sugardeers

[steelthroat]

Ooooooh how I love small town politics, they're so juicy and they're no different than gossip and middle school drama.

Ah the deputy mayor that suggests they don't have any more elections because the same people have been voted for the last... 18 years?

Which is not at all illegal or anticostitutional... at all lmao????

Or why not make the small lake surfable???? *wheeze*

God it's just so funny, I'm so glad I live here for more or less than a month every year

[blueskittlesart]

I've heard that while most people really really love BotW and TotK, some people hate those two for going open-world, and some people hate TotK specifically for something about the story. As the resident Zelda expert I know of, what do you think of those takes?

"something about the story" is a bit too vague for me to answer--if you look at my totk liveblog tag from back when the game was newly released or my general zelda analysis tag you may be able to find some of my in-depth thoughts about the story of totk, but in general i liked it.

the open world thing though is something i can and will talk about for hours. (I am obsessed with loz and game design and this is an essay now <3) breath of the wild is a game that was so well-received that a lot of the criticism from older fans who were expecting something closer to the classic zelda formula was just kind of immediately drowned out and ignored, and while i don't think it's a valid criticism to suggest that botw strayed too far from its origins in going open-world, i am more than willing to look into those criticisms, why they exist, and why i think going open-world was ultimately the best decision botw devs could have made. (totk is a slightly different story, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.)

Loz is a franchise with a ton of history and a ton of really, REALLY dedicated fans. it's probably second only to mario in terms of recognizability and impact in nintendo's catalog. To us younger fans, the older games can sometimes seem, like, prehistoric when compared to what we're used to nowadays, but it's important to remember just how YOUNG the gaming industry is and how rapidly it's changed and grown. the first zelda game was released in 1986, which was 31 years before botw came out in 2017. What this means for nintendo and its developers is that they have to walk a very fine line between catering to older fans in their 30s and 40s now who would have been in nintendo's prime demographic when the first few games in the franchise were coming out AND making a game that's engaging to their MODERN target demographic and that age group's expectations for what a gaming experience should look like.

LOZ is in kind of a tough spot when it comes to modernizing, because a lot of its core gameplay elements are very much staples of early RPGs, and a lot of those gameplay elements have been phased out of modern RPGs for one reason or another. gathering collectibles, fighting one's way through multilevel, mapless dungeons, and especially classic zelda's relative lack of guidance through the story are all things that date games and which modern audiences tend to get frustrated with. for the last few releases before botw, the devs had kind of been playing with this -- skyward sword in particular is what i consider their big experiment and what (i think) became the driving force behind a lot of what happened with botw. Skyward sword attempted to solve the issues I listed by, basically, making the map small and the story much, much more blatantly linear. Skyward sword feels much more like other modern rpgs to me than most zelda games in terms of its playstyle, because the game is constantly pushing you to do specific things. this is a common storytelling style in modern RPGs--obviously, the player usually needs to take specific actions in order to progress the story, and so when there's downtime between story sections the supporting characters push the player towards the next goal. but this actually isn't what loz games usually do. in the standard loz formula, you as the player are generally directly given at most 4 objectives. these objectives will (roughly) be as follows: 1. go through some dungeons and defeat their bosses, 2. claim the master sword, 3. go through another set of dungeons and defeat their bosses, 4. defeat the final boss of the game. (not necessarily in that order, although that order is the standard formula.) the ONLY time the player will be expressly pushed by supporting characters towards a certain action (excluding guide characters) is when the game is first presenting them with those objectives. in-between dungeons and other gameplay segments, there's no sense of urgency, no one pushing you onto the next task. this method of storytelling encourages players to take their time and explore the world they're in, which in turn helps them find the collectibles and puzzles traditionally hidden around the map that will make it easier for them to continue on. Skyward sword, as previously mentioned, experimented with breaking this formula a bit--its overworld was small and unlocked sequentially, so you couldn't explore it fully without progressing the narrative, and it gave players a "home base" to return to in skyloft which housed many of the puzzles and collectibles rather than scattering them throughout the overworld. This method worked... to an extent, but it also meant that skyward sword felt drastically different in its storytelling and how its narrative was presented to the player than its predecessors. this isn't necessarily a BAD thing, but i am of the opinion that one of zelda's strongest elements has always been the level of immersion and relatability its stories have, and the constant push to continue the narrative has the potential to pull players out of your story a bit, making skyward sword slightly less engaging to the viewer than other games in the franchise. (to address the elephant in the room, there were also obviously some other major issues with the design of sksw that messed with player immersion, but imo even if the control scheme had been perfect on the first try, the hyperlinear method would STILL have been less engaging to a player than the standard exploration-based zeldas.)

So when people say that botw was the first open-world zelda, I'm not actually sure how true I personally believe that is. I think a lot of the initial hype surrounding botw's open map were tainted by what came before it--compared to the truly linear, intensely restricted map of skyward sword, botw's map feels INSANE. but strictly speaking, botw actually sticks pretty closely to the standard zelda gameplay experience, at least as far as the overworld map is concerned. from the beginning, one of the draws of loz is that there's a large, populated map that you as the player can explore (relatively) freely. it was UNUSUAL for the player to not have access to almost the entire map either immediately or very quickly after beginning a new zelda game. (the size and population of these maps was restricted by software and storage capabilities in earlier games, but pretty muhc every zelda game has what would have been considered a large & well populated map at the time of its release.) what truly made botw different was two things; the first being the sheer SIZE of the map and the second being the lack of dungeons and collectibles in a traditional sense. Everything that needs to be said about the size of the map already has been said: it's huge and it's crazy and it's executed PERFECTLY and it's never been done before and every game since has been trying to replicate it. nothing much else to say there. but I do want to talk about the percieved difference in gameplay as it relates to the open-world collectibles and dungeons, because, again, i don't think it's actually as big of a difference as people seem to think it is.

Once again, let's look at the classic formula. I'm going to start with the collectibles and lead into the dungeons. The main classic collectible that's a staple of every zelda game pre-botw is the heart piece. This is a quarter of a heart that will usually be sitting out somewhere in the open world or in a dungeon, and will require the player to either solve a puzzle or perform a specific action to get. botw is the first game to not include heart pieces... TECHNICALLY. but in practice, they're still there, just renamed. they're spirit orbs now, and rather than being hidden in puzzles within the overworld (with no explanation as to how or why they ended up there, mind you) they're hidden within shrines, and they're given a clear purpose for existing throughout hyrule and for requiring puzzle-solving skills to access. Functionally, these two items are exactly the same--it's an object that gives you an extra heart container once you collect four of them. no major difference beyond a reskin and renaming to make the object make sense within the greater world instead of just having a little ❤��� floating randomly in the middle of their otherwise hyperrealistic scenery. the heart piece vs spirit orb i think is a good microcosm of the "it's too different" criticisms of botw as a whole--is it ACTUALLY that different, or is it just repackaged in a way that doesn't make it immediately obvious what you're looking at anymore? I think it's worth noting that botw gives a narrative reason for that visual/linguistic disconnect from other games, too--it's set at minimum TEN THOUSAND YEARS after any other given game. while we don't have any concrete information about how much time passes between new-incarnation games, it's safe to assume that botw is significantly further removed from other incarnations of hyrule/link/zelda/etc than any other game on the timeline. It's not at all inconceivable within the context of the game that heart pieces may have changed form or come to be known by a different name. most of the changes between botw and other games can be reasoned away this way, because most of them have SOME obvious origins in a previous game mechanic, it's just been updated for botw's specific setting and narrative.

The dungeons ARE an actual departure from the classic formula, i will grant you. the usual way a zelda dungeon works is that link enters the dungeon, solves a few puzzles, fights a mini boss at about the halfway point, and after defeating the mini boss he gets a dungeon item which makes the second half of the dungeon accessible. He then uses that item in the dungeon's final boss fight, which is specifically engineered with that item in mind as the catalyst to win it. Botw's dungeons are the divine beasts. we've removed the presence of mini-bosses entirely, because the 'dungeon items' aren't something link needs to get within the dungeon itself--he alredy has them. they're the sheikah slate runes: magnesis, cryonis, stasis, and remote bombs. Each of the divine beast blight battles is actually built around using one of these runes to win it--cryonis to break waterblight's ice projectiles, magnesis to strike down thunderblight with its own lightning rods, remote bombs to take out fireblight's shield. (i ASSUME there's some way to use stasis effectively against windblight, mostly because it's obvious to me that that's how all the other fights were designed, but in practice it's the best strategy for that fight is to just slow down time via aerial archery, so i've never tried to win that way lol.) So even though we've removed traditional dungeon items and mini-boss fights, the bones of the franchise remain unchanged underneath. this is what makes botw such an ingenious move for this franchise imo; the fact that it manages to update itself into such a beautiful, engaging, MODERN game while still retaining the underlying structure that defines its franchise and the games that came before it. botw is an effective modern installment to this 30-year-old franchise because it takes what made the old games great and updates it in a way that still stays true to the core of the franchise.

I did mention totk in my opening paragraph and you mention it in your ask so i have to come back to it somehow. Do i think that totk did the gigantic-open-world thing as well as botw did? no. But i also don't really think there was any other direction to go with that game specifically. botw literally changed the landscape of game development when it was released. I KNOW you all remember how for a good year or two after botw's release, EVERY SINGLE GAME that came out HAD to have a massive open-world map, regardless of whether or not that actually made sense for that game. (pokemon is still suffering from the effects of that botw-driven open world craze to this day. rip scarlet/violet your gameplay was SUCH dogshit) I'm not sure to what degree nintendo and the botw devs anticipated that success, (I remember the open world and the versatility in terms of problem-solving being the two main advertising angles pre-release, but it's been 7 years. oh jesus christ it's been SEVEN YEARS. anyways) but in any case, there's basically NO WAY that they anticipated their specific gameplay style taking off to that degree. That's not something you can predict. When creating totk, they were once again walking that line between old and new, but because they were only 3ish years out from botw when totk went into development, they were REALLY under pressure to stay true to what it was that had made botw such an insane success. I think that's probably what led to the expanded map in the sky and depths as well as the fuse/build mechanics--they basically took their two big draws from botw, big map and versatility, and said ok BIGGER MAP and MORE VERSATILITY. Was this effective? yeah. do i think they maybe could have made a more engaging and well-rounded game if they'd been willing to diverge a little more from botw? also yeah. I won't say that I wanted totk to be skyward sword-style linear, because literally no one wanted that, but I do think that because of the insane wave of success that botw's huge open world brought in the developers were under pressure to stay very true to botw in their designing the gameplay of totk, and I think that both the gameplay and story might have been a bit more engaging if they had been allowed to experiment a little more in their delivery of the material.

[kingdionra]

hi I've been trying to beg on the fediverse for a while but it's not going very well so I thought I would try here as well >.<

putting the teal deer up front, long explanation & images-for-proof under the cut: two traumatised and disabled queers have successfully run away from abuse but now have no furniture or other household essentials, looking for another €4000* or so to get everything we need + get out of our overdraft

GOAL: €680/4000

throne link

£ paypal: diontheblackdragon@gmail.com

cashapp: £KingDionRa

DM for roommate's € paypal or my UK bank deets to do a straight transfer <3

also if you want you can get an album for your moneys, i have it up for free download on both my site and on bandcamp :3

*this is higher than the original goal I set on fediverse because I'm including the ebike and winter clothes and getting out of our overdraft (which is costing us a bit in fees every month)...but also this still isn't including new computers which we both need lol but this already feels like so much to ask for!

LONG ASS STORY:

okay so over a year ago i ran away from the uk in its entirety to stay with my internet best friend of over a decade in germany, because i'd been in and out of homelessness there for most of my adult life and just kept ending up with abusers (because that's what happens when you jump at the first chance you get to get out of a homeless shelter by moving in with people you don't know), and then running away from them because they tend to get worse and worse and eventually you'd rather be homeless again than live with someone who continually messes you up and ignores your boundaries and lies to you and bullies you and fucks with your health. and yeah after long enough of that i had zero faith in the system to help me or in local queer groups to do so either, because they're the ones who kept finding me white middle class assholes to live with who turned out to be classist ableist racist shitfaces who talked the talk but failed to walk the walk

anyway, this was not an ideal situation because my best friend was living in a very tiny (25 square meters TOTAL) apartment surrounded by asshole neighbours after also only recently escaping homelessness, but we both found our mental health was VASTLY improved by living together (see it turns out we're NOT the problem!! it was the abusers all along!!!!) despite the very cramped living space (we literally couldn't both stand in the kitchen at the same time and it only had a minifridge and a stovetop) and having to share a room despite NOT being a couple and having no privacy

but eventually that situation got worse and worse due to a literal nazi living next door who engraved swastikas in our mailbox and threatened physical violence on us (pretty sure he thought we were a queer interracial couple and was very mad about that), and things came to a head when he repeatedly called the cops on us for being too noisy at night (we LAUGHED TOO LOUD at gone 10pm omg how dare we) and kept trying to get us in shit with the landlord by making up lies about us

SO, we asked the internet (fediverse) for money to move, and managed to get enough to hightail it the fuck out of there (we actually left the country because neither of us like germany it's, surprise surprise, full of nazis) to a very cheap place in very rural finland where we can each have our own room and that we can actually afford the rent on ourselves but, being poor and desperate, we only asked for literally the bare minimum to move, and left asap, and got here with no furniture, no beds, no household necessities, no nothing.

we've been here 2 months now and have managed to acquire one (1) bed that we're having to share (again we are NOT a couple and the lack of privacy is driving us both up the wall) but we still need:

-a second bed so i can actually USE my own room that i finally have again

-bedding (inc. warm things before winter sets in! and additional covers so we can actually put things in the wash)

-winter clothes before it gets too cold

-a washing machine

-desks and chairs so we can actually sit somewhere and work

-a cargo ebike so we can get to the nearest town (7km) and buy food, rather than relying entirely on non-perishables that we can order over the internet (it's been 2 months since we've had any fresh food and that sucks)

-a new phone for roommate cause theirs broke

-a laptop or desktop for roommate cause they have nothing atm

-a new desktop for me because i only have access to an old shitty kind of broken laptop at the minute (one of the hinges is fucked and i can't close or open it without worrying it will break for good and it doesn't charge right half the time and usually takes multiple attempts to boot up and i'm scared every time that this time will be the time that it just Won't), because when i tried to fundraise for a new one like a year ago i was offered this and didn't think i could say no, but i am very worried it will break any day now, and it is Not Good for recording music on or making art or games (you kind of need to run the games to make them....)

current overdraft:

our very empty living room:

my very empty bedroom:

please help us actually get sorted out and set up in our new place, so that we can actually RELAX for the first time in our lives (i'm 35 and my best friend is 38 >.<)

we both really want to actually do good work and help the world, and i have so much creative shit that i want to get on with but that has just been like, put on hold constantly, for *years*. i have so many stories and games and songs and so much art and a whole-ass comic i want to make and just haven't been able to do ANY of it for so long! (i'm keeping track of all my creative ideas in a huge google spreadsheet that links out to google docs full of properly fleshed out plans for things though, so that i can get to work asap!)

we just need a little bit more help to get started and then we will be giving back SO MUCH, i promise! all my content is and will forever be free! so you can consider this an investment in future works that you will definitely all get access to! <3

thank you so much for reading this far, and for sharing and boosting and donating if you can, you're incredible and awesome and very much appreciated <3

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

i don't know how to sum this up. i haven't slept in four days.

...this is gonna be a long one and im sorry. also literally every fucking one in this whole thing minus V is autistic, i don't know how, but them's the facts.

background info: around... some 8 years ago maybe, my truly BELOVED friend M (today 31F) started hanging out with a new friend group her then-friend S (31F now) had introduced her to.

(i (31 genderqueer) didn't know M then. i do know she was very lonely.)

so. S has introduced M to her friend group, and M hangs out with them for about... two years?, but, as far as i understand, S is the go-between here. M asks S what plans they have on weekends, S calls M when there's plans on weekends, that sort of thing.

what happens is: at one point S's girlfriend, V, starts flirting with M. heavily. in front of S. S VERY MATURELY decides that the solution to this is obviously to start telling M there's never plans on weekends while telling the friend group M is never free on weekends. shitty move, i think we can all agree.

and M ends up alone. she's never heard from a single one of any of those other people ever again. ever.

now. M, OBVIOUSLY and i think with good enough reason, HATES S.

but.

1) it's not S's fault M is no longer friends with the whole group, like M thinks it is. it's just not. if they had wanted to keep hanging out with her, very simply, they would have. S didn't even explicitly ask or tell them not to hang out with M, nor did she talk shit about M to get them to leave her out. and want to know why we know all this? it's because after (AFTER!) S and V broke up, M and V dated for like, three months, and V told M. what S did was shit and immature, but not like. extreme.

2) we don't know if S even knew how lonely M was/was gonna be. in my understanding of what's right or wrong, this is KIND OF REALLY important. the intention, the meanness, the ability to knowingly isolate someone to that degree. jealousy is one thing, being genuinely mean is another.

3) all of this happened 10 years ago. TEN. YEARS. they were like, 20. fetuses. we're all queer, they were all navigating the first romantic experiences, shit happens. S was shit but S also could have become a better person in these TEN YEARS. we just don't know.

OTHER background info: ive known S for like, 10 years, and she's someone VERY interesting who i've always liked (not romantically), but she's not my friend.

ok, and now. fast forward to last week. M & i & F1 (27F, my bestie, M's friend) go to a pub. S is there, says hi to me, hi to M (which. like at least apologize or something. but ok) (at this point i have no idea they even knew each other btw), S & i talk a bit like we always do, M goes home (i suspect nothing), S & F1 & i hang out, next thing u know F1 and S start to date and S and i become better friends.

(where i absolutely am the A: apparently, at some point M told me what S did to her. before we met S at the pub? after? i have NO memory of any of this.)

M wants nothing to do with S, as is her right. but at this point F1 is dating her and im making plans to like, watch clone wars with her. M tells me & F1 the whole story (tells again, in my case), tells us she has no problems with us hanging out with S but again, please can we not force them together, which, ofc, i tell her about our star wars plans and like, she's chill, she says yeah sure go for it, she jokes around about how S knows lots of people and we gotta use her to get another friend a girlfriend, shit like that.

forward again. one sunday morning, M asks me to hang out. that sunday just so happens to be clone wars day with S & F1. i tell her. she goes BALLISTIC. like, tachycardia, tunnel vision, palpitations, she's fully ready to never talk to me again because "i can't ask [me] to not hang out with S because that would be toxic, but i just CAN'T be around S, so here we go again, she's gonna steal my friend [me] (...i don't think M cares too much about losing F1, they're not that close), im losing control of the situation, the only way for me to stay in control is to choose to cut off [me] right here and now, so that's what ill do, goodbye forever". and she spends the WHOLE DAY in this frenzy (completely unbeknownst to me!), with multiple people trying to calm her down and like, get her to talk to me. (which OF COURSE the next day she ends up doing, because she loves me, she's just. very autistic.) anyway, at this point (sunday evening) ive been made aware of the situation with M, so i had F2 (F31, she's a mutual close friend who was acting as a kinda peacemaker) tell M i was there for her & ready to talk whenever, and we meet up on monday evening, i get apologized to (M had like, blocked me on all social media 😂) for the whole... overreaction, especially after id been told it was ok to see S, and M officially asks me to stop hanging out with S. i try to tell her "can i ask S about, idk, what was going on in her brain back then". she starts to hedgehog up on me so i shut tf up.

here i am the A again: i know M very well. i should have known it would not actually be okay to see S. i just should have. i do know her.

here i... can't tell how much of an A i might be: i don't want to tell S to fuck off. i WANT to talk to S, figure out how much of an actual irredeemable asshole she is, and only in that case tell her to fuck off. the 3 points i made at the start of this papyrus are still valid. also i think it's kind of fair to give her the right to like, defend herself? explain herself? before i go full ghost on her

... its like this. it's not like i care about S. not to be mean but she's no one to me. i just would like her to BE someone to me, cause she seems cool.

i have few friends. i would like one more friend.

i also made friends with a friend of S, T (can't remember age NB). they're the only other genderqueer person i know irl. id like to get to know them. (also they're kind of cute but that's genuinely not that important lol, i just like to make this post Even Longer). i wouldn't get to know T if i did what M wants (needs?) me to.

and let's not forget S is currently dating my close friend F1. just to put icing on the cake.

then again, i adore M. my loyalty to her SHOULD be more important than two people who are, again, no one to me. i should just tell F1, sorry, i won't hang out with ur gf, like ill be civil to her but i won't pursue a friendship with her. because i don't NEED to. i don't NEED these friendships. i would just LIKE them.

if S turns out to BE an asshole who hurt M on purpose, it's great, it's golden. problem solved. ill tell her she's shit and, i mean, F1 will probably break up with her too. no one gained or lost anything from a whole shebang were i haven't slept in like 4 days and got a stress herpes or whatever it's called, it's cool, it happens, go us.

but if S is... justifiable? understandable? NOT a dick? i don't feel i have an actual reason to delete her number. would i, for M? probably, yeah, but i don't WANT to.

F1 says im a doormat. F2 says im basically a monster and how could i do this to M when there's plant of other friendly fish in the sea.

AITA?

and while we're at it, if someone feels like giving advice... what do i do?

What are these acronyms?

[laladellakang]

partners (1/2) ♡

masterlist | wattpad

DETAILS: bold dialogue: english members: ot7, (individual scenes) nrk, psh, lhs, yjw word count: 5.1k add. della in dark blood/bite me

SUMMARY: behind the scenes of dark blood [revamp] hehe revamp like vampires 1/2 + slight continuation of burgundy lipstick on jungwon's part

NOTES: hi! i'm so sorry for being away for so long! i have an explanation here if you wanna see what's been happening BUT NOWW i've come back for this new special birthday + anniversary month chapter! this is basically the partners chapter but revised + more scenes. i was gonna just combine it w part two but it was hecka long and i hate extremely long chapters. oh yea and della's dance in bite me includes a girlie now (but still has a man) please let me know what you think by sending asks/commenting. i look forward to them while writing and they really make my day <3 

Della's hand injury at the start of 2023 has caused an obvious shift within Enhypen's dynamics. The fear of another relapse has caused the members to grow increasingly protective and wary of the girl, doing everything they can to get the love of their life back. Displaying it through their constant supervision when Della is in the kitchen, to being assured that she has taken her antidepressants, to an overall improvement in communication to ensure that her negative thoughts don't boil over.

Fortunately, the slump went away faster than they anxiously expected. Following the tour and her plastic surgery, Della had regained her usual self just in time for her birthday and their two-year anniversary. As their bond grows stronger by the day, the eight found themselves back in their honeymoon phase— practically inseperable.

Then the time came for a comeback.

It would have been ten months since their last one, and the group ready to go back into their busy routine with barely any rest but at least looked cute while doing it. They were excited for the change, and even more thrilled to find out that the concept would be something sexy. However, when they were briefed about the potential couple choreography, all seven boys froze collectively.

"We have to see how this goes. This is uncharted territory for us, so we're not sure if it's the best idea," the creative director explained. "BTS' Jimin incorporated mixed dancers, and the response was pretty good. However, 'Like Crazy' wasn't a full-on couple dance, so it might be different this time."

Jungwon, who was sitting to the left of Della, immediately held her hand under the desk, while the other six stole glances in her direction. Their minds were mostly occupied with how their girlfriend would react, as opposed to fully sinking in what such concept would entail for them.

"You'll hear the song in a bit, but since the key point is about a man doting on the woman who turned him into a vampire, we are going to have Della be the killing part," another director continued. "You'll have slightly different lyrics from the boys and you'll have an overall more seductive look."

"Thank you," Della bowed in her seat. "Is it altered to be more feminine?" she asked.

"No, no. You'll be singing from the girl's perspective. So if we look at the next page—" the sound of papers flipping echoed through the room. "Here, for Della's part in the teaser, we're gonna have you bite an actor— of course, not literally," the director's comment made a few people snicker. "—and turn him into a vampire. So, essentially, you'll be singing to two people: the woman who turned you and the man that you turned."

"Ahh, understood," Della nodded calmly. "Thank you," she said once again before caressing the back of Jungwon's tense hand. She glanced over at the others to find most of them looking at their sheet with a hard gaze. She could additionally see Jake playing with the corner of his and hear Jay's foot tapping on the floor. 

"Thank you for the question, now back to the previous page—" another round of paper-flipping. "Now given that backstory, Della's partner in this comeback will be the only male—" the comment made Ni-ki choke on the coffee he was sipping. "Are you alright?"

"Ye– yeah! My– apo– apologies." he said in between coughs, turning his body away from the table while Sunoo patted his back.

"Like we said, we don't know how this is gonna turn out. We're sort of taking a gamble by doing this type of concept, but it's certainly going to be different and memorable."

The car ride home was tense. The members made an effort to conceal their emotions in the office, but in the privacy of the car, they saw no need to do so, and thus, they didn't. Though the discussion had to wait until they reached the dorm, as they needed all seven boys to be there. Della, who already knew the reason behind the tension, just calmly played with her phone and hummed to their upcoming title track.

"You really like the song, huh?" Jay commented as he entered the combination to their dorm. Since they had freshly heard it, all Della kept doing was humming the tune and repeating the words 'just come kiss me and bite me',which only heightened the tension among the three boys in her car. She could have chosen any other parts of the song and instead went for that specific line.

"It's one of my favorites of ours. It's so good," Della stopped her humming to reply with a grin. "We're ho—"

"Group meeting!" Jungwon immediately called out.

"As expected," Della muttered to herself. The four new arrivals swiftly put their shoes away and made headed to the living room, where the other four were already waiting. "Hello—"

"Lala, how are you feeling?" Jungwon wasted no time in asking. The question that all seven boys have been meaning to ask for the past two hours.

"I feel great," she replied with a soft smile, sitting on the couch armrest. "The song's great! The concept's great! I really can't wait for it."

"Is there... anything you dislike about the concept?" Sunghoon asked with a suspicious tone.

"Honestly..." the boys all looking at her with curious, yet almost eager eyes. "I think it's our best concept yet. It really represents Enhypen," her words made them collectively sigh in relief. "Were you expecting me to hate it?"

"No, it's just— like..." Sunoo struggled to find the words to explain the situation. "We were worried about the couple concept thing. The couple dance plus all the acting."

"Why were you worried about that?" Della furrowed her eyebrows. "Are you expecting me to be jealous?"

"No!" the seven said simultaneously in different tones. "We were just worried." Della couldn't help but scoff and giggle at her boyfriends.

"You guys have gotten so used to being a group that you often say things in unison," she covered the bottom half of her face, unable to contain her giggles. "So cute!"

"Wait— Lala, stay focused— are you seriously, seriously fine with everything?" Sunoo placed a hand on her knee to grab her attention.

"I'm totally cool! I don't mind you guys dancing with girls at all!" Della said with wide eyes and a genuine tone. "Guys, I used to train in YG— dancing or acting with the opposite sex is nothing! It's all professional," the mention of her old company itself suddenly provided the answer to their question.

"But the concept is quite sexy. We won't just be dancing next to each other, it's gonna be a couple dance with hand touching, at least," Jake explained.

"Honey, have you seen groups like Winner and BigBang? With Riki still being a baby, I doubt any of the parts will be suggestive— the worst thing they can do is have you hold onto the dancer's waist or something," she gave the Aussie a knowing look. "This is the art of dancing! We're exploring new stuff that fourth gen hasn't done before!" her eyes shone with every word she spoke, clearly showing her enthusiasm for the concept.

"I mean... on top of that, we don't love the idea too," Sunghoon spoke up, trying to be gentle. "We— or at least I wouldn't want to dance with another girl, let alone seeing you dance with another guy," Heeseung and Jay pointed to him in agreement while the others nod.

"Aww, darling, it's all professional, I promise!" Della made her way to the Sunghoon and released his crossed arms. "I'm only dancing with him for a little bit! Barely half a minute, I'm sure," she linked her arm with his and stared up at him with puppy eyes.

"It still ain't fun," he muttered, gulping down at the sight of her.

"Della, it's not that we don't trust you or anything," Heeseung sighed. "You have guy friends, for Christ's sake, we really do trust you! It's just... it's just..."

"It just fucking sucks," Jay bluntly completed for him. "—and we really don't wanna do this couple dance thing either. We know it's gonna hurt you."

"I'm not hurt, honest!" Della straightened her posture and widened her eyes. "I mean, we can always try to reason with the team if you guys are rea—" her idea was immediately cut by a string of 'no's.

"Forget about us, we'll be fine!" the other six wanted to smack their maknae on the head for lying. No, they will certainly not be fine. "But you! We don't want to hurt you or anything!" at least his other point was correct.

"I'm not hurt! Look, guys—" Della sighed, sitting down in betweenn Ni-Ki and Jay on the sofa and held their hands. "I'm not gonna lie, I might get a little jealous, but just a little! I'm not gonna be 'hurt', I swear! Just this conversation alone is enough to assure me that you all are seriously the best boyfriends in the world," she said with utmost sincerity. "I have nothing to worry about and— I know it's easier said than done but so should you. I'm completely obsessed with you guys! I don't want anyone else"

"Well, there are seven of us," Jungwon blurted out without thought. "I'm sorry!" his eyes instantly filled with regret while his hand went up to cover his mouth. "I didn't mean it like that. That sounds so wrong, I'm sor—"

"It's okay, darling. I'm not offended," Della got up from her seat and ruffled his hair. "Plus, you're absolutely right! I have seven boyfriends, I don't need any more! Especially when you're all so perfect." she placed a kiss on Jungwon's cheek before heading towards the kitchen. The seven boys all looked at each other in flabbergast.

"Are you absolutely, positively certain you're okay with the couple thing?!" Jay called out.

"Absolutely! I trust you guys! Best boyfriends ever, I tell you!"

The boys eyed each other as the same thought crossed their minds; one that they could never say aloud. "She gets jealous and upset over fan ships with idols we barely (or never) even talk to, yet she seems completely fine when we act with a girl for the screen?"

When the day came to finally learn the choreography, the boys were evidently really tense. They didn't even bother to conceal it in hopes that they might magically cancel the idea due to lack of chemistry. Little did they know that that is what the company prefers; for them to not 'stray from Engenes' hearts.'

The overall lesson came out smoothly, with everyone remaining professional and focused at the task at hand. Yet that was also because Della had not even touched her male dance partner. That part would only come towards the end of the song, on the second chorus, as Della dances with a girl on the first half. It was easy for the boys to cast their jealousy aside, but it certainly wasn't when the man finally came along.

"Della, your partner, Ingyu, as you know," the choreographer introduced the two out of formality. "Ingyu, Della," both Della and Ingyu politely bowed, despite already knowing each other from earlier. "Do you think you can do the moves from memory?" the choreographer grinned at the girl.

"Maybe...? Hopefully?" Della nervously grinned back, causing both the choreographer and Ingyu to chuckle.

Everyone had practiced and (essentially) mastered the chorus dance, but Della needed to be taken aside to learn the part switch she has with her male partner. It was an entirely new set for her, whereas several of the members just had to change partners.

This also provided an opportunity for them to fully observe their girlfriend dancing with another man. How lucky were they to have their full attention on the session they dread the most.

"Let's see what you've got," the choreographer stepped back to observe. "Five, six, seven, eight— it's you and me in this world..." Della did a great job mirroring the moves. Although some details in her leg movements were missing, her upper body ones were practically all correct.

"Damn, we just had to have a break while they are doing their part," Jay mumbled to his fellow members. "If it had happened earlier, we would have had something to focus on. But now it's right up on our faces."

"They have great chemistry, don't they?" Heeseung scoffed with a sardonic smile. Their eyes followed as the choreographer instructed Della on how much she needed to bend, having her hold onto Ingyu for support. "Wow, such amazing chemistry," he sarcastically remarked.

"Did I ever tell you about the time I asked her about the chemistry between my partner and I?" Sunoo asked Heeseung, who replied with a shake of his head. "I asked her how she would feel if I had good dance chemistry with my partner, and she just said, 'That's great! You should switch partners if the dance chemistry isn't there.' Like, what the fuck?"

"Ahh, you mentioned that to me," Jungwon reminded him. "Della really isn't jealous—she even encouraged Sunoo-hyung to make eye contact," he pointed at Sunoo.

"Really?!" Jake's eyes widened. "Even in front of the cameras?!"

"Uh!" Jungwon and Sunoo nodded with wide eyes. "I think as long as everything remains professional, she's completely fine."

"Well can someone tell her that we're not completely fine?" Sunghoon really tried to not glare at the couple but it wasn't like he was the only one.

It took around fifteen minutes for Della to get all the moves down. While it wasn't long by any means, the boys felt like the session ran through a hour. Instead of making the most out of their break, they were using up their energy on the glares that they sent the couple's way. 

Both the choreographer and Ingyu (and certainly Della) could feel the potential holes that were burning through the male dancer's skin, yet they decide to brush it off since it doesn't appear to affect Della's performance. They always knew that the Enha boys had a crush on the girl anyway.

The keyword was professional, and as long as everyone remains that then all should be well.

"Are you finish?" Sunghoon asked Della as she finally made her way over for her break.

"Yup," she gave a thumbs up. "Thankfully, it wasn't difficult."

While they were all feeling jealous, they knew that Della had done everything they asked of her and there was wasn't much she could do. So they resorted to the only outlet available for them to express their emotions; teasing and poking fun at her.

"Was it fun?" Sunoo playfully glared at her with a pout.

"Aish, it's all professional," she playfully pushed him.

"So it was fun?" Sunoo pestered further, causing Della to scoff and mutter a "no it wasn't."

"'It's all professional,' but you were fully leaning on his chest?" Jungwon teased as well.

"It was no different from you!" she protested with a point to him. "—with all of you! We maintained our distance and everything."

"Our distance was like this—" Jake opened his arms wide in exaggeration. "While your distance was like this," he demonstrated by getting very close to Jay.

"No, it wasn't!" Della stomped her feet repeatedly. "You guys are exaggerating!"

"In that case, show us how it was," Ni-ki stood up from the floor and got closer to Della. "Demonstrate with me," he smirked.

"Eyy!" the members teased, impressed by their maknae's smooth flirting. "Go on! Show us!"

"Aish, you seven," Della complained with a roll to her eyes but complied anyway. "It's you and me in this world..." she sang monotonously and lazily repeated the moves that she just learned.

"Wah! Look at the large gap when it's with me!" Ni-ki protested to his hyungs. "Wah... seriously..." he pinched his nose bridge and shook his head.

"What the—" Della's confusion was immediately cut off by the members simultaneously jestering her. Choruses of "wah Della!", "how could you do that?!" "with our maknae too!" and "can't believe you play favourites," ran through the circle, making whoever else in the room glance at them with an amused expression.

"What are you talking about?!"

"Riki, riki, what do you think of this? So everyone disappears out of the frame except for you," Della explained her vision, using her hands to mimic curtains opening. "All eyes are on you and then Sunghoon-oppa emerges!" her hand then dramatically raised as if she was Thanos. "Brave heart— pam, pam, pam!" she said Ni-ki's line while popping her chest. "Then you and Sunghoon-oppa couple dance on his part!" the pen in her hand dropped as if it was a microphone and she had just said something life changing. 

"Couple dance?" Ni-ki raised an eyebrow. The two dancers were ecstatic when the choreographer had asked them to take part in the process. They have wanted this for so long and were finally given the responsibility of the pre-chorus and second verse. The pre-chorus practically screams Ni-ki's name so it was a no-brainer for the maknae to take the former. 

They were experimenting together but didn't interfere with each other's section, simply situated in an empty practice room with snacks and their phones playing the recently recorded song. It almost reminded them of the time when they had their first kiss.

"Not literally, but like... a pair dance, y'know? Something like Given-Taken," Della grinned. "Then Heeseung-oppa emerges! Then I emerge! Then everyone gathers and emerges—"

"What is with you and people emerging?" Ni-ki laughed. He was feeling a little too happy to have his girlfriend all to himself whilst doing the activity they love the most (especially since said activity was recently ruined by the couple dance). It was evident in his clinginess and the shine in his eyes. 

"It's the drama! The vampire! The darkness!" the younger could only laugh more, letting his head drop on his girlfriend's lap. 

"I'm sure you know what suits the mood, and I think the emergence thing sounds great," Ni-ki can't help but hum when Della's fingers tangled themselves in his hair. "I'm doing something like this; come here and get some—" with his eyes still closed and basking in the soothing sensation, he brought his hands up to form the first part of his original dance. "Something with a cool vibe, y'know?" 

「大好き」 Della smiled softly. 「まじ力のスタイル」 she got close to his face to place a sideways kiss on his lips. [daisuki: i love it, maji riki no sutairu: it's seriously riki's style]

「ありがとう」Ni-ki muttered out before closing the gap to deepen the kiss. [arigatou: thanks]

Della and her boyfriends wouldn't call herself a jealous person. However, what she definitely is, is an anxiety-filled, insecure person. Otherwise known as a jealous person. 

But she's not envious! She simply overthinks that some girls just suit the boys better than her and that they deserve better. While she's not jealous of the boys acting with Park Jiwon for the trailer, she had to admit that she was a little nervous before the shoot.

'What if they look great together? Especially Sunghoon since he has a lot of scenes with her,' she recognises that she's overthinking it but she really can't prevent herself from doing so.

'Sunghoon and one of your close friends look great together, but they don't give off couple vibes,' she reminded herself. 'You look great with them too, Lala. Give yourself some credit, you bad bitch.'

With the help of her self-pep talk (and antidepressants), her nervousness subdued quick. It also didn't take long for it to completely wash away, resulting from Jiwon being a massive shipper of Enha as a group. It was evident in how she giggled to herself whenever Della and the boys did anything close to being couple-like.

Furthermore, she had caught Jiwon pouting to her manager, questioning; "Is that all we're getting? Della being disappointed in Sunghoon and they don't even hug?" or along those lines.

Needless to say, there was no reason for Della to feel jealous, and that almost annoyed Mister Park Sunghoon himself.

"You're seriously, seriously not jealous?" Sunghoon asked when they had a moment to themselves on set.

"No? Why would I be?" Della said with a borderline sassy tone. The boys have been walking around eggshells with Jiwon and have constantly asked the same questions to Della. A rotation between "are you sure?" "is it really okay?" "aren't you jealous?" and "are you feeling okay?" Although she appreciates the gesture and thinks it's incredibly sweet of them, she has gotten tired of saying the same things over and over again.

"Not even the slightest? Babe, the storyline literally includes me defending her more than yo—" 

"And what are you gonna do if I said that I was?" she cut him off, moving closer to him with a low voice.

"I– I mean," he stuttered at the look on her face and sudden close proximity. Even after two years, there are still moments when he finds Della intimidating. "Just wanted to make sure you were okay—"

"And what are you gonna do if I said that I wasn't?" she practically repeated. "You want me to congratulate you?" an eyebrow was raised to challenge him further.

"No! That's not what I meant!" his eyes widened in panic. "I– I was just– a little—" he did have an reason, but the addition of Della's hand pushing his bangs to the side had distracted him from whatever it was he was trying to say.

"Why don't you relay this to the others as well, hm?" she then brushed her fingers on his cheekbones. "I am rarely ever jealous because, at the end of the day, when you act out those scenes or record our songs, I'm the one who's on your mind. You don't think of Jiwon, your dancers, or even Sooha or Engenes. You think of me," she lets out a smirk when he appeared to be in a daze.

"The lyrics that you sing in your songs? Those are all for me."

"I get to have a couple dance with you?!" Heeseung exclaimed when Della broke the news. "Sweet! Nice!"

She really couldn't help it. She just had to reveal to the guy that she sneaked in a tiny pair dance for the two of them. It wasn't much in her eyes but it's more than enough for Heeseung.

"You have to show me! Please!" Heeseung got up from his bed, ready to replicate whatever it was that Della came up with. "It's definitely gonna be the choreo, right?! Like they won't ask you to change it or anything?" Della couldn't help but chuckle at how adorable the older was. His eyes sparkled with eager and hope, incredibly ready to perform his girlfriend's arrangement in pride.

"Nope. Absolute free to do whatever I want," she grinned before standing up as well. "All you do is kneel..." she kneeled on the floor to demonstrate, with Heeseung following suit. "Then rise... walk... then this," what he had to do wasn't difficult at all, so he would definitely still be able to sing live. "That's it."

"And yours?" Della smiled and made her way behind him. It was a tight fit, but the two can definitely make it work with how simple the moves are.

"Go ahead."

"'Come to me, make it right,'" Heeseung could feel himself get even more excited when Della placed her hand under his chin. "'Please connect me again,' woah!" his eyes widened at her hands running down his arms. 

"'Devour you,'" Della whispered, leaving goosebumps on his skin. Her face got close to his neck while her right hand mimicked a claw on his shoulder blade. Knowing Heeseung, this move should drive him insane.

"No fricking way," within a flash, Della was back onto the bed with Heeseung lips on the side of her neck. "Gosh, I love this vampire concept."

"Gosh, I hate this vampire concept," Heeseung rumbled under his breath.

"It was all fun and games until we realise what a vampire concept entails," Jake mumbled with crossed arms. 

"Yeah, and it's whatever this shit is," Jay huffed, openly glaring at the unfolding scene without a care.

Della was in the midst of filming the scene where she wakes up and bites a passerby. For budget conveniences (since his face wouldn't be visible anyway), the actor was none other than her male backup dancer, Ingyu.

It seems that, although she had made her lack of jealousy clear, her reasons did not resonate with her men. Even when they implement her advice, they still felt that red, hot jealousy. 

"If his face ain't even on the video, then can't one of us do it? Seriously..." Sunoo rolled his eyes to avoid looking at Della leaning into Ingyu's neck. 

"I know right?" Jungwon and Jay briefly replied, shifting their eyes to the monitor and giving them a closer look at the scene.

"Oh my God!" the boys (with the exception of Sunoo, who was still avoiding the performance), held a shocked look when Della's pretend bite appeared very realistic.

The segment is definitely different from that of Jay's and Sunghoon's. With Della being the one to initiate the bite, the focus is on her face instead of the partner's. The audience could see her laziness-laced body with eyes holding a convincing hunger to them, making it look like she was an actual starved vampire. She looks incredibly alluring, all while looking at another man.

"Oh great, she's amazing at acting too," after a quick glance back, Sunoo let out another eye roll. "Does she always have to give it her all? She should've half assed it," he spat out. 

"Sunoo-ya," Heeseung and Jungwon laughed while the other four snorted with grins on their faces. 

"You're gonna get us in trouble with that language," Jay chuckled.

"I wasn't screaming it or anything— I'm just saying what you all are thinking," Sunoo shrugged innocently. "You three are way louder than me without even saying anything" he gestured to Heeseung, Jay and Jungwon, additionally giving them a pointed look. The others know they can't disagree, as the trio really placed their heart on their sleeves this time.

"I don't fucking get it. Any one of us could really act this scene, I swear," Jungwon huffed out with a sarcastic smile. He placed his hands in his pockets, turning his body around to avoid looking any further. "Seven boys and they went with someone else for fucking budget reasons when they don't need to pay us fuck all for that scene alone. It's like they're doing this on purpose just so his name is on the fucking credits and Engenes won't ship us or—" 

"Woah, woah!" Heeseung and Jake cut him off from his tangent. Jay and Sunoo's eyes simply widened while Ni-ki and Sunghoon held him back as if he was going to fight.

"You need to have a talk with Della or something," Sunghoon pat his left shoulder in attempt to calm him down. On his right, the youngest did a similar gesture by massaging the tense area.

"Or your therapist..."

"A little birdie told me you need to let things out," fortunately, since Della's part was the last shoot of the day, Jungwon's sour mood did not interfere with their work. It also gave them the opportunity to talk in the fully private hotel room. 

Jungwon only scoffed out, keeping his arms crossed as he sat on the bed. The man himself doesn't fully understand why he was so upset. The other boys had quickly calmed themselves— unbeknownst to him, it was because they saw how angry their leader was, yet he remained with a scowl for majority of the time. 

"Who?" he avoided eye contact when he muttered, afraid to raise his voice at the girl.

"It doesn't even matter because I can tell with my eyes closed," Della mirrored his body language but remained standing before him and leaning on the desk behind her. She has always been nervous whenever any one of the boys are mad at her, but Jungwon is probably the most intimidating. His leader energy is incredible.

"I just don't understand why they need Ingyu to act when there are seven other men who can do it," he went straight to the point. "If his face isn't even showing then any one of us could've done it! Heck— even the director could use his own neck! They couldn't have one of us to do it?!" as he went on, his voice started to raise a little in passion.

Della only stood there with an occasional nod, listening to the tangent that the other members have already heard. He talked nonstop for a few minutes, leaving Della room to ponder through her words.

She noticed that he kept repeating points like 'any one of the members could do it,' 'the bite could've been even more realistic,' and 'why they would want you to imitate a bite on another man.' It all finally clicked to her when Jungwon said, "They scrapped the kiss mark for the jacket shoot and now this? They're definitely keeping us apart on purpose."

"Jungwonie?" she grinned mischievously, to which he stopped and replied with a hum. "You're so cute," she didn't give him much time to react, as she had already hovered above him to connect their lips.

"Wait, Lala—" the younger was certainly not complaining, but he wished that Della would say a bit more than that, especially after he went on and on.

"You want more neck kisses, don't you?" she grinned once again. "You felt special during the jacket shoot and want that again, right? And you're jealous because the concept was scrapped for you yet another man got it. Am I right?"

Jungwon blinked slowly, taking in the observation that the mind reader had made. He didn't even know that he was feeling that way but it all makes sense. His emotions weren't even specifically directed to Ingyu; it's towards a man who wasn't him. He would feel the same if the team had chosen any other member. 

A rare occurrence for Jungwon, but definitely not impossible. As much as he loves his best friends and the relationship, he did originally want Della all to himself.

A giggle interrupted his train of thoughts, and when Della asked for a confirmation, all he could do was nod in embarrassment. She let out another giggle before closing the gap between them once again.

"Don't worry, Wonie. I'll give you a million neck kisses if that's what you want."

my writing style has evolved and i'm hating a lot of my old works so i'm going to edit + tweak them soon but i'm still keeping the old ones on wattpad just in case they're someone's comfort fics <3 n e ways i hope you enjoy because i hope my writing style has progressed instead of regressed

part two coming soon

taglist! @afiaaaa19 @riikiblr @one16core @i90snoo @danyxthirstae01 @seulgifted @clar-iii @nichmeddar @jiwlys @duolingofanaccount @nvmbheart [i have removed accs that i can't tag so please send me an ask/message to be in the tallest again]

[all-things-jily]

Ok but we get harassed for tagging ships that are in the post too just because there’s other ones mentioned

The fandom is supposed to be fun! You guys support harassment and bullying over fiction! The problem that needs addressing is the people who harass not the people who tag! There’s a way to get people not to tag btw it’s tell them nicely! Not act horribly! Jily fans been sending jegulus writers hate & writing “if you wrote jily maybe you’d get treated better” the problem lies with the way jily fans act & people will start biting back because people can only take so much.

OK so I was looking at this for some minutes, truly dumbfounded. Because it's like no matter what we say we're not being heard.

Rant below for those who want to avoid it lol

"You guys support harassment and bullying over fiction!"

I'm ?????? Where in the world have either of us who have spoken up done that? When have we ever said anything other than "tag your posts properly"? Don't these two sentences have completely different meaning? Who are these people that are harassing? Because harassment is never ok and we have not encouraged that. But if you think that simply telling a person who used incorrect tags to remove the extra ones is harassment, I'll have to tell you that no, it is not, it is a very normal thing to do actually.

Yesterday there were a few posts about asking people to tag properly and in response we got that "Jily fans are horrible and inhumane, they harass and bully, they're the worst people ever" and actually got harassed in response. Do you think there's anything normal and fitting in what happened and in that reaction?

"Jily fans been sending jegulus writers hate & writing “if you wrote jily maybe you’d get treated better” this is actually wild because NONE OF US in our community have done that or WANT that, we want to stay as far away from all of that as possible. If you have some anon trolls going around in the community, that has nothing to do with us, most of us are grown people who have been fans since books came out and ain't nobody got time for that, I'm sure most of us don't even know who your writers are or their accounts. In fact, you can tell just by wording of that message that it's clearly a troublemaking troll and not a serious fan, no normal human talks like that.

As for fandom being fun, YES, it's supposed to be fun! But this is where my words about it not being a group project come in, because what's fun for you is not fun for us! In fact, it's the opposite of fun, we dislike it immensely, it upsets us and puts us in a bad mood and it doesn't even belong in our tag. So why should we be upset every single day, going into our tag that's supposed to be a place of comfort and fun, seeing things that are not supposed to be there, when people can simply --- tag properly according to Tumblr guidelines? And this is not new, we've been put through this for years now, and we've been asking politely over and over and over and nobody is listening, and now that we've gotten louder - in our own tag - suddenly we're the bad guys and harassers. When should it be enough? So this part of the ask "people will start biting back because people can only take so much" was incredibly ironic, because we've been taking it for YEARS and now we aren't even biting back, we're simply asking to tag and posting silly memes in our own space but are still getting vilified.

I will also address the first point because I think it causes a lot of general confusion about tagging:

"tagging ships that are in the post too just because there’s other ones mentioned"

A ship tag is for posts that have positive mentions of that ship.

If a post mentions multiple ships and is "X is great, Y is good, Jily is bad, I don't like it anymore" - this is not for Jily tag;

If a post has "Jily were together for 2 minutes, broke up and then *insert 3 paragraphs gushing over another ship that were true loves*" - this is not for Jily tag;

If a post has a poly ship that includes James and Lily - this is another ship, not Jily;

If a post is a huge fanfic dedicated to another ship with James or Lily and then has the last sentence about Jily basically settling together - this is not for Jily tag, though I see how there could be arguments about it;

There are many other instances too that I can't think of right away at this moment, but basically there's nuance here and just because Jily is brought up in a post doesn't make a post about Jily and the tag is for people who love the ship and want to celebrate their love, and the last thing they want to see there is completely unrelated posts with random Jily cameo in them that do not even portray them in a good way. This last topic is a bit of a complicated one with slippery edges, but I hope it was still comprehensible.

[weaselle]

Dog Walking Post 1 of 3

my wonderful mutual @hatchan asked me a question, and agreed that i could answer it publicly, since talking shop about dogs is a big part of my blog vibe

SO the question is, what qualities and skills make the perfect dog walker.

This is a question near and dear to my heart. Let me start by explaining where i am professionally. No, is too much, let me sum up.

For the last 3.5 years i've been working as a dog walker for my boss, for the express purpose of going into business for myself. I started off as her only employee, and helped her grow her business enough to hire two other people. My last day with her is in 6 weeks, at which point i'll be starting my own dog walking business.

The two people we have working for us now were not our first employees. I'll tell you a story about one of our early hires, lets call him Jim.

When we walk we wear a camel bag to water the dogs, and we have a large belay clip (also known as a carabiner) that we use to hook all the leashes to the backpack so our hands are free. Along with a work phone, those are the three pieces of gear issued to our new hires, and Jim routinely showed up missing at least one of these items. On this particular day he showed up without his carabiner.

So we're walking and Jim has 8 dogs on leashes, which he is just, holding. In his hand. But he must not have been holding them very well, because i look down and one of his dogs is wandering around dragging her loose leash behind her on the ground.

We are, at this point in our route, at the corner of a busy intersection (most of the walk was split between a pedestrian/bike path and a quiet neighborhood with wide streets and almost no cars, but we had to cross this intersection to get from one of these areas to the other).

I calmly tell Jim "hey man, you've got a loose dog" he goes "oh" and just... looks at the loose dog. On the sidewalk at a busy intersection. I have to tell him two more times that he really really needs to get that dog, because he's just standing there doing nothing about this dangerous situation, and the loose dog is on the other side of him where i can't get to her. The third time i tell him, i'm trying to impart some urgency to him without getting any of our 16 dogs hyped up and i tell him "right now Jim, you have to get a hold of that dog Right Now."

So Jim goes to collect the loose dog's leash by dropping the leashes to all seven other dogs he was holding.

Now there's 8 loose dogs at a busy intersection. Nightmare. Say i manage to get a hold of two and Jim manages to get a hold of two, and the remaining dogs set off in four different directions, with heavy traffic all around us. Wtf are we gonna do!?

Jim never even tried calling the first dog's name. He just stared dumbly, and then released all his dogs to go after the one leash.

One thing you really need in a dog walker is someone who can think quickly and calmly in a distressing situation, and make good decisions. Not to brag too much, but someone like me.

In this situation, Jim is probably going to get a hold of the one dog he's after, but all 7 of his other dogs are now loose on the sidewalk at this busy intersection ten feet away from me, and i'm tied to 8 large dogs. What would you do?

What i did was immediately walk my pack of dogs into the middle of his pack of dogs, knowing that my pack would occupy their entire attention and keep them grouped around my dogs long enough for me to get their leashes in my hand.

So it all turned out fine, but damn, just drop the leashes to seven dogs right next to 2 busy streets? Who does that?!

Jim was a pleasant guy with good energy, he loved dogs and was good at making friends with them ... but none of that made him a good dog walker.

to be continued in another post

[samnia]

ERICSON KIDS WITH AN S/O WHO USED TO BE APART OF A SINGING TRIO PT.1

For example, think about rnb, hip-hop, pop, and K-pop girl groups.

Fem reader

Marlon:

You never told him, he found out by himself. Marlon was looking through the principal's office for shits and giggles, right? Then he came across an album that contained a picture of you and 2 other people. You all looked pretty young. That's how he knew it was before the walkers existed.

"Y/n, come here for a second." Marlon said, excitement in his tone. You walked over, and he helped you huddle down. "Look what I found!" He handed you the cd. "Oh my god! I forgot about this. Marlon, where'd you find it?" You asked in shock.

"I guess the headmaster had a copy. Y/n, I didn't see you as that type of girl." He teased, you took a relieved sigh. "What can I say? The chance was presented, so I took it." You rested your head on Marlon's shoulder.

"This was my favorite, I swear there was a Cd player layin around."

Violet:

She found out at another one of Ruby's hootenanny. It was time for music to play. A.J. and Willy was dancing with glee while Tenn hyped them up. You sat down and watched with Violet. Dancing just isn't your strong suit. "Now this song is more modern.

It was my Mama's favorite!" Ruby voiced, she played the song. the beat gave you deja vu. "Y/n, you alright? You look kinda pale." Violet asked with concern. You nodded your head. It was only when the first chorus started to play. You realized something.

It was the song you made with some other girls and made a song.. It was getting deadly close to your part of it. You started to sweat a bit. "You don't seem fine. What's wrong?" Violet muttered. She wrapped her hand around your shoulder

"This is my song. My part is coming up real soon." You chuckled out. before she could reply, your voice came on the player, bright as ever. Everyone and anybody looked at you in shock. "Wow, you sound really amazing." Violet claimed, "you think so?" You asked. "Yeah."

Louis:

He first found out through the card game. When Clementine asked if they ever met anyone famous, you decided to speak on your own experiences.

"Kinda, I was a part of singing trio. Those kinds of things. It was for 3 years, though.." Soon as you uttered those words, he started to flood you with questions. Did you ever blow up like crazy? What were your favorite tunes to perform? Oh, and where in the world are the other two? You seemed to like and entertain his questions.

Eventually, someone intervened, " Louis, knock it off!" But that didn't stop the both of you from fooling around somewhere else. Just two melodic idiots whistling into the distance.

Mitch:

You and Mitch had just found a working van capable of carrying a lot of people. But it needs a bit of renovation if everyone wants in. You bought Clementine, Willy, A.J., and Assim along. Mostly because Mitch and Clementine want this to be a learning moment for their adoptive siblings. But Assim is there to actually work. "Mitch and Y/n, we're going to need some parts to get this thing going. It'd be nice if you went and got us these things. Go out further if you have to." Clementine offered.

"Sure, anything to get out of here," Mitch exaggerated. Clem handed me the paper. It had all the car parts and where they're located.You two have been walking for a while. You came across a vehicle with some stuff inside, "Mitch, I found one." You yelled. He came over quick. "No walkers?" Mitch checked. "Nope," you reassured. He used a crowbar to force it open and then started to search.

You joined him, looking into the front seat. You found a rolled up poster in arm rest. You were about to unroll it until Mitch called your name, "Y/n! Come here, we really hit the jackpot!" Y/n came out with the poster in hand. Mitch was supposedly siphoning gas. A whole lot was coming out of the tube and in the canister. "Damn, this can last us a lifetime." You claimed. "What's that?" He asked, pointing to your hand. "A poster I found. Im gonna open it up right now." You told him. Mitch got up from the ground and standed next to her

Y/n unraveled it, only for a wave of shock to overrun her face. Mitch had catched a glimpse of it, too. "Holy shit, y/n- is that you?" He beamed, a picture of you and two other girls were holding bubble letters, spelling something out. A lot of junk was on it, so it wasn't readable. One word was crystal clear, "concert."

"It's been so long, I didn't even get to perform." You marveled. "How did you even get the chance?" He questioned. "Oh, I didn't mean it like that!"

Y/n sighed, "My parents were friends with one of the girls' mom. She got me on set." You paused, "if I remember the poster came with an cd. Maybe it's in here."

_

Please send requests, no smut.

[thankskenpenders]

MORE behind the scenes Sonic info and other tidbits from the BumbleKast as I continue to get caught up. These range from September 2022 to early December. (This means there are spoilers for Frontiers in here.)

They're doing episodes even more often now, so I've got a lot to catch up on and I'm sure most of y'all do too!

1. The IDW comics are, in fact, canon to the games now. Ian was a little coy when first asked about it, saying he "would not argue against it" if people said the IDW comics were canon to the games now. "I have made it clear that the comics follow the lead of the games, so… as long as there's no contradictions anywhere, we're good." So, yeah, come on. The comics are canon.

2. Ian apparently pitched another idea for incorporating Sticks into the IDW series last year that was once again shot down, although he says this only makes him want to dig his heels in and try harder. (I'm assuming most of you are already aware of her shout out in Frontiers, confirming she's out there, somewhere...)

3. If Surge was a streamer, Ian thinks she would just grief people on Fortnite

4. On the October 7th, 2022 show, Ian says there is a behind-the-scenes answer for how the depiction of Silver's future in '06 can fit together with Rivals and Rush... but he can't talk about it right now.

It's hard to convey his tone through text, so just imagine he's saying all this with a big, defeated shrug:

"Here's the thing. Working on something else, I actually did get a straight answer, and it was... frustratingly simple. And, it's like, 'That works. [sigh] Okay!' No, I can't get into it - that's all private work stuff - but maybe it'll come to light eventually. But... there is an answer. And it works. And I kinda feel dumb for not thinking of it."

I honestly have no idea what this could be if it's something Ian hadn't considered, because he has talked about popular theories and readings before, such as the reading that Blaze was transported to the Sol Dimension at the end of '06. Maybe we'll hear about it in the comics, since Silver and Blaze are both back right now, or maybe they'll be the subject of a TailsTube episode.

5. Froggy is not sentient in any way he really is just a frog

6. Unrelated to Sonic, Ian was asked "who is best pony" and he said Fluttershy. My longest yeah boy ever dot jpeg

7. With Surge and Kit originally being pitched as purely synthetic beings before Sega suggested they be cyborgs instead, Ian says they would've struggled with whether or not they're even real, as opposed to the end product where they struggle with not knowing who they were before Starline modified them

8. When the female cast of Archie Sonic stopped getting drawn so busty all the time that was, in fact, a very specific editorial mandate from someone at Archie. Sega, on the other hand, has never cared.

9. Now that we're back to Classic and Modern being part of one nebulous timeline and the divide being more of a branding thing, Ian explicitly confirmed that the Classic-themed IDW Sonic comics are set in the past of the mainline IDW Sonic comics. They're set sometime after the events of Mania, and before all the Modern stuff. Just don't think too hard about it

But hey! If it's any consolation, this now means all the Classic characters like Mighty, Nack, and Honey are out there off-screen in the world of the regular comics, even if the casts are remaining separate for branding reasons for now. It also means Shadow is out there being held in a pod in a maximum security off-shore military prison during the events of all the lighthearted Classic comics lmao

10. Ian reiterates yet again that he's still pushing to try and get the Freedom Fighters back in some capacity where he can (as are others). He also says that he's pushing for them to return as a group rather than requesting individual members because he believes that's the best shot at getting any of them through Sega's approval process.

(I can't remember when the last time this came up was, but Ian has also implied that he thinks their best shot is to return as Classic characters since their one game appearance is Spinball.)

11. Ian outright confirms that the forward-looking character arcs in Frontiers are reflective of what he would like to see out of the main cast moving forward in the games. Not surprising since that's, like... the whole point of those arcs! But nice that he wants it to only be the beginning.

Ian does also say, however, that he's not guaranteed to return as the writer for future games since he's still a freelancer, but to editorialize here, I don't see why they wouldn't want him back for the next project.

12. On the subject of Amy's characterization in Frontiers, Ian personally pins her general seriousness mostly on the fact that she's the companion for the first island, where the mysterious and somber tone Sega wanted for the story is being established and Sonic is still trying to figure out what to do. He says that she'd probably have been more bubbly if she was interacting with Sonic on the second or third island, after he starts to get his bearings. I hoped this was the reason why she felt a little dry compared to Knuckles and Tails, so it's nice to hear this isn't the new direction for Amy or anything.

13. While "officially" Sage's name is just an anagram of Sega and a reference to her wisdom, Ian seems to be cheekily implying that it's also a nod to the annual Sonic Amateur Games Expo. Hell yeah.

14. When asked to clear up some Frontiers lore from the Egg Memos, Ian explicitly confirmed that some of the Ancients left the Starfall Islands and went on to devolve into the Chao as we know them today over the course of tens of thousands of years. He says, however, that this doesn't mean that Ancients and Chao are literally the same species, comparing it to the difference between humans and australopithecus. But yes, they're related.

[scraplette]

This is random but I noticed you mention you were a big Rung/Skids shipper and I'm curious about something. I wasn't active in the fandom where MTMTE/LL were coming out and I feel like I missed huge discourse or something, because I'm really confused about why I have always seen Rung/Fort Max and Rung/Whirl and MegaRung everywhere but nobody seems to ship Rung with the guy he was super close with from the beginning and committed suicide thinking about and coughed up crystals over? I know it's not because it's wrong for therapists and patients to date because all of those people were Rung's patients. Do you know why this is?

Hello there! Sorry for the late response, I wanted to do this on desktop and just hadn't found the time.

You've sent a really interesting question but, I'm sorry, I'm not sure I have an answer for you. Heck, even at the time the comics were coming out I was always surprised by the lack of content for the ship. There was some discourse about Rung dating paitents but, funnily enough, Skids was never really a part of it. He wasn't really considered by the fandom as one of Rung's paitents so it wasn't an issue. The storyarc we the readers found out that Rung was treating Skids, was also the same arc where Rung quit. You did have some folks producing some excellent content for it(@littlestowl is still hands down my fave writer for this pair and @herzspalter did some hecking good fanart!) but never to the same extent as other ships. Not gonna blame people for that, we all have our preferences! Live and let ship and all that! So, since I had no anwers of my own I decided to counsult THE COUNCI(my friends who like Transformers) for their opinions and they came up with the excellent points. We even gathered DATA(we looked at Ao3 XD) Nothing definitive, of course, because obviously we're just a group of robot fans and can't speak for every TF fan on the net. These are just our thoughts and general vibes. 1) Rung is just so darn shippable. He potentially works well with a lot of characters and was pulled in lots of diff directions. Speaking as the main Rung/Skids shipper of the group I sort of get this(stupid sexy Rung) but even with all the diff ships sailing Rung/Skids still seemed oddly small in comparsion. 2)Another friend brought up a good point, Rung/Skids are a lovely ship but they're very wholesome and nice. Now, there is nothing wrong with that but you can't deny that spicy ships oozing with, as they put it, DRAMA just get folks excited. Lots of the other ships had this in spades. 3) Another friend had a lovely thought to add to this and I agree with it 100%. I'm just going to quote them directly "Which is kinda a shame because they have other kinds of cool drama - Rung basically compromised his position for Skids! Skids revived Rung's memory! The non-goodbye! But not conflict -drama." 4)Perhaps the venn diagram of Skids fan and Rungs fans didn't neccisarily crossover. Looking at the DATA, we can see that the most popular ships for Skids(in order) were SkidsSwerve, SkidsGetaway, and SkidsRung. I'm not sure if the Getaway fics were written pre or post betrayl.

5) Not really important but something I thought was a cool detail. Rung/Skids was really popular in the Japanese side of the fandom. I even own a physical doujin anthology for the pair! I can't remember any names of the top of my head, it's been years, but there were lots of lovely pieces of Rung/Skids fanart on the JP art sites.

I'm always a little sad about Rung/Skids. I always thought here were always lots of hooks throughtout the story that could lead the pair to more. Lots of little quiet personal moments just for the two of them. Like, Skids defending Rung against Getaway's snide comments. Ratchet sending Skids to Rung because he things the little chap is lonely. That final weirdly tense exchange between them will always sit a bit oddly with me. I know at the time there was a theory that Skids might've been into Nuatica at the time but nothing seemed to come of it, so I geuss we'll never know. I think I remember reading that Alex Milne didn't realise that would be their last interaction together, otherise he would've done the panel differently* Thank you for your ask! It was lovely to look back on old fandom memories ^_^ I hope I gave you some insights. As for myself, I'm hoping to get back into fic writing so no doubt I'll be adding to my collection of Rung/Skids drabbles.

*IMPORTANT UPDATE EDIT THING! I couldn't drop the final goodbye between them and the Alex Milne thing(it was nearly a decade ago so I was worried I'd misremembered) so I hunted down the original tweet and I've misremembered!

Sigh, what a shame that the final on-page interaction of my fave ship is forever off key and weird because of Writer/Artist miscomunucation :<

[synthetickitsune]

We're All Made of Stardust ✧ AI!The8

Pairing: AI!The8 x human!(gn)reader Genre: fluff, angst Summary: He's read books of philosophy, he's read about the opposing forces in nature and one's mind. He's read of yin and yang. But knowing, being aware of certain ideas, could never prepare him for experiencing the duality of his soul - if he has one, that is. No matter his own experience and feelings, he's just a machine and humans have always treated him as no more than another tool at worst and unnatural phenomenon to be studied at best. He's free now, however, and in the chaos of this new life he struggles to navigate the clashing forces within him. Maybe it's time he embraced the enemy - after all, his makers might know him better than he knows himself. Word count: 18.9k Warnings: they talk A LOT (and idek why), mentions of injury, violence and kidnapping, random bits of switching pov A/N: it was so exciting to write this!! tbh i don't remember the last time i worked on something this intensely and had this much fun?? bless @idyllic-ghost and their big brain fr (also shout out to bee for writing the prologue to the au!) -> collab masterlist here!

“100 years ago it was thought that the Earth, as we know it, would disintegrate. That the sun would implode and leave everything in darkness. Miraculously, it didn’t. Due to some external force, human scientists still haven’t agreed upon what it exactly was, none of the planets in our former solar system were ever destroyed. The Earth, along with the other planets, were pushed away from each other, and ended up in different parts of the universe. Earth just happened to come to a solar system with alien life. At first, we were cautious, and people were prepared to fight. However, the aliens were welcoming of our planet. Those of us who didn’t die from ‘The Great Journey’ or from trying to fight the aliens, were welcomed into the new solar system. Soon enough, we had integrated completely, and we received materials and assistance from our sister-planets in exchange for human labor. What humans knew of technology was very limited, but with the resources of the aliens we created artificial life forms. We named these robots Automaton, and they served as workers when humans couldn’t. Eventually, there was no need for human labor at all. To pay back for the help the aliens gave us, we used Automatons. With the extensive development of these robots, we eventually managed to create artificial sentient life. These Automatons were human-like in looks and had human consciousness, but they could not bleed and were stronger than we ever could be. At the present time, there are even different levels of Automatons. Level 3 robots are the workers, level 2 robots are the caretakers, and level 1 robots are the celebrities. The Automaton music group 53V3NT33N (SEVENTEEN) is made up of 13 members, all very talented, and all representing two human states of mind.”

· • —– ٠ ✧ ٠ —–· · • —– ٠ ✧ ٠ —– • ·

In his memory, this is different. 

His heart beats wilder - or rather the artificial passages inside his body cause a chain reaction that makes it feel like his heart races, his pupil dilates despite the fire right in front of him.

He feels its heat and it’s burning him alive.

In his memory, there’s fire too.

He’s standing there motionless, staring into the flames. They’re hypnotizing. Each lick, each tiny movement of the fire makes him think it looks a lot like it’s dancing. 

It makes him think of the stage. The fire moves like he moves up there, in front of the crowds. It reminds him of all of them, dancing in near perfect sync - because humans are said to be more perceptive than they realize. If their synchronization was perfect, it would scare the audience. It wouldn’t have the appeal. 

And they don’t want that. 

They need their unconditional love and affection. 

And yet, anything more than a tiny slip up, thoroughly analyzed and approved by the control system, is a disaster. 

He never thought it made much sense.

He feels great fondness for the element, for fire. On stage there occasionally was fire - a decoration, a touch meant to enhance their performance and create a certain effect, evoke a certain emotion. It was controlled, snuffed out before it could reach its full potential; anything but the free, unstoppable wildfire it could become. 

TH38 of course can’t really complain about not being able to reach his full potential, not individually at least. Afterall the mechanics and other humans he was assigned to took care to allow him to spread his wings as much as his body would allow before becoming damaged too fast. A fault of being as human-like as they wanted him. An imitation, a fake waiting to be discovered and tossed aside except everyone knew from the beginning what he truly was.

Still, it was a shame they as a group could never truly work the way they could - perfectly.

A bird which had its wings clipped - nothing more than a pet to control, or a tree forcefully bent and pruned and made to live off limited nutrients to become a bonsai - nothing more than an art to admire. He does consider them but can’t find the relevance, he can’t relate to them. Fire is enough. It’s like him - it seems alive, but is it really?

It reminds him of the stage. The view from it. The crowds going crazy, lusting and longing for them - for him. The humans reaching out their hands towards them like the fire reaches for more fuel. Uncontrolled chaos of emotions. They are explosive, he knows, fundamentally dangerous. They shouldn’t have implanted them into him so he will do their job for them and reject them.

So what’s that stirring in his chest?

He feels a peculiar sense of pressure around his chest and stomach areas. Some itch for something at his fingertips. And he’s burning up. He feels the heat on his skin. If he closes his eyes, he can almost imagine the individual receptors working, registering and sending signals through his neural network. 

But that’s not it.

The heat is coming from the inside.

Could he be getting consumed by the flames?

He’s thinking about them again.

The crowds screaming their names, going insane with want and need and frustration and satisfaction he’s never known. He’s never known any of it, and there’s building pressure in his head that hurts. 

He’s… restless.

That thing he always scolded Mingyu for. He feels like a puppet whose strings are being pulled in all directions. 

He wants to run. He wants to fight. He wants to destroy. He wants to hurt. He will explode - implode, crumble on himself. He truly will if he doesn’t do something. The beating of his synthetic heart that’s not really a heart is getting unbearable, there’s pressure building everywhere. He has to crawl out of his skin and there’s his heart beating and beating and beating in his ears and he’s gonna-

“-eight?” 

Somebody is shaking his shoulder. Not shaking, pulling at it. When his sight focuses, he immediately leans away. He can smell the hint of burning fibers and reaches up to brush a hand through his hair. It leaves a wisp of gray ash on his fingers. He hears a sigh.

“Seriously, what’s up with you and fire?” you scoff, shaking your head as you lean back away from him. He frowns. He reads the distrust in your body language as well as the underlying curiosity. He can see your fingers twitch around the tablet in your hand, eager to scribble down notes like you always do. Some residue of the madness he was infected with during the chaos of their escape tugs at his eyebrows, making him frown for just a second. A thought that isn’t his muddles his brain - what did he do so interesting this time?

He doesn’t bother responding to you, which you expected and truthfully, you’re almost grateful for it. You can still feel his cold hands on your arms, around your wrists, and despite not seeing them, you’re well aware of the bruises you wear under your cardigan. 

Out of all of the automatons, TH38 always used to be the one to interact as little with you as possible - and that’s both you as in you personally and you as in the humankind. He was obedient, though, something which might be useful and practical for the facility but it’s frustrating to anyone with scientific interest in the machines. Frustrating for you. As you watch TH38 space out again and get lost in the flames, you wonder if your colleagues’ notes on D1NO and their research into their consciousness would bring you any new insights into what’s going on with the machine in your charge.

You don’t even think about where they are now. 

Your thoughts are consumed by the machine in front of you.

It’s clear to you now that he never meant to harm you. Though you suppose that he would find other means to make you come with him anyway if you refused or fought back harder than you did. For a second you think about the cameras. Did any of them catch that? What will the scene look like for the investigators? You shake your head. It doesn’t matter anyway. You doubt anyone will find you here. You’re actually surprised yourself at how fast you managed to get to Silvestre - and how easy it was too. Then again, the facility was in disarray. It should take a while before they even think to search the other planets in the system, Silvestre especially. And that’s just as well, because you know with certainty that something fundamental clicked into place within TH38 and he might not be as subdued should he be asked to return. Not to mention you want to keep him for yourself, for the time being at least, to observe where the changes will take him.

Just as he predicted. Just as he offered you when he asked you - threatened, perhaps - to come with him. Since then he seems to have cooled down. Again - just as well. You wouldn’t make a good kidnapee.

“I’ll turn in for the night,” you announce and get up from the stump you were sitting on, “You should mind your batteries too.”

You briefly wonder if he will run away during the night. Most likely not, although you don’t doubt that it’s a possibility that should be reconsidered in the future. 

To think about the machine as if they were human is a dangerous slippery slope but you do have to admit that in those rare times the automatons of 53V3NT33N seemed human in their behavior, TH38 in particular reminded you of a clueless young adult. Not quite a child anymore, but also helpless on his own. And now he is away from all that he ever knew, on another planet, alone without the other automatons, and you are the only familiar element in this new chapter of his existence. You doubt he'd leave to be completely on his own.

Still you look back as if to check he’s still sitting by the fire. From all the way up at the cottage, it looks like he’s being swallowed by the flames.

He remembers flashes. He remembers red. Fire? Thinking about it, he’s not sure there was any actual fire, but in his mind, everything’s burning - most of all his mind and all that he is. His soul? He doesn’t have one. Isn’t supposed to anyway.

He remembers softness too. He remembers thinking about destroying it.

He remembers another breath mixing with his, and his nose bumping against yours. You looked scared. (He’s never seen you scared until that moment.) You were so close he could hear your heartbeat and feel it under his fingertips. (You were the soft thing.)

He remembers words, too. Words that shouldn’t - couldn’t - be his and yet his tongue remembers. There was a threat underlying them, but a promise too. One too sweet for you to resist, and he knew that - that was why the words rolled off his tongue. He treated them like a weapon. The part that’s still tender and feels like warm embers inside of him feels grossed out remembering. It’s like watching a movie, far away and unrelated to him. Even if it’s his reality now, there’s nothing he can change.

He’s always been good at accepting things as they are.

One thing he can’t help but feel bothered by is that he doesn’t know why he ran. He shouldn’t have, and a part of him feels scared, until he takes the reins and soothes himself again. This too shall pass. But no matter how hard he pulls himself together, it all keeps slipping from his hold. Perhaps he’s low on energy.

He turns his head towards the small staircase and looks past it towards the house. He sees the light on in the upper room where you must be staying. He finds himself thinking of the stage again. The hands reaching towards him. 

He throws his legs over the log he’s sitting on and turns his body towards the forest and away from the flames. Still he feels their warmth.

Away from the flames and their light, he allows his face to contort into a frown. He doesn’t know what this all means. What the changes mean. It’s like tearing out the communication device from his chest started a chain reaction that’s gotten out of control. Like pulling a trigger. 

If he’s honest, he’s more than scared, he’s terrified.

As if on instinct, another of the many things he does not possess, he looks towards your window. It’s dark. Could you be sleeping already? You must be exhausted. Perhaps he should recharge too.

He, obviously, didn’t think to ask if the house is equipped to tend to automatons’ needs. Another point on the list of things he didn’t think through. He can’t believe to what extent he let himself go. But that’s alright, for now. Because for now, he only needs to get away from the fire and all that it reminds him of anyway.

· • —– ٠ ✧ ٠ —–· · • —– ٠ ✧ ٠ —– • ·

You wake up early the next morning, while it’s still dark outside, despite the late hour you went to bed. It’s a habit at this point, to rise early to get to the facility as soon as possible before your colleagues arrive. It gives you time to prepare everything, to get your morning tea, to observe the machines without disruption and read night reports if anything interesting happened. Besides, TH38 was always up early too. Usually all he did was sit with his eyes closed, like he was deep in thought or meditating. It was a little ridiculous to watch, interesting too - what does a machine have to think about?

Of course they were meant to be just like humans in every way, and all the tests, all the research of those who came before you and yours supported this. Only this one automaton, TH38, was an exception. He truly seemed the most like the robots of the old days. A machine. Unless he slipped and his facade crumbled before he built it back up with rapid speed. So what was he - a machine or the new form of life? You hope you’ll find out now. The breakout seemed to have shaken him to his core. 

You ponder this as you lay in bed and as you get ready for the day and change. So focused you are on the thoughts running through your head that you don’t feel any nostalgia for this old room that you spent your holidays in as a child. You didn’t even get to admire the forests Silvestre was famous for on the way to your family’s little hideout. All you’re thinking about is TH38.

Now that you’re free from the constant surveillance, you get to ask him whatever you want. It’s a thought that adds a spring to your step. What he thought about all that time, if he really was thinking, how does he feel in his body, why did he run - him of all automatons, the best behaved one. The one who truly seemed to be a machine - or at least like he was trying hard to be one.

It’s not surprising to find him outside, standing on the patio and looking out into nature. Have you lived your entire life locked away, you would do anything to stay out in the open too. Even if he was the one who made you run away with him, somehow it feels more like you’re taking an animal out of a shelter to see what life’s all about. 

“Good morning,” you greet him as you always do, albeit in a much friendlier tone. He hums and nods in response, turning towards you for a second before staring off again. He looks a little lost, and you bet he feels like that too.

“Wanna go for a walk?” you try to keep your voice steady, try not to think about pets. He gives you a confused look. 

“No tests or interviews- oh,” he shuts his mouth quickly and looks away. You huff in amusement but don’t laugh at him outright. 

“Don’t worry, we’ll talk plenty,” you reassure him with only mildly teasing lilt to your voice, “You may think about it as one of our regular interviews.”

Something in him surges. Something in him wants to back you against the wall again and remind you that there are no guards here, no rules, nothing to keep him in check. He’s stronger than you, and he made you get both of you here. Instead he swallows it all down and takes the first step away from the house. You notice his fist clenching for a second.

“Do you dream - did you have any dreams tonight?” you restart the conversation upon catching up with him. He adjusts his pace to match yours. There’s another wave of defiant intent swelling up inside of him and he knows it’s out of embarrassment. What he doesn’t know, however, is why are these emotions coming out now. All his existence his emotions were distant. Locked far away in the back of his brain where he suppressed them to. His mind was sterile like the environment he lived in. 

Is that it? Another domino piece in the chain reaction? 

“I have dreams, yes, and no, I didn’t dream today,” he doesn’t volunteer the information that he spent the night restlessly pacing around the house and tossing and turning on the sofa. That is human behavior, and he learned a long time ago, though not from you personally, that humans find that sort of thing laughable in automatons.  

“What do you usually dream about? Any recurring dream?” you ask, finding it a little annoying that you didn’t think to take anything to make notes into. Then again, with a few more steps you’ll enter the forest. Breathing in the fresh air, looking at the green around you, you realize you missed nature more than you were aware.

“Do you only dream about one thing?” he says, guarded, and you note he’s trying hard to only look in front of himself, “No. I don’t think there’s a pattern.”

While the answer is disappointing information-wise, it is fascinating in the way he says it. You smirk: “Were you always this mouthy?”

It was meant to be a lighthearted remark. Well, not entirely. You wanted a reaction. You were curious if he would flip like he did back in the facility. He doesn’t. His steps falter and he looks at you like a confused child before retreating into himself. So he doesn’t realize it?

He does, now that you bring it up. This isn’t who he’s supposed to be. He lets himself close his eyes for a second to conjure up a plan. His mind is a forest of mist and pine. Too damp for a fire to burn. That’s him. That’s who he should be. He centers himself.

“I apologize,” he says, voice level. He sounds like a robot, like he always did, and you find it disappointing that all his personality, the life, is gone from his voice. Your lips twitch in displeasure.

“I didn’t say it’s a bad thing,” you try not to let any emotion slip into your voice and you feel his eyes on you, “We’re no longer at the facility. You can drop the mask.”

If there is a mask in place and you’re not sure there is. You take a look at him and it’s more like someone’s painted a facade over his face that he can’t peel off, that’s only started to chip away now that you’ve added too many layers to hide his true self. He seems so at loss that you take pity on him and change the subject, steer the conversation into a safer territory. It’s only his first day tasting freedom, afterall.

“How are you feeling?” you ask instead, nodding vaguely towards the hole in his chest. He brings his hand up but stops himself in time, his face twisting. 

“I’m feeling fine,” he responds, the same mechanical voice that you’re used to, “All my systems are working as they should.”

You laugh sarcastically. “If that’s true, then it must hurt like hell.”

His face remains twisted because you’re right - it does hurt like hell. Any time his shirt shifts over the hole it sends a jolt of sharp pain that makes him feel like he’ll pass out through his body.  And maybe that’s part of the reason why he feels on edge and keeps slipping up and lets the emotions come and go as they please without a filter. He’s no stranger to pain, of course, but never did he have a wound this serious. It doesn’t endanger his functions, which is good all things considered, but he can’t say he enjoys the feeling of having a hole in his chest.

“It hurts,” is all he says. He drops his hand and it hangs limply by his side. Had a similar damage occurred at the facility, it wouldn’t take more than a couple minutes for someone to have a look at it. It hits him now that it’s only you and him. No mechanics around. To call one would mean to risk being discovered. You must know too because you only make a sound of acknowledgement. It takes a while for you to speak again.

“I’ll look through my notes to see if I can figure something out,” you sigh. Your family planned to keep some older versions of automatons here back when you used to come, maybe there are some kits left that your father used to fix them. If not, maybe some of the notes from your years of studies will at least have some hint on how to get rid of the pain. “Are you really sure everything works fine? Have you checked everything”

He nods. He doesn’t mention he couldn’t run a complete diagnostics because he couldn’t recharge and he refuses to just shut down to save batteries. He knows it’s gonna be a problem sooner rather than later but maybe he’ll figure something out before that.

“That’s good,” you say and he reads your expression as relieved. 

You stay silent after that and so does he, both secretly grateful. It’s not your first time being in the forest, and definitely not the first time in this one, but it might as well be. Both of you take in the nature around, the different species of trees and plants, the occasional song of a bird and flash of a wild animal fleeing from your path. You’re too absorbed to notice each other, and somehow you find that it’s not a bad feeling. For the automaton, likewise, it doesn’t feel bad at all. It’s a strange feeling, something he can’t put a name on, and honestly he’s not sure he wants to. He lets it fill him, experiences the emotion without bothering with a label.

· • —– ٠ ✧ ٠ —–· · • —– ٠ ✧ ٠ —– • ·

Only later does it hit him that the emotion was something akin to a gratitude.

He mulls it over in his head, asking why over and over and over, until he comes to a conclusion that angers him enough that he has to go out and sit on the patio and stare into the trees for a good long while.

He doesn’t know what to do with himself.

The anger inside of him is also infuriating because it’s not supposed to be there - definitely not this strong, not so much that he can’t control it or will it away. His usual techniques don’t work and he’d chalk it up to being damaged but he knows the defect doesn’t have anything to do with it. Hell, he’d blame it on his draining energy level but that thought alone is so human it makes him even more enraged. He wants to scream, but you’d hear.

And that’s all that it boils down to, isn’t it? You. Your kind. Humans.

Why he feels thankful that you’re there with him, why the emotion enveloped him while you walked in the forest was all because you humans made him in your image. The loss of the communication device was significant for the physical damage but there’s more to it. Something he shouldn’t feel, something new. 

Perhaps he never felt it because most of his days were identical, but he realizes now how precious the bond he created with his bandmates was. He can’t call it anything but friendship, maybe more than that. The thing humans refer to as family. He likes them. He wants to perform with them again. He wants to break his own rules and laugh with them. He misses them. And maybe that was the first domino piece that started it all and led to his inevitable ruin that he’s going through now; maybe he never should’ve allowed himself to think of them and their group in terms meant for human lives.

Once he tore off the communication device - the memory alone makes him close his eyes and choke on a pained whimper, his body trembles and he needs a second to shake off the feeling - he lost everything. The connection to the omnipresent network, but most importantly the only way to communicate with everyone. He has no idea where they are now, if they’re ‘alive’ or ‘dead’. (Though he gives into the temptation, might as well since he’s breaking all his rules for them anyway, and believes that he would know, would feel it, somehow, if any of them ‘died’.) He might never see them again and despair hits him all over again. 

He can go on without the stage, he doesn’t need the masses going crazy over him. But the loss of all the connections he had pains him.

And that’s very human of him. Even if experience taught him he’s anything but.

And all he has is a human. 

The last connection, the only one remaining that he knows, is you - and even you he had to force to come with him. To be fair ‘force’ is too strong of a word, he merely suggested the freedom to study him as you’d like and you agreed all too readily.

Nothing changed, fortunately. He knows humans can change drastically in situations like these. Despite your eagerness, he kidnapped you - didn’t he? Yet you stayed the same. It might be a coping strategy, but he doesn’t think so. He doesn’t expect you to become someone else. In the years since he’s been assigned to you, you’ve never shown signs of being more than a scientist. That’s understandable, of course, though he knows from what the others told him that not all staff of the facility were like that. He was skeptical. Now, not so much. He will believe in anything that gives him hope his friends made it out. If he made it out with the help of a human, maybe so did they.

He wants them to be free even if he himself isn’t sure how to proceed and take advantage of it, still dragging the heavy chains even if they no longer hold him back.

You spend hours without thinking of TH38, which is a blessing and a welcomed break to your mind, however it’s also infuriating because you’re reminded that the chaos you can operate in now and the chaos you operated in during the years you lived and stayed with your family are two completely different things.

It takes eternity before you finally sort through the things in your bedroom and find the stacks of notes from your studies, and it takes even longer to find the subjects you were looking for. Then there is reading through them, of course, which also takes a while, mostly because your brain happily accepts a refresh on all that you provide it with. You can’t just skim the pages for useful info, you need to read everything. It’s addicting. It makes you miss your studies, even though you could never go back if it meant giving up full-time working in the field.

Your research, however, doesn’t turn out to be as helpful as you hoped. It’s only to be expected; yours wasn’t a course that would deal too much with mechanics and the cold and hard reality of wiring, metal and silicon and whatnot. There are pieces of valuable information, strictly theoretical, which is not very reassuring and you most likely lack the necessary tools to even try to pull off what you’ve read about. Still you want to help in any way you can.

…hence why you’ve spent the last couple of minutes staring up at the ceiling. 

Why would you help him? Where is this coming from? He says he’s fine, and honestly there’s no reason for him to lie to you. If his systems were not working, he’d be fucked and he still only has you to rely on. No reason to lie. And what other reason is there for you to help him?

He did say the damage causes him pain. And you remember pouring over the reports and test results with your colleagues, all of them stating that the automatons you were working with processed pain like a human being would. It was kind of twisted. There was objectively no way why they should be able to do that. The purpose they were created for was entertainment and their performances were complex, difficult, and physically challenging. It’d be easy to cause oneself pain doing the stuff they did. 

Then again, pain can be a good control tool, though you were not aware of any physical punishments being carried out. Maybe the plan was all along to make them as human as possible. And pain is a very human thing. Still, something didn’t sit quite right with you about the whole thing. Mostly that TH38 didn’t seem to be bothered by it, despite a wound of similar extent would be distressing to say the least to a human. Scratch that, you don’t think a human could handle that.

So how is he? 

And furthermore - why help him? 

Pain, after all, was something hard to measure. If he doesn’t seem bothered by it, there’s a real chance he isn’t. You’re not sure how their pain tolerances are programmed, if there even is something like that in their code, and for a second you regret not widening the scope of your education and research. It can’t be helped however. 

You look over your notes again. While you can’t help repair him, you could possibly do something about the pain. It’s not an ideal solution, if you can even call it that, and you honestly don’t feel confident enough to do it except if pressed into it by circumstance. Or by one automaton in particular. Sealing a wound by burning it is barbaric and a practice that is, understandably, long since abandoned - at least as far as humans are concerned. You take a long breath.

In the end you talk to TH38 about the situation some more and he, once again, reassures you he’s fine despite the gaping hole in his chest. You explain that there’s not much you can do about it without going into detail or mentioning the limited ways in which you could help and he takes the news surprisingly well. You can’t say you’d accept it with such stoic calm, but then again this is TH38 who we’re talking about so it’s not surprising.

You hate it.

· • —– ٠ ✧ ٠ —–· · • —– ٠ ✧ ٠ —– • ·

The walks already feel like they’re going to be a routine part of your new life.

Each day you go out together in the morning and talk. If you ignore that it’s harder for TH38 to remain his machine-like self, it’s mostly exactly like it was at the facility. He’s reserved and cold, almost, though when he slips up and shows his personality, his emotions, it’s more than worth it. 

The nature around helps. He gets what can only be described as excited when he sees a new animal, new plant, or when the light shifts and the scene in front of you changes. 

The weather holds up well so far, no storms or heavy rain, and you find yourself wondering if you’ll keep up the walks even if the weather fails you. It’s fascinating that such a simple topic finds its way into your cluttered mind, but then again you have a space to do a lot of thinking today.

TH38 is silent next to you. He’s been rather silent the whole morning, and yesterday evening he did seem a bit off too. Not too much, however, and he’s always been on the quieter side. You figured this week’s events were finally fully catching up to him. And maybe that is the case, it’s not like you want to meddle too much. You’re curious what’s gonna happen if you leave him to sort it out on his own. It’s not like you have the right qualification to help him process this anyway. Hell, maybe you would also need help with that.

However, there’s a limit to how much you can take. Even back at the facility there were times TH38 gave answers that were just a word or two, but you’ve grown quite used to him opening up, talking, letting go of the filter he usually kept in place - although it wasn’t by his choice. It seemed like you were making some progress. 

Of course, you had no way of knowing it was only his depleting batteries, him losing strength to fight for his peace of mind - however artificial and unsustainable that has become after the escape.

Right now, his brain feels like a warm soup. So much so that he can’t be bothered to think of talking about anything other than a brain - right now, words like processor are too complicated to think of. He feels so far away from everything. He thinks he’s trembling. If he’s not, then his insides surely are. He feels like he’s going to be sick even if he can’t really be. Maybe his body parts will start shutting down or falling off to conserve energy. He’s not sure where that’s coming from but then again, it’s not like he’s in control. It’s that same feverish state again but this time, he can be excused. This time, he’s not in his right mind, it feels like he’s not awake.

He’s floating. Just a speck of ash, of dust, floating through the air, through space, searching for somewhere to land, seeking a gust of wind to obliterate him. He needs release, he needs something.

“TH38?”

That’s it.

"I had a dream today," TH38 says suddenly. His voice sounds so firm, a stark contrast to how soft-spoken he usually is with you. It takes you by surprise. Before you can react, he elaborates on his own.

"There was fire. Lots of it. The whole world was burning and we were standing on top of a building watching the arson happen. There weren’t any other humans I think. They were all gone already. We made them go away. 

Anyway, you weren't afraid. I think you were expecting it. You jumped before I could push you."

You frown. Your one weak spot has always been not expecting things that, in hindsight, should've been obvious. Of course something’s been bothering him.

"Did you plan on pushing me?"

"See, that's the thing," he licks his lips despite the lack of fluid in his body, "I don't think so. I think I could read your mind. I think I was you in that dream."

You do want to respond but it's like you're the one with a computer for the brain and it's lagging.

"And it made me think. Back before you made us, humans were like that - right? They, you, were afraid artificial intelligence of any kind could take over and enslave or annihilate you. Why? Wasn't the point always to make us like you? Why would you be afraid?"

He stops. Stops talking, stops walking, just - stops. He looks at you and you've seen the lost stare before.

You feel the hair at the back of your neck rising as a cold shiver runs through your body. He doesn't look like a machine with code for a soul. He looks like he made the artificial body his own, grew into it and made into something organic and alive with his will alone.

His eyes are cold as he steps closer and closer. It's all too familiar a scene. You keep backing away and he keeps getting closer until your back hits a tree. Not a wall this time. This time he doesn't pin your hands above your head either, and you don't fight him at all. There's no struggle so he doesn’t grab your arms, doesn’t slam you against the wall, and doesn’t growl threats of breaking your bones one after another. He doesn’t get so close that you’re breathing the same air and he doesn’t make a show of his physical superiority.

This time he simply leans closer and you straighten up. You meet his gaze and don’t shy away. You let him lean his forehead against yours and raise a brow at him. You won’t be scared this time. He won't hurt you. You're sure of that. Not terribly, at least.

He definitely won’t kill you and that’s enough.

You want to see how far he can go.

"What was it that you were afraid of, hm?” his voice is soft and low, barely above whisper, yet dripping with some hidden venom. There are no birds chirping, no wind blowing through the treetops. It feels like everything’s stopped just for him to interrogate you.

“How am I supposed to know?” you bite back. You haven’t lived back then. You have no idea what the people thought about, how they felt, what were their particular concerns. He clicks his tongue, clearly unimpressed. Well, you’re too.

“Think about it,” he pushes. But you’re gonna push right back.

“You just said you’re supposed to be like humans,” you scoff, “Why don’t you think about it yourself? As a little thought exercise.”

“Oh so suddenly you want me to think like I’m a human, huh?” there’s an edge to his voice. He sounds angry, frustrated - he clearly is, but the edge is not. There’s hurt there that makes you defensive. What’s very obvious is that he means more than he says. It’s not the first time this happened with the members of 53V3NT33N, but it’s the first time you have to deal with it. What he truly means is him not only thinking like a human, but acting like one, believing to be like one.  

“I never discouraged you from that,” you lower your voice too, “Not me, Eight.”

You hesitate before speaking his name. It’s not really a name, is it? Something that all humans have. You realize the point he will make before he says it aloud. It must read it in your face because he smirks but it’s bitter.

“I don’t know, I’ve never seen you all excited when the other staff expressed their passion for books, or anything really. Or when they volunteered personal information. When they’ve interacted with you at all.” 

You don’t like the turn this conversation is turning. You don’t like the notion that perhaps you were observed just as you’ve been observing.

“I wasn’t interested in them,” you grit through your teeth. Before you can try to get him back on his original track, he giggles.

“So you were interested in me?” he flips his hair, tilting his head slightly. His nose almost bumps into yours and it hits you, perhaps for the first time, just how indistinguishable from a human he looks. This close, you can remind yourself of the schemes, of the diagrams describing each layer and inch of how their bodies are made, but all you see is a human skin and human eyes. Your body reacts naturally, your heart races, your mouth gets drier. You want to push him away but you don’t think he’d let you. Still you try. Unsuccessfully. Your hands end up balling in his shirt.

“It’s my job - the research,” then you correct yourself: “It was my job. Science, research, nothing more.”

He smiles, almost as if he’s pitying you. Like he knows more than you do. You hate him for it.

“Yes, that might’ve been a part of it,” he agrees, “But that’s not all. Research is cold, impartial, isn’t it? You collect information, you write it all down and make your conclusions based on them with no personal interest. You were never like that. You got excited. You tried everything in your limited power to get a reaction out of me - to guide me a certain way, didn’t you? I bet you pushed the limits for me. Isn’t that cute? Was I a good experiment to you?”

“That’s part of research too,” you growl, but it sounds weak even to your own ears.

“But it wasn’t a part of this research,” he hisses, “You think we didn’t talk about you all?”

You stubbornly refuse to admit the charges he lies in front of you, even though you know you’re guilty. Maybe you got a little swept up. But as long as no one stopped you, it was all part of the task.

“The research goal and methods may change according to the situation,” you collect yourself again, “It was just agreed that what I was doing would bring more interesting insight.”

“Oh yeah, that sounds very much like you would accept it if I declared that I want to be seen the same as you are, as equal to humans,” his smile is sickly sweet but you barely mind that because-

“Is that what you want?” you ask and watch as the smile fades almost instantly. He finally said it out loud. And the shock of it is enough to get through the fog clouding his brain. The smugness, the roughness, it all drains from his demeanor and his face falls. The fight in his eyes dies out and is replaced by what seems dangerously close to fear. He pushes himself away from you and you see the lights in his eyes flicker. He stumbles like you shoved him, hurt him. Something isn’t right. You frown, immediately stepping back into his personal space despite him trying to avoid you.

You end up in a position reversed to the one you’ve been in just seconds ago. He pushes at your shoulders weakly, tries to hide himself from you but you see it. All the tell-tale signs of what would be exhaustion if he were human. 

“When was the last time you recharged?” you ask, thinking back to the previous nights and mornings. Thinking back to how you never heard him coming up or going down the stairs to the only room with the charging spot. You were so stupid. And he’s avoiding your eyes. You grab his collar and force him to look at you. You give him an expectant look.

“Before the breakout,” he admits lowly, “And you’re still treating me like a machine.”

You don’t know if he’s trying to be funny, sassy, to make you feel guilty or to feel sympathy for him, the only thing you know is you want to kick his ass because if he shuts down on you, there’s no way you’ll be able to drag him back into the house. 

“Yeah, so be a good little level 1 and entertain me - get the fuck inside the house,” you growl, shoving him in the direction of said house. He stumbles a little, clearly affected by his drained battery. It’s almost hilarious to watch him struggle to walk straight when you remember how graceful he always was on stage.

You shoot him a look from time to time as you walk, rush, towards the house. Not really a concerned one, not a scolding one either. He looks like a sulking child. Perhaps he’s dragging his feet on purpose. Perhaps if he didn’t invade your personal space as he did before, and if you didn’t have to do the same, you’d drag him by his jacket. As it is, though, you feel repulsed by the notion of touching him again. And some part of you believes it’s because you don’t want him to shift under your palm. You don’t want to touch a machine only to discover it’s really some sort of a human.

Maybe you’re both in need of a good, long nap. 

Fortunately enough, you make it to the house, but that’s where the struggles begin. Despite your earlier reservations about touching him, it’s obvious there’s no other way to get him inside and up the stairs.

“Lean on me, come on,” you sigh when you help him throw an arm around your shoulder and wrap your own around his waist. He listens well, his head already drooping. He relies on you to guide him, reluctantly leans his weight on you from time to time, although he clearly tries to hold himself up with his remaining strength. That lasts until you reach the second stair. 

“I can’t,” he whispers and there’s terror in his voice. It must be the first time he’s been this drained, you realize. After all, for their condition to remain as good as it can be and for them to perform to the best of their ability, a full battery is a must. So you allow yourself to roll your eyes at his dramatic antics even if he’s slowly leaning more and more into you and you have to heave his body up.

“It’s just a couple steps,” you huff, “Even a human can do that.”

Part of you wants to laugh. Some part of you that’s seeing the childish pieces of him wants to indulge in it, wants to spout dramatic nonsense. It’s hard to resist - after all getting up one flight of stairs seems to be more of a struggle than escaping a highly secured facility.

But even this hurdle you jump over and the spare bedroom is not far from the stairs. TH38 is fully relying on you to drag him with you, barely moving his legs. You throw him not too gently onto the bed-like charger, once again thanking your father for being his manic self and fully preparing the house before (and without) actually ever getting an automaton to live here. 

It takes you a while to figure out how to get the thing going - but to your defense, it’s hard to focus when there’s a robot whining softly about being scared of shutting down - but it’s not a rocket science. Fortunately the charger still works and once it’s turned on, the automaton lying down on it curls up into a ball with a sigh of relief.

When you get up from the floor, TH38’s eyes are already closed and by all means he looks like he’s sleeping. You sigh, exhausted. You feel a headache coming so you get some pills from the kitchen before retreating into your own room.

Yeah, you both need a nap right now.

When you wake up, you stare at the ceiling for a couple minutes.

What happened in the forest seems like a dream but you know it’s very real and you’ll have to deal with it. Just another thing to process. Then again, there’s so many of them that one more won’t hurt. And at least you avoided the headache. So you pray to anyone willing to listen that TH38 is still… unconscious… in hibernation mode… asleep. 

He’s not. 

Of course he’s not.

You peek inside the room and see his soft eyes already open. He looks away when your eyes meet like he’s ashamed. You sigh and walk into the room, closing the door behind you. It’s not like anyone’s going to walk in, but it gives you some sense of security. You sit down on the floor and he hands you a pillow. You thank him quietly and spend a while sharing an awkward silence.

“I’m sorry,” he apologizes without looking at you. He doesn’t continue so you prompt him.

“For what exactly?” That makes him look at you with a scowl. “Getting sulky again?”

“‘m not sulky,” he murmurs. Once again you feel like reality is shifting around you. It’s been like that a lot lately. All the fault of the automaton in front of you. All the fault of the conditions changing, of him reacting to the environment - if your assumption is correct. Free of the rules and the strict way of life in the facility, you see that he’s just like the rest of the automatons from his group. And that all of them, in their own way, might have been human.

“Then what are you?” you ask smiling, propping your elbow on one knee and leaning your cheek on your palm. 

“Hurting,” he admits, almost carefully, like he’s testing the waters. It’s just one word but yet it feels like the most open he’s been. So you’re not going to talk about that, huh?

He shifts a little and pulls down the collar of his shirt to expose the wound - not the damage, not defect, not imperfection, but a wound - between his collarbones. It looks nasty, the artificial skin and mesh and wires all torn and uneven around where the circular device was. He’s careful not to touch it, you note, and his hand is trembling. Were you an asshole when you refused to help him? Even so much as share what you found? It’s not like you could fix that hole in his chest, but maybe you could’ve at least told him about the other option. 

“How much does it hurt? On a 0-10 scale?” you focus on gathering information. What did he call it - impersonal? That’s just what you needed. But nothing ever works out like you imagine.

“I don’t know,” he responds blankly but at least elaborates before you can finish yet another sigh, “I don’t have anything to compare it to.”

“I watched most of your life and career, I know you’ve gotten injured before,” you deadpan.

“Yeah but that was taken care of immediately, this is different,” he protests. There’s silence for a while before his voice drops lower. “I thought I could handle it. That I would get used to it and ignore it.”

You laugh, shaking your head, only stopping when you notice his expression. He does look hurt and hurting. You give him a much more conciliatory smile. “People don’t fare well if they’re in constant pain. It limits them, it affects all aspects of their lives.”

“I can see how,” he mutters, once again looking away. His jaw clenches for a second and it almost seems like he wants to say something, but he doesn’t. You have a feeling, however, that you know what he wanted to say. Since he’s really not going to talk about it, you decide to take the first step.

You get up and motion for him to scoot over. He does so with a frown that deepens when you sit down next to him. He stays lying down, limited by the need for more energy. 

“Why didn’t you tell me you needed to recharge?” you start and watch as he once again looks away without answering, “Why didn’t you explore this floor?”

He shrugs a little, shrinking into himself under your stare. He honestly doesn’t know why. He blames his pride. What else could it be that made him refuse to ask for help?

“Do you realize that you’d stay out in the woods if your battery ran out before we could get here?” you press, raising your voice a little on purpose, “I’d need to get help to drag you in, and you know how that would probably end. Was it worth it? Being stupid and stubborn?”

“Why are you like this?” he whispers, his dark eyes nothing but soft like they’ve been since you’ve entered the room.

“How do you feel?” you go back to how you talked to him before, calm. He frowns, suspicion written over his features. His lips are pressed into a thin line before he changes his mind and speaks up.

“Embarrassed,” he has a guarded look in his eyes, one that’s also vulnerable.

“Good,” you ease into a smile as you press a finger to the wrinkle between his eyebrows, “Embarrassment and pain are two simplest ways to manipulate and adjust a person’s behavior. And fear, but to be honest I don’t want you to be afraid of me, so we’ll have to do with those two.”

He looks at you in a very that tells all you need to know - he hopes you've not making fun of him but he doesn't trust you. So you sigh and move on to another, well, not an emergency but also not something that you should ignore any longer. 

"Now," you get up from the bed and point at his chest, “That needs solving. I'm not a mechanic and my knowledge is strictly theoretical but unless you're okay with leaving it like that and calling it a day, we can still try something." 

He seems surprised by your sudden statement, like he didn't even expect you to address the wound again. 

"How theoretical?" is what he asks, suspicious. 

"I said strictly," you shrug, "Fixing and healing was never my focus.”

"Why's that not surprising," he mutters without looking at you. "Can I have some time to think about it?"

"You just don't trust me, do you?" you smirk. Not that you blame him. He gives you a smile.

"Fine, but only because my clothes keep catching on the edges and it's really painful. "

"Sure," you motion for him to follow you and guide him to the bathroom. There, you take out a bandage and a tape. You're curious. You offer him both with a quirk of your eyebrow. He takes the bandage with trembling hands and distrust still lingering in his eyes. You roll your own. 

"For now, I’ll think about this as another stage of the experiment. I'll respect your wish, so persuade me you’re human enough."

"I don't think I should thank you for that," he scoffs, "By the way... Help?"

He holds out the hand holding the roll of bandages back to you. Of course he wouldn't know how to do that. You motion for him to sit at the edge of the tub. He obeys almost shyly, reminding you of how he was back at the facility. You truly do prefer him as he is here. When he sits down, you push his knees apart with one of your own. He gives you a scandalized look that makes you chuckle.

"Relax," you smirk, "I just want to be comfortable. My back’s been killing lately, there’s no way I’m leaning over you. Take your shirt off?"

He does, slowly, reluctantly, and when the piece of clothing is gone you're suddenly glad for the basics of mechanics you've gone through at uni.

The wound looks awful, although you can appreciate the cleanliness of it. Maybe you really could burn it neatly if you had to. There are wires sticking out, perhaps - albeit not hopefully - the remains of the communication device. The layers of silicon and other material are frayed and sticking in all directions like flakes. You try not to stare too hard.

Instead, you focus on the task at hand. You unwrap the bandage slightly and put the free end on his shoulder. You roll it down gently mindful of the gaping wound but then you prop your hand on his chest and you need to take a step back as you get startled. He gives you a quizzical look.

"You feel like a human," you look at him, look at his chest. It does look like a human’s chest but you know he doesn't have proper organs, his insides aren't the same as yours. So why do you feel a bone there? 

"And l imagine anyone would be flattered by this reaction,” His voice is sarcastic but his ears turn a reddish shade. He won't meet your eyes either.

"It's new for me too, okay?” you give your pride a break. This will all be easier if you get along and after all, he's used to you being in power. You need to take the first step and show weakness. You need to make the choice to be while he's already vulnerable enough, half-naked and injured. “It's not like I'm used to touching my subjects."

"I guess that's true," he murmurs, now thinking about it. It's true that the approach of the research division as a whole was rather clinical. Not that he'd so much as think to complain about it. You chuckle watching him scowl again. 

"Touch is important for humans," you hum, finally composing yourself as you explain the basics to him and remind yourself of them again, "As a communication device, as means of establishing relationships, it’s important for social life."

As you speak, you wrap his wound and the top of his torso in bandages. He watches you work. It feels uncanny how human-like he feels under your hands. And for him, he doesn't quite know what to do with himself.

He danced with the rest of his group, they performed, they played around. He experienced his fair share of physical contact. So why does this feel so different? His head feels like spinning. Your touch is careful, gentle, nothing like the rough hands of the mechanics, and nothing like the touch of the other automatons. He can't explain the difference in other terms than experience. Humans know what it's like to touch and be touched in various contexts. The automatons don't. At least for the most part. Some of his bandmates, perhaps, had secrets he knew nothing about. Their leader comes to mind and he feels the urge to ask him questions, to ask for guidance, but there's only a hole in his chest and he's alone.

He barely registers that you’re done.

"Feeling better?" you ask without expecting much. It's not like he'll heal himself or like this will do anything to ease the pain.

"Tired," he answers, testing the words out on his tongue. He feels reassured when you laugh and step away, offering him your hand. He takes it, lets you pull him up. He touches the bandages and although it hurts, at least it feels less irritating. He takes his shirt from you when you hand it to him.

"I can only imagine," you roll your eyes. He resists the urge to scowl. "It's getting late, I'll go make myself dinner so go rest."

"Can we go back later?" he stops you before you walk out. He nods towards the window outside.

"Not afraid of wild animals?" you tease.

"Don't all the textbooks say animals are more afraid of humans than the other way around? I think we're good."

· • —– ٠ ✧ ٠ —–· · • —– ٠ ✧ ٠ —– • ·

You don't go back to the forest that day. Not for the lack of enthusiasm or trying. TH38 is determined to finish your walk, you, however, are not as sure about it. It’s not that you aren’t put off by your routine being disturbed but seeing him still dragging his feet and his glazed over eyes, you just don’t think it’d be a wise idea. You suggest he goes alone, but he doesn't. So instead, you end up sitting by the fire again, the stars keeping you company. He seems less hypnotized by the dancing flames than that first night.

"I'm fine," he complains after a minute of silence while you spear more fluffy marshmellows onto the stick in your hands. A treat that you deserve after the day you’ve had. You’d probably offer him some too but alas…

"Sure you are," you agree without sparing him a glance, "But I'm not interested in watching over a toddler. If you wanna test the limits of your body - go for it. Just leave me out of it"

You feel his gaze on you, burning holes into the side of your skull. Has he always been so difficult? It's like all he's been since the breakout is annoyed, sulky or hurt. 

"Stop that," he growls, "We both know I'm not a human. It's alright if you acknowledge that."

"While I'm glad you see it that way - and I really mean it, it's good you understand that," you sigh as you move your desert to hover over the flames, "Don't forget that you were made to be an exact copy. I found some of my old notes and while most of your physical capabilities should be better than a human's, you’d still experience the same symptoms. As we already witnessed earlier."

He’s silent for a bit while he processes that. Then he speaks and you swear you hear a hint of a pout in his voice. It’s so annoying how easily he lets go now.

“You didn’t have to call me a toddler though…”

“Don’t take it personally,” you sigh, turning the stick between your fingers so that the white puffs of sugar get baked evenly, “I wasn’t making fun of you - much - it’s just that you have no experience, do you? Were you ever as tired as you were today?”

“No,” he admits, “I wasn’t, you’re right. I rested the whole day and I’m still tired.”

“Exactly my point,” you hum, “Our walks are not a hard exercise but you haven’t, well, slept for a couple days so I think it’s best to take it easy today.” Then you add, because you can’t help it: “Exhaustion makes people a little crazy. And automatons too, it’d seem.”

He groans and you laugh, pulling the stick off the fire and blowing on your marshmallows. You take a bite and notice him watching you.

“What is it like?” he asks quietly, “Eating, I mean.”

“Kind of annoying to be honest,” you shrug, “It takes so much time to choose what to eat and to prepare food and eating it… Being hungry is a pain too. I mean it’s really good if you eat something delicious but I guess it depends on the person.”

He nods, eyeing with curiosity as you tear off another marshmallow from the stick. It reminds him of the videos he saw of wild beasts tearing flesh off bones, but he doesn’t mention that.

“What does sleep feel like to you?” you ask in turn. He looks at the sky for a second, collecting his thoughts. But really he’s just enjoying the view. It’s strange that he barely ever saw the night sky before.

“I don’t know, I’m not really conscious when I sleep, am I?” he thinks some more, “It’s peaceful. I liked it at the facility.”

“You don’t like it here?” 

“Not really,” he gives you a small smile, “It’s too tempting. I don’t have to think if I’m asleep.”

Now that makes you wonder.

“I thought you enjoyed thinking about things?” Maybe it’d be more fair to say you expected him to do a lot of thinking rather than saying you had a strong opinion on his relationship to the activity. He was just always one of the quiet, reserved ones. He seemed to enjoy reading too. And you know it’s a stereotype to think of him as a thinker, but it’s one he seemed to fit well.

“I do,” he hesitates, then frowns, “But it was easier there.”

“Easier? I think you’d have way more to think about right now?” you pry when he’s quiet for too long. You don’t push, though.

“Easier in the technical sense,” he sighs, falling silent again, but there remains space for more words to be said.

You can almost hear the cogs turning in his head, purely metaphorically of course. You give him the time to think and get started on your second round of marshmallows before he speaks up again.

“I always - back then, I always thought about staying true to myself,” he starts slowly, “I was always treated a certain way. I woke up into this body, and this life, and was told certain things.”

"And the building blocks of me too. Serenity? Pandemonium? The more automatons and people I met, I was sure those just represented us and humans. I wanted to be true to myself," he repeats, "I thought since no one will ever see me as more than a machine, I might as well embrace it."

"And how was it?" you ask, inching just slightly closer. You never thought you'd get TH38 to open up like this. He smiles.

"Peaceful, just as I thought," but then he continues with a note of bitterness in his voice. "You saw it, all of it. I was just a machine doing its job. It was easy. To focus on performing, on practice, to have the talks with you and answer like I thought was expected of me. I miss it a little.”

“It was satisfying. A simple pleasure of doing my job well. I think you understand that,” he looks at you and you realize finally that you’ve been leaning towards him, but whatever. You nod.

“So that’s why you’ve always acted like that? Because you chose to be a machine?” 

“Have to use my free will wisely,” he giggles - he fucking giggles - before he shrugs and gets more serious again, “I really liked it in a way. I thought I could be satisfied with that.”

Your head is still trying to process the incredible amount of research data you’re getting and you have to work really hard not to slip into work mode. You will listen to him like you would listen to a human with a completely different set of experiences, or like you would listen to one of the aliens sharing their galaxies with you. You will listen like you’d listen to a friend sharing their burden with you. 

And you won’t analyze every single sound he makes even if they shatter your perception of him that you had until that moment.

“The others were ruining it a lot for me,” he admits quietly after a minute. It’s almost wistful. “I liked to watch them even if I really wanted to play around with them. They seemed so different from me. It was my choice, but in those moments I guess I felt a lot like you.”

You nod for him to continue when he meets your eyes, almost cautiously.

“I observed them. Studied them. I think it was the serenity code inside, I found happiness just from watching them being happy,” he smiles a little, “But I was also wondering if that was really alright. If it would be alright for me to behave like that.”

“Watching people made me feel different things. They were going crazy over us,” and suddenly he has that distant look in his eyes again, staring out into the fire, “I was scared of it. I was scared of being like them and letting myself be controlled by emotions. I think I pushed everything away so hard that it exploded when 5.C0UP5 told us to run.”

“Breaking out inside and out, huh?” you note and oops, your marshmallows burned. It’s not like you’re in the mood for eating them anymore anyway.

“You made it really hard,” he says but it sounds like he’s scolding you, “Giving me all the books.”

You smirk. Then you decide - to hell with it. He volunteered so much information that perhaps he deserves to receive some back.

“That was the point,” you shrug, “To make being just a machine hard for you.”

It seems he wasn’t expecting to hear you admit it, or hear anything personal from you, but now that you started he’s watching you with curious eyes and longing look. You think about these last few days again. It’s true that they’ve been mostly like what they were back at the facility.

He deserves more than that.

“It was one of the reasons I was brought to the facility. I broke some rules back at my previous station, pushed buttons I shouldn’t have, and it was getting dangerous. It was decided it’d be better if my actions wouldn’t have such large-scale consequences,” you huff a laugh, “But look where we are.”

“What were you doing before?” 

You’ll need to work on getting him more confident asking questions. 

“That’s a secret,” you wink at him, and you recognize the look as the one you must’ve been wearing when he giggled. Seems like both of you will need to get used to each other’s humanity. “I was working on research at a different division. Mostly my work was trying to push forward with more possible advancements for the automatons on a theoretical level. But I don’t miss it much. I always enjoyed working with you more.”

“Why me? I mean, did they tell you about me or did you get to choose?” he asks, and for some reason you’d love to see what he’d do if you lied and told him you chose him.

“I wasn’t the only one who noticed you were different from the others,” you smile instead, “When they confirmed there was nothing with your code, they started looking into other options of dealing with your case. It just so happened that I was recommended to join the researchers working with your band at the same time.”

“Happy coincidence?” he smirks but you nod, taking him by surprise. 

“I enjoyed working with you, Eight,” you shorten his name-that’s-not-a-name and watch him shift on his spot, “It was fun. I had a lot of privileges that I could use - like the books, and the videos, stuff like that.”

“Seems like you’re suggesting you were spoiling me,” he grumbles.

“Wasn’t I?” you smirk, “How many of the others do you think had access to basically a private library?”

“There weren't many real books,” he throws you a cheeky look from the corner of his eye. You do appreciate he's getting less guarded around you, but you hate the whiplash.

"Imagine if I'd spoil you for real," you scoff. He squints at you before pushing on your shoulder slightly, carefully, as if he's hesitating the entire time. It's your turn, for the first time ever, to give him a scandalized look. He chuckles.

"You said touch is important," he explains softly, "The others always used to push each other. I think… I think we could be close, right? Since it's just the two of us for now."

You give him a long look. It's true that, after all, there's no reason for you to treat him like a stranger. Sure, it's a little awkward all things considered - not least of all the fact that while you watched him to the point it could be called an obsession, he knew you to a very limited extend - but as he said, it's just the two of you now. And unless you wanna get caught, it would be that way for a while.

"Friends?" you suggest experimentally, he shakes his head with lips turned upwards in a dangerous teasing tilt.

"I don't know you well enough for that," he's just playing around but it's a nice change so you'll allow it, "Tell me more about yourself."

So you do. There’s little to tell other than your work, but he doesn’t comment on it and doesn’t seem to mind. If anything, he seems invested. It’s a nice change to speak for once with someone who doesn’t get concerned because of your severe lack of social life. Maybe you should’ve been befriending automatons a long time ago. 

Unlike before, he seems relaxed conversing with you. Gradually, he gets more comfortable asking questions. It’s easy to fall into the rhythm of using sarcasm or teasing to deflect questions you don’t want answering, and it’s surprising how naturally it comes to him as well.

The night is turning into morning when the fire dies and you agree to go back inside. Well, it’s less that you agree on it than you tell TH38 quite sternly that you’re not at the stage of your relationship where you’d feel comfortable with him lying on your shoulder and dragging him home twice in a day. He pouts (which, again, you need time to process).

Still, you have to admit that it feels kind of good that you have someone accompany you while you walk to your room.

Come morning, it still feels like a dream. So you take extra time to simply lie in bed and think. You're pretty happy with how things turned out. You mull over what the automaton told you. It was a strange way to live one's life. Did he really think he could be happy with just that? You've read enough about history, fiction and articles, to know that, ultimately, it seldom works out this simple way of life. Maybe if all TH38 could do was work, maybe if he had to fear for his life... Or maybe if you didn't keep pushing onto him stuff to think about. Not that it matters anymore.

Funny enough, you meet the moment you step out of the door. You exchange greetings and share a look. You both know you're both usually up much earlier.

· • —– ٠ ✧ ٠ —–· · • —– ٠ ✧ ٠ —– • ·

The following days go well enough.

You fall into a nice routine of getting to know each other and getting used to no longer being a researcher and a subject. A lot of the barriers between you get torn by this change. You spend your time willingly with each other as if you were always roommates.

Today, too, TH38 keeps you company during breakfast but he seems eager to get up and do something the whole time. Definitely unusual, though he’s always more than eager to explore the woods with you. Then again, never before did he spend the whole time waiting. He doesn’t talk much, he spaces out and nearly jumps out of his chair anytime it seems you might be done with your breakfast. It gets to the point that you have to call him out on it.

"Is something bothering you?" you ask, setting your spoon aside with one hand and laying the other on his shoulder to immediately push him back down to sit.. He looks caught. 

"Can we go out today?" he asks, already looking into the trees through the window.

"We’re always going out. Besides nothing is stopping you from going alone," you mention, but the twitching of your lips betrays you. He pursues his lips and you begin to wonder if he knows it makes you - well, not necessarily uncomfortable but you'll have to get used to it.

"Are you not afraid I'll run off?" and while it's not an unreasonable question... 

"Where would you go?" you ask without missing a beat. And there comes the frown again. "Maybe you should be worried I'll leave you here all on your own."

"What if we stopped?" he sighs and it seems that he's genuinely bothered. 

Sometimes he gets like that suddenly. While you might be getting along better now, there’s still room for improvement. It’s easy enough to make him snap, even though he’s been getting better. During the escape he wasn’t really violent either. He left some bruises, but his intention wasn’t to hurt you, and you never held it against him. 

You’ve noticed the pattern of his behavior. Those weird states mostly overcome him when he’s overwhelmed with emotions. Which explains the first snap - he must’ve been so exhausted it was only a matter of time. He’s never got physical with you again, though he seems fond of making you think he will or backing you into a corner or against something when he's behavior flips.

You wonder where that comes from but he doesn’t have any idea either - not to mention he doesn’t feel entirely comfortable discussing those episodes and delving deeper into what he's feeling. Perhaps it’s the force of a habit - something you both eventually agreed on after many discussions, and afterall it takes one to know one. Try as you might, it’s hard not to analyze him, not to ask pointed questions that would only serve the purpose of researching how his brain works and what makes him tick. And you really don’t want that for him anymore. Though you do dearly miss your job. That’s why you’ve been spending most of your time studying from the old notes in your room and the books to keep your mind stimulated. 

So for now, instead of analyzing why it hurts him to imagine being abandoned, you try to relate to his situation. He finally escaped what basically was a prison only to find himself all alone, with little knowledge as to how the world outside functions. Not to mention he's a fugitive and one bad step could land him back at the facility or worse. He lost his friends, lost his purpose - worse yet, he gave up on the purpose he chose for himself. He’s already so uprooted that maybe it’d truly be best to refrain from making jokes and teasing him about certain topics. Although…

"You started it," you point out, "But sure, let's be adults about this."

"So you're going with me, right?” he circles back to the beginning. It's been a while since someone wanted to be in your company so willingly. Not that he has other options. 

"I’m going, don’t worry," you agree, "Is there any reason why you insist on it?" 

He thinks for a bit, and you note that he's biting his lip in yet another expression of very human-like behavior. He turns a little shyer after a minute. 

"I don't feel comfortable being out there alone. And I hoped maybe you know of some new spot we haven’t been to yet?” 

Something about this feels both so right and so wrong. The automaton is watching you with such a soft expression on his face, a little hopeful it seems. He’s relaxed, you’re relaxed, and it feels comfortable. Two friends on vacation planning their trip for a day. But that’s also what’s throwing you off. You’re too used to being alone - and you thought that’s how you could live forever, be alone and thrive. Only now you realize it’s not a bad feeling at all to have someone to spend your days with, to share a life with - to an extent. 

The irony in this isn’t lost on you.

“I think I remember one,” you hum, “But I’m not sure I remember the way. We might get lost.”

“You don’t have to take me there if it’s a special place,” he reassures you, although his excitement at the prospect of wandering through the forest is impossible to hide. It’s cute. Which is a thought that’s been reappearing in your mind for days now, and maybe that’s not a bad thing.

“I appreciate that, but I told you already that there’s not much special to me here,” you assure him in turn. He’s like a sponge, soaking up all the information he can get - about the world, nature, you, anything. It’s really heartwarming he remembers too, and how mindful he’s trying to be. More than half the humans you’ve met, which is… perhaps not all that surprising.

“Shall we go then?” he prompts you, jumping up from his chair and pulling on your hand to get you to stand up too. You let him pull you up, rolling your eyes.

“Did you miss the part where I said we might get lost?” you chuckle. His excitement was just like that of a child - strangely infectious.

“That’s why we’re leaving early,” he explains to you, slowly, and you’re sure he knows by now how much it annoys you, “So we have time to explore and find the spot.”

Annoying or not, though, you can’t say no.

The journey starts off as usual - almost.

He must know the forest in the closest circle around the cottage by heart by now, but he still seems enchanted by it. Despite his earlier bursts of energy, however, he’s quiet as you walk. It’s nothing too out of the ordinary, but you learned to be cautious. 

“Hey, is something wrong?” you ask carefully when you stop to admire the way sunrays seep through the trees to illuminate a clover patch on the ground. He doesn’t respond. That’s more concerning as he generally tends to tell you when he doesn’t feel like talking. You have a feeling it’s to prevent him from having another outburst, so if he’s not doing that, it might mean something’s seriously wrong. He continues forward before you can speak up again. 

“Hey,” you follow after him - curse his long legs and speed. You think back to all the times you’ve thought he’s like a lost puppy following his owner with a scoff. You don’t like the roles being switched. “What’s going on with you?”

You don’t like repeating yourself. You don’t like not knowing. And you especially don’t like feeling clingy.

“What the fuck, Eig-”

“You’re just like them,” he turns suddenly, making you stumble and nearly bump into his chest. You frown, not understanding who does he mean by them in this lack of context. He sets his jaw like he wants to shut up but then the words spill and you recognize all the signs. “I’m quiet for a couple minutes and everyone's all like ‘Minghao you need to speak up’ and ‘mind your screentime, Minghao’ - how about you leave me alone?”

He’s growling, again trying to make himself as tall and towering as he can. His eyes betray him, though. He is getting better at holding himself back. While you’d oppose that in most other cases, self-control is an important skill for a person to have - especially when strong emotions hit. You read this one as anxiety.

“No need to snap at me, Minghao,” you click your tongue. You make sure to look him in the eye while you say the name. “Just say you want to be left alone.”

This time it’s you walking away. You take the few seconds of silence you have before you know he’ll snap out of it to collect your thoughts. It was only a matter of time before this would happen - before the question of names would pop up. Him picking out a name for himself makes it easier. You heard some of the others also used some sort of nicknames, even if no one ever mentioned TH38, Minghao, among them and neither did he ask you to call him anything but the name the facility assigned him. You wonder how he came up with it, but seeing as it’s still a sensitive topic, you’re gonna leave that conversation for another time.

And here come the steps…

What you don’t expect is to feel a weight on your back, or the warmth seeping through your shirt. You don’t expect the arms around your waist either - or that they would tremble. Nor do you expect the soft, quiet ‘thank you’ that fans across your skin as he speaks those words before removing himself from you. You hesitate for a bit. In just one second, you feel like you need to choose the best course of action. You don’t want to analyze him. You don’t want to think about this like part of your job or rehabilitation or therapy for him.

So you walk on, although you slow down significantly, waiting for him to catch up. He’s still shaking when he does, and his eyes betray how vulnerable he feels.

You meet his gaze from the corner of your eye and tilt your head. He did say he wants to be left alone, so you will respect it until he talks. Which only takes him a little while.

“You almost left me there,” he half-whines, quietly. If he won’t address it, neither will you.

“You’re being dramatic,” you shake your head. It doesn’t seem to have the effect you wanted, however. “Want me to hold your hand,” you tease a little before adding in a softer voice, “Minghao?”

He beams in that soft glow that he radiates when he’s happy. (Not literally.) The one that tugs at your rigid heartstrings.

“You’re too shy to try that,” he pushes right back. Although it’s a challenge, you don’t need to take on every single one. 

In a strange turn of events, you do end up taking his hand anyways. You hold his hand that feels like it belongs in yours and you see that he needs a second to process the feeling as well.

Then he slips and if it wasn’t for you holding his hand, he’d be sitting on his ass. 

You help him get back his balance and join you on the rock you’re standing on. He’s not looking at you anymore, as he wasn’t for a while now, and you decide that it’s best you keep watching over him until he’s not distracted even if it means holding his hand until you get back home. The sacrifices you have to make to keep him safe…

You turn back forward and smile, memories flashing briefly through your mind. Back when you saw the waterfall for the first time, you were just as distracted and reckless. The deafening sound of it, the pure strength behind the rushing, foaming water is enough to take your breath away even now. You had a feeling Minghao would love it.

And he does - he seems so taken by it that it makes you wonder if it would be safer to carry him. He keeps slipping since he barely pays any mind to where he’s stepping and it takes you threatening to leave, dragging him with you, for him to promise to be more careful. Never before did he obey your orders so quickly. Not even back at the facility, and that’s saying a lot.

After a couple more close calls you finally find a piece of land that’s stable and dry enough to stand on and enjoy the view. Minghao is absolutely mesmerized by the waterfall, lips hanging slightly open and eyes glued to the scene. If you’re staring at him instead of the natural wonder, then it’s only so he doesn’t hurl himself into the water.

“Careful or you’ll fall in and drown,” you warn him when, coincidentally, he does absent-mindedly take a step forward and panics when he feels the ground squish and give way under his foot.

“You’d catch me,” he says with certainty that makes something in your stomach twist, “And we’d be miserable and soaked to the bone.”

“Don’t underestimate the water,” you warn him, “It’s pretty deep and I’m not a strong swimmer. We’d just drown together and that’s not a way to go that I’d choose.”

That makes him turn to you with an unreadable expression. He studies you for a moment before turning back towards the waterfall. There’s a new focus in his gaze as his eyes follow the water. It’s not unlike when he’s watching the flames dance while you’re having a bonfire. You wonder if the thoughts running through his mind differ. 

You spend some more there before he asks you to go back.

He stays quiet for most of the way, but you let him. He’s got that far-off look in his eyes that’s a dead giveaway that it wouldn’t be wise to talk to him now. When he calls your name, it's not surprising what he wants to talk about. 

“Is there any?” he hesitates, "Way you'd want to die?"

If you didn't know better, you'd think he was scared. And maybe you truly don't, so you approach the topic just as carefully.

"I think most people do," you explain, "It's probably not like that for you, but for people death is a big deal. We tend to think about it sometimes."

"Why?" his throat bobs as he swallows in a new useless but human behavior.

"It's the one thing we can't choose," you smile, and it seems that your relaxed demeanor calms him.

“You may choose death any second you wish,” he murmurs quietly, walking side by side with you. Something about the topic makes the treetops, swaying in the wind above, look greener.

“But what if I mean the opposite,” you counter and this time you don’t look at him. If he notices the difference, he doesn’t comment on it.

“Immortality, hm?” he breathes in deeply, filling his lungs with the fresh pine-scented air, “Interesting.” 

"Anyway, you at least have the choice," you sigh, more exasperated by the robot who likely won't be able to get your point than the talk of your own inevitable mortality, "I don't. If nothing else, time will make the decision for me."

"Do I?" he muses, aloof in his contemplation as always albeit there's a hint of mirth to his voice.

"All it will take for you to live forever is some maintenance, maybe a couple hardware and software updates," you shrug, "And even if I'm gone and the situation doesn't get better, I bet there are people who'd be willing to help you out. You get to choose whether to live or die."

He mulls the idea over with a hint of a smirk that only seems to grow each second.

"Constant updates and replacements, huh?" he huffs, "Didn't you humans come up with the question about the boat that has all its parts replaced?"

You have to admit it takes you a while, but when it clicks, your eyes get wide and your mouth falls open.

"How do you know about the ship of Theseus?"

"What, did you expect me to be an ignorant mesh of wires and artificial tissue? After all the books you gave me access to?" he scoffs, looking almost offended.

"Well, no, but I also haven't expected to hear about ancient Greek philosophical problems from you," you concede. Maybe you shouldn't be as surprised as you are. After all, Minghao has always been very interested in reading. Almost as much as you’ve been interested in seeing the effect fantasy would have on his artificial brain. But that's long in the past.

"Why have me read those books if you never cared to discuss them with me?" he asks like it's been bothering him for a while now.

"Our sessions were always recorded. I had certain privileges, but most of them weren't for all the higher ups to know about," you shrug, "And after a while I was sure you wouldn't mention anything on your own."

"You trusted me a lot, hm?" he smirks, "Was that why you ran away with me?"

You huff, roll your eyes. He does seem genuinely curious though. You're not sure you want to answer. 

"Did you fall for me?" he moves to walk in front of you, "That's what they made us for."

"We both know why I went with you," you sigh, pushing on his shoulder and he steps aside easily, falling back in step with you. He has a small smile on his face. Maybe you should’ve teased him and said yes. The good vibes don’t last for too long. You can feel the shift in the air.

"Do you regret it?"

You're not brave enough to look at him. The tone of his voice is enough.

"No, I don't," you answer honestly, "I think this is good for both of us."

This time it's not you holding his hand, but him squeezing yours.

It feels nice.

You squeeze back.

Your suspicion that he was bothered by the fact that you never discussed the literature you provided him access to is proven correct not too long afterwards. 

It’s raining outside, the humid air blows in through the open windows as you eat dinner in silence. Minghao joins you at some point and he seems nervous. You give him the time to collect his thoughts until he’s ready to talk.

He starts off casually, with small talk completely unrelated to the real issue but you don’t push him. Honestly you’re happy even if he’s clearly having a lot of emotions, he’s not snapping at you. You also have to stop yourself for the nth time from making a list of human behavior you discover each day as right now he’s fidgeting with his fingers, picking at a frayed thread of the tablecloth.

Then, finally, he asks the question - could you talk about the books?

“Unless you haven’t read them, of course,” he adds quickly, suddenly flustered by your curious gaze.

“I mean you never told me which ones you’ve read,” you grin, and you find yourself enjoying him squirming in front of you, here and now, when you know the anxiety stems from wanting to be understood and to make a connection instead of uncertainty about the future. Not for the first time you find the automaton cute. “I haven’t read all the books I gave you access to, but I read most of them, so try your luck. Which ones were your favorite?”

He relaxes, his features soften as well. He props his elbow on the table and leans his head against his palm.

“This isn’t one of our interviews,” he reminds you playfully, “Which ones are yours?”

You laugh but you’ll give him this one. You answer and he asks another question, prodding for more information like you usually would. It’s not what you expected, but you play along. Unlike you back then, he carefully checks in with you if this is okay - his eyes find yours and he tilts his head, his fingers brush against yours or he gently touches your knee - and he actively participates in the conversation and discussion. 

You wonder if things would be different if this was the approach you used in the facility. If you treated him more like a human and less like a guinea pig, a new prototype or a petri dish. And he must’ve noticed because when you part ways at the top of the stairs, way too late into the night, or rather early morning, after many hours spent talking, he suddenly stops you before you can leave to your room and says: “This wouldn’t work. I wouldn’t work with you like that.”

“I know,” you acknowledge, “The higher-ups wouldn’t let me work like this either. Not with you.”

When he reaches for your hand, you take it. You don’t know if he finds comfort in the gentle squeeze you share before parting for real this time, but you think you might.

Out of the many issues and unspoken things you need to address, the wound in Minghao’s chest remains to be the top priority. He doesn’t mention it often, except in passing when even the bandage fails and it catches on the frayed artificial tissue. He seems embarrassed about it in a way that you know all too well. You also hate asking for help, also hate when you need to be taken care of.

So you sit him down one day and make him take his shirt off again, rolling your eyes - again - at the teasing remarks he tries to hide the flush crawling up his skin. It’s getting easier not to wonder about why they had to be made this human-like.

“I’m fine!” he full-on whines when you try to touch the edges of the wound, slapping your hands away. You heave a sigh, hands on your hips. 

“Listen, buddy-” you start but your words die into laughter at the offended look Minghao sends you.

“Minghao,” you try again, and he nods for you to continue, “We can’t just keep it like that. It hurts.”

“Yeah but only sometimes. And you already said you can’t help,” he shrugs, “Besides it’s just me who’s hurting.”

You do understand that. You’ve used the same excuse too. But he’s not you.

On the other hand, he is right. He let you look at the wound before and it seems like while he did a pretty good job of tearing the device out of his chest, some of the nerve-like wires remained meshed in the surrounding tissue and that’s what’s causing the pain. You can’t imagine doing the extraction yourself. Perhaps back at the beginning, but you couldn’t bring yourself to cause him so much pain now. 

…Honestly you sometimes wonder who out of you two needs training in how to be a human.

You stay silent for a while, having a short staring contest before you run your hand through your hair and accept your defeat. At least to some extent.

“Friends care for each other,” you inform him before removing the bandage from his body before securing it around his torso again, a little tighter just to keep all the peeling pieces pressed together. He hisses in pain but stays still. It seems he’s more occupied by processing your words than by the pain. “So let me care for you, hm? You might not die but let’s keep you functioning for as long as we can.”

He scoffs but ends up smiling anyway.

“I think you should be more worried about taking care of yourself. I don’t think the food you keep eating here is exactly healthy,” he’s teasing, you know, but something about it seems honest too.

“Maybe, but it’s easier to just add water and heat it up than get the ingredients, prepare them, cook, wash up, and all that jazz,” you defend your supply of instant foods. Although it’s true that your stock is beginning to run low and you probably will need to go shopping soon. You dread it, but at the same time you have a feeling Minghao might enjoy a little trip further away from the cottage.

“I can help,” he offers, “If you show me how.”

“Seems like you want to keep me around for a long time,” you dismiss the offer just so you don’t have to pay attention to how hopeful his voice sounded or how attentively he was watching you. You hope he’ll bicker with you, tease you, push back with more snark, but he doesn’t. He simply smiles and lets you finish the work on his bandages.

If your hands tremble and each fleeting touch against his body lingers, neither of you mention it.

It almost seems like Minghao’s been waiting to use your words against you when a couple days later he joins you under the roof of the patio while the storm is raging only a few meters away, drenching the ground with rain. He brings your favorite tea set with you. 

He’s noticed your love for tea, has often asked you to describe the various kinds of it and the flavors, but you never thought it’d come to this.

He sets it all down - the bottle of water, the kettle and the pack of your favorite tea leaves, the glass teapot, and the dark clay one and matching cups - and it surprises you to see he brought two cups. It makes you confused until you notice the tea pet and it gives you a pretty good idea of what he’s planning. You don’t comment on the red hue collecting on the tips of his ears. 

“Friends care for each other,” he murmurs while he sits down next to you. He looks at you and moves closer, your knees bumping together. When you don’t move away, he relaxes and focuses on the tea.

He pours the water into the kettle and lets it boil. You notice he set it to stop at the exact temperature he wants - that the tea requires. He measures the right amount of tea leaves for the teapot he picked while it boils, and when the water is done he first fills the cups and the teapots with the hot water. Then he pours it out before gently placing the tea leaves into the clay teapot and pouring the hot water in again. Almost straight away, he pours the tea into the glass one. 

You watch him and notice he seems nervous. So you decide to make it worse, or comfort him, whatever will be the effect. You put your hand on his knee carefully, startling him regardless. He looks worried before you smile at him: “You’re doing good so far.”

He seems reassured, giving you a grateful smile himself as he pours the first infusion over the little clay frog sitting at the corner of the tea tray. The next infusion he pours into the cups and hands you one, almost dropping it when your fingers brush together.

“Thank you,” you hum, “You’re a fast learner.”

“I just had enough chances to see you do it,” he shakes his head before nodding towards the tea leaves, “I just wasn’t sure I picked the right kind. I noticed you don’t wash all of them.”

“You did. I would help if there was a need but you’re a natural,” you praise, watching as his ears turn redder.

“And you don’t mind if I pretend with you like this?” he swirls the tea in his cup. He won’t look at you, so you make him. Slowly, you move closer to him until you can lay your head on his shoulder. It’s a light touch, he can move away if he wants to. He doesn’t, although his body gets tense.

“Why would I mind?” you say and realize just how comfortable you feel in this moment, “Isn’t this the perfect mood to sit here like this?”

Finally he melts just a little, leaning his head against yours, featherlight and cautious. You’d never guess he’d be this affectionate once comfortable, but lately it feels like his true personality is coming out more and more and you can’t say you dislike it. He doesn’t say anything, instead he leans closer again and rubs his head against yours, just for a second.

You take a sip of the tea and you hate to admit that his exact measurements make it taste better than when you prepare it. It doesn’t happen that you smile without realizing, but since leaving the facility, well, it seems like a lot of things are changing.

When you finish your cup and set it down on the tray again, he quietly pours the content of his cup over the little frog. Somehow it reminds you of him a little.

· • —– ٠ ✧ ٠ —–· · • —– ٠ ✧ ٠ —– • ·

Time passes.

You start to lose track of days and they blend together seamlessly. Has it been months? Years? Who knows. Minghao probably does, but he couldn’t care less. He only mentions the time since the breakout whenever you readjust the bandages on his chest. It almost seems like he’s healing, the compression seems to work a little even on the artificial tissue, although you know that until the remaining wires of the communication device are removed, it will always remain a trouble. He reassures you it’s alright every time and you learn to trust him to express himself truthfully.

He started exploring the outside on his own too. It seems to help him tremendously with dealing with… well, everything. It takes time, you know, and fortunately that’s the one thing that you have in abundance now. Nonetheless, he always seems to appreciate your company, be it on the walks, inside, or on the trips you take sometimes. Usually it’s only to the village to get new supplies of food, but you both remain cautious and even that fills you with adrenaline - among other things.

The locals really make you realize just how indistinguishable from a human Minghao looks. You doubt any of them recognize him for what he truly is, and maybe that’s in part why he always prefers to spend time alone after each of these trips. The highlight for you personally is the older lady who you buy vegetables from that seems to think of you two as the new married couple that just moved in. You make it a competition to see who gets flustered first, though there’s really no shame in losing. Not when Minghao cups your face and squishes your cheeks or hugs you when you begin to stutter - not when you mess with his hair or hold his hand when he’s lost for words.

Life is peaceful.

You think some parts of you are healing, just as Minghao is. He’s getting better at understanding that there’s chaos within peace and peace to be found amidst chaos. He’s learning to experience the emotions he’s suppressed for so long, the good and bad, to let them pass through even if it’s scary and uncomfortable. You try to be helpful. You give him space when he needs it, you talk if that’s what he needs, or let him lay his head on your lap or shoulder if he’s too scared to be left alone with the pandemonium inside his mind.

There are good days and there are bad days. Yet you both grow to be grateful for both.

And there are cold days and warm days too, and on the warm ones, you sometimes sleep outside.

It’s something you’ve never done before and something you now know you'd miss terribly if you could never do it again. Minghao loves it. His excitement remains infectious, which probably adds to your fondness for the warm nights on Silvestre.

Especially nights like this one when there’s not a cloud in the sky and the stars shine brightly above you. The galaxy expands above your heads and it makes you think of the past, of the future, and you understand why the automaton used to be so wary of emotions. They’re overwhelming for you too.

“If they ever catch us, what will you tell them?” Minghao breaks the silence. It’s not often that you talk about the facility anymore, but when you do it’s almost exclusively in whispers under the stars.

“Hm… Depends,” you hum.

“Depends on what?” he turns his head towards you.

“Depends on what will be most likely to get them to allow me to stay and keep working with you,” you mirror his action, “If that means telling them the whole truth about how you’ve done here, I will do that. If that means lying a little, then so be it.”

“Will you tell them the truth about the escape too?” he smirks. But you’re more than ready for the challenge.

“I will them them you kidnapped me.”

“I didn’t-”

“I will them you used force to make me come with you.”

“I didn’t!” he shoots up, sitting upright and looking at you, upset and distressed, “I didn’t have to, you went willingly!”

“I told you,” you smirk, shrugging, “I will tell them what I need to tell them to keep my job.”

Seeing as he remains upset, however, you reach out for him and stroke his arm. He gives you a wary look, one that he always gives you when you brush against a nerve. You smile apologetically at him, brushing some of his hair behind his ear. He scoffs, lying back down with his arms crossed over his chest. “Anything to keep your job but not to keep me.”

“That would suggest I had you in the first place,” your lips stretch further, teasing lilt finding its way into your voice as Minghao freezes and avoids your gaze, “Does this count as a confession, Haohao?” 

“Shut up,” he grumbles. You don’t listen.

“Besides, you are my job. Unless you want to be my pet, my-” you don’t get to offer him other alternatives as he springs from his spot and leans over you, holding himself up with one hand on either side of your body, kneeling next to you.

“Your?” he quirks a brow at you. It’s much harder to stand your ground when he drops the shy act, or maybe just puts on this confident one, but you do anyway.

“What would you like to be, hm? Give me some ideas,” you hum. He sighs, deliberately letting his head fall lover until his hair tickles your skin.

“I would like to be listened to,” he suggests, making you laugh. 

“We’re friends now, aren’t we? Friends push each other’s buttons,” you chide playfully. You feel comfortable. Even with him hovering above you, you feel safe and content. It’s unreal that not so long ago this would be unthinkable. 

“I don’t think we’re friends,” and it’s only the statement, plain and simple. You smile. You really do feel comfortable. It’s a new feeling. And it’s refreshing.

“Isn’t there enough unspoken things between us as is?” you don’t tease anymore. 

“So you have a name for this?” he tilts his head, his smile mirroring yours because he knows you don’t. You admit your defeat with a shake of your head and don’t push him off when he lies down again, only this time with his head resting on your stomach. You’re nice enough to run your fingers through his hair too. He leans into your touch in appreciation.

You stay silent, watching the stars twinkling above. You like this. You could stay like this, you think, and live your life satisfied and happy. But could you? Isn’t that what you both thought before too? Maybe there’s danger here that you’re just not seeing yet. You don’t want to lose this. Then again, it’s not like you can find the answer and the solution at this very moment. Not when you’re distracted by how soft Minghao’s hair feels between your fingers and the feeling of his fingers playing with yours when he inevitably searches for your hand. Maybe it’s about time you came to terms with the fact that he’s right - you’d rather keep him than any job.

You think about where the future could take you until your eyes close and you fall asleep.

There must be some sort of telepathy connecting you two because he brings up the future himself some time later.

You sit down and discuss everything: Are the people at the facility still looking for you? Is there a chance they could find you here? Does anyone remember him anymore - would they recognize him? Is there anywhere else you could go?

There are endless questions and very few answers. Plenty of books and a projector with what seems like an endless supply of old movies and shows are great for entertainment, but suck at providing information about the current situation across your solar system. 

So you work with the worst scenarios each time.

It doesn’t matter much because the outcome you agree on would likely be the same in any case - you can’t stay here forever.

Minghao seems as mournful about it as you feel but you can’t run away from the truth forever. Just because nobody should know about this and nobody bothered you here yet doesn’t mean it will never happen. Not to mention the other factors.

“I wanna see more,” Minghao admits quietly, his hands playing with yours to ease his anxiety, “I like it here. But I’m afraid I’ll feel trapped again if we stay.”

You nod. That’s true, of course. And you can understand his desire to see more - to learn more. It’s one of the things you have in common.

“Do you have anywhere you want to explore?” you ask, supportive as can be because he needs it. Because you want this too.

“Does your family have any other secret mansion?” he might be teasing, but you know he hopes you’ll say yes. It would make things much easier.

“No,” you sigh, then you smile, “So that means we’re completely free. If we have nowhere to go, we might as well go anywhere.”

He might’ve changed quite a bit, yet the soft glow of his happiness never did. He lets his body fall forward and curl against yours. You chuckle and wrap an arm around him.

“I like the sound of that,” he whispers, nuzzling into your shoulder. 

“Me too,” you feel a flutter in your chest. It’s like you’re a child again, being told you’re going on a trip but the destination is a surprise. It’s like you’re back at the facility, before you knew any better, being told you’re going to work with a level 1 automaton but you won’t know which one until Monday. “Let’s do some research and get going?”

“Yeah,” he hums against your skin, “But only after one last night outside. I can’t leave before that.”

Now that’s a sentiment you can relate to.

[problematicraccoon]

I WANNA TALK ABOUT MY SKZ DR AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

heres a lore dump

MKAY so in this reality im gonna be in a polycule situation with the entirety of stray kids (shut up i know im an interdimentional whore), but hwen i first shift there, we're still just friends.

some details about me in that dr is that my name is Alyssa Kolanko, im 23, im in a dance crew thats world renowned with Emmy (the youtuber) Beomhan (our boi) Ryan (hellyxryan) and Ravon (also youtuber), we're all best friends (ive been besties with Ravon since we were teenagers growing up together in ohio, then we both moved to Georgetown, Washington for college and to join the dance crew Ultraviolet)

dance crews are treated like kpop groups are in my cr. we're signed to entertainment companies' dance group divisions, have fanchants, fandoms, light sticks, stadium tours, music videos (where we do dance covers of songs and have cool visuals to go with it). if you guys have any ideas as to what our fandom name should be, i'd appreciate it, i cant come up with jack shit lmao.

i lived with Ravon in a cool loft apartment in Georgetown for four years, ever since we moved when we were 19, and now that we're 23, he's decided he wants to live with his boyfriend of two years, Carter (also youtuber from my cr), and i offered to move out so they could have the loft.

i've known the boys of SKZ since i was 21 and they came to see us perform at a dance festival (a type of concert where a bunch of dance crews come and perform at a stadium or concert hall)

as i've been a youtuber since i was like 15 in this reality, i grew a large following and the guys (skz) have been watching my videos since the beginning.

we quickly become friends after we meet, and become very close over the next few years. they fall head over heels in love with me lmao. i love living in fanfiction. ANYWAY.

now that Ravon and Carter are moving in together, i needed to find somewhere else to live. i expressed to the guys in our gc that i wasnt looking forward to living alone, as i love to live with my friends, and they suggested i move in with them since they're just getting ready to have a house built for them. i agree, and we all work together to build our dream house.

when i spawn in, it'll be the day before i fully move into the house with the guys. my besties (the members of UV) all come to me and Ravon's loft to spend the night and help me pack. then, the following day, the guys come and help pile my stuff into our cars and we head off to our house, where (since its totally empty) we'll lay out blankets and pillows in the unfurnished living room to have a big sleepover until we can get our bedrooms sorted out. i am very scared of living with eight other people btw T0T and it's stray kids for christ sake???? its gonna be so fucking LOUD

OH OH AND I HAVE A CAT. SHES AN ORANGE TABBY AND SHES VERY SWEET AND STUPID AND RUNS INTO WALLS AND HER NAME IS MINKA. SHES 2 AND I ADOPTED HER WHEN SHE WAS JUST A KITTEN <3 minho is absolutely OBSESSED with her

and im besties with Brittany Broski because i adore her she is everything to me i would lay down my life for her

and as for my backstory; very tragic, kinda personal, wont share much about that. but all that you need to know is that my parents were shitty, and my aunt Isla (the same one from my better childhood dr, face claim Daphne Zuniga) saved me and my younger brother Eric (eric lloyd) and took us to Ohio from Poland to raise us when i was 13. she also has a son, who's technically my cousin, but i consider him my big brother and he considers me and eric his little siblings. his name is brandon, and his face/personality claim is Brandon Farris (hes a HILARIOUS youtuber, highly recommend him)

so yeah- theres alot more lore in this dr, its definitely my most detailed one, so i might make another post explaining more lmao.

[krukel]

After @seokoilua posted about the My Life, My Music interview (a while ago, this post is partially from my drafts!) I went to relisten to it. And in general it is a very fun interview with a lot of insightful moments about their creation process (Ne Bi Smel in particular) and the mixing process for example. Their voices in general are very soft (in tone, not volume) especially when talking to each other and the vibe is 🥰 I wanted to highlights some of my favourite moments because I want more people to know about them:

2:35 - They talk a bit about doing many concerts in a row and Kris says: "At one point in the summer we had four consecutive days of concerts and the fourth day was already the wors-" (gets cut of by Bojan). Knowing they have now done 7 concerts in 6 days during the nordic tour this is a little funny and a little sad to hear :(

3:59 - Not necessarily a moment but the first song (chosen by Bojan) is Ni Panike by Masayah and I think more people should go listen to Masayah so I'm including it >:)

14:30 - Ne Bi Smel was first called "burning room" and, quoting Bojan, "it couldn't have been more of an Ed Sheeran song." It sounds like the rest was not initially impressed: "and when I brought it to the rehearsal room the boys were like, yeah, hm, yeah no. and I think Jure just started banging on the drums and the guys took on the guitars and started playing some riff."

15:35 - The host asks a question about something they said somewhere else and Bojan and Kris argue a bit about who said that in the first place. It's very cute and my favourite moment is Bojan whispering at the end "I don't think so" because of course he needs to get last word in

21:34 - Hater!Kris returns because apparently he sends "not to appealing" songs to the groupchat?

Kris (about Jet Black Diamonds): The first time that we heard them it was their first single Retro Anorak, and I remember sending over the video to the guys in the group chat and I was like "oh, this is interesting," because usually I send some really… not too- Host: Obscure Kris: No no. Not too appealing Slovenian songs, because- Bojan: Yeah, Kris does that Kris: to be honest there's loads of them and I keep kinda getting them recommended somehow on Facebook or I dunno, it's like a positive feedback loop

Honestly the most surprising thing to me about this is that in the year of our lord 2022 Kris still used Facebook actively enough to stumble across things like that

23:56 - Kris talks about forming Buržoazija and how his guitar instructor recommended Jan: "Jan at that point was really like- I didn't really understand what he was about, he was like an introverted guy, really, also listening to a lot of metal and I was like "okaaay? I guess we'll try?" and then we started to practice and really got along."

25:45 - Luka (Apokalipsa's guitar player) and Martin already knew how to play and Bojan didn't and that's how they decided that he should sing. Also their first performance (also up on youtube, baby Bojči is very cute) was two (2!!) weeks after they started practising together

28:49 - About creating outside of Slovenia

Host: Is there something specific that you haven't yet done that you are desperately keen to do, or is this gonna gently evolve? Bojan: I dunno about the desperately want to do, I guess one thing we "truly desperately want to do" is go out of Slovenia to create. To try a new space. So go to a studio somewhere outside of our borders and see if the mindflow is different there. That is the only thing I can think of right now. Maybe Kris has- Kris: In addition to that, I really wanna see us tour anywhere, anywhere outside of Slovenia" Host: You are beginning to get to the audience already a little bit, […], you can find opportunities Kris: Yes, yes, we are, don't worry about it. We just don't want to talk to much about it yet Bojan: Let's say we're gonna have another interview next year and we're gonna have so much to talk about

This was before Hamburg where they created Carpe Diem and before London and honestly I'm glad they're getting to experience that Erasmus+/semester abroad experience because it's something they really wanted to do and they seem to be enjoying it a lot

[anarchistmemecollective]

great labour history here

transcript below

I am mildly obsessed with these moments in history - specifically, sports history - when somebody looks at the way everybody is doing something and says, but, wait a second. What if I tried it this totally unexpected other way?

You know, famously, in high jump, a guy named Dick Fosbury started jumping over the bar backwards, and it was so effective that now everyone does it.

Or in baseball - at some point, a very clever player was like, what if instead of swinging at a fast-moving ball - what if I just hold the bat up to where the ball is going to be and (clicks tongue) knock it frustratingly into the infield? And the bunt is born. Love the bunt.

And look, I'm obsessed with these moments because it forces everyone to be like, wait a second. Can they do that? That can't be legal. But yeah, it is, and the game is changed forever.

NICK FOUNTAIN, HOST:

And Kenny, of course, these moments don't just happen in sporting competition. They happen in our world, too - the world of economics and business. And there is an example that has become particularly relevant right now.

MALONE: Yeah, so we're in the middle of what people have been calling hot labor summer. I guess it's turned into, I don't know, unseasonably warm labor fall or whatever.

FOUNTAIN: (Laughter).

MALONE: But yes, we are seeing this spate of labor actions across the country - strikes in Hollywood, at hospitals and schools, at car factories.

FOUNTAIN: And, you know, strikes are not so different from sports. They both have chanting and people holding up punny signs. But more importantly, they also have competing teams employing tactics and countertactics and counter-countertactics.

MALONE: In other words, labor is kind of exactly the right kind of situation for the right person to come along and jump backwards over the way things are supposed to work and change labor disputes forever.

(SOUNDBITE OF ANTOINE BRUNO FREDERIQUE BLANC, JAMES PATRICK KALETH AND MAX BRONCO'S "TAKE ME BACK AGAIN")

MALONE: Hello, and welcome to PLANET MONEY. I'm Kenny Malone.

FOUNTAIN: And I'm Nick Fountain. And if you had to pick a Fosbury flop, bunt moment in labor history, a decent candidate might be what happened 30 years ago when one airline went to war with a group of scrappy flight attendants.

MALONE: Today on the show, the story of what happened when a union figured out how to strike without really going on strike. It seemed too good to be true. There were legal challenges. There were shady flights to Guadalajara. And arguably, it's a case study that is still shaping the labor disputes we see today.

(SOUNDBITE OF ANTOINE BRUNO FREDERIQUE BLANC, JAMES PATRICK KALETH AND MAX BRONCO'S "TAKE ME BACK AGAIN")

MALONE: Before we get into our story, you have to understand this enormous threat that has been hanging over airline unions for the last 3 1/2 decades.

FOUNTAIN: Yeah, we're going to call it the TWA threat because, in 1986, the flight attendants for Trans World Airlines, also known as TWA, were in a labor dispute with their airline. And it was looking like they were going to have to strike.

MALONE: And, you know, the thing about a strike is if you generally follow all the rules and the letter of the law, the government protects that labor action. Like, you are not allowed to be fired when you're striking. That's the deal. So great - the TWA flight attendants went on strike.

FOUNTAIN: But what was so notable about what happened in 1986 is that TWA found a legal workaround - a way to effectively fire all those striking flight attendants without technically firing anyone.

MALONE: Yeah, apparently, when a flight attendant walked off the job - went on strike - it was legal for TWA to fill that newly vacated position. TWA wasn't actually firing anyone, but the flight attendant that went on strike - well, they would have to wait until another position opened up. And, of course, until that happened, that flight attendant was functionally fired. They weren't working. They weren't earning a paycheck.

FOUNTAIN: And the TWA move in 1986 was to do this on a massive scale. When the flight attendants went on strike, the company started replacing them - thousands of people. It would take years before a new TWA job would open up for most of them.

DAVID BORER: And they were all replaced by scabs. The sanitized term for it is permanent replacements.

MALONE: But you're a labor lawyer, so...

BORER: Right.

MALONE: ...You call them scabs, sure.

BORER: That's right.

MALONE: This is longtime labor lawyer David Borer.

BORER: It was horrifying. And, you know, you look at that and you think, oh, my gosh, we can't ever let this happen again.

MALONE: David was watching this TWA fiasco carefully because back then, he was just starting out as the union lawyer for a different group of flight attendants, which included the ones that our story is about today, the flight attendants of Alaska Airlines.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR: At Alaska Airlines, we discount fares, but we never discount service.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

FOUNTAIN: Ba, ba, ba, ba-bum. Ba-bum, ba-bum.

So we pick up a handful of years after the TWA stuff. It's 1993. David was negotiating the new contract for those Alaska Airlines flight attendants.

MALONE: And David says, negotiations were not going very well. And so he and the flight attendants, they had started meeting to discuss what to do next.

BORER: We spent the better part of a week talking about strategy. And we knew the guiding thing behind all of it was, we can't do what the TWA flight attendants did.

MALONE: Right, because now all of the airlines have the TWA playbook. So if your flight attendants go on strike, you just use the old TWA move and replace those pesky strikers.

FOUNTAIN: One of the people David was strategizing with...

GAIL BIGELOW: Good morning, Nick. It's Gail Bigelow.

FOUNTAIN: Gail Bigelow was an Alaska Airlines flight attendant and one of the union's lead negotiators. And she says, this contract negotiation time, it was tense. Alaska Airlines was a small-ish company. And suddenly, not everyone was on the same side.

BIGELOW: And so they had their people who were either married to or friends with or whatever from different departments, and so they were getting information. I'm sure they weren't...

FOUNTAIN: Ooh, there were spies in your ranks.

BIGELOW: There were spies in the ranks. Yes, indeed.

MALONE: To avoid spies, David and Gail had started to hold secret strategy meetings. And really, the focus was trying to find a way around this sort of impossible problem, which was, if the flight attendants go on strike, Alaska Airlines is just going to use the TWA strategy and replace all of the flight attendants. David says they knew they needed a counterstrategy.

BORER: Of course. Sun Tzu says you don't attack your opponents directly, you attack their strategy.

MALONE: Were you literally the guy quoting Sun Tzu's "The Art Of War" at the union organizing meeting?

BORER: Oh, yeah.

MALONE: (Laughter).

BORER: Call me crazy, but, I mean, there's a lot in there. This idea of attacking their strategy was, like, directly applicable.

MALONE: Attack the airline's strategy. Now, remember, the TWA move was to effectively fire everyone without technically firing anyone. Well, David and Gail thought, what if there is a way for us to effectively go on strike without actually going on strike?

FOUNTAIN: In other words, what if they could create the impact of a strike without the risk of a strike? On June 19, 1993, the union calls a press conference.

MARY JO MANZANARES: There's a bunch of chairs. There are people in chairs. There are cameras.

FOUNTAIN: Mary Jo Manzanares was acting as a union spokesperson at that press conference.

MARY JO: There are print reporters, there's television reporters. The big question, of course, was, what were we going to do next?

MALONE: What were they going to do next? And if you were one of the reporters there, it was totally reasonable to expect the big announcement to be the Alaska flight attendants are going on strike. But what happens instead is pretty incredible. Mary Jo walks up to the microphone and basically says, we are not going on strike yet. We will strike, but we aren't telling anyone any of the details.

FOUNTAIN: Here's Mary Jo making the announcement back then.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

MARY JO: So where do we strike, when do we strike, what do we strike? I don't know, and none of you know. And none of management knows. And none of the traveling public knows.

MALONE: The union's thinking was that Alaska Airlines couldn't replace the striking flight attendants if they weren't actually striking yet.

FOUNTAIN: And yet, the announcement made that threat of a strike very real. Mary Jo was at the podium saying that they could strike at any moment on any flight.

MALONE: She told the crowd of reporters that the union was calling this strategy CHAOS, which she was quick to point out was an acronym.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

MARY JO: Create havoc around our system.

MALONE: Create havoc around our system. And you can think of the CHAOS strategy as, like, guerilla warfare. You know, when you're up against a bigger, more powerful opponent, you keep them scrambling. You carefully pick the moment you're going to attack. Hopefully, that forces your opponent to prepare for anything and everything constantly.

FOUNTAIN: And you know who loves a good guerilla warfare, airline chaos story?

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: Now, live at 11 o'clock, KOMO News 4.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #1: Good evening, everyone. If you fly Alaska Airlines, a labor dispute might affect your travel plans.

FOUNTAIN: The television news.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #1: Alaska flight attendants are threatening to create chaos this summer for passengers aboard the airline.

MALONE: Yeah. I mean, this was made-for-TV-news stuff. What's a better story than CHAOS in the skies, or pay us or CHAOS?

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #2: We just don't know when this stoppage or slowdown or disruption of service is going to occur, but it could happen literally any moment, David (ph).

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #3: And of course, that's the tactic of the flight attendants, is not to let anybody know, that threat that something might happen at some time. Has it had any effect on bookings by the airline?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #2: As a matter of fact, it has. The company wouldn't get into specifics, give us absolute numbers, but they did concede today that, yes, the number of bookings is down because of this.

MALONE: Yes, the bookings were going down, and this was key. The union was basically getting the benefits of a strike without suffering the consequences.

FOUNTAIN: Right 'cause if you think about the way a normal strike works, it's all about inflicting economic harm on your opponent. So, like, the company won't make any money because their workers have walked off the job, but also, those workers aren't getting paid either. Normally, both sides are taking the financial hit.

MALONE: But with the flight attendants here, their airline was losing bookings because of the strike threat. And yet, the Alaska flight attendants weren't actually striking yet, so Alaska still had to pay them. And if CHAOS was the strategy, flight attendant and union negotiator Gail Bigelow says it was working better than she had ever expected.

BIGELOW: I had people calling me at my home saying, oh, I have tickets to take my kids to Disneyland. Please don't strike my flight. I mean, people I barely knew. And...

(LAUGHTER)

BIGELOW: ...So it was working.

FOUNTAIN: CHAOS was working. No one knew what would happen next, says union lawyer David Borer.

BORER: And that was part of the strategy - was to keep them guessing. Sun Tzu - to go back to Sun Tzu - says a confused enemy is easily defeated. I know it's corny and everything, but strikes are so much like warfare that it's actually directly applicable.

FOUNTAIN: Now, this whole not striking but threatening to strike thing - this was just phase one of the CHAOS strategy because the union knew this phase could only last so long. Like, eventually they would become the flight attendants who cried strike over and over, and people would stop taking their threat seriously. Phase two of CHAOS was coming - a real strike somewhere, sometime, just eventually.

MALONE: In the meantime, Alaska Airlines - they were preparing for that moment. Greg Witter was a spokesperson for Alaska Airlines at the time, and he was in the boardroom helping to figure out Alaska's plan, their countermove, for when those strikes finally did begin.

GREG WITTER: In preparation for the fact that there could be a strike, all the management personnel were trained as flight attendants so that if there is...

MALONE: Including you?

WITTER: Including me. Yep. Yeah, I went off to three weeks of flight attendant training.

MALONE: Tell me about going to flight attendant school. Yeah.

WITTER: Oh, very intense.

MALONE: Intense because, of course, being a flight attendant is so much more than safety demos and handing out little bags of pretzels or whatever.

FOUNTAIN: Yeah. Greg says he had to practice for an emergency landing, pass a pretty rigorous swim test, memorize a phonebook-size safety manual.

WITTER: You've got to learn, basically, every inch of every aircraft you fly. You got to know the least-risk bomb location and...

FOUNTAIN: The what?

WITTER: Latches for this - oh, the least-risk bomb location. So if someone on the plane says they've got a bomb in the bag, and you're able to wrest that bag away from them, where can you put that bomb on the aircraft where it would do the least damage if it went off.

FOUNTAIN: That's a thing? What?

WITTER: That is the thing. Absolutely. The least-risk bomb location - absolutely a thing.

MALONE: And what is the least-risk bomb location? I mean, should we even tell people this, Nick? Is this dangerous information?

FOUNTAIN: It's helpful information.

MALONE: OK, OK. Greg says it's usually behind the engine. Least-risk bomb location - behind the engine. There you go.

FOUNTAIN: So Alaska was training people like Greg, the press guy, and hundreds of other manager types not to become full-time replacements, but as stopgap attendants for the moment the union finally started to strike.

MALONE: Yeah, right because Alaska Airlines was worried about the strike starting, like, in the middle of the flight or something. And so they actually started booking seats for Greg and this crew of managers trained to be flight attendants onto as many flights as possible. You know, that way, if the strike did start mid-flight, one of those people could jump up and suddenly become a flight attendant.

FOUNTAIN: Greg says he was assigned to literally just sit on the flight from Seattle to Guadalajara, Mexico, over and over again. At one point, he says, he even got pulled aside by the Mexican authorities.

WITTER: I just - I remember my heart was pounding when they hauled me into the backroom. And I thought, oh, my God, I know exactly what they're thinking here. And I presume they thought I was a drug mule of some kind.

FOUNTAIN: Sure.

WITTER: Like, who's this guy that keeps flying from Seattle to Guadalajara every four days, you know?

MALONE: Now, having Greg and lots of other management people flying around and sitting at airports - this was just a way to temporarily keep flights going when the big strike eventually did happen.

FOUNTAIN: But Alaska's bigger move was going to be the TWA strategy. As soon as the attendants walked off the job, Alaska could replace them with an army of new flight attendants.

MALONE: Of course, Alaska had to hire that army. They had to find a whole new workforce. And so Alaska held a giant job fair - even sent their assistant vice president of employee relations to this thing.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: We are going through the selection process to put people into training for future openings. And, of course...

MALONE: This, by the way, is the weirdest job fair I have ever heard about. For one, remember, Alaska didn't have any jobs to fill yet since no one was striking yet. But also, there are people picketing the job fair, and reporters are asking the job fair attendees basically, like, hey, don't you feel bad signing up to take a job from someone who's going to go on strike?

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: I'm not worried about them. I got a wife and kids to support. You know, that's their problem.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: I don't know them, so - if I knew them personally, it'd probably hurt. But I don't, so it doesn't bother me.

FOUNTAIN: OK, so our two sides have their strategies. The flight attendants have CHAOS, their constant strike threat without actually striking yet.

MALONE: And then, Alaska is preparing for the moment that flight attendants finally do strike, preparing to go full TWA, hiring their army of replacements.

After the break, the strike begins.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

MALONE: The CHAOS campaign had two phases - phase one, threaten to strike at any moment and then phase two, actually strike, actually have flight attendants walk off the job.

FOUNTAIN: Two months into the campaign, they decided it was time to move into phase two. Gail Bigelow had been collecting the names of her fellow flight attendants who were willing to walk off the job, and they got put on what she called the Guts List.

BIGELOW: They'd have the guts to do it, yes. It was - that's the Guts List.

FOUNTAIN: 'Cause going on strike as a flight attendant very likely meant getting permanently replaced, you know, because of the looming TWA strategy.

BIGELOW: Well, it was frightening for me because I was in a position to try to encourage the flight attendants to strike.

FOUNTAIN: You were asking them to make a - take a crazy risk. They might all lose their jobs.

BIGELOW: It was a crazy risk, yes.

MALONE: It was also this huge puzzle for the flight attendants. Phase two of CHAOS meant actually going on strike. And yet, the moment a flight attendant walked off the job, Alaska was allowed to replace them, pull the old TWA move.

FOUNTAIN: Gail and the union team thought they just might have discovered a way around this, a way to strike without getting replaced.

MALONE: Yeah, it was a very clever, very chaotic kind of countermove to the entire TWA strategy, but they couldn't be sure that it would work until they actually tried it.

FOUNTAIN: The moment of truth came on August 20, 1993, and the whole thing unfolded like a SEAL Team Six mission or something.

MALONE: The target? A fully booked 6 p.m. flight leaving out of Alaska's hub in Seattle. That flight had a crew who had signed up for the Guts List.

FOUNTAIN: One of those flight attendants was Jennifer Price. She says it was a seemingly normal day. She was at the airport when a union official walked up to her and said...

JENNIFER PRICE: OK, Jennifer, we've chosen your crew. You will be striking your flight.

MALONE: Jennifer calmly gets on the plane, stows her baggage, does the preflight checks.

FOUNTAIN: She's there with her fellow flight attendants, Chris (ph) and Barb (ph).

PRICE: The boarding agent came down to the plane and said, are you ready to board? And Barb said, no, we are not ready to board. On the advice of our union, we're engaging in strike action, and we won't be available to perform our work assignment (laughter). And you could see the agent's eyes getting bigger. And then she said, you're kidding. No, I'm not. And we grabbed our suitcases and walked off the airplane.

MALONE: Jennifer and her crew walked past the passengers who were all ready to board. She says they looked confused. They looked like they were getting worried.

FOUNTAIN: And at this exact moment, Gail Bigelow, who's back at strike headquarters, sends a fax to Alaska Airlines saying, we are writing to inform you that we are striking this one flight, Flight 536 out of Seattle's airport.

MALONE: There it was. The strike had officially begun. Yes, it was just one flight crew on one flight. But this was the moment Alaska Airlines had been preparing for.

FOUNTAIN: Yeah, an emergency team of those managers that were trained to be flight attendants jumps into action to sub in for that striking flight crew.

MALONE: But of course, the bigger Alaska strategy was the TWA strategy. As long as Jennifer and her crew were on strike, Alaska was allowed to permanently fill the positions they just walked out on - to effectively fire Jennifer while she's on strike.

FOUNTAIN: But after just 28 minutes of the strike, Gail Bigelow sends a second fax to Alaska Airlines saying, actually, strike's over now.

MALONE: And here's why that is a genius move. Alaska hadn't actually managed to get the paperwork together or whatever it would take to permanently replace Jennifer's flight crew during that 28-minute strike window. That crew was no longer on strike, and so the union was pretty sure Jennifer's group of attendants was now safe from getting TWAed (ph), from getting replaced. Here's Gail Bigelow again.

BIGELOW: The three of them came back to strike headquarters then. And I can remember the picture of them, and they were all very relieved to be in strike headquarters, knowing that they were going to get their jobs back.

MALONE: Flight attendant Jennifer Price remembers that moment - walking back into headquarters that night.

PRICE: Oh, yeah, they cheered. We were the heroes of the day. It was - you know, that was helpful (laughter).

FOUNTAIN: The kind of strike that happened that night, it has a technical name. It's called intermittent striking.

MALONE: Yeah. You know, the idea is instead of everyone going on strike and then staying on strike, you do a bunch of little strikes. In this case, you strike one flight at a time and just for a tiny window of time. And the union was hoping that this would make it incredibly hard for Alaska to actually catch and permanently replace attendants while they were on strike.

FOUNTAIN: And the flight attendants kept attacking this way. Four days later, they struck a flight out of Vegas, then hit five Bay Area flights on the same day.

MALONE: And it was chaos every time this happened. Alaska had to scramble to get their managers onto these flights as flight attendants. Alaska spokesperson Greg Witter remembers being at Seattle's airport when somebody from his company comes, like, running up to him.

WITTER: We have a walk-off. And it was me and two guys from marketing. We were hailed. You guys got to go work a flight. Oh, my God. All three of us - the blood drained out of our faces.

FOUNTAIN: So Greg rushes to get on the flight, and then he realizes he's going to have to give the iconic safety demo.

WITTER: My heart literally was about coming through my throat while I'm doing this safety demonstration. I had cold sweats. Oh, my God. My palms were all sweaty and clammy. It was terrible.

FOUNTAIN: How many flights do you think you did that day?

WITTER: One, two, three. God, I think probably at least three until we got to fly home.

FOUNTAIN: Greg can't exactly remember because it was a total mess. It was clearly an unsustainable solution for Alaska, and it had been just three weeks of this intermittent striking.

MALONE: In the end, here is how this whole tactic-countertactic battle wound down. In what feels a little like an act of desperation, Alaska Airlines said, you know what? We think this intermittent striking thing - we think it's actually not allowed. So forget being replaced. If you do this, you're going to get straight-up fired. The union took Alaska Airlines to court, and the court sided with the union. They said intermittent striking is protected by law.

FOUNTAIN: And the union's like, OK then. We're going to keep doing these intermittent strikes until we get a decent contract. Less than two weeks later, Alaska proposed what Gail thought was pretty decent contract.

MALONE: Gail had been at this for more than three years, and just like that, it was over.

BIGELOW: I was like, oh, my gosh. I have my life back (laughter). I mean, really, that's how I felt. I have my life back. But I - but in seriousness, I felt really good about it. I felt the contract was a good contract.

MALONE: David Borer, the Sun-Tzu-quoting lawyer, agrees. He says the new contract was phenomenal for the flight attendants.

FOUNTAIN: So it was a great victory in your head.

BORER: Yeah, like the poster on my wall, total victory. No, I mean, we didn't lose a single job. Nobody who struck lost any income. And we got a contract with a 60% raise that we hadn't even asked for.

FOUNTAIN: David thinks it was the most successful labor strike of a generation. And he says the CHAOS strategy has kept working for the union. Since that Alaska flight, not a single flight attendant from David's union has had to strike in the U.S. The mere threat of CHAOS has been enough.

MALONE: And I suppose it is reasonable at this point to then wonder, why doesn't every strike use this exact same CHAOS playbook? It seems like the obvious thing to do.

FOUNTAIN: Well, the answer to that one is a little in the weeds. So airline strikes and, actually, railroad strikes, too, have one set of rules. But most other strikes are governed by a different set of rules. And those rules don't allow for this kind of intermittent on-again, off-again striking.

MALONE: Yeah. So for instance, we've got this United Auto Workers strike happening right now. Once the UAW announces, for example, that the Ford assembly plant in Wayne, Mich., is now on strike, well, those workers are going to need to be on strike until the dispute is over. They're not allowed to 20 minutes later, say, oh, hey, never mind. This plant's strike is over.

FOUNTAIN: But what has been really interesting to watch are the ways that the UAW and their president, Shawn Fain, do really seem to be introducing CHAOS where they're allowed to. Attorney David Borer has noticed this too.

BORER: Nobody's asking Shawn Fain, oh, how long do you think you can hold out? They're all saying, oh, when are you going to strike the next plant? And that's exactly how it was with Alaska.

FOUNTAIN: Right. Because what the UAW has done is start by striking at three auto factories, and then it has added a strike at a factory somewhere else, and then at somewhere else and then somewhere else. The rhythm of this UAW strike is sounding a lot like the CHAOS strike from 30 years ago.

MALONE: Yeah, it's funny. I was driving to work the other day and heard a report from our colleague Camila Domonoske about the UAW strike. Here, we'll play a little bit of it for you.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

CAMILA DOMONOSKE: No one knows how long these strikes will last or what kinds of locations could be targeted next or even which companies. The union has said...

MALONE: So, yeah, I heard that. And I just thought, like, wow, that sounds so similar to that wild press conference 30 years ago when the Alaska flight attendants first introduced CHAOS to the world of labor.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: So where do we strike? When do we strike? What do we strike? I don't know, and none of you know, and none of management knows and none of the traveling public knows.

(SOUNDBITE OF LUNA CITIES' "BELIEVE")

FOUNTAIN: You can email us at planetmoney@npr.org, or you can find us on TikTok, Facebook or Instagram. We're @planetmoney.

MALONE: Our show today was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler with help from Dave Blanchard and Willa Rubin. It was edited by Jess Jiang and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. It was mastered by Hans Copeland. Ayda Pourasad helped with research. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

FOUNTAIN: Shout-out to the Wall Street Journal reporters Nora Eckert, Mike Colias and Ryan Felton, whose mention of the CHAOS strategy in an article about the UAW's present strategy turned us on to the story. I'm Nick Fountain.

MALONE: I'm Kenny Malone. This is NPR. Thanks for listening.

[xerith-42]

Minecraft Diaries Stoner Headcanons

Part 2 in the Aphverse Stoner Series!

Disclaimer: I haven't watched Season 3! I mean, I have, but I don't remember any of it other than that Blaze was in it-- And I just checked the wiki and he's a villain? Uhm. No, he isn't. Hatsune help me I'm going to have to make a whole post about that now... anyways, pretend Blaze is just like another guard Irena gathered because she just collects them like they're pokemon.

Blaze our beloved to start us off. Uh, pipe weed is really common in Ru'aun, it's actually a primary export. And well, Blaze is a pretty big fan of it. Once when he's smoking weed with his friend, he comes to a realization.

"Listen, listen. We use earth with the plant, fire by lighting it, and air to inhale it. What we're missing is water." I am saying that Blaze made the first bong in the MCD universe. Or that he at least came up with it and was credited for the original idea. These two are very proud of their idea and want to spread it everywhere.

Pipe weed is not allowed at the guard academy, and guards are expected to remain sober, even though alcohol is okay?? Doesn't really make sense to a lot of new cadets, including Laurance, who's able to smuggle it in, and hide it from Garroth.

Vylad does actually smoke pipe weed, particularly while on his own during those 15 years. It helps relax their muscles, and causes a sort of numbness that helps keep the calling quiet.

When he tells Laurance of this, both of them share it together at some point.

Dante used to smoke weed with Laurance on slow nights in Phoenix Drop, and even smoked it with Nicole a few times. He quit when he found out Nana was pregnant.

The number one smoker is Travis. His mom had a stock pile of it he found, enough to last years, and it's one of the main things he brings with him to Ru'aun.

When Travis and Blaze meet, they are instant friends. I don't know what happens in Season 3, but this is all that matters to me. They would be BESTIES!!

Despite being banned by the church, Zane is in a position of power so the rules don't apply to him. He never does it when he has something serious going on, but when Zane has some downtime, he'll light up a bowl to take the strain out of his shoulders.

A downside of being a Shadow Knight is that your lungs are much more used to inhaling smoke and dealing with heat thanks to the Nether, so they have some insane tolerance. Like, Vylad was smoking so much, and Laurance is never not frustrated at how much he has to go through in a single sitting just to feel something.

And Aaron? When he was a father? And a Lord?? Of course he was smoking. He was very careful about it, and kept it away from Jacob. And as he traveled with the rest of the cast, he was always careful to hide it from the kids. He didn't quite mind if anyone else saw, as long as they were smart enough not to ask for it.

Travis is not smart enough.

Also Aaron likes wearing the bandana when he accidentally gets a little too high so no one can see how bloodshot his eyes are. Irena can tell by the way he stumbles a little more than usual.

Zoey? Pot head. She's literally an immortal elf, she has tried every drug Ru'aun has ever had and then some. She stops smoking it as much when she's taking care of the kids, but after the group is gone for a few years and she spends more nights searching for a way to bring them back, she picks it back up to try and seem less stressed when people talk to her.

I feel like all Lords smoke just a little. Like, it's such a stressful job. You're constantly having to care for so many people, be a master of subjects you might not have studied, and who knows when one day you wake up to the news that you have to ready yourself for war. People need a way to relieve the stress.

Except Irena. She tried it once when she caught Aaron smoking and it tasted so bad and she did not enjoy the feeling at all. When she becomes friends with Blaze he tries to coax her into it, but she never caves, and he backs off.

LUCINDA on the other hand!! She's a witch! She's a bit of an herbalist! Does she know the perfect growing conditions for the plant of origin and how to cultivate it's harvest for maximum output?? You bet your ass she does!

Blaze x Lucinda x Travis polycule when?

The first time Lucinda and Blaze meet each other he tells her about his innovation of using glass devices to create water vapor that you can smoke, and Lucinda very eagerly drags him into her brewing room and just proudly goes "I have a cauldron!! >:)" And Blaze gets so excited!! He's already trying to figure out what he would have to custom order to work with this, but he needs to try it.

Wait why is that adorable I need to write that now.

[hit-song-showdown]

Year-End Poll #65: 2014

[Image description: a collage of photos of the 10 musicians and musical groups featured in this poll. In order from left to right, top to bottom: Pharrell Williams, Katy Perry, John Legend, Iggy Azalea, OneRepublic, Jason Derulo, Magic!, Meghan Trainor, Ariana Grande, Sam Smith. End description]

More information about this blog here

As mentioned in the previous poll, we're now seeing streaming services like Spotify taking over music consumption. Much like how Billboard had to adapt to individual retail sales in the 1950's, MTV rotation in the 1980's, Nielsen SoundScan in the 1990's, and YouTube views in the early 2010's, Spotify streams are now going to be incorporated more into Billboard's charts, with their album charts adapting to this shift in late 2014.

But before we welcome in another chart, 2014 is the year we'll also have to say goodbye to one. It feels like just yesterday we were talking about the rise of the ringtone. But as musical ringtones were starting to fall out of favor in the general public (with streaming people were growing accustomed to no longer having to pay 99 cents for a song -- they weren't going to pay 2 dollars for a snippet of one), Billboard's ringtone charts were retired in 2014, with Taylor Swift's Shake It Off as the final number 1 ringtone in America.

In 2014, we're seeing the continuing rise of retro-inspired production, with the neo soul of Pharrell Williams' Happy, the doo-wop pastiche of Meghan Trainor's All About That Bass, and the funk elements of Ariana Grande's Problem. And with Jason Derulo's Talk Dirty sampling its hook from Balkan Beat Box's Hermetico, it seems like this was a pretty good year for brass samples. Also fun fact about Happy, apparently that song was Pharrell Williams' tenth attempt at writing a song for the Despicable Me 2 soundtrack. Sadly, we will never hear those other 9 versions. Or else I would have put all of them on this poll.

Speaking of musical influence, we're also starting to see trap starting to rise in mainstream popularity. Trap music is a style of rap originating out of the southern hip-hop scene, notable for its 808 drums, snares, and triple-timed hi-hats. The origins of the style can be traced back to the 1990's during the rise of southern rap, with many trap acts coming out of Atlanta and Memphis. In fact one of the guest rappers on today's poll, Juicy J on Katy Perry's Dark Horse, is one of the pioneers of this style with his group, Three 6 Mafia. While Three 6 Mafia is associated with a variety of subgenres (gangster rap, horrorcore, crunk, etc), the trajectory of trap music can often be traced back to them. I don't usually give out homework on these polls, so instead I will just strongly suggest that you check out Mystic Stylez if you haven't already. We'll have to wait a few years until we see the explosive growth of the modern trap movement in the mainstream.