staying in control, but it was no use because it already hurt. So. Fucking. Much.  

“Y/n…don’t.” Soobin tried to grab your hand again but you didn’t let him. He watched tears spill from your eyes this time, and right before he could say something else you were already gone.  

Your mom was on her weekly grocery shopping spree and not so accidentally stumbled into the department store. She was going to buy you something in hopes it’d make you less angry at her, even if it was just a little bit.  

She was used to the stares from countless men surrounding her. The sound of her heels and the smell of her perfume announced her presence before she walked into the room. It’s like she ran this town as she greeted every employee.

She was scanning aisle after aisle, hoping to get you a cute bag or something until she spotted a familiar tall figure in the luggage section.  

“Yeah, I know. I still have some unpacked boxes, so I’ll just throw the rest in a suitcase.”  

Your mom moved in closer, eavesdropping on the conversation Soobin was having over the phone with his sister. “Why are suitcases so damn expensive,” Soobin mumbled in annoyance, grabbing the tag of another one behind it.  

Your mom squinted her eyes, moving her cart aside so she could get closer to him. “Going on a trip?” your mom’s voice scared the fuck out of Soobin, he nearly dropped his phone and almost knocked over the whole rack of suitcases as they made eye contact.  

Your mom smiled at him widely, raising an eyebrow still calmly awaiting his response. “I…uh…I’ll call you back.” He quickly hung up the phone and regained composure, straightening out his back after putting his phone in his pocket.  

“I’m guessing you’re the reason my daughter’s been extra sad lately?” She assumed, crossing her arms.  

“Uh..extra? I- What do you mean…”  

“She’s always grumpy. cause she lives with me. But ya know…she hasn’t been eating or sneaking out in the middle of the night so I’m guessing.” She rolled her index finger in the air theatrically to end up pointing it in Soobin’s face. “That it has something to do with you.”  

Soobin licked his lips, not knowing how to get out of this one. “I think it’s better if you talk to her about it.”  

“She doesn’t talk to me. We both know that.” Your mom rolled her eyes, making Soobin even more uncomfortable than he already was as he looked around the store.  

“…Mam, I’m sorry but-”  

“You’re not leaving her, right?” She interrupted him. “Because it looks like…you’re leaving,” she said pointing at the suitcase.  

“You and my dad didn’t give me much of a choice.” Soobin bit back. Your mom raised her eyebrow in pleasant surprise. She liked the fire Soobin had in him. Just because it reminded her of herself.  

“Where are you going Soobin?” Your mother asked sternly.  

“To live with my sister.”  

“Where?”  

“It’s like 2 hours away.” Soobin sighed, but that made all the puzzle pieces fall into place in your mothers’ brain.  

“Soobin. You’re not leaving my daughter like this, not another man. You can’t just pack up your shit and go. She already went through that once. It wasn’t pretty.”  

“She…she broke up with me? And it’s not like I want to. I don’t have much of a choice.” Soobin says in his defense. It was like he was reliving the last conversation he had with you.  

“Oh, you dumbo, do you really think, that someone as in love as her would selfishly make you stay in a situation that would make you unhappy? I might not be mom of the year, but I know my baby.”  

Soobin paused for a second…hold on….in love? He wasn’t quite following anymore, too overwhelmed with the fact that he was even having this conversation with your mom of all people.  

“Let’s go talk somewhere else shall we.” She said looping her arm through Soobin’s. He mindlessly followed her, feeling like he got kidnapped in public.  

It didn’t take long before they made it to a random café, your mom got both of them coffees as they sat down at a table outside. Soobin politely thanked her for the drink, wrapping his hands around his hot cup.  

“First off. I apologize for taking part in…your life going to shit.” Your mom immediately says as she sits down in front of him.  

Soobin’s eyes widened, swallowing harshly. “But just so you know, if it wasn’t me it would’ve been the other housewife next door so…”  

Soobin snorted, bitterly smiling at his cup. “With all due respect, it would’ve made things less complicated if it was the other housewife.”  

Your mom let out a cackle, admiring his sense of humor. “I bet yeah…But I mean it. I’m sorry.”  

He nodded and silence took over completely. Your mothers’ expression switched from playful to worried as she watched Soobin take a sip of his drink. “I’ve never seen my daughter happier than she has been for the past two weeks you know.”  

“I got the impression that you weren’t really around to notice,” Soobin says taking a bite of his complimentary biscuit while remaining eye contact. For an introvert, he was really pushing his social boundaries today, cause he was bolder than ever.  

Your mom scoffed. “I’m a single mom with a daughter in college. Someone has to pay for that tuition, and I can’t really make that happen by sitting around, can I?”  

Soobin raised his eyebrows, nodding to show that he understood. He didn’t want to ask any further questions because he knew that getting answers to how your mom made her money would complicate things even further, but he could definitely guess.  

“Speaking of college. Have you tried the dormitory?” She asked interrupting Soobin’s thoughts.  

Soobin nodded, leaning back in his chair. “They had no available units cause it’s the middle of the semester and even if they did it's too expensive.”  

Your mothers’ ear perked up. “I can help.”  

“What? No. I’m not taking your money.”  

“No, no. I mean…I know someone on the board of your Uni. I could easily make it happen.”  

“…H-how?” Soobin was showing interest now, waiting for her to continue talking.  

“Ever since I found out y/n was accepted into that school I started cozying up to one of the school board members if you know what I mean. To make life a bit easier for us if needed.”  

Soobin couldn’t help but scrunch his nose at the revelation, but he had more questions. “Why would he help?”  

“Because he doesn’t want his wife and kids to know what daddy did two summers ago.” Your mom grimaced wiggling her eyebrows, making Soobin cover his mouth in disbelief.  

Shit.  

“That’s evil…but I’m in.” Soobin says with determination in his eyes, mimicking your mom’s mischievous grin.  

“Leave.” You were hiding under your blanket, trying to get Yeonjun to leave you the fuck alone this Friday night. You didn’t even know how he got in here, but you can only imagine that it was your mom’s doing.  

You were still mourning your potential relationship with Soobin and couldn’t wrap your head around the fact that he had probably already left without saying goodbye.  

“No.” he groaned, rubbing his forehead. “It’s the costume party tonight. Get your ass up.”  

“I’m not fucking going.” You protest, turning your back towards him like a child. 

“Yes, you are, get up. Fun is what you need. It’s what I need,” he says shaking you violently to get a reaction out of you.  

“I don’t even have a costume.”  

“Yes, you do. I made Beomgyu pick up the batgirl costume for you.”  

“What?”  

“I’m a Virgo, y/n. I think before you do.” Yeonjun winked but you still weren’t really warming up to the idea of leaving your house for a stupid college party.  

“There’s no batgirl without batman.” You mumble bitterly.  

“Now…that’s not very feministic of you.”  You rolled your eyes but Yeonjun’s patience was running thin as per usual. He sighed, ripping the covers off of you. 

“Trust me. Please.” Yeonjun climbed on top of your bed and looked at you with desperate eyes.  

He stared at you fiercely and you stared back, but when he started to pout you gave in, aggressively kicking the air before getting up. “Where’s the fucking costume?” you spit out in defeat.  

Yeonjun’s eyes lit up, giggling like a baby as he pulled the costume out of his bag.  

Luckily it didn’t take too long to get ready, Yeonjun assisted where he could and pushed you out of the front door in no time. He gave your mom a quick wink, who was situated on the couch with a glass of wine in her hand. She raised the wine glass towards Yeonjun and took a sip, smiling to herself as she averted her attention back on the tv once you both left.  

“Woooow, look who it issss, It’s batgirl!” Beomgyu beamed at you, excitedly walking over as he held out his hand for you. He made you twirl around for him once and you could help but crack a smile, especially since he handed you your favorite drink. “You look great!” He screamed over the blaring music.  

“So do you…but uhm…what is…” you tried to guess who he was supposed to resemble but you had no idea to be completely honest.  

“I found out Yeonjun changed his costume to sexy vampire, so I dressed as Buffy the vampire slayer.” Beomgyu chirps wiggling his eyebrows up and down. 

You cackled out loud, showing a genuine smile for the first time in a while. “It’s ok if people don’t get it, he’ll definitely understand, and hate me for it,” he says with a mischievous grin on his face. “Well, you look very handsome Buffy.” You compliment him before you both down the drinks in your hands in one go.

Shortly after you watched Hueningkai and Taehyun approach dressed as the penguin from happy feet and Mike Tyson, the boxer. Tae even drew the gap in his teeth with some black marker and you applauded his eye for detail followed by all of you touching the fluff on Hueningkai’s adorable suit.  

You were thankful for them, just an hour ago you would rather stay in than be here but now that you were actually having fun again you felt so much better already.  

You looked around, raising your eyebrow. “…Hey, where is Yeonjun?”  

Yeonjun’s sexy vampire attire was more than in the way as he ran across campus. The fucking shit he does for his friends is insane. His cape was flying in the air as he ran towards the dormitory building, catching stares and laughs from people all around.  

He got there out of breath, knocking on the door of the room across his own with the little energy he had left. “I’m here.” He announced, and that’s when the door opened with a dramatic swing.  

Soobin’s bottom half was dressed in the batman costume and his top half was well…nude.  

Yeonjun eyes traveled down his body before making eye contact shortly after to snap out of it “…You’re late! WHY did you call me here, she’s already at the party and why aren’t you dressed?”  

“I can’t get in this thing by myself, it’s tight as hell and I can’t zip it from the back either,” Soobin complained as he pulled Yeonjun into his room, closing the door behind him so Yeonjun could help him get dressed in private.  

“Aren't you glad this room comes with blinds” Yeonjun teased as he pulled on the spandex with all his power from one side as Soobin pulled on the other side.  

Soobin rolled his eyes with a smirk finally getting one arm into the suit, followed by the other shortly after. The sight must’ve been a hilarious one to see because the two of them were moaning and groaning, completely out of breath by the time Yeonjun was able to zip up Soobin’s suit.  

“Now let’s hope you don’t have to pee 'cause I’m not helping you do that.” Yeonjun jokes which made Soobin shove him aside with a smirk.  

“Here’s the mask,” Yeonjun says grabbing it from Soobin’s bed. “Now let’s go. I’m dying to see the look on her face once she sees you.”  

Yeonjun was already at the door but Soobin hesitated, looking in the mirror with big insecure eyes as his gaze met Yeonjun’s. “What if she actually hates me.”  

“She doesn’t,” Yeonjun says grabbing Soobin by the arm. “Trust me. She’ll be happy to see you, just don’t forget to mention the fact that you’re staying.” He says giving Soobin aggressive pats on the back before the two of them left for the party.  

You went around the building to get into photobooths and talk to some of your classmates. Everyone was complimenting you on your costume but even though you were usually awkward with compliments, you decided to confidently own it and thank them with a smile. A fake one at that, because even though this thing was a good distraction, Soobin still lived in your mind rent-free.

You avoided the crowd on the dance floor and walked over to the table your friends had already claimed prior to exploring the grounds. “Ok, I’m seriously starting to get worried about Yeonjun. What if he ran into one of his exes?” you say as you sit down.  

“He's over there,” Taehyun announced, pointing at the entrance and that’s when you saw Yeonjun, followed by some masked dude in a batman costume. You looked at your attire and then back to him...and that’s when it clicked when you noticed his unique lip shape.  

It was Soobin.  

Your eyes widened as you stiffened and before you could say anything Beomgyu got up, running off to the dance floor while Tae gave you a motivating pinch on the shoulder followed by a thumbs up from Hueningkai as they followed Beomgyu to give you some privacy.  

You stared at Soobin in disbelief, although, it didn’t quite go unnoticed how good he looked in the skin-tight suit he had on.  

Shit. Shit. Shit.  

Why would they arrange this!?  

“I’ll leave you two to it.” Yeonjun gave you a wink, pushing Soobin down on a chair he pulled out next to yours.  

As Yeonjun disappeared it was hard for you to look at Soobin. You were literally going to kill your friends for doing this. Putting you in matching outfits was one thing but leaving you alone was another.  

Soobin bit his lip, wishing it wasn’t this awkward between you two. “You know…I walked around campus with a spandex wedgie, had Yeonjun dress me and everyone kept looking at me so I would…appreciate it if…you’d talk to me.”

He started to nervously bounce his leg up and down awaiting your response and that’s when you couldn’t hold it in anymore. You looked at him, cracking a smile. “We look…ridiculous.” You start, making Soobin smile at you from ear to ear. “We do.” He looked at the table and then back at you with a shy smile, taking your hand in his own as he sighed. “I’m sorry about…our fight. I never should’ve said the things I did and-”  

“I’m sorry too. I realized I was just…pushing you away.” You interrupted him which made him sigh in relief as he nodded.  

“But I don’t think it changes anything Soobin, like…it’s really sweet that you showed up and it’s even sweeter that your introverted ass went to these lengths to do so but…you’re still…leaving.”  

Soobin looked up with wide eyes, remembering that he still had to disclose the biggest fucking turn of events.  

“I…I’m not leaving.” Soobin says, which made your head snap back into his direction, your shaky pupils looking for more answers in his own as your heart stopped beating.  

“Huh?” your mouth fell agape, and he nodded to assure you that he wasn’t playing with you.  

“It was your mom actually.” Soobin smiled.  

“…My mom?” you raised your eyebrows in surprise.  

“She got me enrolled into the dorms here.”  

“What!? How!?”  

“She…knew a guy.” He vaguely explained.  

“…Of course she did.” You smiled to yourself in disbelief but for the first time in a long time, you were happy that your mom is who she is.

“…Why didn’t you tell me before? The past week had been absolute hell.”   Soobin pouted, squeezing your hand for comfort. “I wanted to be 100% sure. I didn’t want to give you any false hope if shit didn’t work out and I literally got the keys to the place today, you wouldn’t believe it; I live right across from Yeonjun so that’s going to be…eventful.”  

You listened to him speak attentively, with stars in your eyes. Your heart swelling more and more by the second.  

“Once he found out he and Beomgyu set the whole mission of reuniting batgirl and batman in action so…here I am.” He remarks as he opened his arms.  

A smile crept up on your lips, launching yourself forward to kiss him as you swiftly moved onto his lap; not caring who was watching or that you were in public.  

Soobin was startled at your directness at first but immediately relaxed into the kiss once you moved sideways on his lap. He wrapped his arms around you, firmly grabbing onto your waist so you wouldn’t slip and slide against him because of your costumes’ as he skillfully yet passionately made out with you.  

You were pulled out of your little bubble as you heard cheering from the dance floor. You both stopped for a second, looking back as you see the boys cheering, clapping, and celebrating as they looked your way and all you could do was laugh at them.  

So maybe you could have your happily ever after after all? 

They minded their business again soon after, but somehow it made you want to join them with all of the adrenaline still rushing through your bloodstream.  

“Come on, let’s dance.” You tried to get up but Soobin stopped you from moving, violently shaking his head. “You’ve awoken the monster.” He says, looking down at his crotch.  

“What?” you stared at him in disbelief. You knew you looked hot, but this…  

You couldn’t help but laugh at the bizarre situation, but he just sulked at you.  

“Y/n if I get up the suit might rip, just so you know.”  

“Well then stop it!” you yell  

“I can’t control it!” he yells back.  

You clasped your hand over your mouth to stop laughing, but Soobin gave you a scowl, throwing his head back in pain. “Well, what do we do about it?” you ask.  

“…”  

He crashed his lips into yours once you made it past the entrance to his new room. He pushed your back onto the mattress, yanking your body down the bed by your legs which made you yelp at his eagerness and the way he was manhandling you. “Soobin the…fucking suits,” you interrupt, making him halt his movements for a while.  

He thought about it for a good second, knowing damn well the two of you would not be going back to that party anyway. He turned you around, giving your ass a hard smack before ripping the suit apart at the hem by your butt. You gasped in shock, but he pushed you back down with an evil smirk, ripping his own suit apart as well to reveal his dick. He pumped himself a few times, spitting on your pussy and his own length to make this more enjoyable for the two of you as he swiped the wetness up and down your slit with his tip.

“You good?”  

You nodded into his pillow, hugging it as you lay on your stomach. He inserted himself gently inch by inch, making the two of you sigh in relief when he bottomed out into you. He eyed your reaction but you seemed to enjoy it, so he started moving slowly, steadily pumping his length in and out of you as your moans grew louder once he found a nice rhythm. This position was new to both of you, but it felt amazing as he grazed all the right spots deeper than ever.  

“You take me so well baby.” He whispered in your ear, which gave you goosebumps all over. He leaned his chest against your back, reaching around to squeeze your tits that were still snugly fit inside the stupid batgirl suit with his large hands.  

His movements started to get rougher, skin-slapping sounds filling the room accompanied by both of your moans and groans. You were feeling euphoric, your eyes rolling back as he crashed his hips into you harder and harder. His hand moved from your chest to your throat, cutting off your breathing by pinching the sides of your throat just the right way until it sent you over the edge completely.  

You screamed his name as you came, desperately gasping for air but seeing you so fucked out and helpless only edged him on to keep going. You were grabbing fistfuls of his sheets as he continued to prone bone you into the mattress until he reached his own high, you were completely overstimulated, but you couldn’t say that you hated it, in fact; you think you might've just discovered a brand new kink. He pulled out right before he erupted, coating the back of your suit with cum as he let out a loud groan filled with pure ecstasy.  

His breathing was ragged, but he looked down at you in awe as he calmed down. “So pretty.” He mused, watching how the moonlight coming from the window shone on your cum covered bare ass.  

You looked back at him with a corny smile, before realizing where the only source of light was coming from…. his goddamn window.  

“Soobin…for the love of god.” You say pointing at the open window.  

“yeah, yeah I know.” He said quickly putting on a random pair of basketball shorts over his suit so his dick wouldn’t flop out.  

You giggled and went into his bathroom to clean yourself up quickly. Soobin however was still on cloud nine and moved around the room like a sloth. He turned on the lights so he could shut the curtains but just as he took a hold of the curtain to close it, he froze; watching a frat guy give him a thumbs up from the windowpane of the opposite building.  

Fuck.  

It seems like Soobin is and will always be…someone’s naked neighbor.  

The end

[genshin-impact-updates]

New Story Unlocked - Archon Quest Chapter V: Act III and Act IV

The darkness of the Abyss draws near. People gaze into the rising smoke, as if gazing upon new possibilities.

This world needs heroes. It needs a miraculous light to shatter the silence of death.

After reaching the corresponding Adventure Rank and completing the prerequisite quests, Archon Quests Chapter V: Act III "Beyond the Smoke and Mirrors" and Chapter V: Act IV "The Rainbow Destined to Burn" will appear in the Quest Menu.

(After these quests are unlocked, access the Quest Menu by: pressing "J" on PC (default settings); tapping the Quest Menu icon in the top-left corner on mobile; or pressing and holding L1 on PS5™ or PS4™ to open the shortcut wheel and select the Quest Menu icon.)

〓Quest Start Time〓

After the Version 5.1 update, Archon Quests Chapter V: Act III "Beyond the Smoke and Mirrors" and Chapter V: Act IV "The Rainbow Destined to Burn" will be permanently available.

〓Archon Quest Chapter V: Act III "Beyond the Smoke and Mirrors" Unlock Criteria〓

• Reach Adventure Rank 28 or above

• Complete Archon Quest Chapter V: Act II "Black Stone Under a White Stone"

〓Archon Quest Chapter V: Act IV "The Rainbow Destined to Burn" Unlock Criteria〓

• Reach Adventure Rank 28 or above

• Complete Archon Quest Chapter V: Act III "Beyond the Smoke and Mirrors"

You can use the "Quick Start" function to accept and progress through Archon Quest Chapter V: Act I "Flowers Resplendent on the Sun-Scorched Sojourn" while maintaining your current progress in the existing Archon Quests. After using the "Quick Start" function to complete Archon Quest Chapter V: Act I, you can continue to accept and complete the subsequent Acts of Chapter V until you unlock the latest Archon Quest introduced in the current version update.

"PlayStation", "PS5", "PS4", "DualSense", "DUALSHOCK" are registered trademarks or trademarks of Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc.

[put-me-out-of-my-destiny]

One thing I've said before is that if Lady ever got to be playable again, she should be permitted to use items like those that appeared in the classic games, instead of having a DT gauge, just to sell the fact that she is a human being keeping up with the most powerful devils in the world through guile and perseverance.

I figure these are obtained the way Nero obtains Devil Breakers. Lady has a limited inventory that she can stock with items she either finds in levels or purchases at the skill shop.

Being the stand-in for a Devil Trigger, they would be activated with the L1/LB button by default. Items would be selected with the directional pad. Some of the items would also have functions that mimic those of a standard Devil Trigger.

Here's some items I think Lady could have access to:

Vital Star: Returning from the classic games is a green star-shaped crystal, that restores some health upon consumption. If you think it's not in-character for Lady to use a Vital Star, maybe a more sci-fi-themed healing item would be more appropriate.

High-Caliber Ammo: An item that grants a unique power-up for whichever non-Kalina Ann weapon she has equipped. This replaces her charged shots from Devil May Cry 4: Special Edition, which turned her handgun bullets into incendiary or explosive shots, and her shotgun shells into piercing and shredding shots.

Grenade: Exactly what it sounds like. Throwing can be delayed like in many shooter games.

Landmine: A different kind of explosive that activates when an enemy touches it. Can be used to set up combos.

Body Armor: Equipped to grant Lady increased damage resistance, and makes her less vulnerable to flinching or being knocked down. Can only soak up so much damage before breaking.

Jetpack: Can grant Lady a traditional double jump, or an Air Raid-like state that allows her to use her ground attacks from the safety of the air, until it runs out of fuel. The image of Lady and Trish going on a flight together is very cute to me.

Tripod: Allows her to place any non-Kalina Ann weapon in the form of a turret, which will autonomously fire a set number of shots. Lady's weapon will be automatically returned to her inventory once the turret's shots are depleted, once combat ends, or once she places down another turret.

Unnamed speed-boosting drug: Primarily this would increase Lady's movement speed, melee attack speed, and melee damage for a short duration. This would be a pale purple substance that's consumed either through an inhaler or straight-up snorted as powder. This item should also alter Lady's dialogue while it's active, representing a manic and even more violent attitude. To provoke even more concern, perhaps using this item should cause Lady to take a small amount of damage. It should probably add a red tint to the screen too.

And finally, her most powerful item would be a small vehicle, which can be summoned in similar ways to Nightmare from Devil May Cry 5 (air dropped, burrowing from the ground, bursting through a wall, etc.).

I'm imagining this vehicle was made using mechanisms from a dismantled Kalina Ann II, and the original Kalina Ann can interface with it in the same way, granting access to moves like Cascade and Mega Cascade. This vehicle has a limited pool of health, and will explode when its health is depleted, after ejecting Lady.

I haven't settled on a name for the vehicle, but I'm partial to Maddona. According to the wiki, this was another name for the Virgin Mary who, along with Beatrice and St. Lucia (Trish and Lucia's namesakes), aided Dante Alighieri in his journey through hell. It's speculated that the name Madonna is what inspired Lady's chosen name.

[bubbles-for-all-of-us]

Hear me out! II teaching reader how to play drums

Slightly suggestive

Play along

His drum sessions were for him and him only. The basement studio he had crafted for himself was his oasis and he didn’t plan to share it with anyone. But you had always been the exception in his life. From the moment he saw you, there was no desire to be grouchy. Quite the opposite. His heart had plummeted down when he had turned around to throw a nasty remark over his shoulder as you both were stabbing in a pretty tight queue and you had nudged him a couple of times. He always said that it was your eyes that had left him speechless but it was everything else too. You were just what he had been looking for. He had that feeling about you.

“Hey, love”, his voice sounded down the hallway, “Where are you?”. You put your book down, glancing up, “Living room”, you called out, watching ii slowly emerging, drumsticks still in hand. “Hi”, he muses a smile on his face. He always seemed to smile when his eyes landed on you. A default reaction. “Hey, gorgeous”, you mirrored his bright face, “Why are you back up so soon?”. He doesn’t say anything before reaching for your hand, making you frown, “ii”, you question softly. “Come”, is all he says as he drags you towards the basement stairs.

The studio is dimly lit. His notes were scattered on the floor alongside empty Red Bull cans. The last time you were here he had been setting his drum kit together, now it proudly stood almost in the middle of the room. “Well, you cleaned up nicely”, you mused, glancing at the poster and record-covered wall. “I will pick up the trash”, he states, making you giggle because he knows that you are a clean freak deep inside. “It’s your haven you live how you want in it”, you shrug, as he moves to sit behind the set, pulling you onto his lap. The seating is snug. You can feel him behind you even if he’s only semi-hard, his thighs caging you in. You brace your palms on them, slowly running the pads of your fingers over his tattooed skin.

“Do I get a private concert from the drummer’s point of view?”, you ask turning back slightly, catching a glimpse of the smirk forming on his face. “I want to teach you something”, ii simply state, “been wanting to see you behind my set so long”. Now it’s your time to smirk, “Why, gets you hot and bothered?”, you tease him, pushing back against him. “Careful, or you will be learning about the other side of the kit after I bend you over it”, he growls against your ear, pressing his lips onto your neck, nibbling at your skin before littering the spot with feather-like kisses. You lean against him fully. Welcoming the feeling and warmth of him.

“Want to play the summoning with me?”, he whispers against your ear, and you simply nod. Watching him softly position the drumsticks between your fingers before he fraps his much bigger palms over your whole hand. “Just relax and let me do the rest, I’ll whisper the notes in your ear”, he muses and it’s enough to send the shivers down your back. It feels surreal to sit there like this. It looks that you sitting there between his spread legs doesn’t give him any trouble. He sounds just like he does during the concert. Your eyes follow his movements as he continues to play.

And then he’s leaning in, kissing your neck between every word. You lean deeper into him, wishing your hands were free so you could feel him. “Turn to me”, he orders thickly and you don’t hesitate. Catching the glimpse of the glisten in his blue eyes and right before his solo part I crash his lips onto yours. The kiss is messy and eager. Deliciously addictive but it’s not even that it’s the fact that you can hear him still playing and still hitting all the parts right if not better. You try to throw him off track as you pull back, biting onto his lips, but he’s right there, leaning back in, kissing you even deeper, both moaning against each other.

You pull away breathlessly when the music finally dies down. Slipping your hands from his, letting the drumsticks clatter to the floor as you turn to face him, only to climb back onto his lap, this time straddling him. Ii palms move to cup your ass, squeezing it a couple of times.

“Show off”, you muse against his lips, making ii let out a chuckle, “I just wanted to test my theory”, he says between kisses. “What theory?”, you pull back, leaning up to watch his smug face. “If I could play just as well while kissing you”, he explains. You roll your eyes, “Now tell me that it was iii who put this thought in your angelic mind”, you shake your head. Ii laughs and you know that you’re right, “It was him but I had thought about it myself just… just in a different sense”, he adds, eyes watching you. “What different sense?”, you ask, letting your hands rape over his shoulders. Ii smirks and a part of you knows what’s coming. “I wondered if I could fuck you while I play”, he says so casually that for a second you can’t help but tell yourself that you misunderstood him but then that’s exactly the answer you had been waiting for. “Of course you thought about that”, you roll your eyes but can’t help the smirk on your face. “Come on, tell me that you haven’t thought about it too”, I pull at your hair slightly, just enough to make you look up. “Guess you have to put words to actions to see”, you shrug innocently. ii shakes his head, before reaching for the band of his joggings.

[clouds-of-wings]

Because Spotify doesn't really know that much about my listening habits and because I enjoyed writing this kind of post last year I'll once more make a post about my ACTUAL musical favourites this year. So here goes! Album time!

Grendels Sÿster: Abstieg in die Traumkammer (2024, heavy/folk metal) -- This was by far my favourite album of the year. It came out this August. First album by the band, and what a debut! The album has an English version too (which you can also find if you click the link), but I vastly prefer the German one. The lyrics are really excellent and they fit so, so well with the character of the German language. Musically I would say they sound like "early Týr with a female punk singer", the lyrics feature retellings and re-imaginings of various mythologies and mythological themes of the world, ranging from Norse to Greek to (on their EP) Hinduism or even Tolkien's Valar. They once called their genre NWONOEM (New Wave of Nerd-Oriented Epic Metal).

Other albums I liked, in no specific order:

Kornalyn: Intemporel III (2024, folk) -- Kornalyn has been at this for a few years. He's a French anarchist and folk musician who records modernized versions of traditional leftist & worker songs. He's versatile, he's talented, he's got spirit and a great voice. Worth checking out whether you're a comrade, a history enthusiast or a folk fan.

Alice Longyu Gao: Let's Hope Heteros Fail, Learn and Retire (2023, hyperpop) -- Okay, I'm versatile too. Or at least not so set in my ways that I can't appreciate different genres than I normally listen to. Alice's hyperpop songs have a chaotic artistic spirit that I find charming. In a way, some of her songs are pretty metal-ish too - they remind me a little of old SOAD songs. She's funny, she's innovative, she's a delight.

Stonefield: The Light of Lies (1990, prog rock) -- Some awesome prog rock from the 90s. The singer sounds like DIO. If you like the hammond organ, CLIK TEH LINK! If not, click it anyway, you may start to! When I tried to find out which year the album was from, I found their EP The Eyes of the Dawn (1989), which is also so fun.

Alvader: Hereniging (2024, folk metal) -- Hey you! Do you like Heidevolk? If you found this post through the folk metal tag I bet you do. In this case definitely listen to this band. It's made up of ex-members of Heidevolk and sounds a lot like the "original".

HammerFall: Avenge the Fallen (2024, power/heavy metal) -- What can I say about this one. It's HammerFall. It rules by default. It sounds like all their other albums. HammerFall are one of the few bands where that's a compliment.

molllust: In Deep Waters (2015, symphonic metal) -- There is no music I like better than symphonic metal that takes the "symphonic" part really, really seriously. molllust are one of the few bands that do. Between Janika Groß's gorgeous orchestrations and her operatic voice, this is one of the bands that give me hope for the genre. At first I actually found their older stuff too inaccessible, but after I listened to the newer and more straight-forward Mother Universe album a lot last year, In Deep Waters became a lot more approachable to me.

Wintersun: TIME II (2024, Extremely Delayed Technically Complete Symphonic Death Wish Metal) -- I still can't believe my eyes, or ears. Am I dreaming? Is this the real life? It's really out! And Nuclear Blast didn't even give it a digibook edition (I have the one of TIME I and thought I might have a matched set one day). Is this because their corporate overlords don't care about physical media or are they just so DONE with the album, and Jari in general, that they didn't make more of an effort out of spite?

Norrsinnt: Djupt inni skoga (2024, folk metal) -- Somewhere between heavy folk and very folky metal. A collection of songs the artist released individually over the past years, but the album only came out a short while ago. He fortunately seems to have decided against using an AI image as cover art in the end, so I don't feel bad listing this album here. Oh, there are albums that I found this year and liked musically which I'm not listing for this reason, definitely! I'm glad this one isn't among them, because I've known all these songs for years and I'm quite fond of them, and of the power and originality of the vision behind this project.

Nightwish: Yesterwynde (2024, symphonic metal) -- I didn't expect too much from this album, but ended up really liking it! My favourite parts are, of course, the orchestral passages. I like how Nightwish are still capable of evolution, new paths, instead of being stuck in the 2000s. And, after all, what could be a more fitting topic for music that's as larger than life as symphonic metal than just the totality of existence, the universe, the human equation, the meaning of it all?

Romuvos: Spirits (2024, folk) -- Pagan Folk, immersive, meditative, dark. I don't have much to say about this, other than that I have listened to it a lot this year.

KAMIJO: ??? (????, symphonic power metal) -- I usually only have albums on this list because I'm old-fashioned like that, but that's really unfair to Kamijo, who's my top artist of the year on Spotify and whose greatest songs are spread out across a multitude of single bonus tracks and short EPs. So I will link his song TEMPLE and say doumo arigato gozaimasu, vampire prince rockstar-san, nay, -sama!

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I also continued my exploration of the world of opera. Since I think I'm beginning to know my taste, there were a lot of works I started and didn't finish, but some I liked very much. My favourite was L'elisir d'amore (1832), which I watched in two different versions and listened to all summer. It's a rather light-hearted one, but the music is nevertheless dramatic, it's fast, it's powerful and... somehow rich. And it's just pretty, I'm not immune to the charms of the easily lovable Italian opera, or of Rolando Villazon and his musical and comedic talent. I'd definitely recommend this recording even to people who have never watched an opera before.

I also really liked Eugene Onegin (1879, can't find the recording now) - much more tragic than the one above, few operas I've watched had a better plot, I read the novel it's based on afterwards - as well as a whimsical 1979 recording of L'incoronazione di Poppea (1643) and a gorgeous staging of Atys (1676, only French subs here, sry). Baroque opera is superior to the later stuff according to me. The beautiful music, the melancholic observations on life in the libretto, the way the operas always seem to reach for the divine, beyond the limits of mundane human existence - it strives for perfection, and my ears think it comes close.

And that's my musical breakdown of the year :)