#man these link headers are just weird

[bluepunkmon]

I know everyone says it but Google really is getting worse.

[greenerteacups]

I think AO3 should tell you what chapter someone's commenting on in the inbox notification, rather than the "[X] commented on [Y]!" header. Context being that I posted a chapter last Friday with a Christmas scene, and got a comment today about something referencing Christmas, and I wrote out a whole reply discussing the most recent chapter on the assumption that they meant the new update — since most people wait until they're caught up to comment, 99% of an author's unread comments at any given time will be the most recent chapter — only to check, on a whim, and realize they were talking about Chapter 4. Which happens three years and forty chapters earlier. And you know, bullet dodged, but goddamn, how much would it suck to have an author spoil their own story directly in your inbox?

[the-travelling-witch]

sooooo… no event today bc apparently tumblr hates me? idk what else it could be (i’ve had my experiences with stuff not showing in tags but not showing on dash? weird, really really weird)

i hate it so much bc i planned this to be all cute and post a cheeky little drabble every day and it worked so well with the video header and now that we’re getting to the heart of the event everything’s going to shit

time to go to desktop, make two more backups, try uploading on desktop and then cry myself to sleep

[crazylittlejester]

honestly, the fandom dismisses wars trauma a little too much. Have you noticed it’s always never brought up in his character studies? And when it is, it’s totally brushed off him and cia had a WEIRDDD age gap. It’s also weird hyrule warriors never acknowledges this. I honestly don’t think it’s gonna be recognized in LU but idk. It’s just weird how quickly the fandom brushed over all that. What’s your opinion? Cuz you have cool opinions lol

Disclaimer: Everything you’re about to read is my opinion and my interpretation of a game. I’m not talking about headcanons (unless otherwise specified), I’m just talking about my experience with the game and everything else. All of this is from MY perspective interacting with the canon material from both Hyrule Warriors and Linked Universe. Also! I am dyslexic, my bad for oddly autocorrected words or weird spelling mistakes

A huge reason I started yapping so much on this blog was because I saw a lot of people either actively disliking Wars, making fucking INSANE comments about his body, overly sexualizing him, or just straight up dismissing him all together and it helped me get over my posting anxiety because it genuinely made me so upset. He’s been my favorite character since only a few posts into LU (i originally liked Twilight better based sheerly on design but it took like only a few posts before that changed), and I love HW Link in general, and I thought it was actually crazy that more people didn’t like him. I’ve written several of my own characters studies on him, some of which I’ve posted, others lay trapped in my old laptop in the form of a full on analysis paper, never to see the light of day

You can send a full grown man to war and he will come back with trauma, imagine what happens when you grab some poor teenager and tell him everything relies on him. Literally forget Cia for a minute, Link as a teenager was taken and shoved into a full on war where his men turned on him and in order to survive, he had to kill. Monsters and hylians alike, it was him or them, and he’s the one who made it out. Not to mention he was constantly running all over the battle field trying to prevent the hylian captains from being defeated, and he most certainly lost many people he cared about just because he couldn’t get there in time. He had to carry around the guilt that this war was started because some sorceress was obsessed with him ON TOP of that

This was said earlier by an anon on a post I reblogged, and I’ve been saying it myself for months but I will say it again: If Warriors had been a girl and been obsessed over that same way, I fucking GUARANTEE you people would be taking it more seriously

I literally just typed in the character name and the game she’s from and that is what google had to say about her. If an older man was described as ‘harboring serious affections’ and having a ‘desire to claim’ a teenage girl I literally don’t think it would’ve been glossed over or ignored like it is

I don’t think nintendo was ever gonna elaborate or really recognize it in the game, they never go super in depth on anything in Zelda games from my experience, and I doubt Jojo will really get into it in LU mainly just because she has so much going on with eight other dudes and potentially two more (based on the header on the linked universe blog)

I saw a lot of characterizations of Warriors and opinions of him that made me so confused and also a bit mad, such that he is a womanizer or a stupid twink (of which he is neither), and that’s a huge reason I started writing fanfiction for this fandom. Firstly to just create more content for my favorite character because I rarely saw any that focused on him, and secondly because I didn’t like some (NOT ALL) of how I was seeing him characterized. (i cannot emphasize enough: NOT ALL people in the fandom characterized him this way, I saw plenty of amazing and beautiful characterizations of Warriors)

I do not think he is a womanizer at all, in fact I fully believe his flirtatious behavior is a defense mechanism. I think his ‘woman problems’ are the fact that he’s afraid of women (especially older women) he doesn’t know or trust, but also that’s just my opinion. And I am genuinely a bit worried that now that people have stopped talking about how they noticed he seemed off a few updates ago and now that they’re saying he’s back to normal that people are going to start reducing him to a stupid dramatic twink again, as if Warriors was not the one who came up with the initial plan to fight Dink and was not the first one to fight him. As if this is not a man who lead a god damn army. As if everything he’s done and everything he is no longer matters because he’s ‘pretty’

anyways I have a lot of thoughts about him in general and im just glad the fandom has been treating him better as of late, but i am a bit worried it’s just gonna go back to how it was

thanks for the ask!! sorry i got a bit carried away 😭

[kookblurx]

1920 - jjk [chpt 2. ]

→ SUMMARY: a photo of a beautiful smiling boy; an old tree in your grandparents garden ... and a feeling of sadness. all those things are connected to each other ...

→ GENRE: time travel au; changing fate au; rencarnation au; university au; death; sickness; historical setting; trigger topics; smut; dirty talk; switching between present and the past.

→ chapt. 1 / chapt. 3

→ RATING: 18+

→ NOTE: thank you for blowing up the first chapter with so many reblogs and welcome to all new followers. also if there are any creative people among us, feel free to design a header for this story. i will try to include every pic in the next chapters + linking your account. ( no must! ). Also please enjoy the second chapter <3 DISCLAIMER; this is a piece of art, not many events will be historically correctly.

BTS MASTERLIST ♡.°₊ˎˊ PLAYLIST FOR THIS CHAPTER

The Past:

as you fell down into the grass again the boy looked at you more than confused; probably because of the strange clothes you were wearing. he never saw a woman wear pants before, at least not such weird ones. you on the other hand looked wide eyes up to him as he scanned your whole appearance. yes right now you didnt looked really good as your hair was standig in various directions. still that wasnt a reason to stare at you like this. you crumpled the photo up with your hand before putting it in the back pocket of your jeans. seems like you are stuck here now for a while, at least until you would manage to go back. the wind and the weird voice was gone also the force which pushed you through the tree. wait, of course the tree. you were quick back onto your feed before running to the tree again. from behind you could heard the footsteps of the boy following you. he must think you are crazy as your hands searched for something "unusal" on the tree trunk. there was nothing. the wood felt strong and didnt budged against your pushing or pulling.

"what the hell ...? how?"

your mind was still in denial that you really fell right through it. this must be a joke from your grandparents, for sure. you probably forgot to water the plants or something, before running into the library.

"are you okay? you look .. restless" from behind you could feel a hand on your shoulder. "yes, yes im fine ... just a little bit confused i think?" "maybe i can help you with that? are you looking for something?"

as you turned around; your eyes became a bit puffy and started to burn. normally you didnt cried that easily but now you were stuck in a place you didnt knew.

"what year do we have ..?" your question left the boy speechless for a second "uh .. 1920 why are you asking?"

1920 ... the same date as on the photo. this cant be possible. there is no way you just travelled back in time, standing in front of a boy who should be dead. was this a sign? a sign that you were the one who should help him from his fate? for a moment you just stood there, thinking about the possibilities. changing fate can be fatal, for this timeline and for your own. what would change if you were able to save him? something must change.

"jungkook! Jungkook where are you?!"

another voice from a young man starteled you. how many of them were here? at least you figured something out, the boy in front of you was, indeed, jungkook. the one, the voice of the woman called out for inside your mind. while you were deep in thoughts; jungkook turned around to wave at his friend. that said friend panted a bit as he climbed up the hill.

"what the hell are you doing up here? the others are looking everywhere for you" with a heavy sigh the boy ran his hand through his hair. "uh well ... i found her here. i dont know who she is but ... she seems lost"

as jungkook mentioned you, you finally came back to your senses. scanning the area you noticed that the two of you werent alone anymore. upon seeing the other boy, your heart suddenly stopped again. thats not possible. he cant be here too.

"yo, you. whats your name?"

lifting one of his eyebrows the boy looked at you, waiting for an answer ... which didnt came. instead you took a few steps forward, cupping his cheeks between your hands. the stranger jumped immediately because of the sudden touch. no wonder; they lived in a time were woman werent so straight forward. both of his cheeks grew red as he looked helpless to jungkook. instead of helping him, jungkook just stood there laughing at his friend. you squinted your eyes a bit, they really looked alike. the same eyes, the same confused expression hence even the hair is the same.

"whats your name?" now you were the one asking the question. still a bit lost the boy looked at you "m-me? ... im jimin, park jimin"

slowly you let go of his cheeks. this isnt a coincidence, if you are really back in 1920 there was a high chance that this person is your crush's ancestor. at least thats what is probably happening here.

"okay alright this is crazy but .. i will play along for now. im y/n ... you are jimin and you are jungkook right?" jimin widened his eyes; he looked at you like you just killed someone "hold on; dont speak so informal with him." slightly confused you looked over at jungkook, he didnt looked like a prince or someone else from the royal family "what do you mean?" "you must be new around here ... but in front of you stands Jeon Jungkook. The berserk ... the one who won every single war for our holy land!" jimin must really think highly of jungkook as he stretched his arms out.

a war hero. you tucked this information away into the corner of your mind. if you ever came back home you would check his name in your grandparent library. to be honest on the first glance jungkook didnt looked like an berserker, more like a normal farm boy. his features on his face were soft and he had a beautiful smile. nothing which screamed "berserker" into someones face. but who knows how war heroes really looked like in this time. your gaze went back to the tree as the two boys started to quarrel with each other. somehow you already missed your family, they must be worried sick about your dissapearance. the picture suddenly felt really heavy as another wind came up ... and there it was again... the faint voice:

"you must save him... you must save him for your future"

"... what?" you turned around but no one was there.

jungkook and jimin were gone .. and right in front of you were your grandparents mansion again. what is going on here? did you really just relieved a memory snippet of this place?

"this isnt funny anymore! come out!" you screamed at the tree right in front of you.

first there was silence and then out of nowhere small little hands appeared on the tree trunk. a small head popped out behind it. for a moment you believed that you totally lost your mind now. it was a little fairy, smaller than your thumb. shyly she flew into your direction, fidgeting with her fingers.

"did you pushed me through the tree?" she nodded. "... please tell me what is going on? where are jungkook and jimin?" slowly the little fairy opened her mouth "i needed to bring you back in order ... to explain everything to you. if they would had saw me ... they would declared you as a witch."

this whole thing became more and more complicated. "okay so ... what is going on here?" the fairy suddenly had a serious expression on her face "listen to me. my power is limited .. in order to let you travel back ... i need you to find trigger points to certain events in the past. they are all hidden inside this mansion ... with every object or info you can find ... you will be able to stay there longer"

your head started to hurt. why you? why is it so important that you are the one.

"got it but .. why me? what does this have to do with me?" the fairy bit down on her bottom lip "i cant tell you ... you need to discover it for yourself what your role is ... the only thing i need to tell you is .. that you MUST save him. please." saving a war hero ... of course its not an easy task considering all the battlefields he needs to go. "fine but how?" "you need to look into his death more. no source documented what really happened... but your grandparents have a grand collection of books. find out what happened ... so you ...will be ... able to ... go"

with every word the fairy faded away more and more until you were back alone on the hill. your hand reached into your back pocket, grabbing the picture again. the only info you had was the year, the place ... his name and what he was.

"great .."

with a heavy sight you walked down from the hill, the first direction will be your laptop. maybe some history nerd already researched those events back then. according to jimin, jungkook was pretty famous ... so there must be some kind of records, right?

taglist:

@junecat18

[shelbytrinity]

HIVE BIRTHDAY BASH BUNDLE 2024!

I got raven and so here's her as a rough and rowdy kid

(picrew credit)

my color was black so i adorned her in black/gray bc the background wouldn't change. points docked sorry

Raven Playlist

(...that has to do more specifically with the fanfiction i wrote, either lyrically or vibe-wise, because i was navigating around already having one for her general character and i overthink)

(for the non-spotifyers: yes, anastasia (tori amos) crimon and clover (joan jett & the blackhearts) so heavy i fell through the earth art mix (grimes) DARE (gorillaz) the killing moon (nouvelle vague cover) dream state (son lux) lose your soul (dead man's bones) pavlov's daughter (regina spektor) biting down (lorde) sad pony guerrilla girl (xiu xiu) weird little birthday girl (happyness)

Raven Art

my art prompt was the ancient of days by william blake, so i emulated raven doing that with the taco bell logo on my breakfast & edited a bit in mspaint (and that's on wrist injury!!)

Raven Prompts

Interiority time! I'm not doing the math but I know that Raven was a kid in the USSR in the late 20th century! What's her opinion on space, if any? Does it hold meaning to her? Was it just a political thing she didn't care about? Or can it be symboliiiiiccccc??? You tell me. This is a prompt

Raven cuts her hair, either in Glasshouse or as a routine post

There was only one bed Raven and Ghost MEGA AU

Raven's Gay Awakening TM (take this as you will)

What pet would Raven keep, if she were to keep one? ALTERNATIVELY, is it in character for her to keep a pet? Much to think about

Raven Fanfic

Well happy birthday, her blood's on my hands

(It's kind of a shame cause I did like that dress) or, raven has to assassinate someone who does not want to be assassinated.

~500 words, rated T for This Violence Could Happen In HIVE, title/desc from "yes, anastasia" (lol) by tori amos, ao3 link

This particular assassination takes place at least six different times. Raven is best in her profession—but even she botches things.

Thank you Mitch

for organizing this little event!!! (you get your own header♥)

[amielbjacobs]

Hello! It's so nice to run into another historical fiction writer on here. :) Both Spymaster and A Traitor in Love sound intriguing! Are you working on both simultaneously? Aside from writing stories set during a historical period you are passionate about, what do you love most about your WIPs?

It's SO nice, you're right! Honestly, I'm only sort of working on Spymaster right now - it's a finished manuscript, but I got a revise & resubmit request from a literary agent, so I'm working on revising it. As for A Traitor in Love . . . I love the concept, but I keep struggling to make progress on it, and I'm not totally sure why. I'm not sure if it's something about the project itself, or just nerves, or just the fact that I keep getting drawn back into the process of getting Spymaster published.

Also Spymaster has been renamed Burnt Messages because I felt like Spymaster was too bland, so I should change my header at some point! But it's still the same project 100%.

I think my favorite thing about my WIPs is my characters (blorbo from my brain) and their dynamic. I love how weird Mirsky and Wallace are, and how intrinsically linked they are to their setting, and how much I know about them. Picking a favorite protagonist is like picking a favorite child, but let's be honest: I have a favorite and it's Mirsky. He's just such a horrible little man full of neuroses, and I love that about him.

What about you? What do you love most about your WIPs? Are they all Old West-era, or do you have projects set in other eras (or places) as well?

[waitingawhile]

ive been trying to look into dsmp lore more and since i lost interest in december 2021 ive been trying to read the wiki. but the issue is that the wiki only goes until december 2021 (tommys does at least) so i already know everything said. what happened in the last year of the dsmp lore wise? sorry this might seem like a big ask.

lore what lore nothing happened on the dsmp after December 2021 smiles 😁😁😁/j

I can’t tell if this ask is serious because I am incredibly under-qualified to answer this question for several reasons but I am so very autistic so I will take it seriously and do my best ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ☆彡

So Tommy’s wiki goes up to around the Prison break which sets off a few events that happen in the next year. I will start there.

When Techno investigates Ranboo death and his final message being an Underscore Beloved family photo, it leads him to Snowchester where he Tubbo and Eret go on a side quest to avenge Ranboo and save Michael:

Revengers settle on punishing Sam by leaving him prisoner alone in his own prison. Sam in prison arc is one of my personal favorite as a c!Sam girl. While he’s stuck in there alone he soon finds out c!Dream has actually made the prison his base ever since the server abandoned it after the Breakout. So we get about 3 streams of role reversal between Dream and Sam in the Prison where Sam in imprisoned in the one man cell and Dream visits him and they have weird fucked up little conversations together/pos. Details of this arc under the sub-header “Imprisonment” on Sam’s wiki.

After this, or rather meanwhile, Hitting On 16 is released, which serves as an answer to the question “Why did Ranboo just permanently die? I thought he was only on his second canon life?” and serves as a retroactive dubiously canon gay interlude

C!Wilbur then goes on a spree of self-reflection and decides to find everyone he has done wrong to and atone by apologizing and creating a new good memory for them with them (I have so many thoughts on these streams but we are killing nuance for brevity’s sake). His time spent apologizing to Eret, Tubbo, Niki, Fundy, etc also acts as a narrative tease for the fact that cwilbur doesn’t seem to have even thought about the apology he owes cTommy, who he drags along as talks about these plans. Eventually, he does get around to just spending some time with Tommy which results in Tommy revealing all that happened to him while CWilbur was gone (read: exile). The stream ends with them hashing out Inconsolable Differences and bullying Dream.

The cwilbur redemption tour culminates in what is absolutely a metaphor for his suicide, in which he “returns to his home town in Utah” and leaves the server for good.

In the same year we got the lore stream wrapping up Las Nevadas Which this thread summarizes.

After cWilbur’s and Las Nevadas’ finale, we get a long period of low activity regarding main plot line on the server, until eventually cTommy makes his debut once more in a conversation with Tubbo that begins the unfolding of the entire rest of the DiscDuo/DSMP main plot line which is explained pretty well by this commenter on the wiki. <-includes clingyduo team up against Dream, Dream’s revival, the Nuke, and the server Reset

TLDR: I am actually someone who was not a huge cTommy fan while the series was coming out (throw what stones you will everyone /lh) so I feel like I would miss several “main” plot storylines and instead would dip my toes into the streams of my favorite plotlines or characters. In my whole time as a fan I only saw about 5 lore streams live (tho I was a vod watcher other times) so my knowledge is patchy and selective to my own fan experiences and preferences. Either way I hope the links can at least get you to places with better summaries or if you were looking for info on arcs on other characters/things I neglected to mention feel free to send another ask and we can keep this miserable train going /lhj. I lost steam and direction while writing this post but I’d love to talk about lore and characters and opinions in general even in the year of 2024 I’m just out of practice so no worries and please feel free to send/ask more or even shoot me a dm 😻 peace and love on planet earth

[habizuh-supports]

nine albums or songs I've been listening to lately x nine people I’d like to get to know better x tag game with no name

Thanks for the tag @chrysofightme!!

1. why did you choose your url? Habizuh.

2. any sideblogs? if you have them name them and why you have them. @habizuh-supports, just for reblogs. I do that a lot! so THIS is my sideblog. @habizuh-studios is my main.

3. how long have you been on tumblr? Uhhhhh Idk. I think I started being active on August of last year?

4. do you have a queue tag? i have no clue what that is

5. why did you start your blog in the first place? I had a tumblr and wanted to post art and my writing!

6. why did you choose your icon/pfp? Banyue is cool, and another side to Pei Xiu, who I adore in the manhua. And everywhere else, really.

7. why did you choose your header? LINK CLICK LINK CLICK LINK CLICK- ehem. it's cool!

8. what’s your post with the most notes? uh. i have no clue.

9. how many mutuals do you have? about 20? i don't remember

10. how many followers do you have? like 60

11. how many people do you follow? around 50

12. have you ever made a shitpost? yeah LMAO

13. how often do you use tumblr each day? a few hours to a few minutes, depending

14. did you have a fight/argument with another blog once? nah

15. how do you feel about ‘you need to reblog this’ posts i don't really care about them too much. but i reblog them anyway

16. do you like tag games? yes *foams at the mouth*

17. do you like ask games? YES YES i will get on my knees to make someone ask me put an emoji in my askbox please ahjaehrjkaehrjkaehr

18. which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous? idk what tumblr fame means compared to regular fame. in terms of fandom. i think @rileyh20 and @alittlebitofloveliness are popular in the outsiders fandom,,,, @canayams-art is the god of qianxiu, uhhhh.... idk

19. do you have a crush on a mutual? not really, i think that would be illegal

20. what is the last song you listened to? Tokyo Drift

21. what are you currently watching? i need to finish watching the scumbag system donghua with a friend... oh, also, meet you at the blossoms, i think that's what it's called.

22. sweet/ savoury/ spicy? sweet!!

23. what is your current relationship status? not into that rn. that's be weird af

24. what is your current obsession? svsss and danmei in general :O

25. what are nine albums/ songs you've been listening to lately?

Cold Cold Man by Saint Motel

The Main Character by Will Wood

Palm Tree Panic from the STH OST? I think.

Bubble Pop Electric by Gwen Stefani (Cover by thquib)

Liquid Smooth by Mitski

god hear my plea by Starberry

Your Stupid Face by Kayden MacKay

Lover Is a Day by Cuco

Tek It by Cafuné

tagging @rileyh20 @fishfilletinacan @astrowaffles @makkisucks @alittlebitofloveliness @donelywell @happypeachsludgeflower @confused-ainsxl @ididdedurmom

nine albums or songs I've been listening to lately x nine people I’d like to get to know better x tag game with no name

(thank you for the tag @lianhuajing !!)

1. why did you choose your url? uh. it was a play on "rose tinted glasses"

2. any sideblogs? if you have them name them and why you have them. nope!

3. how long have you been on tumblr? I think 2022? i knew about it before, just never bothered to make a blog

4. do you have a queue tag? don't kill me, what's a queue tag?

5. why did you start your blog in the first place? I had some Thoughts about Blue Lock and wanted to post meta for it

6. why did you choose your icon/pfp? uhh Flora.

7. why did you choose your header? Reo is one of my Blorbos and I just really liked that panel of him

8. what’s your post with the most notes? probably the "do you download fics" poll

9. how many mutuals do you have? about 20? i don't remember

10. how many followers do you have? 120?

11. how many people do you follow? 91

12. have you ever made a shitpost? yes. i think.

13. how often do you use tumblr each day? an hour?

14. did you have a fight/argument with another blog once? nope

15. how do you feel about ‘you need to reblog this’ posts meh. some of them are funny i guess

16. do you like tag games? yep! it's nice interaction

17. do you like ask games? i do! but uh. it's a silent empty void here. an echo chamber, if you will.

18. which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous? i have no idea but i see @kingsandbastardz a lot in the mlc community

19. do you have a crush on a mutual? nope

20. what is the last song you listened to? 若梦 by 周深

21. what are you currently watching? i just finished The Double! probably starting on Dashing Youth next

22. sweet/ savoury/ spicy? savoury!

23. what is your current relationship status? single

24. what is your current obsession? The Double,,,,

25. what are nine albums/ songs you've been listening to lately?

若梦 by 周深

如故 by 张碧晨

如初 by 张碧晨

借过一下 by 周深

万物不如你 by 张杰

Our dawn is hotter than day by Seventeen

Hitorijana by Seventeen

my music taste is kinda...i tend to stick to a few artists...

26. tagging (no obligation to do this!) @randomingoftherandomness @good-vs-evo @chrysofightme @bbcphile

[sor-vette]

So Try and Don't Die

Hoseok knows that the building block for any human behaviour is greed, be it his own or anyone else’s. blocks build foundations, foundations - plans, plans - the future he wants to see. but ask any strategist and they’ll say that the most dangerous thing is not the failure itself, but a rogue statistical outlier, for it can ruin your plans one after the next and force you to confront the dreadful truth - is this reason or are you just in love?

• type: mystic strategist! Hoseok x fem! reader • genre: criminal underworld! au (literally), dystopian world, angst, childhood friends to petty enemies/lovers, very Hoseok centred, like extremely, it's a characterization piece almost

• part of seven tales collab. Read the other stories of the collab created by @moon-write, @btsrunmylife, @delacyrose224; @alpacaparkaseok; @btsroyalwilds;

• header credits go to @moon-write thank you so much for indulging my nonsense, I hope this does fit all the guidelines

• rating: mature • w/c: 15k • t/w: implied murder, implied brainwashing, cults, explosions, mentions of claustrophobic environments, mentions of animal experiments, stabbing, near-death experience, collapse of a society

• other warnings + about: upper-class bullshit (yes, it deserves a warning), Darja got very heated about the rich, Hoseok is trying so hard not to simp that once in a while he becomes a little bit of a prick. All in all, this is a dystopian world and while I didn't want to go too overboard, there are ongoing heavy thematics

• a/n: since essentially being bed-ridden for some time now, I skimmed over old books and that will reflect in this through weird phrasing, word choice and the fact that this is going to be so boring and sort of formless? ಥ_ಥ like she really said, let's read the classics and drone on and on about wind and such.

• taglist : @valhallawhispers; @jinsjungkook; @leklekgai; @ohshutupjimin; @miragehoseok; @heyydolll; @hrts4kook; @elyte; @persephonesorchid; @pauls-mccharmly; @jinsjungkook; @pinkcherrybombs; @introlxv;

༺═──────────────═༻

1.

During the spring of 1887, officers of her Majesty's government made a strange and bedimmed discovery in what previously was thought of as an abandoned factory complex. Though the news of it was never made public, the reports discussed by the initial investigators did not only reach the ears of Her Majesty but also of the general governance. Those who had already exhibited particularly keen interest were the first to link the two questions together that took place around the time - what was the nature of the discovery and was it connected to the missing prisoners? Indeed the question had been mulled for nearly a decade without any definite or even indefinite answer, no one seemed to have the slightest notion of what happened to the rather abnormal number of incarcerated, recorded but unseen. Jails did not report to be overcrowded and there were no rumours of a mass escape. Whereabouts of nearly three hundred people were shrouded by the most intricate secrecies as they were not to be found in any known prisons, military confinement, records of the deceased, even katorgas or nameless graves by any power that was decisive enough to take up the exploration into the query.

The discovery of 1887 was of the fact that underneath the abandoned factory complex there sprawled man-made tunnels and astoundingly spacious caverns where indeed signs of civilized life could be found, though the sitings of the settlers were never established. The investigation reached no further than that, the main leaders of the supposed expedition that was to happen befell into quick and unexplained deaths, additionally, it being a time of great unrest in the country, the subject was laid to rest.

And the sensation became a conspiracy, conspiracy - a tall tale and that a piece of odd but fanciful folklore after enough time had passed.

The existence of Orchid District, as it was dubbed to honour the first officer who made the discovery - Hiram Orchid, was officially discarded in 1962 when such a conception - a literal criminal underground living beneath millions of unsuspecting feet was pronounced a delusional fancy. An improbability within an impossibility concocted by irrational and bored minds.

And it is here that Hoseok was born.

2.

The obscured cove was mostly silent, save for the rhythmic beat of the fan's wings recycling the stale air. There was nothing more to hear. Even your breathing was near inaudible and Hoseok's hands itched to check your pulse despite the fact that he'd done it ten times already.

As you were sleeping, tied to a chair, he can indulge in a little, private weakness - admiration. Freedom had been kind to you - there was a faint glow and healthy plumpness about your skin. Sun, good food and safety neither of which could be found in abundance underground had given way for you to transform into a seemingly normal citizen of a moral society. Hoseok scraped his fingernails against the tongue of the gun.

The deal was immovable, sturdy and heartless like an axe of an executioner - should you ever return, he'd kill you, that was the promise you both swore in blood. At the time he had seen nothing but fury, nothing but your betrayal so then perhaps he had vaguely entertained the thought of murder however presently he found himself halted in front of an unchangeable sentiment - he couldn't. He just couldn't. He wasn't capable of killing anyone on an average day, it was a flaw that in any other man in the Orchid would have him dead by the age of five but Hoseok was not any other man. Still the thought of anyone killing you? ... No, it would not be.

Grimly, he let the bullets rattle into his palm. He couldn't kill you and he wouldn't let anyone do it either - a senseless conundrum but if he was worth anything of his nefarious name, he'd find the solution to the bothersome problem that was you. When at last you stir, the head of the gun pressing your chin upwards is a sensation as familiar as it was predictable. Your head chains jangling and the creek of a boot. Was he still wearing that ridiculous apparel even after such a chunk of time had gone by? You couldn't help the snort that ripped out and that is greeted by a breath touch too laboured to be in absolute control.

"Out of respect for an old friend," he says as coldly as you muster he capable of, "any last words?"

"What's the name of the most frugal pirate?"

Silence.

"Barry D. Treasure!"

More silence.

"Is this thing even loaded?" you wonder aloud and the gun digs harsher into the crook of your throat. "I asked whether it's loaded not whether it's there." Comes your grumble. In an instant, the blindfold is ripped away from your eyes. Hoseok was no more than five centimetres away, breathing down harshly, looking a tad too unhinged for the reputation that he amassed.

"You think this is a joke?" he rasps lowly and you let your gaze wander over him.

"That outfit certainly is."

"I could kill you."

"No, you couldn't."

He could dress up as much as he wanted, he could lie to others without cease but not even on one day out of a hundred could he ever fool you. Familiarity was a weapon and a weakness you mutually possessed, a two-way bomb both parties had the red buttons for. He seethes in your presence, nevertheless, you think he partially enjoys this. You undoubtedly did.

The gun is tossed aside and he turns his back, not so much out of frustration but so you couldn't see his face. Like a backwards hug.

"Five years you've been gone," he recounts peering into the dark of the underworld through the window blinds.

"Why did you come here to ruin me after five years?"

"I'm not here to ruin you," you object.

Hoseok scoffed, leaning against the window, showcasing the creased back of his burgundy coat.

"My money transfer, weapons exchange, bank heist, even the upworld's communication schism, recently all my plans have been falling through much like straws in a hurricane," he pushes through his teeth. "Not here to ruin me," a lingering pause and the tension surges to new levels, "to destroy me, to humiliate me? Is that why, friend?"

He looks over his shoulder to find you not begging, not pleading but staring quite solemn ahead. Much had changed over the course of five years, not only in his world but of the Orchid itself. Yet how come a delirious place such as this wherein the south side there was a Fate Reader gathering cultists like an aged worshipper of malign, unseen forces, where few streets behind there worked a Mad Scientist, claiming to be able to raise the dead and where the Grey Pianist, the only pillar of trust Hoseok had left when his heart left him to be Up There, had disappeared with nary of trace. How come that even in an ungodly place such as this he was still bettered by you? That he still yearned for your touch, your comfort despite vowing to himself that he'd rather cut out his own tongue than say anything of loving belief ever again.

"I merely wanted your attention."

Hoseok laughed sharply. Then grabbed the letter opener that rested on his desk, above the scattered plans and held it up against your eye.

"Is this enough of attention?" he whispered, spitting words like poison from his mouth but you were not afraid. You never were. It was he who spent his days in fear - fear of being killed, of being tortured, of staining his hands red, of losing you all over again.

A part of him even wished you would have stayed away then he could confine himself in fantasies, where no words uttered were wrong, where you both could live without the oppressive glare of survival down below the decree of normalcy.

"You should stop pretending you're capable of hurting me," you droned, vacant and unblinking.

"Why. Did. You. Come. Here." he uttered once more, the glinting edge of the blade so near it mingled between your eyelashes.

"I need you to help me get someone out as well."

Hoseok considered it for a second and stabbed the knife into the chair, close to where your hand was resting. You didn't even flinch.

"No one leaves the underworld, we live and we die here."

If even one story, a shred of single photographic evidence would ever traverse these hidden halls, the world would be forever changed and the Orchid district would meet its despicable downfall. It was perhaps a fragile and precarious thing but it was the fundamental human nature, no matter how flawed or devious that human might be, that they wanted to live. Orchid needed rules like no other because it housed people who could break it like no other and if there ever was anything that could scarcely to an agreement, a peace treaty among the mirage of villains, it was the unchangeable rule that no one ever leaves the underworld alive.

No one but a single statistical outlier.

"I got out," you refute and Hoseok gave an evil glare in return.

"And I paid for it," he hisses, pointing a ring cladded finger at the scar running across the bridge of his nose.

You open your mouth to say something but then close it. Hoseok wonders whether you've grown smart only to abandon it all when your face grows so close it blurs his sight and he feels your warm lips press upon the scar.

He freezes and against his judgement, his reputation and image, he closes his eyes and melts underneath your touch, as if he was a normal man as if he could have normal things.

The warning screech of tires puts a firm end on that delusion and moving on a well-trained instinct Hoseok pushes your chair away, behind his brown leather chair and not a second after fire fills the room.

3.

Hoseok watched calmly from the side alley as the motorcycle came to a stop and the young offender brandishing a baseball bat slinked his way towards the warehouse.

Unscrupulous and barbaric, typical of the Action Taker.

He didn't make it too far as metal walls fall from the ceiling, effectively caging Hoseok's lair, hiding his precious items and plans like shell did the soft body of a snail.

The Action Taker cursed and hammered the impenetrable wall with the bat. Once he sated his anger, panting and left imperfect, which Hoseok knew aggravated his nerves like nothing else, he spat on the ground and then drove away.

In the outside world, you're both left standing alike, old friends, betrayers, admirer and abhorer rolled all in one, pushed out of the relative safety of Hoseok's hideout. From the frying pan and into the fire.

Hoseok glanced back at you where you busied yourself with tying the ropes loose and putting out the faint cinder lingering in your hair. Something clinked from up the fire escape by the roof and in the darkness two shining dots hung in the air. They blinked in and out not unlike a flickering light and you just began to wonder if it's curiosity that the lights are looking at you with, that they disappeared. Only quiet footsteps could be briefly heard dashing across the roof and then they're gone.

"Who was that?" you questioned, rubbing your arms. They had rope marks on them, red lines etched deep in your skin that partially Hoseok regretted, partially was happy for. Good, he thought, you get to feel at least the fraction of the pain he felt once you left him to rot all alone.

"Alley Cat, don't worry about him."

"I meant the man who threw the bomb."

"That..." Hoseok glared back at the road, "that nuisance calls himself the Action Taker."

"Stupid name," you snorted.

"Quite," Hoseok agreed with a light smile before quashing any kindness away. You were not friends anymore, you were nothing. Just a fly in his ointment. One that he will find a way to get rid of.

"He wants to be the new king of my region. Hence why he's been eagerly leaping into any chance to kill me."

You frowned as he shook the remaining glass shards from his coat.

"Are you...?"

"Please do not pretend that you care," he sharply interrupted, placing his triangular hat on the top of his head. He felt that the more layers he wore with you, the safer he could be. A ridiculous statement but still one he somewhat found solace in.

You pulled back, not quite hurt, but not quite good either.

"I want to get Shadow Hacker out of here," you told with some finality.

"Cute."

"Don't patronize me! The game has changed! No one cares about common criminals here anymore."

Hoseok leaned back onto the brick wall, nearly choking on the fumes of the city. The air was permeated with acidic smell and faintly orange tint that bled from the upper levels. If Hoseok thought of what hell looked like, he imagined it would have some similarity to this. It was like being slowly buried alive.

"No one gets to just leave," he repeated sternly, beginning to catch the nasal sounds of the advertisement loop playing in the Light Fields.

You heaved a tired sigh, peering cautiously at the gang of teens passing by, listening to the music far too loud for anyone's comfort. The longer outside, the more you sink back into its clutches, the unshakeable stench of dirt, piss and petrol, the drone of the neon lights, ever-present advertisements and the barely constrained madness masquerading as a society. Life indeed found a way to persist even in places it never should.

"He won't survive here," you crossed your arms, inspecting even the slightest of details on Hoseok. From the golden chains slung around his chest to the red bandana hiding the bleached hair, he was every bit a piece of antiquated history - of simpler times where the only thing that roamed around Orchid was decadence and the law of weapon. Now... now who could tell what new obscurity and frenzy in a place where there wasn't even warmth of a sun would rise its unsightly head.

"At least... at least help me to find out what happened to him. I take it you haven't heard of him?"

Hoseok pursed his lips together, warily fidgeting at the sounds of sirens approaching. Privately he held the same trepidation as you - that such simple thing as a man with a plan no longer sufficed. Sirens of the firefighters began to drown out the recorded voice of the advertisement announcer and Hoseok was itching for a tactical retreat. The flames will die out by themselves, his environmental stabilizer will make sure of it. Being both a brilliant and greatly paranoid man he had insured his little alcove to be near indestructible much like himself. Perhaps it was no coincidence that both things, his home and his sanity were compromised the moment you showed up again into his life.

"Neutral zone, now!" he ordered. "I am in no mood to escape imprisonment this evening."

4.

His eyes began to sting the second he stepped into the Light Fields.

"Please enter the sanitation area," the automated cheery voice announced as they stepped through the revolving gate. Doing as it asked, Hoseok held his breath as a large spray of disinfectant brushed him into the ground of the grey cubicle.

"You have been sanitized! Welcome to the neutral zone, welcome to Light Fields! We remind all visitors that the use of guns and violence will be punishable by death. Thank you for your cooperation!"

A green approval ticket was printed on the outer side of the sanitation chamber which begrudgingly and hacking at the taste of disinfectant in his throat, Hoseok was quick to plaster on his jacket. The faceless guards holding rifles gave him a lingering glare but proceeded no further than that. You stumbled out of the sanitation area dishevelled and coughing with tears in your eyes.

"Since when do they have these things here?"

Hoseok shrugged.

"Bio attack three years back. The air is toxic outside, once you stay longer than thirty minutes, your lungs will slowly start to corrode."

Your eyes widened.

"Good thing your guys grabbed me early on then."

He didn't grace you with an answer though quietly he thought much the same.

Hoseok turned attention onwards and steeled his resolve. He was marginally pliant to your request of aid but it was for the reason of guarding his work rather than any other sentiments. If you wanted to find the Shadow Hacker it was in his best interest that you would do so quickly, without ruining his plans all over again.

In statistics, an outlier described a data point that significantly differed from other observations. It caused serious problems withing statistical analysis oftentimes rendering even the most flawless prediction obsolete.

"I'm going to rule the entire underworld," he once had announced holding up the plastic sword into the foul air of his mother's apartment and stabbing the unknown enemies into their invisible chests. You hadn't even lifted your gaze from the pages of the book.

"Sure you are," you patronized dryly.

"And you can be my second," Hosseok had then continued ignoring the lack of enthusiasm in your voice. This finally caught your attention. You raised your eyes slowly, looking him over with much the same expression you did twenty years later - as though he had said something astoundingly stupid.

"Second?" you echo. "Honey, I'm going to be the first."

No, you had to go. Even if he wished nothing less than to see you disappear once again, even if these few minutes with you had felt like he was at long last breathing fully, being aware of what life meant and not going through it like a machine, building his castles made of other people's failures. Yes, it would be most reasonable for his survival if you were to go away.

Hoseok fixed his hat, a persistent obsession of his and gazed upon your flighty figure taking in the new development of the Light Fields, with avid, almost childlike interest. You hadn't, in the end, grown up to be the first, neither as Hoseok had become the ruler of the underworld, such a thing was simply not conceivable. In his mind, you had grown up to be much more damaging though that a fellow rival. You were his best friend and somewhere, in a hidden, extremely guarded corner of his mind, he reckoned there was a part of him that was in love with you. He supposed not everyone held their best friend close to their chest when they slept, not everyone dreamt of holding their hand and laying kisses on the crown of their head. Or maybe they did, the matter was beyond Hoseok's expertise, he simply knew as well as anyone else that there was no love that could be sustained in Orchid District. Love opened the way to vulnerability and being vulnerable meant being dead.

Was it reasonable for you to not kill her? To protect her from the blast?

Yes, he thought, that too was reason. Even if he was yet to be fully aware of its nature.

"Oh, look, they still sell foiled potatoes here!" you exclaimed, pulling him by the hand. "This was our favourite, remember?"

It had been your favourite. Hoseok always thought that it tasted too burnt and it was too hot to eat properly but you were always so happy to share he never found a convincing enough sentence to say "no".

"You want one?"

"Sure."

It seems he never will.

"Cleaner city, cleaner life. It's time for the citizens of Orchid to live as they should - safely, cleanly and without threat. Vote for Rinaldi to have the life that you deserve."

As you sit on the bench basking in the mimicry of the sun propelled by numerous bright light strips, he nibbled the potato with masked disgust, more so glaring at the aggravating campaign ad.

"What a bunch of nonsense," Hoseok's lips curled in disdain and you accompanied him with a monotonous "hmm", diligently eating the steaming meal.

"So you haven't heard from the Shadow Hacker?"

"No. Yoongi disappeared soon after the bio-attack, Shadow Hacker fell off the radar after that."

"Have you been all alone?" you asked, somewhat tepid.

Hoseok did not answer.

"Since when is that hacker so important to you?"

Supposedly.

On his weakest days when he slipped into the delusional fancy of you coming back, he imagined that it'd be him you would turn to what was once home. Of course, that was a fucking lie. He watched as the bright light shimmered across the mirrored tiles of the Light Fields, the only sixteen streets in the whole underworld that were free of crime and where people didn't slash each other's throats just to drag out their life till the next day.

"As I said he will not be able to survive out here. I've kept my ear to the proverbial or I guess not so proverbial ground and the things that are happening make me increasingly worried."

Hoseok bit his tongue to not let all the ache piling up like rotting compost spill out.

You were this worried for the Shadow Hacker, an acquaintance at best. Your best friend? No worries at all. Drilling this into the head, Hoseok tosses the half-eaten potato aside, now concentrating on the threshold of headache onto the painfully luminous advertisement slogans.

"Cleaner city, cleaner life. It's time for the citizens of Orchid to live as they should - safely, cleanly and without threat. Vote for Rinaldi to have the life that you deserve."

It was really quite annoying.

"If you want to find ghosts, you know who should we talk to?"

"The Rat?"

Your eyes lit up and your face bloomed into a joyous, excited simile. Hoseok turned away, it was suddenly too bright, even for the Light Fields.

He nodded, biting the inside of his cheek.

"The Rat."

5.

Richard Armon Tully, a greying, wiry little man with the unfortunate moniker of R.A.T. was quick to stumble when seeing Hoseok dive out of shadows in the vicinity of the Mad Clinic, coat swishing behind him. He stumbled and then took off running in screams. Not long after he blundered upon a stray bottle falling flat onto the face.

"Mr Strategist, sir," he stammered crawling onto the trash. "What - what brings you to these paths?"

"You, my unhygienic friend," Hoseok replied casually tossing a glance around. The streets belonged to Mad Scientist and given the wading rumours that enveloped that man with each step of his way, human experimentation, necromancy, mutants, the air around here had an ill feeling tint to it that put any passerby into a state of general unease.

"S-Sir, I am but a simple merchant now! Sir, I am no use to you!" the man pleaded.

"A man like you does not cease to be true to his nature," Hoseok leaned against the brick wall with a sardonic smirk playing on his features.

"Anything else is either an act or a lie."

"Sir, please, please! Do not hurt me! I really know nothing!"

Cold heartedly, Hoseok glanced down to his fingernails.

"Rat, do I look like a gentleman who dirties his own hands? I am nothing if not peaceful and reasonable."

The R.A.T. nodded along, shaking to appease for a better fate.

"She, however..." when the R.A.T. saw the figure behind Hoseok he let out a string of lewd, albeit breathless curses.

"Fuck, fuck, you were supposed to be gone!" he screamed and you smiled jubilantly, unperturbed by the frantic pleasing.

"Supposed, was meant to, who cares?"

Before you even get to swing a fist remotely close to the Rat's face, he crumpled into a pile of hysteric sobs.

"HE WORKS FOR THE RAVAGER," he bellows, nearly choking on his snot, submerging his face into the putrid waste bins. "That's the last thing I heard! I swear!"

"Where might we find this Ravager?" Hoseok asked calmly, still half leaning against the wall and adjusting his triangular hat to ride lower.

"I don't know! No one knows! The guy doesn't show his face!"

"Who else works for him?"

"Uh...the..."

You inched a smidge closer.

"THE CULTIST! THAT CULTIST! THE FATE READER!"

6.

The woman's smile becomes increasingly disturbing the longer Hoseok is forced to gaze upon it. There was not a hint of soul behind those eyes, nothing but empty-headed, singular happiness.

It was unbearably sickening.

Thankfully, you didn't object.

"Are you here to serve him?" she asked, swaying on her feet with shy excitement while the rest of her group glared contemptuously by the sidelines. With every breath, a tangent, dour taste of rot and dirt coated Hoseok's tongue in a disgusting film, further aggravated by the protruding stares and the sheer logicality of being outnumbered, mere two against thirty-five by the looks of it, pushed him into agitation so vivid he hadn't felt in years. Absent-mindedly he reached for your hand, squeezing it lightly.

"Yes, we are," you replied with a similarly eerie smile. The woman of course is far too out of touch with reality to notice how sickly and fake it appeared. She was simply happy to receive joy in return.

"Could you show him to us? I, for one, am dying to meet!"

The woman cocked her head.

"Of course! He is happy to meet all his worshippers but..." here she paused glancing momentarily back at the grumbling crowd. "However if he does not like you, we all will have to pluck your eyes out," she smiled. "It's nothing personal."

"We understand," you interjected before Hoseok could high tail out of there. Being in a direct line of fire was outside his usual norm. He was the mastermind, the man of the High Castle. Now he wondered whether others had the same foul feeling hearing about the Fate Reader as they did about him. However it may was, the woman granted them access and began to snake them in between ruins. It seemed old remnants of the first settlers, simplistic wooden sheds falling into disrepair and unknown vegetation. Eaten by the ground in whose embrace they once hid from death. Yes, it appeared grimly that sooner or later all fates were the same.

The woman led them to a tent far bigger and more ostentatious than the rest, those miserable piles of beige fabric propped on wooden sticks.

As they entered it, guided by the woman's deep curtsy, all air left Hoseok's lungs. Nauseating, saccharine smell spread throughout the living quarters. It was largely dark and obscured room, veiled in thick fumes, claustrophobic in a sense. The only thing Hoseok could see clearly was the tall man sprawled on the red couch. He sat entirely still and if not for the card twirling in his slender fingers, Hoseok could very well assume him as dead. He seemed to shimmer all over like a distant jewel, from the golden stitching of his coat to the crown perched on top of his head.

"Jung Hoseok, _________ __________, I've been expecting you," he spoke in a deep, rumbling voice and suddenly opened his eyes which glinted in a peculiar shade of gold and without a doubt in some vague expression of malice.

7.

Rat screamed as he ran, exhausted to the degree he could barely stand. No matter where his gaze landed, the doors were closed and the windows shut tight. No salvation, no escape. The heavy thudding persisted, chasing him at leisure, without worry that he should break free. Rat's lungs burned and blood pooled in his mouth. Slowly but bit by bit, irreversibly his strength ran out. He crossed old pathways, narrow little alleyways but no one helped him in spite of the fact he knew there were plenty of people laying around in wait, listening to his terror. At long last, his body gave out and he collapsed on the warm ground.

The dogs, hounds, whatever they were arrived not a second later. Far larger than any normal dog, they stretched like sinister shadows at the end of the alleyway. Their razor-like teeth dripped in saliva and as they advanced, their horrendous growl grew louder and louder until Rat could no longer even hear his own cries.

"No, please," Rat breathed and then in a flash, the shadows were on top of him.

Above him on the fire escape of the neighbouring building stood a man in a white coat. He looked on at the scene with pity but otherwise made nor sound, nor effort to save him from the dreadful demise. When the hounds were done and their long limbs trailed away, leaving bloody paw prints in their wake, the man retreated back into the building, closing the door firmly behind.

8.

"I am above servitude," The Fate Reader snarled, contempt flaring up his odd features into a frightening grimace.

"Okay, so you're not their bitch," you rolled your eyes as Hoseok gladly kept quiet, cautiously taking in their opponents even the most minuscule of movements. There was something rather unsettling about the man only half to do with the brainwashed crowds of his worshippers. Hoseok reckoned it was his eyes. They were not of human nature moreover there was no waterline that could serve as an indication of contacts. And they were cold. Haughty and judgemental as though he could indeed read the future and it bored him to death.

"Still you know this Ravager."

The Fate Reader observed his cards and Hoseok knew that it meant he was lying. Perhaps, he was a simpler man, just a criminal against the backdrop of these peculiar newcomers - with their magic and their experiments but it didn't mean they could beat him. Hoseok had survived and thrived in this hell for far longer than any of them and though he could not see the future, he could read people and those rarely changed.

"I know of them," the Fate Reader lied, smoothly to the ears but visibly to Hoseok's sharp eyes. "The Ravager is going after Rinaldi."

"Why?" Hoseok asked. The man examined him with a blank gaze.

"Doesn't like his campaign," he evaded.

A half-truth. Hoseok himself was fond of those, it was as plain as day - Fate Reader knew exactly who the Ravager was and why they hated Rinaldi so much to recruit seemingly the most bizarre minions to name.

"What did they ask you to do?" he persisted on, trying his best to suppress a shudder as he stared into those lifeless, unblinking eyes.

"They wanted me to recruit more followers."

A beat of silence lingered in the fetid air.

"That's it?" you repeated, dumbfounded.

"That's it," the Fate Reader shrugged.

"Now if you're done disturbing my afternoon nap, I'll ask you to leave. Unless, of course," he took lasting regard at you, for the first time in the whole of conversation brightening into twisted amusement. "You want to part with your eyes, instead. You have a splendid pair, my dear," he purred and automatically Hoseok nudged you behind him. But unlike him, you were not scared or at least didn't appear so. Responding with the most gentle of smiles, you chuckled lightly.

"I reckon yours would have more contrast."

The meeting ended in terse silence. Before exiting, Hoseok peeked over his shoulder. The Fate Reader had fished out a letter from underneath his flowy robes. His eyebrows knitted together when he read it over. As they left the Fate Reader's corner the woman who initially received them waved them off, deliriously happy. The rest huddled around weak sparks of a campfire, occasionally gnawing on the ends of a stale, mouldy bread.

Hoseok wondered whether their pitiful state was an act of revenge. No God usually treated their followers so badly or at the very least were not supposed to. Then he looked back at you and decided that ultimately it didn't matter. As long as the Fate Reader didn't pose a direct threat against his and more importantly your safety, Hoseok was content to leave him be. Considering he already had cracked the man through and through.

9.

The steel walls fell one by one revealing a slightly sooted but otherwise unharmed alcove. Hoseok's home. If it could even sparsely be called such a thing.

"You fireproofed your place?"

He shrugged in turn, tossing his hat away and mussing his bleached hair. Through the hole in the window, a faint draft was pulling through, swaying the numerous papers stapled to his board.

You focused on your own picture, tucked on the sidelines, like a lingering question in the back of Hoseok's mind. The string of your picture only tied to Yoongi, Hoseok himself also pushed to the side was free of any such relations. Cold-blooded, he extended that string right in front of yours eyes to Shadow Hacker's picture before sinking back into the plush chair.

His network was amazing you had to give him the honours. The board was made of underworld's map even the smallest street, so much as a backdoor was present on the map and atop of it sat pictures, anyone who ever meant anything was here - from Light Fields to Fate Reader's dump, there seemed to be no one that Hoseok wasn't aware of. As you watched him from the corner of your eye, you recalled the horrible sight of him standing before you, unforgiving and ruthless. The night you asked for help to escape to the upside. He must have felt betrayed. Despite your repeated attempts to explain, he had then barely listened. But the matter was simple - you would not stay here for the rest of your life. Being here was in many ways like prematurely being buried alive. Perhaps he refused to go with you out of spite or perhaps Hoseok truly could not imagine being anywhere else. Whichever it was, the idea was sad.

He seemed gaunter and washed out in a way. This place, with its knick-knacks, the childhood fascination with pirates, globes and maps and spyglasses was more Hoseok than he himself was.

"Damned bastard flamed my curtains," he groused, lowering yet another steel cover to shield the inside from any wandering eyes.

"What would be our next move?" you asked aloud, traipsing through the candles whose wax had melted on the floors and dropping down on the chair opposite of him. In between, there sat a chessboard with Hoseok playing the black pieces, you - the white. The pieces were moved but in positions nonsensical to the game rules, he was obviously not playing with himself but rather representing the field of his opponents.

"Yours would be to get out of here," he fixed you down with a stern glare, loosening his tie. In the pronounced shadows of the darkness in the room, his scar seemed to be etched even deeper and stretch even longer, giving the illusion that his face was cut in two.

Hoseok scoffed. If he was the king of the board there was one piece that was getting quite close to his position. Despite never learning much of the game, from the first get-go it seemed to you that this small, but ambitious little figure would beat his king in two moves.

"I haven't found Shadow Hacker yet," you objected.

"Where is your queen?"

He blinked, following the line of your gaze.

"Not in the game anymore," he replied harshly.

For a moment there were only the off-putting sounds of the alcove creaking, as it was positioned above an abandoned factory. Slabs of rusty metal rubbing along each other, creating echoing, continual screech.

"Whatever is happening with Rinaldi and this Ravager, it's no good. I fear that Shadow Hacker might be caught in the midst of all -" you were interrupted by Hoseok's bitter laughter.

"What is so funny?" you bristled as his laugh continued on.

"If only he gave a shit about you in return."

Crass. Crass and rude but not entirely unexpected.

"He helped me to escape..."

"He?" he interrupted coldly. "He helped you escape?"

"I'm not diminishing your help-"

"I don't want to hear it."

It dropped like a bomb, shattering the somewhat bridged familiarity into broken shards. He was seething, you could tell, even his palms shook from the barely contained wrath. It wasn't as if you hadn't known this would happen, it just didn't stop hurting because of that knowledge.

"I offered for you to come with me."

Rain. It was an actual rain, falling from the sky on your face. Cold and wet and wonderful. You've never felt rain before, only read about it in the books or heard from travellers who occasionally traversed into the upside. There were lights of various colours, adorning tall, spiralling buildings filled with people and sounds of sirens seem to close in on you from all the sides. It was overwhelming. Beautiful. Liberating.

You turn back to where Hoseok was standing at the bottom of the sewer, your escape tunnel.

"Come with me, please!"

You had never once begged for anything in your life, never stooped down your pride but the split was impossible to concoct. Hoseok had been there ever since you first opened your eyes in the underworld. He was there for all days and hours, your stable pillar to lean on, your best friend. To part now, never to see each other again, was a life sentence. If only he could see how close the freedom was, that he needed not to be the looming strategist, moving his pieces and minions for optimal control and survival. That there was more to life than simply power. It was right here, on the cement road amidst the breezing vehicles and chatters in a strange, unknown tongue.

"Please! Let's just leave together! Just come with me!"

It didn't matter that he would just be your friend forever, hell he could regard you as a confidante and you'd be fine. There was no peaceful end in the underworld, suicide and slaughter, another gang war, another overconfident but talented rookie that would roach upon his territory, whoever it was, the end would be violent and ugly.

For a moment, a blissful moment it seemed he will agree, that he would breach that invisible wall that kept him chained to a place he loathed, that everyone loathed but no. The sheer spite hardened his eyes into someone unrecognizable and after sneering that he will not consort himself with traitors, he took off, disappearing down the sewers. There was nothing left for you to do but to climb up, unimaginably - alone.

No response, you both sat stewing for a short while before the topic is changed.

"I will give you the traditional 48 hours, starting now, to remain here. Whether you find the Shadow Hacker or not if you exceed it, there will be plenty of people happy to receive you back. Understood?"

"Crystal."

Staring long and hard, both of you yielded, resting back onto the seats full of thoughts, most - unspoken.

"I will send some people out, get to know what Rinaldi is up to. You should get some sleep."

"Worried for me?" you teased him sarcastically.

"You look half dead. Princess probably has forgotten how to live without 9 hours of her dream time," he cut back just as dryly though most of the acid was already gone from his tone.

10.

This is simply a precaution, he told himself. She could have weapons, she is a smart girl.

Hoseok well remembered that there was always a knife or a gun somewhere on your body, the heel of the boot, by your palm. That sort of paranoid habit had saved their lives more times than he could even properly remember.

This is only reasonable, he insisted. To whom really. He took the hand that peaked over the red satin of his bed and tucked it back under. There was still a draft present in his alcove. Shrugging off his jacket and tenderly touching the now blue jaw, he stood against the doors of his bedroom, trying to recall what about you he should hate with so much vitriol.

Your betrayal. Yet no matter how many times, he went over it in his head, the deed, the speech he would give, it all sounded so whiny.

You left me, you left me, you left me. That was all that spun around, all day, all night, all years. You left me when I loved you so, how could you.

Hoseok had never been to upworld, those few seconds, standing at the bottom of the sewer was all the recollections he had of ever smelling an air that didn't have an ever-present pungent taste to it. Secretly he wondered if it was really that much different than down here. Human depravity could not simply be restrained to a singular geographical location but even more so secretly, Hoseok suspected that he could simply no longer have a normal life. This was all he knew. These streets, these galleries of illustrious criminals. Hiding away in his alcoves and caves made of childhood remnants for comfort. This, he supposed, was all that he was.

He couldn't really fault you for breaking out of the mould, for being different, for being daring. That was your forte. Juggling between brazen insanity and snide calculation, that was your speciality. And if you used that to do what no one else had been successful before - breaking out and living free of the dirt's grip, all the better for you.

You stirred in your sleep, hair in your face, mouth hanging slightly open. Quite an adorable, comfortable sight. Was there a person who got to see this up there?

The realization washed him cold. He hadn't given it a thought before but it was quite likely that there was. Or will be. Your own little admirer, your new best friend with whom you would build a new life. Because you wanted to, not because you were forced to for optimal survival.

His legs and mind grew weary with the useless wondering and standing, so gingerly, he sat down on his bed next to you. He counted your breath, revelling in their normal rate. Usually, you had been a light sleeper, the slightest of sounds could rouse you into hyperawareness. The softer you seemed, the more Hoseok regretted even granting you the 48-hour parole. The underworld was not made for delicate folk. Still being undoubtedly brilliant, you now lacked the vigilance that was vital for such a place. He sighed to himself and reached to brush away a strand of hair, hanging in your face.

Weakness. Stark, unreasonable, damning weakness. But he simply did not care. He will let go any moment, now, just a second longer, just a second. The second turns to minute, that into five and he couldn't let go anymore.

That pitiful whine of "you left me" was still playing in the loop in his mind, but it was not of anger but of tears, if anything.

God, what a pitiful man he was.

"Tessa, stop," you mumble, pushing his hand away.

Was Tessa his replacement? She was probably beautiful and kind. Everything that Hoseok was not.

When you opened your eyes, he made no effort to remove himself from the bed. For one, it was his bed, he had all the right to be here, two, you had already seen him, what was the point.

"You can return to your beau, any time you like," he reminded, trying to sound as harsh as possible. You paid it little attention, closing your eyes again and sinking deeper into the spent mattress.

"Tessa is my cat," came the quiet answer from underneath his blankets.

"You named the poor thing Tessa?"

"I adopted her from the street! That was the name on the collar!"

""Adopted." Kidnapped more like."

"Actually, the term is cat-napped I believe."

"A critical distinction."

Both of you cracked easy smirks, shortly forgetting the circumstances and returning back to years before - the easy banter, the many useless debates - whether or not butt was one or two, what would happen if people could crawl like snails. Many such crucial arguments. Quickly as that moment had come thought, it slipped away.

The room got colder and Hoseok felt somewhat darker.

"Get up, we've got work to do."

Shovelling large bites of egg and rice you listened carefully to what Hoseok said, conveniently mishearing the chaste reminder of eating slower.

"And after much fighting, and slamming, he finally spat up that Rinaldi is going to host a private party with his elite sponsors this evening."

"Hmm," you scratched your chin, narrowing your eyes at the picture. "Sleazy, gross."

"The usual," Hoseok completed. "I'll send my best men to infi-"

"Oh, no," you wave a piece of egg in the air. "That's a dreadful plan."

"Why ever for?"

"Elite sponsors means what? Security. Security means what? Screening. Screening means what? Face recognition, chemical balance recognition. Those things are still around, aren't they?"

Hoseok nodded along, nibbling on his lips.

"There's a decontaminator in the Light Fields..."

"Do you really think that a politician on the brink of an election will settle for a measly first layer chemical indicator? Unless your boys have been soaking in that decontaminator for two days, they'll light up like a goddamn beacon in any two-layer detector."

"Then what you suppose?"

"Rich people like to breathe fresh air, don't they. Only poor nobodies get to live in smoke. Means wherever they're meeting even if it's a locked room, it will need to get vented."

"You want the guys to go in the vents? You do realize I hire them to be as burly as possible."

"Your guys are not going anywhere," once again you waved the egg around and Hoseok passively watches it fall back onto the plate. "You and I are."

"I don't put myself in line of action," he brushed off, focusing back on the board. Rinaldi, Shadow Hacker's disappearance, unexplained appearance of the Fate Reader and the Mad Scientist, alongside with the Ravager who remained evasive and unreachable, guiding their own chess pieces from obscurity. All pointed onto something big being in motion, one whose trajectory Hoseok was not yet aware of. A discomfiting position to be in.

"You've got hips narrow enough," you shrugged.

"Don't be so delirious to think that just because you ask, I will sacrifice my safety to appease that suicidal need for action of yours, forget i-"

11.

Hoseok fixed the outfit in the broken mirror reflection, before sealing away his alcove for the night. You were bouncing happily down the street while he grumbled apprehensively, no more than three steps away. As he pulled down the last steel wall, closing it with his eye imprint, there came the familiar rattle of someone sneaking alongside the roof. As Hoseok glanced up, he saw nothing but the darkness but there was no denying his instincts that screamed of a presence of a threat. He heard only the movement, agile, quick legs sneaking somehow vertically down the wall like a spider or perhaps a cat. Alley Cat, again.

"Here, kitty, kitty," Hoseok mocked and though it was not clear, he could swear there was an irritated hiss coming from the shadows.

A gloved hand reached out and dropped shrivelling, brown letters on the top of his head, before disappearing onto obscurity, without saying a word. Hoseok looked the pages over and with an aching heart, recognized the sharp, irregular strokes of Yoongi's hand. A letter, coded in his complicated albeit familiar music note cypher.

"You coming?" you called from the distance and discreetly Hoseok hid the pages in the lapels of his jacket. He had a sneaking, ill suspicion what exactly these pages said and he could not think about, could not bear to read these words and then pretend to be alright enough to carry out a mission. To be alright enough to hide the truth from you. No, you lived your nice, pretty little life upside and it should stay that way.

It was, of course, reasonable if anything because if anything that would make you stay longer and Hoseok did not want it. Not at all.

"Yeah, I'm coming, don't cream your pants," he groused.

12.

"I told you, your hips are narrow enough!" you huffed squeezing yourself with great difficulty into the air vent. Despite the function, there was little to no breathable oxygen, dust was clawing up the lungs and the space was remarkably tight, making it seem like one was crawling down the throat of some unknown, metallic beast.

"We could very well fall through!" Hoseok hissed, trying to look at anywhere but your ass right in front of his face.

"We will not. Galvanized steel! Through and through. Do you have any idea how many drugs these same politicians have hidden in here in their time? Wouldn't want that falling on top of their precious, idiotic voters' heads!"

"There will be an obstruction soon forward!

"We're not here to crawl throughout, we only need to find, aha!"

Miraculously, there indeed was a small grid opening not soon after.

Hoseok greedily crawled to it and took large gulps of fresh, cool air, resting his already damp forehead against the metal.

Below, there sprawled a lifeless grey room. With no windows and two doors, one on each side. Numerous chairs lined up neat rows, about five meters from the north wall giving the impression of an improvised stage. It was disquieting and ominous and as the crowds of rich, overdressed people, patrons of the Light Fields one of the most sleazy politicians, his nausea only grew in strength. Watching their pearly smiles and leisurely laughter, knowing the absolute filth that the rest of them had to live in was sickening. Even in such a place, in a literal underground hellscape where remnants of a decaying society had morphed into an ultraviolent chain of crime, greed, betrayal even here there were parasites growing and indeed flourishing, and even more infuriatingly insisting on their purity, blind to the fact that there was no animal more deplorable than the one claiming purity as they washed their hands in the blood of others.

The night unfolded rather slowly, so slow, Hoseok's hand was beginning to grow numb but you had the look of utter concentration on your face. Almost as you were expecting something. He kept the same keen vigil and after what seemed like a few hours, he could spot Rinaldi in the mingling crowd of guests. He was rather large, stretching quite above the heads of his esteemed patrons, all sipping bubbly champagne and talking over new, ungainly nonsense. Offering smiles and fake gratitudes, squeezing many hands and groping just as many women, he ultimately moved to the front of the room. Undoubtedly, it was an improvised stage.

"Hello," he finally spoke and Hoseok barely could restrain his laughter. Despite the stature and well-defined muscle mass, his voice was nasal and small, like a squeak of a mouse being repeatedly stepped on. His editing team had done a particularly notable job of making him seem an assured and visionary man in his campaign ads when in reality Hoseok had heard children with more grit and dignity. You, however, were slower to mockery. There was a tick in your jaw and ever since Rinaldi first moved in the room your eyes had not strayed a millimetre away.

"As you all know my name is Marcus Rinaldi. Yes, thanks to you I've been getting enough prime air time to make sure that my beautiful visage can be seen by all of our wonderful citizens."

Inexplicably, there rose laughter in the room. Your expression soured even further. Hoseok could hardly blame you for it.

"Thank you once again for your help in my campaign, I could not have done what I'm about to reveal to you today, without your hard stolen money."

The laughter was sparser now, despite the fact that the words were more true. Perhaps that was the reason for it.

"As you all know my campaign slogan has been a cleaner city. But what do you think is ultimately clean? Is it cleaner streets? Cleaner air?" he began to pace around the stage and the doors behind him, began to rattle. "Yes and yes but those are easy trivial things. If we want to think of a change, a radical change! We need to acknowledge the actual filth that is riddling our streets with crime, drugs and prostitution and that is the people outside the Light Fields. The anarchists, gang leaders, intimidators!"

From whose efforts, all of these upstanding citizens funded their light panelled houses and health supplements that anyone living in a scarcity of sunlight could only dream of.

"Well, I say it's time to erase our inheritance of crime that has rotted our wonderful world for more than 200 years!"

The doors were now shaking hard enough for it to be visible and for the crowd to inch surreptitiously backwards. Hoseok drew special attention to the tensing guards - all were armed from head to toe, obviously having been prepared to take on a grave threat.

Rinaldi waved a hand to one of the ceiling cameras and the door, made entirely of solid arm-sized steel, popped open. Out of it ran what only could be described as long shadows. Standing above Rindaldi's waistline pooled something akin to a dog, but far larger. With teeth the length of a sturdy kitchen knife and paws the size of a dinner plate, they had shiny cropped fur all black save for the face. Their face was mostly white and in nearly all angles he looked resembled a human skull. Each of their steps was accompanied by a rumbling growl that made the hairs on Hoseok's neck stand up. He only ever thought that both above and beneath, the man was singularly a monster. Now he very much thought to recant that statement.

"These are the future!" Rinaldi yelled over the agitated crowd.

In mute horror, Hoseok could only watch as people, some he even recognized, mostly low-level drifters, taking odd jobs, were brought out, anaesthetised out of their minds. Obediently, they were placed, ten in the count all some distance apart and after that Hoseok could not bear to look any longer. Trembling, you and he slid down the vent as the sounds of growling, then screams travelled the room and then nothing.

Nothing.

Clapping.

Enthusiasm.

He needed to put a hand over his mouth.

"With these amazing weapons, we can eradicate the filth that pools outside our gates in a matter of few hours. Vote for me and I'm sure we can push this bill to completion."

"Cleaner city, cleaner life. It's time for the citizens of Orchid to live as they should - safely, cleanly and without threat. Vote for Rinaldi to have the life that you deserve."

13.

Hoseok busted through the door, nearly fracturing his shoulder.

"Here have the flashlight, take this gun, take this knife," he shoved the items into your confused hands. You needed to disappear, the first chance you get.

Much to his surprise, you chucked them away.

"Forget the Shadow-!"

"I'm not leaving you."

The answer was unmovable, Hoseok would go so far as to say.

"You dumbass, you do understand what Rinaldi is about to do, right?"

"Hence why I'm not leaving you."

This truly was the worst time for the dream to become reality. You swallowed hard, shaking still but otherwise remaining remarkably determined.

"Think about it. The Ravager appears out of nowhere and hustles this Fate Reader to organize more people. Then Mad Scientist emerges with weird experiments, Shadow Hacker was roped away once again by this Ravager guy. Did you not see what those...dogs were wearing?"

"I did not look."

"They were wearing collars, digital collars. Why would the Ravager recruit the best hacker in the underworld if not for the reason of stopping Rinaldi? Clearly, these animals are monitored, maybe even controlled through the collars, maybe that's what the Shadow Hacker has been doing all this time! Trying to break that code that controls them!"

Maybe. Highly possibly. Still too much of a gamble for Hoseok's liking.

"The only thing that doesn't make sense is that I reckon things like these can't be simply made in one day. The training alone would take years. Even if you happen to blunder this one over -"

"Hey!"

"No way Yoongi wouldn't."

The letters burned in Hoseok's jacket and so he pulled them out.

"Are those his music note cypher pieces?" you gape.

Yoongi had been...maybe still is somewhere a genius. Remaining a forlorn, nostalgic man throughout all the time Hoseok had known him, he remained vigilant where the Strategist's eye failed. The sheet music code was as ingenious as it was hard to crack. If Yoongi had sent Hoseok this, using someone so imperceptible as the Alley Cat, the document could be the most priced document these two had ever passed. Even posthumously.

"You remember enough to crack them?"

"Some of it. Come on, let's try now!"

And without further arguments, you pulled along his arm, forgetting all about the flashlight, the knife and the gun. If not for the looming threat of eradication, Hoseok would almost think that it was like old times. You and him, sitting side by side cracking Yoongi's odd little codes.

"Dear friends,

Note that this is not a suicide note. While by the time that you're reading this I may be gone, I am in fact not dead, merely hidden into places outside your reach for my own personal safety. The information that I'm about to pass you is of utmost dangerous status and will endanger not only you and me but also every single poor and destitute soul trapped outside the Light Fields. A month ago I met a man you might now be aware of as the Mad Scientist. He created what I call dogs, mutant dogs, though he refers to them as Alpha Protector Project. Originally, designed to protect children, they are designed to withstand even the most brutal attacks, be it bullets, a car crash, a flame-thrower, anything that our lovely Orchid throws at us. Be that as it may, clearly the Scientist created something too powerful for its own good. Though there are many nameless figures booting the experiments, the most prominent is Marcus Rinaldi, a runner-up for this year's election. The Scientist fears that they will kick him off this project and will try to remodify the dogs into not protective figures but weapons that will most likely be used against the citizens outside of Light Fields. I see clearly now that the bio-attack was just a precursor for the plans in motion. I have informed a person named the Ravager of the plan to stop the oncoming tragedy. Hoseok stop grimacing, will you?"

"I am not grimacing!" he objected against the letter but continued to read it. There was gratefulness to be felt amidst all the onslaught of sickening despair that Yoongi was still somewhere out there.

"We will recruit the Shadow Hacker. Scientist insists that while they can't alter the mutant's original DNA structure, to make the creature inherently violent they can reprogram their behaviour through some invasive shock collars, alter their brain waves, at this point, I lost him to be perfectly candid. The main plan is if the remote hacking doesn't help, there is without a doubt a rising need to stop Rinaldi at any cost. Even if the cost means compromising the entire ecosystem we so delicately tread upon. I must go now, I fear they have found me but I believe that you will finish the work we started.

Forever your friend, the Grey Pianist.

P.S. ___________, Hoseok has been - "

"Hey, I didn't finish reading it!" you opposed as he ripped the sheet music letter away.

"Whatever! You read the letter, you know now what happened to the Shadow Hacker, could you get your ass-!"

"Sweet Maker, do you really think I came down here for him?!"

Hoseok's mouth ran dry.

"Why would you then...what was the reason..."

"You are the reason, you knucklehead!"

His eyes seem to ran dry as well. Somehow.

You sat beside him, little red-faced but chiefly irritated and while Hoseok knew he was a smart man, there was something he failed to grasp.

"But you said..." he weakly argued which was immediately shot down.

"I lied, Hoseok! People lie!"

He folded his hands in his lap, playing with the frayed edge of the browning paper. This was probably what the Fate Reader had been reading then, his own private letter from Yoongi.

"Are we really arguing over our...relationship... problems right now?"

You leaned back into the plush of his couch, wrapping around the circular table, focusing once again on the map of the underworld.

"Guess we're both knuckleheads then."

"What's that old expression your grandma used?"

"Besties?"

"Besties."

Despite the vague amusement, there was a very tangible dread hanging in between the pauses of the words and in the lines of your smiles.

Everything now hung in balance. Whichever way it would fall, Hoseok suspected there would be no turning back to the normal anymore.

"Considering that we saw, Shadow Hacker has not gained control over those collars."

"And the Fate Reader amassing more people. They are gearing up for a coup. How many days are there till the election?"

"Two."

Both of you remained solemn for a while, thinking, planning, scheming.

"A coup certainly would be an illustrious accomplishment," you reckoned with a fake cheer. "I'm in."

Hoseok sat quiet, looking around his little alcove. A small hiding space just for him, so small it embraced him so tight he had barely moved the latest years. Wearing costumes in and out he had barely a recollection of what exactly Jung Hoseok, the Mystic Strategist, meant. A man who survived no matter what? Or a man defying the odds?

What did it matter in the end? He used to be so scared of going to the upside thinking that he will lose everything that he was, but what was it really?

"Without me, you'll get yourself killed," he sighed theatrically. "And then they'll worship you as a hero and whose going to be left to insist that you were really quite mean."

You threw your head back in laughter. Though Hoseok didn't have much recollection of what kind of person he was, the title of your best friend remained it seemed unchanged.

14.

The street was swarmed with crowds, most notably of the Fate Reader's followers. They followed him like imprinted ducks and though Hoseok was contemptuous of the fact, he had to admit the numbers he rallied were enormous. No longer encompassing mere thirty, starving somebodies, behind him there travelled well nearly a hundred folks. He ordered them something in his deep, domineering voice and strutted inside the planning committee, Hoseok's abandoned warehouse but not before pinning him down with an inscrutable, cold glare. How had you managed to convince Fate Reader into joining the discussion, he had no clue but he was appreciative nonetheless.

The Mad Scientist, Kim Namoon, as Hoseok had learned after much fisticuffs, poisonous darts and other scientific nonsense thrown into his face, keeled over in the corner. He spoke little and observed even less. The only sound that came from him was the faint muttering, a discussion he had been leading with himself for well over an hour. Even the Alley Cat had made an appearance. He sat by the side, appearing utterly uninvested in the happenings, playing cards on his own and examining the jewellery he fished out of his pockets. The Fate Reader dropped down beside him. Each man threw their own assertive stares before ultimately joining a game of cards. Yoongi was still missing. He had not revealed his whereabouts in any of the letters and was not seen or heard from anyone for well over a year. Shadow Hacker was present only in remote format, writing out a succinct "here" on one of Hoseok's monitors and then making no effort to further insist on his presence.

These were of course only the characters that made Hoseok most nervous but there were more in the room. News had evidently spread and quite thoroughly so. Sometime a few nights ago Rat had been killed, gutted in the alleyway and that inadvertently and ironically to his skeevy, miserly status had rippled throughout the community. Stories of dogs, hell hounds really, traversing the night with nothing but murder in mind had spread like wildfire over all of Orchid, creating mass panic in a matter of hours. All around there was a heavy sentiment of simply killing Rinaldi, and if luck has it, take some of his despicable friends along. It was all together getting a tad too agitated.

"You're not going to step in?" you asked, stretching taller in the face of anyone who came too close for comfort. The Fate Reader and Alley Cat had even stopped playing cards, the former remaining somewhat leisurely, most likely eased by the fact that he had strength in numbers lingering outside while the latter however was halfway hiding in the dark.

"Why would I step in?"

"You're the King, aren't you, of this side of the town, anyway."

"King of Nowhere. It was you who was always better with...everything."

You shrugged casually.

"Even so, I am in no desire to move the masses. I'm my own mistress, work for my own gain."

"That's horribly selfish," Hoseok admitted but with no malice. Being selfish was far from the worst crime committed in the room.

"Come on," you nudged him. "Give it a try. If no, then I'll do my Queen's Speech."

He bit on his lip, looked at his feet but then gathered himself, pushed slightly forward by your palm on the small of his back.

It took him a while to get the attention but once it did, Hoseok pressured himself to look as blank and unreachable as possible. He hated this. His place was behind everyone, moving them to his own will, sometimes without even their own recognition, not being here, thrust in front of everyone, in front of their judgemental eyes. He narrowed you down and by looking at you was transported all the way back, when his board was a simple outline of the street and his spyglass a wooden stick, and he would explain exactly why one of the neighbour's kids had strangled the cat, to blame his rival for it.

He in the end understood that you already knew that, merely playing along with his childish games. Why he never quite knew but that all played in your sheerly unpredictable nature. You did as you liked, often going against any sort of logic in the end still coming out as a winner.

"As you all know," he strayed not a millimetre away from your face. "We are under an imminent threat of eradication in a few days' time. As far as we've gathered these mutants are controlled by the collars on their necks. Shadow Hacker has not yet completely hacked them, but he can interfere with the signals long enough to make them confused. These dogs cannot be harmed by bullets, knives or any fire that does not reach 1700°C."

"So how the hell are we supposed to kill them?" one of the gang leaders, whom Hoseok had repeatedly screwed over, demanded loudly, garnering some general agreement.

"You're not supposed to kill them!" The Mad Scientist unexpectedly stood up, heated. He clutched his lab glasses in the palm of his hand, while his once white lab coat was greying, tattered even. All around, he did look quite mad.

"They are harmless animals, they were meant to help people before Rinaldi altered their brain perception!"

"Shut up you maniac! You created these monsters and now you want us to spare them! When they're trained to rip our throat out!" One of the women screamed barely, back restraining herself to not jump atop of him.

There was even more agreement, some accused the scientist of being a grave robber, a necromancer and other such terms. Facing the aggressive onslaught, he shrunk back and to be frankly honest Hoseok's heart ached for the man. Pronounced insane when his creation was warped into a mass weapon against his will was nothing short of horrible but the scene of the massacre in front of a clapping, appreciative crowd was too fresh in his mind for him to be fully dismissive that these creatures, no matter how controlled, had to be put down.

"ENOUGH!" Hoseok yelled and, taken aback for they have never heard the Mystic Strategist raise his voice, the crowd did fall silent. "We will not blame anyone here present! The threat, the only threat, is Rinaldi's cleansing campaign and I swear to all that there is we will have our shit together to stop him or we all deserve to die."

"The Ravager has been the main mastermind," the Alley Cat reminded sharply. "I'd like to hear them speak and not you."

"Well, I'm speaking, kitty," Hoseok snarled, "and unless you want to take the responsibility for this whole thing, you will do your best to stop being so irritating."

In spite of clearly being pissed off, the Alley Cat spoke no more, sitting with his jaw tightened on the cusp of darkness.

"Like me, hate me, you all know of my reputation, you've probably spent more than one night wishing me the worst death imaginable," the faces were not of disagreeing expressions. "So let me let you in a little trade secret if the basics are solid, the road will naturally open. The road is definitely made here. You've all made dealings with the Light Fields, smuggling drugs, weapons, food. We all have our own little entryways, undetected by anyone else."

Such a thing was precious to their owners, the trade routes had been the most spirited topic of a power struggle for over a hundred years now. The better the routes, the more goods they could transport in and out of the different zones and that in itself secured power.

"You want us to give out such information for everyone to hear?!" the same woman screamed, this time even louder. "Have you lost your mind? How do we know you won't use it to just gain control over the whole of Orchid?"

Before Hoseok could cut anything back there was a sharp screech outside of his warehouse and through his door, a steel door drove a motorcycle. The driver cruised the crowds, those desperately parting to avoid collision and halted to a grinding stop just in front through Hoseok. The Action Taker. He tossed a haughty, determined glare and Hoseok and climbing off his bike, swung a baseball bat behind his back.

"You don't," he replied to the woman, not taking his eyes off Hoseok. "It would be delusional to rely upon that this man who has done nothing but sucking the blood out of all your hard work would do something so noble as to let this precious information simply slide by."

The Action Taker was young, not entirely inexperienced but Hoseok could see the fresh glint in his eyes, the shine of a man unbroken yet by the Orchid. He was much stronger, the bared arm served enough testament to that but he didn't have eyes in the back of his skull and so he couldn't see that you had moved much closer to the scene, wielding a hidden gun up your sleeve.

That gave Hoseok encouragement like no other. Despite all, you would always fundamentally be there for each other. No matter what happened or how many years had passed. The Action Taker however was alone, desiring a wretched throne that Hoseok no longer saw the point in.

He knew what the man would say before he even said it, so he did the courtesy of sparing him the breath.

"Let me guess, you want me to secede."

The Action Taker's eyes widened briefly.

"It would only be fair," he tightened his fists. "You can have the whereabouts of the trade routes but after this, you'll have to leave."

"Where exactly?" Hoseok arched an eyebrow.

"The Upside."

Hushed murmurs crossed the crowd, even the previously bored Fate Reader straightened in his seat. While it seemed like an ultimatum, an embarrassing one at that, Hoseok glanced over the Action Taker's shoulder, taking a look at your worried face. Would it really be so bad?

He imagined a quiet lazy morning of you and him laying next to each other, for once in your life not fearing of the following day. What did Tessa look like? What did you do upside? All these questions he was yet to ask.

He was done with Orchid. It really was no longer a place for a simple criminal.

And to much shock, Hoseok agreed to the terms without a protest.

They only had thirty minutes of planning, swapping secret entryways and information and then one by one, people began to ask what was that noise. After a few seconds, chillingly they all realized that it was the sound of nails, specifically dog's nails, scraping against the concrete. In screams, people dispersed to wherever their feet took them but it was not soon enough as large shadows jumped into the masses. Hoseok felt a harsh tug on his nape as you pulled him to the side door, Action Taker hot on heels. Behind them rang the repeated booms of gunshots, all useless as the screams only grew in the count.

You ran to one of the cars left behind by someone attending, starting the engine but to their lack of luck, one of the dogs had stayed behind and was quick to jump atop of the car, its sheer size punching a sizeable dent into the roof. Hoseok pushed you deeper into the seat, trying to grasp the fact that he just might be ripped apart today. Suddenly instead of growling, there came high pitched whimpering. The dog fell on the ground, shaking its head left and right, trashing around. The collar around its neck was glowing purple and emitted repeating shrill beeps. Undoubtedly, the saving grace of the Shadow Hacker. The Action Taker leaped out, swung his bat and not long after the creature was dead when its skull was smashed to pieces.

You pushed Hoseok off yourself.

"Go, take Jungkook and go to the Light Fields! The rest will regroup. We have to attack now!"

"No, the hell I ain't leaving you!" he clamoured to get towards you, but obeying your orders for some reason, he found himself gripped tightly and wrestled like a doll by the Action Taker.

The warehouse had grown disquietingly still and more hounds poured from out the doors, chasing the survivors.

"Go!" you insisted, prying Hoseok's hands away from your shoulders. But he would not listen or release. You regarded him with an irritated, albeit softened glare and kissed him. Although short-lived and bitter, tinted with the cloud of fear, it did what it was meant to - it shocked Hoseok enough for him to go slack and for the Action Taker to finally wrench him back into the seat

"Go!" you yelled running away. "You're the only one I trust who can end this!"

15.

The Fate Reader wandered the of rather unperturbed by the bloodbath flourishing all around. He glided near imperceptibly, his followers scattered to regroup in front streets of Light Fields. Whenever he saw a moving shadow he dived languidly away and met little trouble on the way.

"I thought we discussed the matter already," without warning, he spoke over his shoulder, halting in the crossroad.

You emerged from the darkness with a peculiar frown, inspecting him like a kid would an ant underneath a microscope. Or a lens, moments before pointing it towards the sun.

"We discussed it yes," you agreed, " but you did not answer me."

"I will not answer."

An explosion ripped nearby and fire sprung in the air, accompanied by growls and terrorized yowling. It cast long lights on the surroundings and made the Fate Reader gleam from head to toe in the horrid orange of an uncontrolled flame.

"By the end of it, we will have what we want. Fate has been predetermined and Orchid is breathing its last."

"Worked hard to make sure of that," dryly, you smirked, winking at him in a conspiratorial manner.

"So did you."

16.

Action Taker took a sudden swerve to the right and the car shook, nearly splitting in half from the pressure of such reckless driving. But even that did little to put a distance between them and the hounds. They were ripping at the tires, some even managing to briefly hamper onto the vehicle itself. The myriad of bombs Action Taker released perhaps left a dent in the numbers but did not wipe them out completely. Intentional or not, the Mad Scientist had created weapons more perfect than should ever exist.

"We need to go to Rinaldi directly," Hoseok shouted over the noise of the car and the horrendous growls, chasing them like unholy demons amidst decimated, burning streets. He had never considered himself to be religious, but now he found divinity in wishing that you would be safe.

"Yeah just kill him!" the other man agreed, glancing nervously in the rearview mirror only to find nothing but a black rolling mass and illusion of white skeleton faces rolling after them like a typhoon.

"Why do you want me to go to the upside?"

"Are you really asking me that now?!"

"I don't know, we're about to get eaten so when's the better time?!"

He nearly drove into a building, just barely managing to steer it out of the collision.

"I just need to get your position so I could do something!"

"Do what?"

"None of your business! Now shut up!"

By the time they got to the Light Fields, chaos had spread far beyond anyone's control, be it Hoseok's or Rinaldi's. With frequent Shadow Hacker's interference and the mass of panicked, crying people the hounds quickly grew overwhelmed and began to blindly attack anyone in sight. Being resistant to most forms of attack, the newly recruited rebels settled for explosions and blunt attacks like dropping cards or ramming the hounds into walls, often resulting in their own death. Amidst the roaring flame moved the Fate Reader almost like a ghost simply gliding through the pandemonium, above the mortal coil entirely. Briefly, Hoseok even spotted the sooted coat of the Mad Scientist pleading and screaming for his "harmless" creations to stop.

It was all around a wretched sight.

Action Taker crashed at long last the fuming car into a falling slab of light and glass shattered all over the marble floors. The few guards were dead already and, whether complicit to the plan or not, many of Rinaldi's patrons found themselves on the wrongly planned end of the barrel.

Underworld was, without doubt, waging its last fight and there was no going back home anymore. Avoiding anyone and anything that flew their way, Action Taker and Hoseok ran to Rinaldi's presentation room in whose vents the horrible truth was revealed. This time they entered though through the main gate. There were some henchmen still standing, still fulfilling their useless duty even in the end of times. A man's loyalty was really a weapon in itself. Who was killed because of it varied greatly though.

"Get Rinaldi," Action Taker ordered, readying his bat that he was still somehow miraculously carrying along. "I'll take these idiots out! Just see if the dogs can be neutralized off!"

Without any objections, Hoseok abandoned the young man to his fate. Five against one was perhaps a thoroughly uneven fight, but from the sounds of it, that one was a force to be reckoned with.

He snaked the hallways one by one, trying to find any signs of living but there was only the impersonal steel and white gloss of mirror tiles until he finally stumbled upon a room whose door was hanging ajar. He figured it must have once been the Mad Scientist's lab, given the number of erratic sketches and designs pinned to the wall. The only person in there, amidst the dead scientists, all shot, was just Marcus Rinaldi. Blindly smacking input data into the controller of the hounds' collars, all unsuccessful. His hair was mussed and his suit was far from pristine. It took him a moment to realize he was no longer alone in this room.

"A pirate?" he asked, breathless and disbelieving. "Of all the things to sent after me a mere pirate."

"My name is Jung Hoseok," Hoseok corrected him sharply. What he had with himself was just a dagger, his gun remaining back at the warehouse. Knives were so much more intimate murder weapons than a gun. He would have to get close to the man, feel his dying breath on his face. Despite all that he'd seen and done, it still put a tremble in his hand. Yoongi often insisted that their friendship was formed on the fundamental basis that despite their villainy they still had undeniable inklings of goodness. Goodness which in this place and towards this man no longer had a place to reside.

He pulled the dagger from the side of his thigh and pointed it at Rinaldi who after taking a brief glance at it, burst into loud, delirious laughter.

"Your hand is shaking, boy. You would not harm me. You do not have the grit."

"Who do you think you are?" Hoseok retorted. " Do you think you're complicated? Do you think you're special? Because of your money? Because of your cruelty? You're not special. You're not anything."

He moved closer, stelling his resolve as the cacophonous noise of destruction reigned outside.

"You live like a worm underground, Rinaldi. I can tell your entire life story without ever reading it. What was it? Was it your mommy leaving you for a poorer nobody or was it your daddy loving his poor hired ladies more than you?" From the red in Rinaldi's face, Hoseok could tell he had struck the right albeit predictable nerve.

"I saw how you harassed those women so It has to be Daddy's fault. Or rather no those poor people who always harass rich folk like you. The filth you say? Realize that the filth is you and Daddy did not love you because he was neither capable of love and neither are you of being loved, you genocidal maniac."

Rinaldi ripped forward but Hoseok was faster, sinking a dagger into his side. He fell backwards, clutching at the wound.

"You, Rinaldi, are no more special than any other animal that lives and rots here. You live among us, buried before your death and after you die, no one will ever remember your name," he sneered heavily on the seething man. "Now tell me can the hounds be calmed down?"

Rinaldi spat into Hoseok's face and now with much less philosophical agony, Hoseok smacked him back across the face.

"CAN THE HOUNDS BE CALMED DOWN?"

Rinaldi grinned.

"No one will remember me, you say? You will if I let you all die!"

Hoseok scoffed and moved towards the controller. It was more data cramped into the small of the screen than he'd ever seen in his life or could ever understand. All he found recognizable was a paradoxical smiley face blinking at the corner of the screen. He pressed on it and from it popped a log.

"Please grant me access! I can turn the programming off and we're kind of dying here! - The Shadow Hacker."

Hoseok glanced in disgust at the gasping Rinaldi. He perhaps was not the most knowledgable of that man, having no time to do properly exhaustive research but he meant every word. He knew men like Rinaldi and they were all the same, all performing the same despicable conventions while thinking they were above all else.

He would not use numbers. No birth year because his childhood was an embarrassment and no other year because he was simply not capable of creating any relationship he respected enough to memorize.

He was a man who made flourished speeches while guiding an execution. But he would not choose anything as long as a quote of a writer or a poet, those required emotional capacity such a man also did not possess.

His name was too obvious but Hoseok suspected that in a way the access code would be banal. He took a surly, lasting look around the room, its removed concept, cold colours and the fact that geographically was above the normal level of the city and then it came to him, like any other plan.

The Great One, he typed in and with that came a blissful beep. The door to Shadow Hacker's skill was opened but glimpsing out the window, he doubted it would be returned to any sense of normalcy. The damage had been done and it was time for Hoseok either to say here and rot or go with something better. Go with you.

He heard footsteps down the hall and grabbed the dagger, wielding it at the intruder only to lower it when your dishevelled head came into his sight.

'You're okay," he breathed a long, relieved sigh but your expression placed a pause to it.

And then it became very cold. And his back hurt. And he could not turn no matter how he tried like there was lodged something in his back. Rinaldi as his last penance had ripped the blade out of Hoseok's hands, using the opportunity of him forgetting his whereabouts at the sight of you and nestled it deep within his insides. Pain became unbearable, rendering him blind though not entirely deaf. He still heard a single, finite gunshot and then a body falling down. It could also be him. Everything was at once both sharp and removed.

"Hang in! Don't die! I'm going to kill you if you dare to die after we just met again!" you shook him with a teary voice.

Hoseok found it somewhat funny. He always thought you were really funny though he restricted himself from saying so. Why had he done that? What was the point?

"Before - before I go," he chocked, growing colder and more distant by the second. He could no longer see you clearly and even the screams outside were now muffled but still, he reckoned that you must be the loveliest being that he had ever the pleasure of meeting. His best friend, his most fearsome rival and maybe, if time had been more merciful or he had made better choices, you could be his most treasured lover. He had loved you for a long time and he always will and that he finally realized, that was reason.

"No, you will not profess your love for me, while dying," you scolded him through the tears. "We will say it together, healthy and happy, you hear me, bastard?! Do you hear me?!"

No, he did not.

There were then flashes, awkward, angular pictures of something happening, but those were spiralling forms behind his eyelids. Conversations that he could not discern was the frenzy of a dying man or an actual reality. He believed that at some point he heard Yoongi as well and that made him smile, happy to receive his brother back, even if it was an illusion before his ultimate demise. Then he was in heaven.

Or so he presumed.

The air was fresh like never he had breathed before. The scent of it was sweet, not pungent like in the underground. And it was cool and he felt a breeze, like that of a fan but better. Was this... wind? He made a great effort to crack one eye open and then the world was grey. Grey clouds gliding in the sky so far, far up he could not wrap his head around the concept of there being so much space.

"Huh, who would have thought?" he muttered to himself and fell unconscious.

Six months later

"Postal office?" you asked in vague disbelief as Hoseok sat by the counter, a happy smile enriching his already beautiful face. Sometimes you wondered he was the same man you had lived with in the Orchid but even if it was not, there was no denying the fact that Hoseok was made for upside - for fun, for lazy mornings, for sun, though now in much more moderation after he suffered through a heavy sunburn after falling asleep outside one afternoon. He had to use a cane now, it eased his back pain even if the injury was now healed.

"You want to be a postman?" you laughed, recalling that this same man had once been the most nefarious criminal in the underworld.

"Distribution Associate," he corrected with a fake pout as you placed the chocolate eclairs one by one on the plate. The bakery that hired you briefly after popping up from the sewers nearly six years ago was now entering a new phase of development, growing more popular and increasing your bonus alongside it. Many thought this change to be stressful but growing as you had it was a laughable thing if anything.

"Oh, a postal worked and a baker, could we be more cliche?" you shook your head in faint amusement.

"The normals have the darkest past," Hosek added and you shared secret, private smiles.

"Wait a minute," you told him, wiping your hands in the towel. " I need to fetch a new plate."

"Return soon," Hoseok whined, having grown quickly aware that if he did, you were eager to indulge him. " I feel so lonely!"

You pushed the door open to the backroom with a smile, happy but not unaware of the figure sitting in the corner.

"You messed up, you know," Yoongi drawled lazily, shamelessly eating a muffin he had no intentions of purchasing.

"Oh, yeah, when?"

"You referred to Action Taker by his name - Jungkook, before he and Hoseok drove off. Which by all technicalities you should not know."

"And?"

Yoongi paused to briefly glance at the door.

"You think he hasn't figured it out? "

"Even if he has, what difference does it make?" you shrugged. "It's all done anyway."

Yoongi heaved an exhausted sigh but raised no more concerns.

"Why did you choose the name Ravager?"

You continued to search for the plate for some while, thinking of an answer to give. In the end, you never did.

THE END.

༺═──────────────═༻

a/n: chess game has 16 pieces on the board hnce 16 little subchapters :)

© sor-vette, 2022

[subtotechno]

donate to the sarcoma foundation if you're able to

also here's a link to techno's merch lol

...

please read this before judging me for continuing this blog.

THIS IS A ROLEPLAY BLOG OF C!TECHNO. NON-CANON COMPLIANT. NOT MEANT AS IMPERSONATION OR REWRITING. JUST HERE TO HAVE FUN AND MAKE PEOPLE SMILE.

also, this is a FICTIONAL CHARACTER. who lives in a FICTIONAL WORLD. if he says he's doing a crime it is FICTIONAL CRIME. don't flag my shit please lmao

please tag posts abt this blog as #bedrockverse

i reserve the right to ignore asks if i dont want to answer them or if theyre weird. also the right to block you if youre really weird.

run by @thunderbottle

header image is a painting by georges rotig!

...

TAGS/FORMAT:

voices.speak - asks from non-characters

oink.oink - interacting with other characters (asks and threads)

bell.ring - any in-character post

boar.pics - art! or mc screenshots

fire.works - anything unpleasant/angsty lol

t. [text] - talking only to chat, not to other characters

audience.participation - polls

ooc.thunder - out of character stuff

ADDITIONAL TAGS:

dream.on - dream sequences

moses.will - moseswilliams2

mino.taur - stuff about mino the ravager

pig.noblade - shapeshifted into tiny pig

techno.chan - shapeshifted into anime man

[color].za - interactions with colorzas

cherry.tree - lady death-possessed phil

mich.ael - michael _beloved

[mekatrio]

teehee 🤭

like vg fans of any franchise have always been insufferable but zelda fans are unique in their stubborn and long-standing belief of a 'canon timeline' that the developers has disregarded over and over again, and yet they still rever it, making themselves unpleasable and inaccessible to both developers and newer fans who dont know what tf these old fans are talking about. like its insane how when u open up almost any page on the zelda wiki u get smacked in the face with a massive header denoting whether any of this information is [CANON] or [NON-CANON] or [AMBIGUOUSLY CANON]. like wtf? cuz this is all shit that fans made up, the zelda community has just arbitrarily decided what is or isnt canon, what does or doesnt matter 'in the grand scheme of things'. nevermind the fact that developers have stated again and again that they dont give a shit abt an overarching narrative. like theyve been throwing shit at the wall all the way back w twilight princess messing up the oot -> zelda i -> zelda ii chronology, like they never gave a fuckkkkk. and nintendo only pretended to care with hyrule historia bc this franchise was heading down the gutter with the failure of the wiiu, aided by the fact that the DS zelda titles were utter flops bc surprise surprise, not giving a shit abt accessibility while also installing a rigid anti-piracy during the DS's golden age of piracy ended up biting you in the ass (ST and PH being some of the lowest selling zelda titles despite debuting on nintendo's best selling console lmao!) but yes they only pretended to Seriously Care abt the timeline bc they needed the cash, hyrule historia was just a skyward sword artbook in the end AND ALSO THEY STATE THEMSELVES NOT TO TAKE THEIR INTEPRETATION AT FACE VALUE, SMTH FANS LOVEEE TO IGNORE, and ultimately nintendo showed how little they cared abt this timeline they put out by chucking it out entirely when they made botw. lol!

but still fans cling to this false idea of a timeline and an overarching narrative viciously bc if theres something that zelda fans love to do, its believing in shit that isnt fucking there! all while ignoring whats actually there! like how when botw put out an insanely misogynistic, racist, and transphobic segment where you have to sneak into gerudo town, fans fucking lauded it as a win for 'queer' representation! or how fans love to constantly cling to that old as hell aonuma quote abt how oot link was 'intended to be neither male or female' to go on and on abt how link is non-binary representation, when in actuality oot link was based off leonardo di caprio and also, throughout 35+ years of existence, link has never had any sort of character customization in the slightest! link isnt non-binary, youre just a westerner who doesnt understand what bishounens are! constantly applauding the zelda team and nintendo for shit that doesnt exist while completely ignoring the bigotry that does exist, like how zelda fans entirely ignored anyone who pointed out how fucking weird it is that riju, A CHILD, is dressed up in such revealing clothes, while they draw a million fanarts of 'rehydrated ganon' and why? because he's brown and foreign! nevermind that hes literally rotting skin and bones, just the idea of a brown muscular man is enough for you to lose any shame! and ignoring any fans who have said tetra's random whitewashing is weird and racist, or any fans who say the botw male gerudo armor is fucking orientalist, while other fans will draw ganondorf or demise like fucking racist animal-like caricatures. also ignoring the fact that oot's fire temple theme used to have an actual muslim chant in it! zelda fans who will spend days and nights poring over non-existent story implications will ignore ALLLL of this, and act like it doesnt exist, and give any fans who point it out a bunch of shit! all while they continue making up a timeline and lore that doesnt exist!

so im so happy that these fans are being treated the way they deserved and all this 'lore' they rever so much is getting thrown tf away! i hope it continues getting thrown away! i hope every future zelda game is a sandbox with the shittiest dungeons, and i hope epona gets replaced by a honda civic! i hope your beloved medieval setting gets fucked over and you have seven sewer levels! i hope we never get a fishing minigame again, and i hope you keep getting 'queerbaited' like you were with sidon, over and over again like fucking charlie brown and his football! i hope you never get to play as zelda in a zelda title, you dont fucking deserve it! I HOPE ZELDA FANS ARE UNHAPPY FOREVER AND EVERRRRRR <3

I LOVE IT WHEN ZELDA FANS ARE UNHAPPY! I HOPE YOU ARE UNHAPPY FOREVERRRRR

[magnetiix]

Hi! This is a little random, but I wanted to ask if you have any advice for entering the mega man rp blog-sphere? I’ve been really interested in making a character blog and joining the community, but I have no idea where or how to start

Hope this doesn’t come off weird, your blog is just super detailed and organized!

((Omg hi! First off, welcome!! I’m so happy to have another person join us. :D

Secondly, aldskjfhsalkfdjh thank you ^^ I’m really flattered that you came to me for some tips! My blog definitely was not always this organized OR detailed so I’m glad my work has paid off LOL))

((To address your question, I do have some advice! These are from my own experience, so of course everyone goes about things differently.))

((Hi yea future Willow here yet again this got long as fuck oh my god. Advice under the cut, my apologies SGLKASJHDFALKSDJFHAKLJHAD))

((The first thing I’d think about, really, is the kind of story you want to tell. What is the setting of your blog? Is it darker, more serious, or are you interested in something more lighthearted and silly? Is it a mix of both? What canon of Mega Man are you looking at basing your muse off of? There are many many interpretations/adaptations of Mega Man that are considered “canon” verses aside from the games (and their spin-offs!) themselves, such as the Archie comics, Hitoshi Ariga’s Megamix and Gigamix series, other manga, TV shows and animations, and even the worlds developed by the bands The Megas and The Protomen. You might even be interested in diving into your own AU! That’s cool too!!))

((It’ll help for you to write up a blurb about your character of choice, too, detailing their background and where they’re at currently, as well as any abilities you want to address. Having that blurb will help you be able to focus on what is 1) important to your muse and 2) the direction you want to take them. No need to deep dive into anything in the muse bio, though you’re certainly free to if you’d like - I find that it’s much better to have, like, a separate tab for headcanons or ramblings myself, but that’s just me, and I acknowledge that my organization is a bit on the more intense side than is necessary. Also don’t feel pressured to have a direction to take your muse in right away -- it took me literally ten years to figure out what I wanted to do with my OC Moon, and six to be happy with where I was going with Mags. Research is optional for the more scientific aspects of Mega Man, but it can help suspend disbelief, if it’s something you have the time and energy to invest in.))

((These tips are more general quality of life things for making a blog, but please make sure your blog is accessible. Provide links in a pinned post where you can for mobile (and desktop!) visitors, and if you’re choosing to establish a theme for your blog, make sure it’s easy to read and accessible. The built-in pages in the theme editor can be a bit wonky with coding and putting in links, but that’s something that you can ask me about later since I don’t want to deviate too much. Headers and icons and fancy banners and such are purely aesthetic, so don’t worry about those either. Some absolute must-haves for your blog are a set of rules and a muse bio/roster. Include an about page for yourself if you’d like; I find that it’s much easier to establish connections and therefore build RPs with others if I have a name to connect to a person, rather than just their URL. 

Both the rules and muse bio are so important, though. Rules are how you, the writer, establish your boundaries with those you interact with and can include your subject blacklists/DNIs as well. There are people behind your screen, and you are a person behind theirs, and that means communication on comfort is necessary. You can be as detailed or as open as you’d like with these, but do take the time to consider carefully what you’re comfortable with and establish some rules. If you’re not sure about such things, feel free to use my own rules or anyone else’s as a first basis and test out how it feels. There’s also no shame in continually adjusting/updating your rules as your comfort zone changes.

Muse bios/rosters can be WIPs, as long as you have something there for others to look at. They’re how other people can get to know your muse at a first glance and help a lot with establishing introductory threads, and they’re also great references for you! Try as you might, you’re not going to be able to fit everything about your muse in your head! You’re gonna forget! Having that bio is going to help so much, and you have the freedom to update them as frequently or as seldom as you like.))

((Unfortunately, if you’re new to the Tumblr RPC, there’s a lot of hidden etiquette and terms you might not be familiar with. I had to learn about it all on my own, which was rough. It used to be a lot more strict, before the Tumblr p*rn ban of 2018, which I lovingly call the Great Purge. Now, a lot of theme/formatting/rules elitists are gone, but a lot of the jargon still remains. Thankfully, you’re not alone! If you’re ever confused about what a term means or what to do in such-and-such scenario, reach out! I’m more than happy to answer any questions, and I’d also like to point to @publicservicememes for general boundary/etiquette advocation, as well as Blue over at @soulmemes for more advice, tips, and encouragement. Blue is super sweet and can and will readily answer any questions or concerns you might have, if you want a second voice.))

((Finally, for getting your foot into the Mega Man RPC specifically, legit just, like, talk to people! I like to think I’m pretty good at introducing people to others, and I’m sure a lot of my friends can testify to this LSKDJFHFLSKJGHDSF

Some of my friends here are shy, but they’re all super sweet and friendly. You shouldn’t have any trouble making connections if you try and reach out, though I do suggest maybe hopping off anon for that.

I also run a Discord server for the Mega Man RPC (it’s kinda like a plot/AU hub and a place to establish commentary on the events of the dash/any threads without clogging up everyone else’s feed with OOC posts or stuffing it in the tags) but it is invite-only for the sake of everyone’s comfort within the server. As long as I am able to get to know you and am comfortable with you, I might extend an invite to you, too.))

((Hope I was able to help, and good luck, friend! Let me know how things go and please don’t be afraid to come back for more answers if you need them.))

[kookblurx]

1920 - jjk [ chpt 4. ]

→ SUMMARY: a photo of a beautiful smiling boy; an old tree in your grandparents garden ... and a feeling of sadness. all those things are connected to each other ...

→ GENRE: time travel au; changing fate au; rencarnation au; university au; death; sickness; historical setting; trigger topics; smut; dirty talk; switching between present and the past.

→ chapt. 3 / chapt. 5

→ RATING: 18+

→ NOTE: thank you for blowing up the first chapter with so many reblogs and welcome to all new followers. also if there are any creative people among us, feel free to design a header for this story. i will try to include every pic in the next chapters + linking your account. ( no must! ). Also please enjoy the second chapter <3 DISCLAIMER; this is a piece of art, not many events will be historically correctly.

BTS MASTERLIST ♡.°₊ˎ PLAYLIST FOR THIS CHAPTER

The Present:

You waited until your Grandparents went do bed. As the mansion fell silent you finally had the courage to get out of your room. The red skin underneath your eyes indicated that you cried after coming back. to your dissapointment the fairy wasnt with you, no matter how much you had screamed into your room. even the chat guy didnt came online anymore, while so many questions were burning on your tounge. jungkook was a kind man. a kind man who doesnt deserve to die. on tippy toes you made your way over into the library again, sure that there must be something, hidden inside one of the old books. the light was dimm which made it hard to see a thing. only the nearest books were well lit enough to make out the letters on the back of them. with a sigh you pulled 30 books out of their respective place. as you sat down on the ground with them your fingertips slid over the back of each one of them. all of those book were from the year 1918 to 1920. you were sure that you would find something about jungkook in earlier books. books no one had the idea to look into them before you. just because he died in 1920 doesnt mean there arent records about him from earlier.

but as soon your fingers wanted to open the book a knock was heard behind you. your whole body froze, there it was again, another little knock. gulping heavily you turned around to the big window, there was nothing seen beside the huge moon on the sky. there it was again. annoyed you stood up, brave enough to face whatever made that sound. with both hands you opened the huge windows, looking around but there was no one ... until ...

"hey! down here!"

your gaze went downwards into your grandparents garden. at the sight of that stranger you nearly stumbeled backwards. this cant be right? there is no way, right? underneath the small balcony there was a boy, smiling up at you. you knew that smile, of course, because you already saw it two times.

"W-Who are you?" your voice was a whisper but loud enough for him to hear.

"Pff ... you wrote with me earlier. Im Jimin by the way!" before he could shout more you decided to wave him up.

to your suprise Jimin was really skilled in climbing, it didnt took him long to jump on your balcony.

"do i wanna know how you knew where i live?"

another grin from him "your IP adress baby. You should get a VPN when you write with strangers"

you just rolled your eyes as he just went inside, in the meantime you closed the windows. Jimin looked around the library, whistling at all the books. thats when you noticed that he had a huge bag with him. before you could ask he sat down between the scattered books and opened his bag. there were a lot of different documents which he places right in front of him.

"come, im sure this will be of your interest" jimin waved you to him.

a bit hesitant you sat down beside him. it was still so weird. he looked like park jimin, his name was jimin and he even smiled like him. was park jimin his ancestor? shaking your head you took one of the documents into your hands. on the paper were various dates and locations.

"be careful. i need to bring them back later ... i got in a lot of trouble obtaining these. my uncle nearly killed me there" he took another paper and held it in front of your face. it showed a family tree and many more dates. "here look. thats jeon jungkook's family tree. do you notice something strange?"

"it ... stops after him" your fingers traced the letters of his name. underneath the blurry picture and his name .. was nothing. the family stopped continueing.

"exactly. he was the last one. no siblings, no nephews, no cousins. he was the only and the last one of his family."

"so you mean ..."

Jimin clicked with his tounge "the rumour that his family got rid of all the info involving him .. isnt true. because there is no family left. his family and family name died with him."

you couldnt wrap your head around it. if it wasnt his family, who was it then? slowly something struck you as your gaze moved back into jimins face.

"say Jimin, are you ... maybe related to Park Jimin? A guy who was Jungkook's best friend"

"hm yeah. thats why i was able to get all of these. I dont know why they were hidden on our attic tho"

"what was the relationship between your family and the Jeon's?!" out of the blue you grabbed Jimin's shoulders.

"Yah! I- I dont know! i just stumbled over them after i searched the attic for more clues" maybe jimin was really clueless. but what if it was his family who got rid of every trace Jungkook left?

Your hand reached out for another document on the top of it was a picture of Kook. much better quality than the one on the family tree. as usual he was smiling, brightly. you couldnt understand how someone would be able to kill such a positive person. seeing him smile like this and knowing what fates awaited him, made your heart break a bit. Jimin noticed that as he placed a hand on your shoulder.

"why are you so invested in his case? i mean, im a history nerd but you? you dont seem like it"

for a second you werent able to find the right words as they got stuck inside your throat "I ... I just ...-"

the more you looked at the picture the heavier your heart felt. there was something inside your chest, it tightened and suddenly out of the blue you heard the female voice again:

"oh come dont be like that. Smile for me! You know i love your smile!"

your heart grew heavier ... then there was another voice

"why ... why are you always leaving. dont go. what if you die out there?! ... i dont care if its your duty! Please stay with me!"

slowly a tear rolled down your cheek. the document you just had in your hand slipped out of it and onto the ground. jimin tried to shake your shoulder, saying something but you couldnt hear him. because the next thing you heard wasnt a womans voice, it was the voice of a men:

"dont worry okay? i will come back. i always came back to you. you will see, we will be together soon. just wait for me!"

with that sentence the time suddenly stood still. as the tears rolled down your cheeks you finally noticed that the shaking had stopped. slowly you looked around, finding jimin frozen in place beside you. one of your hands reached out to your cheek, wiping away all the tears which just kept going and going.

"you heard it right?" there she was again, the fairy sat down on one of the books. her eyes looked at all the documents on the ground in front of her "you heard his voice and .. her voice."

"that was ... his voice right? Jungkook's voice. it sounded so real ... it sounded like he was right next to me"

the fairy nodded a bit "your life and his fate are deeply connected to each other. it wasnt a coincidence that you came here Y/N. it was fate."

everything was too much. you were always able to hear voices which werent there, back in university. but you always told yourself that you were tired because of all the exam stress you had. now this fairy is telling you why you hear those voices.

"he needs you Y/N. You found another trigger point within those documents ... are you ready to travel again? to the day that picture was taken?" the fairy pointed at the smiling face of Jungkook "dont worry, the time here will stand still. he wont notice that you are gone"

wiping away your tears you looked over to jimin again. the fairy was right, your fate was to help junkook, to prevent the things that had happened to him. slowly you stood up, nodding a bit.

"yes.. im ready. take me to him"

taglist:

@junecat18 @hellbornsworld @stupendouscookiehumanmug

[kelieah]

i’ll be back (mob!arvin russell x reader)

request (summary): anon: mob arvin x reader where reader comes home from work to tell him that somebody groped her and he gets all protective or something?

word count: 0.8k

warnings: language, violence, tw: sexual assault— please read at your own risk!

edited: kind of a shitty ending sorry jehfse

a/n: i am LIVING for mob!arvin russell rn. how have we not come up w this. seriously,, like ksdjfhsdb. also ive never posted a fic w/o a header of gif this is weird lol

main masterlist | arvin russell masterlist

You inhale deeply and shakily attempt to unlock the front door of your house. You drop the keys and curse to yourself, picking them right back up. You exhale and try to shake off the utter shock and disbelief you’re feeling due to previous events at work. You finally lock the door and allow yourself in, sliding down the door as you close it.

“Hey darlin’— doll? What’s wrong,” Arvin walks down from upstairs, his previous soft expression turning into a concerned one as he glances at your poor state.

“O- Oh, it’s nothing honey. Just— just work things y’ know,” you laugh timidly and wave your hand in dismissal. 

He sighs heavily and walks over, holding out his hands. “C’mere. Come on, up,” he motions for you to grab his hands. You let out a quiet huff and oblige, giggling as he swoops you up in his arms. “Would you like a drink, baby?” he asks while holding you close to his chest.

“Yeah, that sounds nice. Thank you, lover,” you whisper softly and smile at the man before you. Who would’ve thought. This goddamn mobster, a complete softy for his kin. You knew that of course, but everyone else would think you’re mad. Most mobsters in this day didn’t care much about their family or lovers, treated them like accessories or belongings. You’re blessed with Arvin, who grew up loving and defending his loved ones like no other leader out there.

He places you down on the couch and walks over to grab some whiskey. Once he finishes pouring the two of you glasses, he sits right next to you and hands you a glass. You gingerly accept it and grasp the glass ever so lightly, your mind still in a daze of the experience.

“Flower? You’re scarin’ me a bit not gonna lie,” he mutters and drops his hand onto your thigh, gently squeezing it. “Talk to me, I’m here for you.”

You flinch at his touch and shake your head for a moment. Arvin immediately pulls away and looks at you with eyes full of worry and shock. You’ve never flinched at this touch, never. Anxiety began to bubble up inside of the both of you as tension rose in the air. 

Not realizing your were eyebrows knit together so tight it looks as if you’re in pain. You close your eyes and the memories flash through your mind like a film. You open them, tears now present in your doe eyes as you glance back at Arvin. Your lips quiver as you open your mouth and begin to tell him what had happened at work.

“You’ve been doing so well, Mrs. Russell. Excellent work might I say,” your boss praised as he walked you to his office.

You smiled happily and hugged some files to your chest. “Is that so? Thank you very much, I work hard for this company,” you beamed.

“Course! We’ve all noticed, and I say you should be rewarded for your efforts,” he replied and moved towards his desk, leaning upon it. “Come come, sit. I must tell you.”

You quickly sit and look up at him excitedly. You had a feeling that a promotion was on your way. “Yes, sir?”

He smirked and took a seat next to you, shaking his head while letting out a quiet chortle. “I want to give you a promotion!”

“Oh! How kind of you—”

“But, I do have one more task for you,” he said lowly, his voice almost purring in a way. 

Blinded by eagerness and joy of a promotion, you only nodded and leaned in. “What is it, Mister?”

He smirked and placed his hand on your thigh, squeezing your skin firmly. You had let out a gasp and before you could rip away the disgusting man had grabbed your face.

“H- He then,” you stammered as tears stream down your cheeks. “He did, he did horrible things. I- I feel disgusting, like a whore—”

“No. You’re not a damn whore, far from it. Trust me,” Arvin cut you off and downed the rest of his drink. He sighed begrudgingly as he placed his glass aside and ran his hands through his suit to feel for something. He took out his pistol and cocked it, checking to see if there were any bullets left. He slams the magazine back into the gun, stuffs it into his back pocket and stood up swiftly. 

He leans down and presses a long, warm and loving kiss against your temple. “How bout you relax, finish your drink, run a bath and sleep. When I come back home, I’ll make dinner. How’s that sound, sweetheart?” he murmurs against your skin while holding the back of your head. Too stunned to reply you only nod and smile weakly at your husband. “I’ll be back,” he presses one last kiss to your head and walks off. Knowing all too well what he was about to do, you nod acknowledgingly with a small grateful smile and watch him walk off. 

taglist + inbox link under the cut! thanks for reading ツ

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@spideyyeet @theamazingtomholland @geminiparkers @musicalkeys  @cocoamoonmalfoy​ @starlight-starks @dummiesshort @madz-holland @axen-gers @repostcentral​ @theliterarymess​ @peterspideyy​ @calltothewild​ @lillucyandthejets​ @missyouhollnd​ @lowkey-holland​ @hufflepuffprincess24​ @thehumanistsdiary​  @justafangirlduh​ @tomsgf​ @dhtomholland​ @thegirlintheswivelchair 

[ranboo5]

Tired of bad takes about Ranboo (character)? Tired of Twitch chat? Tired of the weird dichotomy of woobification and villainization Ranboo (character) gets saddled with? Tired of trying to be excited about an unhinged little man that a frustrating amount of people just believe? Tired of having nowhere to pursue the thankless duty of being pretentious about a fictional mentally unwell enderman? Tired? 

Then this Discord which I link in the reblog because this won’t show up in the tags if it has a link in it is for you! 

Ranboo Enjoyers Warily Against Ranboo Enjoyers (AKA REWAREcord) is a Discord for Ranboo discussion brought to you by myself, a Technoblade defender and haver of “your vworp vworp is an unreliable narrator” as its header, and my associates, featuring: 

- PluralKit availability  - content updates (including Ranmail leaks!) - liveblogging (substitute Twitch chat!) - discussion and headcanon channels for if you want to Study Him  - category names we worked way too hard on  - choice emotes (including a few stolen from Ranboocord and a few homemade)  - moderation roles that look like this: 

- and more!