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twelvedy7 · 3 years ago

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Twisted - One shot

warning: sensitive topics (drugs).

I just wanted to write something a bit different. It might be a bit OCC but I thought it might be a great fit for the manga universe. This story won’t be published anywhere else than tumblr so feel free to save the story if you like it.

Oh and also english isn’t really my native language so sorry if there are incoherences.

Takano had no sense of self-control. From a very young age he has been a witness of the sheer harshness of his mother and the complete indifference of his father towards their family. Despite how much he tried to convince himself of his difference he inherited from most of their flaws, which filled him with anger every time he thought about it.

No wonder that whenever he met someone bright, kind, generous and appreciated he became more aware of his whole dark gloomy personality. That was the case with Ritsu he was still viewing today as the 16 year-old teen he used to be a decade ago.

No wonder that when he met this bright, kind and generous highschool kid he had become more aware of his dark gloomy personality. He was still viewing Ritsu as the 16 year-old teen he used to be a decade ago and yet he couldn’t understand for the life of him the reason why such a lovable person would waste their time with him rather than finding another likeable person that would be such a better companion than him.

If all the open rejections from the brunette could make him believe he hated him, he was at least smart enough to read between the lines and see what the other tried so hard to conceal under feigned anger and flustered reactions.

What seemed to be like a bitter-sweet genuine love story from two ignorant teenagers who lost each other from a foolish misunderstanding was driving him straight into madness. Ritsu was constantly on his mind, invading his thoughts at any time of the day, reminding him of the terrible person he was and how he will never be nowhere near enough for him. Even in the poorly credible reality where the younger one would actually build up the courage to admit his feelings, he knew that their relationship was sealed to failure.

One day Ritsu would mature and realise how incompatible they were and how idealistic they’ve been this whole time before leaving him to find another person that could offer him the support and love he needed. Maybe one day Ritsu would find the man of his dreams, different from senpai in every way, to finally live the blissful life he aspired to. That’s what broke his heart the most: they were not made for each other. No matter how hard he tried, it will never be enough because they were simply not meant to.

He imagined Ritsu’s soulmate to be fun, social, caring, communicative and considerate which would make him forget all the turmoil he went through for all this time. His parents might be so enchanted by their personality that the fact they weren’t An-Chan wouldn’t even bother them.

The truth is he was physically and emotionally drained. He couldn’t feel a thing if it wasn’t his love for Ritsu and sometimes he felt as if that was his last tie with sanity. There were times where he would shut down his emotions. When it became too difficult to confront their inevitable fate, he would put himself in a semi-automatic mode working up to 15 hours straight without paying attention to anything or anyone, only accomplishing what he ought to.

Over time, he came to accept that he wasn’t able to love anyone without causing them a great deal of pain and suffering. That’s why he decided to distance himself from the few people who actually cared about him in his life and managed to bring him some split meaningful moments of happiness. It was like a lightning bolt shaking him from side to side, making him surrender to the hope of one day being able to spend the rest of his life with Ritsu and recovering from his long-lost friendship with Yokozawa. He hurt them both and didn’t deserve to be part of their lives.

His phone vibrated. He broke off his thoughts to center his attention on the alias displaying on the screen: “Taisho” along with a message “I’m here.”

He stood up from the floor, came up to the entrance of his apartment and opened the door. A man of average-height in his mid-thirties was waiting for him. At first glance, he gave the impression of being a regular salary-man coming back home to his family after a long day of hard work. However, he came to discover that the man likely had a long history of debt behind him involving matters such as a costly divorce and low paychecks.

Not bothering to greet him, he pulled out 6,000 yen from his pocket and handed it to the fearful looking man who replaced the notes with a small transparent plastic bag containing a white powder.

“Same thing next week?” asked the anxious black-haired man, his light blue eyes too faithful to be a dealer squeezing behind his oval glasses.

“Yeah. See you.”

Without giving him a second glance, he double-locked the door and came back to his dimly lit living room that felt so lonely without Ritsu here. It would take some time, if not forever, to prevent this heavy load in his heart from manifesting every time he would find himself alone without the prospect of his first love joining him any time soon.

It still pained him… Nao came unannounced in the office earlier in the morning and asked Ritsu out for something that too likely looked like a date. A walk in the city center, a restaurant, and a nighttime exposure. That bastard.

The rare times he had managed to take Ritsu out for a date was by forcefully dragging him out of his apartment or bluntly lying by message playing the card of ‘emergency’. He remembered the dull ache he felt in the morning as he realised how easy it was for his “best-friend” to take him out to a full outing while he had to prepare a strategy days ahead just to drink a coffee together.

Opening the tiny bag in his hands, he chased away his dark thoughts and kneeled in front of his coffee table, pouring half of the powder out on its surface and realigned it in two fine lines with the help of an old credit card. He usually didn’t take such high doses in one shot, but tonight he knew that he needed it. The accumulated pain and overthinking were taking a toll on him. Rolling a paper, he brought it to his right nostril and sniffed the first line, ignoring the burning pain in his cavity before passing it to his left one and repeated the action.

A few seconds later he started feeling the tiny molecules flowing through his blood system, noticing the faster pace of his heart beat and the gradual relaxation of his muscles as the drug invaded his mind.

He closed his eyes.

As always, the thrill was exquisite. The far away sounds of ambient city noises echoed and at some point the only thing he could decipher in the absolute silence was his own breath. His body was soft and any psychological pain he felt instantly disappeared. It was as if someone had covered him with a warm fluffy blanket while stroking his hair with a gentle grasp, providing him an endless feeling of comfort and security he so desperately needed.

At that moment, everything stopped and all his troubles went away. Nothing mattered anymore. He was back being a young child pampered by a protective mother he never had with an unconditional sense of love. Pleasurable sensations coursed through his body from head to toes until his spirit went numb and he lost any notion of space and time.

He reached that moment of nothingness that he wished could last forever.

___

“Takano-san!”

...

“Takano-san!”

Who was it?

The voice seemed so far away he wasn’t even sure it was real.

“Masamune!” Why would someone try to break the silent darkness that was surrounding him?

For what seemed like hours, he felt himself trapped in-between the process of gaining and losing consciousness. He didn’t want to be drawn from his deep slumber yet.

He recognized some familiar voices in the background but it was hard to put a name on them as they seemed to continuously echo.

It took him several more minutes to realise that people were present and it shook him. He became hyper aware of his environment.

The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was a bunch of white blouses around him scampering around the room at a feverish speed.

His mind whirled. The world seemed to be going so fast but his brain was so slow.

His golden eyes blinked several times to adjust to the brightness of the room. In an instant he was blinded by the artificial light of the leds on the ceiling.

In the chaos of all the fast-paced strangers around him, he felt a delicate hand fondling with the hair on the short back of his neck and let out a soft tired moan escape his lips.

“Takano-san can you hear me?!”

He groggily stretched out his limbs while burying his head on the petite body frame behind him and looked up to see who was the kind stranger offering him such soft intentions.

Above him were two wide teary green eyes displaying a worried expression. Despite his blurry vision, he could recognize the refined and familiar traits of the man he loved. It looked surreal, having the both of them like this sharing such intimacy in a restless atmosphere.

Next to him was standing Yokozawa in his usual professional attire. He could only watch them through half-closed eyes all the while trying to figure out what they were doing in his apartment in the first place.

“He’s stable now. Overdoses happen regularly when cocaine and other powerful stimulants are added to the equation. That’s what producers do nowadays to boost the effects”. Said a firm feminine voice. He could see the lady in white gesturing around to her colleagues and immediately realised what just happened. She was staring at him, probably trying to jauge how awake her patient was.

“You were lucky Takano-san. This could have been much more serious.”

He saw his friend sitting next to Ritsu, his usual severe expression ruptured by the deep crease in his eyebrows.

“How did you find me?” asked the raven, his voice so weak he wasn’t sure the two others heard him.

The brunette brought his face closer to his ear, petting his forehead as he replied in a shaky shy voice: “Yokozawa-san found you like this…” he heard a sneeze. “The front door was unlocked and your phone was ringing without you answering it. You… You stopped breathing.”

He felt absolutely miserable.

Trying to shift his position to have a better view of his comrades, he caught the look of utter disappointment and guilt from his older friend. He probably thought that he was long done with this dark hazardous period of his life.

“I’m… I’m sorry... I didn’t want to…”

His battle to stay awake was getting harder and harder.

“It’s okay Masamune. Just rest for now.”

The nurse took a hold of his wrist and stuck the intravenous line with a patch.

“We’re going to transfer you to the clinic as you need to take several tests. You’re safe now but your body needs to recover.”

The hand that was playing with his hair resumed and he let his head fall back on his lap. This combined with the liquid in his body led him to a sleep without dreams.

___

When he woke up again, he found himself buried under the sheets of a hospital bed. It took him some time to become accustomed to the artificial lighting of the room. Gathering enough energy to finally keep his eyes open, he gazed at the clock at his right indicating 4:55AM.

The first thing he felt was an atrocious headache that hit him with a massive chest pain undertaking his whole body. He noticed the numerous wires connected to his skin accompanied with the steady regular bips of a machine.

He heard a light snore on his right. Shifting his head, he immediately saw the small fragile figure crawling up into a ball on the couch. A cheap blanket was covering him from toes to his neck. This sight made him feel so terribly selfish. As seconds went by he started getting back to a normal state of awareness despite a fizzy pang at the back of his skull.

With as much strength as he could gather he sprawled a hand towards him and rested it on the others’ laps. He stroked his thigh lightly with the help of his thumb and stared at his seemingly exhausted resting face. He felt so worthless. He knew he had hurt him badly in the past already and the only thing he could think of is that this was too much.

“I’m so sorry Ritsu…”.

After reuniting with his first love following the 10 years they had spent apart from one another he had started to believe in fate. Yet he had been too trustful, using it as a justification for every one of his impatient and inappropriate moves towards the younger one. Everything became painfully obvious. This whole thing they had was destructive and that was mainly his fault. It was time to finally respect the distance that Ritsu wanted and deserved. He could not go back to these college years pretending that nobody cared about him.

Now Ritsu would need him.

Still, they were nowhere near close from getting into a relationship. Too many mistakes had been made. It was crucial for both men to work on themselves first as jumping the steps one more time would only bring them unhappiness.

That day Takano swore he would stop pursuing Ritsu. He’s forever been broken and finally accepting to get help was a start towards a less twisted life.

“It’s okay Ritsu.”

One day they would be okay. They would get the life they both secretly wanted.

#sekaiichihatsukoi #Sekaiichi Hatsukoi #junjou romantica #Ritsu Onodera #Takano Masamune #yokozawa takafumi

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vanaera · 4 years ago

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𝐌𝐲 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞 | 𝟎𝟑 | 𝐣𝐣𝐤

Synopsis: A future technology allows cops to jump in the past and future to investigate crimes that have happened and prepare for those that are about to happen. A simple hit-and-run turns into something more when Captain Jeon Jungkook finds himself as the victim of a culprit who cannot be identified by the system. Especially when the culprit seems to be the same person behind the new case that’s threatening the order in the justice organization. All goes haywire when Jungkook gets involved with Y/N L/N, the clairvoyant sketch artist who may be his only help to solve the case.

Characters: Jungkook x Female Reader

Genre/AU: Sci-fi, romance, angst, mystery, action, fluff (in this chapter!) (cop!JK x artist!you), based on the movie Minority Report

Wordcount: 7.8k

Warnings: Dark themes and implied smut (in future chapters); mentions of blood (PG-16 Rating)

A/N: I busted my brain cells writing the action scenes for this so please feel free to tell me what you think about this chapter!

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𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟑: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐚𝐦𝐬𝐞𝐥 𝐨𝐟 𝐒𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬

Jungkook steps away from Yoongi and races out of the Murder Sector and into the Left Wing. “Captain Jeon!” Yoongi hollers behind him, but Jungkook doesn’t turn an inch towards his way. His mind is set. There’s no time for this. Jungkook runs to the main building’s hallway, eyes set on the closing elevators. He could hear Yoongi and even Jimin and Taehyung close behind. Jungkook sprints. He reaches the elevator just in time and slides himself into the sliver of space left by the closing doors.

By the time Taehyung shouts “Captain!” the doors of the metal lift have already shut close.

Jungkook raps his knuckles on the gray door in hurried beats. It takes six more knocks until it bursts open.

“Why are you here?” Y/N pointedly looks at him, forehead creased.

Jungkook doesn’t say anything and makes his way inside the studio. He scrutinizes the room. The buckets of paint are still a mess, the owl painting still unfinished. Jungkook turns around and finally looks at the girl. “What do you mean with your text? That you saw a ‘Sooah Kim?’”

Y/N closes the door shut and shakes her head. Jungkook only notices she’s wearing a black, sleeveless, turtleneck cropped top. Black, baggy cargo pants cinch at the top of her black combat boots. She has her hair tied in a low ponytail, stray strands framing her face. She looks like a different person once again.

Y/N pulls the stool and sits, clasping her hands together on the table. A black dragon tattoo spirals from her upper arm to her elbow. Jungkook has never seen it before. Nor the monochrome hornet bee tattoo peeking from the center of her abdomen, its translucent wings spread wide. From the size of the insect’s abdomen, Jungkook thinks it could be a queen. He’s seen one of them in his trip to Vietnam with Namjoon last year.

Y/N tilts her head. Jungkook’s eyes dart back towards hers. Y/N chuckles. “So, that’s why you rushed here?” she raises a brow, “to know if I indeed saw a Sooah Kim?”

Jungkook walks to the table. “This is not a time for joking, Y/N,” he grits, slamming his hands on the table.

Y/N stares blankly at him. She leans back in her seat and crosses her arms. Her top rides up. The hornet shows in complete view. It is indeed a queen. “If that is your question, then, yes, I saw a Sooah Kim. Though I don’t know why you have to come here right now without any schedule—”

“I need answers, Y/N. Right now.” Jungkook’s brows meet together. “The red file we saw yesterday—a blank turned up earlier containing the same Winston file and—”

“So you believe me now?”

Silence.

Jungkook takes a step back, “When did I tell you I didn’t?”

Y/N scoffs, “You don’t have to tell me, Jungkook. I know you didn’t. And now that one of my visions matched with your current reality, you’re suddenly open to trusting me with answers you so seek.”

“Y/N—”

“It’s okay, I understand.” Y/N waves a hand. “I already expected it. Actually, I’ve already seen this day coming. You with that funny face,” Y/N points at him, chuckling, “God, I’ve never seen such a conflicted face in a while.” Y/N sits back up, “Anyway, I have to give you leeway in my judgment. After all, it’s not easy for anyone in an established system to believe in something that doesn’t belong in their paradigm. So now that you want your answers,” Y/N kicks back the stool in front of her, “Sit.”

Jungkook slowly makes his way around the stool and sits. It feels oddly nostalgic to be in the same place again. Even if this time he’s sitting in Y/N’s initial position, Y/N in his—their social position remains the same. He still has the shorter end of the stick.

“Let’s start now.” Y/N bends down to retrieve a small, black canvas bag from the stack of boxes and papers on her side. She produces a white folder and pushes it to the man.

Jungkook looks at Y/N. The girl only smiles. Jungkook’s eyes drop to the stationery in front of him. He flips it open. It’s a composite sketch of a woman in her late twenties. She has a small, square face with a rounded chin, short button nose, and small but wide, mono-lidded eyes. Her ears are quite big for her petite face, her shoulders are short, and her neck, elegantly long like a swan. Her hair is parted to the left, chopped at shoulder-length, dark strands softly framing her face. For lack of any better word, she is beautiful.

“That’s Sooah Kim.” Jungkook’s eyes dart back to Y/N. The girl explains, “I tried to do a read in the future based on what we found at Somerset Road. What I only got are short clipped frames. A white lobby of a hospital, dark metal bookshelves, a tipped hourglass, a picture of this woman, and a label at its bottom that said ‘Sooah Kim.’ Y/N cups her jaw, “there’s also a frame that showed Winston’s red file.”

Jungkook’s brows bunch up together.

Y/N continues, “So I figured the two of them must be connected. I drew a composite sketch of Sooah just in case we chance upon her someday. Though I’m not sure she will look this young. The vision looked kinda grainy so it must be memories. I’ve experienced seeing these kinds of things before and most often than not, they’re remnants of the past that will separately appear in the future. Like a prophecy.” Y/N looks at Jungkook, “I can’t put this into better words, so if you’d like, do you want to see them?”

“What will I see?”

“My vision,” Y/N smiles. “I could say you coming here as soon as I finished my read is actually a good thing. For you, that is. Not for me. You disturbed me from my work.” Y/N rolls her shoulders back, “The vision won’t be as vivid as I first saw it but the memory of it is still fresh in my mind. Good for you, you could do a little peek-in.”

“But how will I do that?”

Y/N leans forward and opens her left palm, “Hold my hand.” Jungkook looks at her confused. Y/N rolls her eyes, “Just hold my hand, goddamn it.”

Jungkook clears his throat. He raises his hand and ghosts it above Y/N’s. He closes his eyes and he fills every slot between her fingers with his own.

And then, Jungkook feels it—the fall. He feels like falling in a still body of water, the sound of the splash violent like the shot of a rifle. A gush of water soon fills his lungs, vanquishing the oxygen in each fiber of his muscles. Jungkook claws at his throat but no matter how hard he pulls at his skin, no matter how hard he coughs, no water spills out. He’s drowning in frigid nothingness.

The fall seems to go on forever. Jungkook stretches out his limbs but it’s useless. There’s nothing in his way that could tether him to the above. He falls deeper into the waters until he suddenly feels a ripple beneath his head. The world tips over and his head shoots out from the surface, setting off a spray of water from the movement.

There’s something cold beside his face but there’s no longer water filling his lungs. He’s breathing fine again. The fall has stopped. Jungkook’s eyes shoot open and he gasps. He’s floating on water. It’s cold and there’s nothing but darkness in front of him.

That is until the blackness filling his eyes flickers and all he could see now is light. Bright light. Natural like the ones that pass through the windows in the early morning. The light dims and it fades into the view as a brightly-lit white hallway replaces it. There are people in white coats walking. Some are running with assistants behind their steps. It looked like a hospital but devoid of any patients. The whiteness of the hallway faints into black and soon, there are no more hallways nor people dressed in white coats. Just metal shelves lined next to each other, foreboding as they stand under a dingy light that paints everything in murky dark green. Before Jungkook’s perspective could see more of the shelves, the view changes completely, and frames flash before his eyes in quick successions.

A tipped-over hourglass, wilted flowers falling down its hollow neck instead of sand. Black blood-like liquid running down a mountain of lackluster coins. A black eagle against a golden wall, its bloody wings severed, pinned next to its body, burning. And then, Jonathan Winston’s red file flat on a wooden desk. A phantom hand turns it open and instead of Jungkook’s crime record and thick documents of paper, it contains a picture of a woman with mahogany hair, long neck, and small, wide eyes staring right into Jungkook’s eyes. Inked letters smudge the white edges of the picture black, forming the words “Sooah Kim.”

Jungkook’s eyes widen. It’s exactly like the woman Y/N sketched. Before he could ponder more, he is pulled back into the waters. His lungs squeeze tight and he’s falling once again. When he gasps, he’s no longer in the murky water, but slump over a wooden table, dry and warm. Jungkook flinches back and he feels a strong tug on his left arm. He raises his head and he meets a pair of dark eyes.

“So, did you see enough?”

Jungkook’s brows raise and he realizes he’s still holding Y/N’s hand. He immediately lets go as if he was burned. His eyes roam around. Buckets of paint lay on the floor. Newspapers are messily strewn around. The huge gap of a window letting sunlight inside. So much it completely fills the room with the golden hue of the afternoon. He’s back in Y/N’s studio and it’s ironically warm.

“You look so shocked.”

Jungkook whips his head to the girl. His eyes stretch wide as he wraps his hand around his throat. It doesn’t feel sore and he doesn’t feel out of breath.

“Your throat is fine, don’t worry,” Y/N snickers. “The water and the fall, they’re all just mental projections.”

“B-but the black blood, the hallway, the shelves, and the burning eagle—”

“That is my vision.”

Jungkook looks at her. Y/N tilts her head, “Did you see Sooah Kim?”

Jungkook’s eyes glance at the sketch composite in front of him. He nods, “y-yeah.” He turns to Y/N, “But I don’t understand, how did I see your vision?”

“Simple,” Y/N leans back in her chair, “Time jump to a memory.”

Jungkook brows shoot up, “I ju-jumped in your m-memory?”

“You didn’t make the jump. I let you jump into my memory.” Y/N crosses her arms, “I want you to see my vision. I couldn’t make sense of the hourglass, the coins, the bird, and their connection with the white hallway and dark shelves. I could only connect Sooah Kim and Winston. The driver of the Jaguar has a Winston file in his car. Of course, he’s interested in it. And Sooah appears to be involved with Winston’s case. So, I guess we could say she may be a key to solve your unidentifiable suspect.” Y/N flashes him an apologetic smile, “Sorry you had to suffer the waters. They’re boundaries of the memory map I set on myself.”

Jungkook’s forehead crease. “You set a memory map on yourself?”

“Of course. My business revolves around memories, I don’t want any of my memories messing with the ones I need for a case. Nor do I want my clients invading them, especially those who have access to time-traveling technology.”

“Why? What’s with people who can time travel?”

Y/N sighs, “In case you didn’t know yet from your job, memories mark passed time. Time is made sense by people’s memories in them. So, every travel you make, you’re jumping into memories. Your organization has eyes on almost everywhere to see and have the same memories the people have.” Y/N looks into his eyes, “With your kind of technology, you can easily get into anyone’s head.”

Jungkook presses his lips together.

“I think our meeting is done for today,” Y/N stands up and smiles, “I’ll send you off.”

Jungkook climbs down the steps of Mini-Palais, Y/N following behind. He doesn’t know why she suddenly wanted to see him off but he’s not against it. In fact, he feels relieved she’s being kind to him even after he doubted her skills. Maybe it’s because of the large sum of money he’s gonna wire to her at the end of the week. But Jungkook feels it’s more than that. At least, that’s what he wants to think.

Once they make it to the street, Jungkook turns around. “I’ll contact you as soon as I get something on Sooah Kim.”

Y/N doesn’t seem to focus on him because she’s eyeing the surroundings. Jungkook clears his throat.

Y/N darts her eyes back to his, “Where’s your car? You didn’t bring it?”

“Um, yeah. Its coding is today.” Jungkook shrugs.

Y/N smirks, “So you ran all the way here from your work just because you wanna get your answers?”

“Well, I didn’t run all the way,” Jungkook chuckles, “I took a cab.” The mirth in his eyes soon dies down when his phone rings in his bomber jacket. “One second,” he says to Y/N. He swipes the call to answer it.

“Yeah, Namjoon?”

“Jungkook, yeah, hi,” Namjoon says, his voice hesitant. “I don’t think I can make it. The Bureau wants us to do overtime for the backlog of files in the archives. I know you don’t have your car with you. I’m sorry I won’t be able to drive you to the hospital.”

“Hey, it’s alright,” Jungkook says, “I can commute on my own. Don’t worry.”

“But—”

“Namjoon, just focus on your job and come home safely, okay?”

Namjoon sighs, “Okay.”

“Bye,” Jungkook ends the call, slipping his phone back into his breast pocket. Turning back to Y/N, he sees the curious tilt of her head so he explains, “It’s Namjoon. He’s supposed to, um, drive me to the hospital.”

Y/N’s eyes widen, “Why? What happened?”

“Nothing serious. Just have to get my stitches off,” Jungkook raises his right arm.

“Oh, from the crash.”

“Yeah.” Jungkook shrugs, “It’s alright. Nothing big. Namjoon made it sound serious. He tends to over-worry.”

“Yeah,” Y/N nods. She looks down, sighing, and looks at Jungkook, “Well, if you want, I can drive you to the hospital instead.”

Jungkook’s forehead furrows.

“I have a ride,” Y/N answers, turning around in her heel, “Wait for me, I’ll get my keys.”

Y/N disappears back into the staircase, leaving Jungkook alone in the street. Well, this is something he didn’t expect from her. He smiles to himself. He looks around the neighborhood. There’s a woman carrying her groceries in a flimsy newspaper bag. At the end of the street is a mother holding the hand of her daughter, probably just fetched her from school. Drunkards start early in their alcohol indulgence at a convenience store by the corner. And a senile man standing in front of his porch is staring intently at him. Jungkook looks down at himself. He’s still wearing FJO’s ID. Jungkook zips up his jacket, tucking away his ID. When he looks back at the man, he has already shifted his attention to the drunkards. Jungkook presses his lips together. This may be just a boundary between Middle Town and Down Hill but it’s still the other side of the town.

“Hey.”

Jungkook turns around and sees Y/N walking towards him, pushing a mechanical panther by her side. Jungkook thinks it’s a 1981 Kawasaki KZ400. It looks similar to the bike Taehyung has been fantasizing from his vintage magazines. Although the engine’s rust starkly contrasts the bike’s shiny black coat, it’s still a wonder to behold. It looks so old and new at the same time.

Y/N thrusts a white helmet in his hands, “Where’s your hospital?”

“Uh, Metropolis Medical City.”

Y/N hums as she shrugs on her leather jacket. She slips on her own black helmet and swings her leg onto the bike. She kickstarts the motor, the engine immediately revving alive. Y/N looks at him and cocks her head, “What are you waiting for? Hop on.”

Jungkook slips on his helmet and hesitantly rides behind her. Once he adjusts in his seat, he secures his hands on the back handle. “I-I’m okay now.”

Y/N starts and the sudden speed throws Jungkook off balance. His hands scramble on air until he frantically loops his arms around the driver’s waist.

Y/N looks back at him, “We’re gonna go pretty fast to keep up with the cars in Middle Town. So if you don’t wanna die before we even solve your case, you have to hold onto me like this.”

Even with her helmet on, Jungkook can see her smirking. With his heart still beating loud in his ears, Jungkook grumbles a begrudging “Fine” at her back.

The trip to the hospital is supposed to take forty minutes. However, Jungkook felt only fifteen minutes have passed. Exposure to movement makes it feel like everything is going in fast motion. Jungkook is so used to the isolation of his car as he speeds through the highways of Metropolis. He doesn’t need to constantly shift lanes to keep up with the other vehicles because inside his car, his pace is fine.

And now, he’s out in the open air and the wind is continuously beating against his jacket and the adrenaline from avoiding and overtaking speeding vehicles is nipping at his nerves. The concrete overarching flyovers twist and turn above him as it bridges Middle Town to Metropolis. The metallic kingdom of Metropolis shines in silver and polished glass and metal from afar. The rest of Middle Town lay on his side. It pales to Metropolis in the mediocrity of their old buildings and cheap cracking paint.

Y/N lowers herself onto her bike, climbing up her speedometer. Consequently, Jungkook leans further into her. Everything then seems to go much faster. So fast they warp into each other, producing a convoluting mass of moving streaks of colors. It’s dizzying but it’s beautiful. For once, Jungkook thinks feeling everything goes fast is liberating.

However, things are bound to return to the way they used to be. Jungkook finds reality sinking back too fast for his liking when they pull up to the huge parking lot of Metropolis Medical Center.

Y/N turns the key off and Jungkook hops down, taking off his helmet. He hands it to Y/N, “Thank you for this.”

Y/N pushes it back to him, “No, hold onto it. I’ll drive you to your home when you’re done.”

Jungkook scratches his nape, “You don’t have to.”

“Well, I want to. After all,” Y/N smirks, “it seems like you want to ride my bike for longer.”

Jungkook doesn’t need to reply. The small smile forming on his face says it all.

“Clean it as usual and make sure to still put on a bandage on it.” The doctor points to his closed wound, “With your job, it’s likely to swell or split open again if you don’t protect it well.”

“Yes, doc, thank you” Jungkook smiles at the woman as he pulls down the sleeve of his jacket. He picks up the doctor’s prescription, thanks the woman once again, and pushes the door open. When he steps outside, he sees Y/N sitting on the metal benches across, legs crossed, their helmets by her side. Jungkook makes his way and plops down on the seat next to her.

“Everything okay?” Y/N asks, pointing to his arm.

“Yeah,” Jungkook leans his back on the wall.

“Do you want to go now?” Y/N starts to picks up her helmet but Jungkook stops her with a firm hold her hand.

“No. Let’s stay for a while. I don’t feel like coming home yet.”

“You’re acting like a petulant eight-year-old.”

“Geez—”

“It’s actually funny,” Y/N snorts, “you remind me of how I hid from my service driver in middle school.” Y/N relaxes back in her seat, “The service ended up leaving me and I had to walk my way back home. My mom scolded the hell out of me all night ‘til next morning.” Y/N looks at him, “Have you ever done that before?”

“Um, no,” Jungkook looks down at his hands, “my school is actually near my home so I just walk from home to school and vice versa.”

“Lucky bastard,” Y/N sighs as she puts her arms behind her neck, “I had to commute for long ass hours for 17 years of my life.”

Jungkook’s phone rings and he opens the notification.

Sir Andrews: I covered you for today. Let’s talk about this tomorrow. Take care, son (4:37 P.M.)

A fond smile makes its way to Jungkook’s face as he types, “Okay, sir. Thank you.”

Y/N leans forward and bumps Jungkook’s shoulder, “Your girlfriend?”

“Nah. It’s Sir Andrews.”

“The Chief General of FJO?”

“Yup,” Jungkook slips his phone back into his pocket.

Y/N raises a brow, “You seem very close to him.”

“Well…yeah,” Jungkook purses his lips. His eyes wander to the passing hospital staff. He internally shakes his head. Jungkook’s eyes dart back to the girl, “Actually…he’s my benefactor. He, um, provided for me for years until I’m able to start providing for myself. So, of course, I’m close to him. He's like a father figure in my life.”

“Oh,” Y/N’s brows raise.

“Yeah, well, I’m lucky I got someone like him to finance my education. It’s not easy for a foster kid to make it out on their own without sufficient financial help.”

Silence.

Y/N’s eyes dart to her own interlocked hands, “I’m sorry…I…I don’t know what to say to that.”

“You don’t have to say anything. It’s a past memory I long got over.”

“Okay.”

Silence fills the air once again. Jungkook shifts in his seat to face the girl, “Say…Namjoon said you used to work for FJO ‘bout 10 years ago. I’m already in FJO around the same time. How come I didn’t see you around before?”

“I’m in the visual information sector. Under the Intelligence,” Y/N quirks a small smile, “We’re not exactly known to run around for everyone to see.”

“Well, you’re right in that.”

Y/N sighs, “It’s a shame it’s no longer in the current system. Forecrime was enough to cover their scope.”

“Yeah. It was kinda shocking at first because we’re used to sending in witnesses to the Intelligence and just wait for the finished composite sketch. The first time we tried the system with Forecrime, I was actually shocked. I didn’t expect the suspect’s face will be already clearly recorded as soon as the case was filed in.”

“But they work faster than our traditional papers and pencils so it’s a good upgrade,” Y/N muses.

Jungkook nods. He clears his throat. “So…have you been sketching composite drawings ever since you got in, or you got to work in other departments, too?”

“I just did composite sketches. I don’t know what else to do,” Y/N shrugs. “I graduated a bachelor’s in Forensic Science. I actually don’t want to join the police. I wanted to do fine arts. But my mother was the one financing my education so I followed what she said. Said it matches my wit and I’ll make plenty money out of it,” Y/N shakes her head, chuckling. “She doesn’t know how money works here. Look at me, I got a job from it but I’m not rich.”

“But did you like your work,” Jungkook looks at her, “even just a bit?”

“Hell yeah,” Y/N smiles. “Aside from feeling accomplished whenever my drawing helps the police catch the criminal, it feels good to be able to comfort witnesses and victims from their trauma. Whenever I interview them to gather descriptions, or let them pick distinct features they’ve seen from the catalog book, I see this gleam in their eyes. The one that that says, ‘I’m taking back the integrity and power this motherfucker took from me.’ It’s hella satisfying seeing them feel avenged in some way. And that, I helped them feel this way.”

Jungkook smiles, “Seems like you love your work. Not just a bit of it.”

“Of course,” Y/N tuts, “I wouldn’t stay so long and get over 400 criminals caught just because of my drawings.”

“If you don’t mind me asking…what made you resign?”

Y/N whips her head towards him.

Jungkook gulps. “Namjoon said you didn’t get dismissed because of the turnover of Intelligence to Forecrime. He said you…resigned.”

“Well, he isn’t wrong,” Y/N stands up, grabbing her helmet, “I did resign. As for the reason why,” Y/N looks at his eyes, “I have my own boundaries like you, captain.” She turns around and starts for the exit, “It’s getting late. I think it’s time to go home now.”

Jungkook follows behind, face conflicted.

The ride to his home felt completely different from earlier. Jungkook felt her stiff in his hold. The tension between them, undeniably thick. Jungkook feels if he says a word, he’ll set off a bomb. Y/N’s speed is faster than their trip to the hospital, reaching Jungkook’s condominium in record time. Whether it’s to go home earlier or to get away from him as soon as she can, Jungkook can’t tell. When she dropped him off, Jungkook said his thanks and bid her goodbye. Y/N didn’t say anything. She just waved goodbye and sped away.

Pushing himself off the table, Jungkook pulls up his phone.

Jungkook: I’m sorry I ticked you off. I didn’t mean to. (6:36 P.M.)

His reply came a second later.

Y/N L/N: It’s okay. You didn’t tick me off. (6:36 P.M.)

His phone rings one more time.

Y/N L/N: Good night. (6:37 P.M.)

Jungkook puts his phone down. He glances back at his computer.

“Error 401: The name you’re searching, ‘Sooah Kim,’ doesn’t exist.”

A loud thud resounds. Jungkook springs up and whips around his back.

Namjoon stands by the hall, frozen. The door pushed open wide, the doorknob recoiling from the wall.

Jungkook’s stiff shoulders immediately loosen. “God, don’t startle me like that.”

“Sorry,” Namjoon squeaks as he turns to kick the door close. Jungkook sees two huge gray briefcases by his friend’s feet.

He stands up and walks to the analyst. “What are these?”

Namjoon hangs his coat on one of the hooks behind the door. “Work from the Bureau. We still got loads of unprocessed transactions,” Namjoon goes to the table and grabs a cracker. “The chief was furious.”

Jungkook follows his friend, “Natasha Ryde?”

“Yeah,” Namjoon says, “We got a huge backlog from DOJ freezing our coordinating processes just to check if each one of us is clean. Now, they’re rushing us to let them see all the recent files of the Bureau. Natasha wants us to clean our shelves before DOJ can catch wind of the backlog and suspect something unnecessary again.”

Jungkook tongues his cheek. If Natasha is busy cleaning up the Bureau, that means his favor to Chief Spencer will not be processed soon. And with DOJ sniffing on the backs of the Bureau, Namjoon won’t be able to help him. He has to find an alternative fast. Jungkook tilts his head, “The DOJ is still not finished with their conspiracy theory against the Bureau?”

Namjoon shrugs off his blazer, “Yup. Well, we practically hold more information than Precrime and Forecrime combined. Of course, they’re gonna sort us out first. And it’s only ‘bout time ‘til they go for the Basement Archives.”

Jungkook’s forehead furrows, “Why? I thought the Basement Archives just store outdated files of the previous system’s Bureau?”

“Old. Not outdated. Those are two different things. Even if some files there are deemed scraps from the past after the technology turnover, they still contain valuable information. Our computers there may look archaic but it doesn’t change the fact they’re made by the Bureau. No matter how slow they are, they still have access to the master system.” Namjoon chuckles, “But of course, you wouldn’t know that. The Basement is exclusive to the Bureau after all."

“Why are you telling me this?”

Namjoon shrugs, “Just wanna dispel the myth around it before it goes. DOJ may take it away as soon as they’re done with us.” Namjoon takes off his ID and chucks it on the cabinet by the hallway that leads to their bedrooms. Jungkook’s eyes immediately dart to the article.

“Enough about me. How are you?”

Jungkook whips his head towards his friend.

“What did the doctor say?” Namjoon points to his arm.

“It’s fine,” Jungkook assures. “It healed well. Though I still have to wear bandages to prevent it from splitting open.”

“That’s good then,” Namjoon nods in understanding. He purses his lips. He looks back at Jungkook. “I heard about what happened earlier.”

“Oh that?”

“Hoseok told me on my way out. Jungkook,” Namjoon sighs, “If you called me you needed to leave for an emergency, I would have driven you to the hospital.”

Keeping his face straight, Jungkook claps Namjoon’s shoulder. “Hey, don’t fret too much about it. I got to the hospital early and I’m fine.”

“How did you get there early?”

“Well, uh,” Jungkook darts his eyes away, “Y/N drove me.”

Namjoon’s forehead furrows, “She drove you?”

Jungkook nods, “Yeah. She met me on my way and offered me a ride.”

“Didn’t know you two are being chummy now,” Namjoon hums, “It took us a month just to get her to talk openly with us.” He tilts his head and turns around, heading to his room.

As soon as Namjoon disappears in his room, Jungkook bounds to the cabinet. He grabs the analyst’s ID and dashes to his office. Pressing the buttons of his flat digital copier on his desk, he hurriedly slides the ID into the bottom slot. The machine starts with a soft whirr and in a second, its mechanical hands start to 3D print a duplicate of the ID.

However, Jungkook’s luck is short-lived. He hears two knocks sound against his door and Namjoon’s muffled voice in the hallway, “Hey can I come in?”

Jungkook bites his lip. His copier has just finished replicating one edge of Namjoon’s ID. It’s nowhere near done and he can’t let Namjoon see this.

Namjoon calls once again, “Nevermind, I’ll be quick anyway.”

Immediately, Jungkook grabs his jacket slung on his chair and drapes it messily over his desk, haphazardly covering his keyboard and copier.

In the same second, the office’s door swings open and Namjoon stands inside, wearing sweats and a faded blue shirt. The man smiles, “Sorry, I forgot something.”

“It’s alright,” Jungkook rounds his desk and walks to the rectangular table in the center of the room. He leans his hip against it, the pressure from the edge softened by the table cloth running on its laterals. Jungkook chuckles, “I don’t know if you forgot, but this is also your office.”

“I didn’t forget,” Namjoon chuckles. He sits on his own desk on the left corner and places a water bottle by his side, “I felt like making an apology beforehand because I think my search will take a while.” He glances at Jungkook, “Even if we share this room, it feels like I’m intruding your space. With the amount of time you’ve spent in here, you practically live in this room.”

Jungkook presses his lips together.

Namjoon turns back to his desk and pulls drawer after drawer, fingers continuously searching what he intends to find. After another minute of fumbling, he pushes the last drawer close in a forceful shut, “Yep, it will definitely take a while.”

Jungkook raises a brow, “Why? What are you looking for?”

Namjoon stands up and nears the center table, uncapping the water bottle, “Keys. Bureau-issued. To open the briefcases I brought.” He tips the bottle to his lip and drinks. After a couple of gulps, he places the uncapped bottle on the table, “You mind if I go to your table?”

Panic sets off in Jungkook’s chest. His copier is just an inch away from his keyboard. Even if it has a soft mechanical whirr, it’s impossible for anyone who’ll sit in the chair not to know the copier is processing something. And with his jacket laying on it, it’s sure Namjoon will become suspicious. Jungkook tries to keep his voice stable, “I don’t mind. But can I ask why?”

“I used your copier to duplicate the key before I went to work. Seokjin called the second I was done and I had to use one of your memo pads so I pulled all your drawers ‘til I find them. I think they fell in one of the drawers.” Namjoon sends him an apologetic smile, “Sorry.”

Namjoon starts to make a move toward Jungkook’s desk. Before the analyst could move his hand away from the table, Jungkook tugs the table cloth. It sends the bottle off-balance and it topples to the edge, spilling its contents everywhere.

Namjoon whirls around and sees the wet mess. He immediately crouches down to flip up the bottle again. “Oh shucks, I’m sorry! I didn’t know I left it uncapped.”

Jungkook nears his friend, “It’s fine. I can clean it up.”

“No, I’ll clean up,” Namjoon insists. “It’s my mess. I have to clean it up.” He stands up and disappears into the hallway.

Jungkook steps back and takes a seat on his chair. Namjoon comes back with a mop in his hands. With Namjoon busy clearing the water spill, Jungkook opens his drawers and starts his search for the keys. His top drawer is devoid of anything but pens and other office supplies. His middle drawers only contain folders and papers. He feels like he has to restart his search again until his hands land in the last compartment in the bottom drawer. His eyes catch a metallic glint in the dark. He leans forward and sees the falcon insignia of the Investigation Bureau. Jungkook grins.

He sits back up in his chair just in time Namjoon returns in the office, the mop nowhere in sight.

Jungkook stands up, waving the two keys in the air, “Found them.”

“Oh god, thank you so much,” Namjoon sighs, retrieving the keys.

“Anytime,” Jungkook smiles.

“Sorry again ‘bout the water.”

“Hey, it’s just a spill,” Jungkook snorts, waving dismissively.

Namjoon sends him a timid smile. He turns around and pulls the door open.

“Hey, Namjoon. What time is your lunch tomorrow?”

Namjoon stops. “At 12. Why?”

“Gonna see if I can join you,” Jungkook grins.

Namjoon breaks into a grin as well, “That will be great then.” He closes the door behind him.

When Jungkook hears faint footsteps lead to the living room, he heads back to his desk and rips his jacket away. Two identification cards gleam under the light, unmistakably identical.

When Jungkook reaches the fifth floor, he goes to the leftmost door. He doesn’t knock. He pushes the thick wooden door and lets himself in.

“Oh, you’re here,” Matthew glances from his work. He motions to the leather chair in front of him. “Come, sit, son.”

“Thank you, sir,” Jungkook smiles.

Matthew piles his papers in a neat stack and pushes it aside. “How’s your arm?”

“Just got the stitches out yesterday,” Jungkook says.

Matthew nods, “That’s good then. You won’t have an injury hindering you anymore.” Matthew chuckles, “I missed seeing you run around the building doing god knows what. You’ve always been a busy bee.”

Jungkook smiles, “Well, I would have been like that if it weren’t for DOJ.”

“Right,” Matthew nods, his smile immediately slipping off his face. He clasps his hands together and sighs, “So, yesterday, you went off work so suddenly.”

Jungkook sits up straight. “Yes, sir, I’m sorry you have to cover for me. I just—”

Matthew holds up a hand, smiling, “You don’t have to explain yourself, son. I know you’re dealing with a lot of stuff. After all, you just survived a car accident. It must still be weighing down on you.”

“It’s alright,” Jungkook shrugs.

Matthew darts his eyes to his desk. He sighs as he turns back to the captain. “Jungkook, you mustn’t allow Yoongi to see any gap.”

Jungkook’s forehead furrows, “Sir?”

“Everyone is talking about how you rushed out of FJO with your team and Yoongi chasing after you. They don’t know where you went and surely, a captain being chased by his subordinates and the auditor is an unforgettable spectacle. I had Jimin relay an emergency excuse about your arm and luckily, that immediately quelled your sector.” Matthew’s smile falls, “But it seems it wasn’t enough for the auditor.”

Jungkook stills in his seat.

Matthew sighs, “I heard from Hoseok that Yoongi suspects you have some source—external or internal, whatever—to the blank that dropped yesterday. And he’s suspicious of that.”

Jungkook keeps his face indifferent.

“Look,” Matthew leans forward, “I don’t mind whether you consult external help or not. Desperate measures call for all the help you need. We do whatever we have to do and I respect whatever decision you’ll make. All I ask, son, is,” Matthew looks at him in the eyes, “be careful. Your sector is hot in DOJ’s eyes and I don’t want to see you get placed in a position where I can no longer help you. I can’t see you lose everything you’ve worked so hard for. You didn’t spend 15 years climbing the hierarchy just to get prematurely dismissed from your job.”

Jungkook nods, “Yes, sir, I understand. I’ll take extra care from now on.”

“Okay,” Matthew turns back to his documents and Jungkook takes it as a signal to leave. He salutes at the Chief General and makes his way towards the door only to be halted by a call of his name.

“Jungkook, do you still take those…medications?”

The captain doesn’t reply.

Matthew sighs, “Make sure Yoongi won’t know about that.”

“Of course, sir,” Jungkook pulls the door open, “Thank you, once again.”

Stepping out of the Chief General’s office, Jungkook heads to the elevator and pushes the button for the archives. It’s time to work now.

Jungkook has searched for Sooah Kim in Precrime, Forecrime’s systems. He even checked in Freedom Security’s system. But nothing has turned up. He even looked into Jonathan Winston’s history of associations and not one Sooah Kim appeared. He tried searching through hospitals, laboratories, and research centers for an employee or associate named Sooah Kim. But still, nothing. He’s already exhausted every search engine and system of both the general public and the government and yet he’s made zero progress. Holding onto the duplicated ID of his friend, Jungkook’s only choice left is FJO’s Basement Archives.

Jungkook looks at his watch. 12:10. He pulls up his phone.

Jungkook: Namjoon, I think I’ll do a raincheck on our lunch (12:10 P.M.).

The elevators open on the third floor.

“Captain Jeon,” Sally salutes at him. Jungkook returns the salute and pushes past the heavy glass doors of the Archives. He heads to the left aisle and walks to the 5th row shelf. He ghosts his fingers over the line of files until it lands on a particular red file—the recent attempted assassination of James Kim. He opens it and slowly flips page after page.

From his peripheral, Jungkook looks at his right. The walkway is devoid of any people. There’s just metal shelves and files. The hallway it connects to, the center aisle, is devoid of people as well. Jungkook looks up. Only about 4 cameras are installed above the aisle.

Jungkook spends another minute flipping through the file before he closes it shut and inserts it back in its place. With his alibi set, Jungkook walks along the 5th row until he reaches its corner where he disappears from the vicinity of the cameras.

Jungkook turns around and starts on the center aisle. To anyone who’s looking at the surveillance cameras, it will look like Jungkook’s just viewing a file in the 5th row’s corner, which just happened to be a blind spot in surveillance. With the general security disregard on the old and faded Archives and its basement level, Jungkook takes advantage of the system’s blind spots as he threads along the aisle, guided with the knowledge of the general scopes of standard surveillance cameras.

But just when he’s about three feet away from the end of the aisle, two staff members stroll across, pushing a huge cart of files. Jungkook swerves to the nearby shelf and hides. When he glances up, a CCTV camera is staring right at him. Jungkook holds his breath.

Nothing. No alarm has been set off. No red lights are sweeping across the room. Just nothing.

Sweat runs down Jungkook’s temple.

The chatters and footsteps fade away and still, nothing.

A couple of seconds pass by in silence.

Jungkook slowly stands up. The silence remains unbroken. No one must be watching.

Jungkook looks at his watch. 12: 20. He only has 10 minutes left of leeway from his lunch.

Jungkook comes out of hiding and continues forward, making it to the end of the aisle. He arrives at a plain wall coated in navy paint. Old and faded. Just like the rest of the Archives. Jungkook spots the rectangular metallic plaque on his left. He scans Namjoon’s duplicated ID under it. A second later, a faint shadow outlines a figure of a door onto the wall. It pops open and the door slides to the right, revealing an escalator that leads downward. Jungkook steps inside and the door immediately shuts behind him.

The Basement Archives is dark, its walls painted in olive green. Several dim hanging lamps light up the room. Jungkook knows the Basement Archives is connected to the second floor of FJO’s main building, behind the hallway that bridges Precrime and Forecrime. But he didn’t expect it to be this extensive. The Basement Archives is about the same height as the main floor. Its area, a half of its upper floor. What makes it a seeming replica of the main floor though are its metal shelves. Unlike the main floor’s circular labyrinth, the Archive Basement’s shelves are aligned in straight horizontals, like a snake coiling on itself. And far ahead, Jungkook could see 2010s computers lining the room’s perimeter.

Only when Jungkook steps away from the escalator does he only see the similarities between the basement and the main floor. The metal shelves are rusting in their edges. The files and books they hold, covered in dust. Even the small indents on its metal flooring are worn thin. Some are even already busted. The Basement Archives is old and faded. Jungkook only hopes what Namjoon said is right.

Jungkook walks past the rows of shelves and heads to computers. Grabbing a seat, he sets off to work.

The monitor alights to FJO’s coat of arms. And then, it displays the FJO standard wallpaper. The keys of the keyboard instantly crunch under Jungkook’s fingers as he hits on the shortcuts for FJO’s system. The processing of the command takes a while and when it opens, the elements are scattered and labeled in unfamiliar names. Nevertheless, Jungkook manages to get inside the Surveillance system after a couple of minutes of fumbling. He deletes the footage of him hiding behind the shelves and stretches the clip of him just walking through the hallway. Satisfied, he confirms the command and watches the new CCTV footage play. Only his back is shown to the camera from his entry inside the Archives to his walk towards the Basement Archives. He looks just like any Bureau analyst entering the Basement.

With his identity secured, Jungkook goes to the general system and starts his search for Sooah Kim.

Only to arrive at—

“Error 141: The name “Sooah Kim” doesn’t exist in the system.”

Jungkook squints at the monitor. He refreshes the computer again and again. He tries to search for additional keywords: “hospital,” “research center,” “laboratory,” and “Jonathan Winston.” But he arrives at the same result:

“Error 141: The name “Sooah Kim” doesn’t exist in the system.”

Jungkook sighs frustratedly. He clicks again and again and the computer produces the same result again and again. Jungkook pushes himself off the desk. There’s got to be a way to find this Sooah Kim. If she’s related to Winston’s assassination, she must be inside the system. Jungkook glances around the room. Just then, his eyes land on a door on his far right.

The door is made of metal and it’s almost invisible in the dark save for the black and yellow hazard tape under a note that says, “Restricted. Authorized Personnel Only.”

Jungkook dashes to the door. He spots the metal plaque beside it and scans the ID.

A red light glows from the plaque’s sensor. The plaque’s small screen lights up and flashes in red: “Access denied.”

Jungkook scans it again.

Red light. “Access denied.”

Jungkook bites his cheek.

Red light. “Access denied.”

Grunting, Jungkook picks up his phone.

Jungkook: Sir, do you have any updates on last time’s work?” (12:25 P.M.)

Jungkook’s personal phone rings. Seeing the familiar set of numbers, Jungkook picks it up.

“Jungkook.”

“Chief Spencer.”

Nathan sighs, “Look, I’m afraid the authorization of your unrestricted access to the Archives may get delayed. I already applied for the authorization of access but the Bureau hasn’t responded yet. I heard from one of the lieutenants there DOJ is keeping a hard eye on the Bureau. Natasha refused my calls, too. I think she will not be accommodating anytime soon. As for the Memory Temple…the answer is obvious.”

Jungkook pinches his nose bridge. He already expected this will go against his plans but he didn’t know it will be at this dragging extent. He heaves a sigh, “I understand, sir.

“Okay. I’ll try on my end to get through the Chief.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Thank you, too. Please extend my gratefulness to Chief General Andrews as well. My wife loved the necklace.”

“I’m glad she did, sir.”

“Yeah,” Nathan says. A beat. Nathan clears his throat, “I’ll end the call now.”

“Goodbye, sir,” Jungkook replies. The line goes dead.

Jungkook leans his back against the wall and closes his eyes. His heartbeat rings in his ears. Loud. Just like when he almost had Leigh Anderson in his hands. Jungkook releases a frustrated sigh. He’s come all this way just to have nothing. Again.

His personal phone vibrates in his hands, jolting his eyes open. His eyes widen at the screen.

Y/N L/N

He immediately swipes to answer. “Y/N, hi—”

“Jungkook. A red file will drop about—now. Listen to me. Take the stairs, okay?”

Jungkook walks away from the door, forehead furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“If you follow the crime record you won’t catch the killer.”

Jungkook shuts the computer and jogs to the escalator, “What killer?”

“Look, you don’t have much time. So listen to me. Just take the stairs.”

The call abruptly ends. Jungkook looks at his phone, bewildered. Right at the moment, his work phone vibrates with another incoming call.

Jungkook whips it out from his pocket and presses it to his ear, “Taehyung.”

“Captain Jeon, come to the Murder Sector, quick. It’s a red file.”

Jungkook halts.

“The time of the crime is in 10 minutes. Hurry.”

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Note: This story is based on Steven Spielberg’s film adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s short story, Minority Report (2002). That being said, this series may contain spoilers for the movie so if you want to watch the movie, please do so first before reading!

A/N pt. 2: Heya Hons! Thank you for reading! This chapter is quite short compared to the first two. The next chapter will be much longer though hehe. Writing this chapter is probably the most I have ever re-written so many scenes again and again. Especially the action scenes, they gave me a headache. Nevertheless, I’m happy how they turned out! What do you think about them? Feel free to talk with me! I actually love talking with my readers!

I think the next update will come two weeks from now. So far, I’m noticing I’m able to post for this series bi-weekly. Although this week, I’ll focus on the Chapter 3 of my yoongi office au series, The Heart Holiday. I promised my hons the THH!couple is coming this June but my finals two weeks ago fucked up my schedule and now I’m quite behind my supposed posting date. Anyway, I’ll make it up to you hons! Your wait is gonna be worth it because a lot is going to happen in THH Act 3!

As usual, if you guys wanna get notified as soon as I post the next chapter, I’m gonna add you all to my taglist! Just hit me up down the comments of this series’ masterlist so I can better track you all! The search function of Tumblr is messing with me and my notifs in my inbox usually come late so it’s highly probably your asks and DMs may get lost ☹

Once again, thank you for reading My Time! :”)

Note pt.2: As you know, this is a mystery fic so it will be most appreciated if any theories pertaining to the story be kept down the comments so I can entertain them all without spoiling our future readers! Once again, thank you so much for reading this!

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starr-fall-knight-rise · 5 years ago

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Humans are Space Orcs, “Family Drama.”

I did not sleep in today, and have written you a story.

Warning: there are a few mentions of drugs and addiction, but not a ton

He had never felt so defeated.

As the Taxi door opened, and he stepped out onto the quiet residential street he had to hold back his shame and kept his head high. What would his family think? Should he even tell them? Well of course he should, that wasn’t an option anymore. If he wanted to make them proud he was going to have to make himself ashamed for a little while.

Waffles whimpered at his heels.

He looked down at her with a small smile, “Alright, alright, you’re right, I’ll shut up.”

He rubbed her ears and walked up the concrete stepping forward onto the grass as a group of kids whirred past on hover-skates. They turned upon seeing them, voices suddenly raised pointing and waving at him as they rolled past.

He raised a hand to wave back, but quickly turned to the front door.

There was no way he was ready to interact with people that weren’t his close family.

He walked up the step and held out his implant to the door, it would open when it knew it was him.

The lock clicked, and he reached forward ready to finally relax and let off some steam.

The door clicked open, and he was immediately assaulted by a wave of sound.

“ADDIE!” He was grabbed around the shoulders and pulled into a massive crushing hug. It took his brain way longer than it should have to figure out what was one person, but then again, there was only one person he knew who called him Addie…. Like a fucking dog.

“Uncle Ben?” he grunted

The man set him down on the floor and slapped his back. Below him Waffle growled nervously, but she was ignored, “It's been YEARS. We had no idea you were coming.”

The sound of kids screaming reached his ears and a t least five of them came rushing into the hallway.

“Hey that’s not fair, I wanted to be a pony too!”

“But I was one first, you can pick something else.”

Uncle Ben turned, “Hey everyone! Guess whose back!” His legs swiveled uselessly under himself as he was dragged through the hallway and into the living room, where the entire extended family seemed to be crammed.

He blinked as the group turned into an uproar upon seeing him.

“What is that on his face?”

“Did you really lose a leg?”

“It’s been so long?”

Aunt Marry got up, “Lost all your baby fat finally.” He winced as she grabbed him and pinched his cheek, which wasn’t really for pinching anymore, or honestly had never been, but when he had more of a baby face she had always done that.

“Tell us about space!”

He was shoved onto the couch with Jeremy on one side and Grandma Vir on the other.

Jeremy gave him a look.

He grimaced back as Waffles crawled under his feet resting her head on Jeremy’s shoe.

“Where is dad?” he muttered to Jeremy, and his older brother leaned in to whisper, “where do you think. Hiding in the garage while mom entertains.”

“Coward.” Adam replied with some amusement.

That was just like their dad to avoid all extended family, even his own.

“Wait, wait, everyone calm down, our little Addie is Commander of the UNSC. You all remember when he was just a little guy who used to believe in flying saucers.”

Adam crossed his arms over his chest. Uncle Ben had always made fun of him as a kid.

His grandma looked at him from across the room, “What is that on your face?” She repeated.

He sighed, “An eyepatch grandma.”

“Why are you wearing an eyepatch.”

“Because I lost my eye.” He sighed.

She put a hand to her chest just as his mother came walking into the room, a Trey in one hand an apron tied around her waist and her hair pulled back in a messy bun. She looked more than a little frazzled.

“Martha, why didn’t you tell us he lost an eye!” She sighed, “Because I didn’t want to worry you mom.”

“How is the army still allowing you to command a ship with a missing eye?” Uncle Andy wondered

“He flipped up the eyepatch and the mechanical tech hopped to life nearly freaking out as it tried to track all the faces in one place all at once.

Gasps, “IS that a mechanical eye!”

“Yes.”

His other grandma put a hand over her face, “and he used to have such pretty green eyes. Now look at them, he looks like one of those cyborgs! Did you know some of those people intentionally cut off their limbs to look more like that.”

Martha sighed, “That’s not how it works mom.”

His Mother’s sister waved at him from across the room. He smiled back, he had always liked her, “I love your eyepatch, it looks cool.”

Her husband grinned, “Space pirate.” he nodded sagely.”

Adam tilted his head across the room where he found David and Jordan squished against one wall sitting on the floor Jordan mostly sitting in David’s lap as they tried not to take up any space.

His brother grimaced at him, he grimaced back.

His mother's father leaned forward his steel grey hair and serious face set, “So tell me Adam, what are exactly your duties in the UNSC.”

The entire family rolled their eyes at once, some not even discreetly. He only got involved in conversation if he considered it “useful” and that meant all of the thing other people didn’t want to talk about, money, religion, politics, family history……

“Er, well Uh.”

“After commanding an entire fleet of ships you would think he’d be better at public speaking.” Uncle Trevor announced from where he was hidden behind the piano.

Adam frowned and cleared his throat, “I am fleet commander of fifteen UNSC deep space vessels for both exploration and military combat, but my primary directive is to foster good will with alien races , and save others from destruction, subjugation and slavery while expanding our knowledge of the universe through prolongued deep-space exploration.”

“Ohhhh his directive!” The rest of the family oooooed as well, but it was mostly sarcastic in nature.

His niece, Kimver walked into the room and crawled up to sit with him and Jeremy leaning against both of their arms as she played on her handheld. Kimber’s new obsession seemed to have shifted into vintage gaming. Glancing over her shoulder he could see her throwing tiny white and red balls and strange looking animals and a very pixelated screen.

“Have you met any sexy alien ladies.” Ben butted in

The rest of the family raised their eyes to the sky. Grandma looked almost offended.

“Ben would you stop with that.” His wife muttered from where she sat on a chair in the corner.

“What the whole LFIL thing is legal now, so he totally could have met some sexy alien babes.:

“It’s not a joke Ben, those people had a rough time of it the past few years.” David piped up from the other side of the room.

“Why the GA decided to legalize that behavior is a mystery to me. The world really is getting more wicked.” Grandpa muttered,

Adam clenched his fists, “Actually, Grandpa, I convinced them to lift the ban.”

The room went very quiet very suddenly.

Adam wished he had just shut his mouth.

“You what!”

“Look I spent a lot of time around LFIL members when I was securing the GA hall from protestors. I met a lot of them, and they are just good people who want to be left alone to do what they want. So yes, because of my position I was able to walk into the GA council chambers and convinced them to lift the ban.”

They stared at him.

“But what they are doing is wrong, it’s like bestiality.”

He felt his fists clench, “Grandpa if you ever met an alien you wouldn’t say that. They are sentient being that can consent, and if they can do that than it isn’t bestiality, and also stop calling my friends animals. My ship is staffed by some of the best alien crewmembers I know, and I wont have you comparing them to cattle or dogs or whatever else you want.”

The room went quiet.

Grandpa stepped out in a huff.

HE sighed and leaned his head back against the wall with an audible thud.

His mother walked over and handed him a stack of cookies with a smile on her face that said: Sorry about that.

He took the cookies greatfully shoving one completly into his mouth to avoid saying something else stupid.

“So, does this mean you DID find a sexy alien girl.” Ben wondered and was immediately elbowed in the ribs from two sides producing a grunt of surprise.

“So Jeremy, how long have you two been dating.” Adam looked over Jeremy’s bulk towards where a petite red haired woman with grey eyes and a sprinkling of freckles across her face was squished into the other side of the couch.”

Sensing him looking, she waved a hand with a bright smile, and he waved back.

“Almost a year now.” Jeremy beamed putting his arm around her.

“Should we be expecting an announcement from you two soon?’

Everyone groaned, “Grandma!”

Jeremy’s girlfriend took it like a champ and continued to smile unaffected.

“Speaking of relationships.”

Dear god please descend from heaven and rapture him straight to hell, not that, that's how it worked but anywhere but here would have been great

“Adam, when are you finally going to settle down, how old are you now 25?”

He wondered if he prayed to satan hard enough he could summon a demon to swallow his soul whole.

“I know have you ever even dated anyone”

“Kissed anyone?” “Kissing is fun, you should definitely try it sometime.”

“You're grandmother definitely needs more grandkids.”

Oh the irony, the thought bitterly to himself.

At his feet the dog whimpered.

“You know there is this really pretty girl who works down at the corner store, I think she might do really good for you, a very down to earth girl. You could get promoted into a better paying desk job at the UNSC work 9-5 it would be a dream.”

Jeremy placed a hand on his shoulder, “Actually, Adam is more of an action guy, right Adam/”

Adam gave a weak smile, “Yeah.”

“Oh, he’ll grow out of that, besides you wouldn’t want to put a family under that kind of stress. It’s like you’re never home.”

“Space is my home.” He grumbled

“Don’t be silly, humans weren’t meant for that sort of thing, besides your obsession was cute as a kid, but now that you’re older, you really need to start thinking about the future and having kids before you’re too old.”

He wanted to scream and bash his head against the wall.

“You know what though, how about that cute younger guy that works at the DMV, he looks about your age Adam.”

“I’m not interested in having a family right now!”

The room looked at him quietly, “You asexual or something?” Uncle Ben piped up awkwardly.

Adam felt his face go red, what kind of question was that? No, no uncle Ben I am not horny, or yes, yes uncle Ben I would love to find some hot person to plow just not right now.

And in front of the entire family?

Because he really wanted to have an extended discussion about his sex life with his entire extended family.

Waffles whimpered at his feet.

And then like an angel she descended from the sky to save him, either that or a billowing superhero cape like the saint she was. He couldn’t decide, angel or superhero, but decided on both.

Supermom, and part of her costume is angel wings and a halo.

“Adam why don’t you take waffles outside, she sounds a little nervous. Maybe take her out through the garage?”

He nodded and bolted to his feet like there were rockets firing from his ass, and hurried towards the door with the dog trailing at his heels.

Voices faded behind him, and he quickly hurried through the door and into the garage, where he found his dad sitting with Thomas on a set of lawn chairs drinking cold sodas and watching the clouds pass overhead.

They turned as they heard the door open.

“Adam! We didn’t know you were coming, pull up a chair.”

He did so and unfolded it between the other two men sitting down as Thomas handed him a drink.

“They drive you off too?” Thomas grumbled

Adam looked at his brother. Thomas was looking a little better than usual. His hair was only a little bit scruffy and his scraggly beard was at least trimmed. The tract marks in his arms had faded to pale scars on his arms.

“Yeah, uncle Ben asked about my love life in front of god and all his creatures. You?”

“Rehab. “

“I thought you were out of rehab.”

“I am, which is why I would rather not talk about it.”

“You doing good?”

“Yeah, got a stable job now, so that’s nice, go to meetings twice a week. One more month and I'll be six months sober.”

“Awesome, congrats.” He paused, “You know what, bet I could get you a job as a stuntman if you wanted.”

Thomas laughed, “Maybe I'll take you up on that. Once this job bores me to tears, which it will.”

“Did grandpa bring up LFIL.” Dad asked turning to look up at him

“You know he did.”

“He’s been meaning to ask you. He’s worried that spending so much time up in space has confused you.”

Adam snorted, “Don’t stargaze to long dad, the stars will make you extrial.”

“So that’s what dark matter is.” Thomas muttered and the three of them laughed. Waffles had climbed up on the chair with him and curled up on his legs to fall asleep.

“So what are you doing back here?” Dad wondered, “I thought you had just taken time off.”

He sighed, “Yeah… but things got complicated….” He paused, “Ever feel like no matter what you try to do you keep failing at it.”

Thomas raised a hand “You mean my life.”

More laughter.

Then he got serious again, “Been so stressed lately that I can barely function as a person, has the UNSC questioning whether they should ground me or not. My friends set up an intervention, and it turns out that I am a raging control freak.”

“Could have told you that.”

“You got that from your mother.”

He glanced over at thomas, “What do you mean, could have guessed that?”

He shrugged, “Come on Adam, did you ever do anything you weren't sure you could do properly. Like riding a bike, or swimming, or how you threw a fit if we moved literally anything in your room, or how you had to have everything arranged on your plate before you ate it, or….”

“Yeah yeah ok. But I’m a fighter pilot, that's kind of not-”

“Yeah that is the most control freak job ever. You have to be in so much control that traveling at more than three times the speed of sound won’t kill you. Imagine the amount of control you need to fly in formation without killing everyone.”

“Alright I get it.” He grumbled.

“So what, you try to do everything yourself?” dad grunted

He turned to look at the older man, “how did you know?”

“Every school project you ever worked on in a group, but you just ended up doing the entire thing.”

“I thought that’s just because the other kids were lazy and weren’t going to do their jobs.”

“Or because you wouldn’t let them and they just gave up on trying.” Dad responded

Adam sighed and sunk back against his chair, “I had no idea.”

“Welcome to personal growth, how may we kick you in the balls.”

He sighed, ‘I just, how can I be a leader without losing my identity and becoming boring and stuffy. How can I still… I don’t know, be happy and have fun when I have a job like this…. Or am I just not meant for it.”

Dad waved a hand, “You were born for it, but you need to remember that while, most of the time, you can be friends with the people you work with sometimes you need to stop being their friend and be their commander, which entails doing some things that aren’t so friendly. At the end of the day it is a ship, so you have to make them and allow them to do their jobs, fun comes later.”

“How am I supposed to reduce the stress?”

He glanced at thomas who shook his head, “If I knew the answer to that, I wouldn’t be a recovering heroin addict.”

“You just have to find something you love doing, and then take a little time every day to do that thing which you love. Don’t worry, you’ll figure it out.”

He sighed and looked out at the deepening sky.

He really hoped so

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howwelldoyouknowyourmoon · 4 years ago

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My sexual re-education in the Unification Church

All that heaven allows

I learned the identity of my husband-to-be at the end of a forty-day Divine Principle workshop. Situated in upstate New York, the Unification theological seminary had the hushed libraries, dorms and chapel of a medieval monastery. As my footsteps echoed through the stark, stone hallways, I imagined hooded friars whispering beside me. On the final evening, a Korean minister announced from a pulpit the name and nationality of each student’s “eternal spouse.” Mine was Gabriel from Ecuador.

One week after the workshop, all eligible members were sent to Korea, where we would be blessed in marriage along with 30,000 other couples. Gabriel and I met for the first time in the waiting room at JFK airport. I wore a navy skirt suit, my hair in a french pleat. Gabriel wore a gray jacket, white shirt and gray tie, his wiry hair slicked back into a solid black helmet. I’m five-four; he was a significant inch shorter than me. In our photographs from that day, we stand inches away from each other, staring at opposite ends of space, our bodies pointing keenly apart, our lips stretched vaguely upward in imitations of smiles.

One of the sisters with whom I shared a room said Gabriel looked like a miniature Sylvester Stallone. Another said he was the best-looking brother of the bunch. Occasionally I see someone and immediately feel that I want to know them better. Gabriel’s face did not have that quality. I felt bemused as I regarded this person — my soul mate — who was a total stranger. If he had approached me in the street, I would have walked away.   

Two years earlier, in 1990, I had walked away from my family, my apartment in London, my friends, and the man I loved to enter the Unification Church, a.k.a. “the Moonies,” a Christian sect which originated in Korea and is led by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, who claimed that Jesus Christ had appeared to him when he was sixteen. I had just produced a TV documentary called Soul-Searching, which was funded by the Arts Council of Great Britain. One of the men I interviewed was a Unification Church member named Jurgen.

After the documentary was finished, I crossed Jurgen’s path several times in one week. This seemed fateful. On my way home from the Cafe de Paris one night, I saw him standing on Charing Cross Road, a tall, potbellied, balding German with sensual lips and cold sores, drenched with rain at three a.m. I wondered: what would possess anyone to stand outside at all hours, in any weather, to ask people to talk about the “purpose of life”? 

We talked. Jurgen told me about the “Divine Principle,” which I later learned was Unification theology. He explained that true love could exist only in a monogamous marriage, blessed by God, and that my relationship with my lover was wrong. He promised that if I dedicated my life to God, my brother, who had recently been diagnosed with schizophrenia, would be healed.

Tired of my unfaithful lover and frustrated by my inability to help my brother, I was attracted to the extreme nature of the group. They asked me to leave my life behind, claimed they had a living messiah. I agreed to try it out for three months, knowing that once I was in, it would not be so easy to walk away.

I felt pious when I covered my body in frumpy pantsuits, shaved off my hair (against the church’s wishes), spent my days raising money for the church, praying and vowing never again to think about sex. During four years of living in church centers in London, Edinburgh and New York, I enjoyed cultivating my lack of desire, pushing out thoughts of sex the instant they surfaced, focusing on one aim: I will save my brother. I will do anything necessary to help those who are suffering.

▲ The author with Gabriel during the marriage ceremony.

Inside the church centers, men and women referred to each other as brothers and sisters, to emphasize the absence of sexuality in our relationships. We slept in different areas, sat on opposite sides of the room during meetings — the brothers always above, to the right, or in front, to signify their superior status. This subtle detail sank into the minds of the women, helping them realize they were in the “object position” and should follow the men’s lead. This viewpoint was reinforced regularly: Women were shorter because they should look up to men. Women had big hips because they were made to sit down. Women couldn’t run. In sex, women should be underneath.

I heard about the blessing of marriage but imagined I would never attain the “level of perfection” necessary to participate. One elder brother defined perfection as the state whereby everyone you meet feels loved by you. I knew that my ability to love fell short.    

During the fifteen-hour flight to Seoul, I had the window seat; Gabriel took the aisle. I had no idea what to say to him. He told me that he was raised as one of nine brothers and sisters in an Ecuadorian mountain village which still had no garbage collection and barely had running water. His elder sister had nursed him at the same time as her own son. Our backgrounds couldn’t have been more different. I grew up with my mother and brother in the English countryside, in an eccentric, artsy broken family.

“Repeat after me,” he whispered. “Te quiero.”

“Te quiero.” I knew what it meant but attached no importance to the words. “I love you.”

I remembered Jurgen’s speech to me on the night I joined the church. “Never flirt with brothers,” he had said, fixing me with a glare. This meant no touching, no staring, no flattery, no immodest body language, no fantasizing. Now I glanced at Gabriel’s steady tar-black eyes. Had I failed to learn a new set of rules now that I was preparing for marriage? Was flirting now required? Or was I supposed to maintain chastity while he taunted me with romance?

“When I saw your picture, I thought you were too old for me,” Gabriel said. I was twenty-eight. Although he was a year older, Gabriel considered himself hot, eligible and worthy of a much younger wife. “But I liked your lips,” he continued, emboldened. “I dreamt that you were a prostitute. I saw you wearing a short dress and red lipstick and you were almost falling over. I thought, that is a sick woman.” He paused, allowing this image to linger. “Tell me about your boyfriends.”

“We’re not supposed to talk about that.”

“I had sex with a prostitute,” he said, “but I believe that makes me more pure because I didn’t have a relationship with the person. I had a girlfriend also, in Ecuador, but she went out with someone else,” he continued.

I imagined Gabriel’s girlfriend, a petite, pretty Ecuadorian girl in her late teens, with thick, glossy black hair that reached down to her thighs. I imagined them dancing together at a family party, and felt sorry for him. I wished she hadn’t broken his heart.

Confused by my distraction, Gabriel leaned over. “I am a crazy lover,” he said.

I wondered if he had learned this statement from a Spanish-English phrase book under “Dating.”

For single members of the Unification Church, the topic of sex was taboo, except to admit sins or recognize the sins of others. Abstinence until marriage was required. Since most of us were no longer virgins, we had already failed and were required to start anew. Considering the misery I’d experienced because of my lover’s infidelity, abstinence appealed to my desire for peace.

Lack of sleep, intense scheduling and daily exposure to the church’s theology kept me involved. My contact with outside family and friends was almost nonexistent, and I knew nothing of news or popular culture save what was selectively analyzed by my Central Figure, or advisor, according to the church’s theology. Within three months, the thought of moving away from the church center terrified me. I shared a room with six women, woke at five a.m. for a prayer meeting, spent the day raising money or encouraging others to study the Divine Principle, then returned to sleep around ten p.m., shortly after the evening meeting. When members’ attention slackened, extra requirements were enforced, such as fasting for days or praying for hours.

For years, I never looked at a man with desire, never touched myself. To resist the occasional attractions I felt to brothers, or fantasies I had about my ex-lover, I took daily cold showers, throwing 120 buckets of icy water over my body with the intention of subjugating my subconscious mind. This took considerable time, and was done in a symmetrical pattern of ten buckets over one shoulder, ten over the other. The frigid water slapping my skin felt like a whip across my back, so cold that it burned.

   For four days, Gabriel and I stayed at the North American camp in Seoul’s Olympic Stadium. The complex was huge, housing church members from almost 200 different countries in different buildings. Our building was a flat gray rectangle. One hundred women slept next to each other in sleeping bags on the floor of one large concrete room, our possessions crammed into small plastic bags. Although our group lived in North America, most of the women were Japanese. There were less than twenty sisters originally from Europe and America. Church leaders claimed this was because Western women were self-centered, unable to subjugate to masculine will.

In the sisters’ camp, the variety of couples was the main topic of conversation. Within the church, there was an unspoken hierarchy: Asian spouses were considered most favorable, then Caucasian, then black and Hispanic. A blonde American sister who shared my room bemoaned that she was given a Dominican husband rather than a Korean. She and I wondered whether our extreme sinfulness had placed us with our non-Asian spouses. We decided it was, instead, our dedication and ability to endure difficulties. 

Gabriel waited outside our building at 6:30 every evening, his hair freshly gelled back, his shirt tucked into belted black pants. Side by side, we would walk to the meal room. I listened to Gabriel’s plans to help his hometown, and spoke little. Occasionally, I noticed him staring at my breasts and felt liberated that I could allow this without shame, since he was my betrothed.

▲ The 1992 mass marriage – publicity and profit for Sun Myung Moon.

In our week-long stay in Korea, Gabriel and I participated in three ceremonies. In the Holy Wine Ceremony, we wore white, prayed and drank a thimbleful of grape juice from a white plastic tumbler. This symbolized new blood, heralding our entry into the True Lineage. The Blessing Ceremony joined us in matrimony, as 60,000 individuals arranged geometrically in black-suited and white-gowned rows yelled “Yeh!” Our pledge, recited in Korean, expressed our resolve to sacrifice our physical and personal desires for the sake of the greater good. I had seen photographs of these ceremonies and thought they seemed like grand, empty gestures. Being a part of the event, even knowing its spiritual significance, I felt detached, like a fragment in an abstract work of art.

Finally, in the Indemnity Ceremony, each couple bestowed a symbolic beating to their partner. After listening to a speech detailing how we were to forget our past history with, and resentment toward, the opposite sex, we lined up two by two with several hundred members of the North American camp, in one of the concrete meeting rooms. We dressed casually in jeans and T-shirts. A few members arrived wearing short shorts and leather pants.

“The more you love your partner, the harder you will hit,” our Central Figure said. “Just imagine your spouse is a big baby.”

A three-hundred-pound brother beside us turned to his petite Japanese wife. “A VERY big baby!” he laughed.

▲ The Indemnity Stick Ceremony – a few members were hospitalized with injuries (several in Japan).

When we reached the front, a Korean brother handed Gabriel a wooden baseball bat, watched while he whacked me three times on the backside, then handed the bat to me. We bent over to receive our blows, and were advised to hit our partner only on the buttocks and upper thighs. After this, my only physical contact with a man for over two years, I lay on my stomach on my sleeping bag, concentrating on the tingling sensation where wood had met flesh.

   Upon returning from Korea, we were moved to different centers to continue fundraising and witnessing until we completed three years of separation from our spouse or reached the age of thirty. For the next two years, until our Three Day Ceremony, Gabriel and I were forbidden to have any physical contact. I lived in the Brooklyn church center. Gabriel lived sometimes in the Bronx center, sometimes with his family members, who had moved to Manhattan to raise money for their family back home. He studied accounting. We saw each other occasionally at religious events. I found myself daydreaming about him sometimes; I believed that fantasizing was not quite as sinful since we were married. In my imagination, our eventual union would be explosive.

Toward the end of our separation period, I moved to a church-owned hotel to work at their video post-production facility. At around the same time, Gabriel moved to work and live in the same hotel. For the first time in four years, I slept alone. In my twelve-feet square box of a room, its window facing dozens of similar rooms, I began to question if unity of purpose existed within this organization. Before, my every moment had been monitored; now, I could be gone for days before anyone would notice.

Once, I accompanied Gabriel on a visit to his family in Ecuador, failing to anticipate the difficulty of maintaining chastity away from the church. 

“If you don’t let me kiss you, I will break this blessing,” Gabriel challenged me on a street corner in Quito. Pressing me against a faux Spanish wall in eighty-degree twilight, he pushed his tongue in my mouth, grabbed my breasts in his fists.

Shortly after the kissing incident, Gabriel lay on top of me, fully clothed. The sensation of his erection pressing between my legs was so long-forgotten and exciting that I came within moments, a short, tingling burst through my stomach. I told no one. The premature kissing and closeness would have necessitated a Repentance Ceremony, and a longer separation. When I made a partial confession to my Central Figure, he let me off with a prayer.

The love of my life, whom I left to join the church, was a seductively androgynous filmmaker. With his camera, he could enhance the beauty of a homeless person or a perfect white daisy. He could laugh hysterically at some stupid joke I made, or threaten to rip out my guts if he suspected (needlessly) that I fancied someone else.

Gabriel was a steady, methodical man who rarely laughed. He drove me frantic with the slow way he set up a computer or checked his accounts. I admired his ambition and felt secure that he would never be unfaithful — his parents were nearing their sixtieth anniversary. In my mind, I built him into an icon of virtue. Secretly, I worried that I might never love freely again.

I plunged into our marriage, dutiful, determined to succeed, convinced that I was soiled goods and fortunate to be with someone so stable and faithful. Still, I was unsure of how to approach intimacy.

It was essential that I banish all memories of past experience. I could not be overenthusiastic, because our first days together would be ceremonial. So, with my mind twisting with doubt, desire and fear, we began our married life.

Two years after our wedding, I gathered our checklist of items for the Three Day Ceremony, the consummation of our marriage: 1) Two Holy Handkerchiefs. These were to wash our bodies prior to intimacy, then to collect the fluids produced by our final union in the ceremony; they were to be kept “eternally.” 2) Holy Salt. This was sprinkled over everything used for the ceremony, to sanctify the proceedings. 3) Two Holy Gowns. These ankle-length white satin gowns were to be worn before and after each act of love during the Three Day Ceremony. 4) Two Basins. These were to fill with Holy Water in which to soak the Holy Handkerchiefs before use. 5) A picture of True Parents. Since the fall of Adam and Eve occurred out of the sight of God, this picture of Rev. and Mrs. Moon stood in for God’s eyes. 6) Two cushions to designate the places of True Parents. 7) A Shim Jung (True Heart) candle.

The first night of the ceremony, I arrived at our room in the church-owned hotel at nine. It was on the nineteenth floor, with windows facing the Empire State Building on the east and the Chrysler Building to the south. Gabriel returned from college at ten, pulled out a book on accounting and a folder, and sat at the desk to write.

“What time should we start?” I asked.

He didn’t look up. “I have to finish my homework. I’ll tell you when I’m ready.”

Still wearing my black skirt and white shirt, I lay on the tightly made bed and closed my eyes. No thoughts came, just the distant roar of traffic on Thirty-Fourth Street, the smell of sterile linen. When he finally said my name, I was startled.

“I’ve finished,” he said. “Shall we do it now?”

I pulled the pamphlet of instructions out of my bag. We showered separately, never having seen each other naked. After he emerged, I took my turn in the steamy bathroom, then put on my new underwear. Our undergarments had to be new for each day of the ceremony; black satin felt luxurious after the baggy cotton underpants I’d been slouching around in for years. I dressed in my ivory wedding gown, and over that my white holy robe. The sash of my robe was decorated with pink beads, Gabriel’s trim was green.  

“What’s next?” He sat impatiently on the side of the bed. “I have to get up early for class.”

“We’re supposed to pray.” I placed the red-and-green embroidered cushions in front of the prayer table I had set up. A picture of Rev. and Mrs. Moon glared out humorlessly, next to the white, vanilla-scented holy candle.

We bowed to the ground in front of the picture, and prayed for four minutes.

“All right, let’s do it now.” Gabriel threw off his holy robe and lay on the bed in his underpants. His body looked small and dark on the king-size bed. I removed my clothing, then his underpants.

In the first part of the ceremony, the woman had to be on top, symbolizing the restoration of Eve’s act of love with Lucifer. After two minutes of foreplay, I guided him inside me. Instantly, I felt the emotional disconnect. It was the first time I had felt a man inside me for four years, and it felt good, but there was no holy passion, no divine ecstasy. I moved on top of him, concentrated on bringing him to an orgasm, then removed myself and lay next to him.

Our ritualistic act of love was over in ten minutes. We wiped the fluids onto our Holy Handkerchiefs.

The official handbook said, “Go to sleep in peace. Sleep in pajamas and nightgown. Do not have a physical relationship outside of the content of the ceremony.” We lay on our backs next to each other, not touching, nor speaking. 

The next evening we repeated the same ritual, this time symbolizing the restoration of Eve’s fall with Adam. We hardly spoke; there was nothing to say. When Gabriel withdrew, still erect, I was confused. According to the pamphlet, penetration should happen only once on each day. Seeing Gabriel’s distress, I decided it would be acceptable to bring him to an orgasm with my mouth. His satisfaction relieved me, but I felt no emotional closeness.

The next day, our final ritualistic act of love was completed in less than ten minutes. We wiped the resulting fluids onto our Holy Handkerchiefs, which I had embroidered with a red X for him, and a red Y for me. Observing the clear, slippery fluid on the handkerchief, I held it to my nose, thought of a baby’s head on a sunny, salty beach. Not allowing our skin to touch, we lay beside each other on cold, white hotel sheets.

“So we can’t do it again for twenty-four hours?” Gabriel asked, matter-of-factly.

“I guess not.” I lay there dry, untouched. I was flooded with desire that had no possibility of fulfillment. Would Gabriel and I ever laugh together? Would we ravish each other in an elevator, or in a parking lot? Would we even hold hands and kiss on the street? I wanted to feel wholehearted attraction to, and passion for, my partner. This man knew nothing about me, nor did he care to find out. 

After the twenty-four-hour waiting period, Gabriel and I took every possible opportunity to get close to each other. Our conversations were nonexistent, yet we attempted to sate our physical loneliness in each other. We met during our lunch break, had sex propped on a bathroom sink, in bed, on the floor, sometimes several times a day. For him, sex seemed mainly a release of tension; for me, it was a welcome distraction from the tedium of work.

Six weeks after we first slept together, I felt the trembling super-reality and nausea that told me I was pregnant. Nine months later, I gave birth to a daughter. She emerged red-skinned, black-haired, screaming. I held her to me like an extension of my body for the next nine months. Soon I was pregnant again, this time with a son: soft-eyed, unblinking, trying to crawl as soon as he drew breath.

Two miscarriages later, sex with Gabriel — at first a hopeful distraction — became a fearful thing. Contraception was forbidden, but I couldn’t bring more children into the lonely relationship we had built. For six years, we moved from one apartment to another in the hotel. When we moved away from the built-in religious community and into a Manhattan apartment, the reality of our separateness became stark. When our daughter was six and our son four, Gabriel stated the truth: “You don’t love me.”

He left. I resigned myself to the life of a celibate, single mother. I stopped attending church. I freelanced for various TV shows in New York, gradually allowing myself more freedom to be irreverent, laugh, have my own opinions. I visited my brother, who some years ago was well enough to teach computer programming; today he sits in a darkened room, wearing sunglasses, drawing detailed diagrams which only he understands. For two years after the breakup of my marriage, I feared intimate relationships, still believing sex outside marriage to be sinful.

But I couldn’t help but notice the flirtations people dabbled in daily at work. I began to feel a desire to rebel against my failed attempt at purity. At a bar after work, I had one drink, kissed a coworker and realized I still had desire. From then on, I decided anything was acceptable, as long as it felt right at the time. Fuck you, God, I wanted to say. I promised my life to you, and you didn’t keep your part of the bargain. You didn’t give me love, you didn’t change the world, you didn’t even save my brother.

The random post-work kiss initiated a frenzy of meeting men on the internet, through speed-dating and in any other way possible. Frustrated by the lack of intimacy, I decided to turn it into a project: I would date fifty men and write about the results. Date number three became a painful infatuation. After three months, I decided if number three wasn’t interested, I’d get intimate with someone who was. Number twenty-five was the one, although I knew it would go no further.

The next day I abandoned my dating project, and also fell in love with a man I met on the subway. Henceforth, I happily acceded to anything he wanted, however irregular. His rough, uninhibited lovemaking unearthed the desire I buried so long ago. Day to day, I’m unsure whether he will declare me the love of his life, or say he never wants to see me again. But even the pain of the relationship is freeing — it strips away the falseness and piety I strove to affect for so long.

Last month, my ex-boyfriend whom I left to join the Unification Church, the man I hadn’t dated for fifteen years, theorized over the phone: “You’ve created a new cult centered on your lover. When will you ever learn?”

But he was wrong. This is the anti-cult. There are no rules. This is life: it grows, changes; it surprises you; it lets you down, then builds you up. As I write this, my boyfriend is breaking it off with his fiancée. I know we may not last. But is any ending really final, and does it matter? I love him; he loves me. Now, the only eternity I hope for is that which exists in the moment.

Yolande Elise Brener lived in New York with her two children. She now lives in London.

http://www.yolandebrener.com

Holy Candy: Why I Joined A Cult And Married A Stranger

Down Is The Only Way Out: An Interview With Ben Lorentzen

#Yolande Elise Brener #Sun Myung Moon #mass marriage

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ddagent · 5 years ago

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actor au; someone writes a blind item about co-stars brienne and jaime??

Oh, Anon, you TOTALLY can get this. I hope you enjoy.

Margaery: B!! U HAVE to read this; it is TOTALLY bout u and Jaime *wink emoji*

Reading her co-star and friend’s text, Brienne rolled her eyes goodnaturedly. Ever since the series one wrap party, Margaery had been sure something was going on between Brienne and their co-star, the award-winning and infuriating Jaime Lannister. She had tried, on numerous occasions, to explain that what she and Jaime had was nothing more than grudging respect. Apparently, the recent awards season had reignited Margaery’s ridiculous supposition.

Brienne still clinked the link in the message, not sure what meme or real-life story was supposed to be her and Jaime. Instead, she was taken to a website called Little Birds. It was a gossip site full of blind items.

This golden star of stage and screen avoided the after-parties at last night’s ‘Crimson Kingdom’ awards, instead opting to have a tender, nay romantic, moment with his statuesque co-star in their hotel bar.

“Oh, fuck.”

Most of these blind items were pure fabrication; stretching a hint of truth into something grotesque, and the lack of names protecting the writers from any libel suits. But this was undoubtedly true. Jaime had avoided the after-parties, instead offering to escort her back to her hotel. She’d kept up a brave face for the cameras, but losing had knocked her confidence dramatically. Jaime had seen through her thin facade and, with a gentle hand to the small of her back, had led her to the quiet of their hotel where they could talk.

Teeth gnawing at her bottom lip, Brienne did what her publicist had told her never to do: she read the comments. On the plus side, not many people believed the truth.

Gotta be Jaime Lannister. But which co-star?? Margaery is only five-six.

DEFINITELY the golden lion himself, JAIME LANNISTER! But his ‘statuesque co-star’…do they mean Brienne THE BEAUTY? hahaha

I think it’s Drogo… . has he done some stage work?

This is TOTALLY JL and BT; their chemistry on Oathkeeper is INSANE

Out of the twenty-three comments underneath the blind item, only three even considered the possibility that it was Brienne in the hotel bar. She should be breathing a sigh of relief. After all, she loathed gossip about her personal life, and she highly doubted Jaime would enjoy being romantically linked to her. Margaery was a different story: she was pretty and petite and belonged in front of the camera. Brienne was large and plain, and her hiring as the lead of Oathkeeper had been a risk that had not paid off, as she had lamented to Jaime the previous night.

“They’ll sack me now.”

Jaime laughed around the rim of his glass, only pausing when he saw the look upon her face. “Oh. I thought you were joking. Brienne, the producers aren’t going to give you the boot just because you didn’t win at the Crimson Kingdoms. The fact that you were nominated at all is a huge boon to the show.”

“I know, but—”

“No buts.” He set his glass upon the table and reached over to take her hand; his thumb brushing the inside of her wrist. “You are an exceptional actor, Brienne Tarth. Alysanne is an incredible character, and you bring her to life so well. Your time will come; you just need to make them see how amazing you are.”

She felt her cheeks warm under the power of his compliments; the slight stroke of his thumb against her skin. Brienne ducked her head; her other arm shooting out to reach for her glass and the water within. She took a few gulps, all the while Jaime Lannister still held her hand.

“And, I’ve never won a Crimson Kingdom either. And if I’ve never won a—”

“—alright, alright, I get it. I’ll stop mentally packing up my trailer.”

“Good.” Jaime finally released her hand to take a drink; she felt the loss as keenly as if she had been doused in cold water. “And, just so you know, if they’d sacked you, I’d have threatened to walk as well.”

“You would not.”

“You underestimate my integrity.”

“Underestimate your desire to annoy the producers, you mean.”

Jaime barked out a laugh. “Underestimate how much I enjoy working with you, you mean.” His green eyes sparkled across from her. “And I do, Brienne. I know we didn’t get off to the best start—”

“—you accused me of stealing your part—”

“—well, this is a reboot of the show that made me famous. And you blamed me for the cancellation of that show.”

A lot of people had. Selling photographs to the tabloids about your co-star and causing an entire production to be shut down had left a stain that was difficult to remove. But the more she had grown to know Jaime, the more she had realised that all the speculation as to why he’d done it just felt off. There was more to his story, and Brienne hoped one day he trusted her enough to tell her.

“Anyway, I just wanted to say I’ve enjoyed working with you, and I’m looking forward to series two.”

Brienne beamed. “Me too.”

She held out her drink for a toast, and Jaime clinked his glass against hers. Then he paused, stared, and reached out his arm so his fingertips brushed her cheek. Her body seemed to stop as he touched the blotchy flush covering her face; his touch light, almost reverent. Suddenly he was closer, too; his perfectly white teeth pressed against his bottom lip.

“Eyelash.”

Thankfully, the bartender had announced last orders at that point, before Brienne did something utterly stupid, like fall in love with her beautiful co-star and make a fool of herself by reading too much into his behaviour. Perhaps it was necessary to put some distance between her and Jaime. Not just because of the blind item. The fluttering in her stomach every time he smiled at her was reason enough on its own.

There was a light rap on her hotel room door. Jaime. They’d made plans to check out the hotel gym first thing that morning while everyone was sleeping off their hangovers. Reluctantly, Brienne got to her feet and opened up. He looked impossibly good in gym shorts and a sleeveless shirt; his biceps firm and inviting. Fuck.

“You ready to go?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Okay, how long do you—”

She raised a hand to cut him off. “Jaime, I don’t think we should spend time together outside of work.”

He blinked, shoulders sagging. Then he bobbed his head. “You saw the blind item.”

“Its ridiculous, I know, but that sort of speculation doesn��t help careers. At least not—”

“—yours. Right.” Jaime laughed; it sounded hollow compared to the warm chuckle of last night. “Being seen in public with the man who single-handedly ruined production of The Dragon King and the career of a Lann award winner…yeah, I imagine that wouldn’t help your career. Message received, Brienne.”

“Jaime, that’s not it at all.”

“No? When we first started, you didn’t want to work with me at all. But I thought we’d grown closer, I thought we were…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “Don’t worry. We’ll keep things on set. If you can even stomach being in front of the camera with me.”

Jaime moved quickly down the hallway and out of sight. Brienne wanted to go after him; to explain herself in some way that did not involve revealing that she was starting to develop feelings for her co-star. But she didn’t. Maybe it was better this way. Best to ruin things now before she fell even harder and hurt them both even more. At least, that was what she told herself.

#anonymous #braime #jaime x brienne #mine: paragraph prompts #ship: braime

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thankskenpenders · 6 years ago

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So there’s this little cartoon you may have heard of...

As I’ve said on this blog before, I’d never watched all of SatAM. This might be shocking to hear from someone who runs a blog dedicated to Archie Sonic and one of the top twenty Bunnie Rabbot fangirls in the world. But it’s true.

SatAM was very difficult to track down compared to other Sonic cartoons when I was a kid, and I just never got around to watching it as an adult. So for the longest time, I had only ever seen the first episode, which I found uploaded in parts on YouTube in 2007. As the one cartoon featuring the characters I liked from the comics, it became sort of this holy grail of Sonic media for me as a kid, especially with people online always talking it up as the best thing ever and petitioning for a revival. Hell, to this day, a lot of people hold it up as this masterpiece and act like the Archie comics were a complete mockery of it

Anyway so I finally got around to watching the whole series with my boyfriend these past couple weeks, and it was pretty good. So instead of covering a comic today, here are some thoughts on the cartoon that started it all

General Thoughts

SatAM is a pretty good show. It isn’t the greatest piece of Sonic media ever, unlike what some older fans will tell you. It might not even be the best Sonic cartoon (you could easily make a case for the Japanese version of Sonic X, or Sonic Boom if you’re looking for something more comedic). It hasn’t aged the most gracefully, in some ways. The animation’s cheap, the stories sometimes bland. But for a DiC-produced video game cartoon from the early ‘90s, it’s really solid

I think that in many ways, SatAM is carried by the strength of its ideas over its actual execution. The darker, more serious tone is a really cool idea, even if at times it can get a little dull, and even if the show actually gets silly as hell pretty often. (This is a show where Snively literally tortures a captive Antoine by preparing French cuisine improperly.) That opening scene of Robotropolis in the first episode actually sets the mood really well and feels like it came straight out of some cyberpunk anime from the ‘80s or ‘90s. The concept of Robotnik turning people into robot slaves is really cool, even if surprisingly little was done with this aside from Uncle Chuck’s storyline. And I think the Freedom Fighters make a great supporting cast for Sonic, even if the writers didn’t use them to their full potential

Interestingly, I’d often heard from fans that season one was the stronger of the two, when I’d say that the opposite is true. Season one episodes were pretty samey, usually involving low stakes missions to Robotropolis with no real continuity, and Sally ended up being a damsel in distress more than I’d like--hell, so did Bunnie in a few episodes. It wasn’t bad, but it was highly repetitive, and I got a little bored at times. Season two had a few real stinkers (the Antoine episodes) and Dulcy was an unwelcome addition, but I thought the heavier focus on continuity gave the season some real momentum and more emotional weight, which made it way more enjoyable overall

Things I Liked

Sonic. I quite liked this version of Sonic, actually! Jaleel White is a great Sonic, and he was written pretty well. At times the extremely tubular ‘90s lingo was grating (I never wanna hear “Gotta juice!” again), but I was surprised to see that this version of Sonic had a lot of heart. He really cared about the well-being of his friends and Uncle Chuck, and they even let him cry a couple times. I thought they struck a good balance between snark and sincerity with him

Sally. I don’t think SatAM Sally was perfect, but I liked her. I’m still of the opinion that she should have been given more ways to defend herself physically (maybe some kind of power of her own) so that Sonic didn’t have to save her as much, but I liked the banter she and Sonic had. Unlike the early Archie comics, Sally doesn’t come off as the bossy girlfriend who ruins Sonic’s fun. Maybe it’s Jaleel White and Kath Soucie’s performances doing most of the work, but they had a fun back and forth dynamic, with Sally’s sarcasm keeping Sonic’s ego in check, but there still being clear chemistry between the two of them

I also liked the greatly reduced emphasis on her being a princess compared to much of Archie’s material. Like yeah, it’s there. Her dad’s the king, and left her some classified info via Nicole. But her status doesn’t really affect things much. They don’t talk about her having this grand destiny and being the next in line to rule. It’s clear that she’s in charge of the Freedom Fighters not because of her status, but because she’s smart, brave, and gets shit done. That’s the Sally I like.

Plus! In the finale, Sally insisted upon going with Sonic for the final confrontation, and was a crucial part of the climax. Her powering up with Sonic and matching his speed and strength ruled. Compare that to the climactic defeat of Robotnik in Archie, where she was fucking dead

Robotnik. I don’t think much needs to be said here. Jim Cummings rules as Robotnik, like everyone has always said. He’s just so evil and so much fun to watch

Snively??? I’ve never cared for Snively as a character, but Charlie Adler rules and his over-the-top performance made the character way funnier than he should’ve been. Just something about all the little noises he makes, and the way he almost shifts into the Red Guy voice at times

Nicole. It was fun to see Nicole start to get more of a personality in season two, having some banter with Sonic and also picking up some slang from him. It makes the later decision to turn Sally’s computer into a full character (which would have happened in season three, and obviously eventually became a big subplot in the comics) make a lot of sense

King Acorn. While he was only around briefly, I liked that he wasn’t a huge dick, unlike Archie’s King Max

Things I Didn’t Like

The misuse of the other Freedom Fighters. This is, by far, the show’s greatest crime.

I already write approximately 100k words a week on this blog about how I think Bunnie Rabbot is amazing and criminally underused, so I’ll keep this brief, but I was shocked to see how little she was used in this show. People tend to say Dulcy stole her screentime in season two, but she didn’t have much to do in the first season either! We somehow never got a single episode focusing on her. The one where she got temporarily deroboticized focused much more on Uncle Chuck. We never got to learn the story behind her roboticization, or delved into her feelings on the matter much. She mostly just served as a positive, lighthearted supporting member of the team who acts cute and gets some funny lines, but usually stays home

Antoine might have been even worse, honestly. Like, they used him so much! They had multiple episodes focusing entirely on him! And yet I’m not sure he ever really helped. Sonic and Sally kept taking him along, but every single time it felt like it would’ve been a wiser decision to bring Bunnie instead. The jokes about his broken English were just dumb, and god, the way he constantly hits on Sally and starts kissing her hand at the most inappropriate times is just SO fucking creepy. SatAM Antoine is just a horrible, one-dimensional stereotype. There’s a reason why readers of the Archie comics wanted him out of the series until later writers majorly rehabilitated him

Rotor also didn’t get much use, which was a shame, but it at least felt like he was used efficiently. I got the vibe that Rotor was much more bitter about the war with Robotnik than his friends, and it would’ve been interesting to see this explored more. At least we got that one fun episode where he went to space with Sonic

Dulcy. Oh my fucking god. I wanted to like Dulcy! I really did! But most of the time she was just a clutz used for comic relief, and they kept reusing the same joke where she crashed, bumped her head, got dizzy, and thought she was talking to her mom. This happened in almost every episode she was in.

The other miscellaneous Freedom Fighters. Like in the early Archie comics, none of the other miscellaneous Mobians they meet were as interesting as the core cast. They just always felt very bland and I was never as invested in them as the writers wanted me to be. Ari was boring, and that episode where they found the underground city and this other dude started hitting on Sally was a drag. Lupe’s cute though

Rings. This is a common problem in Sonic adaptations, but the fact that rings always serve as Sonic’s instant win button kind of sucks. Basically any time Sonic’s in a pinch, he pulls a ring out of his backpack, powers up, and wins. Not exactly a recipe for suspenseful action

Oh, also, I did kinda find it weird how much Sonic and Sally kissed? Like, all the time? Often while their friends just stand there and stare at them? Not something I’d expect from a Sonic cartoon

Things Archie Did Better

I’ll limit this to the first 50 issues or so, since I don’t think it would be fair to compare two short seasons of SatAM to the highlights of nearly 500 issues of comics

Tails. Tails is okay in SatAM, Archie just used him as Sonic’s sidekick way more. He was barely even in the show. Poor little guy only gets to play dirt hockey all day

Bunnie. Again, Bunnie was underutilized in both series, but the Archie comics did her better. They actually showed the story of how she got roboticized (even if it was a silly story), and they got to flesh her out a bit more. Gallagher showing that she was a carrot farmer before her roboticization and saying she wanted to be a hairdresser was at least something. And as I keep harping on, Rich Koslowski’s backup story in #37 where we find out Bunnie has recurring nightmares about her robot parts taking over and making her a threat to her friends? This single backup story did more to flesh her out than all 26 episodes of SatAM combined

Antoine. Not hard to do better than SatAM here, really. He was really bad early on, serving as little more than Sonic’s punching bag, but eventually they started to set up a romance between him and Bunnie and explored his past a bit, saying that Antoine’s father (his personal role model) was a member of the royal guard who was roboticized in the war. While he still had a long way to go, these were important first steps towards him being a decent character. Hell, these days, being Bunnie’s love interest is one of Antoine’s defining characteristics! And it doesn’t come from the cartoon at all

Roboticization in general. I was surprised how little this came up in the cartoon! In the comics, it’s such a central element. We see more of the heroes’ loved ones turned into robots, and we even got some fun stories where characters like Sonic and Sally were roboticized temporarily. The Freedom Fighters’ efforts to reverse the process was a major part of the plot for quite a while. Bunnie’s fear of losing control is a pretty important part of her character (even if it was only touched on briefly), and after they’re rescued, the rest of the Mobians fear that the “Robians” (including Sonic’s entire family) will turn evil again. It comes up a lot! There are interesting things to discuss here! But SatAM only really talks about Uncle Chuck. We never even see what happened to everyone else

Closing Thoughts

SatAM is not the best show in the world, but it is a solid and enjoyable one. It’s easy to see why people who grew up with it are fond of it, even if I think that it’s long past time certain fans quit acting like it’s the only valid take on the Sonic source material and petitioning for a third season. At the very least, the concepts and characters introduced here are strong ones, and it’s easy to see how they spawned over 20 years of comics exploring said ideas in greater detail. While I’m not sure I could recommend it to non-fans, I think it’s definitely worth checking out for Sonic fans who missed out on it (especially fans of the Archie comics)

Anyway I got to see Bunnie dropkick some Swatbots twice her height so I had fun

#tkp post #other media

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wobc-fm · 6 years ago

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TECH 350: Digitizing and Archiving WOBC

Words by Natalie Mattson

This semester, the TECH 350 class has undertaken the challenge of cleaning out WOBC to digitize and archive important findings. Comprised of many WOBC staff and board members, there is much enthusiasm from the class to produce something that will not only document the station’s history but also with the hopes that this project will continue growing with the future of WOBC. There has been quite a broad range of discoveries: from a letter addressed to future station directions written in 1959, to a Soviet News segment from 1990. The documents that we’ve found have not only given us more insight into the history WOBC, but also the history of Oberlin. Some of my personal favorites that we have found include air maps that display the proposed air frequency of WOBC and other surrounding stations.

WOBC proposal to FCC for expanding the service contour from the late 1950s.

Current Service Contour for WOBC from FCC website.

Some of the maps were highlighted with color, while others were in black and white. Our class has also compiled a whole folder that consists of complaints sent to WOBC, from unhappy staff members to the college we used to share the frequency with, and most consistently, the FCC. We came across a petition that WOBC had created in the late 1980s, urging people to support WOBC broadcasting the hearing of the Oberlin 59, which was a group of about 60 students protesting Oberlin’s investment in South Africa. This petition was necessary due to FCC guidelines requiring WOBC to stay impartial on political matters; the petition was pages long and filled with signatures of students and faculty at the time. There were even some familiar names to us, mostly of faculty who are still in the Oberlin area. TECH 350 is working to collect stories from previous members of WOBC to provide context and paint a clearer picture of the documents we have found. WOBC constantly changes based on the people involved, and this class has been a great way to catalog the character of the station throughout the years.

#wobc #wobc oberlin #college radio #college and community radio #oberlin #tech 350

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thelordismytreasure · 6 years ago

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An Open letter to the President of the United States, clarity edition

The year was 1965. LBJ was waging an unpopular war in Vietnam. Televised reports daily counted the tally of American boys killed and wounded, and news footage showed the caskets of the dead being loaded aboard military cargo planes bound for the United States.

The civil rights movement was in full swing. Police in Montgomery, Alabama were battling mostly black protesters with attack dogs and water cannons.

Riots and looting were reported across the country, but I lived in a lazy backwater called Faribault, the all-white county seat of rural Rice County, Minnesota where racial strife was unknown.

My father and mother assisted my understanding of what was going on.

As for my civil rights: suspended.

From my mother: “You must attend school until you are eighteen. If you drop out of school, the police will put your father and me in jail and you will be sent to reform school.”

The law referred to was known as the compulsory school attendance act. It was particularly onerous to me as my teachers were refusing to provide any information leading me to understand and compete in the entertainment industry as either a singer or an actor, my desired goal/s as stated, at the time, to both my first male teacher and to my father.

From my father: “You will be subject to the draft when you turn eighteen, unless you get into college.” It was explained that eighteen-year-old young men were being forced into military service by a random system imposing it.

The likely consequence of being drafted was that you would be sent to Vietnam to fight, (and from the televised reports of the war that I was viewing each night, returned home in a casket.)

I was terrified and mystified all at the same time.

Not only were my parents and teachers not educating me to my goals, they went on to suggest that I should ignore the programs of education that might feed my needs for information post high school graduation, concentrating on those programs other than in music or drama so as to feed my need for sustenance, (in the form of a steady job outside the entertainment industry,) post college. (Please see my post, “Are YOU a traitor to your country?,” for more on this topic.)

Long story short, on March 4, 1965, confronted with further and more personalized abuse by both my father and teacher, I announced to my teacher, Mr. Huberty, that from that day forth, until I graduated from college in a field other than in music or drama, I would understand that any inquiry from any teacher in our school system as to my educational goals was only meant to prompt me to name a field of study other than in music or drama. Or a position in an industry other than in entertainment.

I was formalizing my acceptance of the convention of speech that had been engendered by both himself and my father when they each and separately prompted me for such information in our talks.

I was extending credit to my government whom had suspended my civil rights to place such teachers over me in recognition that the demands of international conflict took precedence over individual rights in its conduct.

Moreover, I said to Mr. Huberty, once I had achieved college graduation in this proposed alternate field of endeavor, I would reject any offer of employment in that field until I was given a leading role in a major motion picture.

I was exercising my right and ability to limit the amount of time I served the government’s interest, as expressed by its agents placed over me, to twelve years, after which I would expect and require reward to the lure by which my service was being solicited, “enough money to pursue a career in either the field of music or that of drama.”

Thereafter, I returned home from school to pen a letter to Lyndon Baines Johnson, then president of the United States of America, setting forth the terms of the service which I had agreed to extend to our country in its hour of need.

Accordingly, Mr. President, having been asked for a period of service of twelve years by the men and women our government placed over me, having agreed to deliver the service requested and having, long since, delivered that service, I must ask you, “Would you please reward me, as promised by our government’s agents and spokespeople in 1965, with sufficient money to pursue a career in music or drama, perhaps both, perhaps neither?”

Thank you sincerely for your attention to this matter. I realize your time and attention are required by other persons and issues more pressing than mine.

Yours, very truly,

Karl Leonard Meyer, A.B. Harvard College, 1977, in geology

## Signs and Wonders After composing the above letter, (edited in this edition of the telling, at paragraph #16, above, to more correctly read, “enough money to pursue a career in EITHER THE FIELD OF MUSIC OR THAT OF DRAMA,” I hurried over to the neighboring Hennepin County Library and Judicial Center to upload it to my blog. After doing this, I navigated to the White House website, accessed the “contact” form, identified myself by way of their email form and then posted a brief invitation to the President to view my “Open letter,” describing the contents as a petition of mine to resolve my long-standing grievance with the government and adding the URL where it could be found. HAVING REVISITED MY LIFELONG PURPOSE, BEGUN IN ’65 WITH MY FIRST EVER LETTER, AN ACT WORSHIPING GOD IN WORD AND DEED THROUGH THE ATTEMPTED FORMULATION OF A GOVERNMENT AMENABLE TO MY ENDS, (the purpose of my kin in coming to America as Pilgrims,) I logged out, quit my computer’s open applications, shut down and ended my communications session, CLOSING THE LID. At that very moment, 5 p.m. CDT, 30 June, 2018, there was a cloudburst and I feared to walk the short distance home for fear of damaging the precious instrument of my access. All the while, I was sheltered by an overhang of the steps I had been sitting on leading to the judicial center, an overhang which also sheltered a small number of cars, transport for people visiting the library. Spying a woman who was just then leaving in her car, I waved to her, signaling that I wished to talk. I approached the driver’s door and she tentatively rolled down the window a fraction of an inch. When she heard that I wished her to give me a ride, she rolled it up again. I persisted to say that I was worried that the rain would damage my computer, explaining my need. Rolling her window all the way down, she declined to give me a lift, but offered a purple carrying sack, suitably large to hold my laptop and made of tightly-woven cloth sufficient to repel the rain. Purple, the color of royalty. This simple gift, arriving from a surprise source, met my immediate needs, unanticipated needs and reinforced the oft-quoted adage of Charles F. Stanley, Doctor of Divinity: “God assumes full responsibility for our needs when we obey Him.” That very phrase was emblazoned on his letter of thanks to me, retrieved from my mailbox upon my return home. Check him out at InTouch Ministries. ### Why is it prudent for YOU to redress my complaint? You are the head of the government. It is your responsibility to address the debts of the nation, not only those incurred under your administration, but those debts incurred under previous administrations.

My claim is for a debt owed by the government for several reasons:

At the time that my service to the government was solicited there existed twin threats to my liberty, one from the state of Minnesota and one from the federal government of the United States. The state of Minnesota operates under the supervision and control of the federal government so I will address that threat first, leaving my appeal to the federal authority, as foundational, for later.

The threat to my liberty that the state of Minnesota represented in 1965 was not only a threat to me, but also to my parents.

The penalty of disobedience on my part was “reform school,” confinement for the purpose of my indoctrination, information and gain. This could be argued as a benefit to me, but the penalty to my parents and for their allowance and promotion of my liberty, for their disobedience to the law of Compulsory Education, was jail, confinement for the purpose of punishment alone, there was no remedial intent given to that penalty.

In my deliberations of 1965 as to whether I should seek my own good by leaving school, necessary to me in order to gather information for the purpose of advancing my interests in becoming an actor or a singer, or to sacrifice my interests to those of my parents, state and nation by continuing to attend school were as follows:

My ability to seek information on, and participate in the work of the entertainment industry was limited by my circumstances of the time. The industry was headquartered in two cities, both far away, New York on the East coast and Los Angeles on the West.

It was possible for me to gather the names of those companies responsible for producing the movies that we watched in the theater weekly by carefully noting them when the credits rolled at the end of the movie. I could then, with my parents permission, use the telephone and long-distance Directory Assistance.

A map of the country showing the telephone area codes of the various cities and regions in it was available in our telephone books. Finding information on the companies involved in making movies would be simple; all I had to do was find the area code of Los Angeles, dial that, followed by “555-1212.”

An operator would answer asking for the name of the party I wished to call and I would answer with the name or names of the companies I had gathered from the movie credits. I could then call those companies and request information from the parties answering for them.

By this method, I could overcome my mother’s claimed ignorance of the ways and means by which I could get into the movies.

The obstacle presented was that she would not allow my use of the telephone.

Two reasons were given. 1.) It was very expensive, (at the time,) to make long distance calls. My family would be burdened by my proposed activity, and 2.) It would tie up the phone. The line must remain open so that persons with life-threatening ailments could reach out to my father when he was home, or my mother, who could then direct them to my father’s whereabouts.

I decided that my father’s work as a healer to the community took precedence over my interest in gathering information for my sole benefit.

Furthermore, because the industry was far away and participation in it would involve travel to that location as well as in the area, itself, I could not readily apply the information I may have received over the telephone by traveling there. I would have to wait until graduation from high school in order to travel independently from my parents.

These were the reasons presented to me as a minor citizen of the state of Minnesota as to why I could not pursue my own good will until I had attained majority status.

Since that time, the Compulsory School Attendance Act of the state of Minnesota has been modified so as to allow parents to educate their children, themselves. This change has eliminated the perception that the state is exerting exclusive control over the education of their children in defiance of the parents’ good will and intent for that child, but at the time my reasonable perception was that the threat posed to my parents under the Act, was of such severity that my father was forced to parrot my teachers’ unreasonable suggestions that it would be necessary for me to, not only graduate from high school, but to also attend and graduate from college in a field of study unrelated to my interests, in order to ultimately pursue them.

What was the threat from the federal government that compelled me to agree to the aforementioned “unreasonable suggestion” foisted on me by both parents and teachers? It was the Selective Service Act of 1964.

The college deferment rule in the operation of this Act meant that, not only was it imprudent for me to ignore the insistence of both parents and teachers that I give my full attention to my studies, both at home, where I was required to continue with the work demanded of me at school, and at school, as well, but that I, unlike my sisters, must give full attention to my high school studies so as to ensure my acceptance into college in order to avoid being “sent into harm’s way,” the Vietnam War being active.

In concluding my deliberations over what I should do about the situation that confronted me in 1965, it was that it was the federal authority that more greatly impelled my attendance to school, and that it was, therefore, with the federal authority that I should place my complaint about the thrust and operation of the school in denying me the use of liberty to serve my own good interests.

Accordingly, I addressed a letter to the President of the United States. Aware as I was about the inconsistencies of a mailed letter to the President of the United States and the risk that it would late, lost or ignored, underneath his title as placed on the envelope, I placed my paternal grandparents’ address, (just a block away in Faribault, Minnesota.)

It was my hope that they, if they received it, would be responsible for the purpose of my letter: to lodge a complaint with the federal government of the United States of America, and to ensure that my stated will and intention, to serve the reasonably perceived purpose of the government, survived for the period of time which I intended to serve that interest, so that I may, thereafter, have reasonable evidence for my claimed reward, as stated by both my parents and teachers, both also serving the interests of the government, my parents, under penalty of law and my teachers, for monetary purposes, alone.

To reiterate my request of you, Mr. President, will you keep faith with me and to the Powers which have been entrusted to you by the People of this country, by complying with my reasonable demand upon the resources of this Nation to pay the debt which is thus owed me?

Thank you, sincerely, for your service to this Nation and to myself, in your consideration of this information and argument.

Very truly yours,

Karl Leonard Meyer, 7151 York Avenue S. Minneapolis, MN 55435

P.S. More information about the contents of my letter to LBJ of 1965, referred to above, may be found in my 28 pp. story, copyrighted with the Library of Congress under the title, “My Story by Karl Meyer (or) How I Traveled Through Time and Space with Jesus Christ While Investigating the Evidence for God’s Endowment of My Right to Liberty from Compulsory School Attendance.”

I believe you will profit and enjoy by the read.

#### Dear Mr. Trump,

In my blog post, today, “An Open Letter to the President of the United States,” which I have just reblogged at thelordismytreasure.tumblr.com, I have suggested that my story, ““My Story by Karl Meyer (or) How I Traveled Through Time and Space with Jesus Christ While Investigating the Evidence for God’s Endowment of My Right to Liberty from Compulsory School Attendance,” (copyrighted with the Library of Congress,) may be profitable for you to read.

Contained therein is a description of the first letter that I ever wrote. It was written at the age of nine in March of 1965 and addressed to “the president of the United States,” LBJ.

This letter described two things: 1.) the fact that I had just entered into a covenant with our government, which was asking me for twelve years of my service, and 2.) it described an experimental hypothesis which I was going to pursue testing to see if there was Evidence that Our Creator endowed My right to liberty from Compulsory School Attendance.

The hypothesis read that, if I delivered the twelve years of service requested by the government, and if the government failed to reward me thereafter, as suggested by my teacher of the day, one Mr. Huberty, with “enough money to pursue a career as a singer or an actor,” such that its failure to reward me caused me to Fail to make a professional debut in either or both fields of endeavor by the 1/3 demarcation point of an expected natural lifespan of 78 years, (or by the age of 25 as it could be reckoned,) then it would be Evident that the government had caused me injury by the perfidy that it had perpetrated on me by the man it placed over me using means of coercion under both state and federal law.

The hypothesis Predicted that If it should become Evident that Our Government had injured me so, And if there existed a God of Nature whom in His Divine Wisdom Endowed Our Right to liberty from such injury and coercion, aforementioned, Then there should be observed an Injury to the Head of the Government, the President of the United States, presiding in my 26th year.

Remarkably, my hypothesis was fulfilled in 1981 with the assassination attempt on President Reagan perpetrated by John Hinkley Jr.

The injury inflicted on the president was in March of that year, the same month wherein I formulated my hypothesis and mailed it to the president in a letter.

Accordingly, it is my duty to you, as acting president of the United State at this time, to inform you that the Lord of Righteousness may hold you accountable for injuries such as mine, perpetrated against the People of Our Union under the ubiquitous Compulsory School Attendance Acts flourishing among our states. It could be in a manner which is most personal and immediate.

Please take this advice in the Spirit in which it is intended, a friendly reminder of the duty of the president to serve and protect the citizens of this country, both here and abroad.

I would suggest to you that the egregious Acts of which I protest are a violation of our national creed as formerly expressed daily in recitation by the children of our country, the Pledge of Allegiance. The Pledge is to the Republic for which our flag stands, “one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Does that Republic exist, today, under YOUR administration? I think not.

Most truly yours, KX (the code name by which my friends cum playmates called me in our childhood.)

P.S. I think you deserve our thanks for the splendid job which you are doing.

#petition #argument #conclusion

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