#let's at least give it a go I guess

[vaguely-concerned]

I am always ecstatic to welcome new people to the dragon age fandom, at whatever point in time they picked up the series, every fan is a real fan whenever they join in etc. we get stronger together. but it's very hard to try to convey or replicate the impact the solas = fen'harel reveal had when playing the game when it launched, before it was common knowledge and swirling around in the fandom zeitgeist. you have to understand that I was naturally starting to have my suspicions that something was up as the game went on, but how on earth could I have extrapolated exactly what that was up with it before it hit me like a cartoon boxing glove hidden in a birthday present looney tunes style. the dread wolf is who you say? that guy? you mean my respected if slightly dry coworker who has read all of high in hightown and who sets his own coat tails on fire in battle? reputable people have described him as the resident apostate hobo? that guy??? the just-some-guy-ness of the dude you knew crashing into the mythological proportions of the established lore was indescribable and a large part of my enjoyment of him. the crazy-making potential of 'you know paul who used to work here? a god, apparently. yeah I was a bit surprised myself. he says he's ending the world btw. hm. concerning yet perhaps not entirely out of character. in hindsight we should probably have taken him saying shit like 'the healer has the bloodiest hands' a bit more seriously' of it all was all the more potent for the whiplash disorientation of discovering it fresh.

I'm glad veilguard seems interested in continuing to explore that aspect/conflict of perspective on him with the lighthouse especially, because something about the tension between 'he is for sure a god in most ways that count, but also I have seen that man do his laundry' is part of what makes his character for me. ultimately he wants to live in a world made up of ideas, I think, but dude I have seen your underpants hanging out to dry you can't bullshit me like that I know you you fucker you can't intellectualize your way out of the mortifying ordeal of having been known (by the player AND the inquisitor! the metanarrative qualities of it all!)

[starcurtain]

I think this is how the conversation in the dev room went.

[fumifooms]

Dad always said I was like him

Meijack and Chilchuck Tims Dungeon Meshi, Ryoko Kui

^ 1: Moony moonless sky, Fatima Aamer Bilal / 2: Bug like an angel, Mitski / 3: Woodtangle, Mary Ruefle / 4: The Third Hour of the Night, Frank Bidart / 5 & 6: FROM THE MAKERS OF "TWO-MOM ENERGY DRINK," IT'S "LET YOUR FATHER DIE ENERGY DRINK,", Daniel Lavery & Cecilia Corrigan / 7: Batman: Year Three (1989) / 8 & 9 : FROM THE MAKERS OF […], Daniel Lavery & Cecilia Corrigan / 10: Wilt, CJ the X / 11: How Do We Forgive Our Fathers, Dick Lourie / 12: Milk and honey, Rupi Kaur / 13: And My Father's Love Was Nothing Next To God's Will, Amatullah Bourdon / 14: Moony moonless sky, Fatima Aamer Bilal / 15: Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong, Ocean Vuong / 16: untitled, Joan Tierney v 17: Drunk, The Living Tombstone / 18: unknown

When your father tried his best to provide for you but he worked all the time and even when he was home he was either tired or stressed and he’s always liked to get drunk to relax and cheer up. When you know he values work ethics and respectability so you grew up to be capable and quiet. And when he says you’re like him you’re sort of puzzled, does he really know you so little, or does he know himself so little? But you like the feeling of your father ruffling your hair so you accept it, and still you stand next to your mother just as silent and just as stoic as her during family gatherings. He leaves again and again and when your mother leaves him nothing changes, really. You wonder if it’s more telling that you know him better than he seems to himself or that you don’t know him as much as you wish you did, or that you don’t think about him all that much these days. Out of sight, out of mind. And he’s never really been there, even when he was there, after all.

[governmentmandatedryujinstan420]

I FORGOT TO THROW OUT AFTER THE EPISODE RELEASED NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[maryasmorevna]

can't believe a show based on a videogame (usually games adaptations are notoriously bad, which isn't the case here tho) gave me the beauty and the beast/twisted mirrors/enemies to traveling companions/ruthless antihero+optmistic but still badass heroine who takes none of his shit/age gap but make it sexy dynamic of my dreams. as much as i love maximus and i think he deserves the best writing ever because 1. he's a clever deconstruction of the aspiring Knight bro who's actually a bit of a loser and, as much as lucy, sees the world in black&white at first and then doesn't get what he thought he wanted but what he needs (or at least i hope he'll eventually get it), and 2. he's a cutie and i want an epic love story for him too, it's very funny how they tried to give us a puppy kind of romance and the tumblr girlies still fixated on the "toxic ~she bites his finger off and he cuts hers off and sews it on his hand in what we'll pretend it's a symbolic marriage rings exchange or whatever~ asshole who used to be a nice guy/good girl™ with a lot of spunk and hidden anger but unshakeable morals" kind of relationship.

[mariatesstruther]

okay but a version of events in which tommy takes ellie to the fireflies, but NEITHER of them come back. and maria joel have to work together to get them back

[ratatatastic]

lmaoooo maffhew wanting the knot immediately and having to wait for sasha to catch up with that is so deeply funny like. this omega is not subtle and you’re not a stupid alpha babe! can only imagine what benny has to say to maffhew about it once he catches on and stops banging his head against a wall

idiots to lovers is always great but especially when its two people who would be hitched with 10 kids by now if they stopped being dumb for a single second like its that easy and yet...

to me they very much fall around the same time (infatuation at first scent if you will) just that sasha takes some time to get there not because he's dumb (okay he's a little dumb) but in the sense that its like "this person is very interested in me, i can see and recognise that but theres so much cognitive dissonance in my brain right now between knowing that intrinsically and finding that hard to believe so i unintentionally play dumb because obviously i'm reading too much into things it cant be me they're interested in haha that'd crazy but they're being awfully touchy and flirty with me wow"

but also it takes two to tango and we have to acknowledge that and this is when i would love to bring up the ways in which this man decides is the best way to go about that because he is a catholic school girlie... there's so much hilarity to be had here especially because his flirting is very uh how you say... a little ass backwards if you will especially considering dynamics

"I make it a point to keep the door closed when we're alone in a room together! That's basically a clear invitation that I'm down to fuck!!! Im basically asking to be ragdolled on his knot!!!"

and Benny just pinches the bridge of his nose like "I don't know how to explain to you in a way you'll understand that not everyone went to Catholic school."

But saying that Sasha does side-eye the door knob heavily when Maffhew goes over to close it the first time and he starts sweating like he just got dragged into a game of 7 Minutes in Heaven he did not sign up for and he's 13 again and oh god he got paired with a really cute girl, and he hasn't even had his first real kiss yet and-

And then absolutely nothing happens because Maffhew is just waiting with a polite expectant smile (because his work here is done, he did the heavy lifting know it's Sasha's turn) and this is when Sasha's dynamic classes training kicks in and he basically scolds himself for even assuming in the first place because this is clearly a show of trust (correct) not an invitation for extra circular activities (incorrect buzzer noise) and it basically becomes "This Omega really trusts me, I'm honoured especially as Pack Leader that I'm able to be so accepted into such a private space with the inherent knowledge that I will not encroach their boundaries whatsoever because consent is verbal, this is not in any way an invitation to take advantage of them this is deep platonic trust I will guard with my life :]"

and if you listen closely you can hear the lovely sounds of Maffhew bashing his head into a wall about how much of a gentleman Sasha is but also COME ONNNNNN... you know... once Maffhew realises what's happening which (looks at my watch) is not due for another few months really

Battle of wills: unstoppable force (maffhews catholic school understanding of dynamic interactions) vs immovable object (overseas alpha cotillion classes)

And if you think it's an Oh! An overseas dynamic thing! It's not. The Euros are watching the horrible car crash in front of them and doing absolutely nothing about it because it's none of their business, but they will stare at it... maybe judge it a bit but definitely are observing from the tall grass.

and I'm also not saying that luosty lundy forsy and bobby have a current running bet of how long it'll take for maffhew to break sasha in but i'm also not not saying that... luosty goaded lundy in the midst of a gossip session ("It has to be 3 months, right?) forsy happened to be around so lundy turned to him for advice ("7 months.") and maybeeee bobby overheard from all the way over from his stall and puts in his two cents for what it's worth ("6. Captain nice but not that nice. Very impatient." "So 3!" "No. Impatience makes him double the time, and wait longer. 6 months.") (lundy finally settles on a good 5 months because he's indecisive)

And Sasha does eventually pick up everything maffhew is throwing down... eventually... and when he does it becomes more so I want to court this omega the way they deserve I will take this slow and romance them sweetly :) *smash cut to maffhew caterwauling like a cat in heat*

but also once again its not like maffhew is helping sasha in any way this is idiot4idiot and benny would like to enjoy the car crash with the euros but unfortunately that's his soulmate, thats his bestie, his littermate from birth who has been weaned on the same teat as they climbed over each other to get to it, the first girl you kissed in your childhood bedroom because somehow you started play fighting on the bed because she was like i could totally pin you down easy and then she does and you always noticed how beautiful she was but shes even more gorgeous when she's pinning your wrists to your hannnah montana duvet you promised yourself youd changed out before she came over but you forget and well she teased you about it and you cant help but giggle about how perfect this all is and it seems that the natural conclusion to this is to taste the strawberry lipgloss of her lips because whats a kiss between besties huh its tacky and sticky and it tastes like summer and just other apt metaphors to put here about the inherent -isms of their relationship that i nearly cant put to words properly other than girls having fun (they are fucking)

and well anyways benny is watching and he has a lot of things to say about how its been proceeding so far

"You should really use your words."

"I am!"

"Right because smelling like a fucking perfume shop in the middle of October is using your words."

"This usually works with most Alphas okay!"

"Sasha isn't most Alphas."

"Tell me about it." Matthew grouses before he peeks over to Sam, looking up from beneath his eyelashes—the exact way he knows both endears him to Sam but also absolutely miffs him all the same, "Worked on you, didn't it?"

"Oh, is that what we're doing right now? We're calling getting a lapful of a preening O in preheat in the middle of a roadie a normal way to go about these things."

"It worked didn't it?" Matthew reiterates.

"It would work better if you use—"

"Okay! Alright!! I get it!!!" He does not.

like benny here is unfortunately an active listening participant in the going ons of the fuckery if not because hes involved by proxy because of maffhew because who else will hold his hair back as he calls him a dumb bitch you know

[ianthesmells]

like ooouuuughhh the sadness n grief makes me nauseous and then i cant eat anything because im nauseous which in turn makes me more nauseous

[tootalltech]

FINALLY finished the bad batch. after being afraid to for months (which is ironic given, yk, my username and the entire reason my blog was created) so here's my brief angry thoughts before i pass out. if you're going to say "here's hemlock fucking around with dead(ish) soldiers bodies and turning them into his own personal assassins" AND WE HAVE A FORMER MEMBER OF THE SQUAD WHOSE BODY WAS NEVER SEEN BUT HEMLOCK APPARENTLY LOOKED FOR AND AT LEAST FOUND THE GOGGLES FROM. THEN WHY NOT DO SOMETHING WITH THAT. IT WOULDVE BEEN GOOD.

[lokh]

oughh i wanted to do a cute laishuro take on the blu ray extras (what if laios had been eaten instead) but lets be honest. they absolutely would not have made it as far without laios

[puppppppppy]

if escape rooms as team building exercises became popular im not sure if id be more excited or terrified

[hana-bobo-finch]

a strange trend in my favorite characters I realize is that I tend to heavily gravitate toward somewhat obscure, antagonistic forces

[itwoodbeprefect]

some combination of @actingcamplibrarian's advent calendar fic (hidden in plain sight) and @redgoldblue's recent due south watch has got me thinking about starsky and hutch's hutch canonically not carrying the key to his own apartment but hiding it on top of the doorframe vs. due south's rayk in mountie on the bounty naming the whole bundle of keys he's carrying, telling fraser that the ones he's holding up are, in order, the keys to his old car, to his apartment, to his old apartment, to his locker, and "don't know. ... don't know", meaning that at any time he has at least six keys on him of which four are either obsolete or entirely a mystery, and that's while they were looking for a seventh key (to ray's handcuffs). i don't have a point here except i guess. the blond part of a buddy cop duo. he'll either carry zero keys (bad) or ALL the keys (also unfortunate).

[okalanissolis]

⌖ ๋࣭ ⭑♚₊🗡 ๋࣭ ꜱᴇᴇ ɪꜰ ɪ ꜱᴛɪʟʟ ᴇxɪꜱᴛ

ᴀ ᴄᴇʟᴇꜱᴛɪᴀʟ ᴍᴀꜰɪᴀ ᴀ.ᴜ.

⌖ ๋࣭ ⭑♚₊🗡 ๋࣭ ᴏɴʟʏ ᴛᴏ ʙᴇ ᴋɪɴɢ ᴀɢᴀɪɴ ๋࣭🗡₊♚⭑ ๋࣭⌖

ʙᴇꜰᴏʀᴇ ᴛʜɪꜱ ᴘᴀꜱᴛ ɪꜱ ᴄᴏɴꜱɪᴅᴇʀᴇᴅ ᴘʀᴇᴠɪᴏᴜꜱ . . .

pt. ii | | series masterlist

focus on: muni sarang (diane meunier), choi san, & song deokhee word count: ~4.6k warnings: language, intermittent Lore Dumping™, mentions of violence, occasional graphic imagery, mentions of semi-main character death, Even More Gods Are Introduced and i think that is lovely

ᴛᴄᴅᴜ (ᴛᴏᴏ ᴄᴏɴᴠᴏʟᴜᴛᴇᴅ, ᴅɪᴅɴ'ᴛ ᴜɴᴅᴇʀꜱᴛᴀɴᴅ) ɪꜱ ɪɴᴄʟᴜᴅᴇᴅ ᴀᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ᴇɴᴅ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ !

⌖ ๋࣭ ⭑♚₊🗡 ๋࣭

lilo's mic: still knee deep in history but with more character introductions! i think at some point i might do a character recap page where i can offer some quick stats about the character's strengths and role, but idk if it would be helpful or just another way that i Procrastinate™ — let me know your thoughts !

⌖ ๋࣭ ⭑♚₊🗡 ๋࣭

⌜ my girl pinched my hips to see if i still exist / i think not ⌟

ꜱᴇᴇ ɪꜰ ɪ ꜱᴛɪʟʟ ᴇxɪꜱᴛ ๋࣭🗡₊♚⭑ ๋࣭⌖

— ʜᴀᴇᴍᴏ ᴘᴏʀᴛ was the main harbour of hoku city. home to the oldest and most robust working port on the island, the leeward side of the city was often referred to as haemopu side — an amalgamation of the names ʜᴀᴇᴍᴏꜱᴜ, the god of light and namesake of haemo port; and ᴋᴀᴘᴜ: sacred, taboo, forbidden. it was an unspoken rule that the shadows that danced on haemopu side were all puppets of that power known as serpens, and if you saw their strings or witnessed their plays, you would keep quiet, or your days were numbered — your gift from samgong through.

— still, haemo port was vast and wide, and business had to keep. it wasn't particularly bad luck to be a shop stationed near haemo port: there was so much foot traffic there, so many lives crossing back and forth, still hungry to survive; the best of money could be found for those who dared haemopu and kept their sight where it belonged — out of their eyes and in the open hands of hoku — or so the urban prayer went.

to the untrained eye, haemo port and ʜᴀᴇꜱᴜ ꜱᴛʀᴇᴇᴛ (the road that led to the devouring mouth of it) were the same as any other harbour on the island: only slightly more complicated than the sum of their intricately stacked, labyrinthine parts; bathed in light by enormous streetlamps so that when the sun went down, the majesty of ʀᴀᴋᴇᴛᴜ, night, couldn't be the refuge with which spirits attempted to thwart demons. but the fangs of some serpents still found their venomous purchase, and the storefronts along haesu street were often just that — fronts. legitimate stores, but facades for things still sinister, sliding their way through the waters, encircling your world, whole.

— on the furthest place inland haesu street ever went, there was an old business complex that had stood so long the original signage was lost and along with it, the precedent name. haesu complex, haemo park, haemo plaza, haemopu ether — old things have many names, and in legend, the many named becomes gods. inside the six story building, shops and establishments checked in and out like aimless souls in a graveyard: some lingered, some faded, some lasted the test of time.

on the first floor of haesu complex stood a taekwondo studio.

next to it, an indoor shooting range.

— we start this story with the taekwondo studio — the dojang, where mountains go to be edified and pupils to be fortified. eventually, we will open the door to see what is made with bullets and loose gunpowder, but for now, we take an abrupt turn right, through the third set of doors on the ground floor.

ᴄʜᴏɪ ᴊᴇᴏɴɢᴄʜᴇᴏʟ, father of one, was the owner of the modest studio: a stern man with a compassionate underbelly, a fourth dan black belt and the first sabeom — teacher — to enter the business complex. in the early days, when he was newly teaching and the world was more cruel and wanton than it ought, he orchestrated and ran illegal fights in the backmost part of his dojang. necessity begged it; life forced his unwavering hand. he'd never been proud, but he stood in his choices steadfast, and if you only saw the whole of him from an angle upturned and below, it seemed the might of him was his honor, unmarred.

dealing in entertainment and prestige, jeongcheol made ends meet in the evening to bring necessities and opportunity to his wife and newborn son at dawn, and by noon, instill dreams in the children that called him sabeom, center of their budding confidence.

when the serpens found out about his midnight habits, they paid a prompt price for front row tickets. by the end of the evening, jeongcheol's rental payments were moved to an account more reliable, and his small family moved out of the back office space and into one of the apartments that sat on the fifth and sixth floors. in exchange, the fights would persist on a grander scale at a more regular schedule ad infinitum, and the serpens would get their due cut.

jeongcheol always knew that this favor would amount to more debt, in the future, but for the security he was promised, in this blood oath? for the advantage and chance he could bestow upon his son? if it were shortsighted and misguided — this business deal with the serpent of the sky — then forgive him, but omniscience was simply the name of his city, not the power in his mind.

— and as san, his darling boy, grew from jeja to seonbae and in the course of time, sabeom all his own — a 3rd dan black belt and the pride of jeongcheol's world — the price of a demon's mercy became ever clearer, crystalizing into the certainty of future: law.

— it was in that very dojang, after all, that jeongcheol added to his myriad of students two young girls: diane and soyeon, dawn and dusk. jeja diane, a student named wisdom, took early to sparring with san, never minding that the younger always won, ever scheming to learn from a protégé's skill.

when san was chosen to be the demon heir's protector, it wasn't a matter of surprise or honor, simply that of providence.

and san was dignified by it, at any rate.

— only ever envisioning an inherited taekwondo studio for himself, a modest future but fulfilling dream, san's world expanded at the hands of diane — and his dojang, while still being the center of all his tethered existence, was a future now shared. ʏᴇᴏꜱᴀɴɢ, a pupil and friend, would aid him in handling the fights in the backmost part all of his father's hope and shame, an eternal rite, the sisyphean promise the choi family would never complete.

— jeongcheol had slowly backed away from the uglier side of his business as he aged into complacency and fatigue, and san had taken up the mantle in his place. now, sin would beget sin and shackled to the serpens would be yet another soul.

yeo was clear that he didn't mind.

already one foot into corruption, what was one more leg?

— he'd been cleaning up bruises from betting fights and broken limbs from shadow duels for years. he'd sewn flesh together the way others might knit tenderness and virtue, goodness and love.

every dojang needed it's medic. and every medic needed his charge.

— this was merit enough, for the both of them. respect for san in being trusted with something on which the whole of the underworld revolved; prestige for yeosang in the power inherent of a ruling head of a domain long standing, and in it's ancience, revered.

and watching them both, once the hand that led them deep into the mouth of something ravenous, still, stood choi jeongcheol, left wondering when security was no longer security — a promise no longer words of honor.

ꜱᴇᴇ ɪꜰ ɪ ꜱᴛɪʟʟ ᴇxɪꜱᴛ ๋࣭🗡₊♚⭑ ๋࣭⌖ ᴄᴏɴᴛ.

— diane had asked him to disappear, again.

— it was never an explicit demand, not since the first time, when she'd been following the tail of a banker and realized it would be so much easier to approach him if she were just a woman and not a daughter, held.

the nameless banker had decided he no longer wished to be a pigeon fed from an opened hand but a raven shot out of the sky, the shiny things he stole slipping from his traitor beak and landing back into the hand of the power that wielded the shotgun evermore.

�� "you're intimidating, san." and it hadn't been her words or the command in her eye so much as it was a shift in her being — sarang to diane, veracity to something mutable and ever brewing. "i need to ensnare him..."

and he'd slipped away, taken her half-cue and was already gone.

— if the demon of hoku knew how often diane asked him to slip away, san was sure the mythic ernest would be none too pleased. it takes half a second for malignance to seize you in hoku city, and only a fraction of that if you're particularly inclined. of course, san was never far, and sarang more competent than what the wills of well meaning fathers offered her, but it would be more than just san's immortal soul on the line if something befell her and he were at all still breathing.

but it was always sarang's eyes that sought for the mercy of him, in the hairbreadth turn of her infinitesimal micro-expression, the graceful warp into something so unseen it were all but hidden to eyes that were any less devoted than his. and it was never a question because she would never need to ask; he'd learned to read the depths of her during sparring sessions in a dojang made of his youth and all his tomorrow. once, he'd crafted alongside her the armor that was so much a second skin, there were barely any joints or seams that one could rub the pad of their thumb along.

he'd seen her, then, and so he always knew.

— and that's how he found himself here, again. vanished from a spot he said he'd always defend: dematerialized, because bang chan had come to call.

— or so diane let the boy think. she'd found chan first, weeks before this encounter he'd name 'chance' or 'fate'. it had been simple to learn his routine and easier to insert herself in it. a coffee shop he always walked past. her new favorite window seat. a position so comfortable it looked as though it had always been.

and so they talked; this woman neither diane nor sarang, crafting a life by degrees of admission, chan warming to the gentle flame of her lies so that eventually, perhaps, knowledge of him would melt, secrets in him slip between them, in this place behind glass, warm between cups of untouched coffee.

not even san would hear the things chan would reveal in his adventurous, half-flirtatious speech. the thought often made the black belt's heart skid — his resolve stutter — but the bulk of him never wavered. he was a mountain and summits never crumbled; their might certainly never moved.

and that simple conflict of interest was something his friends never failed to entertain, and in mocking, enjoy.

— ᴅᴇᴏᴋʜᴇᴇ, twin sister of ᴡᴏᴏʏᴏᴜɴɢ and the one-minute younger half of their expert gunman team, was the one to first discover san's internal battle, having joked about his affection for diane from his sabeom days at the dojang. first, a true baseless joke, then overtime, a comfortable uncomfortability for san as it grew in truth and size.

san and his diane; no one loved their work the way san did; if san could marry duty he would.

— if he wasn't always looking at deokhee down the barrel of her sniper rifle, he just might knock some humility into her near prophetic teasing and her twin's identical shit eating grin.

but what was he to do when she was, in part, always right?

— sarang laughed at something chan said, and diane reached out to touch his shoulder with the soft of her hand. san turned his gaze, somehow half guilty, and that's when he saw the ephemera of a shadow he should not have.

what was kim hongjoong doing all the way here?

— first order of business would be to pull sarang from the place at which she stood. second would be to see just who the informant whisperer was that hongjoong strove to meet. third would be to evaluate just where that placed this puppet-master of secrets in the ever turbulent waters of organization and fealty — obeisance and axis.

— san was standing in front of her in the coffee shop before the shadow had ever truly dissipated — before any of the prior thoughts had fully formed in his mind.

sarang was good at smoothing her own confusion and concern, and playing the part of the innocent and sheltered. she huffed a convincing sigh and muttered something about a father that, overprotective, cut her time with this young officer short, and san caught the thrown word of 'cousin' like a fire-hot, thousand pound and ever-burning coal.

so that's how she'd explained his presence to chan.

— when she knew she'd almost been caught in the act by hongjoong, sarang swore.

— ʜᴏɴɢᴊᴏᴏɴɢ was a member of the serpens syndicate, and had, since the death of byeonghwa, been the watchful eye that extended past the confines of hoku city. loyal to the demon — a horkos made potent in the poignance of a blood debt — hongjoong was trusted... so far as anyone could be reliable, in this city that ate you whole, in these times that twisted the sinew of your very heart. at any rate, he was an informant of ernest, and while not one nearly as volatile as soyeon, still convoluted in intent.

he would be interested — perhaps even moreso curious than san, who daily burned all of his inquisition and steadfast resolve near through — as to what the demon heir was doing out here, in the pristine half of hoku city, talking with an officer that would just as soon as imprison her, if he knew even a fraction of the atrocities and moral impurities she ordered and aided, abetted and carried out.

— of course, even if hongjoong were to ask, sarang would never tell.

— not even with san, himself, did sarang reveal her true intentions in this business involving newly minted officer bang chan, a rookie at some few years post-graduation, an acquaintance turned friend from their first windfall encounter. not even with san, who knew the verity of sarang and had cherished her humanity from it's first appearance, did she let any information slip, a single hint pass.

he'd look into her eyes and unexpectedly, a wall was there — a guardedness of which he'd never known. she was no longer forthright about all possibilities with him. her thoughts were not so easily read, her want not so readily known.

— but that was not the worry that had the jaw with which to gnaw at san. not yet, anyway. not when hongjoong was surreptitiously on the same path as them, in a place where neither was colloquially seen (his informant hadn't been anyone of note, and so the consequence of his gained knowledge that day couldn't have been much, but one could never be complacent, if they wished to thrive).

— not when soyeon was unhappy, and sarang was the fool to not believe it.

— not when ernest, kingpin of terror, chessmaster of the underworld and ruler of hoku city, was mired in that slow changing-of-hands and place of gentle retreat where all of his speech was about the hand of iku, that terrify in the weight of dying.

the death of a demon was always a wounded threat that demanded first redress.

— it had started, in part, with the death of byeong-hwa. what was a king, after all, when his sworn shield had fallen? what menace was left in a monster, when his right hand was rotting, 6 feet below? the monsoon season would come, and a sickness would plague ernest along with the rain. jangma was the will of bada — the monsoon season the cursing volition of the sea. it was divine law, in some ways, that bada would claim her vengeance on hoku by taking it's epicenter and sweeping it's fortune and prosperity into her tumultuous seas, but it was still too soon, and thus, a secret well hidden.

no one in the serpens outside of the few remaining elders that sat at the demon's table, byeong-hwa's only daughter, his heir, and his warded nephew knew of the state of ernest's true mind.

the tides were swelling, the ground was saturating; bada was clambering toward the city, and at the time least affordable, the cracks between sarang and soyeon's friendship and intertwined lives deepened to a schism, with roots on either side, blooms torn apart, thorns tearing stem like gnashing teeth devouring flesh.

— when it rains, it pours, and in jangma, the storms were violent and unending; when bada raged, all the gods hovered close to witness her torrential price.

— "i'll tell ʏᴜɴʜᴏ." when they were haemopu side, diane turned to san, the silence between them broken, the confidence that always held in it's place perhaps worse for wear, if either of them had the resolve to mention it. "he'll have some clever way to spin hongjoong off our track - if he even saw anything in the first place."

— san nodded: just once, a jerky motion that left this world still buzzing, a dull, low whine.

yunho, sarang's cousin, was a close confidant of theirs. he moved into the serpens complex when he was 17. some commonplace tragedy left him with a want in the pit of his belly, and ever since the breaking down of all that tied sarang to soyeon and night to the dawining day, he had played the role of strategist and pragmatic advisor to his cousin — a safer, less volatile option for diane to pick, considering soyeon had always been her council, former.

— diplomats need their advisors; conmen require their marks. diane had a necessity for yunho and a plan for bang chan, and of course, they would be dealt with first. san was just a bodyguard, and in this way, he'd always known his place. but favor had a way of lead to want, and if he tended to that fire, it could always lick its way past his defenses and consume him whole.

— sarang blinked, and the change pulled san from his thoughts the way it always would. born to serve, her movements were what he'd been shaped to read. "i guess i'll tell hermes that you stood him up for yunho again, when it's time for your 13:00 date and you don't show."

— sarang laughed at that, warm and clear, almost chasing away the mist that had gathered all through the day day, at choice intervals and expected alleyways, thickening to the obscurity of fog. hermes was sarang's greyhound — the puppy she'd once found when younger but crowned wise. she never had taken him to the serpens complex, where he could be socialized with the dobermans she'd cared for most her life. instead, san took him in — an act of kindness she never stopped praising him for, never quite forthright about her reasoning but offering just enough to where he was satisfied.

"tell the twins when you see them i need to have a word."

ꜱᴇᴇ ɪꜰ ɪ ꜱᴛɪʟʟ ᴇxɪꜱᴛ ๋࣭🗡₊♚⭑ ๋࣭⌖ ᴄᴏɴᴛ.

— the shop never had a name: just a wordless sign in the shape of a generic gun scope: the focus for an eye you'd never look into as you took your final, heaving breath.

the shooting range, the eye, akita's place, the final shop on the ground floor of haemo plaza.

— every child who'd ever touched a gun — any soul who had enough of some small mercy they had the fire to protect it in this heaving city — had, at some point, entered the shooting range that sat haemopu side. established longer than jeongcheol's dojang, but having changed hands at around the same time, the shooting range was owned by a woman named ᴀᴋɪᴛᴀ — ex-military but dishonorably discharged, a mother of twins, and simultaneously warm yet cold: distant, but always manning her station.

it was only natural that, sharpshooter of her squad, akita had taught her children to shoot from the moment their hands had the strength to thumb a trigger.

eyes bred to look at you through the barrel of a firearm, hearts trained to see the liberation at the end of a mission and none of the causalities between. akita took her twins, cradle of her future, and gave them all the skills she broke skin and bruised knuckle to hone. they would never have to struggle, because they would be born with skilled gift. they would have the freedom of honor, because no training would mar their resolve.

— at first, the shooting range was only that which sat within the four walls in the ground floor of that complex. but slowly it expanded: the back property, accessed through the side entrance, narrow but deep, for single sessions with moving targets; the abandoned lot near the docks that akita had come into possession of by chance and was appraising for sale until her daughter showed an aptitude for long range and a spark to pursue it.

before long, what was modest expanded, and with an open mouth, devoured until engorged. the shooting range was well known. beloved. conspicuous. exactly the sort of place one would expect to find a doorway into the depths of a now illegal, though still legitimate syndicate, and therefore, a place where they could never be found. in reverence and renown, akita secured a safe haven for her children, a place where they could rest without the fear of being poached.

two doors down, the serpens paid a lease, but here, in the four walls she maintained, they could never sink in their teeth.

but fate was the domain of samgong, and mischief the trait of hoku, and here, in a city where the presence of gods were only so strong because they were so ceaselessly revered, the two powers often conspired to thwart the dreams of those who dared trying, and those whose complacency masqueraded as crown.

— wooyoung, the younger of the twins, was the impulsive to deokhee's passion. touched by caprice, drowning in compulsion — akita whispered into his ear as he grew up, tickling the soft skin hidden there, that he was born the same star sprite as hoku: before he became the omniscient eye, back when he was nameless, and his fervency was tried by the test of his father's tedium. in constant motion, neverending activity: "make no deals with iku, listen not to the obligation of horkos. you are a star, you belong to nothing but your own burn."

— deokhee, of course, was the fire burning her younger brother brighter, still, the combustion in his path that kept him from apathy, that saw all his visions through. ᴇɴᴊɪ, her mother would call her, the fire god incarnate. the ardor, the devotion, the commitment deepening to obsession, the dedication to wooyoung's whims, the conviction in her twin brother's mania. akita adored her daughter's fervency, fanned the flames of her exuberance never quenched. "shackle yourself to no one, my enji, you are not meant to be contained. never turn in on yourself; find a direction to incinerate: you are meant to set this world ablaze."

— avoiding flirtation with the fetters of the serpens was an unspoken request from akita, a desire never plainly raised. if she had been wiser — if she saw all too clearly the way serpents rise to challenge and adaptable, warp their venom to something honey-sweet — perhaps akita would have been more explicit in her demands, exact in all she envisioned and prayed to conspire. but it seemed an evident requirement, a moral anchored deep and in it's inevitability, made potent and strange.

"you are made for more," she had always told them.

but what can be done when your only framework of 'more' and 'greater' is the gunpowder residue of a superior weapon?

— once, akita built her children into crook of a firearm. ever after, they would know mostly it's bitter taste.

— none of this is to say, however, that the twins were a tragedy and their penchant something acrid, lead.

— deokhee was bottled excitement and effervescent joy in every task, and wooyoung the kind of gregarious that surrounded him with enthusiastic friendship and kindred brotherhood in every space he ventured to grace.

— and ᴛʜᴇ ʟᴜᴍɪɴᴀʀʏ was one of those third spaces that wooyoung and deokhee frequented most.

a serpens owned establishment: an electricity plant on the edge of town, with hidden rooms that opened into dark things that could only hide in the shadow of a generator as massive as that which fueled a never-blinking city. the luminary was one of the largest holes in the wall that the serpens ran. there, you could order any sin you could pay the ferryman to usher you to.

so long as you were in the right room, of course. the serpens liked to keep their messes orderly.

— the twins mostly frequented the rooms with standard bar fare. alcohol, dance, betting and games of chance, fisticuffs when more than just spirits hit you square in the jaw after one freedom too many. a common enough vice with a burgeoning sea of acquaintances and a militia of contacts and friends. it was here, in the pale of haemosu's light — all the glare they could harness but never reach — that the twin's sociability spun a web that was never meant to entrap them, but still made them the perfect players for a serpent game.

after all, it was in the luminary that the twins aligned themselves with the spine breaker bikers.

a group of criminals and delinquents that rode through ꜱᴋɪᴛ — the next door neighbor of hoku city, and the border at which the serpens let their spines halt. the serpens owned hoku, and every gang and group of would-be hopefuls that they'd long run out had taken up station in skit and brawled it out, there. a neighboring city was of no consequence to the serpens as long as they spilled blood on their rightful side of the fault line, and the spine breakers were a fairly established group that occasionally crossed the borders of hoku — careful to always show their deference and pay their dues. they were a infrequent though to some familiar face in the luminary on nights when the moon hung low, mostly to work deals with the mercenaries for hire in the back, and always to chase a drink alongside the twins.

ᴊᴜɴɢᴋᴏᴏᴋ was their closest companion of the lot, and if his drink of choice was an expected usual, and his uninspired flirtation with deokhee an affectionate and comfortable aside, then the night would be warm and the luminary waitstaff would make better money in tips than they had all month.

— and it was precisely that friendship with jungkook (and perhaps their closeness with san, though why make complicated something already written by fate?), that brought the twins to the serpens those aging years ago.

it had been hongjoong, newly syndicate minted, that noticed these two sparrows who somehow seemed to know everyone he had been keeping his thousand eyes on, and dared to ask himself what use could come with knowing their names.

it had been simple, after, for seonghwa to convince him that wooyoung was the easier approach, and for soyeon to cast the die on his fate.

(but that had been years ago: before the breaking down of factions, before suspicion and envy cast shadows that demons new not how to play, before ties were cut like marionette strings, and seonghwa and soyeon became a duo, and hongjoong, far enough from the barrel to not yet choose how to align, had to keep his ideas in his breast pocket and his lies tucked beneath his tie.)

— in the end, the twins were brought into the serpens because their connections would open doors that had no keys. it was through wooyoung and deokhee that the serpens greedy left hand reached into the heart of skit and, with an emboldened and wanting jungkook, staged a coup and installed this friend as the spine breaker's acting head.

ever after, the gang would be in debt of the might of hoku, and in perpetuity, there would be scouts and reinforcements, should there be need of aid from a distance.

— it was simply providence that the twins would have use beyond their sociability and want. it was the work of that ever mischievous hoku that in a chance encounter and a single ploy, diane was gifted with the two best marksman the city could afford.

danger, of course, in the single-minded passion of deokhee and the brilliant aimless apathy of wooyoung, but when combined together (and wooyoung under the threat of the only one he swore obeisance to: san), they were more than their arsenal, a weapon greater than their might and distant reach.

— when san found the two of them sitting on his couch, deokhee knuckle deep in affectionate rubs for hermes, wooyoung eating noodles out of the pot, on his pinky swinging the apartment's spare key, there was less a reaction of disappointment or surprise, and more an acceptance that at least this way, the message would be easily delivered, sweet.

"diane's calling."

⌖ ๋࣭ ⭑♚₊🗡 ๋࣭ ᴏɴʟʏ ᴛᴏ ʙᴇ ᴋɪɴɢ ᴀɢᴀɪɴ ๋࣭🗡₊♚⭑ ๋࣭⌖ pt. ii | | series masterlist

ᴛᴄᴅᴜ (ᴛᴏᴏ ᴄᴏɴᴠᴏʟᴜᴛᴇᴅ, ᴅɪᴅɴ'ᴛ ᴜɴᴅᴇʀꜱᴛ��ɴᴅ) :

1 - jeongcheol, san's father, used to run a taekwondo studio. because times were hard, he ran illegal fights in the back of his dojang, and when the serpen's found out, they co-opted his business and expanded it. as he got older, he passed down his dojang to san, who now works as the bodyguard of diane. because of his busy schedule, he co-manages the dojang with yeosang, the medic of the taekwondo studio.

2 - the taekwondo studio is situated on haesu street in an unnamed work-live complex often referred to as haemo plaza. on the same floor as the dojang there is an unnamed shooting range, owned by akita, the mother of twin gunman for the serpens deokhee and wooyoung. akita does not know of her children's affiliation with the syndicate and would disapprove if she knew.

3 - san, deokhee, and wooyoung are all friends are are closely allied with diane. diane is also close allies with yunho, her cousin and strategist council after her falling out with soyeon has deepened in the past few years (there has been a vague multi-year time skip from pt. i to pt. ii).

4 - ernest, kingpin of the serpens, is currently dying. it is a well kept secret - but not from soyeon, who diane fears will use this knowledge opportunistically. recently, diane has been keeping many secrets from even her closest confidant, san, especially regarding her consistently visiting officer bang chan, trying to weasel from him secrets... but about what?

5 - hongjoong is a member of the serpens with many secrets and many informants. diane is unsure if, in the power vacuum created after ernest's death, if he will show loyalty towards her or soyeon, and so she is wary of what he knows, when he was in the area as she was meeting up with bang chan.

6 - hongjoong was the one to originally recruit twins deokhee and wooyoung, because they have many contacts in hoku and neighboring cities - notably jungkook, now leader of a biker gang in the neighboring city named skit.

7 - diane has a mission for deokhee and wooyoung heretofore lacking details or rhyme.

now onto pt. iii . . .

[transannabeth]

hi. for people who saw gatsby: an american myth. do you remember mckee asking nick for lunch. and then gatsby in like the next scene inviting nick for lunch. because i remember.

[szappan]

im also increasingly sure that im autistic but we'll never ever confirm that </3