#might make another post about this in the future about the “miss you” code

[thestraybunny]

The Landing|Y.JH Part 1

Pairing: Guide Singer Jeonghanx Afab! reader Full WC: 11.7k Genre: Non-Idol AU, Neighbors to lovers, Rated: M (18+, MDNI) Warnings: Smut, Angst, Fluff, Unplanned Pregnancy, unprotected sex (practice safe sex yall), idiots in love (and I mean they are idiots), Reader is in denial of her feelings and the obvious, reader is a single mother, toxic ex, mentions of past abuse, drinking, smoking. (Will add more as parts go on and please let me know if I miss any)

Summary: Jeonghan is an asshole. He is blunt, rude, and sometimes its wondered how he had friends at all. But the thing is. He is an asshole to everyone, but two people. A single mother and her son in his building.

A/N: Thank you again to @gam3bo17 for beta reading this. It means a lot! *Reader is a 95er like Jeonghan* As I said in my teaser I contemplated posting this, but I worked hard on this and I am very proud. You will see mentions of Joshua's installment (she is named in this), and you are going to see hints at some future fics, but these fics can be read as stand alone. I hope you enjoy! Please be sure to read my rule/guidelines Rules/Guidlines K-Series Masterlist

**September**

Baby🍑: Hey, Hanni! Can you do me a huge favor??? Baby🍑: I am running late here at work, and Ren is nearly home from tutoring. Mom won’t be able to get him for another hour and I don’t know when I will be getting out of here, could he hang out at your place until either me or her get there? Jeonghan: Of course! I just got off the subway and almost home. I’ll be there soon. He knows to let himself in, he has the code. Baby🍑: You are seriously such a life saver! I will be home soon, and I’ll bring the beer tonight.

Jeonghan smirked as he read your response, before slipping his phone back into his messenger bag to make his way through the crowded subway station; not needing to respond. Picking up his pace slightly once onto the street leading to his apartments since he didn’t want Ren, your eight year old son, to be waiting for him for too long. His place may be a young boy’s dream, he would rather not leave one free to roam in for too long.

Plus, he couldn’t wait to see either of you.

--

“I am so very sorry,” You gasped out, finally reaching your floors landing, only to find Jeonghan handing off Ren’s backpack and weekend bag to your mother. Both looking to be packed like it was every week he went to his grandparents. The three of them turned toward you before you spoke, already hearing your feet on the staircase.

“Mama!” Ren yelled out with excitement, releasing your mother’s hand to run to you, nearly knocking you back. His arms wrapped tight around your waist, your eyes dropping right to the thick dark mop of hair, a wide smile gracing your lips as you plant a kiss on the top of his head. Making sure to hug him back with all your might. “Mr. Jeonghan got a new Lego set and says he’s gonna wait until I come home so we can put it together. It’s a spaceship.”

“That is so nice of him,” You respond, glancing up toward the other two, catching a glimpse of the dark haired man leaning against the door frame of his apartment, arms crossed as he watched you both. You could see he was fighting a smile before he finally tore his gaze from you. “Thank you so much again for watching him.”

Jeonghan shot you a wink before bidding you all a good night and closed his apartment door. Leaving the three of you alone on the landing. Turning your attention to your mother, you could see the knowing look she was giving you as she walked toward you and Ren. Your son’s bags in one hand as the other reaches for the boy’s hand.

“I’ll pick him up after work Sunday afternoon. That way you and dad could have the evening to relax.” You tell her, letting her pull Ren from your arms and gave her a half hug.

“Don’t worry about it. Me and your father have decided to close the shop Sunday and Monday. So, we can keep him, and I’ll walk him to school.” She waves off your words, looking down at Ren with a smile. He was staring off into space, absentmindedly swinging his and his grandmother’s hand. When she looked back toward you, you were wearing a look of worry, and she waves you off again, “Don’t give me that look. It’s nothing. Your father wanted to take Ren fishing Sunday, and you know with his hip and leg, he won’t be able to move much the next day. Plus, he didn’t want me to open and work the shop alone. He ran the numbers and found it won’t hurt us to be closed a day or two. So stop that worrying now.”

You gave her a doubtful look, not sure if you should believe her or not. Your parents have been running the small restaurant since before you were even born, it was only closed a total of six times in your life. Your birth, when you got appendicitis, important school events like graduation, and the day that Ren was born.

“Besides, I’m sure you would like to spend some extra time with your boyfriend without worrying about Ren here,” She whispers, making sure that Ren was still off in his own world before speaking. This only earned a sigh from you.

“He’s not my boyfriend, Mom, it’s nothing like that at all. He’s a friend and neighbor who helps me out with Ren sometimes,” You shake your head, keeping your own voice low but you wouldn’t look at her. “I don’t want Ren to get the wrong idea about us.”

“You mean, you don’t want to get attached,” She challenges, straightening her back, and this made you look at her, feeling like you were looking at your future self. “I don’t mean or want to sound cruel, but as a single mother, your chances at finding a husband is slim. Most men wouldn’t look at you twice once they learn about Ren, and this man looks at you like you walk on water. I wouldn’t ignore that if I was you.”

“Thanks for that Mom,” Your voice had a dry tone to it, shaking your head again and adjusted your bag onto your shoulder. “He doesn’t look at me in anyway, nor is there anything between us. He’s my neighbor and a friend.”

“Mmmhmm, I made you some dishes, and they are right there,” She points toward the bright pink bundle on the ground next to your front door. Filled with containers of different foods your mother would make you. Always making enough that you didn’t have to worry too much about cooking through the week. “I was going to put everything away, but Ren’s things were already packed. If nothing is going on, then I would be concerned that he has such easy access to your apartment.”

“Me and Ren have just as easy access to his too.” You cross your arms, trying to not show that your statement was not helping your case whatsoever.

“You must be very good friends then,” Your mother quipped, and it was then Ren snapped out of his daydream with a look of confusion. “I’d call you later, but I am sure you will be busy.”

“Mom!” You gasped, as the two of them started down the stairs.

“Bye Mama!” Ren called out, and you had to lean over the railing to make sure he saw you waving.

“Bye Ren baby. Bye Mom.” You yell out before turning to look toward Jeonghan’s closed apartment door. Your mother didn’t know what she was talking about.

--

There was a knock a few hours later, a soft one that Jeonghan was surprised he was able to hear over the music. Pausing the random song that was playing on his Spotify, the dark haired man stopped briefly to check his reflection in the mirror. Making sure his clothes didn’t have any stains on them, his hair wasn’t too wild, and that he looked good before opening the door. Knowing full well who was on the other side.

In attempts to look cool and sexy, he leaned his arm against the doorframe while wearing his best lazy smirk. Bottom lips between his teeth, and his eyes raking over his guest with interest.

“Stop trying to look cool, you look silly.” You tease, making his eyes look back up to your smiling face, though he wanted to go back to checking you out in the little black tank dress you were wearing. It was one of the ones you would wear when you were home, along with your favorite fluffy bunny slippers. The way it clung to your body made him nearly lose his mind, and it was so easy to slip off you. In one hand you had your phone, and in the other was a six pack of his favorite beer.

Holding up the case of beer, you spoke again proudly, “See, told you I would bring the beer tonight.”

If it was anyone else who told him that he looked silly, Jeonghan may have had a smartass remark ready, or even would return the joke with a more brutal comment about their appearance, but with you, he couldn’t bring himself to. Instead, he just let out a small laugh as he let you into his apartment but grasped your wrist when you went to walk past him, likely to the kitchen to put the beer away, to make you face him.

The smile on your face softened to a sultry smile, one that didn’t help his sanity one bit, before you closed the distance to kiss him. Quick, but it made him want to grab the back of your head to pull you into another. One that would involve his tongue teasing yours and would probably cause you to drop what was in your hands, but he let you go instead, not wanting to clean up broken glass and spilled beer. Letting you continue your journey into his kitchen to put the beer away. Sans the two that you kept out for you both to drink.

His dark eyes followed you as you walked, loving the way your hips naturally swayed or how the dress hugged your ass. Heat rushed over his body straight to his cock when you bent forward to put the beers away, the dress riding up only slightly to give him more of a glimpse of your thighs.

He couldn’t fucking wait to pull it off you.

“Did you help Ren pack his things today?” You asked him when he joined you into the kitchen, handing him a now open beer. Your phone left upright on the counter, only ever close in case there was an emergency with Ren.

“Yeah, he wanted to show me his new dinosaur collection that you got him, so I figured might as well do it while we were at it. One less thing for you or your mom to worry about,” He answers with a shrug, before looking at you with a look of concern, trying to not show a small wave of panic rushed through him. “Was that okay?”

“More than okay.” You tell him, taking a swig of your own beer while leaning against the kitchen counter. Jeonghan moves to join you, taking another swig. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to though. I don’t expect anything like that from you. Just watching him when I need it is enough.”

“Just that?” Jeonghan questioned you, the bottle barely brushed against his lips, looking at you from the corner of his eyes. Setting your beer bottle down, you push off the counter and stood in front of him.

That sultry smile back on your face, your hands reaching out to touch his chest and the tips of your fingers brushed over the skin that was exposed under his oversized button up. Enjoying that he would leave the several buttons undone, making it easy for you to tease the exposed skin. Soon your arms around his neck, and he moves his beer to the counter to place his on your hips. Bunching your dress in his fists, pulling it up enough that the bottom curve of your ass was exposed.

“When it comes to him, yes. However, for me…” You drop your gaze down to his lips, and Jeonghan’s grip tightened on the stretched fabric of your dress. He held his breath as he watched you move your lips closer to his, heart pounding in his ears every time you were this close to him. He wanted you to run your fingers through his dark hair, commenting how much it has grown since you met, and that you loved the length. The hair barely brushing the bottom of his neck.

He wanted you to tell him how much you wanted him. How much you missed his touch. He just wanted you to tell him anything so you would keep touching him and he kept touching you.

“For you what?” The was a husky tone to his voice.

“Well, for one, there is so much you could be doing to me right now.” Your voice was low, almost a whisper and fuck did it feel like silk wrapping around him like a blanket. Your breath hitting his lips, and he could smell the little bit of beer you drank but he didn’t care. He wanted you to tell him so he could act on it. “And with those things, I expect plenty of orgasms for both parties involved. I heard that the neighbor isn’t going to be home tonight, so we know she won’t be making any noise complaints.”

This made him laugh, since you were the neighbor, a smile on his face that one was designated for you, before kissing you. He loosens his grip on your dress to move one up to the back of your neck, the other staying on your hip. Your own hands moved to cup his face, your tongues gently teased each other’s. A low moan starting to erupt from the back of your throat.

It ignited a fire inside him, his craving to have you taking hold. He wanted you in so many ways that night, and well into the morning. To pull you back into bed when you try to slip out and back to your apartment, trying to claim that you needed to get things done while Ren wasn’t home. Except you never resisted when he did pull you back into the comforts of his arms and his blankets. Starting all over again.

Both of you never able to feel sated long, continuing to chase that feeling well into the morning. Keep going until you were laying together, just staring at his ceiling. He didn’t think that nearly a year ago, that taking pity on a little boy sitting on the landing next to his apartment would bring him here. With you here in his arms, and the happiest he has ever been. All thanks to you and Ren.

The only thing that he would make him even happier, and wished different was your relationship. Or lack thereof. You were neighbors/friends with benefits, two people who found friendship and the comfort of being in each other’s. Nothing more than that.

Ren didn’t know about the two of you, nor did you want him to know. You didn’t want to confuse your son, and that effectively cutting off the possibility of anything more than this.

If this was all you were able to offer, then he would take what he could get.

--

**almost a year ago**

“You need to fucking talk to her about this shit, not me.” Jeonghan scolded into the phone, absolutely over his best friend calling to complain about his girlfriend and the problems they were having. Problems that could easily be solved by just fucking talking. It was driving him nuts. “At this point, I can’t stand either of you. I am honestly considering changing my damn fucking number.”

Jeonghan loved his best friend more than words could describe, he hated watching him and the girl of his dreams have issues, but he could only hear so much. Especially when the other man wouldn’t take his, Seungcheol’s, or anyone else’s in the group’s advice. Which was just be honest and talk to her. What he would give for a night without hearing Joshua’s problems.

It wasn’t a good look on his usually calm and collected friend and took away from Jeonghan’s all-round cranky glory. It was quite annoying as much as he felt for him and was honestly just effecting his own mood.

“Blah blah blah. Call Coups about this. Maybe you’ll finally take his advice instead.” Jeonghan snapped, fed up about hearing it any longer, and hung up on the other man as he reached his door. “Fucking stubborn ass couple. They’re meant for each other.”

He was so focused on his call and the desire to get into his apartment with a cold beer that he didn’t see the young boy sitting against the wall next to his door. It wasn’t until he went to put in his code that he noticed him, probably no older than seven or eight, with a manga open in his lap. Except the boy wasn’t reading, he was just watching Jeonghan with curiosity. His bangs were falling over his eyes and the glasses he was wearing, still in his school uniform.

He had seen him a few times in passing. His neighbor’s kid.

“What are you doing out here?” Jeonghan found himself asking without thought, his hand still hovering over the keypad. The boy continued to watch him for a moment before finally speaking.

“My mom told me that the battery died on the lock’s keypad, and she’s not able to change it until tonight, so I needed to remember my key.” The boy answered, before looking down sheepishly at his book. “But I forgot them when I left for school this morning. And she’s still at work.”

“Why don’t you go to her work?”

“It’s far away and I don’t know how to get there.”

“And you can’t call her?”

“I’m seven. I don’t have a phone.” He answered, and Jeonghan let out a soft chuckle. He had him there.

“She gonna be home soon?” Jeonghan didn’t know why he was talking to the boy, or even why he even cared so much, but there was something about him that struck something in him. Not liking the idea of him sitting out on the landing until his mom got home. The boy looked at his watch.

“It’s four-thirty, she doesn’t get home until six.” He tells him. If he remembered correctly, primary school students get out around one in the afternoon. Has he been out here this whole time?

Now he really didn’t feel comfortable leaving him out there alone.

“How long you been out here?”

“Not long. I went to play with my friend Soobin at the park for a bit, but he had to go home to help with his baby sisters. He has three!” He held up three fingers, “I didn’t remember that the lock was dead until I got home, or I would have asked him if I could go with him. I managed to get some of my homework done though.”

“Well, if you want, you can come hang out with me until she gets home. Use my phone to call her,” The dark haired man then offered, and the boy watched him carefully. Clearly weighing his options and trying to gauge if it was wise to go into a strangers apartment. Even if it was his neighbor.

Jeonghan didn’t think he was giving off any creeper vibes, but he couldn’t fault the boy for considering his choices. Sure that his mom had educated him to be weary to strangers.

“You promise to not kill me?” He then asked, and this made Jeonghan snort a laugh. Simply because he was caught off by the question.

“I promise that I won’t kill you, kid.” He assured, and the boy scrambled to his feet, grabbing his backpack in the process to follow Jeonghan into the apartment. The moment he had walked through the threshold of Jeonghan’s, his eyes grew wide at the different kinds of posters, figures, model vehicles and buildings, and other things that he loved to collect. Closing the door behind them both, Jeonghan pulled his messenger bag off and moved toward the kitchen. “You got a name?”

“Of course I do!” The boy chuckled, turning away from one of the large displays to look at the older man. “My name is Ren.”

“Nice to meet you, I’m Jeonghan.” He turned to pull out a couple of sodas out of the fridge. “Thirsty?”

After getting them both drinks, Jeonghan gave Ren his phone to try and call his mom to let her know where he was but only got her voicemail. He left one and the two of them hung out for that hour and a half, with Jeonghan checking periodically to see if his mom had made it home yet. It wasn’t until six-twenty when she had trudged up the steps. Exhaustion and what looked like defeat playing over her features, bag nearly falling off her shoulder, and a large bag of takeaway in her hands.

Clear signs she already was having a long day.

She looked relieved to see Ren when he came out of Jeonghan’s apartment, looking like the weight lifted off her when she saw him. Setting the bags down, she engulfed the boy into a tight hug, and just watching the two made Jeonghan smile. Then she looked up and met his eyes, and the world around him shifted. Everything else disappeared and it was only her. You.

It was the night you and Ren walked into his life.

--

Your eyes felt like they were permanently rolled back as Jeonghan’s cock thrusted into you, filling you and hitting the right spots from this angle. Legs hooked at the bend of his arms, pressing you flat into his mattress, completely open at his mercy. Being filled over and over by his thick cock, bare and felt every inch. It was heaven to you have him inside you like this, your moans and whimpers of his name and praises louder as they were mixed with breathless curses.

Truthfully, it was an incredibly stupid move on both your parts, but neither of you could bring yourselves to care. Too lost in each other’s bodies, too busy trying to reach peak after peak together. Ones that no one had ever brought you to, let alone putting you ahead of their own, instead of leaving you behind. 

Jeonghan’s eyes stayed fixed on your face, his own moans leaving him with his own string of words. Validation while mixing traces of names that would otherwise offend you, encouragement as he watches you come undone under him. Telling you how good you were for him, how gorgeous you looked taking him the way he had you. Begging you to cum for him, that he wanted to feel you around his cock. Coating it with your own release.

“Where do you want me to cum, baby?” His question sounded a little strained, before letting out a moan that sounded like beautiful music; melodies that were only meant for you. You watch his bottom lip find its way firmly between his teeth, his face unable to hide how good you felt, how good he felt as your orgasm rushed over you. Clinging to him that brought him closer to his.

“In… Inside… please…” You pant out, not wanting him to cum anywhere else. Jeonghan and you had only been with each other since starting this, the last time you were with anyone else was three years previous, and you both were clean. You were on birth control, and it wasn’t like this was the first time he had finished in you.

It was a regular thing.

You had to admit it too, you loved the feeling of being full of him, even after he pulls out of you. It felt like he was leaving his claim in you without the world needing to see. That in a way you were his. Something that only the two of you shared, and it was the closest you would allow yourself with him.

His mouth captures yours into a kiss, tongues tangling, as he picks up his pace. With each thrusts growing sloppier and more desperate. Pulling away, Jeonghan’s forehead pressed up against yours, his eyes squeezed shut as he filled you. Coating your inner walls with stripes of his cum and refused to slow down until he had nothing left to empty in you. Leaving you full like you wanted.

Something he loved doing just as much as you loved him doing it to you.

Unhooking his arm from one of your legs, the dark haired man’s hand reached to cup your face, both of you trying to steady your breathing. Strands of hair tickling your skin as you stayed that way, neither of you making any moves to detach yourselves from each other. Staying attached while you both came down.

It was you who opened your eyes first, seeing him with his own shut but his face was now relaxed instead of the look of pleasurable concentration he originally had. There was a sheen of sweat over your skins, and you’re spent for the moment. Both of you trying to grasp for your bearings. This wasn’t the last time that night you were going to be in this position, or any other one for that matter, or even well into the morning.

Around Ren, the both of you were able to keep your hands to yourselves, giving off the illusion that you were just friendly neighbors. But he was gone to your parents, and it was just the two of you, it was a different story. Neither of you could keep your hands off each other, only able to go so long without going at it again. With all it taking is a simple look from you, the tips of Jeonghan’s fingers brushing over your skin just right, or when either of your lips would find a weak spots. Ready for each other quickly.

“I got to pee,” You finally broke the blissful silence, your body being the one to decide that it was time to part. Jeonghan made a noise of protest but reluctantly agreed.

Both of you groaned when Jeonghan finally pulled away from you, sensitive to the touch, before flipping onto his back to stare at the ceiling while you got up to hurry to the bathroom. He joined you a few minutes later after you finished cleaning yourself up, to do the same for himself.

“You hungry?” He asked once the two of you were now relaxing comfortably back on his sofa, you back in your dress (just no underwear), and him in a T-shirt and boxers. You had barely taken a swig of a freshly open beer, and not getting a chance to respond before he had his phone out to pull up the delivery app. Checking out all the options available.

“I can eat.” You answer him, picking up the remote that he had tossed to you. Letting you pick what to watch against his better judgement. “What were you thinking?”

“If I felt like leaving, I would suggest we check out this little food stand that my friend Mingyu knows of. He’s been talking about taking all of the guys for over a year now but disappears to go see his girlfriend before the nights over. It’s only open a few hours a night, but we been drinking and I don’t feel like walking. I am sure you don’t either.” He then shot a glance toward you, his eyes raking over your frame with a smirk, “I also plan to have that dress off you again and keep it off you for the rest of the night. Plus it’s cold so that would mean more clothes to pull off you.”

“That is a lot of reasons to not go. I’m good with whatever you want.” You nodded, flipping through the different apps to find something to watch. Pretending to not see the mock dirty look he gave you, since he knew full well that you had every intentions on having him choose. In the entire time you had been seeing each other, he had yet to pick something that you didn’t like and vice versa. Well unless it’s your taste in movies or television according to him, but for the most part, you trusted his judgement. “You have any idea of what you want to watch?”

“I’m good with whatever you want.” Jeonghan retorted back, and you shot him your own look, seeing the playful smirk playing over his lips; ordering from the same little restaurant that you always ordered from. “No fun, is it?”

“You have good taste in food, while you tell me I have bad taste in movies and T.V.” You retort, earning a chuckle from him. “You can’t complain on what I pick then.”

“Of course, I can. I can complain all I want. Maybe so much to the point you will need to sit on my face to shut me up.” The way his tongue ran over his lips as the smirk switched from a playful one to a suggestive one, adding a wiggle to his brows. This made you snort before bumping his shoulder.

“I think the term is ‘kiss me to shut me up.’” You tell him as he turns his phone toward you to make sure you were okay with what he was ordering, which you nod your approval. He places the order.

“I mean, technically I am telling you to kiss me. Just with your other lips.” This time he earned a smack on the shoulder, a gentle one, but he still feigned injured. Only he wasn’t able to hold back his laughter as he tossed his phone onto the coffee table and grabbed the remote from you. “I’ve reconsidered letting you pick.”

--

**November**

“You didn’t call me back last night.” Joshua spoke up after swallowing a mouth full of ramen, looking up toward Jeonghan from across the table. It was their weekly dinner with their other friend, Seungcheol. So far the conversation consisted mostly about Joshua and his girlfriend getting back together, or Seungcheol complaining over work and wedding planning.

Jeonghan, however, had just stayed quiet and listened to the conversations in front of him with very little interest. Focusing mostly on his food and his fourth beer of the night. He gave his input when needed, which was mostly a snide comment or when a call out was needed, but he kept to himself mostly.

“And you still haven’t answered my texts from two weeks ago, but here you are responding to Luci’s messages in front of me. I would say me not calling you back is pretty damn warranted. So, what’s your point?” Jeonghan shot back, catching the way his best friend’s skin tinted a little red at the call out. Seungcheol could only watch the exchange, gauging the situation and Jeonghan’s temperament while chewing his food.

Jeonghan wasn’t just withdrawn at this dinner, but it has been going on for the last month and a half. Especially after his birthday, and this had not gone unnoticed by the other members of their friend group. Choosing to stay home more than usual or appeared checked out when he was around them. At least more checked out than usual. Always appearing to be lost in thought with whatever it was that had been on his mind. Which he was.

You had been pulling more overtime at work to cover a coworkers workload while they were on vacation, so you were working late until they had gotten back. Even having you go in on your days off to keep up with it, which made it hard to match up with Jeonghan’s own schedule. Making it harder to see each other.

Ren had been staying at your parents’ more, either staying late or just staying over completely most night, so Jeonghan had not gotten to really see either of you. Going from seeing each other near daily.

You and him did your best to work something out, but it didn’t feel the same. Instead of spending your free evenings and days off together, enjoying beers and each other’s companies, it was quickies before you had to get some sleep or if Ren was there. Trying to be quick in case he woke up to catch Jeonghan slipping from your bedroom.

What didn’t help was you weren’t feeling well either, unsure if it was a stomach bug, stress from work, or something else entirely. Jeonghan had considered the possibility, and considered bringing this up to you, but he wasn’t sure it that was something to casually ask between quick hellos on the landing or quick hooks ups where the main goal was to just cum. Eventually, he just went with the idea it was likely from stress with work.

Though the thought did linger at times.

But it ended up putting Jeonghan in a bad mood. He missed you. Missed both you and Ren. It put him in such a funk that he didn’t want to go out or really do anything for that matter, just sit around and mope. Hell, he didn’t even want to be at this dinner with the other two ninety-fivers of the group, but he needed to get out of his apartment. Do something other than wait around hoping he would get a text that you were coming over or you would knock at his door.

“You doing okay, Hanni?” Seungcheol then asks, and Jeonghan only sat back from his meal, grabbing his beer to drink in the process.

“Have you ever thought, I know it’s a hard concept for both of you, that maybe that I just don’t feel like talking? I been recording guides all day for other artists instead of recording and releasing my own music. Maybe I just want to rest my voice.” He didn’t stop the annoyance from coming through either, the other two men just watched him pull his phone out.

Acting like he was checking notifications, but really he was opening and checking your messages. Stupidly hoping for a text from you. It was pathetic.

Only the last text that he had gotten from you was telling him to enjoy dinner with the guys and that you were having an early night. Ren was with your parents that weekend, like he usually was, and you had refused to let Jeonghan cancel his plans to spend the evening with you or even come after he finishes up. Stating you were beyond exhausted and still was not feeling too well. Work had taken it out of you more that week than usual and was worried you would bore him with how much of a dud you were feeling.

Which would be so far from the truth, because if it was, he wouldn’t be looking at his phone constantly. Hoping from a text from you to come over. He didn’t give a shit about having sex, it was nice, but he just wanted to see you and maybe fall asleep with you in his arms. Just so he could wake up next to you the next morning. He just wanted to spend time with you, have you around him. This new arrangement was eating at him.

It went from the two of you seeing each other regularly, spending nearly every weekend together, to quick hookups, hellos on the landing, or an exchange of flirty/risqué texts. It was selfish of him to feel this wasn’t enough, finding himself spoiled for getting as much as you as he did. Especially when you weren’t even his. Fuck did he miss you.

“That’s you normally, but nothing like this.” It was Joshua that answered this time, and Jeonghan went to shoot daggers toward him until he saw the genuine concern over his best friends features. It was written over Seungcheol’s too. “You’re more withdrawn than usual, and more irritable then normal. We all have noticed this change. What’s wrong?”

“Why does there have to be something wrong for me to be in a bad mood? I could have slept wrong, or the barista this morning could have fucked up on my coffee order. I could be in a bad mood for the hell of it. Doesn’t mean that something has to be wrong.” Jeonghan closed his phone as he says this, tossing it onto the table with more vigor then he intended, knocking over an empty beer bottle in the process, “Don’t read too much into that.”

“And I am in love with Coups.” Joshua retorted back, earning a look from Seungcheol as if asking why he used that as a response. The other two just ignored him as they continued their back and forth.

“Luci is going to be very disappointed since you two barely got back together. Pretty sure Meg is gonna fight you for Coups here.” Jeonghan didn’t miss a beat, showing he was still on the ball and not that distracted. Joshua and Seungcheol only rolled their eyes at this, while he let out a proud chuckle at the comment. “I would pay money to watch a showoff between them and you two. My money is on them though.”

“Yeah, yeah. You just want us to get our asses kicked by our girls. In all seriousness, though, we are a little worried about you. Both of us know that you aren’t normally in this much of a funk unless something was bothering you.” Seungcheol pointed out before signaling to have a few more beers delivered to the table. “It is work? Family? Girl Problems…Guy? Problems?”

“Nothing is wrong.” Jeonghan sighed, finishing his beer before setting the empty bottle back onto the table, wondering if he really should say something about you and Ren. How he’s been casually sleeping with you for seven months, how perfect you are to him, how much he likes being around your kid. How he’s both the happiest and the unhappiest he has ever been, because he fucked up and fell in love with you. Was he even ready to say it out loud? “I’m just tired, okay? You’re making me regret not bailing on you guys.”

“Liar. If nothing is wrong, then why do you keep checking messages between you and this Baby?” The oldest of the three asked, placing one of the freshly delivered beers in front of him, and Jeonghan’s whipped his head toward him. Eyes wide. The normal cool demeanor briefly shattering at the mention of your nickname in his phone, giving himself away before he could recover. “So, it is…”

“It’s not. She’s literally no one.” The words were so bitter on his tongue, a blatant lie because he was panicking. He had wondered if he should tell them, but now that the moment had presented himself, he realized he couldn’t do it. What would he even say anyways? That he made what should be an easy arrangement more complicated? That you didn’t want anything more than what you had.

No, he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t face that look of pity from either of his friends. That he was pathetic to put that as your name in his phone and now was backed into a corner.

“If she’s no one, then why is her name that in your phone?” Joshua asked, and Jeonghan now wouldn’t look at either of them. All the color appeared to be drained from him, his mind scrambling.

“She is no one. Just someone I fuck on occasion,” He hated the words that came out of his mouth, even if you were someone he was fucking, but you were so much more than that. It made him feel like shit saying those things and maybe it would have been better if he just was honest. To say the words at the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t do that. So he did what he did best. Deflect. “How about you two worry and focus on your own shit then try and pry into my private life because you think you know what’s going on. If I have anything important to tell you, trust me, I would fucking tell you. Nosey ass bastards.”

“You’re an asshole most of the time, but fuck are you a mother fucker when you’re like this.” Seungcheol shook his head while Joshua did the same, finishing his beer in front of him before standing. “Whatever you and this Baby has going on, do what we kept telling Shua with Luci. Fix it, or whatever, because you are unbearable right now.”

“You’re leaving?” Joshua asked, sounding surprised, and Seungcheol nodded.

“Yeah, Meg is waiting for me so I can help her with the guest list and seating arrangements. I am already pushing it by having another beer.” Seungcheol pulled on his jacket and before patting Jeonghan’s shoulder to show there were no hard feelings, but just hard enough to drill in he still thought he was an asshole. “Dinner is on me, my friends. You know where to find me if you need me. Whether I will be brain dead from all this planning is up to fate.”

With that, Seungcheol bid them both a goodbye before exiting the restaurant. Leaving the two men at the table, while Jeonghan didn’t attempt to look toward Joshua. He knew that if he did, he would be met with a look from his best friend, and he might spill everything. He couldn’t and wouldn’t do it.

Joshua already had enough on his plate then to sit around and listen to the problems he created himself. Him and his girlfriend barely got back together and were still working on their relationship. Him, Jihoon, and Hansol were helping their youngest Chan on his new album, and he was looking for a new place since his lease was up at the end of the year. Even with all that going on, he knew that Joshua would take on Jeonghan’s plight while shouldering his own. Try to help him find a solution, and he didn’t want that. He didn’t want his help.

Jeonghan had been the one that everyone in their large friend group would go to, he was the problem solver as much as he was an instigator. He wasn’t used to being the one who needed to go to someone for his problems, even to his best friend. He planned to just shoulder it all, since there was nothing to help with anyways. What the two of you had was all he was going to get, and he couldn’t lose that.

“Want to go back to my apartment to hang out? Get wasted and watch T.V.?” Joshua then asked, and that was when Jeonghan looked at him. The other man had sensed his reluctance to talk so he wasn’t going to push, even if he was wanting to know what was wrong, and if it had anything to do with this Baby. But he wasn’t going to make Jeonghan tell him anything he wasn’t ready to say. Instead he offered something that he could get onboard with.

Jeonghan’s eyes flickered to his phone, checking one final time to see if you had texted, but there was nothing. Maybe you actually were asleep, and maybe a night away from the apartment might do him some good. Not sure if he wanted to spend another night knowing you were only on the other side alone in your own bed.

Passing out drunk in a random spot at his best friends sounded a hell of a lot better than falling asleep holding one of his pillows. Wishing it was you.

“Sure, why not.”

--

The timer ticked down painfully slow, seconds feeling like an eternity each, and all you could do was pace through your living room. Trying to hold down the vomit that was threatening to come up, this time from nerves and stress of waiting for you to be told what you already knew. It took everything in you not to throw up.

The sound of your phone then sounded off from the bathroom, the chosen sound blaring indicating that the countdown was now at zero.  

You didn’t actually need to see the results though, you didn’t need to look at the two sticks on the counter waiting for you. Waiting to confirm a cruel fate. You had been through it nine years previous, knowing your body well enough to feel this change, but instead of listening, you chose to be in fucking denial. That your body was just playing tricks on you, and you weren’t. You prayed that you weren’t.

Even though you knew you were.

If only you could go back. Go back all those weeks and do it differently. Not be idiots and wear a fucking condom. Or fucking remembered that you missed a few days of pills the week before. You wouldn’t be in this situation.

The sound of your alarm continued to sound off as you stared into the bathroom from where you were rooted, staring at the counter that was awaiting your fate. You never been so scared to step through that threshold, just to see a word and a set of lines mocking you.

“Just fucking rip the band aid off,” You tell yourself softly, taking a few deep breaths and tried to swallow the lump and bile that was sitting in your throat. “Maybe it’s all in your head, and you’re just fucking insane. It’s all from stress is all. Or just confirm that we are both fucking stupid idiots.”

You wish that since you were already suspecting it, that it wouldn’t feel like a punch to the chest, but it was. That word and two very clear lines mocked you worse then you thought they would, like some sick twisted joke.

Hot tears pricked your eyes, and this time you couldn’t hold back the sick that was coming now, finding yourself hunched over the toilet. Emptying the little contents you had in your stomach.

This couldn’t be happening again. You couldn’t possibly be that stupid to do this to yourself again. You should have been more careful, you should have remembered that you had forgotten to take them a few days the week before and taken the precautions. Both of you should have thought to use protection.

But you didn’t and now here you were.

Pregnant again. This time with someone you weren’t even in a relationship with and was your fucking neighbor.

Jeonghan is galaxies better than Ren’s father ever was and will be. He treated you and your son well even though he didn’t have to, but that didn’t make him yours. He couldn’t ever be yours, like you couldn’t be his. You drew that line when this all started, you were clear that this was nothing more than a good time. You both agreed. It protected everyone that way. Or at least it did.

You both got too comfortable with each other, threw out rules that was set when this all started. God sloppy and too trusting of each other. To trusting of yourselves.

You didn’t how the fuck you were going to tell him, or how he was going to react to this. He had put his trust in you, and you fucked it. You and your stupid ass desire to have him cum in you. That little claim that wasn’t for the world to see will be making itself known.

There wasn’t much in your stomach to begin with, having not been able to stomach anything other than a donut that morning in the office, so you ended up mostly dry heaving and once you managed to stop you found yourself falling back against the bathroom wall. Breaking down and you sunk to the ground. Not knowing what to do, not knowing how to take this information. You didn’t know how you were going to tell your parents, family, or even Ren.

You didn’t want your son to know what was going on with you and Jeonghan. You didn’t want him to think it was going to be anything that it was. You didn’t want to give him hope. He adored the dark haired man so much, and you didn’t want to set him up for disappointment. Now you were going to have to tell him he was going to have a sibling. And that Jeonghan was the father.

Jeonghan… fuck. The very thought of him caused you to spiral more, unable to even know how you were going to begin to tell him. How was he going to take this? Did he even want to be a father? Neither of you ever touched on that topic, it felt like it was building possible expectations that you couldn’t deliver. You told yourself that this didn’t matter to what you were doing, you weren’t going to spend forever together.

But it did.

Everything was changing, and you were hating it. This temporary change with your hours was already terrible and you couldn’t wait for it to go back to normal. Where you got to spend your nights without Ren with Jeonghan, feeling like you were more than just a mother, and truly seen. You were someone when you were around him. You were you. And now you were going to lose that.

You didn’t want to think about that, you didn’t want to think about the pain in your chest at the idea of losing him or doing all this over again. Broken and alone.

The very thought made you want to vomit all over again.

--

**Seven months ago**

“I’ll be by Sunday after work to get Ren.” You tell your mother, walking her and Ren out of your apartment, handing off his bags to her. Jeonghan had just reached the landing, appearing to be getting home from work, as you were giving your goodbyes.

“Hello, Mr. Jeonghan!” Ren called out with excitement at the sight of the dark haired man, a large smile on his young face. Jeonghan returned the greeting with a smile of his own, and a ruffle of the boy’s hair as they pass. You stood there at your door watching them disappear down the steps. Ren telling your mother all about your neighbor and his cool apartment.

“Kid-free weekend?” Jeonghan asked leaning against his door frame, his arms crossed as he watches you mimic his stance to face him. Taking in the way his dark brown hair fell over his eyes, then over his beautiful face, noticing a little mole on his cheek. He was in loose fitting pants and a black shirt, oversized on his lithe frame, and his messenger bag lazily hanging off his shoulder. There wasn’t anything special about how he looked, but you couldn’t take your eyes off him.

“Yeah, sorta. I have to work early Sunday,” You answer him, and he nods, “It does give me a break though. Plus, my parents love having him over, and would take him every weekend if I let them.”

“Got any plans? Hot date?” He teases, and all you could do was roll your eyes.

“Oh totally. I have them beating the door down. Nah, just a couple of beers, enough food from my mom to feed an army, and maybe a really bad movie or two. Just relax.” You tap your chin, as if you were pondering how many movies to watch; conveniently leaving out the plans you had with your vibrator since you had the apartment to yourself. “What about you?”

“Same. Except the food is going to be takeout, and the movie or two will be just Youtube.” He shrugs, a lazy smile playing over his lips, and you pushed your tongue into your cheek. “Had the chance to go out with some friends, but something was telling me that staying home sounded like a better idea.”

You watch him, catching the way his eyes dropped down to your green tank, and how it was showing more cleavage then you had intended. He didn’t hide the way he licked his lips at the sight of them, before reconnecting eye contact. There was a flirt to his words, it had been the last few times you had ran into each other on the landing. It was subtle at first, but now it was becoming more obvious. An invitation, as well as a request from you, and it made you consider a few things.

A very stupid idea.

“Oh, well, I was just going to see if you wanted to join me. I got plenty of beer, and enough food to feed an army. Maybe save you a some won, and have a home cooked meal. It’ll also be less food to throw out.” You suggest slowly, the offer lacing through your words, and were ringing loud and clear. “But I totally get wanting to stay home and becoming a vegetable.”

“What kind are you?”

“A potato,” You laugh with your answer.

“Nah, my friend Mingyu is. I wouldn’t say you were a vegetable, maybe something sweeter. A fruit maybe. Like a strawberry, or banana.” Jeonghan retorted, that tongue was now pressing against the corner of his mouth but did nothing to ruin or hide the lazy but flirty smile he was still wearing. “I said staying home from going out sounded better, but I didn’t have a specific home in mind, nor did I specify one. I’d love to hang out but let me get washed up and change. I’ll even bring dessert.”

“That actually works out for me. Ren left a disaster zone in there with his toys and books. And conveniently forgot to clean up like he was supposed to.” You confess, trying to not show you were a little embarrassed by it. Mess comes with kids, but it still felt embarrassing to admit. “I got to get that cleaned up, so maybe we can meet in an hour?”

“Sounds good. Meet you in an hour then.”

An hour later, Jeonghan was knocking at your door, with his own pack of beers and some ice cream that looked like he dug out of the back of his freezer. Ready to start the night. You two had spoken often on the landing, whenever you would run into each other, when Ren would find his way over to his apartment to hang out, or when he watched the boy a couple of times after that night you met. Friendly, with hidden tones of flirting, but you were not quite friends yet nor had you hung out past those chats.

It didn’t feel like it though, both quickly comfortable with each other, and settled into the evening like it was something that you had done all the time. He was easy for you to talk to, he listened while being full of stories over the years with his friends, and the flirting got heavier. Moving from subtle comments, to finding reasons to ‘brush’ up against each other.

The offer was there, it was written all over both of you with the way you looked at each other, so it wasn’t a surprise that by the time the first movie ended, he was face first between your thighs. Nor was it a surprise that he didn’t leave your apartment, mainly your bed, until well into the afternoon the next day. It quickly became a regular thing with the two of you. Spending a lot of your free nights together, with the agreement that Ren couldn’t find out and there was no possibility of something more.

The line was clear from the start. And it worked for you both, until you both started getting closer than just sex.

Some rules you agreed on were broken, you found yourself looking forward to being just in his arms, to just seeing him. It led you down a dangerous road. One where you were falling in love with him, which only opened you up to being hurt.

--

“Are you just getting home?” You stop at the top of the stairs when you caught sight of Jeonghan walking up them. Clothes wrinkled, and you didn’t recognize the shirt that he was wearing; it was actually Joshua’s because he spilt beer all over himself. Hair was shoved under a beanie, and there were dark circles under his eyes.

He looked like he had a wild night out and was doing some kind of walk of shame. The idea didn’t sit right in your gut, briefly considering this notion that he had spent the night in someone else’s bed since he couldn’t spend it in yours. It made you sick to your stomach, but you had to push that down. Even if he did, it shouldn’t matter to you because you weren’t together. It wasn’t your business, nor was it your right to feel anyway about it.

“Went back to Shua’s after dinner. Got pretty drunk and passed out on his living room floor. He passed out in the tub. It was brilliant,” Jeonghan chuckled as he reaches the top step, before rotating his shoulder slightly. Over exaggerating his wince from the sore muscles. “Not the most comfortable though. I’m so sore.”

“Well, you’re not in your early twenties anymore. Hit the age twenty-nine and you might as well be in your thirties.” You answer with a chuckle, and you didn’t miss how his hand almost reached for you. Whenever you tease him in the comforts of your apartment, Jeonghan would like to grab your wrist to pull you into his chest so he could tickle your sides until you begged him to stop; only stopping with a payment of a kiss.

But this isn’t the inside of your apartments, this is the landing in front of them. Even if you were the only two apartments on this floor, it wasn’t like a neighbor would see either of you, but it crossed one of the many lines you drew. One of the few lines you held firm too. Going out to dinner or somewhere to hang out was one thing, something friends do, but touching, holding hands, or even kissing was only for the apartments.

You knew he hated it, and you did too, but you already let too many lines get blurred. Putting you in this exact position you are in now.

“True, I think I might need a massage though,” He teases back, the flirty suggestion heavy in his tone until he saw you were dressed in a pair of jeans, a black shirt, boots, and your large winter jacket; instead of your usual little tank dress you wore when home. You had your bag hanging from your shoulder, and an earbud in, the other in your hand. “Where you going?”

“Oh, uh, yeah. I… I have some errands I got to run, and then I’m gonna help my mom out with the restaurant for a few hours. Dad’s hips acting up where he can hardly move and the most he can do is run the till.” You scramble to give him an answer, unable to tell him the truth just yet, and Jeonghan caught that you wouldn’t meet his gaze. The made him take a chance to reach for your forward to catch your chin. Tilting your head up, he made you look at him. Your eyes meeting and you had to look away quickly, scared he would know just by your eyes. “Jeonghan… not here…”

“What’s wrong? Are you okay?” He asked, and you nod a little too quickly. Too quickly and it looked like he was having a hard time believing you. At all. The doubt was heavy in his voice as he said your name softly, and you tried to look everywhere but him. “Why are you lying to me?”

“I actually don’t need to tell you when I come and go, or where I go, it’s not really your business and should be happy I fucking tell you anything.” You grimace as you instantly regretted snapping at him like that, more so when you saw the taken aback look on his face. “I’m sorry. I’m not in the best of moods. I didn’t sleep very well last night, and I wasn’t exactly planning to spend my day the way I am.”

“If you aren’t feeling good still, then you need to stay home. Not push yourself. It only prolongs getting better.” He tells you, his tone as tense as his jaw was at that moment. It was his turn to not look at you and you had to swallow back what felt like a fresh wave of tears. You thought you ran out of those hours ago.

“I’m okay, I promise. I actually have been feeling better, I have just been under a lot of stress with work and didn’t sleep well. I’m about to grab an energy drink at the store.” You cast a glance toward him, knowing that you were going to have to tell him as soon as possible. Even if you aren’t going to be in the right frame of mind, maybe spending an evening with him again will help. Maybe it will be easy to tell him. “Maybe if you are up to it, we can hang out when I get home… I miss hanging out with you.”

Jeonghan didn’t respond for a long moment, looking at a spot on the wall before turning toward you. Regarding you with a steady gaze, and you weren’t sure if he was considering your offer or if he was just trying to decide if he wanted to tell you to go fuck yourself. Which you deserved from your comment. Then he finally spoke, “I miss hanging out with you too.”

Hearing that almost broke you, your chest aching and bursting at the same time. He has told you this before in text, when you both were wishing each other a good night, but it was always different to hear him actually say the words. You needed to hear them, but with what you were going to be telling him when you did hang out, you wondered how much longer he would feel that way.

“Just text me when you get home,” He nodded as he spoke, his words and jaw were still tense, but at least he wasn’t refusing to see you. Reaching out, you squeezed his arm gently even though all you wanted to do was throw yourself into his arms. You let your touch linger for moments longer then you should’ve, eyes glossy. Jeonghan noticed this too, “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah,” You answer, finally pulling your hand back, starting down the stairs. “I’ll text you when I’m home!”

You didn’t look back to see if he was still standing there, even though you wanted to.

--

You hurried through the crowded streets to your destination, trying to not run into anyone and spill the two hot drinks in your hands. You were late, running into Jeonghan had thrown you back several minutes and then the coffee shop you stopped at was packed, and it didn’t help your already guilty feeling mood. Your cousin was doing you a huge favor by opening the clinic for you and your predicament, after getting a panicked text from you once you were able to pull yourself up the floor. The least you could do was be on time.

“You’re late,” Wenhyun muttered when he unlocked the front of the clinic to let you in, his voice sounding more tired than annoyed. His short hair sticking in all directions, wearing a pair of track pants and a hoodie, and didn’t look like he owned the small clinic.

“I’m sorry, I got caught in line at the coffee shop. I texted you my ETA,” You retorted, handing him the hot coffee you had gotten him. The only payment he would accept from you, or any member of your family in fact. Originally you had texted him asking him if he had an opening that Monday, when the clinic was open, but he didn’t want to wait. “Thanks for seeing me. Are you sure you’re okay with seeing me today?”

“Shut up,” He mumbled motioning you to follow him to one of the examination rooms, drinking his coffee as he went, “My mom has been helping out through the week, and I am pretty sure you don’t want your parents to find out through her. It’s better this way, and she won’t see that your charts been pulled. Plus, if you break down and shit again, I can comfort you then have to rush you out or hide you in my office until after I see the next patient.”

Wenhyun was over ten years older than you, son to your mom’s older sister, but he was more of a big brother to you. He had been the one who had confirmed your pregnancy with Ren and saw what was happening with his dad before anyone else. He had also been the reason for where you were now, getting you and your son out of the situation you were in. Your apartment, your job, and even Ren’s tuition was because of him. You were the youngest of five cousins, with him being the oldest and by default like a leader of you all, and you were always his favorite of them all. Even his own siblings.

You barely sat your bag and hot tea down when he was shoving a cup in your hands.

“I don’t think I have to tell you what to do,” He points in the direction of the bathroom, cutting you off before you could even form the words, “From what you told me in that rushed ass text, date of conception, last missed period, the pregnancy tests we already know it’s very likely going to be positive. I still got to do my own test though. It also gives me time to finish get everything together. We’ll be doing an ultrasound too, but that’s gonna cost you.”

“How much is it going to cost?”

“I’d say you’re first born child, but Ren is a little too attached to you at this point, so I’ll just settle for another coffee. Now go,” Wenhyun waves you off, and you do as he requested. Returning a few minutes later with the cup partially filled and closed. “Go sit.”

You take a seat on the examination table, wringing your fingers together nervously.

“Who’s the guy?” Your cousin suddenly asked, his back to you but you knew what he was doing. Doing his own pregnancy test. “It’s not…”

“Oh, god no. I haven’t seen him since he tried to crash Ren’s sixth birthday. Last I heard he was bumming it somewhere in Busan with some woman, but that was almost a year ago. It’s…” You trailed off and he turns to look at you. There was a look of realization on it, because you never said out loud what the two of you were doing. Your mother had suspected, but you never said anything.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but can you at least tell me that you’re okay. And safe?” He didn’t push you, but there was worry written all over his features.

“I am more than safe, I’m the safest I probably have ever been when I am with him. I just… never actually told anyone about us,” You confess.

“Is he a secret boyfriend? Or a friend?” He took the chance to turn back around to check the results.

“I guess you can say he’s a friend, and also… my neighbor,” You said the last words slowly, and this time he whipped around with a look of shock.

“Excuse me,” You winced when your full name fell from his lips, in a shocked but scolding manner, “Are you actually telling me that you’re fucking sleeping with your neighbor?”

“Yeah?” Finally looking away from his disappointed gaze, “His name is Jeonghan. He helps me out with Ren sometimes, letting him hang out at his place on the days I’m running late from work, or if I have to work late and Mom can’t help keep an eye on him. He’s literally Ren’s favorite person in the world… and… he’s also mine. We been seeing and sleeping together for seven months now, mostly when Ren is at my parents. We’re normally pretty careful, but sometimes we…” You didn’t continue that sentence, sparing your cousin the details. He was still family after all, “Let’s just say we became Icarus after a few beers and flew too close to the sun.”

“I prescribe you birth control, don’t you take it consistently?”

“I normally do that too, but…”

“What? Forget because of life? Work? Stress?”

“Yeah…”

“While I do understand this, life can get hectic, it still isn’t a good enough excuse. As your doctor, I have to stress the importance of using protections. More than one form if needed, because I am about to confirm you are in fact pregnant!” He tells you, exasperation heavy with every word, and you could feel yourself deflating like a child in trouble, “From the information you provided me, I would put you at around twelve weeks. I’m gonna have to have you come in sometime this week to get blood tests. Fucking hell, why didn’t you come to me sooner?! When you started experiencing symptoms. Or even, I don’t know, when you missed your period?! Even if it was just to rule it out!”

“Because when the symptoms started, work started getting more hectic with Gunyu going on this month long cruise. I thought it was from stress,” You realize that all you were doing now was grasping at excuses at this point, and Wenhyun knew it too. You knew better, you should have ruled this out before anything else, but instead you chose to ignore the obvious. Trying to hide behind work, “Or I am just stupid.”

“You are stupid, but as your cousin, I need to think that” He retorts, and you give him a dirty look. “Does he know?”

“No,” You tell him, finally feeling your face wet from tears that were now falling involuntarily, “I only found out last night, and I saw him briefly in front of the apartments. Didn’t think ‘oh hey, how are you? I am heading to the clinic to confirm I am carrying your child, okay call you later!’ was a smart idea. I wanted to see you first about this before I tell him. I’m telling him tonight.”

“Are you in love with him?” This question took you off guard.

“We’re not together.”

“You don’t have to be with someone to be in love with them, don’t deflect. I asked, are you in love with him?”

Hope you enjoyed! Part 2 is almost done being written and Hoshi's installment will be out soon! If you like my series, and want to be updated when I post, I am created a tag list.

More one shots and drabbles coming.

[moon-light-bow]

Can we please talk about how petty Fiddleford actually is?? Like, this man left that picture on his desk like that ON PURPOSE for Ford LMAO.

He RIPPED IN HALF the photo of the day they met. People usually cut out the person that they no longer talk to from a photo so that they can keep their part to themselves. But, of course, Fiddleford wanted to forget EVERYTHING related to Ford, so, at first glance, it's reasonable that he left it on his desk.

However, if he was gonna get rid of the picture either way to forget everything, wouldn't it be easier to destroy it?? Like, burn it, or rip it to shreds so that you can barely see the original picture??? Nah, I believe this man PURPOSEFULLY left that photo there for Ford to find and realize the damage that he had done.

AND LET'S NOT EVEN TALK ABOUT THE 5 FAILED PROTOTYPES FOR THE 6 FINGERED-GLOVES THAT WERE ALSO LEFT ON HIS DESK.... He is SO PETTY.

[nightisawkward]

"Another challenger… it has been ages. Perhaps you have forgotten how this game is played. Allow me to remind you."

Happy halloween fellas!!! Hermitcraft/Life SMP inscryption AU ft. Boatem gang I cooked up awhile ago but never got around to posting B-) Wild life smp has reminded me how mentally ill I am about putting these Guys in Situations so here I am

Mild to major inscryption spoilers under the cut!

For those familiar with the game, the general roles are:

Luke Carter - "Challenger"/Grian

In this AU Grian is still a trading card-based youtuber who's recording all this nonsense going down real time as in canon, but has closer ties to the GameFuna company equivalent, named "WatcherCorp". His old college roommate/best mate Jimmy went to work for them, but mysteriously passed away in a fire at their headquarters. He found the Inscryption cards in Jimmy's leftover personal belongings a few years after his death, and decided that the best way to honor him would be to make a video featuring the project he put his heart and soul into... in more ways than one.

Key difference from canon Inscryption: Grian's mind is sucked into the game of Inscryption whenever he is playing. He is able to enter and leave the game at will, but he doesn't realize this until he first dies to Leshy/Pearl and ejects himself unconsciously out of fear of dying. The only reason he realizes he isn't hallucinating is because his camcorder footage proves he actually enters the game. He obtains the "Watcher's Eye" during Act 1, which he keeps for all future acts and allows him to see things he shouldn't see as a Challenger.

P03 - "Scarred Stoat"/Scar

Despite being the one who convinces Grian and the other Scrybes to stand up against Pearl, no one seems eager to spend any more time with the conniving conman than absolutely necessary. This may have something to do with Scar's history of backstabbing and cheating both Scybes and Challengers whenever it benefits him most. Which makes it rather unfortunate that Grian is must spend time with Scar in order to gather as much information as possible.

In the beginning, Scar and Grian do not get along in the slightest. Grian finds Scar's attitude too "fake", while Scar finds Grian's "cowardice" to be irritating. At some point, the two go from passive-aggressive fighting, to a grudging truce, to more friendly, lighthearted banter. Neither person seems to trust the other, but it doesn't seem to stop the two from being ✨saddled with unnecessary feelings✨. Scar's Act 3 world is much like Leshy's Act 1 world, with much more emphasis put on environmental storytelling and general Vibes than actual gameplay. Even if his game is a smokescreen for his true goal of Ascension, he feels strangely obligated to give Grian his best shot.

Scar in his proper Scrybe form appears more steampunk than canon P03. Think of a Grumbot with Scar's boatem base aesthetic and tons of missing nuts and bolts. P03's bastardous tendencies+ Scar's steampunk base made this role perfect for him.

Magnificus - "Horned Wolf"/Impulse

Impulse is a talented artist and an even more talented programmer. His future sight stems from his literal sight: His eyes are able to see read the code veil behind Inscryption, allowing him to predict likely futures based on what code is running. He often laments his status as an NPC, claiming that if he were given administrative privileges and the actual ability to modify source code he would have been able to escape Inscryption long ago.

He is rather absent in Act 2, focusing on finishing his "artwork" as soon as possible. He uses his brush to create a menagerie magical creatures with strange abilities in hopes that using one in battle might trigger a unfixable bug, allowing him to rip a hole through the source code. It is unclear whether he was able to accomplish his goal before Act 3 roles around, but it seems like Scar's method of Ascension seems awfully similar to Impulse's... perhaps a sneaky spy was able to steal Impulse's information?

As a proper Scrybe, he resembles a walking mop or a yak with overgrown fur. Most of his features are indistinguishable, save for his small horns and his glowing goat eyes.

Lemora - "Distinguished Stinkbug"/Mumbo

Mumbo is by far the most easygoing Scrybe in the cast. While he would greatly prefer an eternal slumber over yet another temporary ceasefire amongst the Scrybes, he is willing to work with the others in Act 1 simply because he finds his stinkbug form too uncomfortable to sleep in. Mumbo's goal is simple: to delete the game of Inscryption, and therefore himself, and finally rest. However, finds the constant power struggles in the world of Inscryption rather tiring and simply can't be bothered to make a grab for power himself to achieve this goal. This hasn't stopped him from asking Grian to destroy floppy disk of Inscryption. Unfortunately for him, the temptation of the o̷l̵d̷ ̶d̸a̶t̷ [REDACTED] mysteries within Inscryption are simply too powerful for Grian to resist.

As a proper Scrybe, he looks almost exactly like Mumbo's minecraft skin: A pale, mustached man with blood red eyes who resembles a vampire. Mumbo denies all vampire allegations. While he is the most "normal" looking Scrybe, Grian would still hesitate to call him "human" ...there's just something slightly off about his appearance that sets him on edge.

Leshy - "Game Master"/Pearl

Pearl is an unforgiving gamemaster that puts more emphasis on providing the player a challenge than her canon counterpart. After her self-proclaimed "tutorial", there is no more handholding and she gives Grian an absolute hellish time. Grian is only able to get a slight edge when he discovers all of the Scrybes, who provide him with stategy help to even the playing field. It is unclear whether Pearl actually enjoys running her Act 1 game or not: she seems to derive an animalistic pleasure from defeating Grian, but there are times where she seems tired and fed up with the endless gameplay loop and intentionally throws during key fights. She switches between manic and depressed at the drop of a hat.

During Act 2, she barely even tries to give Grian a challenge, allowing him to progress straight to her boss fight without any side quests to "get it over with quicker". She seems to hold a deep grudge against Scar for some reason, which is the only thing that motivates her to take action to stop him during Act 3.

Mysteriously, Grian finds a burned and unusable Unicorn card within her Act 1 cabin. Upon discovery, Scar immediately suggests that Grian leave it where he found it. Some things are best left forgotten, after all...

[foxglovegames]

DEV LOG: 2024 Recap

Helloooo everyone!

This year genuinely flew past us. As a studio, we had our ups-and-many-downs, but we're feeling more positive going into 2025. Let's start with what we got done this year before moving onto our plans for the future! :)

⭐Released Trouble Comes Twice: Bonus Stories!

Feels like we released this ages ago, but it hasn't even been a year yet! Back in April, we released the first (and only) public DLC for Trouble Comes Twice. For us, Bonus Stories was a satisfying goodbye to these characters after spending years with them; we hope that players who decided to give the DLC a chance feel the same.

It'll always be a bit bittersweet moving on from a project you've worked on for so long and dedicated so much towards. There's always going to be what-ifs, but we're mostly just proud of what we did achieve and kind of relieved we made it to the finish line haha. If you're interested in reading more about our experience working on Trouble Comes Twice and what we learned, do check out this post mortem we wrote! We hope it offers some insight for players who might be curious and other vn devs who'd like another dev's take.

⭐A tumultuous start for our next visual novel Burn the Midnight Oil

Since the end of 2023, we've worked on and off on our next visual novel Burn the Midnight Oil. The plan was to launch a Kickstarter campaign and demo before the end of 2024 - since it's now Dec and that never happened, you can imagine things did not go as planned ahah... Unfortunately, we experienced several setbacks, one of the biggest being that our lead artist had to leave the project some months ago due to health issues.

It took us a minute to find the right person to step in and take over the character art, but we recently welcomed a new lead artist whom we're incredibly excited to be working with!

So, where does the project stand right now?

Our new character artist is chipping away at the sprites and CGs for the game, which are the main assets we're still missing to finish the demo.

Script is written, edited and coded in

BGs are completed and the UI is close to completed

We're planning to tackle the soundtrack in the coming months, but our composer BellKallengar has already finished an amazing main menu theme! We can't wait for you to hear it.

For our own sanity and the expectations of our players, we're not making any promises or guesses on when you can expect the demo, Kickstarter, or official announcement until we know for certain. The only thing we can confidently confirm is that it's coming in 2025 (unless we're struck by the worst bad luck ever).

We're going to resume regular monthly updates when the game has been announced, but until then, we're sticking o quarterly updates instead so the next one would be in March. (Unless we manage to announce the game before that! A dev can dream.)

⭐PLANS FOR 2025

There's only one concrete plan - officially announcing Burn the Midnight Oil, releasing the Kickstarter demo, and launching our crowdfunding campaign! Melli and I already finished the demo script earlier this year, so we've been working on outlining (and writing) the routes for the full game. We hope to make as much progress as possible on that before the Kickstarter launches. Hopefully, that should save us a lot of time in the long run.

We hope everyone's having a fantastic holiday season! See you all in the new year! 🥂

[drconstellation]

The Newton/Crowley Mirror-Parallel in S1

Future Echoes from the Past #2

Let me take a moment to try and explain the process of how I approach meta writing. I’m not new to this. I might be new to this fandom, but I’ve been writing metas for twenty years in other fandoms. I’m an old hand at this, and I learnt how to do it with some pretty critical masters of the game. I’ve been wrestling with this meta for several days, which never a good sign. I thought I was on the right track here but got to a point where I was trying to make my biased square blocks fit into the round holes I was expecting to see, and they weren’t, and thought, nope, it’s time to back off and see what is there instead. When things don’t fall and click into place, when you can’t see the next connection easily, when it becomes too convoluted - and actually, I think some of the story is missing in the crucial places - that's a dead end for the time being, so the meta I was expecting (and hoping) to see didn’t emerge. But there is still something there to be revealed, and it was from a bit that I didn't think had much importance.

A few days ago I posted a meta about how the paintball fight at Tadfield Manor was a loose re-creation of the Great War in Heaven that lead to the formation of Heaven and Hell. It was more a description of events and the two sides, and I didn’t assign any of the S1 characters to the celestial characters that we would have expected to be involved with the rebellion. For example, the manager Nigel strikes me as standing in for Gabriel, and jaded old Norman, who is on the verge of retirement, and who organized the “team building exercise” is most likely to be Lucifer  - he is the leader of the Yellow team, who are quite unhappy and full of complaints about the others in the office. But other than those two, the other bit players amongst our regular cast were missing, or unclear. And this was a problem, a BIG problem, because while there hints to who was Crowley, the match to Aziraphale was nowhere to be seen, and he should be there. So, let’s leave that for the time being, and move on.

In the middle of all this is Newton Pulsifer. He oddly arrives in the office, destroys the electrical system, then leaves before the war begins. And there is an even odder follow-up exchange in the car park of the office as he departs. I had to ask why - why add this in?

[It should be noted, at this point in the discussion, that while the paintball fight was written in the original book, the office scene that is the prelude to the fight, and the scenes with Newt that I’m about to discuss, weren’t. They are from the tv series only.]

I have been building up a library of notes and screenshots to help me with my metas, and Newt and Anathema have been on my radar. I came across this screen shot of Newt lying on Anathema’s bed after his accident in Tadfield and went “Huh, he looks very Crowley-coded there with this black/grey clothes and yellow and red socks. That’s not the line I of thought I had been following..”

I kept going and then @ennas-aesthetic posted this meta about Jesus in S3 and mentioned that Anathema was an Aziraphale parallel, so that would make Newt a corresponding Crowley parallel – which would explain the screen shot mentioned. Then the final pieces for this meta were these two posts, one from @mouseonamoose about their thoughts on angel!Crowley and one from @cornchrunchie on part of the exchange between Aziraphale and angel!Crowley in Before the Beginning, at the start of S2E1. I’d already had a thought about another set of lines in this part that formed a parallel to Newt, but getting a second set of lines to tie it in to this S1E2 segment was a bonus, I must say.

So where am I going with all this rambling? Right. Let’s get down to business.

Hopefully by now I’ve established that one of Newt’s roles in the office scene that sets up the rebellion is to be not just a parallel to Crowley, but a mirror – he’s kind of the opposite, in a way. It’s like they are on opposite sides of the looking glass.

At the beginning of S2E1 we are shown angel!Crowley, the Starmaker – the Engineer. And what is Newt supposed to be? A computer engineer. Only, angel!Crowley engineers light, while Newt engineers darkness. Everywhere Newt goes, he turns out the lights. Which is why when he runs into Shadwell shortly after and is given the newspaper advert that declares “ASSISTANT REQUIRED TO COMBAT THE FORCES OF DARKNESS” if he joins the Witchfinder Army that I was cackling at the irony of this. Perhaps we’d better not get sidetracked with that though.

There’s a critical point here that I’d like to highlight that I noticed, and how I made the link, because it may have implications in the future, maybe in S3. In Before the Beginning, Crowley sets everything up to get the nebula started, then there is a slight pause.

Az: …is something meant to happen? Cr: Oh, right, sorry, yes yes. Knew I'd missed one. Let there be light.

It struck me that Newt’s efforts in making anything with electricity, the modern source of light, don’t work because he doesn’t check that he’s got everything right. He blacks out his neighborhood as a child without checking the circuits, he shuts down the entire office without checking his work.

Why would you need both light and dark? You can't really have one without the other. It's the yin and yang. Its balance. To see the light you need darkness. And to see shadows you need light.

So we get a short scene of Newt heading off to office, with his Almighty mother handing out some lunch rations, and wishing him luck. Hmm. He’s holding a box that contains, amongst various things, a pot plant (a bromeliad) with a deep red flower, for all love. Ngggkgk.

At the office, Newt is given the cold shoulder by the senior co-worker opposite him (I call her “Pearls,” because I don’t have the S1 script book and I’m not sure what she’s called.) She asks his name, but never offers hers. Sounds familiar, where have we seen that before…?

Az: Um, hello. I'm Aziraphale. Cr: Nice meeting you. Okay, here goes!

@mouseonamoose mentions that angel!Crowley wouldn't feel the need to mention his name if he was a high ranking angel here, he would expect other angels to know who he was. [op adds another item to their list of pointers to angel!Crowley being a senior Archangel...it's up to 18, btw. Yes, I know its only fanon at the moment...] Just like the Supreme Archangel "fucking" Gabriel hasn't got time for a bit of social chit-chat before Aziraphale!Crowley is supposed to be executed in the hellfire in S1E6. Just get on it with it, pleb! We've got better things to do with our time!

Outside, we see Newt has been given his marching orders. He's leaving already. A sharply dressed woman in a masculine-cut suit approaches quickly. I don't know about you, but she looks like a demon to me. Black suit, red hair, pink (which is a tint of red) shirt - she's a copy of Crowley. This is another Crowley-copy about to give some internal criticism to a Crowley-mirror.

"Need a hand, Dick?"

Then she power-walks past. Newt is not even worth her time stopping for.

*Snort* - and ouch. That's a below-the belt joke.

She's just called him a wanker. In the US you might use the term jerk instead. Someone who's a bit egotistical and more in it for themselves than others. (and I never thought I'd be fact-checking the meaning of this word ever, but there's always a first time...) She's basically just equated him Gabriel, in my book (and in more ways than one.)

That doesn't sound like the Crowley we know, does it? Maybe, maybe not - but it does reveal to us a world of information about what the other demons think about Crowley, and more importantly perhaps it gives a hint of what he was like pre-Fall and why he was cast out as a sacrifice for the team, a scapegoat and example for the losing faction, in addition to the asking of questions reason.

It's quite notable that Crowley doesn't have any other demon friends or allies, even after 6000 years. Plus, he seems to have gotten special treatment during that time. Furfur complains about this in the dressing room in 1941, remarking :

"No, what's ridiculous is demons like you doing what they please. And somehow still getting on, while demons like me graft for hundreds and hundreds of millennia and never get a sniff of a promotion! Well, not this time. Expect a Legion to come for you first thing tomorrow. Enjoy your last night on Earth."

Hastur calls him "Mr Slick," and thinks he's been up on the surface of the Earth too long. And you kind of get the idea that Lord Beelzebub is holding back their hand somewhat in their conversation in S2E1 when they summon Crowley down to Hell for a little chat about the missing Gabriel.

CROWLEY: [waving flies away] Augh. Oh, I thought we had a [spits out flies] generalized understanding. BEELZEBUB: We don't. You're still a traitor. I could put a price on your head any time I wanted to.

But they haven't put a price on Crowley's head. And they don't intend to. Crowley is still being given the special treatment. Also in that particular conversation is a hint that he was once on a similar footing to Beelzebub, and Beelzebub was also a high ranking angel before the Fall - they aren't Grand Duke of Hell and Satan's right-hand demon for no reason.

Its ever-so subtle, but its there. Those traces of privilege we were pointing out that Gabriel and Beelzebub flaunt when they abscond? Once upon a time Crowley had them too. But the passing millennia has slowly worn them away until we can barely see the traces of it. Although, it still shows up occasionally.

We should finish off the scene back in S1E2 with Newt, though, because he does show us s little bit more of our mirror-Crowley in the car park scene. As the demon-lady walks past him he calls after her:

"My name's not actually Dick, it’s the car's name. You can ask me why if you like."

Aww. Poor Newt. While Crowley was stopped from asking questions, and cast from Heaven because he wanted to ask questions, his mirror-character Newt is offering to answer questions for other people. It's just that they aren't interested in doing that either. Either way, the conversation stops, doesn't it.

To finish off, I'm going to leave you with this. I know, its about Newt not being a computer engineer, but since we've been discussing how Newt is a mirror-parallel to Crowley, perhaps it's something we need to tuck away in the back of our minds for S3 as well, when the past comes back to haunt us.

Further reading in this series:

#1: The Great War of Tadfield Manor

#3: "Not Even At Gunpoint!"

[ashleycodes]

COMMISSIONS - opening soon?

it has been a very, very long time since i've openly done commissions. i think i needed to take a little brain break. but lately i've been thinking about doing a commission here and there again, as i do miss it. would anyone be interested?

pricing and caveats/deal breakers would be as follows:

$250 - base price, which would include: - fully custom html templates for the skin itself - custom forum structure (up to 3 different styles per category. any more styles will be extra, price dependent on complexity and amount of boards) - member group color changes (for whole skin + member profiles) via variables for easy addition of groups in the future - separate member & staff (or ooc) main profile - light/dark button - webpage design (2 different styles) - footer webpage if desired (for affiliates, discord widget) - accessibility widget - set of general templates (general template, face claim template, member directory template, misc claims template, bbcode multi mod template, application or shipper template if needed, 1 simple bbcode, 2 post html templates, 1 communication template)

$60 - additional templates package, which would include: - 3 additional html posting templates - 1 additional bbcode posting template - a full set of development templates (image, moodboard, quote, playlist) - 2 additional communication templates - 2 social media templates + "reply" templates

any other templates would be discussed on an additional price basis ranging on $5-$10 per template not mentioned above. the reasoning behind this is that i just feel incredibly uninspired/not unique when i code templates so i try not to offer a bunch

$35 - graphics package, which would include: - a full header graphic that matches the skin - staff team graphics that match the skin - board graphics that match the skin - 1 advertisement for the site that matches the skin - placeholder graphics for "unsorted"/brand new accounts that match the skin

anything not mentioned above to be added can be discussed. there are some things i can/will do that i don't feel like take time to add in and therefore wouldn't cost money. so if you're unsure about a feature, i'd be open to discussing it before settling on a final price. i am mostly just trying to provide fixed prices so that you know exactly what you're getting.

the deal breaker in all of this might be that i will probably request a good portion of it up front or possibly the full price. this is touchy, i know, but having been ghosted on final payments after quick turn arounds i think is part of what finally broke me down and when i quit doing commissions. i am trying to offset this, however. i will code the skin directly into your site's board wrappers and css templates (so i will need ACP access). you will get to see the progress live and provide input as i go. i will provide you xml files once it's completed as well and will be available for 1 month post-completion for troubleshooting - though i have noticed by coding live into jcink, i find quite a few bugs on my own so hopefully the implementation process is smooth.

turn around time would be 1.5-2 months depending on the complexity of the skin, possibly longer but this will be discussed. if i give a turn around time, payments are made, and can't meet it, i will discuss a percentage of money back with you depending on the extra time needed.

anyway this is 100% NOT set in stone, i am just trying to gauge the interest based on my new terms/terms that would make me comfortable taking commissions again lmao. i'm not fully committing to this yet, and may very well not do this at all but it is on my mind so here we are.

in other news, i am still working on pushing out other old SH skins as multi-sale premades (none of which will ever be priced more than $30) and will likely create templates for my newest free skin, and maybe put out another more modern free skin but that just all depends on what the ADHD demands from me!!

[life-winners-liveblog]

Shortening my reviews as well, so hopefully it won't take as much time. LimL!Cleo's backstory is so sad. Did you come up with it? I don't remember that being part of her series but maybe I missed it? The loop recap is wonderful... though I somehow missed a few? I think? Marigold continuing to not beat the Fae allegations. *crosses fingers* please let LimL!Scott be a necromancer. please let LimL!Scott be a necromancer. please let LimL!Scott be a necromancer. My boy has so much emotional trauma and baggage. Also I feel WC!Scott fits more similarly to LimL!Scott than Chromia!Scott does. He doesn't actually care about himself winning, only making sure his allies get as far as possible and his teammate (*cough* partner *cough*) wins. The betrayal didn't matter to him because he wanted Martyn to kill him anyways because he couldn't lose another person he held so dear to his heart. He did everything he could. Even destroying himself and effectively killing himself to make himself stronger so he could bring Milo back. A certain vein of Self-Sacrificing that we also see a lot of in LimL!Scott. If it wasn't him to win Witchcraft he would have wanted it, and even pledged that if he didn't win he'd ensure Cleo's victory instead. Aka, his closest friend and ally. Someone who he knew he could trust, and who trusted him in return. A connection stronger than most dedicating their loyalty to each other. Because both knew what it was like to hate what they saw in their reflections. Hate what they've become. Yet embracing it for the hope of a better future. A loyalty that continues into the games. Aaaand I've made this longer than I was planning too... anyways! I totally forgot Jimshie existed.... and he now has Ren as another father, of course. Of course LimL!Cleo's fav song is Addams Family (fun fact that was the spring musical we did my senior year of hs) Oh that's Cleo's actual canon lore.... holy shit. Why have I not heard about that before? Bel caught up. Maybe there is hope for me *stares at 3 months worth of posts*... hopefully. RIP Grian's pottery, as someone who also works with clay, I feel that pain on a deep level. I see what Bel has done and I send him a bit more clay, as well as a mixer and clay powder so he can recycle the clay when needed. And a refill of any glazes he may need. Oh! And a wheel if he doesn't have one already, as well as a few needed tools like sponges, bats for the wheel, some ribs, etc. LimL!Cleo is so Toriel coded. We love Goat Mom. Oh also, (this might have been answered already and I haven't seen it yet) but what faction, if any are Gem and the Scotts part of? Also possible Scotpulse? Perhaps? Scott²? Idk i love those 2 together, also Impulse was the only one to not betray Scott during the Boogey Infection sooooo. Lmao Cub is scared of ducks. L oh... oh. oh Pearl. Red and light blue huh? I totally didn't start tearing up. I didn't do that. No way. And thats the end of the May review! I mean't to make these shorter and I don't think I succeeded.. oh well!

-Xas

Ooh reviews are back, loved these!

And yeah, I actually found out that Cleo used to have a Tumblr blog where she stated that as her backstory!

[animation-is-my-jam]

Hey ! I meant to send this a long time ago when you were taking asks, but I left for vacation so i never got to. I watched Wordgirl again recently and I have been obsessed with Becky and Tobey !! I saw that you have older versions of them and that's my favorite part of the Ship you made(I love domestic AUS)

Question||

How would you imagine a Becky and Tobey wedding? Who do you think they would invite? The best man? Maid of honor?

Where would they get married? Who would be crying the most? Lol (sorry if thats a lot of questions)

Ah, thank you, that's sweet!! (I live for post-canon Tobecky dynamics, too) And don't worry. Yeah, I'm incredibly busy now, but I'll still take asks. And this one is a very good one, Thanks!!

How would I imagine their wedding?

Besides some ideas of what they would wear/outfits (that I've drawn before, but I might redesign again, ha). I actually haven't given it much thought beyond some things I think would occur. And I'm mostly talking about my future AU versions of Tobecky and characters since that's literally my staple canon here, but that can generally apply to my perspective Tobecky since future au is literally just a time skip story.

So basic ideas. I think they would have two different areas for their wedding. One is inside for it being private with family and another outside for the public or general invited guest. I mostly say this because I think it was a compromise of Tobey and Becky wanting a more occasional smaller wedding versus their family urging for a bigger event. And also for Wordgirl/Lexiconian related reasons. As I think by this point, all her closest friends and family would know her identity and would probably like some Lexiconian traditions applied to the marriage (at this point, she's been wanting to connect to her original planet, but not by much). But where would they actually get married at?

I know it's a bit of a joke to say the city's library, but I think that would be cute since they have a lot of memories with the location. Where they could ask in a favor for miss Dewey and the city to rent out the space and make room enough for a small venue and get legally married. And the bigger outdoor wedding could be in the park or a rented garden venue.

The main colors would be white, gold, blue, and scarlet. (Becky wanted some green in there, but the planner refused--saying the greenery of the plants and outdoors would be fine enough). I have no idea what the dress code or coloring would be on the guest outfits/groom mates. But I could see the bridesmaids having golden/yellow dresses.

Maid of honor for Becky...like if it isn't Violet, then what are we doing!! So yes, of course it's Violet.

For Tobey's best man...I know some would say its Scoops, or Two-brains, or Rex (depends on who they would see as Tobey's best male-adjacent friend), but what if I totally go in the bold direction of saying TJ. And yes--it's mostly because in Future AU, I'm the only one who plays with the idea of TJ and Tobey's brotherly-in-law dynamic to the point where they do see each other as close friends despite how opposite they are and how often they get into conflict. And I could definitely see Tobey only asking TJ to be the bestman for the sake of Tobey not wanting to give Scoops the satisfaction of admitting he's his best male friend, LJDJSSJ (I really gotta make that dynamic/relationship chart).

On who would they invite? Besides already the close friends and family attending (like the Botsfords, Mrs. McCallister (+other family), Violet, Scoops, Rex, Rose, Victoria, Johnson, Bob, and Ect). I think for the public wedding they would extend it to the villains. Becky would be a bit conflicted on it, but hey--if they're all at her wedding, then she can make sure they don't commit a crime during her special day. And idk maybe besides DTB, it wouldn't be strange to only have them invited under the guise of Tobey doing the inviting because of his former status/relationship with them. Like the villains being at the wedding would mostly be a Becky idea (bc wahh I'm still a sucker for her and them getting along 🥹, even if they don't know she's Wordgirl). Other than the villains...idk like the recurring characters that we see? Maybe the groceries store clerk, exposition guy, Tubing, Reginald (I mean, they are going to use his jewelry for the rings). Aside from Tubing, they weren't personally invited, but eh, Becky is happy enough to let them be there.

Other details: Who would do the catering? Well, not wanting there to be a war. Tobey and Becky probably just let both Butcher and Chuck do it. Mostly to help with Bob's appetite. And the baker and candlestick maker provide the cake.

Who would be the wedding planner? I would most definitely say Violet, but she's more of the designer than the planner. So...idk maybe Becky? Who would try to be organized and cautious to the point of a breakdown from the stress? Yeah, so it's her. Becky definitely will need all the reassurance in the world to get through the wedding. I don't think the whole event will go perfectly, when do they for their family? But stuff will work out in the end, and Becky's going get her dream wedding. (Even if Granny May was trying to steal the wedding gifts/lh)

Who would be crying the most? The easiest answer in my life, of course it would be Tim. I can imagine him also being in charge of the recording, but he's so filled up with tears that he didn't do a good job at it, lol. And, of course, he couldn't stop wailing when they exchanged vows.

Speaking of the vows. You better believe that Tobey probably would say a lot, but he managed to make it as brief as he could, while Becky will pull up a 20-page essay from out of where and start reading out loud. (Many are almost asleep when she's done with it) (Not Tobey though, he's just not trying to kiss her immediately when she's reading through).

And last thing. The person who would officiate? There were many contenders on the list... I would have said someone like Professor Tubing, or Leslie, or Beau Handsome, or the exposition guy. You know people who would just totally randomly have an officiant license. Another idea is Bob, but nobody besides Becky would understand him, and he's out there putting his heart out in a speech.

But I thought about it and just went with the idea of them getting ordained by one of Tobey's robot, probably made specifically for it. I say that because Tobey has to have at least one robot doing something significant in the ceremony, but also, it would be the ultimate call back to his drawing.

That's all I think for now about their wedding. Maybe one day, I'll go into it deeper on another post. Thank you for the ask!

[fan-clan-fun]

Hello! I love this blog and always come to it for inspiration!

Right now my current fan project takes place in a post apocalyptic future where cats are going through their own Stone Age and using tools, very simple like clay bowls, antler and stone knives, learning to control and use fire, etc.. (I wanted to get rid of humans as the idea of sentient humans owning sentient cats doesn’t sit well with me) Instead of Clans they’re called Guards, and they each protect a small place of power within their territory from outsiders, relations between guards are actually pretty good and they allow cats to move Guards when necessary and encourage friendships and rivalries between cats.

Their leadership is loosely based on British Monarchy, with a ‘King and Queen’ (called Commander and Consort) and a ‘parliament’ of skilled cats who advise the commander (usually the Commander ends up picking his mentor and his parents perhaps some friends but his choices have to be approved by the Oracle so they don’t choose untrained or unliked cats) they do have a ‘Deputy’ but they are now called ‘Second’, Seconds are usually the oldest most promising heir from the Commander and consort, or a cat the Oracle and Advisors (elders) choose.

I tried to base the culture heavily on succession and mentorship, passing knowledge down, so it’s considered an honor to be given the same or similar suffix as your mentor. Cats are also apprenticed differently, becoming apprentices at 3 moons, early into training is just going over the code, games that teach them skills, and when they reach 7 moons they choose which guild they want to join (they can change their mind whenever but it’s uncommon)

The Guards are larger than Clans in general and have unique ranks, Guardians are warriors, a focus on fighting and hunting, regularly do patrols, switch amongst the territory camps to help protect them, especially camps that may not have a lot of fighters. Next are Crafters, cooking falls into crafting, but they also make satchels, knives, rudimentary traps, toys, as well as den maintenance. Then I have Ambassadors, I condensed them with one of the healer positions, ‘Speaker’ as they essentially do the same thing, Ambassadors are outside relations and Speakers were inside relations, but now they’re basically the guard therapists that also mediates with other Guards and groups. Mentors are pretty self explanatory, while every cat should get the chance to experience the bond between mentor and apprentice, these cats spend a lot of time with the young cats before 7 moons and pick their mentors according to personality and desired skill. My personal favorite are my Keepers, they keep track of history and familial relations, they’re essentially Perma-queens with a huge role in keeping bloodlines clear and recording history, they’re rarely storytellers but often parents. Lastly I have a sort of unique rank for each guard, usually something to do with the unique dangers each territory presents, (ie Mount Guard has an ‘Avalancher’ who after mountain slides they take a count of all the cats and go out searching for those missing)

I hope this isn’t too long, I got really excited seeing you pop up on my notifications again, I might send another ask going over healers or some of the unique customs the Guard cats practice.

I'm so sorry this took me so long to answer, truth is I've been answering most of these on mobile, so the longest ones have taken me a lot longer to get to, thank you for your patience in that!

I'm always curious how people plan on going about settings with cats and tools, as it's something that could be very interesting. Ultimately it requires a liiiittle suspension of disbelief, but I find sometimes that can be more fun.

Some of these concepts I've actually used or considered using myself before, so I am perhaps a bit biased when I say I enjoy them. I'm curious, do the commander and their consort often fulfill certain roles? Is it exclusively to produce kits for the next generation of leadership? Or is it more of a partnership than that?

I do have some clarifying curiosities, are the Guards the replacements for Clans? Or are there both?

So many fun different roles, and I like that you call them guilds. Once upon a time I wanted to do something similar, with a bunch of different ranks, each with their own little group of suffixes to denote their rank/guild, and when you apprenticed, you chose which guild to join. Seems like you could make it work well with your system.

I also think apprenticing that young, as long as they aren't fighting, makes sense. The bigger kits would likely require extra effort to keep busy, as they are pretty large at that point, so adding a few moons of education in camp before going out makes perfect sense.

Thanks for sending this in! Sounds like you have thought this all out pretty well, keep working hard and having fun!

[demonslayedher]

Nezuko's missing! We've got to go find her, at our local Aeon shopping mall!!

Yeah, it's that time again. Time to go check out another KnY collaboration, this time at a big handful of Aeon shopping malls across Japan. It's a simple two-part game, in which you walk around the mall, find four posters of characters posted in obvious locations to later receive a set of sticky notes, and three slightly less obvious posters with little voice clips of the characters which you can unlock after logging 1000 steps. Nezuko encourages you to be healthy!

It's really easy to get 1000 steps just going between the different floors to find the posters, though I know the drive behind the collab was to encourage me to download the shopping mall app and wander into stores and buy things. Joke's on you, Aeon, not today! All I bought was lunch!

Also, the app was kind of frustrating. It took a while to figure out where to start logging my steps, because you need to get 1000 steps before you can supposedly login to another page to download a cell phone wallpaper of a basic Nezuko pose with the secret keyword that you need to unlock the three special voice spots, but then the web page asked for my point card info, and I fumbled that and lost the page, and then even though it had my steps counted it wouldn't let me back into the Nezuko campaign, and then while trying to troubleshoot that on the instruction page I saw a blurred image of the screenshot and could make out the secret code anyway, so... anyway!

The first spot was a poster of Muichirou (it seems they had Mitsuri last week instead), saying stuff like, "huh? Aren't you the kid who Tanjiro is looking for?" and the third poster was Tanjiro being like, "You found her! Thank you so much, I've been looking everywhere!" but I never found the second poster. Since only Tanjiro and Muichiro's seiyuu were credited as being featured this week, I have no clue what the second one would had been. A mystery...

Anyway, I went to the food court looking for something quick and stumbled upon a totally separate collab--fried octopus balls!

Decision made.

And, since they have a different collab menu on different dates and there was only the Tanjiro and Nezuko option for today, decisions doubly made. I could had put it in a take-out box, but naaaah. The take-out box might or might not be used for future in the future for non-takoyaki purposes.

While trying finish collecting each character from the regional keychain series, I found Himejima and takoyaki about a month ago. Why is he crying about takoyaki, I wondered? Is it because the takoyaki is so good he's moved? Does he find the octopus too cute to eat? Did he burn his tongue? No, I now realize it's because he didn't get to be included on the takoyaki collab.

Don't worry, Himejima-san. They'll include you on more collabs in the future. There will be plenty more like these ones.

[melody-han-wayne]

(OOC: Update + Apology—Long Post)

So I've been pretty much non-existent for the past 4 months or so BUT I can explain!

Basically what happened is that I emigrated to not just a different country, but a different continent on literally the other side of the world from where I grew up. And I left behind all my friends and family at home, meaning I came here alone and I'm still alone and probably will be alone for as long as I remain in this new country. So for the past few months I've been dealing with moving and settling down and making plans to secure my future in this new country—heck, just making sure I can have a future in this new country. I'm more or less settled into my new life now (except for the planning for the future part) but before that I kind of forgot about Melody for a while 🫥

So anyway the guilt ate away at my subconscious and Melody's voice came to me in a dream and berated me for abandoning her, so I woke up and quickly came to check on my baby. And I realise, to my utter mortification and horror, that I never paused my Tumblr queue, so all the half-baked ideas, the rough drafts, the tentative-but-not-in-chronological-order character development, had been posting itself while I was away 🫠. So if during the past 5 months you saw my blog degenerate into a bigger and bigger mess and wondered "What the heck is going on"—it's not you, it's me. Right now I'm just trying to salvage what I can of my blog (and my dignity) and reorganise everything I originally planned for Melody (tbh I forgot half of it but I'm sure the memories are in here somewhere, I just have to clean out the dust and oil the gears first).

Honestly I have no idea how many people follow(ed) Melody's story, I might as well be posting into the void for all I know. But like so many of the other RPers on this blog I started because I was bored and had some ideas in my head that wouldn't leave me alone, and over time I became attached to my OC and her story (perhaps unhealthily so). That's part of the reason why I decided not to just delete my blog and make my absence permanent. Because working on this self-indulgent project used to make me happy, and because I still have some ideas I want to share with whoever might be lurking around. Another reason is because of the community that welcomed me and that I personally watched grow. Even when this blog was at its 'most active' I probably didn't interact with other RPers as much as I should/could have (again, it's not you, it's me) but what little interaction we did have I truly did enjoy as we built and connected our own stories and characters while also interpreting the DC ones. I don't think I've said this before, and I don't think I'll ever say it enough, but really, thank you all for being willing to indulge me and play with me. This has been a lovely space to be in, and you guys combined are like 80% of the reason ❤️❤️❤️❤️

@florence-wayne-official @kit-the-nonbinary-wayne @that-one-gotham-kid @amira-wayne-al-ghul @warren-wayne-kyle @teagrayson + anyone I missed, knowing the rate at which this community grows there's bound to be at least one person I didn't tag (it's not a snub—again, not you, it's me and my bad memory—please don't be offended 🥺)

((idk if tagging everyone is proper etiquette after my prolonged absence, I was just going to say 'you know who you are' at first and leave it at that but I'm not sure if you guys actually know who you are 😅 so if I'm breaking some kind of unspoken Tumblr code of etiquette I apologise again))

(((I didn't mean for that above note to sound as rude as it did)))

ANYWAYS if you've read past the wall of text above to make it down here congratulations and thank you, I'll be doing my best to clean up/revise my blog and my OC and her story in the coming weeks and hopefully get some sort of continuity back on track :) I'm also trying to figure out what happened in the rest of the RP community in my absence so if I reply to a three-month-old post now: once again, it's not you, it's me, and there's totally no obligation to engage with.

Can't wait to hang out with the Batfamily again ☺️ plus all my RP siblings, half-siblings, future siblings, stepsiblings, undead siblings etc XD

[manonamora-if]

Another weekend another check in...

The ribbons had been have and the festival closed its door (until March next year!), so it was time to post my PostComp Mortem. Super long post detailing where the idea came from, how the process went, and what the reception was (and the lessons I should have learned...).

I've also released the full code of the SpringThing version on my Github to view it freely.

There will be an update at one point in the future to clean out some code, fix some little issues with the parser, and add some missing content.

The translation of this game is now complete!! I've managed to fix some issues from the French version as well, and included pretty graphics, too!

The English version in the testing phase, and will be up and running at the end of the month (so not next week, but the one after next weekend). It know I will have some kinks to iron out, and getting a whole week for that will be great!

The translation will be added to the original page, and an announcement will be made about it! (a.k.a a new intro post for it all)

Oh and the French version will be fixed as well...

The Writing is going, with almost half of the small exploration bit being drafted. MelS and I have discussed puzzles for the Chapter (there will be a few of those), as well as secret lore location. There will also be some interaction with a certain someone, and some more investigation.

But that will take its course. We are on MelS time for this :P

Guess who still hasn't made the map again...

I've announced it on the @neo-twiny-jam page (and reblogged it here), of my pledge to match the submission amount of the jam into a donation. Consider participating! (or share the announcement post)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Also on my GitHub now: the source code for :

Exquisite Cadaver (Jam version)

SPS Iron Hammer (Jam version)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There might be less news from me in the next few weeks, for personal stuff. But I should be back to continuing my old projects for a while! (I don't think I could make it to the IFComp this year. I have an amazing idea but I think I would need a good year to implement it properly. You might see smaller mini-project pop up tho.)

Also my analytics showed I passed some milestones with games/blog, I should prob do something but I need to think about what.

[feelin-kinda-cocky-bmc]

FKC Mini-Update 2/21/23

Alright, don't have a lot for this update, but hey, I thought I might as well keep posting so people are aware this project is still very much active! I'm currently on Mardi Gras break, and will be utilizing the next two days to work on writing Dustin's Route. There is a bit in Dustin's Day 1 that was originally going to take me a hell of a lot of time, in which I would be writing eight unique chunks of dialogue based on three options the player chooses in a row. However, for the sake of getting a rough draft out ASAP, I have streamlined it to where each topic will flow into each other without much of a missed beat. The eight interactions might appear in a later installment of the game, though.

However, while I'm here, I'd like to announce that the FKC Tumblr now has a new header image, courtesy of our new artist: Rose! I'm extremely happy with the art and I'm so glad we have another great artist on the team. Here's the full image because Tumblr dimensions are wack lol

Anyway, in an absence of content on my end, I'll go ahead and put out what is completed, what is currently being worked on, and what I'm hoping to achieve in the future:

The rough draft of Rich's route is done. However, in an effort to keep up with momentum during the earlier stages of writing when I wasn't on ADHD meds, I ended up skipping a whole part and promptly forgotten that I had skipped it. It's still very much a draft with a lot of repetition that I need to iron out, solely because when you work on something for so long in spaced out intervals, you forget what you did previously.

Once all of the incredibly messy drafts of each route are completed, I will be going back to revise them and hopefully get to a point where I can personally playtest the early stages of the game.

Also, in addition to completed routes, Rich and Jeremy's routes will have secret routes. These won't be as important and as high priority, as they are genuinely just me throwing some OCs into a fangame. But hey, if you like hot, borderline criminal bad boys, or flower-loving, theater kid soft boys, then I've got just the routes for you ;)

With the way I'm writing the routes, I'm also simultaneously coding. Or half-coding, anyway. I'm writing it all in a way that makes it easy for me to simply copy and paste it into ren.py, and then I just edit the Python from there. Double tasking woo!

I also have basic GUI assets that I made,,two years ago,,so I'll need to revise those. But aside from the title screen art, everything looks moderately okay and is completely functional.

At the moment, I'm working on Dustin's route. This is going to be heavily headcanon-based, I'm warning everyone now, but it doesn't stray far from canon. He's just a little unique because there's not a lot of canon information about him

Also, I don't know if I ever clarified this, but each route will be structured in the same format: The default exposition (where you choose your route), around 5 in-game events (or days), the dance day (where your bachelor of choice has invited Michael to the school dance), and if you're lucky, the date day (self explanatory, only available on good endings). In addition, each route with have a bad, neutral, and good ending. This does not include secret endings

After the Dustin Route, I plan to start Jake's, and then Jeremy's (sorry Boyfs shippers!). When all are completed, I'll start revision and the addition of the secret routes.

When the writing stage (which I'm almost entirely sure will be the longest) is mostly complete, we'll be going into the art stages. I have several talented artists already volunteered to help out, and I will likely make a hefty portion of my own. Art will include backgrounds, GUI assets, sprites, and possibly promotional pieces.

And after the art stage, we'll start playtesting a beta version so we can figure out bugs, adjust the stories as needed, and overall gauge the interest of the BMC fandom :)

I would love to create background music for the game at some point, and have the capability to do so, but that genuinely might not get there until later stages of development

Though this is far off, after the game's release, I'd also like to release events. These events would allow for a new storyline to be played regarding Michael and the rest of the BMC crew. These will largely be either self-indulgent or catering towards the fandom as a whole, such as writing all the characters in FKC into an AU. These sort of events would happen for things like Halloween, Christmas, Valentines, etc. Again, far off! But I'd like to make it at least known

Discord | Community Idea Drop

[fishnapple]

Hi there!!! I hope you have a nice day! ;)

I saw your October mini game post and I really want to give it a try ✨

My name: Thu

HEX code of a colour: #b6cfae

So here a fact about me: I have pretty big burn scars from hot boiling water all over my left leg. It happened when I was like 3 or 4 years old. And I noticed that I have never ever felt insecured about it. Probably because I wear long pants/skirt all the time, people never say anything bad about them (because they don't know, obviously 😭). So, when I wear shorter types of clothes, I feel pretty confident because I feel like people actually don't care lmao. But that also makes me sad that how words can affect you in a bad way 😞 Like, those harsh words can make you think badly about yourself when in reality, you're amazing!!!

Also another fun fact 🤓☝️: Do you know that we have leap years in the Lunisolar calendar! I don't know if I'm just dumb or this fact is actually amazing because it's pretty random but whatever 😭😭😭 My mom just did a search about leap years in Lunisolar calendar (idk why) and asked me and honestly I know nothing about it until just now. I don't know how Lunisolar calendar works lmao 😭😭 I'm a bad Asian child fgjwofnslksbs

So yeah, that's all. And I'd love to hear messages about all of my studies (don't know how I should word this because English isn't my mother tongue😅) right now because I've been feeling very down for like, 4 years... I don't know what I'm doing. I don't have any clear plan for the future. Is the path I'm going worth my time?😞 University life is so sad...😞😞

Okaiy, that's it. Thank you so much for the mini game :3✨✨✨ Also, I love your readings so muuuuuch pls don't die 😔🙏

Hello Thu, thank you for sharing that fact about you and a fun fact about the calendar. You're right, with just a few words, a person's day or sometimes months, years or longer than that, can be affected, for better or for worse. You're really brave for embracing yourself like that.

The Lunisolar calendar can be so confusing, did you mean the extra leap month every 3 years? If I celebrated my birthday based on the Lunisolar calendar then I would probably have had only about 18~20ish birthdays by now, feel so young. 😎

About your last sentence, eh.., you can wish for my blog not to die, as for me, sorry, I will have to disappoint your wish someday 😅

The message for you: If you only focus on the hardship before you eyes, then you will miss the vision for the future ahead of you. What you're doing is laying foundation for your future, no matter how small, how boring the actions are. I do see a stable and fruitful future for you. But don't close yourself off, don't be in the solitary mindset. You might look at other people and see them doing all the fun things with their life, comparison is your worst enemy here.

October Mini game - Message from the Universe

[princesscolumbia]

Code of Ethics - Ch. 3 - Trigger Warning

My outline had the events of this chapter spanning three chapters. I was honestly surprised how quickly the details needed hit the page and how smoothly one thing flowed to the next. The first scene was intended for a much later chapter in part 1, so I shuffled a few things around and it works MUCH better than my initial outline.

Dylan learns more about the assignment and the new VR tech and some inner demons come out to play

Preview below the cut:

Dylan sighed as he let the door to his flat close behind him. He rather liked the term ‘flat,’ he felt it suited his home better than calling it ‘an apartment.’ He grew up in apartments, and while there was nothing wrong, per se, with apartments, they did serve to remind him of the struggles of growing up in a poor home in the post-war years. Rationing had been harsh, resources scarce and getting more so by the day, and people weren’t sure if they’d have jobs to go to the next day. Then the riots started, followed by the epidemics that wiped out a good portion of some communities. Rumor was the epidemics were coordinated by the CDC to thin the population at the behest of the President, but nobody in the intelligence community wanted to dig too deep into those kinds of rumor. That’s how you got disappeared or suffered ‘heart attacks’ at a young, healthy 32.

Like John.

Tossing his keys in the dish on the end table and taking off his coat, Dylan gave a thought to the man who was his boss and might have been a friend if the power dynamic hadn’t been one of boss-and-employee. He was smart and kind, carrying a sense of justice that had been untarnished even after a decade in the agency. Never married and, as John had confided over drinks one Friday night when it had just been the two of them without plans, never would have even if he’d lived to be 100. “The world has enough couples who struggle to manage making it through another day in this hellscape we live in. I’m not going to shackle someone else to me if it means I might ‘go missing’ one day and some poor woman has to carry on after me.”

Dylan looked out through the panoramic picture windows that lined the western wall of his flat. The waters of Galviston Bay sparkling as the evening drew on. The building had once belonged to some tech company that was based out in California, one of the many that had intended on using Texas’ extremely lenient tax rates for corporations to establish a foothold in the local economy, but then the war had fractured the United States into the Republic of California, The American Republic, and the shattered Eastern seaboard that was, effectively, a no-man’s-land. The California based company had to relinquish their ownership of the building when the wall was built and had gone under during California’s reconstruction. The American government had seized the building and converted it from the towering office structure it had been intended for into luxury apartments meant for whomever the government found favor with at the time. Not many chose to live in the building long-term. Simply having one of the suites as your address often painted a target on your back, so frequently the place was a stepping-stone. Earn a spot in the building, stay long enough to establish your success, then move out to the Houston suburbs as quickly as possible, mostly for the protection of your family.

Like John, Dylan had no plans to ‘settle down’ with someone. He was well aware of his issues with intimacy. In spite of his pastor reassuring him that he’d one day find the girl he’d want to start a family with, he didn’t want to saddle any woman with his presence in their life. He was attracted to women (on a bone-deep level, if his dreams were any indication), and it was this very attraction that he found off-putting. He could imagine just about any woman he knew with a bright, wonderful future…without him. The moment he added himself into the vague visions of familial or career success down the line, those dreams seemed to crash and burn, Dylan’s mere presence acting as the catalyst for disaster.

Of course, he knew this was catastrophizing. He just couldn't seem to imagine any woman ever being happy and successful with him hanging off her arm.

He glanced at the wall clock, noticing the date and scowled. Happy birthday to me, I guess, he grumbled to himself as he stalked over to the kitchen and opened his alcohol cabinet. Not bothering with any of the wine, he went straight for the vodka. As he poured himself a drink, he considered turning on streaming video, but realized anything like the news or a live broadcast channel would have memorial stories. He did not need more reminders that his birthday shared the date with a nuclear bomb wiping out Washington D.C. His birthday was always a litany of replays of the event and commentators debating the woulda-shoulda-coulda of America’s response to the event. Then there were the ‘truthers,’ the people who claimed The Second had ordered the detonation Himself. Dylan didn’t know, didn’t care to know, and did his best to either work overtime or get plastered whenever his birthday rolled around. It was easier to tune out the mausoleum to tragedy the rest of the country made of the day than pretend to be one tiny voice trying to celebrate another trip around the sun.

Finally, he decided on some music. Something from fifty or a hundred years ago, something with no words. He woke the touch screen on the wall of his living room and navigated to a radio station and hit play, the sounds of strings and synthesized percussion filling the air.

Sipping at his vodka, he scanned the walls, trying to find something he could lose himself in. Thoughts of Star Trek from earlier entered his mind, but he couldn’t seem to muster the desire to read any of the books his mother had gifted him the Christmas before she passed away. They were paper books, too, not the e-books that most people used. “Nothing wrong with reading e-books,” his mother said at one point, “But sometimes you want to hold a book in your hand, feel the weight of the words that someone put the effort to put on paper. Words on a screen can move you, but the physical sensation of a real book makes it seem real in ways a digital copy just can’t.”

Sighing at the memory, he thought about plunking away on the piano, but then he’d have to stop the music, which would allow his mind to wander. An idle mind was the devil’s playground, after all, and there were enough sinful thoughts in Dylan’s mind for the devil to have plenty to play with.

His eyes fell on a model kit he was tinkering with of the I.S.S. Voyager, neatly stored in its partially assembled state on a shelf above the parts and tools needed to build it. Nodding with satisfaction, he picked up box that held the unassembled parts and moved them to the dinner table he’d never once eaten at.

Three hours and two more shots of vodka later, he’d managed to assemble a good portion of the saucer section. This particular model was the kind with circuitry and wiring to allow for the lights to work. It also had a bridge, captain’s ready room, and open shuttle bay that you could look into through tiny viewports and see ‘functional’ workstations and a tiny little Delta Flyer Attack Craft in the shuttle bay. It was appreciably ‘fiddly,’ literally thousands of parts and included a wireless controller that allowed the builder to program the lights and what could be seen on the miniature display panels. He was somewhat disappointed when he’d read the schematics and instructions to find that you couldn’t build the small borg alcoves that Seven would call her home, but if the manufacturer had done that, then they would likely have put in the agony booths as well, and of all things Trek, the agony booths were the one thing Dylan just did not like.

God, he groused to himself mentally, I’m such a downer today. Taking a cleansing breath, he began putting the kit away for storage. Looking out the picture windows showed that night had well and truly fallen and the water in the bay was reflecting the dark night sky above. Stars were hard to see in the city, even when looking out over the bay to the ocean-filled horizon, but a few managed to pierce the light pollution, shining on them like it had for their ancestors for millenia.

What would it be like to actually fly a ship through space? He pondered, pausing to look up at the sky as he held the framework of the saucer section of Voyager. Just take command of a ship, find a star, and head out…not worry about hunting, not worry about the faces of children pasted onto soulless digital creatures…

Of course, he knew it wasn’t that easy. Even on Star Trek: Hegemony they couldn’t escape the realities of life on Earth. The Maqui that had been forced to earn the loyalty of their captain or be phasered from existence, the scarily prescient vision of an A.I. doctor that would go rogue and turn on its creators, and the treason of Chakotay in the year before Janeway had been able to crush Unimatrix Zero.

He wondered briefly why the show had never shown Mirror Janeway. Plenty of fanfics existed pondering exactly that, and there was that one torrent that still floated around the dark web that had laughable production values but was like a mirror universe version of the show he loved. He’d watched five minutes of it once when he’d been an analyst, one of the rogue A.I. he’d been hunting at the time was showing it for a ‘movie night’ for other A.I. and some humans that didn’t know they were in the middle of a nest of rogues. It was…shoddy. The production looked like it came from the late 20th century, but then if you were putting together an unauthorized version of one of the most successful science fiction franchises ever made, it was inevitable you’d have to cut corners or get some things wrong.

Like the Vulcan tactical officer and best friend of Janeway. How much did you have to screw up the character of one of the greatest human captains ever written about to have them befriend an enemy of humanity?

He realized he’d been woolgathering with the model in his hand and staring at the sky for several minutes. Shaking his head only to regret it (he probably shouldn’t have had the third shot of vodka on top of the pint of hard cider at the bar), he put the model back on its shelf and headed to the bedroom.

The faster he got to sleep, the better.

[lenteur]

random thoughts about strong girl nam soon, episode two

(read more because i always get carried away lol and this post might contain spoilers)

i didn’t mention it but i really like the opening song

it might not mean anything to most people but i appreciate the fact that they start the episode with the last scene from the previous episode. helps refresh my memory.

another thing i forgot to mention is how nam soon has good taste in men lol she's a shawol and she likes other kpop idols hehe

nam soon and hee sik are doing such a great job for a first scene together. the close up shots of their faces adds to the fun of that moment. I can't wait to see more of them together

the bitcoin bit had me on the floor. i was literally the man listening to the explanation. went from one ear to the other

kang hee sik dressed as a woman and with a fake baby too

you could feel nam soon's pain of looking for her mother and being involved in so many situations instead. it's starting to wear her down but her knight in shining armor arrives at the right time

cool blurry effect on the camera to mimic nam soon's tears and the romantic music in the back when he asked her if she ate. It's the little details that make this scene even better.

i see nam soon has already started to rub off on kang hee sik. He just repeated what she said to him a few seconds ago and with the same intonation. I think I'm gonna have a blast with these two.

i can't get enough of the comedic scenes in this drama. the little dance hee sik does and nam soon's laser vision getting to see it live lmao she was bewitched by his lack of a*s and dancing skills

the actress playing hwang ja is doing an amazing job because i want her to fail so bad!!!

miss madame hwang geum ju... i need you to stop being so iconic and elegant and fierce and gorgeous. My heart is a little too fragile to handle all of that

the fact that geum ju chose not to follow the dress code for the elite billionaire club thing speaks volumes about who she is. even her little speech, she wants to create a world that is livable for both the rich and less rich people. one thing that has been consistent with her is her consideration for the less fortunate. she lent the money to ms. park, helped her and chased the two men who were selling ms. park dr*gs (censoring just in case). she does know where she comes from and it was obvious with her choice of shoes: sneakers. she shocked the elite and proved that she was on her way to change the world. i really like her character because she doesn't give up and will go through literally anything to reach her goals.

once again, the trailer for next episode makes me want to watch it asap

overall, a good second episode

i hope the next episode will develop both the villains' arc a lot more because i'm left hungry for more scenes and character development. i know we're only in episode two so that's why i'm curious to see where the story will go in future episodes.

i'll rate it a 8.5/10