#or at least pay a bit less bc of their conditions i would be okay with that too

[the---hermit]

I think i have a superpower for buying slightly damaged books without realizing until it's too late

[autisticandroids]

Okay so this was a while back but im preety sure you had mentioned an au of yours where dean is a serial killer and cas successfully stalks him but i don't think you talked about it more than that and i just really want to hear a bit more bc that idea sounds so tastefully fucked up

okay so. weeks later i finally end up answering this ask. it inspired this post btw. anyway spn is a show that's like. all about justifications, as i said in the post inspired by this ask. it's about having no choice and doing what you have to do. and like there is the phantasy embedded in it, a phantasy that is both indulged and punished. but most importantly it's justified. the monsters are super strong to show how brave our heroes are for fighting them, the main characters let out great wails of grief every time their lady loves are violently ripped from them (even though now they are free to do whatever they want), the narrative twists to show our heroes as correct whatever they do. the fantasy (of being allowed to enact violence, of being free from feminine "control," of being right) comes first. the material construction of the universe of supernatural comes afterward. whatever the fantasy is, the universe of supernatural will provide material conditions to justify its acting-out.

and what this means is that our protagonists, dean in particular, are constantly doing just horrific things, which in any other circumstance would be unconscionable. but the universe of supernatural provides justification for these acts. the point of my serial killer au which i think about so so so much is to ask the question: what if these justifications melted out from under their feet? what if dean was left holding nothing but a lie and the weight of everything he's done?

therefore, the premise of my au is such (under the cut because this baby is long):

john and mary winchester, in the mid seventies, joined a doomsday cult known as the men of letters. the men of letters were rather unusual for a doomsday cult, in that they believed that the apocalypse could be prevented by human behavior. this started as correct living, correct worship, yadda yadda, the kind of behavior and thought control that cults are known for, but with the justification of: if you don't do this, the world will end. eventually, this escalated to human sacrifice. the men of letters managed to untraceably kill two homeless people in the late seventies. but they eventually fell apart. however, a month after john and mary left the men of letters (mostly john's choice, mary still believed), mary died in a house fire. john took it as a sign from god that actually, the men of letters were right, and the world would end unless john himself did something about it. so he took some of the (intensely numerological) theology of the men of letters. and he worked out his own formula. and he applied it to the yellow pages. and started ritualistically killed people to prevent the apocalypse, with his two sons in the back of the car.

now, obviously, this is some kind of grief induced temporary madness on john's part, shaped by the mental abuse he suffered in the men of letters. but the thing is, once you've killed a couple of people to prevent the apocalypse. well. there's this thing called the sunk costs fallacy. john wasn't gonna question his own beliefs after that.

and he raised his boys to believe it, too, or at least he raised dean to. they didn't tell sam what they did until he was twelve, and sam didn't buy it, tried to call the cops on them several times but in the end, they always prevented him. eventually sam ran off to stanford, where he now lives under a cloud of guilt that he's too loyal to his family to rat them out.

john died a few years back of a heart attack, but dean is convinced it's because he messed up a ritual two weeks before it happened, so it pushed him further into this belief system.

dean's killings (and john's before him) are ritualistic and distinctive, obviously the same killer each time. but they happen anywhere in the united states, seemingly at random, there are inconsistent amounts of time between each one (sometimes as short as days, sometimes as long as years), and there is no particular victim profile. obviously, since our killers are following an arcane mathematical formula to make their choices for them, but the police don't know that.

castiel novak is an unemployed shut-in with a small inheritance which he's living off of, a cryptography degree, and an obsession with all things morbid. he spends most of his time on the reddit true crime forums, playing amateur sleuth. by complete chance, he happens to recognize one of the symbols frequently used in corpse displays by the so-called sioux falls satanic slaughterer (so named because the first time three of his victims were in the same part of the country, it so happened that they were all in sioux falls, south dakota. this was in the late eighties.) as being mostly only used by a little known cult group called the men of letters, which dissolved in the mid eighties.

he only notices this because, as a teen, he had a special interest in cults and fringe religious groups. the men of letters weren't a particularly notable or well known phenomenon; they were small, and a lot like every other cult that formed during the seventies cult boom. (no outsider ever heard about the human sacrifice; there were rumors, of course, but they were garbled, sensationalized, and mixed up with satanic panic fodder.)

(the men of letters' two sacrifices were nothing particularly romantic or fantastical. they first lured panhandler josie sands back to their compound with promises of food and a warm bed when she admitted she couldn't get a bed at a shelter, and was thinking of getting caught shoplifting just so she could be under a roof in the county jail. the men of letters' leader, a man who took on the name alistair, forced his inner circle to dress in the ceremonial black robes he had given them when he initiated them into his nearest and dearest, and which his wife had sewn out of old bed sheets and dyed black with home made oak gall dye. these robes still left black smudges on the wearer's skin occasionally if they sweated too much. josie was laid, bound, on the altar, a slapdash thing constructed over the course of two days from scrap plywood and a couple of milk crates. a rich red tablecloth purchased at macy's for $3.99 hid its ugliness and gave it grandeur. alistair attempted to kill the struggling miss sands by bringing a sharpened kitchen knife down on her bosom and piercing her heart, but, having never killed a human or even slaughtered an animal before, was unaware of the problem presented by the human ribcage. after rather ineffectually poking at the area beneath sands' bosom with his knife while she shrieked in pain and terror for about ninety seconds, alistair tried a different tack, and slit her throat, which worked just fine, and she bled out quite nicely. the second and final victim of the men of letters was a local vagrant named larry ganem, an older gentleman who walked with a limp. he was lured back to the compound in approximately the same manner as sands, but instead of being bound, he was fed stew laced with sleeping pills. even if alistair hadn't slit his throat, he wouldn't have woken up. it's actually arguable whether he was still alive at time of sacrifice; mary winchester (eight months into her first pregnancy), who, as a member of the inner circle, was in attendance, actually tried to take ganem's pulse as he lay on the altar (now covered by a different tablecloth; the red one had turned stiff with sands' blood and been subsequently burned) and found nothing, so it is entirely possibly only sands' death can be directly laid at alistair's feet, and ganem's is the fault of mrs. ellen harvelle, who prepared the laced stew. regardless, these two deaths are lessons in the nature of human evil: it is very rarely skilled, suave, or smooth. it's often slapdash, half-hearted, and just plain incompetent. but that makes it no less grisly. alistair may have begun to drink his own kool-aid, as it were, and escalated this far out of genuine belief that the apocalypse was coming and it was up to him to stop it, but it is far more likely that he sensed the imminent collapse of his little empire, and wanted to bind his subjects to him through the horrors of shared guilt, considering two lives a small price to pay for the continued loyalty of his inner circle. and the tactic worked: the men of letters didn't start to collapse in earnest until almost four years later. perhaps if alistair had continued the killings, the men of letters could have lasted for far longer, maybe even up until the present day. but it seems that alistair, a psychiatrist by training and unused to violence, simply didn't have the stomach for it. unlike, say, john winchester, who before his time with the men of letters had done a two year tour in vietnam, during which he had killed three living, thinking human beings with the american government's go-ahead.)

anyway. castiel is the first person, ever, to make the connection between the men of letters and the sioux falls satanic slaughterer. and once that connection is made, castiel begins to research the men of letters far more in-depth. and he notices something: the theology of the men of letters was intensely numerological, filled with patterns, significant numbers, and even spiritual equations.

castiel thinks of the seemingly random selection of the slaughterer's victims, and has an epiphany.

he cracks all his fingers, and gets coding.

six months. it takes castiel six months to discover an equation that could fit the slaughterer's pattern. it's complex, but also clearly based on several of the men of letters' holy numbers, and accounts for every single one of the killings. it also suggests that there should have been two or three more deaths scattered across the years, but more than likely those did happen, it's just that they weren't reported as part of the slaughterer's portfolio.

but much more importantly, castiel's model can also make predictions. there will be two killings, fifteen days apart, in a city seven hours' drive away, six weeks from now.

so castiel waits. and he books a hotel room. and two months later, he's waiting outside 217 oak street when a shadowy figure climbs up a tree and lets itself into the upstairs window.

dean winchester is feeling particularly all alone in the world when he breaks into maisey banks' home (217 oak street). his father has been dead for half a decade, and he hasn't spoken to his baby brother for twice that. it's not like this whole grizzly saving the world business makes him a lot of friends. so once he's done killing maisey (which is easy, she was ninety three and dying of cancer anyway. she doesn't even wake up when he slits her throat) and arranging her corpse in the appropriate manner, with prayers and sigils, he turns around. and sees a man standing behind him.

smiling slightly.

as he watches dean gut this old woman.

dean freezes.

the man takes a step forward.

"you're very attractive for a serial killer who's been operating since the eighties."

dean is silent.

"family business, is it?"

silence continues.

"i'm not here to report you to police. i'm just here to see if my algorithm worked right."

and dean finally breaks his silence: "what the hell is wrong with you?"

what's fun here is that dean knows (or rather "knows") that he isn't a serial killer. so he finds what cas is doing, this amoral serial killer stormchasing, morally repugnant. because cas has no way of knowing he isn't a regular serial killer.

there's also the fact that that cas proceeds to flirt with him. aggressively. and follows him back to his motel.

but the thing is that dean is all alone in the world. and as cas continues trailing him around, he starts getting, well, flattered. and feeling a little bit less alone.

it doesn't take very long before they fall into bed. even if cas is an amoral stalker with a fetish for what dean considers a distasteful yet necessary vocation.

so. they fall into bed. they fall in love. they make a little life together, in dean's big sexy car. dean tries to explain to cas that he's saving the world. that these people's lives are a necessary price to pay. and cas seems to listen.

of course, castiel doesn't believe a word of it. but he's found that he likes dean. really likes him. and he realizes that the collapse of dean's belief system would destroy him.

so he sets about becoming as complicit in it as possible.

even to the extent where, when dean is hit by a car and ends up into the hospital a day before one killing is meant to take place, castiel agrees to take on the job. (he doesn't actually kill anyone, obviously. but he does use his extensive skill with computers to create three fake newspaper articles which make it look like he has.)

but five years later, something goes wrong. really, really wrong. dean miscalculates the formula. and by the time he checks his work, the actual date of the next kill, as demanded by the formula, has passed. in fact, so have three others. and the world didn't end.

dean collapses. he hyperventilates. all those people. all those people. for no reason. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people. all those people.

cas seems totally unfazed. dean stares at him in shock. but cas just takes dean in his arms, and whispers in his ear: "oh, dean, i never believed in the equation. i love you no matter what you've done."

and dean buries his face in cas' chest.

[palmett-hoes]

per your post "every single one of the monsters is autistic and/or adhd" will you elaborate on that?, if you do i will love you forever (not that i wont if you dont do it)

oh boy i would love to!!! unironically nothing brings me more joy than writing long, convoluted character analysis posts

---

okay so i’ve written several posts before about why andrew is autistic. his moral code, the roundabout way he communicates, his body language, his stimulation-seeking behavior, his strict adherence to transactional deals, the emphasis on honesty, and a dozen other details. at this point i just take andrew being autistic as fact, not just an interpretation

h o w e v e r  i also hc that andrew is dyslexic, which is also a neurodiverse condition

- - -

similarly, i’ve seen more than one person interpret kevin as autistic, and i absolutely agree that it fits. not just the hyperfocus on exy but mostly the way he communicates. he’s very indirect, especially in his affection but very direct with his opinions. he tries to be helpful in a material way to the people he cares about, even if he comes off as negative. he wants the people he cares about to be safe and successful so he pushes them to work hard and reminds them in measurable ways how to stay healthy. he doesn’t factor in a lot of room for emotions, so instead he focuses on quantifiable things that he can improve. i personally act very similarly. approaching someone emotionally is hard for me, so when the people i care about have problems all i can think to do is try offering solutions, check up on their well-being, etc. practicality instead of conventional sentiment is extremely common with asd

- - -

so now let’s talk about neil. i had to think on this one for a WHILE but ultimately came to the conclusion that neil is adhd, probably hyperactive type. 

like obviously neil is high energy. i would say he probably does the most exercise of anyone on the team. morning run, morning practice, afternoon practice, night practice with kevin and andrew, plus he doesn’t have a car so he runs to class (on a BIG ass campus), and goes for an extra run when he feels stressed. that’s... insane, honestly.

neil reminds me SO MUCH of this post that goes:

“Was just informed by my mom that I do in fact have ADHD and the reason I thought I didn’t was because ever since I was seven whenever I got super energetic my mom would have me go chop wood so now when I’m feeling The ADHD I go chop wood”

(phenomenal post) and that’s neil to a t. tell me this isn’t exactly how neil handles his problems and also exactly what mary would have had to do to keep her unmedicated and very energetic son focused on the task of staying alive

neil also definitely has that ADHD on/off switch with his interest. the obvious being exy which is like the definition of a hyperfixation, but you can see it in other things: the way he runs totally hot or totally cold with people, his complete disinterest in his schoolwork, the way he can’t seem to sit still long enough to follow movies. but then there’s also the hyperfocus. doing the same drill for hours on end. watching exy game after exy game. staring at andrew until time falls away

what’s more, neil on many occasions shows racing thoughts, both in an anxiety way (and anxiety often goes hand-and-hand with adhd) but also as a way to quickly and accurately take in details about people to build a character profile of them. this is what allows him to connect with the foxes, how he manages to get through andrew’s puzzles, and even how he knows what to say in order to knock riko down a peg. his brain just works so fast and it takes in a lot of very specific details and disparate information to make connections.

but also like,, neil has a HUGE problem with time blindness. like the instant he didn’t have his mother around to manage and direct him anymore he lost all sense of time. he stayed in Millport for a YEAR. and what did he keep telling himself during that time? basically “i really need to move on, but not just yet.” for a YEAR! then he gets to palmetto and he’s like “i’ll cut and run in a month or two” then he doesn’t “i’ll be gone by halloween” wrong again “i’ll leave by the raven’s game” nope. like,, the boy just has NO sense of time and he can’t seem to make himself DO anything outside of an externally enforced schedule. and even then,,, HE HAD 48 FUCKING DAYS TO FIGURE OUT SOMETHING TO DO TO NOT GET MURDERED! 48 WHOLE DAYS. he didn’t make a plan, he didn’t write down any letters with goodbyes, he didn’t GO TO THE FBI LIKE HE’D INTENDED TO THE WHOLE TIME! nah he just made out with andrew and when he finally got to zero he was just like “ah shit, that was fast. oh well guess i’ll die” and that’s time blindness, babey!

---

let’s move on to nicky. 

now i think it would be really easy to say nicky is just adhd because he’s high energy and forgetful but tbh,, i don’t think that’s all of it. like if you really look at nicky’s character and especially at his problems, he has asd problems just as much as he has adhd problems.

so nicky is dual diagnosis asd and adhd. also nicky reminds me a lot of a girl i used to know who was autistic/adhd

so, adhd:

very generally speaking, ppl with adhd will struggle with sitting still, listening to and following instructions, planning/organization, following a schedule, and some social boundaries like “appropriate” times and topics of conversation

i would say you see hints of this with nicky. he’s definitely a rambunctious personality, constantly on the move, constantly stimulation seeking. he’s very tactile. he likes to dance, he likes to party, he complains about it but he’s an elite-level athlete. he’s also decidedly very chatty, and doesn’t seem to really pay attention to what he’s saying. he distracts himself and the people around him have to keep him on track. he has some trouble with boundaries. he’s a little all over the place. he’s almost a bit of an adhd stereotype

also one thing i find interesting is that when neil sees him in the library doing work neil is surprised to see he’s capable of that, especially bc when we see the upperclassmen doing work they generally do it in their dorms or on the bus and/or with other people around. that hyper-social nicky would be alone in a quiet place is weird. but this is like the most common tip for dealing with adhd. don’t do it in a familiar space. have a designated space and time to do work. limit distractions. just a lil detail

so now, asd:

in all honesty, most of nicky’s actual problems in the narrative could be viewed as stemming from asd symptoms. his number one issue being that he has a lot of trouble with nonverbal cues (and tbh, verbal ones too). the twins are mostly quiet. andrew especially (when he’s sober) communicates primarily nonverbally, and nicky seems to have a lot of trouble with this. despite knowing them for the longest on the team, nicky honestly seems to have the least insight into the way either of the twins actually thinks or processes things. he loves them, and he’s very forgiving of them, but he fundamentally doesn’t understand them. 

the twins, andrew especially, put up a LOT of nonverbal boundaries, and nicky sort of inadvertently keeps trampling all over them. he’s touchy in a way they don’t like. he talks a lot about their personal lives to other people. he treats them like they’re joking when they’re serious. etc. and like,,, you kind of get the sense that the upperclassmen feel similarly about him. beyond the homophobia, beyond the fact that he’s loyal to andrew, the upperclassmen still treat him with this sense of,, bafflement, i suppose? it’s clear that they don’t really understand him and he doesn’t really understand them. although, nicky IS curious about the upperclassmen, while the upperclassmen are pretty dismissive of him. it reminds me of when my sweet, floppy dog tries to play with my cat. their body language is different; they’re each receiving different signals than they believe they’re sending out

only,, nicky loves people!! he likes being around them, he likes talking to them. he’s interested in their lives and stories, but it’s very clear that he can’t read between the lines on people. he has an incredibly hard time with people who expect their actions to speak for them, which is most people, but is especially his cousins.

actually this is very much also an issue that i have: things need to be spelled out for me. the way i deal with it is i ask a lot of questions. ‘how do you want me to react to this potential situation?’ ‘what are specific things that make you most comfortable?’ ‘please explain to me exactly how you feel and what has prompted those feelings?’ and i’m always communicating vice versa like that with other people. a lot of specifics in both questions and answers

and the interesting thing is, when i was skimming through the books reviewing dialogue styles for another ask, i noticed that, actually, nicky DOES do this. with neil and the upperclassmen, nicky asks a LOT of quick, clarifying questions. things that ask after tone, that ask after intent. it’s kinda sad that he does this for communicating with acquaintances, but with the twins, the people he’s closest to, he makes a lot more assumptions. and i’m really proud of nicky for having this coping skill, because i can’t imagine it’s something he grew up doing. there’s no way he was raised in an environment that fostered this kind of open communication so it must have been something he learned about much later, probably in germany with the kloses, which would also explain why he’s a lil imperfect about it

---

now last but not least, aaron

this is another one i had to think through for a long time before it felt like it fit

much like how i felt that it would be easy to read nicky as simply adhd rather than also asd, i think it would be easy to say aaron is autistic simply because he is quieter, less rambunctious. however, i actually think he’s adhd, likely primarily inattentive type

in all honesty, aaron’s #1 character trait for the first two books is basically that he’s disconnected. detached. separated both from his family and his team. not in the same forcefully apathetic way that andrew is, more,, spaced out. he’s just kind,, there. not really paying attention to what’s going on, tuning in every once in a while only if something really catches his eye/ear then tuning right back out again. just sits in his corner and plays on his phone. and the thing is, from the moments when he does tune in, you can tell that he actually does care. he backs nicky when seth insults him in tfc, and we know he cares deeply about andrew even if he’s become disillusioned with their fraught relationship. he even hangs with his family, doesn’t seem to really try and slip away to other friends besides katelyn, he’s fine spending his leisure time with the monsters. so it’s not totally apathy, he’s just,,, tuned out most of the time

and, yea, that sounds like adhd. it’s not the type that most people are familiar with, and for a lot of people this causes it to slip under the radar. it can make it hard to get help or a dx because it doesn’t fit with how adhd “should” look or how someone “should” act, but difficulty focusing your thoughts and staying in tune with the current moment is absolutely part of adhd

addiction is also a huge problem for people with adhd. a lot of stimulants affect people with adhd very differently than neurotypicals, especially in small doses, and an adhd kid who’s struggled their whole lives with the disorder might try speed or god-forbid meth or fuck even coffee and suddenly find that things are a lot easier for them. they start to self-medicate, they don’t actually know what they’re doing, and then they’re addicted, and everything spirals out of control. we don’t know too many details about aaron’s addiction other than that his mother enabled him, but wouldn’t this fit? it’s also an explanation for aaron still taking drugs at eden’s, given that cracker dust seems to be a mild amphetamine. (aaron talk to betsy about the neurocog and get an actual prescription please)

(total throw away but aaron plays videogames and videogames are like,, adhd culture)

[faerielleart]

People have the right to their opinions and they have the right to speak their minds, you cannot call them out for having an opinion just because it hurts your feelings of "artist". Consider accommodating their request as not everyone will afford what you offer. Just advice.

okay i have been staring at this ask for hours trying to find a response bc WOW lol gotta love strangers butting in during situations that don’t involve them in the slightest when they don’t even know what exactly went down (bc i haven’t made any detailed post about this shit i only made a complaint last night referencing some stuff and yet you’re here assuming shit but alright ig) also not answering the other ask which i’m like 99% sure was written by you as well but anyway, i’ll condense my response here

bestie idk how to tell you this but! why the heck would you contact someone for a commission and then complain about the price range??? do you REALLY think this isn’t fucking rude? do you really really really? do you really think it isn’t kinda disrespectful for a thought process to be “oh yeah lol ur shit looks decent enough for me to request something but only if you lower your price for me, a random stranger you have literally never spoken to in your entire life bc i have the right to my own opinion” ??? do you really? “speaking your mind” about what exactly? don’t you think it’s a liiiiittle bit rude and uncalled for to essentially tell someone their work is shit and not worth the money?

i have my commission info written very clearly, with prices and examples of what i’m willing to do, if you read it over, decide you wanna commission me, THEN complain to me about the pricing and start getting pissy when i’m not willing to underprice something that takes me hours to complete i’m sorry but you’re in the wrong period point blank full stop

don’t you think it’s like basic etiquette to read through terms and conditions first before deciding to contact someone? don’t you think it’s literally being in the wrong ignoring a simple set of rules and complaining about having to pay for someone’s work? why are you even asking for a commission if you want it for free? why would you start telling me “my art isn’t worth it anyway” the moment things don’t go your way? bc that’s what went down babe. it’s not me complaining about someone “criticizing me”. it’s me being disrespected by a stranger for no reason whatsoever. over something THEY started, not me.

just don’t freaking contact me to begin with? how entitled do you have to be? i take literally 25 US dollars for a fully rendered artwork of a full body and if i convert it to euros and take out the paypal fees i’m left with like 18 euros. for something that takes me at least 5 hours to paint. that’s literally less than 4 euros per hour. i’m really sorry, but you don’t get to be rude to me and expect art for free. it doesn’t work like that.

[soymilka8]

Spray Paint - Hwang Hyunjin

pairing: hwang hyunjin X gn reader !

genre: fluff

warnings: none, just a bit of cheesy stuff tho. (this is my very first fanfiction here so i'm sorry if it's rough, i'm not really all that familiar with the layout of Tumblr yet lol.)

word count: 3.5 k words

synopsis: hyunjin helps you fulfill your dream of spray painting on one chilly christmas night.

master-list.

also, please let me know if the owner of this gif is okay with me using it! bcs i literally just searched up hwang hyunjin snow in gif.

the sound of something pulling you out of your sleep.

eyes lazily lift themself up for a better view, body suddenly going limp as you bother to make out the muffled noise. it was 1AM. usually, your figure would have been awoke at this time, with the pads of your fingertips gliding across the controller and your exhausted but dedicated eyes glued stuck to the screen.

but today wasn't one of those days. it was indeed christmas, as you observed how the snowflakes would cascade down the clean window of your dorm room. it was indeed, christmas.

you sighed delicately, snuggling closer to the warm blankets which were the only thing keeping you snug this head aching holiday. another one of those days where you couldn't sleep, another one of those sleepless nights where you were a mix of being too tired but not tired enough to get the desired slumber.

it always happened at christmas, too. it had become a tradition by now, not having the capabilities to sleep during the first fall of snowflakes.

another sigh.

somehow, this year has gotten worse. maybe by the end of the holidays, you'd be looking like a dead zombie because of the lack of sleep. you chuckled at the thought. though christmas is a holiday spent with family, friends, acquaintances and just having fun in general— you had none you'd consider as any.

ping.

— except, for maybe that one.

a grin had spread across your features as your hands nimbly reached for the phone underneath your pillow, opening the phone with your password and eagerly responding to the message. perhaps, a tad bit too excited you were but as you saw the words written on the notification, your grin couldn't help but enlarge. okay, maybe you were more than excited.

you immediately jolted up from the comfort of your own bed, grabbing a pair of warm boots and heading out the door in hurry. you couldn't bother to put on anything affable any more, your pajamas were most likely warm enough.

and so, you ran and you ran; with the delicate but heavy christmas snow disrupting you, and the cold weather wrapping around your finger like a ring, you continued on running with the same stupid grin spreading across your features.

because finally, you had something to look forward to this christmas.

“are you sure this much is enough?”

“we might need a bit more...” a battle inside of your head occured as you contemplated. it was rough, having to use your head when the weather was inhospitable and gloomy. not to mention, you were not wearing clothes suitable to which you inwardly groaned at. curse your sudden heap of excitement, curse your bad decision making.

having to decide in the cold winter weather was tiring when all you wished for were warm clothes and the abilities to turn back time, to go back to your dorm and switch attire but alas, no point in doing so as you were already out now.

all you could do was nod, shaking the can bottle abruptly and briskly walking away. the convenience store didn't provide as much warmth as you had hoped. not only were you stuck in cold weather but in your shameful panda pajamas.

“let's buy two more, at least.” a voice threw you out of your trance. you shifted slightly from discomfort, eyeing the person who accompanied you with hurry. “no, this is enough.”

“but that much paint is only gonna take us the face to draw, what about the rest of the body?”

a breathy sighed ran past you as you finally gave in, caging your body in an attempt to pass through body heat. not that you were successful in doing so. “fine, let's get five more bottles.”

a grin had spread across the other person's features, along with the redness of his nose and the moon shape of his eyes. your heart stopped so suddenly, as if the frost stuck beneath your whole stomach went away in a whiplash; it was now swarmed with butterflies, filling you up with warmness. though you couldn't see much of the face because of the beanie and his large coat enwrapping him, heat crept upon your skin at his god sent features.

he was all too perfect.

once he had returned with five more bottles, you payed at the cashier with your own money and the both of you excited the air conditioned convenience store, the both of you feeling the same exact thing: it was damn cold in there.

“here, hold the spray bottles first.” the man said to you upon exciting the convenience store as he handed you the bag filled with spray bottles. albeit hesitant, you took the paper bag and raised your brow at confusion upon seeing him remove his coat.

“hyunjin, what are you doing? it's cold, don't remove your coat.”

he only grinned at this though, now creeping closer to your and wrapping the cost around your shoulders. he pulled back, reaching for the paper bag in your hands, placing them on the ground, and inserting your arms carefully inside his large coat. you were still confused at this, appalled even as you stared at him through wide eyes.

sure, you had already felt warm because of the coat but what about him? is he not gonna feel cold? and most importantly, why would he go as far as giving you his coat?

“you can wear it for now, i'm not cold.” he answered the question inside your head, giving you the same closed eye smile he once did in the convenience store. hot, cozy, butterflies spread again in the out of your stomach. you were looking for warmth earlier but now it seemed as if it was too much it was almost overwhelming.

“... thank you.”

was all you were able to muster as he held out his hand, grabbing hold of yours, and dragging you with those large footsteps of his.

through the buried snow and the noisy headlights, you were there, to hear hwang hyunjin's heavy panting breathe against your ears and you wouldn't have it any other way.

it had always been your dream to make kids smile.

the thought of their laughter reaching your ears or simply just imagining it was enough for you— for the both of you as he promised whatever your dreams were, it was his as well.

maybe it was just the fact that you were a castaway, maybe trauma had etched itself into you far too deeply and you were afraid of being someone you hated most but whatever it is your heart was feeling inside, you were grateful he was always there beside you.

as you stare at the blank billboard in front of you, a soft smile ran down your face; your hands were holding two bottles of spray cans, shaking it slightly with a hint of excitement in your features. he was beside you, gawking at the way your eyes would sparkle at the thought of making your dreams come true.

hwang hyunjin possibly fell down a deep hole just by you. your dreams, your aspirations, your melancholic voice, your soothing comfort— you, you, you. his mind was simply filled with you.

“are ya ready, hyunjin?” you voiced out, breaking him out of his daydreaming. hyunjin shook his head abruptly, a blush covering his features and nodding at you as he followed your stare at the billboard in front.

it was big, big enough to catch people's attention. actually, no, scratch that. it was larger than the both of you had initially intended; it was more or less, enough to keep people staring and observing. still, you didn't mind as you prepped your bottles and neared the billboard.

a santa clause, reindeer, over-joyed kids, and fake reality you had planned of painting against the smooth surface the night before. having told hyunjin this, he was a bit surprised at your idea of spray painting on an enormous billboard with him. usually, it would only be him and his group of friends who'd cause mischief such as this, drawing random drabbles, art, and graffiti, waiting for the police to chase them.

he never brought you into any of his gimmick despite knowing your hands were creative. he was simply too overprotective. though he'd usually tell you of what he and his friends do every single time, at 1AM, he once again, never had the courage to tell you to come with them.

you never did, really. you never bothered to.

however, once you suddenly came in out of the blue, asking him to take you to one of the billboards with him only— hyunjin was confused and denying of this fact. he didn't want you getting in trouble for illegally doing graffiti and albeit the sound of prison romance sounding real pleasant against his ears, he knew that prison was not what it seemed like in books and novels.

though your persistence is what shook him off the most and eventually, he agreed to taking you with him to one of the graffiti spots not without manifesting that if ever the police do come, he'd be the only one to get caught.

he lazily shook the bottle around, eyeing the large and tall billboard. you had come with him once, on his graffiti trip with his friends. though it was long ago, you were still aware of what you had to do to reach the higher parts of the billboard. there were platforms, large and safe enough for you to climb onto.

and without any hesitation, you easily climbed onto one of them, surprising hyunjin as he hurriedly went beneath the platform if ever you were to fall.

“hyunjin—” you called out from above, sensing his presence underneath you as you started spray painting, “go do as we had planned, i'll be alright.” you tried on reassuring. hyunjin slowly but hesitantly backed away from you, biting his lip in the process as he continued to stare at you from above.

he felt on edge but nonetheless, he tried his best to focus as he neared the billboard and did his own part.

twenty minutes, thirty minutes, an hour, two hours, three hours— and finally.

“wah!” you heard a gasp from beside you.

finally!

you were done, the beautiful art work from beside you, displaying across as it had come to contact with the shine. it took hours of work, hours of neck pain but alas, you were done finished.

you attempted climbing off the platform, your foot walking backwards. you thought there was a ledge down there— you thought. a small yelp escaped from your lips as you had no time to process whatever it is just happened, you only felt the cold breeze of the rising sun hitting your face as you fell. it once again, felt chilling. your body froze like earlier, so cold and barren.

but before you even think of hitting the hard ground, you felt something catch you. they felt like strong, arms and you looked to the sides, only to see your only and only friend— hyunjin, eyes wide, mouth agape and delving in worry. he had caught you within his arms.

carefully setting you down onto your feet, hyunjin had sighed and lightly brushed of his pants. you were still wide-eyed, trying to process what just occured. you could've gotten a concussion down there, you could've gotten brain damage or worse— you could've forgotten about hyunjin.

the worse possible scenarios of whatever may happen to your body dissipated as you thought about ever forgetting hyunjin, you couldn't bear to lose him, not him. and without even realising it, tears started to cascade down your cheeks as your breath hitched from the sudden emotion you felt.

your heart had panged loudly within your ears, the thought of forgetting hyunjin getting louder and louder. soon, those droplets of tears turned into sobs and hyunjin looked at you with confusion and worry. his hands were fumbling with each other, confused, and maybe even heartbroken.

had he caused this?

but as if his minds were paralyzing his actions, he neared your figure, raising your chin up to look at his eyes and with his soft and gentle fingers— he brushed the tears off of your cheeks. hyunjin cooes softly, bringing you towards him further and entrapping you into his warm arms. his were around your shoulder as yours were around his waist, hugging him tightly.

“what are you crying for, you cry baby?” he teases.

“i— i don't know, it's just—” you choked on your own tears and hyunjin cooed again, hugging you tighter than ever and patting your head in the most comforting manner.

“your dream came true, right? look,” hyunjin pulled away from the hug, staring softly into your tear filled eyes as he caressed your cheeks. his head pointed into the direction of the bottom of the billboard, your head following soon after.

and there, you saw a few little kids.

you saw them, staring at the art you drew with hyunjin in awe. you saw how their eyes sparkled, how they pointed and how some would say, “look it's santa claus” or, “wow, rudolph the red nosed reindeer!”

and it warmed your heart.

you slightly pulled away from the hug, nearing the edge of the platform of the billboard and waved at the little kids who came to stare at your drawing. hyunjin followed soon after, sitting down beside you and placing his hand on your waist incase you were to fall again. he promised he'd catch you again this time.

“did you draw this with your boyfriend?” came a cheeky little kid's voice, followed by the soft teases of the other kids as they pointed towards hyunjin. you blushed, shaking your head profusely and attempting to scoot away from hyunjin's grasped.

“n-no, he's not my—” but before you can think of saying any more and moving away from him any further, hyunjin pulled you closer within his arms as he gave the little kids a small wave and his captivating smile. “i drew this with my angel, do you like it?!” he said gleefully.

the little kids followed, throwing giggles and teases of their own. some even whispered, and some just smiled upon seeing your interaction. you however, sat beside hyunjin, cowering away and covering your face with embarrassment as hyunjin waved to the little kids, playing with them from a distance.

you slapped his thigh with your free hand, still keeping the other on your face as you urged him to stop.

“hyunjin, stop, these are kids!”

hyunjin only grinned, halting his finger and heart pointing at the kids as he looked at you. his eyes had softened upon seeing how embarrassed you were and albeit the sun starting to shine so brightly, he removed your hand from your face and gave the side of your lips a quick peck.

your eyes widened, he just kissed you.

he kissed you, in broad daylight— well, not really broad daylight but the point was that he kissed you, in front of the kids!

“hyunjin, what—” and he kissed you again.

for the second time, the third time, the fourth being on your forehead, the fifth being on the tip of your nose, the sixth being under your chin, the seventh being on your cheek and the eighth on your lips.

your eyes were left agape, you couldn't hear nor feel anything anymore. the kids’ voice were a blur as you try to figure out what's real from what's fake; nothing was a dream. hyunjin really had kissed you, and so proudly at that.

you suddenly felt hyunjin lay his forehead on top of yours, the grin still very much visible on his face,

“merry christmas, angel.” hyunjin whispered, caressing your cheeks gently. the smile on his face never faded as he stared at you lovingly, those orbs hold such emotion that you felt it going through your whole body. hyunjin was there, he really was there to share your dream with him.

you smiled back, pulling out of the sweet moment and giving the kids another look. you all saw their lovestruck faces, some were covering their eyes and some held emotions with such disgust it made you chuckle. the first kiss was covered by the sun yet the following was visible, leaving them to bathe in the sweet moment you and hyunjin shared.

you gave them one apologetic smile, opening your mouth to say something until you heard something loud.

it was sirens.

the police had finally come and you flipped your head sidewards, seeing at least about five cars making their way towards the alley you, hyunjin, and the rest of the kids were at. your eyes once again widened and you froze, staring as they neared towards your figure.

you'd been with hyunjin and his friends a couple of times yet whenever the police do ever come, you always stay stuck like ice.

“angel? angel! we have to get out of here, quick!” hyunjin whisper shouted beside you, you felt his hand creep onto your cheek roughly as he squished them. his orbs seethed through yours, a sense of reassurance, safety and— warmth.

“let's bail, yeah?”

and you suddenly felt the fearful sensation within you earlier dissipate. you stood up quickly, brushing your lap and running a bit towards the side of the large platform where a small corner was held. it was enough for you and hyunjin to hide in, not to mention it was pretty well hidden and the view of the sun is beautiful. you didn't have any time to think about it's advantages though as you looked back one last time, seeing the kids’ confused faces.

you held your index finger up, winking slightly and giving them a slight nod. you hoped they would keep it a secret.

hyunjin hurriedly pulled you down, his hands intertwined with yours as his feet made contact with the rough cement. he caught you on time, grunting in the process. and hyunjin ran, keeping you on his shoulder. you didn't bother on convincing him to put you down knowing it would just end up as a huge argument and you'd much rather not initiate that now, not when the police are on the loose.

“how are you feeling, angel?” hyunjin started, settling you into his shoulder more comfortably. you stayed silent for a few seconds, contemplating your feelings and running your memory through everything that had happened today.

hyunjin and you bought spray paint, he gave you his jacket, you held his hand tightly, he helped you spray paint art, he caught you in his arms on time, he called you his, he kissed you too many times, he fulfilled your dreams.

a soft smile adorned your features, “i feel good— no, i feel amazing, actually.”

hyunjin beamed upon hearing your sentence, pulling you just a tad bit closer as he entered the abandoned shed with you still in his arms. “i'm glad.”

he settled you down, panting a bit as he observed the small shed. it was destroyed, no one inhabitated the place yet the spot was perfect for viewing the stars and the moon. there was no stars yet but what there was, was the sun preparing to shine and rise in full view.

hyunjin hurriedly held your palm, sitting down in the rough wood, pulling you on his lap. he was fixated on cuddling against you but you had no problem, even snuggling closer for his warmth. he wrapped his arms around your waist, bringing you just a tad bit into his chest and laying his head into your shoulder.

the sun maybe rising but it was still christmas.

“i'm glad you enjoyed today, angel.” he started, brushing a small kiss past the nape of your neck. “i really am.”

“hyunjin, thank you...”

you turned to face him, ruffling his hair slightly and giving his lips a quick peck. you were not sure if it was official yet but even so, the sudden confidence to kiss him had come.

you stared at his eyes for a moment before once again, kissing his lips, this time more slowly.

hyunjin caught on, kissing back and reciprocating the same action. his hand snaked behind your head as he kept you close to him, lips intertwining and eyes closed from the close contact. his lips felt so humid, it was intoxicating as it sent shivers down your spine.

hyunjin pulled back after the lack of air, laying his forehead against yours once more.

“anything for you, angel.” he whispered, giving your cheek another kiss. “we share our dreams, remember?”

you nodded, suddenly taken aback at the promise you made with him a few years back. his dream was yours to hold, and his was yours. it was a promised you swore to hold until the both of you fulfill it; it was one of the things keeping you binded with him.

“and wherever we maybe...” hyunjin started, now laying his head back into your shoulder and staring at the rising sun. “that dream will never change.”

and you once again nodded, the same overwhelming warmth from a few minutes, a few seconds, and a few hours coming back to you. your stomach felt the same butterflies, so did your eyes apparently as it had started watering out of the blue.

hyunjin kept you warm, hyunjin kept you safe.

he fulfilled your promise, now it was time to fulfill his.

[epic-sorcerer]

(Okay so for those of y’all who are like me and sensitive to people talking bad about stuff they like/general negativity, I’d advise scrolling away. I’ll be talking about a bad experience at Dairy Queen, as I am a sheltered kid of a Heath coach and sensitive to sugar. Do I like the food? No. Do I dislike the people who like the food? Also no. I’m glad people can enjoy something at such a low price. /gen)

If you like this chain, that’s cool. I have found memories of once eating fair Queen when I was really young. Once a vanilla ice cream and once chicken fingers and fries. Honestly I mgiht try the chicken again

However.

I saw a commercial aboht this chocolate chip cookie doe blizzard and I was like “cool” and went on with my life. Days past, it is now the present. It’s a hot day and I wanted ice cream and I was like “:0 what about taht Dairy Queen thing!!”

So I convinced my Heath coach mom to drive us to Dairy Queen. She got a brownie ice cream thing, I got the blizzard. She also needed to get what ever by bio father asked for and bring it. I forgot what that was Bc he ended up having to choose something else bc the machine that made the original thing he wanted what broken.

He chose a chocolate shake and the guy took so long to make it. When mom got to the car where I was the blizzard had melted and I couldn’t do taht upside down thing. Secondly, they don’t have a lid that fits the blizzard cup. They instead have a big lid that balences on top the cup like a comically large hat

On the way home, as the blizzard melted, it started to drip onto my cupholder. Who ever decided aesthetic of a no-lid cup was cool can lick the inside of my cup holder. It’s so sticky. I understand they wanted it to look overflowing with stuff, but it’s not worth it.

Also. The taste.

BORING. UNINSPIRED. Every bite was the same and worse than the last, because my body steadily reacted worse and worse to the discusting amount of sugar. To cover this up, I put some Nutella in it and it was the only thing to make it tasteful. Bc it would otherwise, forlack of a better word, plastic ice cream.

I love everything cookie doe, but every thing jsut felt stale and boring. Like if a beisnuss man with his boring ass briefcase and suit was blended up with the fucking cookie doe. Ugh. It’s like hwat would happen if pretzels had normal salt instead of the big salt. The do it for a reason, it keeps each bite interesting and different.

This blizzard tasted like cookie flavored dry wall, exept it didn’t have the crunchy texture. Honestly, the texture wasn’t that bad really. The only decent part Tbh. I liked that they had cookie doe pellits and skinny chocolate chip squares. That was really the only good thing about it and even then it was okay.

Something about Dairy Queen is so bland, corporate, and safe. The ice cream version of McDonald’s. This “flavor” tastes like the sheer generic-ness of modern graphic design. The corporate artstyle.

Mom had this brownie ice cream thing. She said the brownie bits felt like dog treat pellets and she kept chewing and chewing but it never got destroyed.

We both had the awful feeling of the neutrition-less sludge settling inside our bodies. It felt awful, it almost hurt. To compensate, I ate a foot long, raw carrot but I still feel awful. It felt like I ate from burger lord from good omens.

At least with family owned ice cream, you can feel the love in it. One near where I live is simply named after a popular first name for a person. You get the feeling taht the person really exists and has a passion for ice cream. But I do not know who this Diary Queen is, it just sounds like a worse Freddy murcury. Like he ate cheese right before a show and his voice is suffering from not obeying the Singers Diet.

Even cold stone creamery is much better. Even if it is a big chain, there is still heart. There is emphasis and love for the employees’ ice cream mixing talents. They put on a show like mild habatchi and we watch in awe as they make our treat in font of us with such skill. Idk hwo well the cold stone employees are treated, but still. To the average customer, there is much more emphasis and appreciation aboht them compared to Dairy Queen

The guy at Dairy Queen took like way too long to make a fucking milkshake. I’m not blaming the guy, I’m Blaiming the company. I’m blaming whoever contributed to someone struggling with making a milkshake. Because that is not a happy or maybe even well trained employee.

By the way, it apparently tasted awful and watery, despite the fact the best part of the shake is the ice cream. Dairy Queen centers on ice cream. How did they fuck this up?

Anyways. I still feel sick. We all do. I did have fun complaining though. It’s nice that Dairy Queen puts “(treat)” after their name and almost everything they sell, implying they are a sometimes food. However, I feel they are more of a once a life time food. I dotn think I will ever buy from them again.

I feel the onyl reason my past memories were fond were bc of the context. The first one was when me and my family back in elementary school were driving a long way to a vacation spot and we stopped at a Dairy Queen that makes savory meals. I had fun bc I was exited for the vacation, the food itself was mediocre and cheap but I didn’t care.

The second time was also in elementary, I went to a Dairy Queen with a friend and her family and had lots of fun with them on a hot day. It’s the experience I was remembering, not the taste.

At least when you pay for stuff like fairs and festivals, the horrible conditions are worth it. Yes, you have to use portapottys, yes you have to be in close proximity to way too much peopel, but you are paying directly for a positive experience.

With Dairy Queen you are paying for an “edible”supstance and it is your choise if you also want to have fun.

[nbapprentice]

You said a while back that while Supergiant games (Bastion, Transistor, Hades) was mostly okay, you had some words about them. I was curious as to what those words were, since Hades' full release is soon.

okay. alright. ive been playing hades lately so i definitely want to give my two cents (or dollars by the size this is gonna get). but let’s go Step by Step

the good: i want to throw a whole Endorsement over supergiant games with the art direction and its characters, which is what keeps me coming back again and again, and what i can assume is that most people are attracted to. 

gameplaywise, they have a Format they stick to which has become their staple, not to their detriment but to their advantage, like... gameplay tropes, so to speak, that they stick to (such as the addition of special conditions that give a disadvantage in exchange for more long-term rewards)

i fucking adore that they take one concept per game, go for it, and when they’re done they are Done; they don’t bother with sequels, they don’t want to run things to the ground and i fucking respect that. They have their themes, and they stick to them (to various degrees of success).

that said, like every piece of media, they are not perfect and this has to be analysed and spoken about

CONTENT WARNINGS: genocide and ethnic cleansing, antisemitism, misogyny, homophobia, suicide, and mentions of incest, and a general Spoilers warning

bastion: touches on ethnic cleansing, and not in a way i’d say is satisfactory. our narrator and one of our Sympathetic characters is one of the men who worked on a world-ending weapon meant to use against the Ura (a group of people coded as East Asian) which after a bit of googling is literally called “the final solution” if there was ever a war between the Ura and the Cael (who feel like rly tan white people to me). jesus fucking CHRIST.

we also meet more Ura other than our two named characters and we have to kill most of them. so that fucking blows.

the game tries for “being a genocidal monster will get you fucked up and blown up” which duh, but i feel we shouldn’t have had a person responsible for war crimes be one of our friends no matter how bad he feels about the whole thing, or the people victim of war crimes become villains in the latter half of the game. zia’s father could’ve taken ruck’s role ez pz.

transistor: the weakest of their games, imo; the lore and writing are fairly flimsy and i did not come out feeling Satisfied, especially because it had this rly good build-up that did not pay off. not to mention... their villains? 3/4 were gay people. lol. two married guys (not even explicit, you only realize by their shared last names) and the ps*cho lesbian trope (iirc she wanted to kill the protagonist’s lover or something). the female protagonist also ends up killing herself to live forever in a digital paradise with her dead lover. it’s. god. 

very Aesthetic, GORGEOUS music, interesting gameplay; had potential, i do not feel like it lived up to it at least as far as the story goes.

pyre: now this one. this one’s BEEFY. where transistor felt flimsy, pyre is rich; lots to sink your teeth into, rich in lore and loveable characters, again w the beautiful music, themes of cooperation and togetherness. my favorite of the cast is volfred sandalwood, the only Black (or, well, Black-coded) revolutionary i’ve ever seen portrayed with this amount of sympathy.

onto the bad: they literally have a Class of character named “Savage”; there’s the “mystical mentally ill person” trope; there is an overwhelming amount of explicit m/f pairs (one of them being. a romance that formed in a single day and then both of the characters were somehow willing to risk it all for each other? PLEASE) while the only hints of gayness are... hints. especially when Jodariel (another of my favs) is teased to have feelings for the player regardless of gender then only gets an ending with a male character with whom she has nothing in common 🙃

hades: and now. this one. music: gorgeous. character designs: spectacular (aphrodite is straight up naked but it’s so... natural and casual, it doesn’t feel sexualized at all). voice acting amazing. character interactions charming and endearing. as a greek mythology nerd, it was nice to see them go for the obscure shit like Zagreus at all, NOT portray Persephone and Hades as a loving couple, AND portrayed the gods as the bunch of petty assholes (some more benevolent than others) that they are. imo they’re too generous with their portrayal of achilles but i’ll allow it.

and finally... it seems all those criticisms about having all the gay characters hidden in the shadows paid off, cuz we got (aside of patroclus and achilles) a bisexual polyamorous protag. Holy Shit! and it’s not even playersexual, romance whomever you want shit without the routes recognizing each other: he explicitly talks about how he’s thinking abt them both (though it’s like “yeah usually mortals take one lover but gods love many huh” polyamory is a human thing too bro!!!!!)

and this is where it all goes, well, at least vaguely downhill lol. ok so the incest warning i gave up there? well. it’s not... outright incestuous. but it has some ugly implications. i want to emphasize: the characters never refer to each other as siblings, nor do they treat each other as such (thanatos, in fact, only recognizes hypnos as his brother, and megaera only sees the other furies as her sisters), but they were all raised by the same woman, Nyx... zagreus and thanatos even grew up together (im assuming megaera didnt meet zagreus until he was fully grown).

this is complicated even worse by the fact that they tried to trick zagreus into believing Nyx was his mother. he realized pretty early on this was not true but like... adoptive mothers, anyone? granted i can believe that bc of the attempt at deception that probably ruptured any attempt at actual familial closeness, and it’s not like hypnos and thanatos saw zagreus as their brother at any point, so they were p much aware of the truth too. with the fact that thanatos even looks like goth miles edgeworth (im not kidding you can google him up right now its literally edgeworth in a cowl) i rly feel they were aiming for Childhood Friend Anime Rival Man than the “surprise kiss bc ur not actually related <3″ shit. zagreus never once refers to nyx as his mother in-game, and also refers to thanatos and hypnos as her sons, never his brothers.

so yeah, like. if one’s feeling generous, zagreus and thanatos are more of a “my father is emotionally closed off and neglects me so my best friend’s mother basically raised me” kind of situation... just pulled off in, perhaps, the worst way possible (why didnt they just say Zagreus was told Hekate was his mom, that’s such an easy fix? or that he was born of nobody other than Hades??? [gestures at athena])

but then, the gods. aaaaaaaahhhhahahahh the gods. demeter shows up! and she calls zeus, hades and poseidon... her foster-brothers. which somehow would make the persephone thing less fucking awful, apparently. they really. really really did not need to do that. she could’ve just said “my fellow gods” or whatever. or my “god-brothers” or something, to pretend it was just a weird god alliance thing??? i dont know but implying that foster family isn’t family is just... bro, the dynamics still exist.

Don’t Like That.

i even contacted supergiant games over this. they reassured me they were even trying to avoid the incest of the original myths bc they didn’t want to mess with such a heavy theme. i believe them... but i really think they didn’t think this through. compared to something like fire emblem fates this is nearly benign, but the implications don’t look good :/

tl;dr of the tl;drs: i admire their artistic philosophy and the heavy emphasis on fresh gameplay, characters and their relationships; i appreciate that it seems that they listen to criticism?; i don’t appreciate that they didn’t think to at LEAST talk to adoptees when making a game about family.

[mementofloreo-archived]

@sorrowmarked || smoochie prompts || hehehehehe[this is cut bc it is SUPER FUCKING long. This is literally the longest thing I've written for you I think]

His team has had a couple of practice matches against the soccer club from Ken's school since they both entered high school, in part thanks to Daisuke's friendship with him. Even without any influence from dark gears or things like that Ken has managed to remain an excellent player with a wide reputation.

Daisuke is unknown, of course. There was no soccer club at his middle school, after all, so he wasn't able to play competitively. He stayed on top of fitness training, even adopting some of the rigorous conditioning routine his sister had used for prep after being scouted by a pro team. Still, with no reputation to boost him he had to earn his place on the main lineup when he entered high school.

...Which he's done, really. He's far exceeded anyone's expectations, especially his own. His drive, his vigor, and his honest love for playing have earned him a lot of strong friendships, and apparently also skyrocketed the morale and motivation of his teammates on more than one occasion. They went from a club thought of as 'not bad, but nothing special' to semifinalists at the prefectural tournament all within the course of his first year. They'd lost to Ken's school, in fact, by a single point shave in the last two minutes of the match.

At his school, first years who join the club via application and not recommendation don't play starting positions in tournament matches(common practice, really). Daisuke still managed to distinguish himself, though. When he was played as a starter in practice matches against Ken's school he was usually placed in a midfield winger position. It gave him some flexibility for movement while relying on the one thing the coach and captain already knew he had, which was stamina.

When their first tournament rolled around, he was put in as a substitute for their attacking midfielder. The position was considered the playmaker, as far as team structure. They were responsible for helping to direct the flow of the team's offensive play, connecting the defensive positions to the forward ones and managing the support for the striker, who was the primary goal scorer(and the position he had played in elementary). For Daisuke, it felt like a test, an opportunity and a show of faith all in one, and so he'd pushed himself past his limits to live up to those expectations.

His fierce, quick, and precise play style coupled with his apparently 'freakish' stamina and adaptability in the position have since earned him a place as its starter as well as the team's vice captain in his second year.

When he was ten or twelve, he'd have been gunning for the striker position. It was flashy and considered the really 'cool' position in most formations.

Now, though, he's stopped caring about looking cool. He wants to play his best, he wants to have fun- and he wants the rest of the team to have those things as well. Realizing that his play sense and his technical skill are best suited to that position when those goals are in mind, he's both content with and proud of his current place.

Ken is a striker. And in their practice matches this season his team has, as usual, come out on top(even if it's usually close).

In the prefectural finals this year, Daisuke's team drags Ken's into a lengthy and brutal double overtime- in the pouring rain, no less. Everyone is exhausted, sore, soaked and filthy. Losing momentum, losing cohesion, desperate for a goal just so things will be over.

...Daisuke, though, ignores it. His burning legs, the sharp pain of his overworked lungs, the chafing of his drenched uniform, the slick ground beneath him and the way the water impedes the ball's movement. He puts himself in a mindset as if he were playing a one on one scrimmage against his sister. She's a professional player on a high ranking team in the highest tier women's league of Japan's professional circuit and has even earned a place on its national team.

If Daisuke's stamina is freakish, then Jun's entire spectrum of skill is on the same level as a natural disaster. The ferocity and lack of hesitation she shows on the field would terrify any normal high schooler, boy or girl, and even a lot of capable players from the men's league.

Which means that even a casual match against her demands ignoring his body's pleas for a break and pushing past its screaming to keep playing at his top form no matter how exhausted he is.

That's the extent he exerts himself to in that double overtime. He's in a state where he barely even registers physical sensation because he's so focused. He barely even registers the directional tips he shouts to the other mid and forward positions, and he doesn't register at all the captain calling for everyone to follow Daisuke's lead.

There's a single thought in his head: keep moving. If he stops or even slows down for just a split second, he knows he'll keep losing steam and he won't get it back. He has to barrel forward no matter what until the game is over. He doesn't pay attention to the faces or numbers of the opposing team. He focuses on keeping the ball in play, keeping his body in motion and staying at least aware of where his teammates are, though he doesn't differentiate between them very well.

When he scoops the ball right out of Ken's grasp, turns sharp, rockets past him, he doesn't know that it's Ken. He doesn't try to close the full distance to the goal either. The moment he sees a small gap in the defense he shoots. For the left corner and with every ounce of strength he has left.

The ball hit's the keeper's open palms- and blasts right through them like they're made of paper, making a loud snap sound and spinning against the net. Daisuke watches it sail in, speechless, and slowly he sinks to his hands and knees, well past being completely spent.

His awareness comes back to him gradually in the several seconds both the players and spectators are left in shock to process the split second reversal and upset of a team that made it to the nationals last year. Even the referees take a few second to declare the clean goal. But once they do, everything erupts around him.

He hears it, registers the shouting and the celebration, the exhausted and frustrated but still impressed acceptance of the other team. And he lets himself laugh breathlessly in relief, still completely unaware that he left Ken dizzily in the dust a few moments ago. Right at that second, he's mostly glad he still pre-medicates with his inhaler before any kind of exercise and keeps it on hand as a rescue. He's going to need it.

His teammates, bless them, have the presence of mind not to jump on him the way they would normally. The captain and Ken make sure he's not injured and help him to his feet, and once he confirms he can walk with some support they help him to the sidelines. The teams shake hands, exchange congratulations. Both for a hard earned victory and a well played match despite a loss. The coaches and officials are able to get the attention of the crowd enough to let the players have some breathing room for a few minutes.

Ken informs Daisuke of exactly what he did in those last few seconds while he digs for his inhaler and then takes a long drink from his water bottle. Daisuke is a little shellshocked by it all now that he's properly registering it, but he's happy all the same. He's helped carry his team to nationals, a first time accomplishment for them.

Moreover, he had the time of his life with this match, even as exhausting as it was. The frail little kid he used to be would never believe he could accomplish something like this.

He makes a note to himself to call Jun with the news- this isn't the kind of thing he should relay via text. She'd just drop everything and call him to yell about it anyway.

There isn't a formal locker room building at this field, but there's covered areas around the benches and a lot of the seating. Daisuke and a lot of his teammates take some time to rinse the mud and sweat off of exposed skin, towel off, change into dry shoes from their cleats, put their warmups on to keep from catching cold.

Everything is so hectic that when he finally shoulders his bag and shambles off the grounds a half hour later he's completely forgotten that Hikari was planning to try and be at the match.

So when he sees her he's not really shocked, but he does sort of stare at her for a few seconds, brainless.

She's been his girlfriend for less than three months. Having her so openly focused on him is still a new experience. In general he's really not used to being anybody's first priority. He still pinches himself sometimes to make sure he's not dreaming when Hikari ducks under one of his arms to curl against his side on the train or in front of the television.

Still, he manages a weary smile, and greets her. "I'm glad you managed to make it out," he says, and his voice is hoarse, "I know you weren't sure you'd be able to see the whole game, or even be here at all."

He lifts his neck towel and wipes some lingering rainwater off of his face.

...She's a little flushed, he notes. Wearing a decent raincoat and carrying an umbrella. She's just a bit damp, where he's still pretty drenched. (the moisture and humidity add just a touch of wisp to her hair though, lift it just a little from its usual straight line. It's cute.)

A half suppressed laugh trickles out of her as she looks up at him. Daisuke's not very tall- he's right around average height- but he's strong, filling out a lot as he nears the end of his growth period, so Hikari looks almost tiny next to him now. (She certainly feels delicate when he hugs her)

Her eyes are shimmering. It's easy to see she's feeling pretty emotional right now, and she still hasn't said anything. Daisuke rifles a hand through his hair awkwardly.

"...Uh...Hikari-chan?" He asks, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," she blurts, beaming, "Sorry. You were just- you were incredible out there. I think you left everyone there starstruck."

"O-oh," he feels himself flush, "Y'think? Those last few minutes I was running on autopilot, so I wasn't really-"

The rest of whatever rambling he was launching into freezes and catches in his throat. If real life came with record scratches or freeze frames, this would be one of those moments.

She's usually the one to kiss him first. He's a little shy, still, not completely confident taking the initiative with affection yet.

But this is- she's never jerked him down by the collar before. Certainly not so suddenly and so sharply that he's actually unbalanced and brought in.

It's a hell of a kiss, to be frank. Firm, held out for so long, her hands moving to his shoulders, pulling herself in as close as she can until he has the presence of mind to lift her at the waist and kiss back.

He's outright dizzy when she finally lets him break away for air, and Hikari is flushed and beaming.

"Uh," he fumbles, "Oh, uh. Okay."

She peppers his face with short, sweet little pecks until he's laughing, and then she hugs him tight.

"I know how hard you worked to get here," She murmurs, "I'm so proud of you. Congratulations, Daisuke."

He tenses just a little in response. Hearing this kind of praise from anyone is always a bit of a tearjerker for him, but from Hikari it's a million times more significant.

"Yeah," He breathes, setting her down and holding his hand out for the umbrella. "...Let's get to the station, though. I want to get somewhere I can change into dry clothes. And then maybe pass out for a couple of hours. I'm beat."

[offspring-of-calliope]

Peculiar (Newsies Fanfiction) - Chapter 1

Description: Jack Kelly is having a strange encounter on the street.

words: 1696

A/N: This AU was kinda inspired by Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, so it's basically that some of the Newsies, the Peculiars, have powers and all the Manhattan Newsies live with Medda in the Theatre. Then, there are also those who chase after Peculiars, the Collectors. I'm not quite sure where I want to go with this story bc initially, I only wanted to practice my 'English skills' (she said, sitting in front of her computer like: 'How to English?') and suddenly I had a whole AU in my head. So if you wish for certain scenes or something, you can put your wishes in the comments and I might comply. One thing I'm certain of, however, is my choice of main pairings: Javid and Sprace. But I might include other pairings as well.

I hope you enjoy.

Sincerely, me

Lélodie

-----

The sky was still being shadowed by dark clouds, even though the rain had stopped approximately three hours ago. Puddles decorated the streets which were filled with busy people, running back and forth while being indifferent to the world around them. And right among these apathetic businessmen, there was a vivid, excited boy, no older than seventeen – Jack Kelly.

The newspapers in his hand felt kind of damp to him but that didn't keep him from advertising news after news, praising the papers as if they were the most precious things on earth.

“Extra! Extra!” Jack cried, followed by made-up headlines nobody bothered to check when buying the paper. It was already late in the evening and most of the papers were sold by now. A little more time passed and eventually, there was only one paper left.

Jack, who did not seem to be quite satisfied with his day's pay, looked around the street until he suddenly caught sight of a well-dressed man who was heading towards his carriage. 'Well, that looks promising,' Jack thought, straightening his collar and making his way over to the man.

“Extra! Extra, good man! A whole factory going up in flames and -”, he began but the man interrupted him with a dismissive gesture of his hand.

“Move, boy. I do not have time for this nonsense.”

“Surely, you're a very important fella, dear sir, but if ya'd just buy a pape -”

The man looked at him in disgust. “I have no intention on doing business with a dirty little boy from the street.” With these words, he entered his carriage, leaving Jack standing like a fool on the street.

“Whatever ya say, good fella, but I's by no means little, nor dirty! And I'd never do business with such an arrogant sucker either!” Jack didn't know why the words of the man had bothered him this much but it was probably because he was tired, exhausted and just wanted to return to the theatre to get a good night's sleep. He was going to continue his quest to sell the last paper when suddenly the carriage was set in motion, purposefully driving through a puddle on the ground so that a bunch of muddy water was being splashed all over him.

“Alright, you sucker, ya totally owe me a new shirt, this one's brand new!” He called after the disappearing carriage. “There goes a four month's pay,” he eventually mumbled, eyeing his body. The dirt felt familiar yet unpleasant on his skin. He hesitated. Next thing he knew, he was making his way towards the nearest dark alley he could find.

A considering look down the alley. Then, he let his powers do the work. A stream of clear water crawled along his arms, his neck, his face and was softly cleaning his body. Jack smiled as he navigated the cool stream, letting it embrace him like a safe blanket or the arms of a person that felt like home. For a short moment, he closed his eyes. Forgetting the world around him that only wanted to harm him and pushed him from one danger towards the next. Forgetting that he had to work under inhuman conditions, day after day. Forgetting everything. And for a short moment, he imagined being in Santa Fe, where everything would be okay.

Then, there came the self-satisfied laughter.

Startled, Jack opened his eyes and found himself faced with a big, bulky guy with crooked teeth and large ears. “Well, well, look what we have here. A Peculiar and a very precious one at that.” The guy held a club in his hands that he'd probably stolen from one of the policemen at some point. The self-satisfied laughter turned into a sinister smirk.

Abruptly, Jack stopped the flowing water and looked around him, searching for an escape route. But he was stuck in a cul-de-sac and the way back to the main street was blocked by Bulky Guy. “Yeah, well, what's it to you, man? You's gonna mind ya own business?” Trying to hide the nervousness that was burning him up from within, Jack settled for a daring grin.

“Oh, so you're a bigmouth, too, huh? This is gonna be so much fun.”

Jack saw the first blow coming. He lifted his arm to block it and stretched out his leg to kick Bulky Guy in the knee. The rest of the fight was kind of a blur to him. Every time it occurred to him that the opportunity to flee had come – Bulky Guy definitely had the upper hand -, his opponent seemed to be reading his mind and was once again blocking his path. Jack wasn't a fool. He knew that he was too tired to keep on for much longer and a little voice in his head was constantly persuading him into using his powers. But he did not dare.

Too clear was the memory of the last time he has used his powers against an actual person. The feeling of flooding another's lungs, more and more and more and more until they were drowning from within. Jack groaned. What in the world did he have to do to just be able to forget the Incident?

“Ready to give up yet, boy?” Bulky Guy asked, clearly enjoying himself.

“You wish,” Jack replied, ducking under yet another blow. His hands were sweaty, his ribs felt broken and the poor boy's head was spinning.

Then, a different voice pierced though the alley. “You there! Leave the boy in peace and get away from here as fast as you can.” Jack was aware of the fact that the newcomer was talking to Bulky Guy but his voice, this delicate, melodic voice was so inviting that his urge to escape from this alley was getting stronger as well.

Jack looked up, wanting to know how Bulky Guy would react, partly expecting him to just turn around and knock out the news guy. To his surprise, Bulky Guy nearly bowed down before the owner of the mystical voice, as if he wanted to apologize for being such a dick, and retreated without another word. Completely bewildered, Jack squinted at his saviour for the first time.

He was only an ordinary boy, as far as he could see. Black hair, worry in his eyes and overall a quite cute appearance. He seemed to be a bit perplexed as well because he solely stood there, at the entrance of the alley, his hands balled into fists, his gaze fixed on Jack.

Jack, who now had found his own voice again. “I guess a 'Thank You' might be appropriate in this situation. Free paper?” He nearly had forgotten the now not only damp but also slightly crumpled newspaper he had stuffed safely into his pocket at the beginning of the fight. He also didn't really care any more. He was too relieved. So he held the paper out to the guy who spared it not even a single glance. Jack was slightly offended.

“Oh my God,” the guy said, his voice softer and more down-to-earth than before. A friendly tone, yet no less beautiful. “I'm going to be in so much trouble now. What if he comes back and what if somebody tells Mama and Papa and why would I even – Oh no, and he is a stranger as well, why did I have to help a complete -”

“In my defence, I am quite a catch and I don't mind playin' damsel in distress, as long as a guy like you's gonna be my knight in shining armour,” Jack interrupted him, slowly getting bored because the guy was talking non-stop to himself instead of reacting to Jack's presence.

Cute Guy looked at him like he was crazy. “What are you talking about? I barely even did anything, to be honest, I was just passing by and saw how this guy attacked you and couldn't keep on walking as if nothing was going on. But it's not exactly my fault the guy went away, he was probably afraid I'd call the cops on him,” and there he was, rambling again.

“Sorry ta interrupt ya, pal, but we both know that he'd have knocked ya out in seconds. And for the record, we also both knows that what ya did there wasn't quite normal.” At least, that was Jack's assumption. It might have been a really big coincidence but his intuition told him that the boy in front of him might be a Peculiar as well. With a grand gesture, he took the guy's hand and put his last paper in it. “Like I said, thank ya. It's nice that our kind looks out for each other. Ya know that there's also others with powers, don't ya? You's not alone in this -”

“Again, I have no idea what you're talking about!” The voice of the boy was getting more tempting this time. He withdrew the hand that Jack still had clasped in his own, stuffed the paper in his bag and looked Jack straight in the eyes.

“Of course,” Jack mumbled, his mind suddenly clouded by something he could not comprehend. “I's sorry I's made such an accusation.”

“Thanks for the apology,” Cute Guy said, looking still a little panicked but in a strange way also satisfied. “It was nice to meet you.” He smiled a bit, then hurried off into what seemed to be a randomly picked direction.

“Wait!” Jack called out. The other guy stopped and glanced back at him in confusion. “The name's Jack Kelly. An' who are you?”

“Wouldn't you like to know?”, was the only answer he got before his saviour disappeared into the crowd.

Jack just stood there, dumbfounded. Then, after what seemed like half an eternity, he came back to himself. “Of course he has powers, that sucker,” he mumbled and swore to himself that he'd never fall for that persuading voice again. But to see if he could keep his promise, he had to find the mystery boy once more.

[elizabeatrice]

Feeling Blue, Seeing Red (Chapter 69)

Let’s Talk About JSHK Manga #5

Updated: 19/8/2020 (more thoughts)

Bea is back with the lame punny titles~

Warning: !!! MANGA SPOILERS UP TO CHAPTER 69 !!! Duh.

Soooo I opened the raws this morning. Saw the spicy and went 'ohh shoot'. Then some of y'all say that some folks are hating Akane bc of this chap. I proceeded to panic, because fandom war is scary af. So I translated the chap for myself. And I just gotta say:

Aoi, Nene, your boyfriends are idiots. Y'all gonna be punching and headbutting the idiocy out of them for the rest of your lives and I'll be willing to pay for your karate classes.

The teen drama made me laugh so hard ahahahaha I guess this is what you get for hoping sensei will drop a bomb this month lmaoooo.

P.S. Teru you little shit

Man I don’t even know where to begin. This chapter is oozing doraaaaama and I can’t take it seriously no matter how much I try. I remember thinking, “Shoot, this is the ‘I hate you, I hate you too, proceed to make out’ trope in JSHK’s classic ‘oooh serious moment, eh? PSYCHE!’ style,” before bursting into laughter.

I swear I’m not making fun of it.

Because it’s already fun to begin with. Ahahahaha.

I do however, take seriously the long-awaited insight into Aoi’s mind. I hollered in joy, y’all. ‘Cause like ... finally!

(Also like ... ngl the development of Aoi and akaoi in this arc might come into play in my Shrek AU. Pls don’t ask. Yet. That’s not the official AU name I swear I just wanna confuse my readers ahahaha)

Back when chapter 64 came out I wrote something that was supposed to be the first of the Let’s Talk About JSHK Manga series but I ended up not posting it because I wasn’t sure about a bunch of things. Here’s an excerpt from that post, titled ‘Aoi and Her Blues’:

I mean, what did the minions do to her? ‘Remove unnecessary things’. Someone said they removed her inhibitions (I’m terribly sorry I forgot who said this because it’s been so long so I can’t put the link here, but if you know, feel free to send me the link).

But she has to be brainwashed, right?

She remembered enough about Nene. Enough to call her out on her feelings (that she still denies btw lol) and recognize Hanako from Nene’s wonderful description (or because Aoi could see him all this time and never said anything, who knows?).

Most importantly, she remembered Akane.

So apparently they weren’t unnecessary enough to be erased from her memory. Which I’d beg to differ if I were going to make this girl willingly sacrifice herself.

Would she let her best friend fall down into a pit full of giant insects, or let her childhood friend get impaled? I mean this is the same girl that cried when Akane and Yamabuki got together (by accident) and when Nene started talking to herself like a madwoman.

So yeah. Definitely brainwashed. Pretty sure now.

The one thing that bugged me is what she said though.

“I’ve always wanted to go somewhere far away.”

“Nothing will stop me from getting my wish.”

Btw these aren’t accurate word for word I’m just drawing from memory.

Is that a wish forced upon her by the brainwashing, or has Aoi been depressed all this time and ... y’know, therefore thought about ‘going far away’? I’m personally leaning more towards the first, but it still got me thinking.

Remember back in The Clock Keeper arc when she said there was something she wanted to tell Nene?

Can some creepy hands showing up in the gardening club’s album photos really warrant that kind of expression? Is it just me who got disappointed when the thing she wanted to tell Nene ended up being just that?

But if she did have such thoughts, why?

Maybe she was lonely? I mean Nene got so busy with supernatural shenanigans. Akane’s busy with student council stuff (and school wonder stuff). Though I don’t doubt for a second that he’d drop everything for Aoi, but Aoi’s not the kind of person to do that. And to be honest, I feel like so far Aoi hasn’t been shown having genuine interaction with anyone aside from Nene and Yamabuki without the other person being completely enamored by her. And even with Yamabuki that was just in that After School chapter.

So I guess my hunch wasn’t that far off. Still though. Still though. Is she or is she not brainwashed? Because as much as Aoi likes-but hates-but actually kinda likes Akane, I still don’t think she’s the type of person to stab her childhood friend until he’s got a hole through his fucking torso.

Throwing Nene into the bug pit I guess makes more sense if Aoi knew all along that the pit won’t lead anywhere too dangerous, and that Hanako wouldn’t leave Nene’s side. Nene’s perfectly safe with him. Sorta. She did get kidnapped and were about to be sacrificed after all. But heeey Hanako still showed up to save her in the end.

Stabbing Akane like that tho? Even if she knows he wouldn’t die in a boundary especially in his school wonder form? It just doesn’t feel like Aoi, man.

Then again she did say no one really knows her, and that anyone who does would end up being disappointed in her.

I’m really happy to know that she does not, in fact, appreciate all the attention given to her. Comedy framing aside, constantly having some random guy approach you to ask you out presumably every day is ... annoying at best. Kid deserves better.

So ya girl got some extreme trust issues. Strangers, even Akane and Nene, I could understand. But her dad tho? Is something going on in the Akane household? Bruh ....

How long has Aoi not been able to trust anyone enough to let them get close to her? Because if she’s been feeling like that about Nene all this time, Imma be super sad bruh. Nene is one of the most genuine kids ever (perhaps only second to Kou).

I understand that Aoi’s disappointed because Nene’s been keeping secrets, but honestly, who would believe you if you come up to them and say, “Hey so I summoned a toilet ghost and now I’m stuck as his assistant. The rumors about supernaturals are like, totally real, and can endanger everyone in this school for real, too. Also I turn into fish when I come in contact with water.”

Sensible best friends would either a) not believe you, or b) try to get you as far away from supernatural shit as possible ‘cause hello? Ya ain’t Miles Morales ya can’t just blast What’s Up Danger when monster of the week shows up.

Even if Aoi does let it continue, wouldn’t she wanna get involved? Would Nene let her get involved when Tsukasa’s still around? Ya girl got cursed, thrown off the top of a boundary, sent to literally nowhere and everywhere, almost got her body stolen by mirror monsters, kidnapped and taken into a fake world, and now trapped in literal Grim Reaper’s realm. Honestly, who would involve their best friend in this sort of shit?

It just makes me sad to think that all this time Akane and Nene have genuinely cared about her but she didn’t think they were. Aoi, my girl Nene literally threaded hell boundaries and high shallow water to save you!!!

Unrequited platonic love hurts just as much as romantic ones, y’all ....

Speaking of romantic love.

Hey, uh, Akane. For claiming to despise Hanako and calling him a slimy pervert, y’all kinda act the same way with your respective girlfriends when things get a bit heated up, huh? Even the teasing part.

Boy, you’re dumb af. You deserve that.

There it is y’all, it’s official. We got punches for akaoi and headbutts for hananene.

You deserve this too. But Teru’s face here is really annoying, I’ll give you that. Teru you little shit.

At least you’re finally gonna be useful. Let’s just see.

Hmm I guess I have to address the thing now.

Ahem. The thing. The pushing (pulling?) Aoi down, grabbing her neck thing.

Yeah I don’t get it either. Whether it was a creative choice taken in consideration to the actual character’s state or to just pander to the trope that seems to be marketable in Japan or both, I don’t really know.

I do however, have to remind you that none of these kids are in their right mind. One is possibly still recovering from the effects of brainwashing and dealing with not only extreme trust issues and insecurities, but also the sight of a gaping hole on her childhood friend and perhaps crush’s torso, not to mention having to deal with this in the middle of nowhere. The other one is the said person with a gaping hole on his torso, who almost lost his life-long crush, and even got stabbed by her in the first place.

They’re lost. They’re tired. They’re emotional. They’re frustrated. They’re two hormonal teens.

I think Akane thought Aoi wouldn’t listen to him unless he makes her. Which is why he went with exposing her by saying he hated her. Which is still a dumb move in my opinion. But Aoi rightfully got back at him. And honestly I didn’t think he really hurt her. I mean, it’s Akane after all. *shrugs*

The way I see it, the entire thing was a result from not only their current condition but also the uh ... not telling each other how they really feel all this time. Aoi with her issues, Akane with his secrets. They’re a ticking bomb. It’s horrible that they ended up hurting each other because of this (physically and emotionally), but I could see why it went like this. These two are flawed. Most importantly, they’re teenagers. They’re bound to fuck up in this equation.

Heck, I’ve fucked up worse in less endangering situations before.

But heeey once things get cleared between them they fall right back to each other. Sure things aren’t entirely resolved. But they’re gonna be okay. Teru’s there. Should be fine. Probably.

The thing is we as the audience who come into the story with a clear head can easily figure out the best, most sensible way to deal with the characters’ problems. But these problems affect the characters in (physical, physiological, psychological, emotional) ways most of us can’t immediately empathize with, which can make their bad decisions frustrating for us to see. We know it’s wrong. And when these characters have calmed down and healed, they’ll know that it’s wrong, too. If they’re not dicks, that is.

You know how it feels when you’re fighting with someone, and you know the best thing to do is to talk it out, but you just can’t bring yourself to? It makes things worse, right? And you’re frustrated, right? Unfortunately that’s just how humans are.

Even I let my emotions get the best of me when I judged the villagers’ actions back in chapter 68 hahaha (but I still think they’re awful).

It’s just my opinion tho.

And whooo everyone is officially here but Yamabuki (and Sakura and Tsukasa, but they’re bound to show up)! Catch up soon, my citrus child.

Lastly, I have the moral obligation to remind you that if akaoi’s confrontation ended up like this, imagine how hananene’s would be.

I’ll leave you to your deductions.

As always, feel free to discuss. Just ... don’t fight, onegaishimasu.

[firebirdsdaughter]

Okay…

… I feel very bitter right now.

But I am going to be eternally frustrated by the fact that as far as I could tell, Aruto’s (and therefore Izu’s) definition of ‘heart’ was ‘happy making humans happy.’

Or… ‘Seeing that humans are ultimately good’?

Really, just… I define a heart as ‘feeling emotions.’ Feeling emotions is useless unless you know how to handle them, which Horobi didn’t, and no one seemed at all invested in teaching him how. Just made him feel worse and worse, pressured him about something that terrified him and pushed him over the edge, and then a human who really should have known better went and grabbed the fucking Ark Key??? Like. Horobi’s somehow completely at fault for Izu pestering him until he lashed out like any emotionally immature child or even animal would and then she doesn’t move out of the way even though she easily could have, but Aruto grabbing the psycho Key and going nutty is ‘totally understandable bc grief.’

For one thing, wtf would Horobi believe Izu’s nonsense, she’s programmed to love and obey Aruto, and she never develops anywhere past that. He knows she’d say anything to save her beloved master. She has no identity out of ‘exists to serve Aruto and occasionally be cutesy.’ Listen, Takahashi, you need to work on your female characters when you resurrect one w/ no memory and she’s exactly the same.

My lack of sympathy for Izu’s ‘death’ is bc it could easily have been prevented by multiple other people even if Horobi did literally nothing different, and bc literally nothing was lost. If any of the humans had actually used that compassion they sing to the skies about, you know, like, the fact that they have years of practice knowing how to feel and control emotions. I’m sorry but, ‘did you feel Izu’s pain?’ Well, first off, no, bc she didn’t seem pained at all, she just kinda stood there parroting Aruto’s bs, but… What about feeling Horobi’s pain? Or… Was Izu being ‘sad’ Horobi didn’t magically forgive humanity for everything they put him through and took from him more important than him having being mind raped, controlled, conditioned, and abused for twelve years? ‘I believe in your heart’ you mean you ‘believe’ he’s going to magically switch around and conform to your views that humans are ultimately good and anything bad they do can be excused bc they teach you about ‘hearts’? Meanwhile, none of her memories changed her at all. She gazes lovingly at Aruto, she participates in his jokes… There was pretty much nothing to her other than ‘loves Aruto.’ Her character fell into the trap of KR’s general attitude toward female characters that they exist to be pure angels who unfailingly believe in the hero and the series’ attitude toward AI, that the definition of ‘goodness’ for them is completely devotion to humans and unrealistic purity and benevolence.

The question should never have been ‘will AI have benevolence towards humans’ but ‘do humans deserve it?’ ‘what can we do to justify that?’ Why do HumaGear have to ‘prove their worth’ and ‘teach humans to be nice to them’ but humans don’t have to… Like… Know how to be decent? Aruto’s sympathies and dreams for HumaGear were exclusively rooted in how they benefitted humans. He expects the ‘hearts’ they develop to be completely ‘pure’ and ‘benevolent’ even if humanity has given them no reason to be so.

Horobi was the most aware of how horrible the Ark was. Everything he did, he did bc he was conditioned to believe it was right for HumaGear. Bc he saw the cruelty of humanity, and wanted to protect his people from it. He was conditioned/programmed to react w/ absolutes and extremes. He didn’t turn on the Ark bc he realised humans were actually ‘good’ he did it bc she turned on HumaGear, and he fought bc he loved HumaGear. His love for HumaGear, for Jin, was stronger than her control. That was it.

But he also knew that she was created by humans. Deliberately. It doesn’t matter that Gai had a personality one eighty bc the satellite printed him a dog and Aruto’s only for humans AI therapist talked to him for a hot minute. This shit doesn’t work like that, Gai should be at least facing jail time for his part in things. Yotacrappy’s response was to manipulated Jin into trying to kill him as a sacrifice, even after the Ark was out of the picture. Not a single person reacted w/ ‘maybe we should give this poor AI who has literally had his entire mind and life fucked over by humans and has no reason to like us a bit of kindness and support to help deal w/ the emotions he’s suddenly feeling.’ Izu’s speech was kinda close, but the tone was ultimately ‘she’s right and he’s wrong.’ The attitude shouldn’t be that ‘humans can sometimes be beneficial, so that makes the wrong they do okay.’ The fact that they tried to pretend that even the most twisted humans were ‘actually just misguided’ was ridiculous.

Horobi’s suffering was real and valid, and deserved recognition beyond ‘lol, but humans are actually nice, tho.’ He was scared and confused, but no one was trying to help him through that, they were just belittling the very valid reasons he had to be angry at humans. Rather than being like ‘I understand you’re angry and in pain and those are valid feelings, but there’s a better way to do this’ the response was either aggression or ‘no, you’re wrong, they teach us to want them to be happy and to dream or serving them well!’ (pretty much what Aruto’s definition of ‘good HumaGear’ seemed to be). And then even the people who should understand the most how her feels act like he’s spreading a ‘shocking’ and ‘bad’ thought by offering HumaGear a chance to stand up for themselves. I really hate how the protests were treated as Horobi spreading ‘malice’ to the HuamGear and all conveniently disappeared when Aruto ‘won.’

Again. The Frozen quote is eternally accurate for Aruto’s ‘dream.’ ‘It’ll be just like it was except for we’ll be best friends.’

Aruto’s dream was never equality or freedom for HumaGear. What he wanted was for them to go back to work for humans w/ smiles painted on their faces to make humans happy. HumaGear’s meaning in life shouldn’t be to ‘be useful to humans.’ I wasn’t expecting the ending to be ‘everything is okay now,’ but I was under the impression that there would be some kind of motion toward HumaGear getting some rights and protections or respect by virtue of being, like, living beings rather than needing to work and be ‘useful’ to justify their existence. Aruto is very face value, he thinks that the programmed personalities humans give HumaGear are their ‘true natures’ when they’re not, they’re just a starting point. They need to branch out. The fact that Izu’s entire life just revolved around benefiting Aruto made it hard to sympathise w/ her in place of the more interesting and dynamic characters. The fact that Aruto tries to claim HumaGear are his ‘employees’ when the definition of that word literally is ‘someone who works for a wage’ and people pay his company to get HumaGear to work for them and he delivers them to people in boxes… It’s just ridiculous. They shouldn’t have to just be ‘perfect pure forgiving little angels’ just bc humans made them and occasionally are nice to them? Izu’s data was just as biased as Horobi’s, they should have met in the middle rather than her being painted as ‘right’ and ‘good’ for only thinking of humans as good.

Yes, Horobi should have responded w/ violence, but literally no one even tried to put real effort into showing him other ways to react, or to help him through what happened to him. They either shouted at him, put him down, invalidated his suffering (admittedly bc she was just as out of balance maturity-wise as he was), or outright tried to kill him. Any child or animal will lash out when stressed or panicked. It is the responsibility of the people w/ more awareness to know what they’re dealing w/ and act accordingly. Izu knew he was armed, she saw the weapon pointed at her, she had plenty of time to move, and choose not to. That was not Horobi’s fault. It also wasn’t Horobi’s fault that humans decided to not give her a back up to benefit themselves. How was he even supposed to know that? Where was Aruto? Why was he running around outside trying to make the other HumaGear go back to his definition of ‘normal,’ while telling them there’s ‘no reason to fight anymore,’ which really should be their decision??? If he really cared and wanted to help Horobi and saw HumaGear as people, wouldn’t he have run in and tried to properly talk Horobi down? Then we have Yua’s hypocrisy of reacting aggressively to Horobi and them giving a speech to Yotacrappy for reacting the exact same way to the protests. And then Fuwa literally shooting down the one time Horobi genuinely tried to reach out… While kinda in character… Definitely did not help. Horobi was never in a place to parse out implications.

Basically, they pushed Horobi over the edge, then blamed him for being broken. Meanwhile, they have all sorts of ‘compassion’ and ‘understanding’ for Aruto and it’s ‘not his fault’ bc ‘grief.’ The attitude that Horobi’s suffering at the hands of the Ark was less important than Aruto’s trained AI letting herself get shot? The fact that Horobi, however horribly they influenced him to think he was completely at fault, was willing to ‘forgive’ humans for everything he suffered through bc of them… Is much more compassion than Aruto ever showed him.

Horobi had every right to be angry w/ humans and blame them for their part in what he went through. And humans never admitted responsibility for that, and never apologised to him.

But he’s supposed to need forgiveness from them?

[housemartius]

i’ve had an hc that dakota is native american for a long time now, and after reading this awesome post i was inspired and like “what if he and piper were cousins??” so let me share some things i’ve imagined about them so far (warning: this is one long ass post):

- they were both born and raised in tahlequah, oklahoma (not in a reservation tho bc there’s no cherokee reservation in oklahoma, rick’s an idiot who doesn’t research anything)

- dakota is two years older than piper and that made him a bit overprotective of her while growing up. even when they were kids, piper got a lot of attention from mostly other boys (which would later make her feel super self conscious of her own looks) and dakota would pick up on her discomfort and shoo away all of them in an instant

- like seriously, he’s a pretty observant kid and piper would always flinch when a boy got too close for comfort. so dakota was always more than ready to help her out

- imagine how overjoyed grandpa tom was when he found out he was going to be a grandpa, twice, in such a short span of time. dakota had barely just turned 1 year old when tristan announces the woman he’s dating is pregnant tom cried so much, bless him

- now grandpa is no fool though. he knew something was up with the ppl his children were dating, he knew they weren’t ordinary folks. and he suspected his future grandchildren wouldn’t be exactly ordinary either. and how right he was

- just a few months after he was born in september 1992, baby dakota was taken on a little trip with his mom and grandfather around tulsa and they came across a huge vineyard

- it’s january and it’s hecking cold (like 50ºF/10ºC) and the vines, as you’d expect, are basically dead. that’s when something remarkable happens: the plants start to reach out towards dakota and the closer he is to them, the livelier they get

- grandpa is shocked to say the least but he plays it cool. he just turns towards his daughter and calmly asks “care to explain please” to which she then proceeds to spill the beans about how she met the roman god of wine whose son is currently being held by grandpa tom

- tom is really surprised that his daughter dated an actual immortal deity from ancient times, or that they even exist at all (he thought greek myths, and therefore roman by extension, were a bunch of bull). yet at the same time he’d been suspecting the dude wasn’t completely human for a while now...

- in the end he happily accepts both his daughter’s love for bacchus (if that’s even who he really is) and the son they had, and never loves dakota any less even now that he knows he’s a demigod

- except they don’t tell tristan bc 1. bacchus told dakota’s mom to keep it a secret (whoops), 2. tristan’s a skeptic who doesn’t believe in any kind of myths so what’s the point and 3. tristan’s sweetheart is pretty high guard about her own identity and grandpa’s noticed this and he thinks she’s hiding the truth from his son for a good reason (again, he is such a skeptical man, he’d probably think they were all insane)

- april 1994. piper is born and an almost 2 y/o dakota is finally introduced to the cousin he’d been hearing so much about

- both love their grandfather and listening to stories about their culture. and grandpa loves that his grand-kids are so keen on learning

- they live a pretty happy childhood overall. apart from dakota’s innate abilities to making vines grow whenever he walks by (though he remains oblivious to this bc his mom goes to great efforts to ensure he doesn’t find out so soon, he’s still a little kid after all), none of his other powers manifest all that much when he’s a toddler. and neither do piper’s

- ofc, being demigods they’re constantly exposed to the danger of being discovered by monsters but they luck out and continue living in ignorant bliss of their godly parentage

- they love being outside. playing, napping, talking, whatever it is, they don’t like being indoors. they’re always running around everywhere, climbing trees, rolling around in the grass, etc it’s a very rare occurrence when they manage to return home with clean clothes

- they just have a looot of energy and they like using it. getting them to calm down is a challenge in itself, they’re always goofing around. whether they’re having a nice family dinner (food fights tend to occur more often than not), or watching cartoons before bedtime (reenacting cool fight scenes is a must!)

- but then one day, just a few weeks after his 8th birthday, dakota shows up at tristan’s house with his mom and she says she needs to talk with his uncle and grandfather

- the kids are told to go play for a little while in the backyard to let the grown ups have some privacy

- dakota is uncharacteristically quiet. piper notices it right away, how her cousin’s shoulders are slacked and his eyebrows furrowed in distress. she asks what’s wrong, what happened to make him so sad

- “i have to move away” he says. piper is shocked, starts asking why. why, where to, and can’t the whole family go with him?

- “no. just me. somewhere far away”. “but why?!”. “because it’ll be bad if i don’t”

- the rest of the day goes by in a blur. piper can’t understand what’s happening. why does dakota have to go all alone? why can’t her aunt go too? why don’t her dad or her grandfather try to stop them?

(- later, when piper demands her dad for explanations, tristan only says what his sister told him: that dakota needs to go somewhere that’ll be better for him, that piper’s aunt can’t take care of him by herself. grandpa tom tells her the same thing whenever piper turns to him but he knows. his daughter told him the truth)

- saying goodbye is the only moment that seems to last an eternity though. piper is full on crying and sobbing, holding on to dakota with all her strength and begging her cousin to stay, stay and everything will be okay bc he’ll be with her and all the people who love him

- dakota cries too, though not as hard. he’s barely keeping it together but he’s the older cousin and he needs to be strong for piper

- inside though he’s terrified of what’s happening to him. to him and to his mom and now his dear little cousin and his uncle and grandpa. he wants to stay but bacchus was clear during his sudden unexpected visit: he needs to go to the wolf house right away

- his mom takes him there. this goodbye is even more terrible than the previous one. in the midst of all the crying he promises that he’ll be okay, that he loves her and will visit as soon as he can

- dakota hadn’t had the fortune (or permission) of visiting his mom and granddad back in tahlequah often. and the few times he had managed, piper had been away with her dad on his trips looking for a job as an actor in los angeles

- one day, now 13 y/o, he was at his mom’s place with his grandfather too, just sitting and talking and enjoying each other’s company when they decided it was time to tell him the horrible news: his grandpa had been diagnosed with lung cancer

- tom reassured him all throughout his grandson’s hysterics that he felt fine and that he was at peace with the situation

- and then dakota asked the dreaded question

- “... how long?”

- “... soon”

- when dakota made it back to camp he started asking around for possible cures, talking with praetors and centurions and just about anyone who might help him

- though in the end he didn’t find any medicine that could possibly save his grandfather

- and it’s not like the romans really cared for helping outsiders either

- the day he got the news grandpa tom had passed away, just a little over 2 months later, he refused to leave his bunk bed for the remainder of it and it took his two centurions to force him out of it the next morning

(- dakota swears that, out of all the days he’d felt the most lonely and in need of the warm comfort of his family, that had been the most painful one he’d endured in his whole life)

(- he also wondered if piper had known about their grandfather’s condition, and for one moment he actually hoped she didn’t just so she could be spared of going through the same despair he and the rest of their family had)

(- he’d also wished, more ardently than ever before, to be able to hug his beloved little cousin again just like he had so many times years before)

- fast forward to 2010. dakota is standing with the rest of the romans at cj, staring at a greek ship that quickly approaches camp

- his long time friend jason is said to be on board and dakota is just dying to give the dude the longest and most bone crushing hug ever

- plot twist: it’s piper who gets the pleasure of receiving the longest and most bone crushing hug ever. but she returns it tenfold rip dakota’s back

- their reunion was a hazard mix of tears, laughter and wrestling. he and jason happily gave piper a tour of the camp, though tbh she didn’t really pay attention to much, catching up with her fave cousin was obviously the priority

- during her quest to save the world, she iris messages dakota as regularly as she can and they talk for hours on end, sharing stories from their past, their family, their beloved grandpa tom whom they missed terribly every single day, everything really

- piper confides in him how much her dad’s lack of interest and pride for cherokee culture has rocked her own, how growing up with him so absent from her life and so worried with rejecting everything cherokee/native american related had made her feel so uncomfortable in her own skin

- dakota takes all this in silence and just lets her get it all out. he hears her every complaint and insecurity and fear. then he starts telling her the stories their grandfather had told them

- he tells at least 2 different ones every night they talk, always with a smile on his face, always trying to replicate the exact same tone and pace their granddad used

- and it eventually gets piper to smile too

- one night it’s dakota who confesses how much he regrets not visiting tahlequah more often, how he wishes he’d spent more time with thomas before he’d passed away, how he wished he’d been with him during those last few days if not to just hear him going on and on about cherokee myths like he loved to

- that gets piper crying in no time. dakota cries too. they just spend a good 10 minutes sobbing together through their reflections in the watery rainbow, neither saying much

- “i’m glad he told us. the stories i mean”, dakota says when they’ve calmed down. “feels like he gave us little pieces of himself bit by bit that’ll never go away”

- “yeah... it really does” 

- when the war’s finally over, piper and dakota visit each other often, though piper’s the one who goes to cj more often since dakota’s a centurion and has his plate full most of the time

- they’re still as goofy and energetic around each other as ever, like the time they spent away from each other was like clicking pause on a movie and now they’ve hit play and continued on from there

- still hate being trapped indoors. when there’s camp meetings they both need to attend they just can’t help but joke around. everyone else dreads going to those now thanks to these idiots

- dakota isn’t as chaotic as piper so he somewhat helps to keep that side of her in check

- when leo accompanies her during her visits though... no point in even trying to hold back this Mess, dakota’s tried before and it was the most stressful and tiring day of his fucking life

- piper constantly teases dakota about his crush on her half-brother michael. he very much regrets the day she ever saw how he acted around the son of venus (a blushy neck scratching mess)

- wow this is getting long fhdkds anyway!! they’re amazing kids who love each other to death and constantly support each other through good and bad times, and they’re proud af to be cherokee and they’ll treasure their beloved grandpa tom and his teachings till the end of their lives, and if anyone ever wants to hear a story, they’re the right kids to go to!

[florrickandassociates]

TGF Thoughts: 4x02-- The Gang Tries to Serve a Subpoena

Under the cut.

This isn’t the first episode of season 4, but since it’s the first episode that doesn’t take place in an AU… it’s basically the first episode. 

Reddick, Boseman, and Lockhart has been rebranded as “RBL: A division of STR Laurie”. Remember when Will tried to rebrand Lockhart/Gardner as “LG”? At least RBL isn’t a well-known appliance brand. But I think this might be the same “sleek” font as the LG rebrand.

The acquisition of the firm has led to a remodel. I enjoy how every season RBL looks a little bit less like the LG set.

This remodel makes the offices look like a spaceship/villain’s lair/cyberpunk nightclub. There is a giant spiky cocoon thing (nope, I don’t have better words to describe that) coming out of the ceiling in the conference room and a new spiral staircase near the name partners’ offices. It looks ridiculous and intimidating (and it is supposed to). 

There are also dogs roaming around off lash.

And neon lights and a giant fucking GARGOYLE outside of Adrian’s office. It’s so huge it looks like it was taken from the Harold Washington Library. (This may be the most authentically Chicago thing in this episode.)

Much like the last episode, the first thing we see after the teaser is Diane arriving at work and being greeted by Marissa. And, also much like the last episode, Diane is disoriented.

As it turns out, there’s been a bit of a time jump since the end of the last episode-- Diane’s been traveling/resting (doctor’s orders), so this is her first day back to work in 9 months. “What happened here?” Diane asks. Does it make sense a name partner would be so out of the loop on major renovations? Nah. We are not meant to spend much time wondering why Diane/Adrian/Liz would agree to an acquisition or how the talks played out. This is the premise for season 4 and we’re just supposed to accept it. I’m usually wary of this kind of re-premising, but this doesn’t bug me too much. We saw last season the firm had no identity (bc when the firm had an identity in season 1 it was ALL BC OF BARBARA KOLSTAD) and we saw them lose their top clients. Diane’s been on leave so she probably wasn’t that involved in conversations, Adrian probably welcomes acquisition because it’s more money, and Liz… has always only been idealistic to a point.

My point is: our heroes aren’t actually, and have never been, heroes. Sure, they’re the underdogs dealing with a big corporation… but also, they sold to the big corporation.

Marissa says the cocoon spike thing is a sunset. K.

Jay’s never been up to STR Laurie’s floor. The dogs running around, however, have been upstairs. Monday and Wednesday are pet days, but the pets always come through the RBL floor instead of the STR Laurie floor. 

The name partners can bring dogs. (How many name partners are there if there are this many dogs and STR Laurie is at most 4 people and RBL is 3 and none of the RBL partners brought in dogs?)

JUSTICE FOR JUSTICE! (Poor Justice is probably not still around 11 years later but I had to say it.)

In the partners’ meeting, even the food everyone’s eating looks more upscale. Adrian officially welcomes Diane back. One of the non-name partners is not so happy to have her back. Or, rather, he’s not so happy the name partners got a ton of money in the deal and the non-name partners got screwed. Fair point.

I guess neither Lucca nor Rosalyn got the partnership.

Adrian expositions that they were acquired because they couldn’t survive after losing ChumHum, and STR Laurie is the 7th largest firm in the world. Got it. 

Diane’s check from the acquisition of the firm is so huge it stuns her. You would think she would have known these details. But we’re here now and this show works better if you look at the themes instead of wanting all of the character motivations to always make sense. I’d probably be chewing this plot out if it happened on TGW-- why would x make y decision!? Why didn’t we get to see it!?-- but with TGF I have an easier time accepting radical changes in tone. 

And TGF did need a change in tone. You can’t get that much mileage out of episodes about 45 (whose name might not even be mentioned this ep? I will try to look out for that as I watch) and clearly no one on the writing staff is interested in small, character driven intraoffice power struggles as the primary plots. If the writers have something to say about massive corporations, I’d rather sacrifice a few scenes of character development for a season that has a POV than sit through a season as uninspired as s7 of TGW.

(Perhaps this is why I’ve always liked TGW season 6 more than others-- it’s messy, but it’s INTERESTING. I like the Kings’ work best when it has energy and say what you will about season 6, but it’s not lacking for energy.) 

There is a dog peeing on Adrian’s office door and he is NOT happy about it (no one would be, but he is ESPECIALLY fed up). One gets the sense he’s not just appalled that it’s happening but tired of the dogs altogether. 

Diane is summoned to go upstairs to meet with the overlords. According to Adrian, Mr. Laurie isn’t bad, but Mr. Firth might be. 

Upstairs, there is a very long, very white hallway. It looks like it’s out of a sci-fi movie. 

I see TGF has finally leaned in to their tradition of casting British actors by just… having STR Laurie be a British firm. 

The set decoration of Mr. Firth’s office looks like it belongs on Evil. It’s over the top, has a piece of art that looks like horns (much like the therapist monster thingy… just watch Evil okay) and light fixtures that are clearly crosses. 

Mr. Firth asks Diane what she wants to do and she says she wants to get back to work. “What work?” he asks. Diane wants to get back to her clients and Mr. Firth tells a story about a poor man who wanted to give everything, even the moon, to a thief. Neither Diane nor I understand. Mr. Firth says this story is about how he’s giving Diane her “moon” by having her head up their pro-bono cases because she shines when she has a goliath to face. True, but what does this have to do with the story!? I legit thought that story was going to be about how Diane gives too much of herself and should learn to accept high pay checks while doing no work and getting out of STR Laurie’s way. Maybe I missed something?

Anyway, Diane is getting the pro bono department with 22 lawyers and 40 cases. This is to keep her happy and to make STR Laurie look good. Feels too good to be true. Diane gets investigator time and partner billable hours, and she’s told this is fine-- make the firm a good citizen no matter how much it costs. WTF is going on here? Is this a trick?

Diane walks downstairs, happy, as Lucca heads up the stairs. Maybe she’s not a partner, but she’s important enough to be summoned upstairs. 

Mr. Firth explains to Lucca that he is “the sorting hat of lawyers.” Lucca explains she’s never read Harry Potter because she doesn’t “like wizard shit.” Impressively brave to say that to your new overlord, Lucca. I have missed you and your give no fucks attitude. 

“Yes, fuck wizard shit,” Mr. Firth responds, somewhat stiltedly. 

Mr. Firth wants Lucca to work on a divorce case for one of their top clients as the client has a personality clash with their head of family law. Their head of family law is, of course, David Lee. Welcome back, I guess. At least David Lee happening to end up at this firm that acquired RBL makes a ton more sense than all the ways they found to keep David Lee relevant to TGW in its last two seasons. 

David Lee hasn’t changed a bit.

Diane’s first client is XIOMARA VILLANUEVA!!!!!! 

But in this universe, she’s a restaurant owner whose restaurant is about to be torn down because of eminent domain. Diane tries one of her usual tricks- asking Xo (I’m sure she has a name on this show and once they say it again I will stop calling her Xo) to bring her food truck outside of the courthouse so everyone can smell how great her food is and be more sympathetic to her case. 

“You’re not the lawyer I expected,” Xo tells Diane. Diane responds, “I’ve changed.” Diane, I am pretty sure that’s not what she meant, but ok!

Lucca and David Lee’s first meeting with Bianca Skye, the high profile client, is a bit awkward, but Bianca instantly takes a liking to Lucca. (“I didn’t know this firm had any black lawyers,” Bianca notes. “Oh, they hide us,” Lucca jokes. But it’s not really a joke when all the black lawyers are the RBL staff and they’re on a different floor…)

David Lee has Bianca tell Lucca her whole case-- which is fairly straightforward-- with way too much detail. Before Lucca asks David if he’s just trying to run up billable hours, it’s clear he’s dragging this out on purpose.

“Oh good, the Angry Black Woman has made an appearance,” awful human being David Lee says after Lucca calls him out. 

David Lee plays rank on her and tells her to watch and learn. Yes, making a racist comment and then being condescending without explaining your strategy is DEFINITELY the way to get the lawyer characterized by her complete lack of interest in being a cog in a machine on your side. 

Adrian, Liz, and Barry are all helping Diane do a mock trial before her first day back in court. It’s fun. 

Adrian is SO over the dogs. His face when a pack of them run past is priceless. 

Diane’s mock trial strategy goes well; the evidence is on her side. And Julius, as luck would have it, is the judge on this case. (Why this is in federal court I don’t know.)

Julius is very happy to be a judge. 

Canning is back. Feels weird to have him here without Alicia. But, honestly, I was prepared for worse. As we’ll see as this scene progresses, Canning is the PERFECT person to have as opposing counsel. If there’s a new rule to exploit, he’d be the first to know about it. If there’s a slimy strategy to use while playing innocent, that’s his schtick. If there’s a corporation doing bad things, he’s your guy. 

Canning tries to explain his condition to Julius. I guess Julius must have been in the New York office when Canning was at LG in late season 5. Diane laughs, knowing that Julius can’t be tricked by Canning. 

Canning probably also knows it won’t work, because he’s already prepared to ask Julius to recuse himself. I feel like this is entirely reasonable. Diane isn’t just an acquaintance… they were partners at the same firm for over a decade.

Diane is TOTALLY the type of white lady to overdo the pronunciation of “chorizo”. 

The delicious smelling food seems like it’s going to work, but we quickly learn that what used to constitute tricky is now just child’s play. The CEO of Rare Orchard, who has been subpoenaed, has decided not to show up. He doesn’t have an excuse. He isn’t delaying. He’s just not going to show up. Like, remember when we thought it was egregious that the CEO Canning was defending in 4x11 kept putting off depositions and Alicia calling the judge was an effective strategy? HA! (Anyone know if this case is based on something or if it’s the writers taking some creative liberties for the sake of plot? My fear is that aspects of it are real because I can’t see the writers being this interested in a plot point they invented.)

Canning says he thinks the CEO doesn’t recognize the legitimacy of the subpoena. Julius reminds Canning that he is a federal judge and his subpoena is legitimate. Canning is all, “yes, I know that’s your position” as though laws are opinions. AAAAAAAAA.

This show loves this kind of thing, just totally taking the basic assumptions away and letting chaos reign. 

This CEO sent Julius a memo telling him to “go fuck yourself.” Eeek.

Diane doesn’t even get to do much lawyering.

Then there is a random cut (which I hate) to a scene of a massive set falling apart during a battle scene. Why the fuck is this here? And what is this from? If I ff to the credits will it tell me? Nope. Dammit. Someone help me out here. 

Credits! Things are exploding again, yay! Aside from the images on the TV, these credits look really similar to S3. I think they may have increased the saturation on the color of the liquids exploding but I could be making things up.

Julius’s outrage at the situation continues after the credits. 

David Lee tries to get Lucca to agree to just be comforting to the client. Lucca is like, no, because I was brought on for a reason I am going to do my job. 

DLee calls this “PC shit” and says something else racist. Bianca answers the door and asks to do the depo prep on the run. What this means is that they’re all getting on her private jet and going to St. Lucia. 

David Lee is TERRIFIED of the private jet. I would be too since I hate small planes (and all planes, but particularly small ones), but I am still enjoying watching him squirm. Lucca is too. 

Lucca DELIGHTS in reminding David they’re in a small metal tube with nothing holding them up. It’s fantastic. 

Bianca offers David Lee a CBD cocktail, because of course she does. This episode is doing a good job of reminding me of why David Lee and Canning were both once really effective characters, so if the writers can use them this way moving forward, I’ll be happy.

Bianca googled Lucca and demands to see pictures of her very cute baby. She then takes Lucca’s phone and starts up Tinder. This is a strange dynamic because it’s friendly but also sudden and also Bianca is paying Lucca for this time. But both of them could use friends, so I’m just going to be cautiously optimistic a real friendship could grow out of this. 

David Lee chugging a CBD cocktail is most definitely something I needed in my life. Thank you writers! 

Our characters are wealthy but everyone they deal with in this episode is ultrawealthy. Like, disgustingly wealthy. Bianca seems nice but holy shit no one needs to fly to St. Lucia for lunch. 

Court stuff happens. This episode is more interesting than just “court stuff happens” but the point is pretty simple-- Julius gets increasingly outraged at the breakdown of the system he believes in, and things keep getting more and more bizarre. 

Julius turns to the corrupt judge Adrian is sleeping with (I think the writers need to tell me what I am supposed to think of her because… I just don’t understand who she’s supposed to be, unless “corrupt judge who creeps me out yet for some reason Adrian is still into” is the point OR unless I am supposed to see her corruption as somehow excusable... ) for advice. She calls their job “shadow play” and says the system is all fake. That would explain why she’s open to bribery, then. She agrees to help Julius get the CEO into court, but I think she’s just helping to illustrate how futile this will be if he tries to resist again.

David Lee also doesn’t like the food on the island. It’s so funny. 

Lucca’s dress is really cute.

Bianca says Lucca must think she’s crazy for flying just to get guava for lunch. Lucca says, “No, it’s just a very different lifestyle from mine.” That’s an understatement. Bianca’s life changed in the last few years, and she’s worried it’s all going to go away (so, it’s implied, she’s living it up now). It seems she has some sort of skincare/cosmetics empire. 

Bianca is worried that in the next recession (oh look at that timely comment), her products will be the first thing people cut back on. Curious to know if this is happening. 

Bianca’s other concern is that she has no friends now because she’s rich. Everyone wants something. “You’re so full of shit,” Lucca says, refusing to pity Bianca. This makes Bianca like her more. 

Bianca talks about a service to matchmake friends. She found it weird, but she doesn’t find “this” (befriending Lucca, even though she is probably paying Lucca WAY more than the friend matchmaker fee) weird. Lucca is always entering into friendships so formally! Okay it’s just two scenes (this one and the one where she and Alicia become friends) but still.

Lucca reminds Bianca she’s also her lawyer.

Bianca asks if DLee is drawing out the case. She’s not stupid. Lucca says David isn’t drawing it out, but I think they both know the answer.

(Question based on what happens later in the ep- if David actually has reasoning, then why in the world would he not tell Bianca OR Lucca about it? And why do they need to have overly long meetings to draw things out? Can’t they just schedule them with large gaps? Idk the whole thing is weird and if David isn’t going to share his strategy that’s on him.)

The CEO finally shows up in court and Julius thinks he’s won. He hasn’t. He says he’s asserting privilege he can’t reveal because it is privileged. The CEO acts like Julius is in the wrong, which pisses Julius off. The CEO gets held in custody and Julius says that the restaurant can’t be bulldozed until the CEO complies. 

Then Julius gets the mysterious MEMO 618. Dun dun dun. 

I know there must be more but I feel like we know what Memo 618 is? Like, no we don’t know who sent it or exactly what it means, but we know the effect of what it does. What is the mystery? Who sent it? 

At night, Julius takes the mystery memo to Judge Hazelwood. She plays dumb because-- as we find out later-- Adrian is within earshot. Adrian’s jacket is apparently very recognizable because Julius spots it. I believe it; Adrian has a distinctive style. 

Adrian talks about taking their relationship public. So Judge Hazelwood bribing people didn’t end the relationship? 

Adrian also asks about Memo 618. He knows she knows what it is. She distracts him by getting on top of him.

Depositions for Bianca’s divorce get contentious but she has the upperhand. Lucca suggests that Bianca settle now and get the ex out of her life-- “balance money with psychological wellness.” Sounds reasonable to me!

At work, Judge Hazelwood is more forthcoming. And Julius did recognize the jacket. Judge Hazelwood tells Julius to let the CEO out and stop asking about the memo. Julius wants to get her on tape, but instead she tells him to get in an Uber and go to an address. She also warns that the court has a program if you break your phone. Sounds like a threat…

Julius finds the Uber easily and then goes on a long journey to the countryside. The driver, it turns out, is a former federal judge who didn’t comply with a mystery memo and he warns Julius to just do what they say or he’ll end up an Uber driver barely able to support his family. (THINK OF YOUR SIX CHILDREN, JULIUS.) 

Lucca wearing heels at her standing desk is… just silly, why would she do this? She wouldn’t take off one heel to stretch her foot; she would have a pair of flats to wear in her office. (This episode is written and directed by men, just fyi.) (Do women actually do this? I hate heels so I would never even consider it, but I feel like everyone hates heels??? Even the people who wear them all the time???) 

David is all mad at Lucca for encouraging Bianca to settle because it has tax implications. Two things: One, if there’s this obvious reason to delay, I feel like Lucca would have figured it out. Two, LUCCA IS ON DAVID’S SIDE. And if he’s allowed to say this out loud now, he could have said it earlier. So… no pity for David Lee. This is why you cooperate with your colleagues instead of antagonizing them. 

Liz-- who has been quite underused in this episode-- is also fed up with the dogs. She and Adrian storm upstairs to say, in Adrian’s words, “they can’t use this floor as a toilet for their motherfucking dogs.” 

They bust through the doors to the long hallway (which in real life would DEFINITELY have a key card reader on it) and push past the receptionist. 

Mr. Firth is holding a very cute dog named Avenger. Mr. Firth also refers to Liz as “Elizabeth”. 

Liz asks that the dogs stop “shitting” on their floor. After all, this was supposed to be a partnership, not an acquisition (does anyone believe that? I think Liz is just using their BS corporate talk against them). Mr. Firth says he will find a way to deal with the dogs. Adrian takes the opportunity to mention that the equity partners need their money. “How do we want to satisfy this?” Mr. Firth asks. “Give them money,” Liz says. Mr. Firth agrees to meet about this next week. He also gives Liz and Adrian access to the executive elevator. He’s just trying to appease them so they’ll be more on his side.

Liz and Adrian both recognize that was too easy, but decide to take the win. I feel like this problem is going to come back…

Julius apologizes and releases the CEO. He recuses himself but says that in the meantime the restaurant will stand. 

Diane knows something’s off and confronts Julius. She’s furious but Julius asks her to leave. I wonder what Diane would’ve done in Julius’s situation. It’s very easy to become complicit…

The restaurant is torn down anyway, making Diane even angrier. She tells Julius it’s on him and he reminds her that he is a judge.

And this is how systems are perpetuated.

That’s the end of the episode, save for the message about the two week break before episode 3 from the cast and crew. I appreciate that they included this, and that they included the whole crew rather than just the Kings and the cast. 

I don’t even recognize most of the crew! I recognize the cast (duh), Dan Lawson (the costume designer), the makeup artist (I think I’ve seen her in various instagram posts), Brooke Kennedy, and the Kings. 

Jonathan Coulton is in the video too (he’s totally a part of the TGF family at this point-- and is one of few people to be on TGW, BrainDead, TGF, AND Evil) to lead everyone in an adorable (but somewhat out of sync) singalong. Awwww. 

[kitlcuis]

[ mitch grassi, demiboy, flexible pronouns, 20 ] SEDATED by HOZIER? whenever i hear that song, it reminds me of CHRISTOPHER 'KIT' LOUIS. maybe because they’re ETHEREAL but also ABSTRACTED. they’ve been living at mulberry apartments since SEPTEMBER of 2018 in APARTMENT 203 and have 1 ROOMMATE.

tws – substance use/abuse, toxic relationships, & v brief mention of homophobia

here is darling kit. he’s slightly more of a mess than his sweet little face may give off and i hope you accept a bit of chaos here because… kit does not come quietly! anyways!! also this is a lot longer than i intended so skip to the bottom if you’d like a SUMMARY

hails from one of the northern states on the west coast. he grew up in a strict religious household which felt stifling and limiting from as early as age 4 when he had to wear a bowtie to easter mass when he wanted to wear one of the cute flowery bonnets the girls got to wear

christopher had a very rigid childhood for this reason. his family lived comfortably but it was only perfect on the surface. underneath the glamour of the picturesque family unit there were cracks – splintering shards that would eventually drive a wedge between the louis parents and their only child

kit knew pretty early on that he wasn’t straight – ironically enough, getting the idea from all the anti-gay rhetoric from the church. it gave him the keywords he needed to uncover things like homosexuality and genderfluidity. he also knew to keep it quiet and kept himself securely closeted

figured it was meant to be a secret – kind of like the secret affair his father was having! or the secret gambling problem his mother was so desperate to hide and blamed on faulty record keeping!

basically, the crux of kit’s childhood is that it sucked and he never felt like he got to be a kid. he was smothered.

kit’s first breaking point came at a young age. he had a childhood friend from church who he had gotten super close to. this friend was very whimsical and sweet – flamboyant some would say but hey! they were children!!! kit was very amazed by this friend’s ability to just BE HIMSELF!

his parents, however, were less amazed and especially as the two grew to be preteens and stayed just as close (maybe even sharing an innocent kiss as friends), they got more and more concerned. so concerned, in fact, that eventually, they insisted kit end the friendship. it was devastating, especially since this friend had been teaching kit so much about self expression and confidence and just :’(

but he listened and buried his anger, saving it for only a few short years later when it would all come to a head.

kit had his first “real” romantic kiss at age 14. the boy was older and cooler and kit knew he couldn’t go back into the closet after that. he brought that boy home a few more times, half hoping to get caught just so he wouldn’t have to come out. eventually things fizzled out but kit had had a taste and now he wanted MORE

more boys made their rounds through the louis residence and it wasn’t until kit was doing a little more than kissing that he was finally caught. it was as bad as he’d expected, the shouting match. what he HADN’T expected, though, was the ultimatum. stop this ‘gay business’ or move out. he was only a teen still? couldn’t they even do that, legally?

luckily – or unluckily as it would be – kit had met someone older who had a place of his own in california and he offered to let kit come and stay with him. they’d start dating and kit would even say this was his first love.

it wasn’t some fairytale though – it never was. showing his love for his new beau became sexual extremely fast and would start including doing favors for his friends and coworkers too. kit let it happen because at least he was free of his parents and living with someone who loved him

he put up with three years of increasingly toxic conditions in his relationship with his boyfriend essentially capitalizing on his willingness to please, not knowing that would soon run out.

if you stifle kit too completely, he breaks and that’s what happened.

one day, he snapped, he took his things and left. he was completely homeless and streetbound but he was living life according to his own choices for once and it came with a kind of thrill that kept kit motivated!

he turned to sex work of his own volition, finding it as a stable way of making money, despite the dangers involved. it was all he felt he was qualified for and he was good at it. without need of any authority over him, he made decent money at it and started skulking around seedy bars in the outer LA area for men who would take him home for a good time

that’s where he met his now-boyfriend, julian. before julian, kit would’ve sworn he’d never find someone, never get a crush, never fall in love. one night and kit was questioning everything. a few more and he was hooked harder than any drug could ever get him.

eventually, though, him and julian did fall in love and they’ve been dating ever since. he stopped his sex work entirely & the drugs julian enjoyed slowly became a part of their time together and that’s still very true today. they’re kind of as dependent on it as they are on each other.

kit knows most things about julian’s past and julian knows most things about kit’s past. they’re kindred spirits, both getting their starts way too young and both finding hardships along the way. kit has never smiled as much, laughed as much or loved as much as he has since finding julian so while jules will swear up and down that he’s ruined kit forever by getting him hooked on all kinds of substances, kit thinks julian’s saved his life

they were following one of kit’s elated impulses and taking a road trip from coast to coast and back again on all the money they had left in this run down little jeep station wagon thing when it broke down in north carolina

they got it up and running enough to make their way up to baltimore but then the jeep gave up completely. they sold it for parts and that + julian’s drug money was enough to pay a deposit on an apartment of their own

so now they’re here!!

they’re living on the bare minimum / mattress on the floor type of struggling but they are in love and that’s what matters right? 

SUMMARY – a rough childhood and an even rougher teendom eventually led to one toxic ex boyfriend and a life on the streets. kit found renewed purpose with his now-boyfriend julian who also happened to turn him into a gleeful little druggie along the way. living with no money but a whole lot of love. okay now

PERSONALITY – enigmatic might be a good way to describe kit. he’s fidgety and easily startled, a very frail little thing. he’s off in his own head a lot of the time and he genuinely has a hard time focusing on things. VERY guarded in that you won’t get a peep out of him and his personal life unless you want to talk about his boyfriend who he’ll wax poetic about for hours if you let him. otherwise, he’s social and chatty but about nothing of substance, flirty but with no intention of following through and impulsive to a fault. he’ll make you think you’re his best friend for the evening but not remember you in the morning. only those super close to him get to see a sweet vulnerable side to kit, the rest see this feigned alluring aura and nothing more

PLOTS

party friends – a MUST

some loose circle of friends in general for him and julian!

a good influence ( gonna be a song connection eventually )

protective friends ( though misguided bc he won’t really listen )

smoking buddies

honestly i think it’d be funny if someone didn’t like him bc he flirted with their boyfriend

and alternatively, the boyfriend he flirted with

someone with an instant crush / love at first sight bond with the very taken kit

someone who can develop into his best friend

aaaaaand people him nd julian kinda corrupt. they’re a chaotic force as a duo so rip

oh ig eventually he’s gonna try to make cash the only way he knows how so thats… a possibility

if YOU have any ideas, lemme know!

[midnightghostwriter]

close encounter

↬ summary: a trip downtown turns into more than you bargained for

↬ genre: fluff

↬ pairing: jay park x reader

↬ word count: 2.7k

a/n: okay so this is 100% just because i like this story and this week has sucked so here have more fluff. istg someday i will update with something new, but for now bear with me and have this instead.

i will probably change the title bc idk how i feel about it lol

The Pacific Northwest was known more than anywhere else in America for being rainy, gray, and cold, especially during the extended winter months. This fact only became more true the closer one drew to the various bodies of water dotting the state of Washington, leading you to wonder what had possessed you to go on this excursion. It wasn’t precisely far to reach the damp streets of Seattle, but it was far enough that by the time you’d arrived at the bustling hub of Pike Street, and managed to orient yourself at the bus stop a few blocks away, the rain was drumming a fiercer beat than the brave buskers trying to earn a few bucks from passerby despite the inclement conditions.

Hood drawn tight about your face, you dodged your fellow pedestrians as best you could with your vision so limited to what laid directly in your path. You were met with success, ducking into the blessedly covered marketplace. Past the inexplicable statue of a golden pig surrounded by flocks of tourists taking photos and into the warmth of the covered walkway that wound between stalls and established shops alike. The warm air was filled with a myriad of scents; soft florals of the multitude of flower stands, the distinctive smell of fish and seafood fresh from the nearby piers, the hidden sour smell of so many bodies packed into the space. It was almost overwhelming and yet you found yourself enjoying it. It was not often you were able to experience it, and you wanted to commit it to memory in as much detail as possible.

Across the cobbled floor, dampened from the rain soaked soles of shoes that had preceded yours, your feet carried you, slowing their hurried rush to escape the less savory weather to a stroll that allowed you to take in the sights. Past the famous flying fish stand where experienced fishmongers tossed the large sea dwellers into the waiting hands of patrons in the crowd; past the classy restaurant that had managed to claim a small section of the market for the more upscale customers; past a natural food stand and another selling an assortment of wares tourists would brandish to prove they had set foot in this cultural hub.

You allowed yourself to fall into the current of tourists and locals alike, you falling somewhere in the middle as you marveled at some wares and rolled your eyes at others. But nothing caught your eye, and you weren’t keen on truly shopping here anyway. So you followed the flow of people until the line of shops once again opened onto the equally bustling street, blinking a bit as you stepped into the dim grey light. Pausing, you glanced about you before deciding to make your way toward the more formal shopping district a few blocks away.

A slight detour to secure a warm drink from the city’s famous coffeehouse, and you were puffing warm air into the damp chill outside the entrance to H&M. Another stream of chattering people helped you through the doors into the store, some trendy song or another filling your ears as you moved off to the side to avoid being run into. Idly you circled some of the sales racks near the doors, picking at vibrant patterns, and simple colors in fashion-forward cuts.

Intent on your search, you didn’t notice the new rush of shoppers come inside just as you rounded the rack. Your indiscretion found you colliding quite abruptly with an unexpected presence, a flash of gratefulness that you’d consumed your coffee and thus avoided splashing the beverage onto them flitting through your mind. The empty cup tumbled from your fingers as you stumbled a bit and reached for the nearest thing to steady you, which just so happened to be a pair of well-muscled arms that had reached for you. As you took a moment to regain your balance, you couldn’t help a twinge of vague recognition for the tattoos that spread across the tanned skin from beneath the rolled sleeves of the person’s shirt. Hadn’t you seen that design somewhere before?

Then you remembered your situation, and a muddled rush of apologies came tumbling past your lips. The words were met with a low chuckle that had your eyes sliding up the body in front of you to meet your victim’s, the sight nearly tearing a gasp from your throat as your own orbs widened in surprise.

“Nah it’s my fault, I wasn’t paying attention,” the guy supporting you assured, hint of a smile playing at his lips. You tried to remember the second nature act of taking in oxygen as a red-hot blush swept across your face. This became infinitely harder when a full smile lit his features at the wide eyes and dropped jaw you were now sporting. “I’m Jay.”

“I know.” The words sprang unbidden from your gaping mouth and you snapped it shut, mortified. Your blush darkened as he laughed again, polite smile now a genuine grin. “I-I mean, I’m…” You eventually managed to provide him with the syllables of your own name and he nodded, repeating it back almost as if he were testing out the sound. Your heart flopped funnily in your chest, eyes darting away from his to focus on a pair of heels on the rack next to you.

“Hey, I’m actually from around here,” he started and you resisted the urge to tell him that you knew that too. “How about I show you some of my favorite spots? You know, as kind of an apology for almost body slamming you into those ugly ass leopard leggings.” At that exact moment you realized your fingers were still resting on his biceps and you tore them away to run a hand through your hair in a manner you hoped was casual, the other diving into the sanctuary of your coat pocket.

“Th-that sounds like fun!” You agreed, hoping he couldn’t hear the nervous strain in your voice or see how your smile wavered shyly under his gaze. You instantly regretted chancing a look at him when you saw his smile bloom again and your heart tripped across your rib cage.

“Great, let’s go,” and you were left no choice but to follow when he turned to lead the way out.

You hadn’t been sure what to expect when you unthinkingly agreed to Jay’s proposal. Maybe he’d bring you to a place in the warehouse district on 1st where he used to practice the dances he was so known for. Or perhaps some hidden corner of one of the parks where’d he sat and thought about the path he wanted his life and his music to take. Hell maybe he was just going to ditch you in some god awful corner of Columbia or something and leave you for dead.

But lucky for you Jay stayed true to you, guiding you along the crowded streets and weaving between alleyways on your own personal tour. Even when he brought you somewhere you had visited in years past, you smiled and laughed at the stories he added to your own memories of the location. With every minute that passed in his presence you found your earlier nerves about being in the presence of someone you so admired slipping, replaced instead with a fondness for the boy beside you.

Pleasant surprise reigned once again when you were dragged (though not quite so forcibly) to a quirky shop of some persuasion you couldn’t discern from the sign. Tucked safely within its warm interior, it suddenly hit you again just who you were with. Sneaking a peek at him, you were startled to find his eyes meeting yours, almost as if he had been doing the same.

“I-is this another spot on the Jay Park Exclusive Seattle Tour?” you asked, trying to tease him and cover up the race horse of your heart in your chest. With a chuckle he shook his head.

“Nope, just looked good and I’m starving,” he replied simply and you snickered.

“Ah, so even the great Jay Park can be won over through his stomach.”

“Is that so wrong?”

“Nah, it’s cute.” The words tripped past your lips before you had time to think, but the raised brow on Jay’s face shed some light on your Freudian slip. “I-I mean, uh, oh shit.” The amused smile on his lips split into full blown laughter as you panicked.

“Pay attention or you aren’t getting anything to eat.” The unexpected reprimand was accompanied by a playful smack to the back of your head, effectively cutting off any rambling apologies or excuses you may have had. Flustered, you glanced at the menu and spat out the first item that looked even remotely edible.

Cowed into silence by your slip of the tongue, you followed him to a table, trying and failing to not overthink every move you made now. Completely lacking any of your usual grace (if you could be said to have even a modicum of the stuff), you flopped into the chair across from him, eyes glued to the granite table top. Jay remained silent, allowing you to wallow in your thoughts that he probably thought you were ridiculous, or even worse you had made him uncomfortable with your comment. God, could this get any more awkward?

Before your brain could spell out each and every way things could be infinitely more awkward, you were started from your thoughts by the appearance of your food. You glanced up from the plate placed before you to find Jay settling back into his seat, already beginning to devour the sandwich he’d ordered.

“Sorry, I should’ve gone to get the food since you paid,” you managed after a moment, your voice hushed with nerves. The reassuring smile he flashed your way sent your heart spiraling out of control and you could feel your blush making its return. You ducked your head, hoping your hair could conceal at least some of the red tint from his vision.

“Don’t be sorry. You say that too much.” He reached across the table and stole one of your fries, smiling teasingly. “Now hurry up and eat or I’m taking yours. I did pay after all, so it’s technically mine anyway.” Finding a small sum of courage with his teasing, you scooted the plate closer to you, rearranging your features into mock offense.

“Nice try but you already gave it to me so it’s mine now.” As if to stake your claim, you lifted one of your fries and pointedly ran your tongue across it before dropping it back amidst its brethren. You repeated the stunt with the top of your sandwich, too caught up in your joke to notice the way his eyes followed the action. “See? Would you really want those now?”

“Jesus, you didn’t have to slobber all over them, Scooby Doo.” You stuck out your tongue again and he pretended to cringe away. With a giggle you picked up your food, taking a bite and finding that you liked it far more than you expected, just as you did your companion.

After the food was consumed (Jay still managing to take a portion of yours hostage, not that you minded terribly) and your energy appropriately restored, you let him lead you from the quaint restaurant and resume your wandering. A glance at the perpetually gray sky, now several shades closer to the black of night, told you that it was probably time to get going if you didn't want to be stuck in Seattle until the morning. Before you could voice these concerns and your need to find the nearest bus stop, however, Jay stopped abruptly, you nearly crashing into him for the second time that day.

“What the heck Jay, say something before you stop like that!”

“Sorry,” he murmured with the presence of mind to look a little abashed at your reprimand. “This is my stop, though.”

“Your-- what?” At last you glanced at the building before you and were surprised to find a hotel. Oh. Of course, he was just visiting so he was probably staying here.

All at once it hit you. This was it. Jay would go inside to his hotel room, you'd board an overcrowded bus, and you'd never see him again except on sns and splashed across articles by zealous netizens. He would go back to Korea and lose himself in his music, and his memories of this day would disappear somewhere over the Atlantic. Your heart twisted painfully at the thought, but you did your best to hide it with another teasing grin.

“Why Mr. Park, what will the keyboard warriors say if they find out I was at your hotel? I should probably leave before they find us!” You made a show of glancing around as if looking for spies in the long shadows of the streetlights and he offered you a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

“You know… I'm still going to be around for a few days.” Your eyes dart back to him, though his gaze is focused on the cracked city sidewalk, hand resting on the back of his neck in blatant nervousness. You tell your heart to stop hoping so it won't be crushed later. “We could… Do this again.” Too late. But his words still take you by surprise, washing all other coherent thought from your mind.

“I… What? Huh?” Smooth.

“Today was fun, and I want to see you again,” he says, the words spilling out into the cracks between you rushed, as if he’s afraid taking too long will change your mind. A tentative smile spreads your lips.

“Really?” Your voice is small, hushed with the ghost of a younger girl with a dream like this, hoping against hope that it was really coming to life.

“Really. Gimme your phone.” You slide the device from your pocket and place it in his hand, committing the warm brush of his fingers against yours to memory. With anxious eyes you watch as they fly across your screen and then suddenly you're looking at a string of numbers with his name across the top. “Call me as soon as possible.” Bubbling over with happiness, a giggle escapes you as you tuck your phone away.

“Okay.” He smiles properly at your acquiescence and you think you could get used to seeing it, even if the return of your skipping heart tries to remind you no, you never would.

“It's getting late, you should probably go before it gets too sketchy.” You roll your eyes.

“This place is always sketchy,” you shoot back. “But I guess I should. If I miss the next bus I'll be stuck out here for another half an hour.” And yet neither of you moves. You, because you are afraid the moment you turn away this will all become a beautiful dream and he'll vanish with it, and he because of a reason you don't know and don't dare to guess. But it's now or never, so with your heart in your stomach you wave and turn away. You make it maybe three steps before those already familiar fingers close around your wrist, yanking you back around with a Wait.

And then before you can say anything or process how you're so much closer to him than you've dared to be all day, or the way his arms feel around your waist, or how wow his eyes are way nicer up close, his lips are on yours and holy shit this is the last thing you expected but you definitely don't object. Especially when you lean up just a bit and you realize that you can feel his heart beating just as fast as yours when it occurs to him that you're actually kissing him back.

It's only a second, a breathless, heart-pounding, everything you've ever wanted in the world, second and then he's pulling away, staring at you in a way that has your stomach doing back flips. And then, in true Jay fashion, he ruins the moment entirely to mumble you forgot this.

And fuck if that cheesy line doesn't make you want to kiss him again.

[captusmomentum]

Arranged marriage au tanzanite BC it sounds like the best kind of freakout lol

welp so this is an absolute fucking garbage fire. The concept shit isn’t so bad but i’m not happy with the writing (the prologue/set up bit is a fucking trash heap like holy shit), i’ve been pulled away, distracted and tired all day so i didn’t get to focus on this like i’d wanted to but i’m also really not interested in holding onto it to work on it when things are less hectic bc i’ll just forget and it’ll rot here sooooo. 

the first bit is like, nondescript omnipresent narration then it goes into povs.

Mythal (kinda), Uthivr and Thenvunin are @feynites‘s Alhanin, Fewena and Inanallas are mine

Why shouldn’t they help themselves, after the way they’d been treated?

It was always the people who thought they’d won who seemed to forget that things change and it’s impossible to completely destroy an enemy which meant there were still free elves wandering the earth, unchained by the Pretenders or the Vultures, and they had just as long a memory as the people who’d sought to own them.

Slowly they recovered and the scattered people came together, formed clans, traded and parted, shared gossip. They stayed small and in the places the others did not want to live, hidden from both sides.

Eventually a thought began to ripple through the clans and homesteads.

Why do they cower while Tyrants grow strong from the blood of their brothers? Why are they standing by while the world is ravaged by the short sighted and selfish?

Eventually they’re purpose turned to patience, as they planned and prepared. This time things would go much differently, and it would be the others who would be broken.

The day came with the call of Alhanin True-Aimed, Lead Hunter and Arbiter of a desert clan, who spoke to all the elders who would hear her and so solidified the alliance of the clans, and when the Empire of Corruption was distracted by their plays at outrage and rebuilding after a brief slap from the Others the Free People struck.

They hit all territories, simultaneously— freeing their prisoners, creeping into their palaces like shadows, shattering their walls like trees in a maelstrom, leaving no chance for aid. Skirmishes breaking out in all the places they’d considered so safe from the blades of enemies.

They finally took them seriously when Féwena the Iron rode with False Death’s head on a spike.

They called for a truce when Arlathan was breached and it was made clear how very different things were this time.

Alhanin True-Aimed agreed to talk with them and after a long time and much thinking and talking something of a truce was made. The Evanuris could not have their fallen’s land back and those who lived there could stay as Free People if they so wished or go to serve some other master if that was what they wanted. The Evanuris could no longer hunt them and would have to lessen their stranglehold on their people. In return they were gifted with their lives.

It was called by the Pretenders a great triumph of the People, a peace brokered swiftly that would lead to a new era of unity against common enemies.

They did not say they had surrendered, nor that they had given up the most. Alhanin was kinder then most, and let them keep some of their pride.

They were still, however, clever as snakes and did gain some things. But Alhanin was just as clever and give while making useless, defeating them again.

It was not…. It was not.

Well, it wasn’t what they’d been expecting. Or anything they were remotely comfortable with.

Still they’d taken it with as much stride as anyone could. They understood why and the importance of all these various moves to stabilize the situation,  so they don’t say anything and just accept their lot. Though the prospect of it sends their blood running cold, marriage political or not was a terrifying concept.

They learn about the arrangement while still leading the search for, investigation and clearing of Dirthamen’s holds. Alhanin makes the trip herself to tell them, the first sign of the severity. She’d looked as solemn and apologetic as they’d ever seen her, mane still in it’s hunting braid, still walking around in her hunter’s leathers-cum-armor, bow and quiver still in place. She’d been frank and to the point, asked if Inanallas was okay with this (or at least that it would send them into a meltdown) and informed her of what was being discussed as the parameters of the marriage, that she would inform them of the exact details when it was finalized. Inan had thanked her spoke with her about their progress and saw her out when she’d left.

Inanallas had then returned to their work and not thought about it since.

Now as they drew closer to finishing their examination of Dirthamen’s holdings, the arrangement finalized and the wedding preparations are underway a cold clawing fear grew in them. Still, they ignored it as much as they could.

The news is bad, though they can’t decide how bad in the scope of things. There are a million horrors that they could have been subjected to during the short blood bath the wildings brought on them, a pawn in a political marriage is not so bad, depending on who they have to marry and the conditions of the marriage.

It rankles them though, to be sold like cattle to pay the costs of the Leaders’ loss and their Lady’s bad behavior in the aftermath. They don’t know anything about the wild elves and that complete lack of knowledge gnaws at them and Fear, here they know what they’re dealing with— this other faction was a near complete unknown. The only insight they have into them is their own experience with them in battle and now working under them in the aftermath. The problem is that it’s not the most helpful in gaining an understanding of their future living situation, there’s little that’s cohesive between all the many groups that form their former enemy and they don’t know which group their betrothed is in so they can’t attempt to focus on their people in particular.

They do wonder, why they were chosen out of the living candidates, eventually they sniff out that Mythal was the one who’d chosen from both her own and Andruil’s people, as part of her punishment, and chosen one of her most prized hunters. A mother taking away a naughty child’s dollies, another thing to make their skin scrawl.  

There are some consolations to the entire thing however, many of the other higher ranking hunters are dead and the rest are like them, all under the oversight of wild elves as they go through stripping and restructuring Andruil’s territories and people, so there is little to no mockery or antagonism to deal with over their lot from their peers and Andruil is trapped in Arlathan for the negotiations so they are not subjected to being her outlet. They suffer some minor cruelties from the invaders but they seem to have a strict policy against that and police their own heavily for those.

If Uthvir was one for Hope, they’d take it as sign, but they’re not so they note it but do not put stock in it.

Mythal had summoned him to the private gardens of her Arlathan estate to tell him. He’d been a trembling maelstrom of innumerable mixed emotions from the instant he is given the summons. His poor Lady, he knows she is, as one of their greatest leaders and it’s completely unseemly of him to pity her but—

She has been through so much.

To first have to fend off those monstrous Nameless and their poor attempts on the Empire and then have savages rain such devastation as the Empire celebrates and recovers. To have to extend a hand to such ruthless killers just to protect her people, the people who so brutally killed her son, while Falon’Din was certainly not the most—well, it was hard, regardless of what they were like, to lose a child so terribly.

He didn’t know what he could do for her but he hoped dearly there was something he could do to help alleviate the strain she was under keeping Elvhenan together in this tumultuous time.

The garden was dim in the dusk light, illuminated by various lanterns and luminescent flowers, pale and beautiful. She sat at a small ornate table meant for taking tea, shining in the fading light. His nerves had left him the moment the doorway had come into view, the natural reflex to cast aside his own troubles so he could better hear and serve her coming back again. It would never do for him to come in a mess and worsen her own state, his own woes were nothing in comparison to hers.

With careful, practiced grace—every move perfect, no jerk, no misstep, make every stride perfect— he glides to the side of the table opposite her and Mythal turns to him briefly, her expression many things he has never seen before.

“Sit Thenvunin.”

He does so, ever so carefully, hard fought grace actuating very single element of the motion, faces her just so.

“You called for me, My Lady.” He demures.

She smiles faintly for a instant before her expression becomes unreadable, her gaze stays unfocused on the flowers.

“Yes, I did.”

“And what is it you need from me, My Lady?”

Her gaze seems to begin to focus at the question, by the time she finishes turning to him they are almost as sharp as they usually are, but much more full.

“It is not what I need but what I have done. I have proposed many means of better stabilizing this new situation and aligning the clans to us. Unsurprisingly most have failed, but not all of them, there is only one of them that relates to you, an arranged marriage— our finest to theirs.”

His throat goes dry. “I-I see.”

A shade of something sad and soft comes into her.

“It is not what I would have wanted for you, but I must think of the People before everything else. It’s a difficult thing, to think of no longer having you in my service, but I knew I needed to chose someone who was competent, strong and faithful, so there was no other choice.”

The straightness in his back shifts from the tenseness of shock to that of a seasoned soldier. Mythal had chosen him for this because she had faith in his loyalty to her and to the People. Chosen him because she felt of all her people he was the one best suited to champion them from that position. It was not—It wasn’t how he’d— Well, it was not the context in which one generally thinks about marriage, but he would do it. He had gone through worse things for Mythal and the empire, he would not be felled by this.

“Are all the terms decided?”

“Yes. It’s all been finalized.”

“Then I suppose there’s a lot of preparation in order to get ready for the ceremony—assuming there even is a ceremony—“

“There will be a ceremony Thenvunin,” she smiles ever so slightly. “The finest ceremony Elvhenan has ever seen.”

His heart skips a beat.