#ive literally never written a system before

[tex-now]

For my modern au I'm not sure if I want loop to be in a separate body from siffrin or if I want them to be a system (I hope that's the correct phrasing)

[notedchampagne]

it's after halloween but trick or treat anyway here you go:

flattenings of john as a character, specifically the "deadbeat dad" accusations or referring to alecto's creation as "male gaze-y." he is a demonstrably involved and gentle parent the instant he learns he's got a kid; the issue is not that he's a deadbeat so much as that he set up a society where parenthood and authority are positions of naturalized abuse. Like, he's doing everything right on the surface, it's just that you can't be a good parent and also a god-emperor. You can't help your kid connect with her culture and ancestry when you killed all her ancestors and erased their culture; you can't let your kid inherit what you have when you're never going to die and she's already dead; you can't give her what she wants and have that be healthy when what she wants is a position in the army you run. but fuck if he's not trying to. from a surface level view, he's doing everything right! and calling alecto barbie male gaze-y eliminates the role of larger systems in literally everything john has ever done. is it not so much more satisfying for it to be a completely innocuous and even childish act that still ends up defiling a woman's body because the defilement of women's bodies is so baked into everything that an act as simple as "taking comfort in childhood toys when you're stressed" has the potential to be harmful? He's fucked up, for sure, but like. damn if the ways he's fucked up in canon aren't way more interesting than half the takes.

okay so tridentariicest totally has textual backing and i love that folks explore that, but i also feel like the sexual element of their whole deal is given way too much spotlight. what about all the other totally horrifying aspects of their relationship? there's so many good god diversify it a bit.

kiriona meta that either makes her out to be completely different or completely the same as gideon. this side of her always existed and she is fundamentally changed. if i talk about this too much longer i will write an essay because every time i think about kiriona for a second too long an essay happens but moral of the story she's one of those Characters I'm Correct About and i am sososotired.

buddy youve already written an essay lmfao anyway treat: i like hearing peoples opinions. ive already mentioned my opinions on kiriona and john before (TLDR this has always been gideon and people change/imperialism misogyny and classism is baked into the society john grew up in and it continues to exist as he made this new society). tcest grosses me out on a general level but it Is there in tlt and it annoys me when people boil it down to "oh isnt it so problematic when twins kiss are you offended" instead of exploring how the third house encouraged codependency and fused identity, coronas desperation to be needed vs ianthes desperation to be acknowledged and seen blahblahblah theres just more interesting ways you could explore text within a series about the horrors and unhealthiness of love instead of jacking into a sock about it

[juni-ravenhall]

we played the quest now and mostly its just like. all these recent quests are at the quality as if a child wrote them but that feels like an insult to child authors. imagine if any other game at this price point (!) put out main story updates at this quality and this playtime per month(s).....

more specific commentary under here

the dark riders still dont feel like actual villains or threats to me at all, due to the rushed and stupid way they were introduced after their design updates, combined with how bad the writing is. i feel like im just chewing on a tasteless gum when i play this. but thats an insult to gum. its very nothing. its neither dramatic nor funny nor meaningful in any way.

the writing and timing is so bad that nothing holds any real dramatic weight. i didnt feel anything about maya getting zapped - i assume shes fine tho??? - obviously yes its harmful to choose to hurt the lesbians rather than literally anyone else and its worth criticising bc ppl need to stop making oppressed characters suffer more than the not-oppressed, but also just the whole thing is handled so badly that i can barely even care bc its so fucking stupid that nothing holds any weight. at this point anything any of the charas says and does just feels completely empty.

like you could just have mr sands collapse to the ground from a heart attack in the middle of the dialogue and sabine say "lol loser" and it wouldnt even feel especially out of place in the current quality of writing and storytelling.

it was fun to see darko and sands again just because we have more relation to darko as a villain than any of the dark riders. the same way i am way more interested in ms drake or mr anwir (rip i guess) than i am in the dark riders bc they were sooo badly included in the story and then suddenly now theyre everywhere and talk all the time as if we know them and as if theyve been a consistent villain. i am way more interested in any other npc than in the dark riders, i have more emotional connection to ed field than i have to katja. bc they were not written into the story properly. this is a continuous frustration i have reading any main story updates.

anyway the erissa race was just.... fine. this is supposed to be a kind of mini boss moment in other games. however, due to my horse not being fed (a system that sse designed) i rode quite slow which in itself takes away drama, but also, the race just felt really.... nothing, again. its not bad... its just nothing. the floating objects in the forest were cool, and the yarn stuff is cute (tho i dont feel anything about this design bc again she and her design is just thrown at me with no buildup - like - a character having a theme that you build up a connection to, is not happening here), but it doesnt feel like an important race or like a mini boss, its just.... ok i went here and now i went there. why tho. how did this matter.

it wasnt a difficult enough race in any way that it felt like challenging gameplay (mini boss fight) and ive said before, yes sure there are 8yo players who never played a game before and need it to be relatively easy - but this can be achieved in other ways than forcing *all* players to play a really dumb easy race, and its also not consistent throughout the game - sometimes a race is randomly kinda hard, other times its something you could do blindfolded, but without any consistent relation to where when and why the race takes place.

normally in games, battles/races/whatever would get more and more challenging as the story goes on, as levels go up, as new mechanics get introduced, as player skill and experience grows.

but yeah i just really hate the story quests at this point. theyre empty. theyre badly written. they are forgettable and dont hold the dramatic weight theyre supposed to. they feel random and disconnected from the rest of the game we played until a couple years ago. the characters and stuff are just handled so badly. the story and lore is confusing and hard to understand. its a mess.

all of this would be fine if sso was a game you play for free. it would be fine if it was a game that cost 10 dollars. it would be fine if it had microtransactions that were like, 1-3 dollars here and there, not 30 dollars here and there to afford two items or one horse or whatever.

i wouldnt judge it so harshly for this bad quality in the story quests (the writing, the storytelling and lore, the characters, the gameplay, the animations, the models and designs, the feeling of making progress as a player....) if the game was overall as cheap as its quests are.

[seeingivy]

method acting asks!!!

eek. been so down in the dumps w/ writing lately and feel increasingly guilty that I haven't updated a chapter since like new year's eve?? that being said, I have TRIED to write the chapter - end up scratching the dumpster fire i've written bc its simultaneously not good enough for the people who wait for chapters but also bc ive put so much work into the story that I don't want it to be bad. i'm trying to get my BAD WRITING out of my system to get back to the good so I may deliver only the best! that being said, i have mapped out the rest of the story and put the chapter names of the ten (I am sorry) chapters left on the masterlist! (free to ur interpretation pookies)

I have never watched the maze runner - so I will take your word for it + let people discourse on who minho is. that being said, I have seen that one video of the cast on zoom like reading the script and all of them keep laughing which seems very on brand for like all of them

https://www.pinterest/com/pin/45739752460395001/ (for those who wanted to see it!) anyways jeankasa wedding is one of the next parts that im lookign sO FOWARD TO WRITE. I have a few chapters that I ruminate on for a while and literally think about all the time - see: award show etiquette, my love mine all mine, and the beach - and the next two that I can't stop thinking about is the jeankasa chapter and the style chapter!

I actually listed pride and predjudice as a romcom that eren and y/n would do bc actually they just have to serve and be iconic in everything too. AND JEAN AS MR BINGLEY STOP IT I LOVE IT SO MUCH. (also y/n keeps the statue of eren's head that they make for that one scene in p&p @bsenpai and I have discussed this at length)

THIS ACTUALLY GAVE ME SUCH AN INTERESTING THOUGHT. I had originally named the earlier chapter about eren and y/n distancing "sick with sadness" bc I was like yeah this is eren starting his this is me trying campaign like that's his song. on the same vein, I always thought that y/n was more of a mirrorball - changing herself to fit what seemed best or what people wanted. but now that I think about it, the two of them have kind of flipped. I think post s3 like documentary era, eren is more mirrorball and y/n is more this is me trying??? IDK but this hit and this is me trying is ALSO very connie coded

correct.

I love that this story is as chronically on everyone's mind as it is on mine bc I literally saw that clip and it was my IMMEDIATE thought. the fact that she kisses him and then tries to rub it off before he goes up is LITEARLLY so cute and he's so cute when he's like "is there lipstick on my nose 😊 ok I will just ignore it" like IT IS LITERALLY THEM. (I love awards show season guys ive got another award show cooking for you in the upcoming chapters) (and again, @bsenpai and I literally said this exactly literally the same day as the golden globes we STAY expanding the lore)

[hood-ex]

#EMILY#one of these days we have to stop enabling each other in just writing our untagged snippets and scenes on here#and then never posting them anywhere else and constantly being surprised when a) we#cant find them later. b) other ppl cant find them. c) we forget we ever wrote them and d) nobody ever finds them or knows they#exist because we wrote them at some weird ass hour and reblogged it maybe once and then also forgot we ever wrote them#and thus never actually thought to tell other ppl that hey we wrote a thing that they might maybe like and go check it out#BUT I DIGRESS#the point is I love this and also Ive never seen this before but like. considering all of the above like.....that tracks. i should maybe no#be surprised by this phenomenon which directly mirrors or replicates a phenomenon that we have mutually experienced pretty often#with each others random ass scenes that were written and posted and forgotten about at random ass times and never thought about again#lol#anyway#the point of this is yay i like it. im glad to have read it. wish I had read it when you first wrote it#and fed you validation when this was fresh off the vine and potentially had momentum that couldve been nurtured and fed#into getting you to write more of it there and then but like. I didnt. so. oh well#unless I did and just forgot. which as we've established. also a strong possibility#whatever. anyway here have a convo that probably couldve been a DM convo but lol since when do we waste perfectly good DM convos on actual#DMs when we can just yell back and forth at each other in tags that nobody else actually needs or wants to read anyway - @bigskydreaming

See this is why we technically should have secondary blogs dedicated to this so that nothing gets lost amongst everything else. And if we were really smart, we'd use complex tagging systems, but at the same time, I think Tumblr would just eat the tags and not bring them forth when we called upon them. As it tends to do. But also I think we'll never find everything we've written to transfer them over to said secondary blogs, so I think we're just going to continue enabling each other to write things that get lost in the tundra of digital life.

That's literally how I feel whenever I see one of your posts show up on my dash that I've never seen before. Like hello yes it was posted at like 3 in the morning so that's why I never saw it, and it probably didn't have a Dick Grayson tag on it, which is basically the only tag I ever check, and I also don't scroll down all that far on my dash when I visit it every day, so things just get lost foreverrr. Until they don't because one random person someway, somehow found the post and got it circulating again at some random point in time. Or you magically remember said post exists, and you post it yourself, to which I am like ?! thou'st dare hideth the writing from thee!

So yes we could potentially mitigate this problem, but also, I think we both post something and then completely forget it exists either minutes or hours later, so we'll just continue this cycle of prioritizing other things over fic visibility and accessibility.

[i-like-gay-books]

long post so i GUESS i’ll put it under the cut

so i’ve been really reflecting lately on my self diagnosis of autism, especially since i’ve been really coming into myself and managing my anxiety better than ever before, and ive been wondering whether it might be that the symptoms i thought were attached to being autistic are just how anxiety manifests in me and the things about myself that i thought proved that i dont have adhd in any way may also just be how anxiety manifests in me. because also even though ive really related with autism and the social symptoms, i’ve never really been sure i have sensory processing issues, at least not to the extent that the dsm specifies in order to be autistic. and what i really HAVE related to is the inability to just sit down and get shit done. so i took another self assessment with this clearer knowledge i have of myself and how i really function as a human being when im on my own and living as an adult and

the only ones that arent high levels are literally the ones that i can directly pinpoint as one of my biggest concerns with my anxiety. impulsivity is the one that makes adhders more likely to butt into conversations or keep going on for a long time or make decisions and later regret them. as you may have noticed i am particularly long winded when im typing, but is that true of me in real life? like at all? not really. i struggle to get two words out sometimes. i was selectively mute in my childhood. i can say for a fact that the reason for this in my hyper-awareness of the potential of making a faux pas or embarrassing myself in social situations. and i have decision paralysis due to the same phenomenon. im very aware of the potential of disappointing other people if i make a bad decision. im not sure if impulsivity would manifest itself in the “typical” adhd way if my anxiety wasn’t there, but i have no way of ever knowing that because it is.

and forgetfulness. i beat that shit out of myself when i was younger. i can clearly remember a time in elementary school, then in middle school, then in high school (before i started writing sticky notes for myself) when i would get myself in trouble just simply because of forgetting about assignments. my family is very academically oriented. my parents wouldnt be SUPER mad at me if i was trying my best and didnt get good grades, but i knew they would be disappointed if i didnt try my best. i have so many systems in place so as to never ever forget about schoolwork any more. you have no clue how revolutionary it is for me that college professors actually put all of the assignments for the semester of the syllabus. one of my biggest gripes about high school was that the teachers would just assign homework seemingly at random? it was easy to forget if you werent writing it all down, ok? and for appointments? same deal. my parents kind of took care of the remembering appointments part before i got older and by now i do have these systems in place for myself. i do often forget to make calls, mostly because i dont make a point of writing it down as a task for myself because making calls gives me anxiety. yeah.

also i sat here and took this assessment and wrote all of this instead of working on my 2000 word midterm paper due next tuesday for which i have exactly one sentence written. listen, procrastination is a universal trait, but i just felt like it was relevant.

[stormxpadme]

🤡 🎢 📈 ✅ for the fic asks!

Fanfic Writer Emoji Ask

🤡 What’s a line, scene, or exchange you’ve written that made you laugh?

From this oneshot of my X-Men main verse

This time when he turned to Hank, he finally seemed to really see him. "Out?" "Yes. You’re out." Hank squeezed his good shoulder encouragingly, then went about opening the softly padded straps on Scott’s wrists and ankles. "We’re all home. No casualties." With that, he injected those remaining 100 ml into the most recent IV line, to counter at least the worst of what was so brutal on Scott's body right now. Much to his patient's confusion. "Didn’t you say …?" "Just trying not to stuff your veins to the brim when it's not absolutely necessary," Hank gave back with an apologetic shrug. "Told you, I need your system up and running, not you hallucinating from drugs." Scott's eyebrow went up high, slowly. "Why can’t I shoot you right now?" "Complaining already. Welcome home." Logan briefly knocked that stretcher's mattress as an amicable salute and left for somewhere then where he could smoke his nerves back into place in peace. Which made it Alison's job, quickly raising that reversal weapon Scott's way, muzzle turned downwards this time. "The effects will wear off soon. You probably got another five minutes without your blasts. We just needed to be sure you’re orientated enough not to send them the wrong way." Scott acknowledged that with a stiff nod and by at least briefly pushing up his glasses but didn’t waste any time examining Alison’s expressive features with the thick blond curls, those ocean blue sparkling eyes, her fine freckles, in detail, unwilling as usual to dwell for long on the both so loved and so dreaded, so tempting effects of that weapon originating from Lehnsherr's hands. He was scowling at the sight of Alison's wrecked wrists instead. "Hank, patch her the fuck up."

"Yeah, you definitely are feeling better." Hank took only another second to roll his eyes in mock exasperation before starting to hook Bastian to the lines necessary for a long-term treatment as well, as Alison was signaling him she still was in a state of aftershock that didn’t demand immediate attention.

This whole exchange amused me a lot because Scott is literally just out from days of straight up torture and all he can think about, the second he's no longer in pain delirium is having Hank patch up Dazzler aka his team being safe and taken care of. Also Hank withholding too much painkillers on him because Scott already basically lived off that the last few years because of his migraines, will never fail to crack me up.

🎢 Which of your fics would you call your wildest ride?

Funnily enough, in the sense of wild, probably a part of the American Idol season (German version) I've written. Not to mention the whole research work (including going to TV casting show castings personally) that went into the series, describing the whole casting and recall progress, the live shows themselves, with all the songs the contestants sing, show acts, costumes etc., the whole series is something I enjoy reading a lot still. But part 3 is probably the wildest ride. While it's describing the last few shows and the finale, of course, along with the love story of the two protagonists, it also deals with the fact that one of the other contestants and the best friend of the protagonists just fell off a roof drunk and died in a freak accident with the two protagonists watching and holding his hand. There's obviously a lot of feels in this fictional TV reality show season, and I certainly didn't expect it to move me as much when I started that thing back then.

📈 How many fics do you have?

That's always a loaded question. Written? Published? On my PC? Written, I can't tell because I started writing at the age of 9 and my earliest stories on school notebooks sadly were trashed at some point. On AO3, I have 202 works mostly in English published as of now. In our German fanfiction archive fanfiktion.de, I have 131 German stories which are mostly not the same as on AO3 though. On my PC, I have dozen of other finished and unfinished additional stories that are only for my enjoyment.

✅ What’s something that appears in your fics over and over and over again, even if you don’t mean to?

I think most of my OCs at least start out as somewhat shy or having self-confidence issues. 8 years of mobbing at school left their mark, it's really as simple as that. There's always a lot of growth though, and most of these girls had no fucking idea in the beginning how much ass they'd be kicking in one way or another someday.

[sophieinwonderland]

Justanothersyscourse(DOT)tumblr(DOT)com/post/659797072783998976/you-probably-get-this-a-lot-but-what-are-tulpa So this is why tulpas are not valid. It’s long but please read.

Okay.

I'm just going to focus on the bullet points here...

The blatant disrespect towards Buddhists and Buddhism.

The main point here is that an English word was created as a loose adaption of a foreign concept, and then the meaning of that word further changed a lot over the years until we got to where we are now.

That's how etymology works.

I don't really care about the word, TBH. I would actually rather something more psychological and less mystical in origin, but the few academic studies into endogenic systems have used the tulpa community, so this is the name that's going to stick.

Ultimately, a word is just a word. My existence isn't less valid because we don't like the common term for it.

It is neither scientifically nor neurologically possible to create consciousness.

It's difficult to nail down what human consciousness even is or how it works.

How about this: We experience plurality as two voices or "aspects" within the same head. We communicate with dialogic inner speech. We each have our own identities, individual and often contrasting emotions, as well as our own separate autobiographic connections to memories we've formed. Each "aspect" is capable of taking over the body separately, or even possessing individual parts of the body such as an arm. We also can also each can influence the imagination/headspace.

Is this a separate consciousness? Who knows? We'd have to decide what consciousness is first. But this is what and who I am.

(most academic literature I’ve seen refers to them as a form of induced hallucinations, as does one of the wikis; induced hallucinations is what you can safely say they’re most likely to be)

This is conflating two different things. Imposition is an act of imagining something so thoroughly that it is indistinguishable from something real. A tulpa can project themselves this way in the outside world. Disordered systems with good communication can likely learn the same skill if the alters wished. As can singlets who just want to imagine things really vividly.

The tulpa is not a hallucination. The image of the tulpa is a hallucination.

I want it understood clearly that you cannot hallucinate something in your head. You don't hallucinate thoughts. You think them. You don't hallucinate feelings. You feel them.

Internal experiences cannot be hallucinations.

Systems are not multiple consciousnesses in one mind - rather, they are one consciousness that has split off into separate parts/alters. Comparing cases of multiple consciousnesses to cases of separate parts of one consciousness is damaging to systems as it plays into the old stereotypes and outdated information surrounding "Multiple personalities”, a misconception that systems are trying very hard to get away from due to the stigma surrounding it.

Don't you hate it when the part of your consciousness that is literally an anime character breaks off and starts thinking for itself, complete with false memories of its source?

Why is the narrative of what DID is being written by singlets who, like the Chair of the DSM IV taskforce who named the disorder, often don't even believe it even exists and would rather it be removed as a diagnosis altogether. Like I said before... consciousness is a hard thing to nail down. You are never going to find any studies confirming that headmates aren't separate consciousnesses because we don't even know what the consciousness is.

If you'd like to view headmates as aspects of a single consciousness, you're welcome to do that. At the very least, it is true that they're part of the same biological organism. But at this point in time, theories of "consciousness" are more for philosophers than psychologists.

There are many disordered systems who choose to view their alters as their own individuals, and invalidating them seems unhealthy.

My personal view is that the brain is a computer capable of running multiple programs. Each program can think for itself and communicate with other programs internally, but they operate on the same hardware.

online Western Tulpa communities will often rope in lonely, depressed or anxious young people and will convince them that this will help them with those things or even fix their problems.

And according to the only information we have available at this time, it works.

The science isn't perfect here. More studies obviously need to be conducted. It's not a cure-all, but all evidence we have right now suggests that the majority of people who have made tulpas report positive improvements as a result.

I’ve seen plenty of cases where young, vulnerable systems are roped into this and end up entirely convinced, for months (sometimes years), that they created their system on purpose - this is especially true for systems who do not remember their trauma, which is very common. Once they realise that this wasn’t the case, the damage is done and the system as a whole is much worse off for the experience.

Personally, I tend to see the opposite. I see a lot of healthy systems who are brainwashed into thinking that because they're a system, they must have DID and be traumatized. They know that something is going on in their mind. They know that they have multiple voices in their head. And so they go to the next thing despite not showing symptoms of the actual disorder. (Dissociative amnesia, uncontrollable switching, etc.)

So many of these videos on TikTok are people with no dissociative amnesia and full control over their switching. But they claim to have a disorder despite having none of the actual disordered symptoms. They convince themselves this must have originated from trauma.

In my opinion, pushing the belief that systems can only originate from trauma is going to make a lot of people think they have trauma that they don't have. This is damaging for both the non-disordered systems who are told this, and the actual disordered systems who are looking for support from actual fellow traumagenic systems.

It’s incredibly difficult to accept you’re in a system, yes, but it is much harder to try and pick up the pieces and work on communication after you’ve spent months or years telling yourself that you quite literally made it up.

Tulpamancers may think they created their system, but they have excellent communication with their headmates, and tend to already think of them as real. Being created isn't the same as being fake. The few systems I know of who thought they had a tulpa only to realize they may have been traumagenic talked about how welcoming the community was, and how it helped them to discover themselves when the traumagenic communities didn't feel like it fit.

[flowerwrites06]

break my mind’s eye special — jjk

Plot: Jungkook thinks marriage is the only way to seal a deal.

Pairing(s): Druglord!Jungkook x Fashion Designer!OC (Name: Belle)

Rating: G | PG | M | R 18+

Type: Drabble | Oneshot | Two Parter | Series

Parts: Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | Part VII | Part VIII | Part IX | Part X | Special 

Word Count: 7k+

Genre: Mafia | Angst/Smut/Fluff

Tags & Warnings (for entire series): drug dealing, marriage through trickery, explicit smut, drug use, dubious consent, prostitution, miscarriage, lots of manipulation, impregnation through manipulation 

Walking through the dark halls of permanently stained apartment building, Jungkook finally stood in front of a familiar number written on the text. He rapped at the wooden door a few times hearing a couple of grunts and rummaging from the other side. He sighed. “It’s me, Hoseok, you don’t have to hide the weed.”

“ Oh! ”

A few locks clicked here and there before the door swung open to welcome a light air of smoke mixed with the stench alone that could make Jungkook high. Hoseok gave him a loose smile, holding onto his arm as a wide grin spread across his lips. “You finally made it!”

Jungkook hummed trying not to grimace too much at the smell as the older male closed the door behind them.

“Come on, tell me…” Hoseok patted his back, prancing towards the couch where the coffee table was exuding smoke.

The apartment was miniscule with one bedroom door open on the left and a tiny kitchen on the right with a window next to the fridge. Another one near the dining table. Walls were a gross green tint and the floors a dull brown with black velvet couches that were ripped a little at the edges. But Jungkook could not complain.

“Tell you what?” The younger male dropped his bag on the floor and sat on the couch next to him, burying his hands into the pockets of his hoodie.

Hoseok picked his joint back up and hovered it near his lips. “What was prison like?” He sucked in his cheeks causing the ambers to light up at the end before he blew the thick smoke away from Jungkook.

“Like living with a bunch of criminals. What else?”

“So just like old times then.” Hoseok smirked.

Jungkook glanced at the male for a moment before scoffing out a chuckle. “Yeah…pretty much.” Except there was one difference. Every time he pranced with criminals like himself in the past, he was a leader. In prison, he was young, fresh meat. Before he would also come back home to a warm embrace in bed instead of a steel bed alone with a stinky roommate.

“Well it’s all over now.” He blew out another puff of smoke, shifting to rest his head back against the couch. “You can start doing something else with your life. Something different. Not a lot of people like us get that chance.”

For the first time, he noticed a slight sadness in Hoseok’s tone despite being pumped with artificial endorphins.

His eyes flickered down to the coffee table, noticing the burger wrappers and scattered newspapers. One of them immediately caught his eye. Jungkook sat up again, pulling one of them out of the pile, the right corner of his lips twitched seeing the familiar face.

‘ FAMED DESIGNER KIM BELLE RULES TOKYO FASHION WEEK ’

A side by side picture of a model wearing violet and gold ensemble which almost resembled the traditional kimono with a modern, royal twist. The picture on the right showed her. Belle wearing a simple black dress with her gorgeous waves out and a gracious smile spread across her lips.

‘ Twenty seven year old fashion designer Kim Belle takes all the popularity and buzz with her winter designs for Tokyo Fashion Week. Showing her long love for traditional Japanese fashion culture along with an inspiring movement for domestic violence and trafficking victims by showcasing broken chains and kimono style gowns. An elegant mix of grace and fight for personal freedom. Truly an impressive successor to the legend that was Madame Saito and we are definitely going to keep an eye out for more of her daring projects. ’

“She made a big damn name of herself.” Hoseok broke through the thick coat of silence Jungkook had around him.

“She deserves it.” More than I ever did.

The older male searched his expression for a moment, scoffing a little. “Dude, I have to ask.”

Jungkook met his gaze as he leaned back onto the couch again with the newspaper still in his hands. “What?”

“Why her?”

His brows furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“I mean you—literally could’ve had anyone in the entire country to pose as your fake wife or whatever. But you chose a fashion designer who barely knew anything about you to begin with…” Hoseok shook his head with a light wince. “What was your angle?” Some part of him did not want to believe Jungkook simply blackmailed someone for his own amusement because he knew the man was better than that.

Jungkook wished he had a decent reason to blurt out to him. Maybe he was just inherently evil and wanted to hurt Belle for his own pleasure. Maybe he wanted to fuck her one time just for kicks before dragging her out a little further until it was too much. Maybe he was just sick in the head, wanting to claim a girl who could not say a word against him because her and her brother’s life were wrapped around his finger. Except none of them felt like the truth. “I honestly thought she’d say no.”

“Oh fuck off—”

“Seriously I…” He shrugged a little. “I really thought she was going to punch me and storm out of there with her brother.”

“But the guards wouldn’t let her. I mean—no offense, buddy but you would’ve probably killed her. Knowing you from back then.” Hoseok scrunched his nose lightly.

“She did something ten times more dangerous though.” Jungkook couldn’t resist the jolt of pride bursting in him. “I destroyed her—so she waited until she destroyed me.”

Hoseok chortled a little, voice incredibly raspy. “I wouldn’t call going to jail for your crimes destroying you but sure…”

Jungkook shared a small laugh, nodding as he looked at her picture again. He could almost still feel her soft skin underneath his palm. How her hair smelled when he would hug her from behind as they slept, the way it soothed him to a calmer sleep.

“It’s a thing of the past though…” He tilted his head as his expression turned a little more serious. “…right? No more pulling her into shit she doesn’t deserve?”

“Yeah—yeah, of course.”

“Good…cause Belle’s the star of the city now. One wrong move towards her, you’re back in jail or worse.” Hoseok raised his brow a little making sure there was not a hint of determination on that young face of doing anything stupid. “You don’t have guards or power by your side and Taehyung isn’t addicted anymore. Has a wife and kid…he’s got the dad anger. So he will beat the living shit out of you if you give him the motivation.”

“I know, Hobi.” Jungkook chuckled, patting his thigh gently. “I don’t want her to go through it again either.”

Hoseok hummed a little taking another waft from his joint as he looked out the window, the sky tinted purple. “Alright. I’m gonna go and eat my girlfriend out.” He patted his shoulder, walking up to his bedroom.

“You had to look at the time for that?” Jungkook winced despite the grin on his face.

“Brother, when you’re together for this long, things need schedules.” He walked out of the bedroom with a black duffel bag putting out the joint onto the ashtray. “Food’s in the fridge and there’s Netflix open on the laptop.”

Jungkook waved him off before the door clicked close leaving him in his thoughts. For some reason, all he could do was look back at the newspaper and try to salvage that warm feeling again. The feeling of a true home that could never be.

-

Purple faded into a deep blue across the skies as Jungkook paced around the apartment in his bare torso, scattered with more imperfect tattoos. One cellmate liked doing tattoos because it calmed him down so the younger male did not hesitate much to let him use his skin. He was a nice man who had been thrown in jail for being a drug mule all his life and Jungkook could not help but have a nauseating guilt in his stomach.

Drug mules were essentially trafficked human slaves from Jungkooks’ experience. Their owners use their lives and bodies to transport goods without being detected and usually they start off terrifyingly young or desperate or both. All this service was done for almost little to no money. They were more abused victims than criminals but the legal system were not good at telling the difference sometimes.

Jungkook allowed his body to be used as if giving himself some kind of cathartic relief allowing the broken soul to control something else for a while instead of being controlled. Thus his skin now littered with designs of devil horns, tiger flowers and his own personal request was a tiny print font ‘B’ on his collarbone. No one could truly see it up close but he wanted to feel it there.

Chugging a generous sip from his beer bottle, he quietly observed the night sky glimmering with stars while the city shone in neon. The one thing his mansion lacked was the clear view of how alive everything looked at night.

A knock sounded on the door causing his head to shoot to the side.

Hoseok should not have been home at this hour. Even if he was, the man would not knock in his own apartment.

Jungkook opened the kitchen drawer and brandished a knife before making his way over to the door. Another knock sounded again. It was a gentle knock. Almost shy. But he knew better than soften up so easily. Carefully, he peeked through the peephole trying not to make too much of a sound even though the wooden floors creaked far too much.

His heart jumped right up to his throat seeing the familiar face on the other side. Jungkook almost dropped the knife on the floor trying to focus as best as he could. Was he drunk already? Was he dreaming? Gulping down, he placed the knife on the side table along with the beer bottle and opened the door.

When the view became clear to him, Jungkook let out a sharp breath. “Belle.”

Her hair was shorter up to her shoulders compared to the length in the newspaper picture except she still always kept her natural waves. Eyes a little glazed while her flushed lips spread into a weak smile before pressing them together again. “I-I don’t–I don’t know why I’m here.” Belle’s furrowed her brows a little.

“It’s okay.” He whispered. “Come in.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course.” Jungkook smiled even though a small tinge of sadness shone in his eyes.

He opened the door further for her to enter before closing it behind him. Eyes flickered down to her grey sweatpants and frilly white socks paired with a thick sweater like she just woke up from a nap.

Belle kept her back to him for a few minutes, pretending to observe the apartment even though she was really just trying to figure out why she was here. Questions muddled her mind over and over again. Any valid or logical answer. There was nothing. No reason to be standing here when she tried so hard to walk away from him. She did everything to get away. Now she walked right back without any coercion.

Jungkook tilted his head attempting to meet her gaze but decided not to force it too much. “You cut your hair.” A smile twitched on his lips. “It looks nice.”

She absentmindedly touched her waves, breathing out a small chuckle. “Thank you.”

“Uh—how did you know I was here?”

“Namjoon helped me track you down.” Belle mumbled, guilt pooling in the pit of her belly going behind Yoongi’s back like this. She still remembered what Namjoon said when he gave her the address.

‘I’m only giving you this because I know you’re tough as nails…no matter what people say to you…but the second anything goes wrong, you call me.’ Namjoon had become a close friend in the last few years. He had been escorting her back and forth from home to work.

Yoongi had been disallowed to see her after being undercover so he could get a proper therapy before doing field work again. So Namjoon seemed the next obvious choice to take care of her.

Finally Belle turned around to face him, eyes raking down his torso and seeing new designs etched on his skin. Not as precise as the phoenix but still beautiful. “The tattoos look good.”

Jungkook glanced down at his torso with a soft grin. “A friend did them for me.” He met her gaze again even though she quickly averted it, plunging silence back into the room as they waited for it to be filled. “Belle…why are you here?”

Her body deflated as the question lingered in the air, lump growing in her throat while her knees kept trembling. “I—” Belle closed her eyes. “I mis—I missed you.” She smiled sadly before trailing her glossy gaze away again. “It sounds stupid when I say after so long.” Her voice kept getting constricted from the lump, tears filling at the brim of her eyes. “But I still think about you…I still kept that—stupid letter after all these years.”

A familiar warmth seeped through his veins knowing she missed him but it still mixed with dread and guilt. Jungkook scarred her memories forever with his presence and she was so confused on what it meant. He could see the way she shifted and looked away as if trying to push reality away but face it all the same. “I hurt you a lot. I’m so sorry—if I—if I could do it all over again, I’d do it better.”

“How could it have been better?” Belle shook her head. “We met when my brother owed you a debt.”

Jungkook raised his shoulders. “Maybe we’d have met at your boutique.” He attempted to smile a little at the thought of just walking into that boutique and falling in love the normal way. The happy way. “I’d have flirted with you a lot and you’d roll your eyes at me. We’d travel together to Paris or Tokyo, explore the things we love and eat ice-cream until our stomachs ached.” A tiny chuckle passed through his lips.

Belle had to suck in her trembling bottom lip as tears began escaping down her cheeks. “And?”

“We’d get married…properly. Away from my family, we’d relax somewhere at a beach.” The visions in his mind played without any effort causing his eyes to flood knowing it was all an impossible dream now. “We’d have children…we’d love them so much, Belle—”

She couldn’t hold in the sobs that shook through her body. At the very mention of children, Belle felt a tingle under the skin of her belly, memories of the aches still lingering. “Why didn’t you just take the money?”

“What?” He whispered.

“Why didn’t you just take the money? And don’t tell me it was because of business or keeping up appearances. Why? Why me?”

The ever burning question. Even the interrogators asked them the question. What was the motive to taking in Miss Kim? A lot of people owed you debts. Jungkook only answered with a vague, menial answer that had no real connection to his deeds as a boss.

“It was—it was just an impulse…”

Belle’s expression hardened even though her eyes still looked so vulnerable and broken. “An impulse?” Her voice was small and meek. “That’s it?”

“I didn’t think you’d—say yes.”

Saying it to Hoseok was easy. Saying it to Belle felt evil. Jungkook noticed the darkness clouding over her beautiful features, a mixture of heartbreak and pure rage.

“You put my brother’s life on the line and you thought I wasn’t going to say yes?” Belle winced, tone rising back to its original power. A harsh slap of reality learning that one of the most traumatizing experiences of her life happened because one man had an impulse decision to use his power over her.

“Belle, it was years ago—”

“So why am I still getting nightmares about it?!” She shrieked leaving a tense silence to plunge into the room while her voice still echoed through the walls a little. “W-why h-haven’t I stopped seeing t-that mansion every time I close my eyes? Wh-why do I wake u-up scared that I’m still in that room w-while they watch—” Belle let out a loud, trembling breath closing her eyes. Tears rolled down her cheeks, dripping to her chest from her jawline as she hugged herself tightly.

Jungkook stammered, swallowing down the painful lump in his throat as he attempted to keep his composure. “You didn’t have to come and see me.” He whispered.

“I wanted you to see me.” Belle sniffled shakily. “Staying away from you doesn’t help because you could always push it out. I can’t—I can’t push it out because it’s inside me.”

“You think all this has been easy for me? That I just pushed it out?” Jungkook shook his head with a pained expression as their gazes met again. “Yeah our first meeting was an impulse but that didn’t mean it was always like that. I stopped a lot of contact with my family when you told me you were pregnant. That letter was meant to be the last thing I said to my parents before we left.”

Belle wanted to argue that he just started getting sympathetic after her pregnancy but she would be a hypocrite. Even she felt softened knowing a child was growing inside her. “You wanted to kill the mayor too, Jungkook, how long would that have taken?”

“Overnight if it meant I’d be escaping somewhere with you.” Jungkook spoke without hesitation, still remembering all the plans he had in place for their move.

“But I would’ve lost the baby anyway.” She smiled sadly. “It was natural causes.”

The male took a few careful steps forward, trying not to intimidate her but hopefully close a little more distance between them. “I didn’t just do it for the baby, Belle.” Jungkook sighed. “I did it cause I love you…but I knew we couldn’t be happy if we were at that mansion and I was still running the cartel.”

Belle sniffled. “I wish you didn’t love me.” Her chin trembled, her body tired of brewing more sobs as tears filled her eyes again. “I wish I didn’t love you. Maybe all this would be easier.”

“When has it ever been easy between us?”

“That’s the problem.” She pressed her lips together. “Love shouldn’t be this difficult. Maybe sometimes but—every single day wondering whether what you’re feeling is real…or worrying that something terrible is going to happen if I stay with you for too long.” Features contorted in pain as she stumbled on her feet a little.

Jungkook’s inhibitions banished immediately seeing her trip slightly, rushing to her side and gently holding onto her arm. Before he could say anything, he felt Belle rest her head on his chest. A burst of butterflies soared across his belly having that familiar smell touch his nostrils and the warmth of her body radiating onto his cold bare skin.

They didn’t say a single word as Jungkook properly wrapped his arms around her body, fingers brushing through her soft hair. Her sobs were quiet but her body still trembled and his embraced tightened a little. As if praying that all of her pain could be transferred to him so she did not have to suffer through it all.

Belle should have pulled away the moment he touched her but the warmth was too much. Her body felt heavy against his, melting onto his skin almost like they could join as one. Maybe that could repair some of the damage. Breathing became steady as she allowed herself to relax. A protective part of her still tried ensure she was not too vulnerable but another part said it was too late.

In this particular weakened moment, she was his and he was hers.

-

15 unread messages.

Namjoon: How did it go? Are you good?

Namjoon: Taehyung said you didn’t come home last night.

Namjoon: Belle?

Namjoon: I don’t want to have to track you down.

Namjoon: Please tell me if you’re okay.

Namjoon: Yoongi and Taehyung found out, I’m sorry.

Belle: I’m okay.

Namjoon: Jesus, don’t scare me like that.

Namjoon: Where are you?

Belle: I’m still at Jungkooks’ place.

Namjoon: Okay. Is everything alright?

Belle: I don’t know.

Namjoon: What do you mean? Did he hurt you?

Belle: No.

Namjoon: Just tell me what happened.

Namjoon: Look I’m not Yoongi or Taehyung. I won’t get mad, alright? You can tell me.

Belle: I slept with him.

Namjoon: Okay that’s fine.

Belle: No it’s not.

Namjoon: Did he hurt you or force you or anything?

Belle: No, no it was consensual.

Namjoon: Then I don’t see an issue.

Belle: How?

Namjoon: Considering he’s a former drug lord, I expected far worse things done to you then you two just consensually having sex.

Belle: Are they really angry?

Namjoon: I’ll handle Yoongi and Angel’s handling Taehyung. They’re grown men, they’ll get over it.

Namjoon: Just come back up again.

Belle: Okay. Thank you, Joon.

Namjoon: Anytime.

Belle let out a sigh, chest falling a little as she hugged her phone for a moment before placing it on the nightstand. Eyes scanned the ceiling, a few brownish stains here and there but nothing far too putrid. Her old apartment usually had those stains after a storm. She felt Jungkook shift a little, his arm still resting over her body while his face buried into her neck. It was so easy allowing the warmth to coat their little bubble.

Except it was not a bubble of theatrics. She was not pretending to be Mrs. Jeon anymore. She was a fashion designer with her boutique and Jungkook was a regular man trying to get by in the city. They were two normal people with no real threat to be together but they were here.

The ache between her legs still pulsed a little when she remembered the night before.

The very minute she resorted to hugging him, Belle knew it was going to be difficult to turn back from it. Deep recesses of her mind surfacing up to whisper in her ear that it would be okay just this once.

To feel him again.

To have his head between her legs at this moment, kissing and nibbling on all her sensitive nub while his fingers pads dug into her thighs. Jungkook took his time. Licking a stripe tantalizingly slow, tasting her juices until it was the only remnant on his tongue. He let out a breath through his nose as his lips wrapped fully around her clit, suckling passionately until her thighs closed up around his head only making him moan.

Belle whined against the vibrations on her aching, sensitive skin as her fingers found themselves knotting in his hair. Chest rising and falling she faced the ceiling. Lower belly burned and tightened as Jungkooks’ movement did not falter, shaking his head a little to jolt more of that head-spinning heat.

…

Bed creaked as Belle straddled him, bouncing at a steady pace while her hands rested on his torso. Moonlight painted her sweat glistening skin through the window. As if the whole city could see her relishing in her own guilty pleasure. Except the guilt was nowhere to be found.

His hand trailed up her abdomen to cup her breasts gently, digging a little into her tender skin to earn a small whimper from the woman. Then he moved up to her neck. Jungkook cupped the side, thumb tracing her bottom lip while the other hand gripped at her shaking hips.

Belle suckled on his digit muffling her moans all the while clenching tightly around his member until it sent shivering tingles up her spine. She hummed in satisfaction as Jungkook groaned at the pressure.

“You feel so good.” He pushed in his thumb a little further watching her slightly drenched curls fall over her face. A smile curled up at the corner of his lips hearing the sinfully loud squelch sounds their thrusts emitted. “So fucking beautiful.” Jungkook whispered. He forced himself to keep his eyes open, wanting to take every second of how she tried to suck on his skin harder every time she dropped down roughly.

“I’m close.” Belle’s words were a little muddled against his thumb. Her thrusts grew desperate and relentless, pussy squelching violently as their incessant moans swirled in the sex scented air.

Bursts of searing heat and unbridled pleasure shook through their limbs, pulsing through her veins as Belle’s movements became sloppy. Jungkook had his head pressed deep against the pillow as his muscles tensed feeling her walls clench around him before he pulled himself out, release spewing out onto his belly. Belle cheekily reached down to touch his reddened member, giggling lightly when he jerked against it.

Jungkook followed with a breathless chuckle of his own as she rested back on his chest, uncaring of how messy they were.

It was the first time they laughed after sex.

Granted it was not much but last night gave her a dreamless sleep. A welcomed type of sleep. They cried, hugged, moaned and laughed. So many sensations all at once was bound to make anyone have such a deep sleep that they do not want to wake up the next day. A wonderful feeling. It would be temporary before her other dreams settle in again but Belle was not going to let them get to her this morning. She wanted to relish in this new, momentary peace.

Jungkook began stirring more, light hum under his breath until he finally opened his eyes to a calming sight. Tired vision still a little blurred but he could always make out her face. “Sleep well?” His voice grumbled despite the smile creeping on his lips.

Belle turned to meet his gaze, mimicking his gentle smile. “Really well.” The curl slowly disappeared from her lips as reality seeped through their comfort. “We can’t see each other anymore. You know that, right?”

He nodded although solemnly. “I know.” Whatever red string they forced themselves to tie around their pinky finger had to separate one day. Even when reluctance settled in. “Like you said, love shouldn’t be as difficult as ours was.” Jungkook shifted so he lay down his back, one arm curled so he could rest his head on top of it.

“I don’t have to leave now though.”

“What, you want more?” Jungkook licked the inside of his cheek as a smirk formed, one of his hands reaching out to gently touch her lower belly.

Belle pushed his hand away with a chuckle. “No…I meant something else.” She pulled the sheets up to cover herself a little, goosebumps forming on her skin when the room brushed a little cold. “Ice-cream. We could get ice-cream.”

A jolt of nostalgia burst through him as he remembered the last time that request was passed between them. Despite expecting a child back then, Jungkook preferred this more knowing Belle was sitting here by her own volition. That was what mattered most. “Yeah…we can get ice-cream.”

-

Tiny slab of pink and mint down the food line of the city. Belle somehow managed to make his black T-shirt and her sweatpants look strangely put together while he buried himself in his hoodie. They walked inside the cute parlor immediately greeted by a kind boy at the counter.

Making their orders, the couple took their ice-cream cups to a booth at the corner.

Thankfully the parlor was empty since no one bought ice-cream this early in the morning so it would be difficult for them to be spotted.

Journalists eventually grew bored of doing stories on Jungkook and Belle’s ‘tragic love story’ but she knew the moment, a single person saw them, it would be chaos.

“Did you have any trouble these few years?” Jungkook asked feeling a sense of joy in his mouth as the sweet taste touched his tongue.

Belle shrugged lightly. “Apparently there was a hired hitman for a while but he was quickly detained. Then a stalker which lasted for a few months.”

“What did he want?”

“Namjoon found out he was a spy for a gang called Pogpungu Pa.”

“Fucking tongue twister.” Jungkook scoffed. “They wanted a large percentage of my cocaine supplies in exchange for prostitutes.” He waved his spoon. “Told him I didn’t work in that line of business so the Don got pissed.”

“Well he’s also detained. Namjoon’s been very quick in dealing with them. Probably happy to be out on the field again with Yoongi still at his desk.” Belle suckled the remnants of brownie bits from her spoon.

“Why is he at his desk?” His brows furrowed.

“Standard procedure, I guess. Every detective is meant to have a few months of therapy and leave from field work. But I’m pretty sure it’s a new thing that the mayor advised.”

“They’ve been doing a lot of things.”

“A lot of good things.” Belle corrected, narrowing her gaze even though her expression was not completely serious.

Jungkook smiled lightly picking up another small scoop of his ice-cream. “You’ve been doing a lot of good things. The Tokyo fashion week.”

Her eyes almost immediately lit up when the topic was mentioned and Jungkook couldn’t help but feel accomplished that he initiated it. “You knew about that?”

“Saw it in the newspaper. It looked good.”

Belle grinned from ear to ear, eyes shining in the bright lights of the parlor. “Angel helped me with the movement. She wanted to create a shelter for domestic violence victims like her. So I offered to promote it in the fashion shows.”

“Oh yeah Hoseok told me…Taehyung and Angel, they have a kid, right?”

“Yeah…” She giggled lightly. “A little baby daughter.”

“That’s good.” Jungkook nodded with a wide smile. “He’s all okay now?”

“Clean and sober for four years. He—relapsed another time but when they got married and then started trying for children, he never went back again.” Belle murmured still remembering the happiest look on Taehyung’s teary eyed face when he first held his baby. That was all she ever wanted for her brother. True happiness. “I kind have you to thank for that.”

He hummed in disapproval. “Don’t, please—the way I did it was wrong.”

“Yes but everything happens for a reason. I think if that didn’t happen…he might not be here at all.” Belle shook his head. “He also did technically meet Angel in the Sangria House. The only reason we even had her booked was because I met Seokjin at the party with you.”

Strange how time fools you in that way. It makes you feel regretful of the bad things that happened in the past except you could not possibly take them back because it would mean diminishing the good things along with it. Delicate and strange thing time was.

“I would’ve never been free from that place if you didn’t go behind my back.” Jungkook smiled down at the cup. “I’ll always be grateful for that.”

“Speaking of which…how is it like being a normal joe in the city?” Belle asked with a cheeky glint in her eye as she tapped her fingers against the ice-cream cup.

“Apparently you have to pay for grocery bags now.” He waved his spoon around.

“Yes for recycling and it’s been happening for a very long time.” She smiled.

His bottom lip jutted out in a little pout. “Not from what I remember.”

“Since when have you ever shopped for groceries?”

Jungkook scrunched his nose a little poking into the mint chocolate ice cream to pick out the chips. “Since yesterday.” He mumbled. “But I’m happy…” He nodded letting his words linger in their comfortable silence. “Or at least now I can do things that make me happy.”

“You could travel to Tokyo and Paris, eat ice-cream until your stomach aches…” Belle grinned. “You can get married to someone you love dearly and have lots of children. No more deals though.” She raised her index fingers as a warning.

Jungkook laughed. “No more deals, I promise.” He mixed around his melting ice-cream for a bit enjoying the little swirl. “What about you? What’re you going to do?”

“My therapist said I should take some time off from the boutique when I get the chance.” Belle quoted her therapist mostly but she never really thought about the prospect on her own until she discussed it with Yoongi. “Yoongi suggested we could go to Norway to disconnect for a little while.”

“Yoongi…wait, are you two—”

“No, silly. As friends.”

“Ah.”

“You think if I had a boyfriend like Yoongi, I’d sleep with you again?” Belle scoffed even though a smile tugged at her lips.

“Hey I’m pretty tempting.”

“Not that tempting.”

Jungkook scrunched his nose at her before chuckling as he practically slurped on his ice-cream at this point.

The couple sat in silence for a few moments finishing their breakfast desserts, unable to keep smiles off their faces.

“We go our separate ways now, yeah?” He spoke the truth this time. The satisfaction in his belly along with the warmth in his heart softly stating to him that it was time.

Belle smiled, a slight twinge in her chest but nothing compared to the relief brewing inside. A whisper in her ear telling her it was okay. It was okay to move on. “Yeah. No more looking back.”

Throwing their empty ice-cream cups away, the pair walked out of the parlor towards Belle’s car. Jungkook’s apartment was a few minutes’ walk away. She wanted to drive because it made it that little bit easier to go back home immediately. At this point, they both deserved one thing to be easy.

Belle gave him one final smile before climbing into the car and driving away.

Jungkook didn’t wait a second as he turned on his heel and walked back to his apartment.

This was the true final time they saw each other. They would not turn back. There was no need to anymore.

-

As soon as Jungkook walked into the room, it smelled a whole lot more different than it did the first time. The only smoke emitting was from the pan exuding a warm, delicious scent. Morning sun beaming through the windows making it look a tad bit brighter and the floors almost shone clean now.

“There you are!” Hoseok announced with a grin. “Did you go out for a jog?”

“Yeah…a little bit.” He answered absentmindedly.

A figure with short, black hair stood at the kitchen counter setting some bacon and eggs up on the plate. She looked up and immediately give him a similar bright smile as Hoseok.

“Ah—this is Rosyne.” Hoseok touched the womans’ shoulder. “Rosyne, Jungkook.” He gestured over to the younger male.

The two exchanged greetings before Hoseok invited him over to the kitchen counter to have breakfast. He wanted to tell them that his stomach was a little full from the ice-cream. But it felt so peaceful when he saw the giggles shared between them while eating, random conversations that no one really cared about but it made them smile.

Jungkook stayed still for a moment watching them so easily be vulnerable and happy around each other. “Hey, you guys want to go to Paris?” He sat down on one of the stools.

Rosyne’s eyes widened a little as the request lingered in the air while Hoseok looked amused but taken aback at the same time.

“Why the sudden interest?” Hoseok chuckled, sticking his fork into some scrambled eggs.

He shrugged. “Might be cool to disconnect for a little while.”

“Prison wasn’t disconnecting enough?”

Jungkook nudged his arm with a light scoff. “You know what I mean. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“I’ve—always wanted to see the Louvre in real life.” Rosyne raised her shoulders, giving Hoseok an adorable smile.

“Don’t spoil him, Ros.” Hoseok glanced at the both of them for a few moments before letting out a defeated sigh. “We’ll think about it.”

Jungkook did not argue any further after that and began taking careful bites of the breakfast even though it might give him a stomach ache later. The thought of something actually exciting happening this year or the next year made him happy enough to keep going on this new life.

-

Carefully padding into the apartment, Belle’s footsteps were soft and barely echoed across the walls but there was no use in being discreet. Especially since Yoongi, Taehyung, Namjoon and Angel were all in the sitting room. Bloom sat on the floor completely focused on banging her little drums that Namjoon gifted her on her first birthday.

Once Angel looked her way, everyone else followed suit. Yoongi was the first one to shoot up to his feet and stomp towards the woman.

“What took you so long?” Yoongis’ words sounded more like pleading than anger. “Are you hurt?” Eyes frantically examined her body until his gaze darkened as he stopped at her neck.

Belle hovered her hand over the patch of skin that definitely had a few purpling marks scattered but she kept a calm expression. “Everything’s fine, okay? Nothing happened.”

“No something happened.”

“Yoongi, fuck off.” Namjoon grabbed his shoulder and led him to the side. “Good to have you back in one piece, B.”

As the two men sat near the paneled windows muttering a few things to each other, Belle caught another figure coming towards her from the corner of her eye. She took a deep breath keeping her gaze on her brother.

Taehyung looked so much taller now. Loose emerald shirt with golden vectors as opposed to the old black hoodies, his eyes were a little darkened from exhaustion but this time it was to take care of his baby rather than an accidental bender. The serious expression on his face added more to the fact that Belle had her older brother back. He was sturdy in his appearance and confident in his stance. The look of a man who had gone through a tunnel of hell and found happiness at the end of the trail.

“How’d it go?” He asked.

“Pretty civil…” Belle nodded, playing with her fingers a little. “…considering the circumstances.”

Taehyung hummed in approval. “That’s good. And that?” He waved his index finger across his own bare neck while looking at hers. “Good or bad?”

“Good.” She smiled faintly. “Really good.”

He grimaced a little. “Gross.”

“Shut up.”

Taehyung could not seem to keep his serious expression as a light chuckle broke out of him, shifting on his spot to loosen up. “But—no more, right? We’re gonna try to get back up again? Start over?” He would be the last person to ever judge Belle for her impulses. What he did know is that the impulses were not meant to be a constant.

Belle did not hesitate to nod. “I uh—I wanted to go to Norway. With Yoongi…” She glanced over to the side seeing Yoongi give her a more apologetic look which the woman smiled in response. “And maybe you guys too? Get away from the city for a while.” She shrugged. “Might even give me inspiration on the new line.”

He thought on the idea for a moment but quickly had a wide grin on his lips. “Angel’s been talking about going on a holiday. We could talk about it over breakfast.”

“Let me just go freshen up.” Belle patted him on the shoulder before making her up the top level of the apartment to her bedroom.

Being the owner of a prestigious boutique came with its perks when she managed to get a big enough apartment for three people including safety for children. It was in the highly populated areas of the city which is meant to be the best area for the position they were in. With Angel’s first husband and Belle’s connection to the Jeon Cartel, the more witnesses around them, the better.

Walking into her bedroom, Belle had one thing in mind before going to shower as she opened her walk-in closet. On the top shelves a box had been hidden under some folded sheets. She reached out and pulled it towards her feeling the light trickle of dust flow through the air making her sneeze.

Sniffling a little she brought the brown box and sat down on the bed with it. Belle paused for a moment, a very light tinge of dread brushing through her but there was a strength that seemed to power through it. Taking a deep breath she clicked open the box. Two tiny yellow shoes on the right hand side causing her to let out a shaky sigh, smiling a little as a few tears filled her eyes.

Belle held the shoes gently, hugging them to her chest before placing them on her lap. Then her eyes moved from the bracelet to the piece of folded paper. The warmth in her belly soared again taking the letter, unfolding to reveal the heavy promise scratched across the surface. The promise that kept her up at night for this many years. How much words could impact a mind was both fascinating and terrifying.

No more though. It was time. Something her therapist said to her in one session Belle would never forget.

It’s never about one solid destination of healing. You will never know exactly when you were healed. All you can know is when you decide to start or keep healing. That is what’s important. After that, everything will flow by you…in the future, it will all seem like a dream. But you’ll feel so proud of yourself when you look back, Belle. Even more proud than I am of you now. You’ve done so well and I hope you’ll keep healing.

Belle placed her fingers at the top of the letter and ripped it half, letting out a deep of relief as she put them together, ripping it again. Smaller and smaller the pieces became breaking off like petals from the already withering flowers in her heart. A smile widened on her lips as she let out something in the mixture of a chuckle and a sob, tears freely leaving her eyes. Teeny tiny pieces piled on the bed. Helping to remind her that they were just words after all.

With steady hands she gathered them together and threw it into the bin under her nightstand.

Then Belle took the yellow shoes and walked to the living room.

The group were already settling around the kitchen counter when she arrived. Angel had Bloom in a high chair feeding her some custard looking mush which she seemed to enjoy though slightly confused by the taste.

Belle walked over to where the child was and gently placed the yellow shoes on her socked feet. She could not help but grin seeing how it fit perfectly. Everything happens for a reason.

“Those are beautiful.” Angel gently touched the soft fabric. “Did you make them?”

“I got them from the market years ago.” She softly brushed through Blooms’ thin dark hair as the child tried to peek at what her aunt put on her feet.

“We were just talking about the trip to Norway.” Taehyung spoke up leaning against the counter next to Angel.

“Yeah, why was I not invited?” Namjoon pouted a little.

Belle stammered, chuckling lightly. “It was Yoongi’s suggestion…we can all go together. I thought you wanted to do field work for the rest of the year.”

“Still would’ve liked to be included.”

Bloom squeaked in response to Namjoon’s mumble, bouncing up and down her seat.

“Might need a babysitter if Taehyung wants to get laid.” Yoongi mused.

“Ah, language.” Angel covered Blooms’ ears but the baby only grinned wide looking at Yoongi.

“She’s not going to know what it means.”

“Listen, we’ll go together.” Belle silenced the group for a moment. “Namjoon forgets to take breaks from work anyway so it’d be a good way to force him out somewhere relaxing.”

“Norway does have a low crime rate.” Taehyung spoke.

“So it’s settled. We’re going to Norway and forget about our problems for a month.” Angel announced glancing at each one of them for a nod of approval.

Belle grinned seeing the group dive into their conversations about what to do in Norway and what hotels to book or the sights to see. No worries of any impending problem or event that could ruin everything. It was just peace in the loudest way possible. All you can know is when you decide to start or keep healing. That is what’s important.

She broke for her family once.

Now she was going to keep healing for it too.

<< PREV CHAP 

[ignitification]

Heian Period - The When and The Why

In my brief comment on the Culling Game, I again noticed how Getwo makes references to the Heian Period, as a new era to come - and in addition, apparently a golden age for curses, the era where Jujutsu shined and where Sukuna triumphed. However, it is also assumed that The Three Big Vengeful Spirits (the ancestors of the three Big Clan of Jujutsu: Kamo, Zen'in and Gojo) were powerful sorcerers who lived in that era. Which brings me to this post, and to a shallow documentation of these characteristics, to answer the question: why is the World of Heian so important?

I.) Heian Period

Funnily enough, the Heian Period is described as an Era of Peace (as Heian 平安 - means peace), of the Japanese History, and it takes place  between years 794 and 1185 - in honour of the capital being moved to Kyōto. Basically every event/legend/folklore tale in here has some sort of relevance toward this city, as weird as it sounds. Furthermore, the Heian Era is a Golden Age, influencing the unique Japanese culture and shaping its art, literature and architecture (imported from the Chinese culture). However, different events and legends take place during this time.

II.) The Hyakki Yakō

Japanese folklore is full of mysticism, and Hyakki Yagyo or Yako (百鬼夜行 - Night Parade of One Hundred Demons) is one of its idioms. It’s the break between the human and supernatural world. However adapted to the JJK conditions, it’s way more literal and it’s the rampage created by Getou (breaking the seal on his own stored curses) releasing curses all over Kyoto and Shinjuku. It is almost ‘impossible’ to survive a Hyakki Hagyo, unless you have an ‘exorcism scroll’ written by an Onmyouji (paragraph V overviews Onmyouji). Origins of such a legend are quite uncertain - however. The first tales reporting such an event are all dated back (yes, you guessed it) the Heian Period. In particular two of the sources which report two different versions of the happening are the Uji Shui Monogatari (which dates back to the 13th century) and the Konjaku Monogatarishu (in which son of the Fujiwaras - very important folk during the Heian era - met hundred demon walking down the road. However, due to the presence of a writing on his clothes he remained unharmed). This last legend is dates back to around 859-877 of course makes reference to the Onmyouji exorcism practices. 

III.) Sukuna and Getwo

Sukuna Ryomen is a blatant reference to the mythical (?) figure of the homonym Ryomen Sukuna, who is said to be a deity (or better, a villain for some while a saviour for others) with two faces, four arms and legs. Sukuna is also associated with a bow and arrow, and a sword in his hands. However, this paragraph is more focused on the literal Jujutsu incarnation of Sukuna. Is it a coincidence that both Sukuna and the one taking Getwo’s body in possession (who yes, is Kamo Noritoshi, but at the same time he was possessed by the sorcerer of the Golden Age - Heian Era whose technique permitted him to stay intact as brain) have been alive for so long and that they are putting plans in motion at the same time? Well, as far as speculation goes my guess is that no, it’s not possible. Getwo wants another Heian Era - which reminds me of the fact that maybe this sorcerer (Brain-san) has survived til now experimenting and doing evil deeds, not deteriorating and living like a parasite. Could it be that there is a specific event taking place in this era (The same Yuuji being born suitably as a vessel) the trigger for Getwo to finally get on the move to put his plan? Or has he always been stringing the pieces along, creating Yuuji as a suitable vessel for Sukuna to regenerate and give space for Sukuna to rule again?

IV.) Curses and Clan origin - Sugawara Michizane (and referral to history)

It is known that Gojo and Yuuta are both descendants of Sugawara no Michizane, a figure that in JJK is a powerful sorcerer, but in Japanese history is a real politician, scholar and poet, living in the Heian era (845-903) and originally from Kyoto. Legend says that he, after death, returned from his grave to seek vengeance upon those who did him wrong during life and did not recognise his hard work. This has earned him the entry into the Three Great Onryo of Japan (日本三大悪妖怪). 

Now does this same sound somehow familiar? Well, it should.

As mentioned in the introduction of this post, the Three Big Vengeful Spirits are the ancestors of the three big Jujutsu clans, and Sugawara no Michizane is one of them - from which we can safely assume that the Nihon San Dai Onryo is indeed, a reality in JJK. This makes it easy to assess who the other two ancestors of the clans Kamo and Zen’in are: Taira no Masakado (?- 940) and Emperor Sutoku (1119-1164) - as they are the missing duo completing the legend of the Three Japanese Onryo. In particular, I find it believable that Sutoku-tenno is the ancestor of the Kamo clan (as his legend is linked to blood curses and just generally he is told to have bit his tongue off and to have written a curse against Japan with his own blood), while Taira no Masakado should be the ancestor of the Zen’in clan. However, it is very interesting to note how all three rotate inside and around Kyoto, as after their death they are said to be cursing mainly their land, which is Kyoto for all three of them. It goes without saying that all three lived during the Heian period. 

V.) Onmyodo

While doing my research onto Japanese history, I stumbled upon the practice of Onmyodo, which I have never heard of before. While reading about it, I noticed that some things were eerily familiar and then I understood why. Well, for starters Onmyodo means literally The Way of Yin and Yang and is a ‘system’ involving science, astronomy, divination and magic among other. Those who practiced this system were called Onmyouji, and they used to be civil servants. Practically, they were specialists in usage of magic and divination and they were to execute different court responsibilities such as protection from evil spirits. Now, this is where it gets interesting: Onmyouji were said to be able to control shikigami (the belief of the shikigami in general derives from Onmyodo). And even more, it was during the Heian Period that nobility used to even organise their lives around practices which were recommended by onmyouji. This system had a particular relevance during the Heian period, but fell out of practice when the imperial court fell. These figures were later labelled as occultist and occult priests. Insignificant as it might be, the onmyouji might be a sort of inspiration for jujutsu sorcerers in general, and their abilities in modern society to fend off curses. 

[twoticky]

hm okay. so i said i was gonna write about this and idk if anyone else actually cares but im Thinking About It.

from what ive seen abt the general tumblr analysis of malvolio (which i certainly dont claim to be an expert on. im just here!), there's a lot of talk abt neurodivergence, particularly autism, as it relates to his character. which is rad obviously! but as someone currently playing malvolio myself, i feel the one of the most important, maybe THE most important factor for me in interpreting malvolio is class, and how he relates to it.

nobility and status is, more broadly, A Thing that comes up in twelfth night. although the primary part of viola's disguise is that she's dressing as a man, she's also a noblewoman dressing as a servant. in shakespeare's time, class lines were pretty strictly defined and relationships between nobility and servants were strongly disapproved of, so viola's position in the class ladder certainly isn't irrelevant to her romantic prospects. (hence why olivia asks about cesario's parentage in 1.5 -- she's not just making small talk, she wants to ensure that he's not impossibly below her). while actual servants having relationships with nobility was considered scandalous, the idea of love as service was common and appears throughout shakespeare's plays; viola calls orsino olivia's servant because of his love for her, for one example, and antonio's extremely homoerotic devotion to sebastian manifests itself through his dedication to service. and of course there's viola herself, who literally serves her love orsino, until her true identity is revealed and she becomes "orsino's mistress, and his fancy's queen," the roles of servant and commander switching through their love. and then we get to malvolio!

(from here on out i'm gonna talk a lot about my personal analysis of his character, which you can feel free to disagree with. every actor who plays him does it differently and i think that's one of the great things about his character!) malvolio is frequently considered a parallel to the various lovers in the play, most often compared to orsino as their semi-obsession and courtship of olivia is similar, but i think, because of a lot of the stuff about master/servant relationships i talked about above, he's also comparable to viola in some ways. what makes him different, though, is that his love for olivia is almost secondary to his love for what she can give him -- power and respect. malvolio, presumably, was born to a lower class family, and has attained the rank of steward because of his obedience and commitment to rules. and he believes that through this obedience he will get the status he rightly deserves, that jove and his stars will bestow luck upon him. although many things about the play's class system don't particularly translate to modern times, one thing became clear to me pretty quickly about malvolio: he's kind of a bootlicker. now, don't get me wrong, i love his character! but fundamentally, he is someone who believes he can escape the oppressive class structures of his time and place if he just works hard enough. and he works hard! he dedicates himself to olivia's service, and part of why he hates the fool, or sir toby's entourage, is that they aren't working. they have the luxury to sit around and joke while he's had to work every second of his life to get this far! so while he's, in some ways, sympathetic, it's pretty understandable why so many people hate him.

and then we get to the prank. now, i think it's really important to remember, while sir toby is pretty much a ne'er-do-well, he is nobility. he's olivia's uncle, and although he may not have money, he has status. and in sir toby's mind, the crime malvolio has committed is rising above his station -- he's disrespected toby with his chastisement and threats to kick him out, and he's "disrespected" olivia by desiring her, which of course because of his status is considered inherently predatory. (this is, additionally, why i find lesbian malvolio so interesting as a re-interpretation, adds a lil something to the sense of malvolio being predatory just because of who he is). so, of course, malvolio must have everything he's wanted for so long dangled in front of him, and then have it ripped away. only fair, right?

although twelfth night is a play that challenges convention in a lot of ways, we're still living in the 1600s (1500s? fuck, when was this play written?), and we have to have some approximation of returning to proper social order at the end of the play. orsino marries a noblewoman, olivia marries a nobleman, and malvolio stays where he is. what changes, towards the end of the play, is that malvolio has realized, depressing as it is, that he can't win. he tried to do everything olivia wanted, and this resulted in punishment. in his letter to her in 5.1, he says he has forgotten his station, that he speaks only out of injury, which he certainly would have never done before. and ironically, once malvolio has abandoned his striving his grandeur, the play finally gives him the dignity he's been denied. his lines in the final scene of the play are the only time he ever speaks in verse instead of prose -- speaks in the language of nobility, lovers, sympathetic characters, instead of that of servants and "lighter people."

in some ways the ending of twelfth night is a bit of a bummer -- malvolio storms off, pledging revenge on everyone who has stood there and laughed while he was stripped of his dignity, and as far as we no there is no conclusion, no justice is served. how can we just, like, walk away and be fine with that? i guess to answer that i'd paraphrase an article mentioned in the back of the folgers: the greatest revenge malvolio gets, the greatest victory over all the nobility with which he shares the stage, is being, in the end, the most memorable character in the play.

[controlledchaosetc]

Hullo! What's your process on making NPCs? :D

Hello person ive never spoken to before and definitely isn't a player in my game!!!

So when making an NPC, honestly it's a very loose process. A lot of times, if the person was made before the game, it starts with what role a person needs to take or do. Like, "does this person need to be confrontational", "do I need to have someone for this plot point", etc. Then I'll go about fleshing out their personality if that wasn't already decided, how'd they'd talk and act, and that's a little more in depth to try to figure out what opinions they have. How they look is probably the last thing and most impromptu as I've literally changed how someone looks on the spot when they meet them that's different than what I've already written down in prep.

To be honest, a lot of it is "does this feel right", an NPC can just kinda form in your brain without much effort and then you just throw them out in the world XD

Hopefully that was a good answer, idk my process isn't formal almost at all, the most formal thing I do is have a system for writing descriptions, but a lot of an NPC can just kinda form XD

[kamil-a]

ok ace route end thoughts. incredibly messy post i put together a lot of it last night, half-asleep, and im trying to just. do my best with that lol

they invented queerbaiting for m/f couples

she was just so recently scared of him, but goes on a camping trip anyway and does seem to have a decent time! caught in by his magnetic pull, huh...

we arent going to OUTER space but we are going to MEDIUM space. which is great!

THE JOKER??!?!?!? THERE WAS A CLOWN MAN??!?!?!? 

it was a gourcus...

really id seen the cg before but still!!! i was so shocked to see him!!!

-oh okay. id dropped the pics and copypasted twitter comments over last night when i was too tired, so this is gonna be out of order a little bit- i do nt rly want to reorder them.

-she MAKES HER CHOICE is the thing, and then joker shows up AFTER to mess around!

=i suspect that the nightmare and peter (putting a note here that peter talks to her a: in the circus and b: she says she feels like he’s trying to poke hole in her decision) that we saw were joker in disguise/projecting illusions or something. because itts ace’s route i assume he did his part himself but itd still be interesting even if it werent i guess?

BITING HER EAR LIKE CHOMP?? RIGHT ON THE LAWN OF HER FAKE MEMORY DREAM HOUSE??? WHERE THERES PROBABLY A FREAKY OTHERWORLD CORALINE LOOKING LORINA GHOST?!?

im horrifascinated with him literally invading her nostalgic memories (and the state she’s tied herself to embodying here in WL!) to like... rub himself all over it. defile the past. AND, showing up in the sunday afternoon peaceful garden times zone is like a fuckyou to peter too... like a cat pissing on a tree in another cat’s territory. theres two separate sex scenes in this ending (lmaooo) but i dont even really think of this one as like. particularly sexual (or i guess i should say erotic? sex is about power blah blah) so much as ace wanting to assert power over alice and peter and like. the ghost of lorina liddell i guess. 

can you see this from heaven? if you could, would this even be the shape your heaven takes? well, in the end youre actually not here to say otherwise . so i will say it as if you’ve seen: haha lorina i am banging your sister

and i think on some level alice knows that lorina... isnt there to catch them in the act. that her objection to this isn’t “whats wrong with you, my sister could walk in on us any second!!!” but “i don’t want you to defile my perfect memories of this place, and of my perfect sister”.

-this is also like. i think one of the most explicit routes ive seen in terms of textual descriptions of things. 

-OH YEAH the other one was really really fun hes like doing an edgy oohhh ur my ruin you will bring my doom roleplay and shes like. excuse me? i dont want to bring your doom. what are you talking about. and hes like aww yeah my girlfriend is going to kill me one day and shes like HUH????? shes literally just trying to have a nice time and he keeps ruining it with his bizarre dirty (?) fantasizing about her destroying him it’s really funny

-and it all even started bc she was talking to peter and ace got jealous. even tho if he LISTENED a bit he’s realize she was talking abt how she chose ace.

-

-they probably had to up the stakes from friendship kissing by making ace a bites you bites you bites you bites you guy but it works for him 

she says he can name most of the stars she points out, but thankfully never gives names so MY CITY NOW - i think they have a lot of constellations named after things from the hunting of the snark + jabberwocky.

(which in my even deeper MY CITY NOW headcanonings is where they adopted their game-and-roleholder system from. so it’s sort of a remnant of it and a remembrance out of respect).

-i always much prefer when it's made textually clear in the moment that she wants something she verbally denies! This one seems particularly clear, i wonder if its a matter of being written years later 

-i can become happy in my own world, too. CAN YOU??? PERSON WHO VOWED TO NEVER BECOME HAPPY???

-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

-lmao he THREW HIS SWORD AT HER to trip her

-i think a lot of this was in the musical

-you gotta wonder why he isnt feeding her the game juice back if he wants her in such a state of stasis, yknow? 

-Instead, having her firmly choose, but swearing he'll remind her of pain- my guess being it's to keep her from truly losing her outsideship? 

its for jnkna reasons i assume, but even hearts era ace is clumsy enough to go about it in the most inconvenient way lmao...

also. i love how the conclusion she comes to after her little "im scared!!!!" detour is like... "well im just weirdly drawn to him. dont know why hes so magnetic. cant help loving him" BC ME TOO HONESTLY????

-THE MOST AUTHENTIC HES EVER BEEN....

-OH YEAH! AND SHE NEVER EVEN FOUND OUT ABOUT JULIUS!!!!!!

-SHE DOESNT KNOW HER BF’S SIDE JOB. OR THAT HE HAS A BEST FRIEND

[antiloreolympus]

7 Anti LO Asks

1. does ... does anyone on the LO art team know anatomy? why does daphne look like that? (also im p sure the flower petal hair idea was stolen from punderworld and/or hades game, because all flower nymphs before in LO never had that feature but now do?)

2. Weird thing but Daphne was/is a health it. She runs, is a yoga teacher, and probably more since she has a lot we “don’t expect” yet Apollo is just following behind her, like not flying not some weird god power, just chasing after her as she runs from him. Sure the dress might slow her down but she tied it. I feel like she could have gotten farther faster.

3. i kinda get what LO is doing by trying to make Demeter "redeemable" by making her a victim too, but that shouldn't be via depowering her so much to where Zeus and Leto and even Hecate can push her around, but also we still saw Demeter was emotionally and mentally abusive to Persephone, that doesn't just go away over the span of a stressful month. I get LO is doing this so Persephone isn't stuck with an abusive mom half the year, but this is the worst possible way to do it.

4. I honestly hate Apollo’s character in lo.  He’s not a fun villain or a villain to root for. He’s not even a villain I love to hate.  Apollo’s motivations are barely even explained.  His character makes me so uncomfortable and makes reading lo harder than usual.

5. the only two times ive seen a depiction of hades running a business like LO it was HADES and Hadestown, and the former made sure to show Hades paid everyone and have them benefits like time off, and the latter was about how capitalism is a cruel and unjust system. Meanwhile LO is like "slavery is good, actually", like ...

6. I used to really love Lore Olympus - to the point where I would argue with the anti's to leave the comic alone. I'm Greek, and I hate the Percy Jackson series with a passion and I think I clung onto LO as the closest thing to what a non-Greek could produce that was actually pretty good.

And to be honest, season 1 wasn't that bad at all! There were a few funky pacing issues, and some things that needed an explanation (why Apollo was entitled, why Demeter kept Persephone hidden, a bit more on why Hades is considered a bad person, ext.) But I just interpreted that these things would come with time. After all, it's a series.

But then, season 2 actually came out. This is when I started to notice that the webtoon, even in season 1, had a ton of bad writing.

Apollo is cartoonishly and unreasonably evil. He has no nuance to him, like the other gods and goddesses. In Greek mythology, everyone did shitty things, so I guess I expected a bit more nuance to his character since Smythe had given this to her other villain-like characters - like Minthe, Zeus, even Chronos was hinted at having some emotional issues. Yet Apollo comes in and the only thing we know is that he could be being pushed by his mother - but we don't really see his side of the story - and if anyone tries to bring this up it immediately gets put down as "You're a r@pe apologist!" No, I just need a bit more consistency - you can't give Minthe a reason as to why she does what she does, make Zeus nuanced, but then treat this other character like the devil himself - especially when this God is such an important part of Greek culture and mythology.

Smythe's Demeter has become a joke. How is it, the Goddess that was once referred to some ancient Greeks as Mother Earth herself, a powerful Chthonic Goddess along with her daughters Persephone and the mysterious Despoina, was one of the most important Goddesses to date, is not a Fertility Goddess and is easily captured? I mean, ok, Leto was indeed a Titan of Night/Light of Day and considered to be one of Zeus's brides; but Smythe didn't even bother showing us the Goddesses fighting or interacting! There was no struggle at all?! On top of that, she is a perfectionist that is considered overbearing and snobbish - I don't understand how Demeter can be shown as strong and even threatening in season 1 and was even hinted at having a history with Zeus and Hades is now just....a character trope?

Why is Persephone being written as a Mary Sue? I never thought I would have to bring this word up in the Lord's year of 2021, but here we are. Persephone has too many men after her or has shown a slight interest (Hades, Ares, Apollo, Hermes, Hephaestus, and possibly Chronos? Seriously?) Like, I know that in *one* story it was mentioned that those Gods mentioned offered her wedding gifts, but Demeter turned them away- but they weren't all going after her at once. Demeter's fertility Goddess title was obviously taken from her (among other Goddesses) to make Persephone the super special one. And now her Act of Wrath is being downplayed and Zeus is being villainized for wanting to convict her...I honestly stopped feeling sorry for her. I'm at the point where I want Zeus to give her to Apollo haha.

Hades's character is inconsistent - first, he's portrayed as a 'scoundrel' CEO type that people fear - one that literally rips someone's eye out and forces the dead to pay to get into the afterlife- and then he's portrayed as a gentle and loving man? These two character types do not flow together smoothly, and Smythe has made little to no effort to harmonize them.

When I presented these criticisms to the recent fast pass chapter - I was attacked. More than 10 dislikes and fans telling me that I need to stop reading and that saying that Demeter and Apollo are badly written is me missing the point of the story. The fandom has also become incredibly toxic, and I'm ashamed to say that I even defended this comic. 

7. id be so mad if i spent years reading this comic only for them to get together off screen. i really hope rachel isnt pulling that because as much as the fans are annoying, they deserve to actually see what they've been waiting and paying for, not have it all happen off screen and rushed.

[i-am-infinite]

Guilt (Part 1): The Rescue

(Din Djarin x ForceSensitive!Fem!Reader)

Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

Slight Chpt 12 and 13 spoilers. Read at your own risk.

Description: Moff Gideon has found someone else to run his experiments on and word gets back to Din. Will he take his son far away and try and find somewhere safe? Or will the guilt of an innocent being put in his son’s place eat away at him? (No Y/N or ___ used)

Word Count: Slightly over 4K

Warnings: Mentions of blood and needles. Broken glass. Fainting. Blood loss. Canon type violence. Possible bad writing (first fic pls go easy on me). If I’m missing anything please let me know, I’ve never done one of these before. 

A/N: This is my first fanfic I’ve written so it might be really bad but I couldn’t get the idea out of my head so here it is. I also made up a planet/system and don’t know if star wars has alarm clocks but i wrote it in anyway. I also wrote this in Word first and then realized I couldn’t copy it over so I tried my best to type it over in here. 

Normal. That is what was used to describe your life. Nothing out of the ordinary. Life wasn’t boring per se, but it definitely wasn’t compelling enough for your tastes. Studying to be a healer help keep it somewhat interesting but not enough. 

Bzzzzz. Bzzzzzzzzz. Crust littered eyes creak open as your face unsticks from the textbook scattered across the desk. Bzzzzz. Bzzzzzzzzz. Your stiff neck cracks as you finally sit up. Fell asleep studying again. You loved learning about healing, you really did. But the long nights and barely sleeping was enough to make your head explode. Looking over at the clock with bright red numbers blinking at you. 8:15. 

8:15! I’m late! You think as you force yourself awake. No not again! Being a student means you need to do hands on hours down at the nearest medcenter. All the late night studying also means that you oversleep most days. Grabbing your work bag filled with a change of clothes, in preparation of these events, you run out the door.

Your feet hit the wet cobble stones as it echos through your little part of the city. Vendors lining up the street ready to start their days. Passing the shop you went to yesterday, your mind too preoccupied to notice that it’s empty today. You know that theres is a faster route to the medcenter, but is it a path you really want to take today? Dark and windy path that you can barely see five feet in front of you on mornings like this. Too foggy and muggy for your liking. You’d rather stick to the main road where there’s people, where if anything were to happen, people would see, they would know. Regardless, it shaves fifteen minutes off your commute. You loathe having to be late for another shift. Making the sharp turn in between tow booths, you pace quickens to get through as quickly as you can. While not having much visibility, you swear you can see a pair of eyes in the dark. Has to just be my imagination, you convince yourself, I just need to keep going. It’ll be fine. 

Footsteps echo behind you. Hands grab your shoulders. A scream rises in your throat, but no sound comes out. Everything goes dark when you feel something hit the side of your head. 

.

Sigh. “Grogu get back in your seat.” The little baby waddles down off the controls and into his father’s lap. “Not what I meant,” Din grumbles with a smile hidden under his helmet. He grabs Grogu by his little robe and places him in the seat to his right and tells him to buckle up as a holo comes through from Greef Karga. 

“Mando, we’ve just got word that Moff Gideon might have been seen in the Braic system. It looks like they found a substitute for the baby for the time being. I would use this time to go find a hide-out and lay low. He could still come back for the little one. Be well,”

Din goes to start the ship and find coordinates to stay out of trouble for a while when he hears the baby whine. Looking back at his adoptive child, all Din can see is Grogu, then a nameless kid, lying unconscious on a metal table, trapped underneath a contraption. Din starts breathing heavy and feeling sick that he ever gave his son up to those Imps. All he can hear is the beeping of the machine he’s hooked up to. Anger boiling back to the surface as he hears himself yell at the doctor all over again in his memories. No, he tells himself, He’s here with me. He’s fine. He’s safe. He shakes himself out of it and goes to fly the Razor Crest off planet. 

Before he even gets off the planet, all Din can think about is that innocent person in his son’s place. They were going to kill Grogu, just for his blood for their experiments. Din can’t bring the kid anywhere near those people, he can’t risk losing his family, not when both of them have formed such attachments to each other. But he can’t stop thinking of this person who is in the that position now. He should’ve made sure Gideon was dead. Because of that now more people are going to get hurt. 

Without thinking he turns on his holo already asking, “Where is he taking them?”

. 

Feeling groggy with heavy eyes, you are able to open them just a bit to a blinding light. Reluctantly closing them again, you lift your arm to rub your eyes, but only they don’t move. What? The rest of your senses start coming back and you can feel the cool metal against your back, the same metal wrapped around your wrists and your ankles attached to the table. Finally bracing the light and opening your eyes, lifting your head slightly off the table and oh no the room is spinning now. There is an IV in your arm drawing your blood out into some odd machine, explaining the dizziness. Second time in two days you’ve had to deal with your own blood. 

Walking through the shops on your one day off, you pick up a flower hair pin. The glasswork is so intricate and entrancing, you can’t help but turn it over and over in your hands. A pearl bead sitting in the center of iridescent gray and white petals. Placing it back in its place, your had scrapes against another glass design that is not yet finished, slashing open your palm. “Oh, dear let me help you with that,” the lady running the stand says. She looks you with her white hair barely covering her forehead. Tattoos liter her arms. A design peaks your interest as you swear you know but can’t quite place. 

“It’s fine, I can take care of it myself,” you state already inspecting your hand. No shards in it so thats good. 

“Oh no I insist. It happened at my booth, let me help clean it,” she declares taking your hand in her own. It feels like she squeezes the wound causing you to wince in pain slightly. Knowing she should just be cleaning it and wrapping it, you’re a little confused. Maybe she just doesn’t know how to tend to these sort of things, not wanted to embarrass her at her stand, you keep quiet. She finally gets a clean rag to help blot away at the blood on your hand. You didn’t think anything of it at the time, but it appears she has put it in a bag to the side. 

“I don’t have any gauze to help wrap it up,” the stand lady says. 

“Oh, don’t worry, I have plenty of my own,” you mention, “It will be fine until I make it back to my place.” Smiling you walk away. Without looking, you can feel her move the piece you cut your hand on into the bag. Must just be because it’s a dangerous piece, you think, not knowing there’s still some of your blood on it too. 

Closing your eyes again, you try to wonder why that is so significant to you right now. It was a harmless thing in passing, so why is it at the forefront of your mind? You are strapped to a table and all you can think about is that little cut you got the day prior. If your head didn’t feel like it was a spinner top right now, you would have laughed. Opening your eyes again you see men all in white armor and helmets guarding the door to your room, while a man in a white coat is working on the machine where your IV is attached. I thought the empire was dead. The same symbol that keeps going through your mind is the same one sewn into the man’s white coat. Your breathing gets shallower as you feel the panic rise in your chest. I’m never getting out of here, you realize as your vision becomes black once again. 

. 

You’re losing a lot of blood. You know that. You can feel it when noise wakes you up and your eyelids feel like lead. All the noise is muffled, as if you’re underwater. Frankly it feels like you are. It would be so easy to let the waves of darkness just wash over you right now, to let the water take you under. No, you can’t give up the fight and drown into unconsciousness just yet. You force yourself to stay awake. 

Barely getting your eyes open, bright red lights flood your vision. You imagine you’re still in bed, or at least asleep at your desk, with the alarm clock blaring, not here with blaster fire. Wait, blaster fire? You attempt to turn your head to the side to look, or to dodge, you aren’t to sure in your current state. The fast action causes you to feel like you’re spinning, or it might be the room, either way your eyes can’t focus on what is going on. Closing your eyes again to make it stop, you hear voices surrounding you. They sound so far away at the moment but finally, after what feels like ages, one voice sounds clearer. 

“Please help us. Help us get out of here. Her m-counts aren’t nearly as high as the child’s. They’re demanding more blood. She’s already lost 2 liters, I don’t know how much longer she can last.”

Child? They wanted to do this to a child? You’d choke down a sob if you could just thinking of that poor baby. What did he even say about what-counts? What the hell are those? All these questions are making your head spin more and more. Taking most of your energy to open your eyes, you’re met with a chrome stormtrooper trying to unbind you. Wait no, not a stormtrooper. You’ve heard stories about him and his people. What were they called? For the life of you, you can’t remember right now. 

“You’re going to need help getting her out of here,” you realize that the man in the whit coat was the one who spoke before and is now pleading with the metal man, “Please Mandalorian take me with you and I’ll help you get her out of here.” 

That’s it. He’s a Mandalorian. He gets your wrists free as the doctor takes the IV out. Pushing off the table to sit up, the world starts spinning again. You don’t even realize you’re about to hit the table again until the Mandalorian grabs your shoulders to keep you semi-upright. You hear some sort of static come from his helmet. “Fine.” he grumbles, “help me get her out of this thing.” 

With a flip of a switch, the rest of your body is free from restraints. Eager to get out of there, you swing your legs over the edge of the table, hands finding the arms of the Mandalorian with his hands still on your shoulders. Nauseous and woozy, you try to use the cold metal of his pauldron to ground yourself, to get the room to stop spinning. He can see you start to sway and wraps his arms around your waist as he lowers you from the table. Your feet hit the floor and black dots start to cloud your vision. Blood pounding in your ears trying to tell you to stop and lie back down. Muffled voices come from beside you again as you feel another arm wrap around you from the other side. Your feet dragging against the floor as both men on either side of you go towards the door. 

You feel the heavily armored man to your left let go. Eyes that are still fuzzy and unfocused sort of see him peak out the door with his blaster drawn. He leaves the room and all that can be heard is the pew pew pew of blaster fire. Vision start to come back the tiniest bit, you can see him standing in the door way waving his hand as to say Come on. 

The three of you hurry as fast as you can down the corridor to get to an exit. Lots of twists and turns, just for you all to come up at a dead end. So much for rescuing, you think to yourself as the doctor still holding you up, leans you up against a pillar as the two of them survey the situation. More of the Mandalorian assessing the situation and the doctor just frantically pacing back and forth. 

Sitting down now that the adrenaline of being kidnapped and “rescued” die down, you feel your breathing getting shallower and harder to breath. Eyelids getting heavy again. You just want to lay down and go to sleep, hoping that will fix things. Starting your descent from your upright position to close your eyes, two hands grab your shoulders and jerk you up. It takes a second to realize this modulated voice was talking you you. “Hey, you got to stay with me now,” he pleads, one hand going to the side of your face. Pain spreads across your features due to being struck there earlier, a bruise starting to form in its place. Pulling his hand away like seeing the your face contorted burned him, he continues, “I’m going to get you out of here, you just have to stay awake.” You open your mouth to speak, but your throat feels like it’s filled with sand from Tattooine, so you just weakly nod your head yes. “Okay good,” the shiny man says after letting out a deep breath. 

Still holding your shoulders, he helps you stand up and tells the doctor to take you and go further down the hall. Taking something small and circular out of his belt and placing it on the far wall, he speed walks back toward you two. It starts blinking red as his arms come and cage both of you in. Peeking over his shoulder, you see the wall disappear. Well explode, but one second ago it was there and now it’s not. When the explosion first rings in your ears, you reflexively reach out for the Mandalorian’s arm and feel him tense under your touch. 

When he deems it safe to move again, letting go of his arm, he hops over the rubble to the outside world, blaster drawn. Looking out you think it looks like a desert, but one you’ve never seen before. You have no idea where you are, even what planet you are on. You eyes go to where the chrome man is stalking towards. It seems he found two speeder bikes that the troopers use, sans the troopers. Your feet hit the gravel and you realize you aren’t wearing shoes anymore. How long was I out? You begin to question when you see a stormtrooper take aim at your rescuer. Right when he pulls the trigger, you reach your hand out and scream, “NO!” 

You could’ve sworn it was going to hit him. It should’ve hit him. But at the last second it bent and went in another direction. You knew stormtroopers were bad shots, but nothing like that has ever happened. The Mandalorian whips around at your scream and shoots the trooper down. He goes back to what he originally planned to do, but not without turning to you. You see his chest plate heave up and down a few times before turning back around. After a beat, the only sound you can hear is the Mandalorian starting up the speeders and your heartbeat pounding in your ears. The doctor helps guide you to the bikes and as you’re about to get on behind him, the Mandalorian picks you up bridal style and sits on his own respective bike. You make a noise of discontent at the sudden action and are then seated in front of him, yet again caged in by his arms with your legs draped over one of his. You can hear him breathing through the modulator as he states, “Just in case you pass out again. Can’t have you falling off the back of the bike.” You go to adjust how you are sitting when he takes off. 

Gasping in shock, you hug your arms around his neck with you head in his cowl as you take panicked breaths. His hand touches your back as you hear him shout over the noise of the engines, “Put your legs around me, you’re slipping off.” He holds your waist as you sling your right leg around and hook it with your left one behind his back. Not the position you thought you’d end up in as a blush creeps up on your face, but neither the less here you are. His hand lets go of your waist and back to the handlebars as he steers. 

Suddenly getting the feeling like you’re being followed, you say into his neck cowl, “Go left!” You don’t know why, but you just get a gut feeling to go that way. He follows your lead, not without a brief hesitation. The doctor follows on his speeder in the same direction. Finally looking up you see two stormtroopers in the distance. I wish their speeders would just stop or something, you plead with yourself and you think back to what happened with the blaster. Testing the waters, you unhook one of your hands from Mando’s neck and hold it out and... nothing. Okay focus, you close your eyes and picture their speeders stopping, or malfunctioning, or anything at this point. 

The sound of a crash comes ringing into your ears. Opening your eyes, you can see the troopers flip over their handlebars as if their engines just died. You slightly chuckle to yourself as your eyelids feel heavy again. You try to get them to stay open, but sleep just feels so much better at the moment. And with that, you’re out like a light. 

. 

Din feels you go limp against him. His arm once again going to grab you by your waist to keep you in place. He wills his speeder to go faster, to get back to the Razor Crest sooner as he’s panicking thinking he somehow made the situation worse. He exposed you on the bike by having you sit like this. Your arms, legs, and head were all exposed to possible blaster fire. Have you been hit? He heard a crash but couldn’t look back without moving you more, risking leaving you more unprotected. His blame for himself spirals as his grip on you grows tighter. He can’t explain why he’s so distraught over a stranger, but still every time he blinks, he swears he sees back on that table. The next time he swears he sees his son on that very table again. First he gave the kid up to those people, now he didn’t finish Gideon off and let you, an innocent stranger who he is now clutching onto for dear life, get in the crossfire. Too many people have gotten hurt because of this. Because of him. He needs to make it right. 

Finally Din and Dr. Pershing arrive at the Razor Crest where Din is already lowering the hatch and carrying you in. Kicking some crates together, he gently lowers you down onto this makeshift bed. He uses his thermal setting to see your body temperature, to see how you are recovering from the blood loss. He isn’t thrilled to see it still low, you were getting your energy back slowly before, along with more body heat, bit not enough to Din’s liking. Turning his helmet to Pershing, the doctor says, “She’s going to need more blood.” Din, already standing ready to run out and get some, not even knowing where or how to do  that, is stopped by Pershing telling him that he’ll go get it, that it would look less suspicious. Agreeing, Din sits by your side while using his comm-link to tell Greef that he could bring Grogu back to the ship. How Din always finds someone to babysit still surprises him. 

. 

You wake up with a start. Eyes not yet adjusted to the lights overhead. Looking down you can see an IV in your arm again. Now towards the side, you can see the same doctor from before asleep up against a wall. Please tell me it wasn’t a dream, tears well up in your eyes as you think you’ve made the whole thing up to cope. It wasn’t until you felt your hand come to wipe away your watery eyes that you realized it just might not be a dream. The IV isn’t taking blood this time, it’s giving it. 

Finally looking around, you realize you’re on a ship that feels like it’s moving. Confused by this, you try and sit up. Not nearly as dizzy as before, you slowly swing your legs off the wooden crates you’re lying on. Noticing your still barefoot as a chill gets sent up to your spine by the cold metal floor, you grab your IV bag off what appears to be just a hook poorly attached to the ceiling. You venture around the small area of the ship, noticing there isn’t a lot besides these boxes and what appears to be two storage type of units. You don’t even tempt to look in, too intrusive. You do however see a ladder going higher up on the ship. Taking the IV out and ripping a piece of your shirt off to wrap around your arm for pressure, so you can use both hands to climb, you start your ascent up. 

Once you finally reach the top, you hear cooing? Didn’t that doctor say something about a child earlier? Looking forward into the cockpit, you see your savior flying while looking to his right at one of the co-pilot chairs. Clearing your throat to get his attention, two little eyes peer at you from the seat. A bright smile appears on this little green things face and you can’t help but stifle a laugh because its ears are the size of his body. 

Distracted by this cute baby, you don’t notice the way the Mandalorian swivels his chair to face you. Finally looking at the man who saved you today, your breath hitches. You don’t know how to thank him for what he did, so you sort of just stand and stare for a second. He stands up and lightly grabs your arm with your homemade bandage on it. Tilting his helmet to the side you hear static coming from it. Did he just sigh at you? “You were supposed to keep it in your arm,” he finally states, with a tinge of annoyance. 

Eyes not wanting to meet the T of his visor, you direct your gaze to the ground. “ I jus- I-,” you stammer, not able to find the right words. “Thank you.” It comes out more hushed than you’d like, but he still hears you. He just gives you a slight nod before releasing his arm and heading back to his seat. All your muscles turn to stone as you stand there not knowing if you should leave or not, until he cocks his head towards the seat to his left. On shaky legs you find your way to the seat. Before even sitting down fully, the little green child is already trying to get into your lap. Giggling to yourself you let him up onto your lap. 

Once you do the strangest thing happens. You can feel what he’s thinking, his emotions, his past. How he was trained with the special abilities, much like the ones you just displayed before. How he was scared and in hiding until the man sitting in front of you found him. How he thinks of him as a father, his dad. Your chest tightens at that one. Still confused as to why the same people who wanted this child, Grogu, for his powers, also wanted you, you pull him to your chest to comfort you both. You finally speak up again and ask, “Did they want me because I might have the same abilities as this one?” You meant it to sound strong, but it just came out sounding weak. 

Without looking at you, the Mandalorian replies shortly after a pause, “Yes.” You swore you can see his grip tighten on the ships steering as he says that. Turning to the two of you finally, he says in the sincerest voice you’ve heard out of him, “They wont get to either of you again. I can promise you that.” Your chest swells at this statement and Grogu looks up at you with a smile as if he felt the way your heart fluttered. You wish you were the one wearing the helmet right now because you can feel your cheeks heat up. To ease the situation in the best way you can, awkwardly, you clear your throat before asking, “So where are we headed now?”

Swiveling back in his chair to hit a few buttons, you’re confused not knowing what they are supposed to do until he pulls up a map and points a place out. He tells you that he’s going to drop off Dr. Pershing at one of the squiggles you see and then try and figure it out from there. “So, I guess thats where I get off too?” You meant it to come out more as a statement than a question, but after what you just went through, you’d rather not be left to fend for youself. 

“If that’s what you want,” he finally utters after a while. “ But they’re not going to stop coming after you. Either of you. It might be safer for you to stay here with me, us.” The last part comes out so quiet, it’s almost as if he didn’t want you to hear, out of fear of your response. 

Trying to not answer too quickly, you take a deep breath and finally say, “Yes. I’d like that a lot.” With a curt nod, he turns back around. Warmth fills your chest yet again at this stranger’s kindness. It’s just because I have the same abilities as his child, you try to convince yourself. But deep down you’re hoping it’s more than that. The child in your lap grips your fingers tightly and coos, as if he’s trying to tell you your hopes might not be too far off. 

Oh, it’s going to be an interesting adventure with these two, you smile to yourself. 

[neko-naruto]

video games

(for my friend @stxrlie, i have written for this ship before so it might not be very good)

....................................................................................................................

reaper had decided it was time to introduce geno to the aspect of video games, something he had forgotten about a long time ago but reaper was prepared for that and wanted to start geno on a simple game that could cause no problems to how he views the gaming industry... he chose contra, he, he chose contra, great choice. he was on his way over their now with a sega genesis and the cartridge, along with a laptop he jimmy rigged with the help of his alphys.

"hey geno!" reaper shouted over the void his partner in sight.

"yeah reaper?" geno asked as he walked over to reaper. "what is it this time?" he asked noticing the systems and cartridge.

"i brought a video game for us to play." reaper said with a smile as he set down the items on the ground of the black void and opened the pc before hooking up his sega genesis and plugging in both controllers, booting up the game.

"fine, i'll watch." geno said as he sat down on the ground beside reaper and leaned against the literal god.

"come on, its fun, promise." reaper said trying to hand over the second controller to geno who reluctantly took it and tried to figure out how the game controlled, the controls being surprisingly stiff instead of the assumption they would be slippery like some other games out their.

"i guess it is kind of fun..." geno said trailing off as the first boss came on screen and he died instantly reaper dodging bullets and returning them tenfold with ease, clearly having practiced more than once.

"yeah, i probably shouldve said that guy was their." reaper said as an apology leaning on genos shoulder just a little bit, the faded skeleton fuming.

"yeah no crap you shouldve! that guys a literal monster!" geno exclaimed almost throwing his controller to the side but refraining from doing so.

"it would help if you where good at rapidly pressing the shoot button as well." reaper said with a light smirk.

"well its not my fault i cant rapidly press a single damn button! i havent had an eternity to practice unlike you!" geno exclaimed in slight anger crossing his arms furiously.

"actually, ive only had for like thirty years, and even at that im still not very good at it." reaper said with a light chuckle at the smaller skeletons demeanor.

"i- touche reaper, how long is it till i can reenter the game?" geno asked as he watch reaper slay those aliens like a god.

"you can join in right now if you press the right button." reaper instructed, eyes never leaving the laptop screen.

"alright, lets go bust some heads." geno said as he reentered the game confidence renewed hundredfold and button mashing having increased slightly.

"with pleasure." reaper said as he continued to splatter some guts the screen flashing each time, geno clearly enjoying the game.

the two ended up playing that game for next couple hours taking various breaks, meeting up every day or so after that until they beat contra deciding to take on an RPG next, their choice being earthbound on the snes, what a journey for the two.

....................................................................................................................

sorry if it isnt the best, i was just on a roll and thought 'hey, gaming, that might be a nice plot' and then went with it, hope you enjoy!