#some from high school some from discord some from just this year alone and some of it worked out but some of it?? not so much

[glitt-erm]

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[2-dsimp]

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Yandere Dullahan Incel x Crybaby! Fem reader!

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Cw: incel tendencies, obsessive/possessive tendencies, abuse/neglect, infidelity, slight angst, coercion, manipulation, toxic behaviors, codependency

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Yandere Incel who dislikes you to the point where they grow to love you.

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Yandere Incel! Who came from a broken home, his father was a habitual drunkard ever since his mother up and left them. Saying she couldn’t take it anymore, couldn’t take waking up everyday to the disembodied heads of her husband and son.

Said husband was a Dullahan where it was seen as normal practice to not have a head on one’s neck. But of course her reason for leaving was a lie, it’s because she had found someone new to fawn over despite the 7 year marriage. His father always had a sneaking suspicion but he didn’t want to believe it until divorce papers were carelessly thrown at him and his 13 year old son, Cynix who were just bonding in the living room.

Yandere Incel! Who became all too desensitized from his father’s drunken rant about women. Namely his wife, Cursing her while swigging on a poor strangers soul he had just reaped the night before. His father didn’t realize the impact he had on his son. What was merely some drunken venting became life lessons for his impressionable kin.

Yandere Incel! Who met you at a birthday he was forced to attend by his dad. He was in his freshman year of high school. And Cynix complained about going to a stupid girls birthday party. When he could’ve been on discord horsing around with his online friends.

However his Father wasn’t having it seeing how much of a reclusive hermit Cynix was. Never going outside only when it came to being forced out of bed. And always hunkering down in his room surrounded by energy drinks. With his Pc monitors glowing upon his head that was placed on the desk. Shit talking everyone while he looked at the chat logs of his streams. As his headless body did all the work of shooting everyone’s heads off.

Whenever his dad wasn’t drunk, the single father would try his best to do damage control. Knowing how traumatic the experience of Divorce must’ve been. As he picked up on his Cynix’s hostile behavior towards the opposite gender. However it was too late, his father and his mother, were already the direct cause of his evident dislike for women.

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Yandere Incel! Who had given you was his head. He brashly plucked it off of his neck and tossed it into your arms. Cynix carried a crass grin on his face at a job well done. You were the birthday girl after all so what better present than having a lopped off head chucked into your arms?

Cynix wanted to scare you off, after all his mother always said that he was an abomination with and without his head on. So it was expected that you’d fuck off. After all it was normal for girls to run away at the first sight of anything remotely inconveniencing them right? just like his cowardice bitch of a mother.

Yandere Incel! Who had a shocked blushing expression on his face when you hugged his head close to your chest. Innocently asking your parents if you could keep his head. Since he gave it to you, that’s when he came to know that you were oh so cherished by a family.

A family that was whole, with a doting father and a caring mother. A mother so different from his who upped and deserted them as if they were just toys. The fact alone made him envy you with gritted teeth. Cynix wanted to throttle you by the neck, and choke off that cute grin of yours.

It just wasn’t fair! As a woman you had everything given to you with a bat of your lashes. The fact made him despise being in your presence. Why couldn’t he have what you’ve got? A functional family. A mother who actually gives a shit about you, A father who wasn’t a drunkard that got suicidal every time he drank. Reliable siblings to confide in instead of rotting alone with dark thoughts. A normal life in which you weren’t seen as a freak, just because you were initially born without your head attached to your neck.

You had everything that he craved deep down. And he hated it, but the way you cradled his head as if he was something precious. Made his heart squeeze uncomfortably making him feel utterly sick and yet giddy simultaneously.

And to his horror his father saw this as an opportunity to make him socialize with a damned girl. Immediately chatting up the couple who happened to be his close friends from work. And becoming his sons unwanted wingman by setting the two of you up on play dates by your request of course.

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Yandere Incel! Who scowled on the outside from having to put up with you always following him around like a damned puppy. But was inwardly growing to adore the pitter patters of your feet hurriedly trailing behind him.

He hates that he loves how much of a crybaby you became, whenever he’d deliberately leave you alone. His head was hiding just out of reach to see you pretty face when you’d cry out for him. It made him shiver in ecstasy every time, at how much control he had over you. How much you needed him. He hadn’t ever felt so wanted by the opposite gender. Especially since his mother treated him like a disease. So he couldn’t help but to abuse that fact of codependency for his own gain.

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Yandere Incel! Who was proactive in keeping you on a tight leash. Making sure your days revolved around him. Though he found women in general to be an eyesore, gradually you became an exception.

With every play date he’d make sure to condition you into always finding him. Like a sick game of hide n seek, he’d leave you in a dark graveyard which his father owned. Making you all fearful and desperate to seek him out for comfort. Until it became an instinct of yours to search for him out of your own volition.

He’d cause rifts in the relationships with your other female friends. Successfully isolating you from them, making you feel alone with nobody to confide in. He didn’t need those dumb whores to put silly ideas into your head. About how he was a damned creep, that he was bad news. He’d make sure you remained untouched by those vile vermin who were just like his mother.

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Yandere Incel! Who’d occasionally get his buddies to terrorize you, just so you’d always come running into his embrace. Whenever you strayed a bit away from him. He’d never allow you to go so much as a day without you hanging off his arm like an obedient pet at his side.

Yandere incel! Who’d Oftentimes make you cry with his silver tongue. Only in the next minute lick them off murmuring garbled half assed apologies. He doesn’t mean to make you cry with his involuntary use of insults that weren’t supposed to be aimed at you.

The incel was just terrible at communicating with women in general. Always on the defensive as His brain immediately generalized the lot of them to be useless bitches out of habit. As that was how deep the resentment he bore for his mother.

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Yandere Incel! Who also sucks at any type of physical boundaries. After you guys started college, his obsessiveness grew palpable. As the nerd was all over you, absentmindedly pulling you into his lap anytime and anywhere. And groping you all over like a stress ball. Not giving a shit about who saw if they were in public.

He’s a touch starved degenerate but he’d gaslight you into thinking that you were the one who needed his hands all over you. His tongue to lick any perspiration off your skin, he found all of this to be completely normal. You were his to do with as he pleased after all.

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Yandere Incel! Who denies all simp allegations. You’d never catch him being a so called simp despite the numerous bodies he had marked for death. All because he caught a group of students ridiculing you for hanging out with a freak like him. Thanks to his undead nature as a natural soul harvester.

It definitely wasn’t simping if he just tossed you the things he knew you liked at your lap whenever he’d drag you into his college dorm room.

Yandere Incel! Who’d shrug his shoulders and claim that it was on sale. When it costed a chunk out of his allowance to buy. It wasn’t simping when he’d take the time out of his busy schedule to help you study. Though it did came with the price of you giving him full access to your body in return. Even though he had that to begin with. He just liked the embarrassment on your face when he’d tell you to do lewd things for him.

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A/n: I’ve been itching to do an incel concept for awhile now let me know if you like this manchild lol ψ(｀∇´)ψ

[steddieasitgoes]

Friday Night Lights

written partly for the STWG discord prompt: "Starry Night" and partly to celebrate the wonderful @thefreakandthehair birthday. I tried to bring some sports into for you Lex! wc: 1312 | rated: T Read on ao3

Eddie’s been standing outside the locker room for forty-five minutes when he starts to get worried. He’s no stranger to waiting, knows Steve likes to take his time after a big game showering, celebrating, and decompressing. It’s why he sent Robin and Chrissy on ahead of them. But Tommy left fifteen minutes ago, Coach a few minutes after and there’s still no sign of his boyfriend in all his winning glory.

Stubbing out his cigarette under the toe of his boot, he pushes off from the cement wall and begins his search. The locker room doors are already locked. He saw Coach Hopper lock them himself so there’s no point in looking there. Instead, he follows the pathway Steve’s been taking for four years nearly every Friday night, chasing the bright lights until he turns onto Hawkins High’s Football Field.

The scoreboard has been turned off, but the bright lights are still on illuminating the field. There in the middle, on the fifty-yard line is Steve. He’s still in his pads and jersey, knees drawn up to his chest as he clings to the helmet in his hands. His trademark Harrington Hair is flat, sticking to his forehead with a mix of sweat and the Gatorade the team spilled over him when he threw the final pass winning them the championship.

Eddie doesn’t have to get closer to know Steve’s deep in thought. Knows his brows are knitted together, his bottom lip trapped under his teeth as he irritates that one piece of skin he never lets heal.

“Hey sweetheart,” he whispers, slowly lowering himself down onto the field beside Steve. “Been waiting for you.”

“Sorry,” Steve says, slowly turning to face Eddie. He gives him a soft, shy smile before tipping his head back as his gaze locks on the bright lights above.

“S’okay. Everything okay?”

“We just won the championship, of course, everything is okay,” Steve mumbles.

Eddie doesn’t press. He’s been with Steve long enough to know that he’ll tell him what’s really bothering him when he’s ready. So he sits in silence instead. Lets the bright lights coat him in warmth, digs his hands into the torn-up grass of the field and rips a few pieces free. He’s seconds away from reaching into his pocket to light his second smoke of the night when Steve sighs beside him.

“It feels weird, knowing this is it, I mean. I just played my last game ever on this field, under these lights and…”

Eddie scoots closer and slowly gets his arm around Steve’s middle before tugging him closer. It’s not as smooth as he’d like, especially not with all the padding Steve’s still wearing, but he still gets the job done. He feels the deep sigh Steve exhales before his head comes to rest on Eddie’s shoulder.

“There’s just something magical about being here every Friday. Looking up and being blinded by the lights that are only on to help you play a game. They always kept me focused. Remind me that I’m not alone in the world,” Steve pauses before shaking his head. “It sounds stupid, I know.”

“It doesn’t sound stupid,” Eddie says, voice firm so Steve knows he’s not just saying that. Sure, Eddie might not get the whole sports thing, but he gets that feeling. The adrenaline rush of being in the spotlight, all eyes and attention on you. It’s why he loves theater so much. “I get it.”

“I guess I just wanted to soak it up one last time.”

Eddie hums, titling his own head so his cheek grazes the still-damp hair on Steve’s head. “The lights were always going to go out on this field. I mean, you can’t stay in high school forever, and who the hell wants that anyway.” Steve laughs and Eddie feels his entire body turn molten at the sound. “But, the good news is, I know a place that can give you that same feeling. Somewhere that no one will ever be able to take from you.”

“If you say your bedroom or some shit like that I’m never blowing you again.”

“You can't deny the magic that happens in that room” Eddie laughs, earning a harsh shove from Steve in return. “But no, I’m being serious this time. Why don’t you go change and meet me by the car?”

Steve nods and gets to his feet effortlessly despite playing one of the most grueling football games of his life. He waits to help Eddie up to his feet before he’s hustling off toward the locker room.

As they reunite at the van ten minutes later, the field lights flick off sending them into darkness. Eddie can feel Steve’s mood deflate, making out the way his shoulders sag in the pitch black as the light he’s come to expect goes out for the final time.

“Come on,” Eddie says, nudging him with his hip. “You’re going to love this place. I promise.”

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Ten minutes later, Eddie steers the van off the road and into the forest surrounding Hawkins. The engine rattles and the tires rumble as they drive over the rough terrain of the ground but it’s all worth it when they reach the clearing half a mile in. Eddie cuts off the engine and hops out and Steve follows without being told.

Wasting no time, Eddie hops on the hood of the van and knocks his head against it urging Steve to follow. When they’re both situated, he folds his hands behind his head and leans back, letting his eyes gaze up at the starry night sky as he instructs Steve to follow his lead.

“Don’t forget to look up,” he reminds him after the sound of his ruffling to get comfortable stops.

Eddie doesn’t have to turn his head to know when Steve does. The soft gasp that passes his lips is all the proof he needs.

“I know the stars aren’t the same thing as the bright lights of the field and the roaring cheers of the crowd, but they’re also not that different. I used to drive out here after closing nights of shows. Clear my head, let the adrenaline burn off a bit before heading to the diner with the cast and crew.

“It’s quieter out here, but I got the same chills I did when I stepped on stage in that stupid lion costume, the first time I looked up and saw the stars shining like that. It was like a weird reminder that I wasn’t alone. That someone or something, I guess, was still looking out for me.”

There’s a beat of silence that follows, but Eddie doesn’t let it rile him up like the silence between them used to. He knows now that Steve’s not going anywhere. Especially not when he’s just bared a part of his soul in a way that he never has before.

Sure enough, the moment passes as Steve hums. “It’s like a whole crowd up there, shining over us.”

“Yeah!” Eddie says, quiet but still enthusiastic that Steve gets it. Carefully, he rolls onto his side and props his head up with one hand as he gazes at Steve. “Exactly.”

“Thank you for bringing me out here,” Steve says, rolling over to mirror Eddie again. He doesn’t stop when he’s on his side though and keeps scooting across the hood until he’s centimeters from Eddie.

The kiss is soft and delicate. Almost as if Steve is too shy to kiss him under the stars, but Eddie doesn’t mind. He’ll take whatever kiss Steve has to offer anytime, anywhere.

“Anytime, sweetheart,” Eddie breathes, leaning in to give Steve a chaste kiss of his own.  “Now come on, you have a championship to celebrate and if you don’t show up at Hagan’s soon, Robbie is definitely going to be filing a missing persons report.”

[artfightdramaconfessions]

I'm really grateful for how artfight reminds me that I'm actually a pretty good artist despite barely having 700 followers on my main art social media which I've been posting on for eight years (I've been drawing properly for 11 years) and getting 0 traction, no comments, 5-20 likes on a post if I'm lucky. A quarter of my following is just my sibling's following because they're a professional. If I put an ounce of care into my social media responses, I'd probably end up quitting art. But I do it for me, and by jove I do it for Artfight. Every July, I draw like a feral creature. The rest of the year I make about half of what I make for artfight.. total.

On Artfight my ratio is always greater than 50%, and I've commented on EVERY drawing I've ever received (except two who ignored my permissions). Plus, I've made friends... who I DON'T feel obligated to draw for and they don't feel obligated to draw for me.

I actually fucking love artfight and I'm proud of how far I've come with it. I LOVE looking back on my shitty attacks from the year that I first started learning digital art. I LOVE comparing them to the attacks that I'm GLOWING PROUD of now - attacks that for once in my life I actually care to watermark. I've been on artfight for MANY years now. I have over 1000 followers, over 100 profile comments, just under 250 defenses and what makes me feel really good is that I have almost 280 attacks. i.e, more attacks than defenses, despite my art and my profile being fairly popular (on artfight) and my hitlists getting over 250 responses this year and 150 last year. I'm putting numbers to give actual benchmarks for where I'm sitting now, after 8 damn years of fighting for this.

Trust me, first years. I had the most toxic, bittersweet, love-hate relationship with artfight for my first three years. It was not fucking easy. I barely got attacked. Half my drawings never got commented on, my ratio was always over 80%, buffered by friends from my high school and some chads from Wattpad (back in the days). I hated getting to the end of a week of artfight and dwelling on how "I drew all this" and "no one wants to draw my characters" and "my art sucks" and "no one attacks me first".

It's hard, it can be disappointing, but it gets so much better and really becomes properly rewarding over time if you just put yourself out there and do it all for YOU and YOURSELF. Draw like crazy. Improve like crazy. Learn new things. Interact. Go crazy bananas and make the most of it, even when it feels like you're not being seen. Advertise yourself on the discord in MAY next year, when the real G's are hanging around and the server is still quiet enough that you aren't posted over all the time. Join hitlists, make hitlists and add a compulsory "which character of mine do you like" question to make people actually look at your page and see how much much they like you/your ocs/your art.

Artfight is pretty awesome. It's hard not to get bogged down by high ratios, but trust me... it gets better. You just gotta do it for you. :) <3 If you're struggling to get defenses, remember you aren't alone and that if you keep fighting... one day in another fight in another year you're going to struggle to keep up with revenges and you're going to anguish over your ratio dropping. I hope you get some art that makes you cry happy tears this year <3

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[ayyy-pee]

Hi lexi! I just finished Strangers in Love and it’s so beautiful that I just don’t want to let it go yet! Would you be open to maybe writing a drabble for Reader x Nanami in this story? Like when they first started dating in high school? I’d love to learn their history

Thank you for all your great works! ❤️

omg anon i'm sooooo sorry it took me so long to get back to you! i'm barely crawling out of my slump lol but i hope you like this. it got a little more angsty than i intended but it felt a little fitting for them idk T_T. hope you enjoy!

𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞 - 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐲

Discord 18+ - Twitter - JJK Masterlist

Pairing: Nanami Kento x Female Reader

Summary: You and Nanami take a trip down memory lane.

Genre: Divorced to Lovers AU

The tension is thick in the apartment as you and Nanami set down the final pair of small boxes you'd retrieved from your storage space on the coffee table. Satoru is over for some reason, lounging lazily on the floor. Without a word, you and Nanami take a seat on the sofa, a good amount of space between you two. The boxes sit there, untouched in the silence. Satoru's eyes dart between the two of you before he leans forward and peels the tape off of one.

"I take it therapy didn't go well..." Satoru sighs, pulling out the contents of the box.

An understatement. It's been quiet like this since you and Nanami had returned home from one of your couples therapy sessions. After a very intense session going over the reasons for your initial divorce, you both left feeling...honestly? frustrated with each other. 

Where you felt justified in how you handled the divorce situation, Nanami disagreed. He'd of course apologized for what you felt contributed to your first marriage’s demise, but felt he would have been willing to work through things had you come to him, had you waited for him to be in a better headspace.

Where Nanami voiced how he felt things could have worked out differently, you disagreed. You didn't feel there was a way to work past your issues at the time, Nanami being too stubborn and "too tired" to ever listen.

There didn't seem to be a way for you two to agree. And so, your therapist gave you homework. Your assignment? Go on a walk down memory lane together. Apparently you and Nanami had a habit of dwelling on the negatives when it came to discussing your divorce. It was a sore spot for you both.

You'd left therapy, annoyed and in a sour mood, muttering to Nanami to take you to your storage space where all the pictures, gifts and memories…your entire relationship with Nanami stood frozen in time. And Nanami, in as sour a mood as you, agreed. You'd arrived home to find Gojo sprawled out on your floor. Who even knew how he'd gotten in there? At this point, you just assumed he could move through walls.

"Ewwww, you kept this?" Satoru whines, pulling a picture of him, Nanami and you in high school from the box. It's a selfie of the three of you, though Satoru should’ve never been in it. You reach forward, taking the tiny photo from your friend and Nanami closes the distance on the sofa, scooting closer to have a good look.

You remember it well, the first picture you'd ever taken together.

High School Years

It had been a little under a year since you'd transferred to Jujutsu Technical High School for your Junior year and you were still adjusting to how insanely difficult the curriculum was. You were lounging beneath the shade of a tree during lunch period with Nanami, quietly chatting about how damn hard your physics lab was. Nanami listened patiently, humming to indicate he was paying attention to you as he flipped through your physics work.

You're waiting for your friend, Haibara, to get out of class, the one who'd introduced you to Nanami in the first place. You all made plans to meet, but he was running behind and this was honestly your first time being alone with Nanami. You'd worried you wouldn't have anything to talk to him about. Mostly because Nanami was always so quiet, hardly spoke a word to you even with Haibara around. Also because despite his silence, you had the biggest crush on your blonde, sidebanged friend of a friend. Though you could never bring up the courage to say anything about it.

Mainly because Nanami felt wholly unapproachable. Even so, you were surprised at how easy it was to simply...exist together without Haibara as a buffer.

Nanami's eyes scan over your classwork and after a moment of silence, he closes the book, placing it gently into your lap which makes your heart feel like it's trying to crawl out of your chest.

"If you'd like..." he begins quietly. "I can help you study the material. I'm pretty good at physics." He stares down at his legs laid out before him, a faint hint of pink dusting his cheeks. "I could come by your dorm tonight? We can study in the common room...if that's ok."

"Really?" You tried not to sound too excited at the prospect of spending more alone time with Nanami.

"I'd be happy to."

And for the first time since you'd met Nanami, you saw the tiniest bit of a smile appear on his lips. Your eyes widened, heart pounded, cheeks heated when you saw how beautiful the boy before you truly was. Now you wore a goofy smile of your own.

"I'd like that, Nanami."

He squirms briefly in his spot before he clears his throat. "You can call me Kento."

"Kento..." You test his name on your tongue, smiling when you see Nanami now staring at you, eyes wide, noticing the now red tips of his ears. So cute. "Thank you, Ken-"

"Awww, look at the lovebirds," an annoying voice you'd grown accustomed to teased. You sighed, looking up to find none other than your school nuisance looming over you, Satoru Gojo grinning down at you. "Should I take a pic so you losers can remember your first date?"

And before you could reply, he snapped a selfie of you three; you and Nanami still sitting on the ground and Gojo front and center, two fingers up to make a peace sign. He spun around, laughing when he saw the pic before he turned his phone to show it to you both. "Man, I'm sending this to Haibara. He'll love it."

Next to you, Nanami stands. "Speaking of, I need to get to class. I know Yu has your cell number. Is it okay for him to give it to me?"

"Oh, I can just give it to you now?" You offer, an attempt to delay his departure.

Gojo interrupted. "Oh, yeah! Gimme your number, too since we're all sharing." His thick, round sunglasses slipped down the slope of his nose, one of his freakishly blue eyes winking at you.

Nanami scowled at the upperclassman. "It's fine. I'll get it from Yu and will text you to meet up later. I have to get to class." He sneered at Gojo one last time as the snowy haired man settled down in Nanami's spot under the tree. "Try not to be more unbearable than usual, Gojo," he gritted out, making Gojo chuckle next to you.

You did get a text from Nanami that night. You'd met up to study, which was mostly you sneaking peeks at Nanami's beautiful side profile as he sat as close as he could to you, dragging his finger along your physics workbook.

Beneath the table, where you both gripped the edges of your seats, Nanami's fingers brushed against yours. The sudden contact made you jump. But Nanami didn't react, still explaining something about 7s and 3s. You weren’t listening. You brushed off the touch as an accident, until you felt Nanami’s finger on yours again. Just his pinky, gently running over your knuckles before he stopped when you didn't move. Nanami continued going over the study materials as if nothing happened, the red hue on his ears returning and you suddenly realized this was his tell. He was nervous, embarrassed. Just like you. 

Heart in your throat, you reached your pinky over and brushed it along his knuckles, his reaction immediate as he linked his pinky with yours.

Above the table, your eyes met, words lodged in your throat as you held hands with no one in the world aware except you two. Nanami's phone buzzes and it takes him a few seconds to tear his gaze away from yours before he picks it up. He tells you it's a text message from Haibara, so you lean over to see. There's a photo attached.

Yu Haibara: How's the study date going?

The tips of Nanami's ears redden even more if possible, and he quickly brushes his long golden strands over them. This makes you giggle beside him.

Yu Haibara: Gojo sent me this earlier and I meant to text it to you.

1 Image Attached

Nanami opens the photo, the selfie of you, him and Gojo taking over his screen.

"Cute," you whisper, the grip of your pinky tightening around Nanami's under the table. He doesn't say anything. He taps the screen, probably sending a reply back before he gets back to studying.

At the end of the night, as Nanami packs his belongings back into his bag, his phone buzzes again with a message. You spare a quick glance at his screen, doing a double take when you see his phone background. It's pixelized from the zoom, a little blurry, but it's definitely you beneath the tree that afternoon, rolling your eyes as Gojo took the picture.

That night changed everything for you and Nanami. Group outings soon turned into date nights, study sessions to makeout sessions, awkward smiles to shy kisses. All of it with Nanami, your first boyfriend, your first husband, your first love.

Present Day

Satoru has now dumped most of the box’s contents out. You and Nanami have joined him on the floor, you sitting between Nanami's legs with your back pressed against his front.

"Oh my god, Ken, do you remember this one?" You hold up a photo of you both at prom, awkwardly holding each other in front of a tacky background. Nanami is wearing a smile that looks almost painful, and you with your obnoxious blue eyeshadow are beaming. 

Nanami chuckles behind you. "Yes, I do. I remember Satoru spiking the lemonade and Yu vomiting everywhere."

You throw your head back with a laugh. "Yeah, right after he found us making out on the side of the building. Threw up the second he saw us..." You recall between giggles. "So rude."

Across the table, Satoru shifts the contents of the last box around. "He would've loved to see you guys workin' it out." He mutters. "Miss that kid sometimes."

"Me too," you and Nanami say in unison.

"He knew I loved you before I did," Nanami says solemnly, thinking of Yu. "He would've never let us get to the point we did."

You nod, remembering the wide, contagious smile of your first friend at your new school. And it brings you back to the beginning of you and Nanami, who you would've never known without Yu.

Haibara, who helped you navigate your relationship early on and hilariously guided you through your awkward stages with Nanami.

The picture reminds you of the first time you'd held hands in public. It takes you back to your first kiss outside of your dorm room after seeing a movie with Nanami, the first time you'd made love. It pulls back all of your first memories of your early stages with Nanami. The picture reminds you of when you'd moved in with Nanami. Makes you think about all of your ups and downs and what inevitably brought you back to each other.

It reminds you of Yu, who listened whenever you argued with Nanami and pushed for you both to make up. He knew you belonged together, even if you didn’t know it yet. It was Yu who brought you together, and Yu who was ultimately reminding you all these years later to remember where you began.

You lean back into Nanami's embrace when he holds up another photo; this one is of you two at your first wedding, both wearing big smiles. By that time, Yu had been long gone. But you made the most the day just the way Yu would’ve wanted you to. You couldn't wait to start your lives together, to be together forever.

You didn't know what the future held back then. But you know what the future holds now - a love withstanding time. A love that survives. A love that you know you both would fight for no matter what this time.

This force of nature, this strong, pure, burning love that never left either of you, even when you were miles and prefectures apart. It was what brought you together again, the reason you both were willing to try again.

Nanami kisses your head, breathing into your hair. "I want to keep looking through these, but I want to talk about therapy later. Really sit down and talk, okay?"

You nod, eyes still glued to your wedding picture and your heart swells knowing that one day soon, you'll be doing this all over again with the man you've loved for as long as you can remember.

[hanibalistic]

THE MANOR IN WHICH | ENHYPEN.

genre | (in general of the universe) fluff, angst, friendship, action, found family au, magic au

synopsis | if one wants to test whether a person still has the power of a god, maybe the best thing to do is just ask, not try to turn them into one.  

word count | 11.8k+

warning | fighting & violence, injuries (breaking of limbs; mention a lot actually) / mentions of blood, death, domestic violence, child abandonment

universe | tciu; enhypen's counterpart of the universe / same world-building discord server

note | i decided to expand the universe because i am lazy, and i hate making moodboards!!! but i love chips <3  

You remember the first time Kim Namjoon injected a shot of fentanyl into your eye. 

More than the abrupt pain, which was not at all unmemorable either, there were gashes of blood your left on the side of his arms. He had to pin you down under the circumstance that the medical team did not provide any method of sedation. Only a syringe, a glass bottle of fentanyl, and another empirical hypothesis on human drugs and their effectiveness in quelling your Enlightenment. 

Enlightenment—Uncle Kim coined the term when he began teaching you how to control your god-given ability. It was the third and the final stage of your descension to Godhood, with the first two being Transformation and Possession, respectively. But, more than a stage in your power, Enlightenment is a sentient concept that battled for the ownership of your body. It is a punishment given to you by the God of All. It is the very thing you need to avoid descending toward. 

Uncle Kim and the rest of his colleagues in the militia group that adopted you after the death of your parents were figuring out how to keep you from descending. It was no big deal. Everyone was taught to hone their powers during their teenage years. Most high schools have implemented training classes once a week to prevent disasters caused by those unfamiliar with their capabilities. Some private schools even went out of their way to renovate their sports courts to better accommodate their students, to insert training classes into the mandated curriculum, and to hire a diverse group of professionals that fit the student body. 

But even then, you understood the distinction between yourself and other children. 

Their power was given by the Gods. Your power was to become a God.

The fentanyl comes in when some part of Enlightenment slips past your control. The first time it happened, it had been sudden but not unrecognizable. One of your eyes had been clouded with darkness, like having your sight be draped over with a red veil. You were only able to see clearly Namjoon stumbling toward you with the syringe in his hand. You understood what must happen, and while you fought Enlightenment, the Enlightenment fought him. It was similar to getting a vaccination, except the needle wiggled and scratched to be in your skin, and you feared for your life. 

But the pain was gone moments after Enlightenment returned dormant, and Namjoon’s arms were never rid of those ugly scars. 

You also remembered the first time your bones twisted at the beginning phase of Godhood. 

Namjoon had died months prior from murder, leaving you with scattered pieces of him to remember him by. But, just between you and the gods, nothing brought out memories of him more than how ill-equipped you were to pull yourself back from Enlightenment’s takeover alone.

You recalled not being able to see anything. In retrospect, it made sense. You were supposed to lose access to yourself. Once Enlightenment was fully reached, the body would belong to it, and you did not deserve to see through its eyes. You later deduced that you had entered the beginning phase of the descension when your body would transform to be more fitting of a god’s image—the twisting of bones, perhaps to make your limbs malleable. 

The bottle of fentanyl on the motel’s bedside table fell and shattered when you crawled to it with your arms and reached up blindly. You wouldn’t have been able to hold it with your fingers anyway, and you had doubted your ability to work through the intricacy of a syringe when you were too busy withering in pain from your broken legs. You were desperate and almost embarrassed by it, but the helplessness taught you one thing that night, a new thing, which was that impending pain was worse than actual pain. 

If someone were to kill you, you would rather it happen immediately than hours later. The knowledge and the wait for death would always outshine the deed. Knowing your arms were about to be twisted into an irregular shape scared you more than feeling as if it was about to happen. In the end, accompanied by the cracks of your ankles and painstaking wails, you dipped a finger into the fentanyl on the floor and pierced it through your eyeball with your nails, slathering the drug across the back of your eye.

You left the motel the next morning and never returned.

Those have remained the most traumatic moments of your life for years. You have grown to be cautious of your body’s changes to prevent another incident of being surrounded by Enlightenment. Those around you have always diligently pointed out when one of your eyes turns red. Putting a needle through your eye has become less grand and intimidating with each passing occasion. Nothing much could surpass what happened to you back then. 

All except one thing—

“Hi, I’m so sorry, but we’re closed.”

—customer service in the fast food industry. 

It was mainly an exaggeration, but sometimes you thought you really meant it when you’d rather go through the beginning phase of Godhood Descension than explain to a customer why you would not be making them a sandwich fifteen minutes past the store’s closing hour. 

The boy stalked in anyway, leaving the door to slam close behind him. You knew he heard you because his legs paused briefly when you spoke, as if his conscience wanted to listen. You rubbed your hands under the counter to hide your annoyance. You should have locked the door after flipping the open sign around. This wasn’t the first time people made it apparent that they were illiterate. You figured if someone with a physically enhancing power wanted to punch their way through, they would have done it regardless of the lock. However, that was merely an excuse to be careless. When you finally chase this customer away, you planned to text your manager about getting a metal bolted door.

Biting back a humorous smirk from the idea, you quietly cleared your throat and looked up to observe the boy in mutual silence as he stopped before the cash register. His hands were buried in his jacket pocket, but you didn’t believe he was hiding anything besides his hands. His hair has shades of blond that were irregularly placed enough to feel deliberate. He was tall, a head taller than you at minimum, but skinny like a twig, which made him less threatening. Either way, he was bothersome for barging in when you were closed and ready to head home. 

“Are there any wheat bread left?”

“We’re closed.”

Niki raised a brow. He heard you the first time. If only that was a good enough reason to deter him from having to stand in front of the cash register like an idiot. Unfortunately, he has to fulfill the task given to him, or else it’s no more free housing for his sorry ass! The best he could do was to make everything quick—trailing his eyes down to your chest, he inwardly sighed at seeing the necklace shown to him before entering the restaurant. He hasn’t gotten the full scope of the mission, as in he knows what he has to do but not why he has to do it, but he knows Heeseung gave him two tasks.

First, take the necklace. 

Second, bring out your power. 

Shifting his weight, he shrugged dismissively and tried to continue the conversation. “So what? You can’t answer a simple question?”

“I am not serving right now. I am off the clock,” you said.

“You told me,” he retorted, his eyes widening softly. “But I didn’t ask you to make me anything. I asked if there was any wheat bread left.”

Turning your head away so you could roll your eyes, you returned your attention to him and smiled. “Why would you need to know that?”

“That’s none of your business, is it?” 

In your mind, you have reached over the cash register and grabbed his tiny head with your ginormous hand, shaking the attitude out of him and some respect into him as fires circled you like halos circled an angel. Over the years of working customer service jobs in various settings, you’ve gotten fairly decent at crafting your imaginary torture scenes, where there was little torture and a lot of complaining. But this boy was mind-boggling more than usual because, despite his tall stature, he looked boyish enough to be a student. At least you haven’t met a well-adjusted adult who would color their hair in such a reckless manner. 

What did that mean? This boy was out here disrespecting his elders in broad daylight.

“Please leave, or I’ll be forced to call the authorities,” you said. 

Niki watched your corporate-trained smile, but he grimaced because you even thought about calling the authorities in today’s day and age.

Unique powers have grown so prevalent that there was only a fifty-fifty percent chance that a patrolling officer would meet someone whose power was scored lower than or equal to theirs. Even the usage of old-fashioned weapons, such as a gun, wasn’t foul-proof anymore, given that there were people out there who were basically a walking operating room. The law enforcement was a joke. 

But—a thought passed his mind—you could be doing him a favor by letting the police handle him, not yourself. Even though he has no knowledge of the intricacies of your power, he suspected he wouldn’t want to face off with someone like you. One accidental beam shot down from Heaven, and he would be a standing stick of scorched meat. 

Biting back a shudder, Niki pursed his lips in distaste at the recognition that his closest, most trusted friends had potentially sent him out on a suicide mission. Was all of this really worth free housing? Getting a job could not be too hard! He looked at your determined face, his gaze floating down to your ridiculously green outfit and the oiled screen of the cash register. Plus, you were dealing with him instead of being home with a gaming console in your hands, which you may not even be able to afford despite working late night shifts. He held back a shudder again. 

Free housing was worth everything. 

“Fine, I’ll leave,” he muttered. “I need something from you, though.”

You raised a brow. “It better not be a sandwich, kid.”

He didn’t reply. Instead, after waiting a beat for your guard to lower even more, he swiftly pulled a hand from his warmed pocket and shot it outward, reaching for your necklace. 

You have seen this exact movement before. Besides teaching you how to control your power, Namjoon also taught you how to fight. 

Since you would only be using your power a fraction at a time to avoid being consumed by it, you would be put at a disadvantage to your opponents, who would most likely be able to use all of theirs. He told you that learning how to work around a match was necessary, but you knew the real reason he needed to teach you was so you could later be used in jobs the militia group involves itself with.

You never minded it. He practically raised you all those years, so it was you giving back. He didn’t have a lot, but he made space for you in his shabby, ugly apartment and gave you allowances to spend. At some point, he had attempted to make meals to provide you with a proper diet, but he wasn’t the kind of man who should step foot in the kitchen, so there was always a trashcan full of takeout boxes. You thought he tried to clean up after himself more when you started living with him, but the house was always a black hole of trash and dirty laundry. It was no wonder he never brought any woman home, or maybe he kept your presence in mind. 

He tried to give you the kind of life a normal kid would have outside of all the testing and training, and you never thought he didn’t care about you. Like you always remembered, Uncle Kim’s ugly scars never went away, and he never blamed you for anything. He patted your head after giving you medicine and went to the bathroom to clean himself up alone. 

After he died, you took one of his jackets and the silver cross necklace he always wore. You sold the jacket at a pawn shop in exchange for food money, but you always kept the necklace with you. 

The necklace Niki was aiming for. 

“Tsk.” He clicked his tongue when you grabbed his wrist before his slender fingers could touch the necklace. He was told you were trained to fight, which was expected. By a veteran, no less. He just wished you had forgotten all about it after so many years. 

Pulling his other hand out for another attempt, his arm bounced back just as you were about to grab hold of it. You slipped past him, and he took your bafflement as an opportunity to reach for the necklace. He looped his fingers around the cross and yanked it off your neck, causing you to slightly lurch forward. Your chest hit the cash register, but you didn’t allow yourself a second to process the inconvenient pain. 

Hoisting yourself with both hands on the counter, you planned to jump onto the counter and tackle him, but Niki caught onto your movement quickly. Before you could jump, he focused his attention on one of your elbows and, within a second, twisted it with his head. The bone exuded a cracking noise that pierced his uncomfortable ears—he never did get used to the consequence of using his ability. 

You lost your balance and fell off the edge of the register counter, your face slamming against the surface on the way down. He wanted to breathe a sigh of relief, but not a second later, your functional arm shot up to use the counter as leverage to pull yourself from the ground. You emerged, panting with a nosebleed and, if Niki has to describe it, batshit crazy eyes.

But not red eyes. 

“Give me the necklace back!” you rasped out as you crawled onto the counter slowly.

He took a few steps backward, trying to debate to what extent he was willing to continue with the mission for his safety, but his train of thought was cut short once your feet hit the ground on the other side. You ran toward him at full speed, one arm held up to grab for the necklace in his hand. He cursed audibly and raised his arm to keep the accessory out of your reach. You pushed him backward in return, deciding to get him to loosen his grip instead of prying the necklace off his hand. Niki stumbled and hit his back against the glass window. You huffed in acknowledgment; you were right. He was as frail as a twig.

Regaining his composure quickly, he blocked a blow you punched toward his face and held onto your fist. His gaze hardened as if asking you to be the one to give it up, but you ignored his face to focus on his hand. Your thoughtful expression made him frown. He didn’t know you weren’t thinking of your next move as much as you were surprised that he had the strength in him to make your arm shake in a strength battle. After a momentary struggle, you decided it wasn’t worth the effort to keep at it, so you abruptly pulled back and went in with your leg.

Niki let out a choked groan, feeling a mouthful of saliva kicked out of him as his steps stuttered in response to your feet colliding with his side. His lanky torso was bent to keep his crown lower to the ground in case of sudden dizziness, and so you wouldn’t see his twitching eye because your kick reminded him of a long-repressed memory.

He’s been beaten half to death before. He knew how a middle-aged man’s fist felt and the attacks of a chronic fighter. You must be stronger than an average person; he could figure out that much by eliminating his experiences. The only issue at hand was whether you were under the effects of adrenaline or if you were purely strong enough to kill a man with a single hit. 

He has heard of some people with strength-type powers who committed manslaughter before, and he suspected the select group of people with top percentile powers could kill someone with one punch if they wanted to. You were, undoubtedly, part of that group. You haven’t killed him, though, and he didn’t think he wanted to risk finding out which one you were.

“I’ll ask again,” you huffed out lowly, your broken arm swaying from your body movement. He was still catching his breath, and you decided tonight wasn’t the night you sent an ambiguous teenager flying. “Give me my necklace back.”

Niki licked his lower lip and straightened his back. He met eyes with you. 

Still no red eyes. He was beginning to think maybe they were fed the wrong intel.

Holding onto his side, he panted with deep inhales and quick exhales. It was mercy. Choosing to negotiate when he was occupied was a sign of mercy. You were sparing him, and it was annoying. Not even his father showed him this much restraint, and he stole something irreplaceable to you. All he did to this father was grow up kind. 

That was it. That was what you reminded him of. His heart was beating out of his chest, the sound ringing heavily in his ears. He could feel the sweat roll down the side of his face, even though he hadn’t moved around nearly as much as he was used to. It was all psychological. He hasn’t felt like this since he stomped to his father’s workplace with the vengeful intention to kill him years ago. 

Shifting his gaze to the corner of the floor, he corrected himself with a few slow blinks. No, it wasn’t that. He hasn’t been this scared since he found his mother lying lifeless on the living room floor after a one-week school field trip. 

He slowly looked back at you—he knew your mother passed away too, and the man who took care of you after you were orphaned was killed. He felt for you. He really did. Your desperation was understandable. If someone tried to steal his mother’s remnants, he would do everything to retrieve them, too. He hated that he had to fight with you; this was the best scenario to bring out your power, which he was tasked to do.

“It isn’t worth anything,” you said. “It’s just a rusty necklace. It’s not real silver. You won’t get any good money out of it.”

It was stupid to tell him that. Sitting on the counter was a cash register stuffed with money, and if he could see the small necklace hanging around your neck, he must have noticed the register, too. He would have aimed for that instead of your necklace if he really wanted money. But why else would he take a stupid piece of junk? It couldn’t be for sentimental value, could it? Did Namjoon have a long-lost son he didn’t know of?”

“Please. The necklace means everything to me,” you pleaded. “You can take something else. I won’t say a word, I promise.”

Heat traveled to your neck, souring your nerves upon the embarrassment of not receiving a reply after begging. The necklace never wavered from his grip, though, and he never spoke to you. Pursing your lips, you huffed out a quick breath that bordered as a whimper, and then you readied yourself to advance toward him. 

The boy stared at you in silence, his hair tousled and a hand pressed abasing the side of his body. You did a number on him with that kick—it was intentional, but you didn’t want to seriously injure him. He deciphered that. He knew you wouldn’t hurt him when you switched to using your mouth instead of continuing with your feet. It was unfortunate that he has to go so far despite every bits of restraint you’ve shown him. 

Niki swallowed the knot in his throat as you ran towards him. He looked down at your legs and—crack! You dropped to the ground with a silent scream that got muffled when your face hit the floor. 

Tears gathered in your eyes and rolled down as you arched your neck to look at your dysfunctional legs. Your bones fractured, and the pain came from near your knees. You knew that. You could feel it. It must be the boy. He was the one who broke your arm. How embarrassing! You didn’t want to lay so helplessly before him. But your legs! Your bones! It has to be his doing because it was either him, or Enlightenment was at work. 

The feeling was familiar. Flashes of yourself struggling on the motel room floor passed through your eyes, when your legs bent in inhumane ways and the pieces of shattered glass cut the side of your hands. This was Enlightenment. It’s here. You could only sob, your eyes darting around to look for a nightstand and a glass bottle of fentanyl, then you tried to remind yourself you were at a restaurant, and the motel was an experience years passed. 

Enlightenment must have slipped through the cracks of your mind because you got too worked up over Namjoon’s necklace being stolen. This was your fault. You succumbed to the pain of your broken limbs and subconsciously wished, for even a second, that Enlightenment would come forth and heal you. This was your fault. How dare you wish for a healthy body, you insolent brat! You want the glory of being a God and not the pain of it. You were treacherous and devious, and you deserve only the worst part of Godhood.

You sniffed away the snot rolling down your nose. Oh, wait, your legs were broken—you widened your eyes at the realization and shifted them to your legs. Broken, unmoving—oh no, oh no, oh no! What should you do now? You should crawl to your bag in the back of the kitchen or try to grab the phone on the counter. You needed to call someone, anyone. Your arms still work, correct? Moving one of them, you furrowed your brows in question. You remembered you could move both of your arms back in the motel, and you were alone, and you destroyed your eye to keep yourself human. 

You were at the motel, correct? No. You were not. This wasn’t the motel. Stop thinking about that.

You felt a momentary relief, but you were unable to exhale. You couldn’t really breathe, you only now realized that. You couldn’t hear much of anything either. The air has traveled from your nose to your ears, filling them. It must be the pain—your legs were broken. Stop forgetting that. Your legs were broken. They’re broken. They’re broken. They’re broken. 

You hiccuped tearfully at the knowledge that you forgot the very state you were in. You were slowly spiraling into madness. Or descending to Godhood. You have already begun forgetting yourself. Enlightenment slipped past and has already started taking over. It wasn’t the boy who did this. What boy? You were transforming. Everything Namjoon taught you has gone to waste—you miss him. You miss Namjoon. He always wore that necklace. You remembered hearing him pray to the cross before his death, begging God to show you mercy, that he was willing to take two places in Hell in return for a normal life for you. 

This was your fault. You let this happen. The boy didn’t do this to you. 

The boy? The boy!

Niki watched you squirm on the floor as if battling with yourself. He wasn’t sure what he could do past this point, as he had no real intention of taking the necklace from you. Attempting to step away from your fallen body, he felt a sudden grip around his ankles and glared downward. You held onto his feet with one hand and screamed at him to return the necklace. He gasped in surprise and immediately pulled his feet out of your grasp, pushing himself to the restaurant's glass doors.

Your persistence was admirable, but beyond that, it was disgusting. A body with only one functioning limb grabbing onto him was a nightmarish story to tell. 

“Wait! Wait, no, please! I need help!” you wept, hyperventilated, assuming he was planning to leave you all alone to descend into Godhood. “Don’t leave me here–I’m sorry I kicked you! Please, don’t leave me like–“ you lost your voice in a sharp inhale–“don’t leave me to turn like this, please! I’m scared! I’m scared! Please, help me!”

Niki’s hands trembled as he slowly backed away from you. The door opened before his back could hit it.

“Okay, that’s enough.” Heeseung’s tone was somewhat accusatory, but Niki thought he could be imagining things. Turning around, Heeseung gestured for the quiet boy standing by him. “They’re panicking. Put them to sleep. We are going back to the manor.” 

Sunghoon nodded and brushed past Heeseung and Niki to head inside the restaurant. He stepped over your body, the corner of his mouth twitching against his effort to suppress a heavy grimace at the state Niki accidentally left you in. Crouching down next to your face, he made the choice to put a hand under your head and his other over it. He did not respond to your flinch but noticed how you gradually calmed down at his touch. He pursed his lips and gave you a small smile when the corner of your eyes turned to look at him. 

You blinked slowly in awareness of his presence before averting your gaze. His hand was big and gentle, and you felt his touch acknowledge your exhaustion. It took seconds for your eyes to close and your head to slump into his warm palm. Sunghoon habitually swiped a thumb over the dry river on your cheek before he released the hand on top of your head to snap his fingers near your ear. Once he confirmed that you were asleep, he carefully reached under your knees and around your back to hoist you into his arms. 

Heeseung pushed open the door so that Sunghoon could walk past. He didn’t leave any comment, only flashing Niki a pointed look that was in itself a question enough. Niki frowned, huffing air into his cheeks and blowing them out in disgraceful bursts while Heeseung watched Sunghoon open the door to the backseat. He hummed in agreement when, after a monotonous debate shown through the blanking of his stare, he saw that Sunghoon opted to keep you steady in his arms instead of laying you down. 

Heeseung returned to Niki after the car door closed. “Why did you do that to them?”

“You didn’t see how scary they were,” Niki retorted, pulling up the corner of his clothes to reveal a developing bruise on the side of his abdomen. He winced at the darkened skin and pulled his clothes down to cover it. “Ugh–they are strong, too. I expected it, but I really didn’t think they’d have the power without being fully–“ he rolled his eyes skyward to think–“God-like?”

Heeseung stared at the boy before looking down at the spot you were previously lying on. Judging by Sunghoon’s monotonous expression, you never allowed your power through. From start to finish, after having your necklace stolen and your limbs broken, you’ve kept it under control. Either you have insane determination, or you’ve lost your power through the years, leaving bits and pieces behind, which not only wouldn’t make you qualified enough to join The Manor, but it would have also made all of your suffering tonight in vain.

Or, even worse, he messed up and you weren’t even the person he was looking for. 

Heeseung heaved a sigh. Everything was already in vain. You never ended up showing him what he needed to see. “Go back to the car. I’ll talk to you about it later.”

Niki clicked his tongue and grimaced at Heeseung’s unhidden annoyance. He really believed he could have died under your hands, and this was the reaction he received—a judgemental look and a dissatisfied sigh. He’d tell Sunghoon and Heeseung to go to Hell if he could. 

“Hey, you gave me an end goal, and I worked toward it,” he said. “If you hate it so much, do it yourself next time.”

“You overdid it,” Heeseung scolded as he pulled his foldable cane out of his pants pocket. He snapped it straight and hit the side of Niki’s leg with it. “You also didn’t find out what we asked you to find out, so don’t give me an attitude and get back to the car. We’re going home.”

“Screw you,” Niki muttered, running a hand through his hair. 

On his way out of the restaurant, he shoved his hand toward Heeseung’s chest. Heeseung glared at the younger boy, his hands flying up to catch the object being poorly transferred to his palms. When he looked down, he saw a silver cross necklace. 

You woke up in a bedroom that wasn’t yours. 

The sheets stacked on top of you were so heavy they may be designed to force you into slumber, which you’ve just woken up from an amazing one. You could not remember the last time you felt you’d slept for an appropriate amount of time, given you worked two jobs to sustain yourself. When you turned to the side, the pillow beneath your head a feathery weight that deepened according to your movements, you saw the light seeping through the edge of the tall curtains. Sitting next to the bed was a nightstand with a pot of a single fully bloomed daffodil.  

It faced you, and you swore you met eyes with it. 

Hastily sitting up, you slathered your hands down your body to feel for your work uniform and sighed when you realized you were still wearing it. Your arms and legs were moving normally, too. Whoever brought you here last night helped you immensely—the boy who touched your head. You have a somewhat blurry vision of his face, and you thought you didn’t get to see him for too long before you suddenly opened your eyes in this room. But you remembered you thought he was pretty. 

Reaching a hand up to your neck, you touched your naked skin and gently bit down on your lower lip. Your necklace was still gone. That boy with poorly dyed hair must have taken it, or perhaps you could bet on the man who saved you to have retrieved your necklace, too. Furrowing your brows, your back slowly arched in despair, and you buried your face in your hands. The odds of getting the necklace back were slim; you’ve used up all your luck when someone even walked in and saved you from descension. 

You roughened your face by rubbing it, attempting to match your movement with the frustration you felt. There was much you’ve got to do, such as explaining to your manager about what happened and, obviously, concocting a plan to get the necklace back. However, first, you believe you’ve overstayed your welcome, so you should thank the man for his hospitality and take your leave.

The room's floor was carpeted, and out in the hallway, it was waxed. But that wasn’t the point. 

You were greeted with a seemingly never-ending hallway once you opened the door. Widened eyes darted from top to bottom, left to right, and then you peeked out of the doorframe to find that you were stranded in nowhere inside what you assumed to be a mansion. Silence filled the cold air, but the place was well-kept and well-lit enough to not appear eerie. Multiple closed doors were bolted to the wall you came out of, and you wondered if they served purposes other than being a hallway of guest rooms. 

A curse left your lips as you walked onto the cold wooden tiles with your bare feet, your face twitching with baffled annoyance rather than amazement. It didn’t make sense that this was the kind of house you woke up to. How could the man who saved you be wealthy—irregularly wealthy, judging but the size of this building? What was he doing at a sandwich restaurant that pushes out meal deals for poor people quicker than a dog could respond to a doorbell?

“Where do I even go?” you muttered to yourself, your feet tipping left and right as you debated which side of the hallway looked more promising, even though the structure was identical. After a moment’s thought, you stopped to gather yourself.

Your priority was to find the man who saved you, but you’ve been met with an obstacle: his maze of a house. What a first-world problem to have, indeed. You could, technically, run around the place and pray that you bump into him or anyone at some point. The house was so quiet you thought you could be the only person there. However, you ran the risk of going further into the maze instead of finding a way out, which would waste both you and the man’s time, as he would have no idea where you were unless he installed cameras everywhere, which would make this house eerie. 

You shook your head to get rid of your thoughts, which you supposed were the actual time-wasters. Collecting your composure again, you put your feet together and closed your eyes, letting your head dip slightly into a bow. You pressed a palm to your chest to help yourself concentrate. 

“I receive the blessing that I will find what I am currently searching for,” you mumbled. 

You were met with a bud outside the window when you opened your eyes. It was yellow, supposedly a daffodil, except it was the size of a utility pole. The second you saw it, though, the knot developed by the heavenly blessing you gave yourself a second ago untied itself, meaning this flower bud was one of the many answers you were searching for. 

“Okay,” you nodded, admitting that you live in a world where such things are normal, “anyway.”

The daffodil bloomed open when you spun on your heels to walk away. The boy curled up inside extended his limbs to sit comfortably on the petal. When he noticed you in the hallway, he opened his mouth to let out a hoarse yell and leaned forward. The sudden weight dip made the flower tip dramatically closer to the window, and before he could react, he slammed against the glass, making you jump in shock. 

You resisted the urge to respond to the noise, being very in tune with the fact that you did not want to understand why a flower was knocking on the window as if it had hands. The man released his knuckles from the window and gasped in disbelief when he saw half of the grimace on your face as you moved along, ignoring him.

“Wait, don’t leave!” he hollered through the window. “My name is Jake! I’m supposed to come check on you!” 

You swallowed a gulp of saliva and spared him a glance. His glasses were perched right at the tip of his nose, likely having slipped that far when he fell and bumped against the window. His palms were pressed against the glass on either side of his head, and his lower lip jutted into a helpless pout. You noticed he was missing both of his fourth fingers, the knot of skin that sealed over the wound an uneven match. Anyway, he wasn’t the man who helped you yesterday. Although, with the size of this mansion, you wouldn’t be surprised that there was more than one resident. He could help you find who you were looking for. 

Upon receiving your attention, Jake’s shoulders rose giddily. He pressed his forehead against the glass with a grin once you neared, looking down at you from the flower he threatened to slip off. “Hello, good morning.”

When you shook your head to indicate that you couldn’t hear his mutters through the window, he pulled back with a brief gasp and pointed downwards. You followed the direction of his finger, your eyes traveling to the window frame where you saw the lock. Disregarding your dubious interest in why such a tall window was designed to be opened from the bottom, you approached it and fumbled with the lock, clicking it open. 

Jake dropped from the petal gingerly, the tip of his feet landing on the slim stool. The flower behind him shrunk then, leaving your sight. With immaculate balance, he maintained himself on the stool as he pressed his fingers against the bottom rail and slid the window upward to jump inside the manor. He dusted himself of invisible dirt before grinning at you, a hand bashfully waving. 

“Hello, good morning,” he greeted and pointed at the opened window. “That’s what I said just now when I was outside.”

You peered off to the side before reluctantly responding with a nod. “Hey.”

“You can walk now. That’s great,” he said, gesturing to your feet. 

He was still awake when the trio returned to the manor. The state you were in left him with a permanently opened jaw. He was part of the group that vetoed the plan to test for your power before bringing you to the manor, so he didn’t catch wind of the steps and procedures. But, still, he didn’t think immobilizing you to that point had been part of the plan. Heeseung and Jungwon were meticulous and determined to get their answers, but what happened to you was cruel. 

He stayed to watch Niki pop your bones back in place, your head on Sunghoon’s lap so he could better keep you in a deep slumber. He had offered to carry you to the guest room and put you in bed, given that he thought Sunghoon looked exhausted, but the offer was turned down. Jake didn’t think much of it. He assumed Sunghoon grew a brief attachment to you after having to access your mind to put you to sleep. 

You glanced down at them, a bitter taste circling at the tip of your tongue. You couldn’t say you had been more bothered by the pain than the potential reason behind your legs breaking. You couldn’t recall exactly what happened, but you were certain you had begged for help so you wouldn’t become a God, not to be taken to a hospital about your broken limbs.

“It wasn’t a good experience,” you commented. 

“I would assume so,” he agreed before clearing his throat and shrinking into himself. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.” 

“Don’t blame yourself,” you said. “It wasn’t your fault.” 

“True, but–“ he rubbed the nape of his neck and tipped his head side to side–“it is the fault of people I know.” It took him a second to register the sudden morph of caution among your features through how your lips twitched and your gaze hardened. He immediately extended his arms when you moved away, and then he held them up in surrender. 

“No, no, no! Don’t be scared! We won’t hurt you from here on, I promise!” He put one hand down to his heart, drew a cross, and pointed up at the sky. “I cross my heart and hope to die.”

You felt a cold quiver along your skin—Heaven has received Jake’s oath to you. Still unused to the passives of your power, in which your body perks at human practices related to Heaven and Hell, you rubbed your arms to rid of the goosebumps as you grimaced at Jake. “It’s not a good idea to swear to God in front of me.”

He raised his brows, his genuine grin returning gradually. “I know.”

“What?” 

“I know,” he repeated. “You’re them, aren’t you? The baby who sent a down beam from Heaven and killed every infant in the NICU.”

Your parents never spoke of that accident, and you were too young to understand what the continuous protests outside your apartment meant at that time. Namjoon hid it from you by omission, not intentionally, but because he didn’t feel it was something you need to know. Still, he explained everything when you asked about the whispers traveling between social workers. You have a gift, he had told you, and it killed everyone around you. It was fortunate that it happened when you were just born. People would have been able to recognize you now if it happened later in your childhood. 

“You–“ you trembled out a breath–“you knew?”

“Yeah. Technically speaking, we figured out the Heaven part on our own,” he clarified with a dismissive wave, his eyes rolling to the side. “The public doesn’t know about the Heaven part, obviously, but imagine if they did! The Government would have caught your ass so fast!”

You heaved a sigh and turned away from his big mouth, trying to block out his voice to prioritize your thoughts. 

You cared about the infants you murdered more than ten years ago. You dug into their names and their families. You memorized everything about them and visited their graves periodically. You’ve done whatever you could as an attempt to repent, and you’ve come to terms with what you did as a newly born infant. It was on the news years ago. Everyone has heard of it already. You’ve got no problem with that. The issue was that Jake knew the beam you cast down was from Heaven, unlike what the news broadcast assumed to be just a random light projection power. 

A lot of dirt had to be dug through for anyone to deduce that your power has an association with Heaven and Hell (and Jake got some guts of steel if he already knew and still swore to Heaven in front of you). The boy who stole your necklace yesterday must be someone he knew, then? Given that he wasn’t lying to you. What else? You have clearly been stalked for a while now, or at least researched and checked. Was the whole point of yesterday night to bring you to this place? What of the man who put you to sleep? He couldn’t possibly be part of this devious plan! 

“Woah, don’t stress about it. Everyone here has been through  some horrible things!” he mused.

“It’s not that! Have you guys been–wait, no!” You scratched the back of your head. “How many people–ugh, what?” You’ve got many questions and didn’t know where to begin. 

“We will explain everything at breakfast,” he interrupted your self-imposed struggle with a soft nudge to your elbow. He held onto your arm to pull you along with him before letting go to walk by your side instead. “I’m getting hungry. Come on!”

Your legs automatically followed him, walking down the hallway as he doused you in chit-chat. 

Most of them, you answered with silence and an occasional hum, such as random incidents that happened prior to your arrival with a bunch of strangers’ names inserted between the stories. Some of them, you felt the need to flash him a raised brow and give him an answer, namely when he enthusiastically asked if you were friends with the nation’s cosmic twins, whose power was similar to yours. You were not, but you always thought if anyone in the world understood your relationship with a God, it would be them. 

Initially unwilling to pay him any mind, you found his ability to talk nonstop a relatively comfortable aspect of him. He was soft-spoken and stuttered from time to time. Mixing his words with silly laughter made him the epitome of an unthreatening presence. The man who crossed his heart and hoped to die at the promise that he would bring no harm to you from now on—your body gradually lowered its guard as he walked with you, understanding that if you needed to feel alert, he wasn’t the proper target. 

“Jake,” you suddenly called. “Can I ask you something?” 

He made a questioning noise from the back of his throat, immediately cutting himself off from what he was saying. “Yeah. What’s up?”

“What’s, um,” you slowly turned your head and met eyes with him. His smile made you look away briefly. “What’s for breakfast?” 

“Oh!” He grinned, clapping his hands together. “Jay made traditional American breakfast. You know, with pancakes and syrup and everything.” 

You nodded, your hands habitually flying up to your chest to grasp at nothing. 

You’ve never had a traditional American breakfast before. 

Sunghoon fidgeted with his fingers when he saw you enter the dining room with Jake. To occupy himself, he continued setting the table as Jay requested. 

He was never big on talking about feelings, whether they be his or others. Ironically, he always felt the most in every room because of the nature of his power: to absorb emotions.

What originally started as a means to calm someone down slowly unraveled to be an ability to directly take away feelings. As he grew up, he learned that there were various consequences of doing that, and one of them was to induce sleep. Before he put you to a deep sleep last night, he placed his hand on your head to take your emotions away. Once you became a blank sheet of paper, you blacked out.

He has been using his psychic power since he discovered it. Still, unfortunately, his understanding of it wasn’t advanced enough to reach its full potential. Logically, since all the emotions he takes from others go inside him, if he could also swallow his own, he could just become a vacant vessel. But he hasn’t adequately learned how to do that, so he’s been forced to experience every emotion he absorbs from others. Your anxiety and anguish from last night—he would never say it, but he knew exactly how you felt. 

“Good morning, everyone!” Jake mused once he neared the dining table. Turning his head left and right for a quick scan, he smiled despite the empty chairs. “It’s just us old folks, then.”

“Niki is not coming down for obvious reasons, and Sunoo wanted to stay with him,” Jay commented as he went around the table to set a plate of hash browns and scrambled eggs down. “Jungwon said he will come to see [Name] when he is ready to apologize.” 

You gave Jake a quick glance at the casual drop of your name. He scrunched his nose to dissolve the tension in the air and patted your shoulder, telling you to grab any seat as long as food was in front of it. You licked your lower lip and rolled your eyes when he immediately left you after his voice dropped, running around the table to what you assumed would be his designated seat. Unfortunately, since you knew nobody else in this mansion, you thought your best choice was to sit next to Jake.

Turning to follow in his footsteps, you were abruptly greeted with a soft wall. Sunghoon put his hands up awkwardly when you stumbled backward to avoid bumping into his chest. He wanted to steady you but could not force his arms to move. He had mustered up the courage to approach you when he saw you were walking in his direction anyway. All he wanted was to do a wellness check, but he didn’t expect you to turn to him at the same time he stepped close. 

When you collected your composure to look up at him, you stilled in response to him wordlessly putting his hands on your head. You remembered his face, namely his quiet eyes. It took you a while to register how intently he was staring at you, and you deliberately looked at something else to avoid making prolonged eye contact. Sunghoon’s palms cooled with gentle traces of air traveling along his veins—you were a little confused but overall calm. There was a sliver of judgment, possibly because you noticed Jake’s pancakes were overly soaked with syrup. 

He removed his hands in relief once he ensured you were doing well. He reached inside his hoodie pocket to pull out a pen and a stack of tiny notecards. He scribbled something on it before flipping the card over. “How are your legs?”

“I am walking normally,” you replied with a nod and a pursed smile. Then, reluctantly, you gestured to your mouth. “You–um–you can’t talk?”

“I can. Don’t want to,” he opened his mouth to say before haphazardly writing on a notecard again. He turned it over to you. “Sign language?”

You breathed in a short gasp and shook your head. “No, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I write,” he muttered before pointing at himself. “Sunghoon.”

“[Name],” you introduced, then your mouth folded into a sneer not particularly directed at him. “You already knew that.”

“Oh my–come sit down! The food is getting cold!” Jake whined from his seat, finding it his sworn duty to ease any awkward tension in the air. Half his sentence was muffled by the cheeks full of food, but his distasteful glance and stretched-out tone told a more aggressive message than his words. 

Sunghoon spared Jake a glance behind his shoulder before complying. He side-stepped you, planning to go around the table to sit at his original seat, which would be on the other side. But, before he could make it around the corner, a soft yet distinctly clear voice halted his steps with a suggestion. 

“Sunghoon, go sit next to [Name].” 

Heeseung limped in slowly, putting most of his weight against his trusty cane. There were no signs of distress on his face or clothes, but the beaded wetness around the tips of his hair and the fact that he was walking with his cane told everyone in the dining room that his gout flared up again. When he noticed Jay’s raised brow, silently asking about his well-being, he responded with a pursed smile. It was nothing unusual, but if he could stop having them, he’d rather that. 

Jake stacked your plate with all sorts of food after you sat down, occupying himself with other tasks so he could take a breather from swallowing the sweets. You frowned at the unappealing formation he slathered your plate in—the syrup seeping under the scrambled egg, the pancakes soaked into a darker shade, and short strings of hash browns sprinkled atop three sad bacon pieces. If you weren’t so hungry, you would have openly complained about how it looked.

“How are you feeling?” Heeseung asked after he sat down with a suppressed groan. He set the cane against the table and pressed his hands together under it, looking at you expectantly. “Oh, and of course, my name is Heeseung.” 

You nodded; through the process of elimination, you could pinpoint who Jay was. “I’m walking.” 

“That’s wonderful,” Heeseung said, not particularly sounding like he was rejoiced to hear that. “But how are you feeling?”

Sunghoon lowered his utensils beside you and signed, “They’re feeling fine.”

“You made friends quick,” Heeseung mused as his eyes darted across Sunghoon, who answered a question directed toward you, and Jake, who he noticed dropped a mountain of food on your plate without being asked to. 

The way Heeseung spoke was bothersome but not frighteningly so. Talking to him felt like talking to someone who wanted nothing to do with you yet was socially adept enough to maintain a regular conversation and trick you into thinking his disinterest was all in your head. Judging by how he motionlessly observed you, you thought you might be correct to believe it was all your imagination.

You shrugged. His low tone of voice made your agreeableness shrink. “I won’t necessarily call them that.”

“[Name]!” Jake gasped, but when he saw your grimace, a face screaming at him that he couldn’t possibly think he’d made a friend on such short notice, he pouted. “Yeah, okay.” 

His disappointment—mainly the unapologetic way he showed it—returned your sympathy that Heeseung unknowingly stole by putting you under strange pressure. Your eyes softened, and your lips pulled themselves into a friendly smirk. You turned away from Jake before he could notice your demeanor change. Heeseung was still looking at you when your attention was on him again. 

“I’m sure you have many questions,” Heeseung said. “I also have a few about you.” 

You failed to stifle a groan. “I am the baby in the NICU.”

“We already figured that out,” he returned and leaned forward, putting his arms on the table and interacting his fingers to rest his chin on top. “We are more concerned about your power.”

You didn’t want to overthink the situation and debate if this rich and fulfilling breakfast was only a disguise to trap you in an interrogation, but with the way Heeseung hadn’t even begun to pick up his utensils since he sat down at a table full of delicious-looking food, it was becoming more blatant that you were here to be accessed instead of enjoying your meal. Tearing a fork through the hash browns, you plopped some into your mouth and chewed—either way, you were enjoying the food. 

“I can answer your questions about me,” you said after swallowing your food. “But you also have to answer mine.”

“That was the plan,” Heeseung said. He leaned back and gestured toward you with his hand before using the same one to reach over to the teapot set down in front of him. He leisurely poured himself a cup of hot tea. “You can go first.”

You exhaled quietly, the light in your eyes fading to light up the back of your head, where you have constructed an investigation board with barely any evidence and strings tying it together. Your confusion regarding the situation was immense, from the purpose of your being here to the location itself, but when you were allowed to voice your concerns, you found it difficult to make sense of them. You didn’t know where to begin, but you didn’t want to let Heeseung take the rein either.  

“We can start by introducing this place.” 

You turned to Jay upon his suggestion. He sent you a nod. “That would be great.”

“My name is Park Jongseong. You can call me Jay,” he said. “My family owns the estate we are currently in.” 

The house was not a mansion. It was a manor. Not that you could tell them apart; you only knew they have one thing in common: they’re both unaffordable. Jay’s family rarely frequented the estate in the past. Still, now that he had become the last descendant of his generation for a reason he didn’t include in the introduction, he decided to move from the city and officially make the manor his home. Along with himself, he brought Jake, his orphaned childhood best friend.  

The manor currently housed seven residents—Heeseung, Jay, Jake, Sunghoon, Sunoo (a boy who grew the flower Jake sat in), Jungwon, and Niki, with whom you had a terrible first encounter yesterday night. Courtesy of Jay’s incredible sum of inheritance money, none of them were required to pay a cent to stay here. Jake laughed when he saw your eye twitch at the mention of free housing, and his laughter was not abruptly cut short by your deadpan stare.

“I do want to apologize on behalf of what Niki did yesterday,” Jay said after the brief introduction. “It wasn’t his intention to hurt you like that. I believe he panicked and made a terrible decision in the spur of the moment.” 

You squinted at him, dissatisfied. “Why are you apologizing for him?”

“We are responsible for the younger ones living here,” Heeseung answered. “Niki came to live with us after his mother died a few years ago. We didn’t have to look too far to figure out it was his father’s doing, but he couldn't be prosecuted due to a lack of evidence.”

That didn’t make you less angry at him, but you felt sympathy where it was due. The fact that he was only a child made it easier to change your initially rigid impression of him. You liked to think you would have never done anything of that sort back when you were his age. Still, given the assumption that he knew who you were and what you could potentially do, perhaps he wasn’t entirely wrong to panic for his life when you attacked him for your necklace.

Besides, you did do something like that, albeit it was unintentional. Between you and Niki, you weren’t all that. 

“We couldn’t let him stay with his father, so we brought him here,” Jake said, dropping his fork on the table and animatedly gesturing with his hands. “You should have seen the state he was in after he went to avenge his mom. His father beat him to a pulp in public, like in front of his colleagues and everything! That man has no shame!”

There appeared to be a pattern, which you should have deduced when Jake mentioned that everyone living in this manor has been through horrible things. Jay’s family was no longer here, Jake was orphaned, and Niki’s parents lived unfortunate lives. You looked around the table curiously, brows furrowing at Heeseung and Sunghoon. Sunghoon was quite taken aback by your sudden attention, but after spending a few seconds accessing you, he looked up at his friends from across the table and signed.

Jay stifled a chuckle. “He wanted to tell you his parents are alive and well. They just abandoned him.”

“So, technically, another orphan.” You nodded in acknowledgment. “What about you?”

Heeseung looked down at his plate as if debating his response. You waited, surprised that he didn’t have anything witty to slam at you, anything about a lack of manners and asking about people’s personal trauma after having just met them. When he looked up again, he was smiling faintly. 

“Same situation.”

“Okay, so, what? This is one freaky family of orphans?” you said, sneering almost. “Am I here to be recruited?”

“Not to the parentless children club, no,” Jay said. “But to something else.”

You leaned against the back of the chair and crossed your arms, impatiently exhaling a cue for them to start getting to the main point. Jay peered off the Heeseung, and they nodded. 

“Everyone here takes part in vigilante work,” Heeseung started. “Although Jay’s inheritance money should last all of us for a long time, we thought it was best that we don’t rely too much on it, especially with the unpredictable state of the current economy and the–“ he widened his eyes–“crazy property tax we have to pay just for this house.”

“What the hell are you–vigilante work?” you muttered, shaking your head in disbelief. “You guys are like one of those pretentious, morally upright people who make citizen’s arrests to, what, make the world a better place?” You lifted your arms to make quotation marks. 

“We have law enforcement for a reason. The justice department literally introduced an independent investigation team.”

“You and I both know the police force isn’t helpful anymore in a world of randomized magic. Those with insignificant powers want to feel special, so they join the academy, and those with powers adequate enough to protect the public did better things,” Heeseung said. “The investigation team neglects issues on a smaller scale. Even if they don’t, they are ill-equipped to handle them. The twins alone are a walking natural hazard.”

As much as you didn’t want to agree with Heeseung, he didn’t tell a single lie. The police force, indeed, hasn’t been as helpful as the collective effort of the citizens living in a specific area. A nosy neighborhood auntie could disarm a robber faster than the police could arrive at the crime scene. And he was right that the investigation team was ill-equipped to handle regular tasks, as the collateral damage it has caused to the city has been reprehensible.

“I mean–“ You licked your lower lip and huffed displeasedly. 

“Why are you upset?” Jake asked, playing with his fingers. “Do you not believe in justice?”

“I do,” you said. “I also believe it’s not our place to serve it.”

“Leave it to the vessel of a God to tell us that,” Heeseung snarked. He maintained eye contact when you snapped your head around to glare at him. He raised his brows, the tip of his tongue lightly poking against his inner cheek. “You are one, aren’t you? It’s your turn to answer a question.”

“Something like that.” You shifted on your seat and sighed. “Maybe not a vessel, not exactly.”

“I’m not too concerned about the nomenclature of it all. I just need to know if you still have that power,” he cleared his throat, “because we would like to have you in our group.” 

Unfortunately for you, that was not an unreasonable request. “How do you guys work?”

“A popular website was created a while ago that allows people to post any suspicious individuals or activities they’ve witnessed. We have been picking interesting cases from there and starting our investigation,” Heeseung replied. “Once we figure out the logistics, we go in, catch the guy, and send them anonymously on their way to the station.” 

“Uh-huh.” You lowered your head and asked in a humorous whisper, “Are you guys secretly trying to surpass the investigation unit?”

Heeseung’s lips stretched into an amused smile for the first time. He looked pointedly at you, his torso leaning forward as if he wanted to share a secret. “No, but it would be funny if we did that.”

“Whatever,” you scoffed. “But here’s what I don’t get–why do you need me?”

You haven’t thoroughly explored the powers of everyone present at the table yet, but you didn’t think it was necessary to recruit more manpower when Niki could be a one-man army as someone who can manipulate bones with his mind. Besides, one of the residents could literally grow a giant flower solid enough to carry a grown man inside. How hard could vigilantism really be with nutcases like them on their side?

It wasn’t as if you were easy to handle, either. You may have the power of Godhood, but it has to be activated for you to reach your full potential, and once you reach your full potential, you will no longer exist to help them. You have spent your entire life trying not to activate it. Not only that, the sentience of Enlightenment should be a threat to everyone around you. Would they be able to deal with who you’d become once you reach that point? Would they want to? 

“We have been meaning to expand the scope of the cases we take,” Heeseung said. “Instead of scratching off online posts, we thought maybe it’s time to start taking orders for monetary gain. It’s always the more the merrier when it comes to those kinds of operation.”

“Right,” you muttered. “What’s in it for me?”

“You can quit all your jobs now and move in with us. It’s free housing, besides being sent to work on different cases occasionally. You can have your own room. We have a garden outside, a swimming pool at the back, and a greenhouse. Whatever you can think of,” Heeseung listed casually. “If you’re uncomfortable asking for money whenever you want something, Jay can always arrange to get you a card to use whenever you want.”

He had you at free housing and quitting your customer service jobs, but you let him finish because you didn’t want to seem too desperate to be out of your current tax bracket. The vigilante work didn’t bother you as much; it was a reasonable price to pay for everything else you would receive. As for your impressions of the manor’s residents—Sunghoon, Jake, and Jay were fine; some others you haven’t met; the rest you were cautious about, but nothing being a little avoidant wouldn’t solve. 

This manor was huge. Seeing its seven residents was an option. 

“Okay,” you said. “I’ll join you guys.”

Jake grinned, and Sunghoon visibly perked up at your agreement. But, before one of them could let out a celebratory holler, Heeseung waved his hands with an interrupting cough. He cleared his throat with an amused smile and settled down once again. It was great that you agreed to join the residence. However, he still needed to ensure your usefulness before offering you anything. 

“We still have to make sure your ability is intact,” he said. “The whole reason we sent Niki to the shop yesterday was to check for your power, but he didn’t get an answer.”

“If you’re looking for my Godhood–um, huh? Wait a minute.”

You heard Heeseung the first time. His words were clear as day and straightforward—Niki was at the sandwich store yesterday because they needed to check if you still have your power. You understood that the first time he said it, but the depth of its connotation failed to hit you until a few beats later. 

Niki was at the sandwich store yesterday. Niki tried to steal your necklace and railed you up. Niki broke your bones and triggered traumatic memories.

“You did all of that just to test out a theory?” you asked through a clenched jaw.

“Well, not to test out a theory. It’s more to answer a ques–“

“My limbs were twisted. I was crying on the floor,” you gritted out, your hand flying up to your chest to touch for something no longer there. “Do you know how important that necklace is to me? I’m sure you already knew. I’m sure you asked that boy to take it from me so you could get me to use my power.”

It must all be so fascinating to them. The idea of Godhood, the absolute power of Heaven and Hell. To them, your power was an ascension, and Enlightenment was to be reached. 

But they would never understand. The guilt of accidental murders, the stress of keeping a mental cage mature enough to defend yourself against a concept inherently yours, the loneliness of self-isolation, and the pain of becoming. You’ve lost people and become alone. You’ve had people, and you were still alone. The road to the end was unforgiving, as was the destination you were cursed to tread.

They would never understand. To them, you’re just a question to be answered. 

Redness covered your eye, glitching and twitching to make itself show. You’ve had it, it seemed. Still, it was so fascinating to Heeseung that life and death did not trigger you enough. Could anger be the defining starter instead of endangerment? Or were you just extremely good at controlling your emotions?

Everyone shot up from their seats when you pushed your way out of yours and bolted toward him. Your utensils slammed against each other when you pushed the table's edge, and the chair screeched against the floor as it got shoved. Sunghoon reached out for you, but his fingertips brushed only the faint of your hair before you were out of reach. For the first time, he understood why Heeseung requested him to sit next to you. In the worst-case scenario, he can calm you down best. 

Heeseung exhaled through his parted lips and stood up. His knee hurt, but he neglected his cane to walk to an open space. He watched you make your way to him, your intention to harm evident in your aggression, but he did not respond with the same caliber. He faced you with a bland expression and, before your fist could come in contact with his face, dropped something from his hand. 

A silver cross necklace dangled on his finger. You halted in recognition.

“This does not belong to me. I’m sorry I took it from you,” he said, gently reaching out for your hand. He helped you lay out your palm and returned the necklace. “I really do apologize for Niki’s actions yesterday night. I hope if you don’t forgive the event, you hold it against me instead of him, as he didn’t agree to the test.”

Your red eye twitched. Looking down at your palm, at the silver necklace, you thought you could smell the residue of blood that once stained it. You held it in your hand and pretended you could access Namjoon’s brain and know what he would do, but the cross was always a reminder that he was gone. You were never delusional enough, and he wasn’t predictable enough. You’ve grown up without his presence. Your decisions were for you to make.

And you say you wanted retaliation. 

A loud smack echoed through the dining room. Jay looked down at the ground, his eyes meeting Jake’s widened ones on the way to ignore what he saw. You felt a sting on your hand, which you knew felt much worse on Heeseung’s cheek. 

Heeseung closed his eyes to settle himself. He moved his jaw, clicking it as his hand moved up to touch where you’d slapped him. “I deserved that.”

“Yes,” you whispered, your eyesight coming back to you. You clutched the necklace in your hands. “It made me feel better.”

His chuckle was airy. The sudden beaming from your body, in contrast to how monotonous your voice sounded, was funny. “I suppose that’s the least I could do.”

The dining room fell silent for a moment. You watched Heeseung’s smile fade after the exchange, and for the first time, you realized how delicate his features were. 

Jake leaned his torso over the table to check if you two were still talking. He pouted when he saw that there’s only a bunch of standing involved in this silence, so he clapped his hands for attention and dropped them to his side. He shrugged, his brows raised innocently. “Well, are they in now, then?”

Heeseung’s eyes softened, and he nodded. 

[v3x-y0urs3lf]

Blooming Panic if MC was the author.

Unfortunately I haven’t written fanfic in over 2 or 3 years so you’re all getting headcanons.. even then I’m high as shit and barely know what I’m talking about. Expect this to be halfassed.

Okay, this mainly follows Toaster’s storyline just.. without romance to be more accepting to everyone’s tastes.

I know canonically the servers been around for like 2/3 years and MC (who I’m just going to continue to call MC for the hell of it.) only has just joined.. but what if they were also BloomBot?

Like, assuming MC doesn’t ACTUALLY work in finance and assuming that they’re actually good enough at coding to make the server possible.. it’s not too bad of an idea.

Hear me out. BloomBot secretly being a person this entire time, watching their chat history, listening in on calls but being unable to actually say anything? Probably gets lonely.

.. So MC makes their own account and joins in, pretending to have no idea who any of them are.

Or another idea - BloomBot just belongs to them and is just your average bot, Mc joins because they themselves have lost all motivation for the series and doesn’t know what to do with it.

I also really like that idea.

Imagine just MC writing and rewriting the final chapter over and over again, or better yet, imagine MC NOT writing the final chapter. Just staring at a blank document with 0 ideas. Likely in tons of stress and no motivation to continue writing but knowing they have thousands of fans waiting for the next chapter.

MC joins a ton of fan servers to try and get some inspiration from ideas but only one really clicks with them - the super secret discord server that we all know of.

There’s moments of guilt within them when Jules or Nightowl are worried or upset with no sign of the final chapter but the chapter continues to be prolonged.

I promised there’d be no particular romance forced into this despite it being Toast’s route but here’s a slight snippet of what I think would happen depending on characters.

Toast.. isn’t much to say really. It’s similar to his natural route where he tries to find who’s behind this, maybe some deep coding down and he might get an email from BloomBots code (Can you tell I know nothing about coding? lol.) I’m not saying he’d know that MC is the author, I just wouldn’t be surprised if he started offhandedly mentioning that sometimes a long break from work is needed and VERY MUCH okay to do so when MC is in call with him.

Nightowl is stressed with both his own school problems and NOW he doesn’t have a way to escape the dread of exams and finals. In a way.. He can relate to that reason the anonymous update was explained with. It might just be me but the way the update described it, it’s pretty obvious the ‘author’ was under stress. He can relate to that stress and probably rants to the MC about it in a late night call.. Knowing someone can relate with you and that you aren’t alone does wonders to someone’s mental health, especially since Nightowl is still pushing through his stress and still moving forward.

Quest.. I completely forgot his character but I think he’s a bit too busy to think about the problem deeply. Sure, The last chapter probably won’t be uploaded but.. it’s not the end of the world? He has work and being the server mod.. the biggest problem he has is making sure everyone else is calm and okay. If MC ends up confessing that they themselves are pretty stressed for whatever reason then he totally gives some great advice, tells MC to take life slow and to take breaks if they need to.. which actually kind of helps knowing you can take your time and go at your own pace.

Xyx is actually bummed out about the whole thing. If blooming panic ends then.. does that mean the community ends? People like having a community to go to and ESPECIALLY when someone is so adrenaline hungry like Xyx then things can be.. hard during times like this when it’s suddenly ending. Xyx isn’t one to vent about it but if he sees MC down about it then he’ll definitely find a way to make them spill (as in vent.) One way or another he’ll convince MC to take a break and he tries to cheer them up.

I understand a lot of this was probably mischaracterised and I apologise for that. I do really want to hit it off as a writer but I’m honestly not really good? Lol. I really am trying, I promise. Thank you for your patience.

[avonlady42]

2024 in Review

After getting a taste of my first bang last year, I may have went a little overboard this year. I posted 15 fics this year, most of which were part of a bang or a gift.

Yes, Master Dmitri

This was my first attempt at BDSM and I was honored to be able to add an art piece from @hawkland as part of the Ficfacer$ charity auction.

Summary:

Dean Winchester thought he had the perfect life until his world changes when his wife Lisa gives birth, and a complication arises that claims her life. Dean grieves while trying to raise his son, Ben, as a single parent and his brother convinces him to get out of the house for some time alone. He stumbles across Purgatory, a club that takes him into the world of BDSM and becomes a sub to a Russian Dom named Dmitri. He keeps his new life secret from his family and frequents the club for five years, trying his best not to fall in love with his dom.

Castiel Novak lived a simple life and thought he would be married by the time he reached 35, but had not found the man of his dreams yet. He taught kindergarten during the day, but by night, he was the most popular dom at Purgatory where he carried the persona of a Russian named Dmitri with an accent to go with it. For five years he has a regular sub named Michael and he tries his hardest not to fall for the man, but he can picture a future with him.

Then one day, five years after Michael and Dmitri meet, Dean walks into Castiel’s classroom as his son starts his first day of Kindergarten and everything suddenly changes for both men.

An Unexpected Encounter

My submission for the 2024 round of DCRB. I was able to claim artwork by @aceriee-art which can be found embedded in the fic.

Summary:

Dean became Sam’s guardian at the age of 18 when their parents died in a car crash. Feeling responsible for his brother becoming an orphan, Dean works two jobs to save for college and he frequents the local gay bar for the occasional one-night stand, feeling as though he doesn’t deserve a relationship. When he hooks up with and then ghosts Castiel, not feeling worthy of him and needing to be there for his brother, he has no idea that he would end up running into Castiel at Sam’s parent-teacher conference. That’s what happens though when you unknowingly hook up with your brother’s English teacher.

A Hunter and his Machete

This was a result of a prompt in the Profound Bond Discord Server

Summary:

Dean had forgotten all about his high school friend since he had lost touch with him over the years, so imagine his surprise when he gets a message from him that Dean left a machete at his house. He didn’t even know that Castiel knew about his secret life of hunting the supernatural. Either he doesn’t care or he’s a psycho because honestly who would be so carefree about letting a guy know that he left a machete at your house.

Anal Sex, 101

Just a fun fic I felt like writing for no reason at all.

Summary:

Dean was 30 years old and thought going back to school would be a good idea to give him an edge trying to navigate his uncle’s business. Unfortunately, he hadn’t realized how expensive college would be. Barely scraping by to make ends meet, he comes across an ad on the university's bulletin board looking for queer men to assist one of the professors and it offers payment. Dean isn’t completely out in the open about his sexuality, but he decides to answer the ad anyway and finds himself becoming the assistant for the instructor who teaches the online erotocism class. The guy is lucky he’s hot or Dean would have turned tail and ran the moment he realized what he had gotten himself into.

Addicted To You

This was my submission for the 5Kby5May fest this year. It was more difficult than one might think to write a story and keep it under 5K. I've written shorter stories before, but it's somehow different when you know you can't go over 5K.

Summary:

The Mark of Cain is pushing Dean further and further away from his humanity, but when Castiel heals him after a hunt and the angel’s grace silences the Mark, Dean knows he has to have more. He just hopes Castiel will give it willingly, especially when it’s more than the angel’s grace that Dean is craving.

Show Me Some Respect

This one was written as a timestamp for my Gay Chicken fic which is still to date my most read, kudo'd, and commented on fic. I had so much fun writing the gay chicken story based on the popular meme and when someone had suggested a timestamp in the comments maybe exploring them trying BDSM again, I couldn't resist and finally had time to write it.

Summary:

The B&B is in need of repairs after the roof collapses and Dean and Castiel have time to kill while they are temporarily closed. Castiel has the brilliant idea of giving BDSM another try. He just forgot to completely read the instruction manual first.

Not Just Chemistry

The idea for this story popped into my head when I had seen videos of Jensen and Misha at conventions just being absolutely unhinged, so I turned that thought into a Destiel fic and came up with this idea that what if it was all fake and they are only pretending to be friends for publicity.

Summary:

Dean Winchester and Castiel Novak are the stars of hit t.v. show Not Natural. They play husbands, Michael and Jimmy who are hunters of the Supernatural and they are number one in the nation. They have amazing chemistry, and their fans love them. They light up the room at every convention they attend for their fans and there are even rumors they are together in real life. The only problem is they can’t stand each other and it’s all an act for publicity. The people who are in on the secret don’t understand how two people who have such great chemistry on and off camera can dislike each other so much. The question is, will they be able to get Dean and Cas to see that they are actually in love with each other or will they continue to be stubborn.

Make A Wish

This fic was the first in many of my new obsession with joining bangs. It was my entry for the 2024 round of the Dadstiel Mini Bang. I've had this story in my prompt list for awhile now and I had been thinking a lot of my mom this year who passed away from pancreatic cancer 12 years ago, so some of my writing this year reflects on my emotions of missing her. Even though she didn't have a happy ending, this story does. I was also thrilled that I got to work with @seidenapfel for this who did some amazing art which is embedded in the fic.

Summary:

Castiel Novak’s son, Jack, is battling with a leukemia diagnosis and the only chance he has of recovering isn’t covered by insurance and Castiel is out of options to save him. With all hope lost he reaches out to the Make A Wish foundation to fulfill his son’s wish of meeting his favorite actor, Dean Winchester, who plays Batman. Then, an anonymous donation for Jack to be placed into the clinical trial to cure his leukemia is made and he ends up pulling through. Castiel will forever be indebted to this kind stranger who gave him the gift of his son back, even if he might never be able to discover who it is.

The Stakes Are High

My submission for the 2024 round of the Taylor Swift Bang. The song I based the story off of was Ours. It was the end of the music video that put the idea in my head. I may or may not have used my own experience going through basic training in the story. I was paired with @mellow-memuries who's lovely artwork can be found embedded in the story.

Summary:

Dean has served in the Army for the past 10 years and is in his 2nd year of a 2 year detail as a Drill Sergeant. He loves what he does; the only problem is that he’s gay, and the military has a strict Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Policy. He’s able to keep his life secret until the guy he had sex with in the bathroom of a gay club a couple weeks back ends up being in the next class of his recruits. Unable to hide the attraction they have for each other, they forge a secret 10 year relationship until the Policy is lifted and they can finally live their truth in the open.

Risk It All

This is my story for the 2024 round of the Destiel Soulmate Bang. I've never written a soulmate story before, so this was a fun one to do. I had the pleasure of having my story come to life with the beautiful artwork from @thence-we-came-forth. You can see the artwork embedded in the fic.

Summary:

Dean is a skeptic when it comes to soulmates. Everyone he knows lost theirs in a tragic accident and he can’t risk the same thing happening to him. It’s better to be lonely than to have the love of your life ripped from you and be doomed to live a sad existence for the rest of your life anyway.

Castiel doesn’t put much stock into soulmates since everyone in his family has divorced theirs. What’s the point in finding the one you’re supposed to spend the rest of your life with if they are just going to leave you anyway?

When Dean and Castiel meet, they fall in love at first sight, but can they both move past their issues in order to be with each other or will they continue to fight against their desires in order to protect their hearts?

Vacation Interrupted

I wasn't fast enough to claim a story for this year's Horrorfest Bang which was a reverse bang and was working on a fic without art. Then, I got lucky and was able to be a pinch hitter for one of @thestarsmakemedream-art's pieces which was on my original list that I tried to claim. This was a joy to work on and the art is embedded in the story for your viewing pleasure.

Summary:

Dean can’t remember the last time he took a vacation. Fighting monsters is basically all he’s ever known. They’ve defeated Chuck and Dean finally grew a pair and confessed his feelings and Cas reciprocated. The two of them, along with Sam and Eileen, decide to dip their toes in the sand and take a vacation since the world is relatively monster free. Or at least they thought it was until a Kraken decided to ruin their vacation and start killing people, almost taking Dean for its next victim if Castiel didn’t rescue him in time. So much for a relaxing vacation.

Eye of the Beholder

This year's BangBang was a reverse bang and I was able to claim a beautiful piece of art by @szlez. I had originally planned on a shorter fic, but just thinking of Dean in lingerie had my mind going wild and the artwork can be found embedded in the fic. I am just in awe of how beautiful it is.

Summary:

Castiel couldn’t get the vision of Dean in silky panties out of his head. He makes a trip to a lingerie store to buy Dean a gift but doesn't count on the hunter being so shy about showing Castiel how gorgeous he truly is. Castiel won’t have the man he loves being unsure of his own body, so the angel is happy to show the hunter just how much his body deserves to be treasured.

I'm Not Living Here Without You

This was my entry for the 2024 round of DCBB. This is a story involving cancer with a happy ending, so please mind the tags before reading. I chose the title as kind of a play on words from when Dean tells Cas in Purgatory that he's not leaving there without him. I love the artwork @twinone1221 provided for my story. She captured beautifully what I was writing in the story. You can find her art embedded in the fic.

Summary:

Castiel promised Dean that they would be together forever. They met when they were just kids and they were each other’s first everything. They are happy and have an unbreakable bond that makes them the envy of everyone around them. Everything changes 15 years into their marriage when Castiel is diagnosed with cancer and the doctors aren’t very hopeful that the treatments will work. Dean is crushed and spends a lot of time in denial while trying to find a cure for his husband. Castiel knows that his dying will destroy Dean, so he fights as hard as he can to stay alive for his husband’s sake.

Ugly Sweater Conspiracy

This was a story written for the FicFacer$ charity auction through random acts. Susan was the winning bid and her prompt was a meet cute involving ugly sweaters.

Summary:

Castiel and Dean end up at the same holiday festival wearing the same Ugly Sweater after some miscommunication by their friends, Charlie and Gabriel. They end up becoming friends and develop feelings for each other, and they have Charlie and Gabriel to thank for their newfound romance.

The King and His Prince

This was my last story written this year and was part of a SPN Season Six Gift Exchange that took place during The Man Who Would Be King episode.

Summary:

Castiel is trying to open the gates of Purgatory and Dean promises to do whatever it takes to stop him. The angel is pleased to learn it involves his hands tied behind his back.

I have many more stories waiting in the wings for next year, so please subscribe to me on AO3 if you want to see what I post next.

#my fics #destiel #Dean #Cas #AO3

[kittykatrattie]

What’s some of your teen Maxneil hc’s?

Like, for example would they be in a band together if they could? What does the other person do when they are not around? Do they ever join clubs in high schools? What do they do for fun together? stuff like that I guess

OOOOOHHH ok ok ok. Ahem so.

First of all they are somewhat long distance. They're about 2 hours apart but Max can't drive until he's 18 bc his parents never bother to get him his temps or teach him how to drive, so until Neil gets his license at 16 they rarely see each other outside of camp. Max is the bad influence (he starts smoking weed and gets Neil to try edibles)

I don't think they'd be in a band together bc they have very different tastes in music. However once max turns 18 and he moves in w David and Gwen he starts learning to play the drums and he joins a queer punk band in college and Neil goes to as many of their shows as he can (altho they're still long distance, we never settled on a specific school but I think Neil goes to college out of state). They do see a couple concerts together as teenagers tho

Neither of them. Reaaaally have friends back home/outside of camp. So most of their socialization is texting each other and the other campers. Max becomes a stoner and he has a job working at a local Indian restaurant (it was his favorite since he was leaving the apartment to run around the city by himself and the girl running the food truck sort of grew attached to him). Neil focuses more on his studies (he skips a grade at some point and graduates high school a year early) but other than that he doesn't really go out and do much without Max and/or Nikki. Sometimes he'll do a D&D campaign with Nerris and Harrison and Preston thru discord

Max doesn't join any clubs in high school but I could see Neil joining like, chess and mathletes or smth. Anything to boost his college acceptance and make himself stand out. Colleges love extracurriculars yk. Max, however, gets put in a new afterschool activity by his parents every year until he turns 14 and gets a job. They just don't wanna see or deal with him yk? (:

When they do manage to get together, either outside of camp or during camp, they get up to their typical shenanigans yk but also ✨️date nights.✨️ At camp they'll pretty much do anything that gets them alone for a couple hours (like star gazing or going on walks in the woods) or sneaking out to Campbell's mansion on Spooky Island for... well, "private teenage activities." They'll watch movies or shows together (they both canonically have watched Game of Thrones already and I feel like they'd love Stranger Things) or sometimes just parallel play (both of them reading their own books or playing games separately). Neil does get Max into video gaming but they have a very small overlap of the type of games they both like

Trans Max specific stuff: Max doesn't tell Neil he's trans until they're 14/15ish when they start doing a little more than just making out bc Max sort of sees him being trans as on a "need to know" basis until he comes out to the rest of the campers at 16ish. Max getting his period during the summer and Neil sitting out of activities to take care of him and steal him extra snacks from the mess hall. Neil makes sure he doesn't wear his binder for too long

They are. A somewhat unstable relationship because Max is a somewhat unstable person. Max has BPD (that doesn't get diagnosed until hes 19) and sometimes that triggers him trying to break up with or push Neil away "before he can get hurt" not 2 mention the suicidal depression and active PTSD from his parents, so they argue a lot but Neil always knows it's not really real and Max just needs time to calm down (hey I never said they had a HEALTHY relationship). They always fix it

[inside-ominous]

Welcome!

Oh hey, you found Inside Ominous! Welcome to my dev log!

I'm Shay, an indie game dev with big dreams, a love for horror games, and the goal of trying to make games that haunt your dreams--in the best way possible!

A little bit about me:

* I have a B.S in Computer Science with an English Minor & I'm currently pursuing my master’s in computer science

* My favorite games & franchises are Assassin's Creed, GTA (specifically GTA 4), Midnight Club 2, Super Mario, Zelda, Mortal Kombat, GOW, Prince of Persia, Outlast, Resident Evil, House of Ashes, Detroit: Become Home, and much more!

* I love to read, so feel free to recommend me something! [I love mysteries, thrillers, sci-fi, horror, fantasy, & manga]

* I love cartoons, my favorite cartoon is Bob's Burgers, but I also love Futurama, Rick & Morty, Disenchantment, Inside Job, American Dad, etc.

* I love anime my favorite animes are Soul Eater, Naruto, DBZ, Death Note, One Piece, Nana, etc.

* I love animals, I had a mini schnauzer & I currently have 3 fish tanks!

* I've been playing games since around 4 years old, but I didn't fully pursue a career in game dev until high school (when I came up with my company's name) and then work towards during my 2nd year of college.

* I do collect game consoles; I have most Nintendo consoles besides the ones that came out before the GameCube.

* I got into game dev from playing games & reading books, which fueled my passion to create immersive gaming experiences.

I started this blog to share updates, ideas, behind-the-scenes insights, coding struggles, & general thoughts. I wanted to document my journey from the beginning and genuinely connect with those who support my journey + company. I also figured it be great to show my progress to hold myself accountable to be more consistent this year & to get feedback to improve.

I really want my company to be successful with making psychological horror games, where I can create several successful trilogies or stand-alone. I do want to make some decision-based games, but overall, I want them to be story-driven. Although, the focus is horror, at the early stages (now), I'll be releasing arcade-like games or just fun games in general.

What To Expect:

* Dev logs

* Sneak Peaks

* Coding Struggles & Funny Bugs

* Game Design deep dives

* Game Ideas

* Monthly Q&As

Now my goal is to post weekly updates every Friday! Once I get into the flow of things, I'll be posting more frequently up to 3x per week! I'll be posting on here and Patreon, which will be free for now until the community grows. Eventually, I'll post some dev logs & other content on the YouTube channel, but for now I'll be blogging!

I'll also be creating a discord, which will be released once the community grows so stay tuned!

So, that's a little about me and Inside Ominous--now I want to hear from you! Got ideas, feedback, questions, or just want to chat about games? Drop a comment!

Hit that follow button and stick around!

[rainbow-journalist]

Ah! You said you like Kurumi too?

I confess one thing, I started to like Kurumi Wendy when I started exploring her in a roleplaying on Discord that I was invited to. Let's talk about some spoilers here. This will probably be a rant about the character, sorry for the long text.

I've seen a lot of criticism about her and her writing, and I can somewhat agree, she's an informant, she seems to have a lot of potential to be a detective or an investigative journalist, It's just my opinion, but I don't really like it being reduced to ""Love interest" of the protagonist, Yuma's girlfriend.

I know it's just meant to be funny, to be a joke, but, I don't know, it seems a bit forced. I think Kurumi's ship with Yuma, Kokowendy, can be okay? It can be something innocent and cute, like puppy love, Her being a schoolgirl displeases me.

Probably, if she hadn't died for her clone, she would be an adult, 20 years old, right? Her homunculus clone won't be stuck at the same age forever, right? I imagine she could still be an adult, in the game, isn't she like a senior? Am I wrong? The girls at school having a respect for her and stuff, wouldn't she be finishing high school? And it's normal that games like this put 16 and 17 year old girls in high school (17 years old seems to be more popular)

I think she would be interesting and have potential.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I like her, I started to like her and I did some drawings, edit and gacha version of her.

I've been thinking about making her with different clothes, her hair down must be pretty, and I actually like her uniform in the game, the red and black is an interesting combination. Sorry, the description is really bad.

I didn't like the first outfit very much, the second one is supposedly an outfit she would wear, she's always in uniform in the game, I know it's supposed to be part of her identity, buuut, Make her with another one, She can be stylish.

Her being 18 years old is supposed to be her post-game version, let's assume the game takes place at the beginning of the year or towards the middle of the year, and the epilogue could be close to her birthday month, She's always walking around alone, and I could imagine her sleeping at the detective agency at will? Not to mention her traveling alone too.

Also, seeing her being 18, or going to be 18, is because of leaving her ship with Yuma, less bad for me. (I have problems with age differences)

I heard some sad news about her on reddit, Apparently, the game's designer, Kazutaka Kodaka, said he wouldn't be interested in making a female protagonist in future games? Like, I don't know if this is real, if he said this on some social network or in an interview, but if it is true, it's a shame, Why couldn't Kurumi be like Komaru Naegi from Danganronpa Ultra Despair Girls? Even their names look alike!

Kurumi as the protagonist

Remember games where you control high school student protagonists? Not Danganronpa. I thought of Corpse Party, in this game, you control high school students between 16-17 years old, although there are NPCs younger than that, and even 18 years old.

I'm sure Kurumi could be like Ayumi Shinozaki, but could she be like Sara Chidouin from Your Turn to Die? Or even Kaede Akamatsu from Danganronpa v3: Killing Harmony or Chiaki Nanami form Danganronpa 3 anime? Or even like Komaru Naegi, from the reviews that say Kurumi is "too normal" compared to the rest of the cast.

Whatever it is, I bet she's a sweet, gentle girl who wants to protect the few friends she has, She probably didn't even have many friends at school and lost one, and I don't know if the game really works much with this thing of the characters being lonely in many ways, I like to think of her as someone who is determined and wants to show her potential and not be a damsel in distress. I like the dynamic of a female character saving a male character.

She can be a bit of a sad character inside because of everything that happened to her in the past and in chapter 2, Working with her through her difficulties as a defective homunculus should be explored seriously, I don't mind a story from her point of view, She deserves character development, growth, and to learn that detectives is not heroes.

Well, that's my view of her, she's a cute and cool character, but she needs to improve, there's nothing like us fans having to do that, right? Especially if she's not the protagonist in a sequel. (If have another game), I hope you don't mind my view, I don't hate her or her ship with Yuma.

[nicollohatessundays]

Little introduction from Nicollo!

🌟 My name is Miriel Nicollo!, but you can call me Nico or Miri!!

🌟 I'm 14 years old, I'll be 15 in October :P (I get hurt when people talk about my age,

🌟 I'm Brazilian, but I understand English but I write with a translator!

🌟 I'm not close to the subcommunity, I only interact with TCC, I ask to stay away from SHEDtbr

🌟 He/She !!

🌟 I'm in my first year of high school!! :D

🌟 I'm a drummer, keyboardist, flutist, music producer, gamedev, gamedesigner, technology technician (under study) , seamstress, programmer, artist...many things, I do a lot lol

🌟 I am dyslexic and have psychosis!

🌟 I'm completely obsessed with columbine!:D I know several things about it ^__^

Some things I like!

I'm a fan of various musical styles, usually Brazilian music! Like pluggnb! I'm a fan of many underground bands and I've been to several shows!

I'm not much of a fan of watching series or movies, but I like some things !!!

Musical preferences!

Quem é você Alice, ilyushin, bella e o olmo da bruxa, kmfdm, nightmare at hanging rock, snob value, mindless self indulgence, tally hall, loopcinema, link do zap, virgingod (fav!!), alex g, sign crush motorist, car seat headrest, chard la plaga, radiohead, the Strokes, Chococorn and the sugarcanes... And many, many others!

Films, animes, series (...)

SCOTT PILGRIM!, zero day, yuukoku no moriarty, the case study of vanitas, wotakoi, Jojo's bizarre adventures, Madoka magica, Doukyuusei series, TOKYO GHOUL !!!!!!!, turma da Monica jovem, Sakura card captor, pokemon series, vincent the secret of myres, yumme nikki, omori, Persona, Monster high, danganronpa, zelda, OSU, rhytimic Thief, Over the garden wall, old cartoon shows [...]

Random stuff

I really like fashion, I follow the Vkei style (Kurofuko/Mehera), I'm trying to join Lolita!, I love steampunk and its variants! I have a strange obsession with explosives production (I've already made some !!), I like to watch some true crime cases (mainly about school shooting) just for fun, I have no strange intentions . . .

Some cases that I like!

I'm a big fan of Academy Maniacs and Columbine, in the sense of idolizing them!

I'm still seeing about some cases, but, Adam Lanza, Kip Kinkel, Brenda Spencer, Suzano, Realengo, Devon Erickson, Andrew Blaze, Supreme gentleman, pekka eric, vlad roslyakov, Alyssa Bustamante, Takatsuka, salvador ramos, Maniaco da Cruz, Futoshi Matsunaga, David Kalac, Tatsuya Ichihashi, Trey sesler [...] They are really interesting to me!

End !!

I hope to make friends :), I need friends, I feel hurt for being alone for so long, I want friends who agree with me and understand me :D Someone to share the same pains and thoughts. . . . How sad!:<

Instagram: nicohatessundays

Discord: ycropaesecakes

Twiter: italopaesecakes

[tbhimnoteasyonmyself]

15 Day BL Challenge - DAY 5

I watched THK Ep.3 yesterday and I'm very much still processing that (I was very uncomfortable at the end, dunno what to do about that rn)... BUT WE SHALL CARRY ON!!

Biggest Flop

If you know me well, you know what's coming and you're being very disappointed about it. (ESPECIALLY if you're Naga, I'm really sorry if you're reading this, Naga, bb, you know I love you and respect your opinions very much, you have my full support). If you don't know me, you're about to:

Hello, my name is Dante, I'm 22 years old and I hate:

The Eclipse & Dead Friend Forever

Listen... The Eclipse is such a fav amongst my Tumblr dash, people always told me "nah, bc, the EMOTIONAL SCENES!!! they served, they serve!!" So, naturally, I was super fucking pumped to get to watch this series, like, I wanted to know! Plus the premise seemed genuinely interesting so I was curious as well but then... Oh, god... The boredom I was made to endure...

The plot is ??? all over the damn place:

Dead uncle;

Ghosts, for some fucking reason, but not really;

First has to cry in every series he's in, it's mandatory;

It has to be a high school bc reasons ig;

Home of phobia;

Gays outing gays bc that surely makes sense;

Unexplained random unearned forgiveness;

Feminine gays getting ridiculed for no reason whatsoever;

Old man yaoi plot twist ??.

Then, there's the terrible sound quality, literally everything ECHOS for some reason and there's no ambient sound, all spaces are acoustic voids; Neo and Louis had 0 chemistry...

In the end, what do I like about it? Khaotung's face, ig, he looked very pretty. Everything else is a no by my standards.

And DFF... I feel like most people didn't watch it. And it begs the question if it even is a BL, all things considered. But I have to express my frustration with it somewhere and ain't no better place than here.

The premise was everything. And before the flashbacks started coming, it was so much fun! My discord GC was only created BECAUSE of DFF, bc we wanted ppl to analyse and comment on the eps with!!

So to see that nothing that was that ending... With so many loose ends and unsatisfactory conclusions... Where nothing made sense and nothing was fulfilling... It was super disappointing.

If there's one good thing about it, Ig, it's the fact, at least, we didn't suffer alone, we did it together sdkjskdskdj.

(DIS)HONOURABLE MENTIONS: Until We Meet Again & Last Twilight

The only reason why UWMA is not there with The Eclipse and DFF is simply bc right when I started I knew the premise hadn't spoken to me and, more importantly, I had been warned by @squishyteri (I'm tagging her bc, unlike Naga, this post will not break her heart) that I would grow to hate it. And, lo and behold, she was absolutely right!

Still, the 1st episodes were fine bc the double suicide makes an impact on you and I thought, "well, maybe I'm actually gonna beat the odds here", but then... It became just a bunch of clichés and dragging the story around for no reason and P'DEAAANNNNN and I had to take a few days after watching it to go out and touch some grass and realise life is better than the boring things I watch sometimes in order to recover from the torture.

Now Last Twilight... I was watching it with one IRL friend of mine and we were so, so incredibly pumped!! The show was everything, the characters, the plot, the everything... It was so, so good.

When the scene at the top of the mountain happened I CRIED, OKAY??? That was so beautiful, that was glorious, that was FUCKING CINEMA.

And then everything else happened. Good lord, why did they continue that series beyond that point? WHY DID THEY BRING THAT CURE PLOTLINE TO SUCH A BEAUTIFUL STORY????

I wanted to punch my screen and I'm not even joking. One of the biggest disappointments of my life.

NEVERTHELESS, the points in which this series succeeded were very much great and, for that, I cannot consider myself as disappointed as with the others. I still think there's a lot of quality in there. And I still cherish it very much.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for snapping at my (18f) friend (19f) and then not talking to her again?

In middle school I met this girl who was in the same grade as me. We met because we were both friends with the same person, and slowly became friends as well. I wouldn't have called her my best friend though, she was just one of the people I hung out with at school (one of the few people, I struggled with having friends back then)

Flash forward to high school. The mutual friend moves away and just leaves us two. We're also in some of the same classes together, namely a digital media class we were in all four years of hs (we even sat beside each other all four years)

And well. her company was nice, but I wouldn't have called her a close friend. I never really told her many secrets, but I would be there for her in emotional support over her family being pretty shitty to her over and over again.

During our last two years, we both worked on the school yearbook (which was what you did in the last two years of that digital media class). I thought it was very enjoyable to work on it, and was extremely proud of the first one we produced, especially because the staff complimented it.

The second year (our senior year), however, was a little different. My friend started missing a lot of school because she was having stomach issues, and when she was at school she either spent more time roleplaying with her long-distance boyfriend (technically fiancé??? I didn't really understand their relationship, I was honestly very weary over it) over discord or half-assing the work she was supposed to be doing. In the end, she kinda stopped showing up to school, and I ended up taking over all the pages she meant to be doing, and changing the ones she did do because we changed up the scheming and her work was now very out of place.

Anyways, I'm wrapping up my senior year and the yearbook staff (which was me, two other students, my friend, and the digital media teacher) took a staff picture for the end of the yearbook. As usual, the friend isn't there. When we put the photo in and write down the yearbook credits, I ask my teacher if we should put the friend's name down since she was technically part of the group, and the teacher reveals to me that since she missed so many days she ended up being removed from the digital media class, which meant she wasn't on the yearbook staff anymore. I felt that was a bit of a rude move, but I also understood, so I left that decision alone.

Yearbooks then come out, and it took a while, but I guess my friend finally got her copy somehow, because she suddenly texts me in a fit of anger about not being in the yearbook staff section. She accuses me of not talking to my teacher about it (even tho I did) and going off on me about how I should have stuck up for her. She said a lot of other things too, but I long since deleted her contact, so I don't exactly remember.

What I do remember tho, was that I was pissed at her for making an assumption like that. I was also stressed as hell because at the time, my grandfather had just gotten diagnosed with lung cancer. The same cancer that killed my grandmother, his wife, when I was young. I remember that I replied to her telling that unlike her assumption, I tried to stick up for her, but I had to do what the teacher said. (She had been removed from the class anyways!) I also remember that I told her about my grandfather and being stressed about it, and that "now is not the time to do this". I wanted us to talk more about it later, after she calmed down and I got my head on straight.

It was the first time I snapped at her. She never replied to me. Eventually, I just decided to move on and deleted her contact. If she wants to get back in touch, she'll be able to. I know I probably should've checked in on her at some point, especially with her rocky home life, but I was honestly getting sick of her. Sure, we were there for each other emotionally, but I was starting to feel like all I was there for was to help her with her schoolwork and listen to her vent 24/7, which was slowly starting to make me more and more stressed.

It's been a little over a year since that happened, and I still hope she's doing alright and was able to move out at the very least. I was wondering if me snapping and choosing not to check in was an asshole move, considering the context.

What are these acronyms?

[reaja]

When I am talking about something passionately and my wife just silently stares down at her phone and then I trail off. Because I'm sure I'm being crazy or annoying or I've done something wrong and failed somehow. So I just turn back to my own phone and scroll Tumblr or check discord.

It's kinda a similar feeling to when my brother ignores the text I send to him that says "I saw this shirt made from the Garfield sheets we had as kids, it's selling for $250! Isn't that crazy!" or the one that says "I'm working really hard on this math course I'm taking, you've always been the math whiz so it's making me think of you :)"

My 20 year high school reunion is coming up in about six months and on the Facebook post discussing the venue I asked that we not hold it at the local brewery because we're nearing forty years old and some of our graduating class are in recovery and it seems inconsiderate to them. That was awhile ago and there hasn't been a thumbs up or reply.

It seems like I have reached the terminal velocity of isolation. I have spent too much time alone and now I just repel people. Human Teflon. A non-stick surface. A mirrored window of a person.

[nevermindirah]

Booker vibes hard with scifi. he has so many visceral sense-memories of reading early scifi novels as the genre developed in his first decades of immortality. all the dystopia speaks to him for obvious being God's chew toy reasons, but there are times over the years when hopeful scifi stories boost him emotionally in a way no amount of good deeds or warm hugs seem to manage.

so by the time he gets stoned and goes to the movies in 1977, he's ready.

he falls hard for Han/Leia. he too was a scoundrel who fell in love with the coolest and smartest girl around who somehow found his scruffiness charming. he too came of age and put down roots amid galaxy-shaking political and social upheaval. but Star Wars was so safely cartoony in its far-away galaxy that he found he could earnestly enjoy how hopeful it was.

over the years he tore through the novels, he picked up fan magazines here and there, stopped by the occasional con. when he discovered fanfiction, hoo boy. he wrote over 100k of Han and Leia's snarky, sappy, smutty, blaster-heavy post-RotJ adventures in like the first month alone.

decades later, he very nearly had to leave the theater when Kylo Ren killed his father.

some of those same decades later, Nile. she's only 5 years old when Episode I comes out and by the time she's old enough to sit through all-ages blockbusters the prequels have been so ragged on that she doesn't bother. maybe she catches some of the original trilogy on cable at some point but she doesn't particularly connect to it.

Star Wars becomes relevant to Nile when she's in her figuring things out after high school era and she hears the guy from Attack the Block is gonna be in the new trilogy.

rip Finn's character arc and everything else that could've been so good about the sequel trilogy, but there's still some stuff to treasure there, and Nile — well.

a few months into immortality she does a marathon of the whole Skywalker saga. it's fun and silly and a way to spend a few days. the others pop in sometimes to watch with her but for the most part she's enjoying her own private screening. then she sees Rey all alone in that AT-AT carcass and suddenly she can't stop crying. Finn's storyline is just as wonderful and frustrating as she remembered, but the way he and Rey keep finding each other, keep fighting for each other — yeah.

suddenly she's WRITING. she's usually been drawn to visual arts when she has the time and interest to create, but here she is now, writing tens of thousands of words at a time, pouring her heart out through these two space orphans who have living family they just can't get back to and through a lot of galactic bullshit manage to build a new home in each other.

she starts getting regular comments from an ao3 account with a hilarious mishmash of works in a bunch of different fandoms going back years. there's some original trilogy fic on this person's account all dated the same day in 2009, and when she reads one, an intricately plotted and super romantic Han/Leia mission fic, she notices details that make it seem like it was written before the prequels came out.

the comments get longer. she and her commenter start chatting on discord, about their blorbos and fandom drama and increasingly just life. to the extent that Nile can tell anyone about her life, that is. it's nice, having an online friend.

then one day Booker fucks up. he lets a too-specific detail slip. Nile laughs in disbelief, types into discord "hey uh if I'm right about something, pick up your phone," and then she calls him.

years later, Booker will finally admit he did a little hacking to double-check it was her before dropping that purposeful slip. then he'll write Nile a lightning-hot fic where Finn introduces Rey to holonet cybersex.