#somehow on this screen this one seems a lot more saturated than the others even though i treated it the exact same way in photoshop

[ofdarklands]

23 - Teapot Spirit

a teapot you have to serve tea to

[cloud-9ine]

Through a Golden Lens (pt 1)

⤷ pairing - hawks x (fem) reader

⤷ fandom - bnha 

⤷ warnings - some language, hawks flirting, reader’s cynicism 

⤷ summary - reader is a bitter, overworked photographer at a hero press agency with little patience for her newly assigned muse- hawks

⤷ word count - 4.5k+

⤷ notes - i have lots of ideas so this is probably going to be a multi-part series. also new to tumblr so this might not be the best

⤷ pt 1, pt 2, pt 3, pt 4, pt 5, pt 6

“Mr. Hawks! Please look this way!” his heavy lidded eyes rolled to the side as another blinding flash burned through his vision. 

“You look perfect, thank you!” it was hard to smile for their benefit, but he managed. Hawks had attended countless of these events for the press. It had been exhilarating at first, with the rush of adrenaline from the cameras and the lights and the endless stream of compliments solidifying his place in the public eye.

Nowadays, it was less thrilling. After a while, they all seemed the same- each one blurring into a senseless flare of cameras and hollow accolades.

He was bored, to say the least.

“Mr Hawks, would you like to come and see? I’d love to hear your opinion on this set!” with a practiced, easy smirk he nodded. It was easier to pander to the artist than to criticise their work. 

He looked good, but when did he not? The shoots were easy to glide through. All he had to do was pull a boyish grin, ‘make love to the camera’ as the photographers always liked to spout. It didn’t really matter what he did: the public would eat up anything with his face slapped on to the front. They all looked the same to him, anyway.

“Looks good,” he wondered why people were so easily satiated by shallow praises, but as he stared at the younger lady’s blush, he couldn’t help but realise that maybe it was him who had something to do with it.

Hawks couldn’t help his gaze from drifting to the door. His skin prickled in the humidity of all the moving bodies in one enclosed space and he longed to take a step outside and stretch his wings in a way that wasn’t to pose for a magazine. 

For a moment, he felt like his prayers had been answered when the door opened, letting in a stream of natural light to breach the artificiality of the modelling room. 

”(L/N)! You were supposed to be here over three hours ago!” the woman in front of him exclaimed, ripping the camera away from his view and marching to the figure that appeared in the light. He blinked in surprise: this entire shoot he hadn’t heard her raise her voice above anything but a low mumble when conversing with him, and now she was positively fuming.

You stared down at your co-worker through honey-tinted shades, expression unamused.

“Yeah, and I was also supposed to be out of this job three years ago. We don’t all do what we’re supposed to, cupcake.”

For a moment, Hawks thought you were a model. Tasteful cream turtleneck tucked into heavily creased mocha skirt, caramel beret perched on your head. There were a few metal, classy looking rings wrapped around your fingers, but as far as he could see, no wedding ring. It was pretty standard style for those who worked in the arts, but somehow you wore it so well. 

Your hair was a little dishevelled, and the dark circles under your eyes combined with the coffee cup in your hand were obvious signs of a rough night. His eyes locked on to the loopy black handwriting on the brown band around the cup.

(L/N) (Y/N)

You were no model, but Hawks couldn’t see the difference.

His wings beat lightly behind his back as he glided over, weaving through the other photographers and models scattered around the area. 

“Hey there, I’m Hawks,” he said smoothly, voice saccharine as he spoke to you. Your attention turned to him as you glanced at him from above the frames of your sunglasses, seemingly unimpressed.

“This the new boytoy, Mizuki?” you asked, eyes raking up and down his figure. Hawks was never one to shy away from the gaze of others, but the way you were inspecting him made him feel so exposed.

“Show some respect,” Mizuki muttered, voice lowered at Hawks’ presence but glare still piercing. You sighed, sparing one last glance at Hawks before snatching the camera out of Mizuki’s hands, leaving her scrambling for the device as you walked away.

“Lemme see what you’ve got already,” Mizuki’s face grew red, half from anger towards you, and half because of the embarrassment of being diminished in front of Hawks.

“(L/N) y-you can’t just come in three hours late and take over! I’ve already done the shoot and Hawks has already expressed that he is pleased with the outcome,” you scoffed, rolling your eyes and shooting the shorter woman a glare over your shoulder.

“There’s no way you’re gonna force me to come into work and make me sit here doing nothing,” you sneered, waving the camera around almost teasingly, “you wanted someone actually skilled to do this shoot, and here I am. Let me do my thing,” without waiting for a response, you left, thumb fumbling with the dial that allowed you to scroll through the photos.

Hawks was impressed. You hadn’t bat an eye when you saw him, and while you were very clearly very late, you were confident in your skills and obviously took your job seriously.

“Who was that?” he questioned, wings spreading slightly as his eyes chased after you. Mizuki bowed her head, remorse filling her expression.

“I apologise for her impertinence. That’s (L/N), she was who your original photographer was supposed to be today, but when she didn’t show up I had to take over,” she huffed, “she’s been like this for about a year now, and the boss is prepared to fire her if she keeps it up. So you’d think she’d be able to pull her at together for you, Mr. Hawks...”

After a while, Hawks tuned out her whining, eyes curiously trained on you, surveying your furrowed brows and expression pinched with annoyance as you studied the photos. Although they looked good enough to him, it appeared that you didn’t share the same sentiment. 

Hawks didn’t have time to avert his eyes when you turned your head, gaze locking on to his. You raised a slightly suspicious brow, but otherwise didn’t entertain his actions. 

“Mizuki, why would you use cool lighting?” you called over your shoulder, not even sparing the decency to turn around and face the person you were addressing. Mizuki frowned, moving to your side. Like a magnet, Hawks did the same, peering over your other shoulder. You eyed him from the corner of your vision for a second before tapping the screen. 

“What do you mean?” you sighed at your co-workers words, evidently frustrated.

“Considering you have bird boy over here in dark academia, accented in warmer yellows, using cool lights will bring out too much of a contrast. We need to match the accent colours with warmer lighting, or use a overlay,” you muttered, seemingly addressing yourself more than the two of them. Mizuki just shook her head.

“That would just oversaturate the image,” you snorted, giving her the same patronising look an adult would give a child if they tried to outsmart them.

“Not necessarily. I could spot-reduce saturation in highlight areas during editing. Or, if you really want your contrast, I could neutralise the warmer shades by using a blue, or compliment them using a red,” Hawks didn’t miss the way you said ‘I’ instead of ‘we’. Mizuki looked agitated, her frown growing deeper.

“Even so, we only have white backdrops. That would be a jarring contrast. You’d need something darker or more clustered to make it work. If you wanted a backdrop change you probably should’ve come earlier,” she spoke with a formality that obviously stemmed from Hawks next to her, but you paid no mind. You were silent for a moment, and Hawks could see your eyes narrowing as you were thinking.

“I need a natural background, huh?” you mumbled, thumbing the buttons on the camera. With a shrug, “alright, bird boy, come on, we’re leaving,” Hawks blinked in surprise as you spun on your heel, a grin breaking onto his face. Finally, he got to leave.

“Whatever you say, boss,” you shot him an irritated look.

“Don’t call me that. I’m 22, not 40,” his feathers ruffled up. “Hey, I’m also 22! What a coincidence, right?” he grinned, winking at you. You just responded by rolling your eyes.

Mizuki spluttered, trying in vain to get either one of you to stop as Hawks trailed after you.

“L-Look, you can’t just leave-” you turned, shoving the camera back into her hands, a mirthless smile on your face.

“Watch me,” your voice was cold, goading her to try and stop you, “bird boy, out, now.” Hawks didn’t have to be told twice. Some of the others whispered and muttered as they realised what was going on, but they all fell quiet when you shot them a sharp glare.

He breathed in the fresh air with a content sigh, his chest feeling lighter now he was out the cramped room. The amber glow from the late afternoon sun kissed his tanned skin as he stretched his arms above his head, his forearms flexing slightly under his dark blazer. His eyes shut in bliss and head tilted back, exposing his sharp jawline.

You eyed him slightly, eyes trailing across his features. Now that you had actually left, you were a little lost on what your plan was. You didn’t regret storming out of there, though, nor did you even consider turning back to apologise.

You took your own camera out of the dark camera bag slung across your body, careful not to scratch it on the tripod, and focused the lens on Hawks. It was smaller, a little more compact than the ones Mizuki and the others were using, but you found that it was much better suited for portrait work. 

The click of the camera shutter brought Hawks out of his stupor, eyes snapping open and immediately landing on you. Your attention had already been diverted to the screen, studying your work. 

“The modelling room is stuffy, I’ll give you that,” you mumbled, zooming in on his face, “but you can stretch while we walk,” Hawks leaned over you, eyes sparkling at the shot.

“Aw, you make me look so good, I’m flattered!” you rolled your eyes.

“Don’t be,” you took a large sip of your coffee, moving down the pathway as you thought. Hawks scrambled after you, his wings puffing out when he reached your side. You couldn’t help but gaze at the bright red feathers as he unfurled his wings, a small, happy chirping noise rumbling at the back of his throat once they were fully spread behind your back. They were warm, you noticed, feeling the heat through your turtleneck. 

Your vision was filled with a cheeky smirk painted on full lips, Hawks’ face appearing in front of your eyes. Your eyes narrowed as you sized him up.

“See something you like?” you rolled your eyes as he purred. 

“Not in the slightest, bird brain,” his wings beat behind his back, hand clutching the fabric on his chest.

“Oh, how you wound me!” Hawks cried, and you couldn’t help but smile slightly, which you quickly covered with your coffee cup. 

“I’m sure you’ll face a villain that will do greater damage than I could,” he hummed, angling his face towards the sun. 

“So, where are we headed?” you chewed on your bottom lip, slinging your camera over your shoulder. 

“It can’t be anywhere with lots of traffic, you attract a lot of attention, you know?” it was a rhetorical question, but Hawks’ chest still puffed out in pride at your words.

“Thanks, it’s because of my raging-”

“Shut up,” you cut him off, “either way, I have a pounding headache and I do not have enough shits to give to put up with your fan girls today,” with a sigh, you rubbed your temples. Hawks stared at your clenched teeth.

“Hey, why do you-” “I think I know where we can go,” he frowned.

“You know it’s not polite to interrupt people like that-”

“Sunflowers.” your tone dripped finality as you faced Hawks, a brazen determination in your eyes he hadn’t seen until now. It made his breath hitch in his throat.

Breathy chuckle escaping his lips, and eyebrows furrowed when you sped your pace, gulping down more of your coffee.

“Uh, what?” you waved a hand dismissively.

“There’s a sunflower field in Fukuroi City, I think it’s west from here,” the tiniest of grins etched onto your features, “it’s gonna be a lot more interesting than the rest of those blank background. Plus, the yellow will compliment your clothes, and with the sun low in the sky I’ll get my perfect warm lighting,” you explained. Hawks wasn’t sure exactly how much of a difference it would make, but the idea seemed charming, and it was more exciting than being perpetually flanked by a white screen.

“Sounds good,” he chirped, “although, to be honest, you could take me out anywhere and I wouldn’t mind,” you rolled your eyes. 

“That’s a shame, because I don’t intend to hang around any more than I have to,” Hawks pouted, crossing his arms.

“Come on, I wanna know more about you!” you bristled.

“Good for you.” the two of you fell into a beat of silence before Hawks smiled, undaunted.

“I’m sure I can win you over somehow,” shaking your head in disbelief, you lifted the cup to your lips, before looking down disappointedly when you realised it was empty.

“I don’t have enough coffee for this,” you muttered. Hawks’ expression brightened. 

“That’s an easy fix: your agency is around here so you must know there area pretty well,” he spoke nonchalantly, as if he was on a casual lunch date and not in the most expensive outfit you’d seen in your entire life, “what’s the best place to grab a coffee?” for a moment, you looked taken aback, before shaking your head.

“Best café in these parts is the Sunset Hour,” you said, rubbing the back of your neck, “but as much as I have no inhibitions regarding bunking off work, that’s a little too far away. I need to take this pictures before the end of the day or Mizuki’ll submit those crappy ones she took in the studio,” Hawks nodded in understanding, smile never faltering for a second.

“Well I gotta get you your caffeine fix somewhere, so what’s the second best?” your expression scrunched in thought for a moment, before you jutted a thumb over your shoulder.

“There’s a Starbucks across the road,” he snickered seeing your blank expression.

“Not exactly where I would want our first date, but I suppose it’ll do,” rolling your eyes, you shoved the empty cup to his chest, which he gripped almost instinctively. 

“Good thing this isn’t a date, then,” Hawks grinned, sending your empty cup on a feather to the nearest bin before chasing after you as you crossed the road. You didn’t spare him a single glance when he appeared at your shoulder, nor when he reached over above your head to open the Starbucks door from behind you.

“So you’re saying we can have our first date somewhere else?” with a shallow sigh, you shook your head.

“What I’m saying is that there’s not gonna be a first date. Not between us,” his chest tightened. God, you were so mean. He’d be into that.

The inside of the Starbucks was a mix between modern, western architecture and traditional Japanese woodwork. The equipment was all cutting edge, and the tables and chairs were made with a sleek mahogany, but the windows were framed with bamboo shutters, and the backroom was separated with shoji sliding doors. It was an curious blend, one that you studied with an interest. The deep, earthy scent of roasted coffee beans heavily imbued the air, filling your nose with the aroma of something far more familiar. 

Given it was the late afternoon, and most people tended not to drink caffeine after 2pm, the patrons were few and far in between. Good for you, at least. It meant you wouldn’t get- “Hawks? Sorry to bother you but can we get a picture?” your head turned at the voice that rung out.

Two high school girls stood to your left, hands clutched together in front of their chests and a dark pink coating their cheeks. With a small sigh, you took a step forward in the small queue. Hawks smiled with all the faux charm in the world, an obvious change in his demeanour as his pride spiked.

“Of course! And just as it happens, I have my personal photographer here who can make sure your photos look amazing as you two do!” it took you a moment to register what he had said through the excited squeals of the girls before he clutched your shoulders and pulled you forward, causing you to stumble slightly. 

“Your what?” he sent you an audacious smirk, willing you to play along as one of the girls handed you her phone. Your first instinct was to decline, but as you met the eyes of the girls, so eager and bright, you couldn’t find it in you to disappoint them. 

Taking a couple steps back, you lifted the phone, slightly angling it so the picture looked more natural, and not that of a celebrity and their fans (even if it was). You squinted angrily at the poor lighting, but tried to rectify it the best you could. The girls looked a little tense, but Hawks was a natural. A liberal smirk played on his lips and shoulders rolled back, relaxed. Even with the low lighting, the highlights on his cheekbone and jawline were indescribably perfect, and you weren’t sure if the credit should go to you or his god-like genes.

“Wow, that’s perfect!” one of the girls cried, her body appearing by your side. You hadn’t even noticed her moving, “thank you so much!” you just nodded, handing her back her phone and crossing your arms, eyes narrowing at Hawks.

“If that’s all, ladies, we best be ordering,” they nodded frantically at Hawks’ words, sharply bowing and spouting their thanks to the two of you countless times. They left the Starbucks, but even outside you could still hear them fawning over the picture. He faced you with a grin, but you couldn’t muster up a smile.

“Don’t go around telling people I’m your personal photographer,” you sneered. He pouted, looking genuinely disappointed for a second. “What, you don’t wanna be mine?” “Not in the slightest.” 

“What will be your order, Miss?” the barista had directed the question at you, but it was clear his attention was elsewhere. You weren’t surprised, but a small swell of annoyance grew in your mind.

“Can I have a mocha with a double shot of expresso?” Hawks chuckled.

“Might as well have an expresso, you know. You’re basically just taking a shot of caffeine,” you shrugged.

“It’s my favourite drink. I like the chocolate taste,” he looked at you with round eyes, a small squeeze in his chest.

“And you, sir?”

“Oh, I’ll have the same, then,” he didn’t miss the way your eyes darted to him. The barista nodded, tapping for a couple seconds before turning back.

“That’ll be 660 yen,” “I’m paying,” Hawks blurted, even before you could offer. You were silent, a small nod in the affirmative rocking your head. As he handed over the bills, he chuckled. “You know, not that I mind, but usually couples would argue over who’s paying,” you rolled your eyes.

“We’re not a couple,” you watched the barista prepare your drinks, more of a way to occupy yourself rather than a genuine interest, “besides, you’re a lot richer than I am. I don’t mean to be impolite, but I’m sure you can lose 600 yen and still be good,” he hummed happily.

“No disagreements there.” “Are you two eating in or taking out?” the barista asked, in the midst of securing the plastic lids to the top of the cups. Hawks’ eyes sparkled as he turned to you with an excitement you assumed only appeared in children.

“Hey, we can-” “Take out,” you responded, giving a now deflated Hawks a challenging look, “I will leave you here if I have to.” the blonde grinned. “You wouldn’t. You need me for the pictures,” he sang, voice jovial.

“I don’t care about you that much. The sunflowers are probably less annoying subjects anyway,” oh. With no warning, his heart beat sped up, his wings puffing out slightly. Sure, he wouldn’t mind if you were a little nicer to him, but your insults were like a breath of fresh air. There was no doubt that Hawks loved the limelight, loved the popularity he got, but the relentless ass-kissing got old after a while. You kept him on his toes. Even if he was just constantly chasing after you every time you brushed him off, he didn’t care. 

“Put those away, bird brain,” it was then he realised his wings had spread further than he intended, stretched out on either side of him. One was curled right around his face, and he almost felt himself blushing as he pulled them in. It was just animal instincts, he assured himself. 

The rest of the journey was filled with a one-sided conversation of him talking and commenting on what was around you, with no response from you except the occasional witty retort or light-hearted jab at his expense, each one making his heart flutter. It wasn’t too long before you had arrived, the chain link fence around the plot stretching high above your head and corroded with orange rust. 

Rows and rows of bright yellow sunflowers stretched to the horizon, an immense display of summer vitality. The fragrance was potent, a sort of cloying sweetness that you didn’t hate. And just as you were about to enter, you knew you had made a mistake. 

“Oh.” Hawks stared at you incredulously, attention switching from your taken aback expression to the sign posted on the gate.

“You didn’t check to see it was open?” you looked up at him, allowing him to survey a tinge of remorse he hadn’t recognised until this point. 

“Look, how was I supposed to know? This place has always been open at this time since I was a little kid,” you rubbed your arm, brows furrowed. Hawks sighed, rolling his shoulders back.

“Well, the sun’s too low to go anywhere else outside,” he shrugged, “it’s no biggie, I guess. Those other photos weren’t too bad. Hey, now that we’re free, do you want to- what are you doing?” your foot was halfway in the gaps in the gate, the wedges on your heels making it hard to climb.

“I’m not wasting my day for nothing,” you growled, fingers curling around the metal, “get climbing, bird boy,” with a soft sigh, smile gracing his lips and a warm feeling in his chest, Hawks spread his wings.

“I think you’re forgetting something that’ll make this a lot easier,” you felt a cool draft on your back as Hawks flapped his wings, the feeling being quickly replaced by the warmth of his chest as he pulled you in. A foreign emotion coiled in your stomach, but you convinced yourself that it was just the flight.

One arm wrapped around your shoulders, the other supporting your knees, and all Hawks was thinking that such a gentle flight never felt so calming. 

Your feet tapped against the soft soil, sinking in to it slightly when the hero placed you down. You nodded your thanks.

“Let’s go over there, I want the sun coming in from the right,” Hawks nodded, content to just follow your orders. You pulled the tripod from your bag and set it up, adjusting it to your liking as Hawks looked around, trying to think of a pose. 

Once everything was ready, you turned your attention to Hawks.

“I want to humanise you,” he grinned curiously as you walked over.

“What do you mean by that?” he nearly gasped when you grabbed his chin, angling his face to the side and slightly up, towards the sun. You took a step closer, reaching up and running a hand through his hair. He bit his lip, hands trembling as you tugged slightly, trying to mess it up a little.

“All the photos I’ve seen on you always put a huge emphasis on either your wings or your hero status, and I don’t really see why,” you mumbled, placing one hand on his jawline while the other fixed his hair to your liking, letting a few strands fall in front of his eyes, “I think that just creates a divide. If they wanted you to seem angelic they should play that up, not just have it the norm,” you huffed, “anyway, I wanna put the emphasis on you and not your wings. So ideally if you could tuck them behind your back that would be wonderful,” 

Hawks nodded, disappointment filling him as you stepped away. He made sure not to move as he awkwardly folded his wings over each other and pulled them in, glancing at you with a look of apprehension. You just nodded in approval, leaning down to your camera. 

You took plenty of shots, allowing him plenty more opportunities to feel your hands on him (and he would be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy it). 

“Hey, why were you so late today?” Hawks dared to question while you were analysing your photos. You were perched on a bench, appreciating your work. The late sun cast a golden sheen on his skin, the spattering of glimmering rays highlighting his face in all the right places. 

“I was sleeping,” you responded, deleting an out of focus shot. His eyes narrowed.

“What?” “Just as it sounds. Figured if they were gonna make me work so I could only have three hours of sleep a night it was gonna be on their time, not mine,” he frowned, taking a seat next to you.

“They shouldn’t work you that hard,” you shrugged with a hollow laugh, blank gaze in your eyes. 

“What am I gonna do? Have them fire me? As much as I hate this job it’s the only thing that pays for my coffee in the morning,” he was silent as you stood up, stretching your arms behind your bag before tucking everything back in your bag. 

“Did you want to be a photographer?” he questioned, only to be met with a forlorn smile.

“Maybe at one point.” the two of you lapsed into silence before you sighed.

“Well, I’ve gotta submit these to Mizuki, and I’m sure you need-” Hawks caught your wrist, spinning you back around.

In the glow of the sunset, you looked almost ethereal. Your eyes gleamed, and cheeks warmed in the orange flare. Sunflowers framed your form, and the words caught in his throat, nearly stopping him from saying anything at all.

“Come work for me.” he blurted. You snorted.

“No.” all he could do was smile as you hopped back over the fence, not waiting up for him.

“Yeah. That’s what I thought you’d say.”

[nam-nam-joon]

comptine d'un autre été, l'après-midi

or: yoongi's song

Pairing: yoongi x reader

Genre: meet-cute, slow born, fluff

Wordcount: 13.7k

Summary: when your favourite study spot is suddenly unavailable, a fit of annoyance and the tinkling of piano keys lead you to discover an entirely new space. and along with it, someone to keep company.

The library's secretary looked down her nose at you, standing half a step below the desk.

Her voice was notably cooler as she spoke again.

"The section you would like to access is closed for cleaning for the entire week from today on. We apologize for any inconveniences, but there's nothing to be done about it. You will have to go and study elsewhere, I'm afraid."

The old crone leaned back in her chair, her beady eyes fixated on the screen of her computer once more. The chain on her glasses jingled softly.

You turned away from her, staring into the rows of bookshelves accusingly while the fingers around a stack of papers holding it up to your chest tapped furiously.

No studying in the library today.

Great.

There was no other place as good to study in as that particular nook you'd found while one day idling between the rows; nowhere else could you focus so well, so thoroughly. Hours could pass while you were engrossed in the material, and the prospect of being robbed of that, today of all days - and furthermore, for the whole week?

The sun falling through the narrow, high windows suddenly didn't seem as bright and cheery anymore.

Briefly you debated just sitting at one of the long tables in the main area, with everyone else - but quickly scrapped that thought. There were more people than usual there, courtesy of the partial blockage no doubt, and you knew it just wouldn't work out.

Still steaming, you turned a corner and pushed through the first set of doors you could find, really needing some air after this monumental setback.

The fresh breeze hit your face. It slipped through your jacket and caused a shiver to run down your entire form.

Blinking against the light you tried to orientate yourself.

A few steps forward on the stones surrounding this entrance, green with moss here and there, didn't bring the expected clarity concerning your surroundings that you'd hoped for; but instead you realized this was simply a part of campus you apparently had never seen before.

The curiosity about this new, uncharted area grew into the hollow left by the frustration. If you wouldn't be able to study in your favourite spot, you could at least roam the area here and see what mysteries might be hidden.

There was a lot of grass between the occasional tree, on a long hill softly sloping down into the residential area across a street down below. Then there were the campus buildings with their windows. Most had their blinds drawn, and only those on the higher floors were cracked open to let some air in.

It was so quiet.

Somewhere almost out of hearing range was a tingling sound, like windchimes.

You took a deep breath.

There was nowhere specific to go.

Already the stress about meeting your deadlines, the library closing down, it began to lose its edge.

The tinkling came wafting over with the breeze again and you turned your face towards it, feet beginning to move before you'd fully settled on what to do, where to go next.

The stones forming the path around the building were barely visible under the encroaching greenery. They cushioned your steps and softened the ground. A corner lay ahead, and after turning you were presented with more green space between two buildings, eventually ending in a wall that was most likely part of the ancient university campus, overgrown with ivy but still standing strong against time.

The tinkling had shifted from vaguely sounding like windchimes to definitely piano tunes, but it was still nice.

About three quarters to the wall stood an old picnic table under a maple tree.

The surface was a bit uneven, the table was made out of wood and students and time alike had both carved into the soft material.

The seat was slightly damp as well - you remembered the few drops this morning on your way to your lecture - but with your jacket placed over the seat it was a nice spot.

Great, even, as soon as the sun peeked through the clouds again, bringing warmth into the still air of the secluded spot.

Whoever was playing piano was probably close by, you thought after working on the sheets you'd brought for a bit.

The tunes perfectly fit into the overall mood resting in this place, underlining the tranquil state lasting over it.

It was like you had stepped into a pocket universe, with the general buzz of campus being left behind.

The chiming of a bell tower roused you from your work pace. Not having fully arrived in the real world yet you reached for your phone to check the time after counting the rings of the bell - was it really 5pm already?

Apparently it was, and you hurried to collect everything and stuff it into your bag.

Shouldering it, you brushed off your jacket and looked over the place to make sure you hadn't left anything behind once more before it really was time to leave if you still wanted to catch your usual train home.

The music was silent as you took your leave, and you wondered for how long it had been like that already.

Pushing through the doors back into the library was like waking from a pleasant dream. Even though it was the library, and as such calmer than the rest of campus, there was still the usual ruckus. A myriad of voices whispering and creating the white noise backdrop for shoes squeaking, chairs dragging over the floor, doors closing and the occasional shout.

The big communal university spaces were almost too loud to bear and you squinted your eyes at the air saturated with sounds.

Once the entrance hall gave you free and you were hurrying towards the public transport stations it was better again, but there was still a lot more technical sounds digging into your ear drums. You resolved to plugging your headphones in and were able to breathe a little easier while on your commute home, even without music playing.

The next day was free, no lectures to attend, but you still returned to get some more work done.

For a while you were afraid you wouldn't be able to find the picnic table under the maple tree again; that it had all been a wonderful, too good to be true, dream - but your nook in the library was still closed off and there was the door you'd gone through yesterday.

The table was still there, as was the tree, and today the wood was fully dry and birds were chirping in the ivy on the wall.

With a drink in hand and happiness upon finding the wonderful small place again in your heart you sat down to work again, and even though it was tedious and required a lot of forced attention, it somehow felt a little better doing it out here.

Every once in a while you had to make a break and go for a toilet run, refilling your water bottle or simply eating a snack you'd brought.

Between yesterday and today you hadn't seen anyone else out here, and so had little qualms about leaving your stuff unattended. Safe your phone and wallet, of course.

The sun, blinking through the clouds now and then, slowly wandered over the sky.

It must have been early afternoon when you lifted your head after a particularly nasty paragraph and heard the piano play again.

A smile spread on your face as you stretched your arms and allowed yourself a break, sat back and just listened to the notes.

Whoever was playing was good.

Not that you were an expert, but your ears liked it and that was what primarily counted.

Occasionally there was a break in the flowing tune, when whoever was playing went back and redid a couple notes, sometimes once, sometimes needing two attempts, until they were satisfied and continued.

You smiled and let your thoughts wander, momentarily forgetting about your work.

The week of not having access to your library nook went by much faster than anticipated.

On the following monday you stood in the foyer, waiting for a friend, when the small sign "Library fully open again!" caught your eye.

You stared at it for a moment longer, suddenly remembering that you had only found the almost magical table away from the craze of reality solely because there had been cleaning business at work cutting you off your old favourite spot.

You were still mentally trying to puzzle everything out when Jin came floundering around the corner, steps wide and an easy smile spreading on his face at your sight.

"-to one~!"

"What?" You looked up, and the expression on the other's face fell a bit.

"Aha! So you weren't listening at all, after all."

"Sorry. Bit caught up in my thoughts. Was there something you wanted to say?"

"Will you be telling me your secret how you worked through the entire material to that first book we're reading, already? Like… That was inhumanely fast. I know you're good, but honestly. Tell me your secrets." He poked a finger into the soft area between ribcage and belt, and you swerved to the side and away from him to escape it.

"A brilliant work ethic and iron self-discipline!" You chirped and Jin rolled his eyes with an overly dramatic sigh. He hooked an arm around your shoulder and dragged you into his side.

"If the Prof is threatening to let me fail this course, will you tell me then?"

"Kim Seokjin you better not be deliberately slacking off."

"I wasn't!" He pouted, steering you into the right hallway. "Not before, anyways. But if there's a cool new drug like Why-Phy that you're taking to get done sooner, you'll tell me, right?"

"Of course. It's either Why-Phy or blue crystal meth, Jinnie, you know me too well."

The brunet laughed and pressed a kiss to your temple.

Three weeks since the library had reopened and you still had yet to return to the comfortable little chair next to the table with its small reading light.

You'd been lucky with the weather.

So far it had only rained or been too windy to sit outside longer on days you were too busy to get work done next to the lectures, or had to go early because of your job on the side.

Looking up through the leaves on the tree, blinking against the sun, you hoped it would continue to stay like this.

It felt so nice to be here, so private.

The windows leading into the yard were never not covered with blinds, at least the ones in the part of the building you were looking at frequently whenever your eyes needed a break.

The most noise was the wind in the tree or the ivy; occasionally students would sit on the other side of the wall and have a chat but that was about it.

That, and the piano music.

By now you were fairly certain it came from a room on the first floor, somewhere above the place you were sitting at, but there was no way to look into any of the rooms there.

As you turned and squinted up to them once more, not really seeing them but more wondering what might lay beyond the glass, something moving caught your eye.

Had it been an animal?

You blinked to clear your vision, but by then whatever had caused the disturbance had disappeared.

Maybe someone had looked down?

The uncomfortable feeling hadn't taken root fully before you shooed it away; surely it had been something else, a reflection of a passing bird, probably. And even if someone had looked out and seen you sitting here, so what? It wasn't illegal.

You ended your self-assigned break and went back to the material, but the thought of someone watching you, intruding on the privacy you'd enjoyed here, didn't fully leave your mind.

After finishing up early for the day you decided to go try and see if there was a way into the building you'd sat in front of so often now, and if, maybe, you'd be able to find the room the music was coming from every other day.

By the time you had bested the maze of hallways and never before used by you doors leading into other unknown parts of the campus, it was late already.

You tried some of the doors that you thought were on the right floor, but all of them were locked and there was no music coming from anywhere, either.

Disappointed, you went home.

It was the weekend afterwards, but on the next monday you were back, now finding your way to the remote, barely used building a little easier already. There was a nice long break before your next lecture and you were curious to explore more.

You held the door open after passing through as someone approached from the inside, and then went on. Silence lasted on the hallways here.

A window going out from the staircase showed the familiar corner, with the last bit of the library barely visible behind it, and you felt satisfied knowing this was where you'd wanted to go.

On the first floor you paused to catch your breath.

The lights were on overhead, but no other person was in sight.

The doors were locked as well, much like they had been on friday.

You had almost given up hope when a knob turned in your palm and you almost fell into the room behind it as the door gave away.

Dust danced in the spare light that fell through the windows.

Sheets of paper littered the floor. A few tables were pushed to the walls, there was an old cupboard missing its two front doors. More paper and empty binders were stacked in the exposed compartments.

What dominated the room though was the grand piano in its middle.

The shiny black surface beckoned to be touched by your fingertips, and you couldn't hold back from running them over the sleek paint.

It seemed old, if the slightly rusted wheels at the bottom of the pillars it was standing on were anything to go by, but it looked very well kept.

The cover lowered over the keys opened without sound. Black and white keys shared the space underneath it.

It felt wrong to push them, entice sound when you knew there were usually much more skilled hands at work here, and so you gently put the cover back and let your gaze explore the room more.

A big sheet covered a mixpult along one of the walls, several electric keyboards were stacked on the floor beside it.

The walls were a faded yellow which must've been nice once but now looked stale.

There was more paper around the piano, discarded sheet music, printed and self-written, you noticed with surprise as you bent down to inspect it.

Maybe a handful were pinned to the wall closest to the piano, exclusively hand written and, by the looks of it, self-composed.

Whoever was working their magic here so often really had a passion, it seemed, and it made you wonder why they weren't busy doing this over in the faculty for music.

Then again, you mused while stepping up to the window, this place was incredible in getting creative juices flowing. You'd experienced it yourself with work, could only guess at how it must be for someone so musically inclined.

Your picnic table under the maple tree was maybe three steps to the right underneath the window, in direct line of sight from where you stood.

It felt almost weird, knowing that if whoever was practicing here so often had even only once stood up and walked towards the window to look outside had most likely seen you sitting under the tree.

A moment longer you hung after your thoughts.

Then you blinked and remembered that you were probably not welcome here, with the expensive piano and the private compositions, and quickly and silently left the room again, making sure to close the door behind you.

You didn’t go back again in the afternoon, but as you sat down two days later, the tinkling of the keys was drifting down to your spot once more. Smiling about their company, you focused on your work.

It seemed like good things wouldn't last.

The professors heaped enormous amounts of extra essays, excerpts and transcriptions upon each of your heads, and caught between balancing your work and study life, along with having to prep multiple presentations, you were left yearning for the calm spot beneath the tree.

Namjoon had managed to get you to admit where you'd been vanishing off to over the past weeks; after loudly proclaiming that even though the library had been squeaky clean for weeks now he had yet to see you return to your spot.

"Well maybe I found a better spot!" You defended your absence, over lunch in the cafeteria.

"Aha!" Jin yelled, making everyone in a five meter radius around him flinch. "So you have been hiding! I knew it."

"It's just a tiny spot under a tree, outside the old Uni's wall. Stumbled upon it by accident, but a total good find."

“I see.” Namjoon was too intelligent to not notice you didn’t really want to talk about this and soon after dropped the topic.

Rain ran down the windows in streams and you sighed at its presence.

Like this there was no way to get out to the table, and even if it would have cleared up instantly - the wood would need at least several hours in direct sunshine to dry.

Seemed like the last of your luck had run out.

With the lighting from inside the hallways the world outside was hardly recognizable.

You loved the library, and especially the little nook, but there was just something about that table and the tree out among the downpour that was a lot more appealing now than your old favourite spot.

Sitting down anywhere else seemed impossible. Especially, you dimly thought to yourself, especially because the music would be missing.

It was ten times better than listening to your own stuff, because you didn't have to choose what to hear and couldn't simply skip tracks. A little like radio; you could just hear what was given to you, but unlike radio there were no ads.

You found yourself on ground level of the deserted building, hand on the railing and foot on the first step of the stairs before you realized - you could just sit down somewhere close to the room, listen if someone was playing today and do your work there.

Fuelled by this revelation you took the steps two at once and arrived in the hallway a little out of breath, with your heart pounding not only from the exercise.

There it was. The music.

Inexplicably content about the recent developments you picked a clean enough looking spot on the floor, opened your bag and pulled out your notes.

It wasn't as nice as sitting outside, you came to see. Natural light was a lot better to read and work alongside texts with, and the artificial kind provided here could simply not compete.

Still, with the musical undertones, you were able to cross at least some of the workload off before you allowed yourself to sit back against the wall, ignore the stupid pages in front of you and simply listen to what was being played.

It had shifted in the last days. Had it been pieces vaguely familiar to you at the start had the melodies become more and more unrecognizable over time, and now you sat a few steps from the door, eyes closed and listening, thoughts drifting further from the sheets surrounding you by the minute.

The melody was low, subdued but still driving. It sounded like something that would play at the start of a movie, a car ride maybe, with the glowing lights of a city pouring through the windows but no sound audible but this song.

It felt like the car was on its way somewhere, somewhere important, and the people inside the car knew of the importance of this destiny but were too overwhelmed to talk about it.

Maybe the scene would end at the sea, the viewer expecting to hear the ocean's waves crash against the cliff, the gulls crying overhead, but the song would continue playing.

Softly, the tune changed, and you furrowed your brows.

The melody gradually lightened until the great weight was fully lifted from it and the scene with the car and the lights and the muted ocean seemed entirely unfitting. This was more like spring, breathing in the warming air, seeing the sun again after months, that kind of stuff.

You were still drifting, trying to think of what else it reminded you of when the silence became more pronounced. Whoever it was had stopped playing, and you opened your eyes, falling from the small clouds of dreaming back into the shabby hallway.

Steps rang out behind the door, a window closed and you stared at your bag and the spread out work in horror. There was no time to pack it all up.

The door clicked open.

A pair of dark eyes stared into yours, the look of surprise at so unexpectedly seeing the other on both your faces.

Black hair reached over eyebrows, barely visible through a split in the strands.

A hand clutched what looked like a set of keys, the sleeve of the dark hoodie almost slipping over it.

He was first to break the moment of pure surprise. Clearing his throat he stepped out of the room fully, pulled the door shut behind him.

By then you'd managed to look down on the orderly mess you'd made and back up.

"I really like your music." You attempted a smile. The guy, likely not much older than you, pressed his lips into a line.

"Thanks."

It sounded softer than his expression had led you to believe. His eyes flitted over the floor for a bit before he spoke again, not having moved much more than a step. "You really shouldn't be sitting around here, I don't know when it got cleaned last."

"Ah." You twirled your pen. "Well…"

The dark haired stranger sniffed and buried his hands in his pants’ pockets, squaring his shoulders in a way that made him look incredibly uncomfortable.

"Did I interrupt something? Do you need me to move or-" You trailed off.

"No! No, no." He was quick to interrupt, one hand stretched out to halt your beginning frenzy of packing up. "No, it's alright, you weren't- doing… anything." He coughed and rubbed his neck with the free hand. "You… You usually sit outside, under the tree, right?"

You met his gaze, saw his eyes glinting once before he looked away, scuffing a used Vans sneaker on the floor.

"-Yeah, that's true. Couldn't really, today…" Gesturing towards the rain-streaked window, the other followed your line of sight and huffed.

"Yeah, weather's been shit all day. The library's probably chock full, too." He trailed off, and you observed with interest how he seemed to build himself up to the next thing to say.

"I've been… seeing you. Not wanting to sound like… a creep or so, I just- I noticed you sat outside quite often."

You smiled, and his shoulders relaxed a bit.

"Yeah! I wandered around after the library was closed for cleaning the other day, and came across this place. It's amazing. So quiet and basically nobody around… and the background music is great, too."

He looked down on his shoes at your words but you could see how one corner of his mouth twitched upwards.

"This was by the way a major factor for coming here today. It's just- Quiet, void of any people? Very few distractions? Plus free music? There's just no other place where I can get all that."

He rolled his eyes but the smile on his lips broadened. When he moved his head you could see the tips of his ears peeking through his hair, both a healthy shade of red.

"Min Yoongi." He held out his hand after studying you for a moment. "Resident ambience dealer, apparently."

Grinning, you took his larger palm, feeling the bones in his thin fingers as you told him your own name. "-Resident study freak and avid listener to Min Yoongi's compositions."

He grumbled at that. "You listen to piano a lot?"

"Not really. Only when I come here."

This time his eyes stayed on you for longer, and he leaned his back against the opposite wall while slowly easing closer to the ground.

"Then how did you know it was my own stuff I was playing?"

You tugged some papers closer by their corners, beginning to shepherd them together.

"I was in there some time ago, when you weren't there. Wanted to know where the music was coming from, took me ages to even find a way into this place. Your room is really messy, you know that?"

His face was halfway turned away again but at the humour in your voice he looked back, pout on his features.

"I never meant for anyone else to see in the first place! You don't get to complain!" He huffed, glancing at where you were chuckling across from him at his indignant outcry.

"Okay okay, I promise I won't go back inside. But that what you played last today, that was really good. Is that one of yours, too?"

He bit on his bottom lip and nodded, fingers rubbing over the fabric of his pants stretching over his knees.

“What’s your major? Music?”

“Something in that direction, yeah.” Then, after a pause in which he seemed to realize it would be the polite thing to do, he asked: “You?”

The rain continued to run down the glass as you spoke, telling the other about your plans with studying, and the hopes you had. He listened intently and only rose his voice after it was obvious you had ended, and it created a nice back and forth. Thunder clapped outside, growling and forcing him to speak up a little more.

You sighed.

"Guess I better head back if I still wanna make it home today." You swept the last of the sheets together and put them into their binder, shoving the concoction unceremoniously back into your bag.

You brushed a bit of dust off your pants and quietly pulled a face as you peeled a long hair with cobwebs off your pants.

When you met Yoongi's eyes he looked off to the side, softly shrugging. "Told you…"

"Are you heading back, too?" Now it was him looking up at you, hands linked over his knees.

"Yeah?"

You held out your hand, and after mustering it for a moment, he took it.

Either he had a lot of self-control over his body or he wasn't weighting much; either way you pulled him up and then he was towering over you once more.

"You have a car?" You asked him on the way down, looking up from the keys in his hand.

"Hm? Oh. Oh yeah. Just- It’s a hand me-down from my brother."

He cleared his throat.

"Aren't you afraid someone's gonna steal your stuff?"

He turned his head towards you, his eyebrows creasing the skin between them.

"Because you don't lock the room?" You elaborated. Yoongi ran a hand through his hair, focusing on the steps down.

"Not really. As far as I know it's only us knowing of these rooms even being here, and most of them are locked, so…"

"But you keep copies of your songs, right? Photos or some app to write it down with?" He looked at you like you had just proposed to assassinate the Dean.

"No?" He held the door open for you and then you were out in the main part of campus again.

Part of you had wondered if Yoongi would just straight up disappear as soon as you crossed the threshold, but it appeared he was very much real as he fell into step alongside you.

"Then what if someone does get in? And steals them? Or you forget to close the window and rain gets in and ruins the sheets?"

He shrugged, and the way he seemed to care so little frustrated you.

"But it's such great music!"

He shrugged again but looked on his shoes while doing so.

For a moment you were quiet, staring straight ahead while the thoughts were racing behind your forehead.

"-"

"No."

"I haven't said anything!"

He glared at you from the corner of his eyes. "But you were going to. Whatever it is, no. If anything happens to my music, that's my business, okay? Don't worry about it."

His resolute tone halted every attempt at clapping back in its core, and the few minutes it took until you were out in the entrance hall that was swimming with how many students came in and went you spent in silence.

Yoongi half turned towards you when you were already beaming up at him. "I'll hear you around?"

"-Fuck me." He covered his face with a hand and you laughed at his exasperated groan at your joke.

"Bye Yoongi!"

"Honestly, get lost..."

You were on your way to the table again, binder under your arm. Rounding the corner and you would have almost slipped on the moss growing over the path; you stared back and silently cursed while being glad you didn't actually fall.

The surface of the desk was wet when you reached it.

"It's been like, an entire day, why are you not dry." You said lowly, feeling the top down. Definitely too wet for anything paper related.

"You're late."

You looked up at the drawl, only needing a moment until your eyes fixed on the mop of hair peeking out of the window.

"Oh, yeah?" You looked down on the table, not really knowing what else to say. "Well... your ass is late, too."

"The fuck."

The confusion on Yoongi's face was a delight to see. A moment longer you stayed rooted to the spot next to the table, then his voice came again.

"You wanna come up here now or what. That desk won't dry up until tomorrow. If you're lucky."

Squinting up you shielded your eyes against the glare of the bright clouds overhead.

"You won't mind?"

Yoongi seemed to momentarily contemplate it, looking straight ahead. Then he pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Look, you can either get your ass wet sitting outside, or get it dirty sitting in the hallway, but if you enjoy my music really that much it'll be a total experience sitting in the same room while i play. Your choice."

He vanished from the open window and closed it, only leaving a crack open.

Your fingers tapped on the binder.

Five minutes later you knocked on the blank door, waiting patiently in your spot until steps sounded out and Yoongi opened.

He was sporting the same dark hoodie today, fidgeting with the sleeves of it.

"May I come in?" You inquired, and he wordlessly stepped aside.

Together with Yoongi's help you pulled one of the overturned tables right way up, found a suitable chair and then wiped the surfaces off. There was a small sink in the adjacent storage room, with running water and all, and eventually your new desk was in a condition you deemed okay.

You sat down on your chair and Yoongi, who'd been brooding over his sheet music since you'd shooed him off to clean everything by your standards, looked back down on the floor. He perched on the run down piano stool, elbows on his knees, and peered on the papers strewn across the ground.

Occasionally he'd bend down to pick one up but you had too much to do to really watch him for longer.

At one point he turned and you allowed yourself a moment of rest. He pushed the hoodie up his arms, almost to his elbows, before his fingers placed themselves on the keys and he started to play.

He had been right. It was something entirely else to sit in the same room with him while he played.

Like this the music drowned out any other sound that may have sailed in from outside; whether it be the call of bird or bell.

It was nice.

Your thoughts calmed down until they ran smooth, circling around topics once or twice before moving on.

The world existed only in this room, the music filled your ears and the shabby lighting overhead concealed the darkening sky outside.

At one point Yoongi stood in front of your table, fingers curled around the hem of his hoodie once more. His knuckles pushed at his skin. The edge of one sleeve was beginning to fray.

Mildly irritated, you looked up and met his eyes.

"What?"

"Uh isn't this the time you usually leave?"

You held contact a moment longer before looking down on your watch and tsking disapprovingly. Yoongi's shoulders twitched up.

"Shit, it is."

Ripped out of the peaceful mood you began to collect pages and close books, mentally going through the timetable and if you’d still make the train. "Are you heading out, too?"

He nodded and, growing braver again, stacked a few materials while you shoved everything in your bag. "Thanks." You hurried.

It'd be a bit tight, time-wise, but Yoongi's long legs effortlessly kept pace with your quick steps.

"How'd you know this was my time to leave, anyways?" You narrowed your eyes at him, not hiding the smile on your lips. "Have you been stalking me?"

Yoongi opened and closed his mouth without saying anything once or twice before he looked ahead and said "It was the time you left, last time." His shoulders were still drawn up as he peeked at you from the side. "I'd never-"

"I was kidding." You took half a step to the side and bumped your elbow into the general area of his arm. His hand reflexively came up and clutched the spot.

“I'm a creature of habit. If I miss this train I'll have to wait forever until the next one comes and that's always a huge pain."

He nodded, and shortly after, bid you farewell before you parted behind the front doors.

It had rained the entire weekend long and you didn't bother to go outside to the table, instead turning left before the library even came into view and headed straight for Yoongi's hideaway.

He didn't open when you knocked and you found the room empty after peeking inside.

He came in half an hour after you, in a dark blue hoodie this time, and looked a bit startled at seeing you there.

"Hi!" You smiled at him, over the backrest of the chair. "I hope you don't mind, it rained again and I-"

He shrugged and shuffled past you, heavily slumping down in front of the piano.

He didn't say anything and his melodies today were slow and deep.

Before you could turn to leave after the clock had well advanced, his back straightened and, anticipating him speaking up, you paused; jacket already on and bag in hand.

"Thanks for not asking me what's wrong."

He was talking to the piano, but you still smiled a bit.

"Of course."

"I don't know, if, I said it already but, you're very- welcome to come here if, you know, the weather…"

You looked down on your shoes. Only after it didn't seem like he was going to finish his sentence did you raise your voice.

"I don't think you did, but I really appreciate it. Thank you. Will you stay a little longer today?"

His gaze fled your face for his piano again after you raised your head.

"Yeah."

"Take it easy, Yoongi."

"Whatever."

You smiled at him even though you didn't know if he'd see, and then headed out.

You'd gotten ahead of homework and so could ease a little during your work sessions in Yoongi's piano room now, and during one of those easier days decided to finally ask the question that had been bouncing around your head for a while now.

"How'd you get the piano tuned? And isn't it really old?"

He didn't look up from his sheet, brows still furrowed at something he'd probably written down a few days ago and now wasn't satisfied with anymore.

"I watched a few Youtube tutorials."

You put your chin in one of your hands and grinned, but Yoongi broke eye-contact quickly after glancing your way.

"You did it yourself?"

"Yeah? Wasn't. Wasn't that hard."

Your grin widened and his glare intensified at its presence. "Min Yoongi. Musical Genius."

"Shut up."

His ears coloured red and gave him away, and you'd have loved to go over and give him a quick hug.

You didn't know how many other people got to appreciate him, but if his hideout here was anything to go by it weren't many. Probably.

He was adorable.

Even when the sun was shining outside and it had been dry for several days you wouldn't go to the little desk, favouring the clear sound of Yoongi playing and his occasional comment, mumbled to himself. It was far too cold now, anyways. Winter was fast advancing as November went on.

He had a way to be in the same space with you while not demanding any of your attention - which made it incredibly pleasant to have him around.

If you weren’t spending time together in amicable silence he was surprisingly easy to talk to. Most of his answers were short, or mumbled sounds, and yet you never got the impression he was fed-up or annoyed. He asked things too, occasionally; and though objectively you hadn’t known him that long, it still felt weird to remember there had been a time without him in your life.

Once, after you'd struggled with a particularly boring part of a required text that your brain just wouldn't process at all, he'd quietly asked if you could come over and take a look at something he'd been working on.

You stared at him, the skin between your eyebrows creased.

"Yoongi I don't know anything about music. Do you really-"

"Please?"

"...Fine."

You were standing next to him already, preparing to sit, when he parted his lips and looked up at you.

"Could you… sit with your back to the keys? It's just, I…"

It wasn't his fault, you were frustrated by the text; but you couldn't help the forced exhale of air that left your nose.

Yoongi's shoulders twitched. You hesitated, wanted to say something, didn’t find the words and then made an effort to move as calmly and quietly as possible to not upset him further.

"Sorry. Long day.” You said in a low voice, feeling strangely raw. “Play, if you… if you want?"

You could see him looking at you, through the corners of your eyes, and part of the tension left his form again at your words, underlying tone asking for forgiveness.

"S'alright." He breathed, just before clearing his throat and placing his hands on the keys.

As he played, the tight knit ball of jumbled thoughts behind your forehead stopped growing.

The longer you listened, the more tension left your brain; the cramped thoughts and need-to-do’s losing their alarming vibrant colours.

You felt yourself calm down.

He broke off playing and coughed nervously.

"So that- was version one. This is version two."

And he began to play again, the same piece, though slightly different, and this time you reminded yourself to pay more attention and really listen.

After he'd finished, the frustration over your text had thinned out and you were fully focused on the task at hand.

"So?" He asked, nervously rubbing his hands together.

"Can you play the first one again? Just for comparison?"

He nodded and went back to it.

"I think I like the first one better.” You decided. “The second one… implies something darker lurking beneath, and, I guess if that's what you intended it's executed well but the rest sounds lighter and so-"

He huffed out a laugh and dropped his head, hands sandwiched between his thighs.

"Hm? Not good? What I said?"

"No, no," He hurried to reassure, eyes gleaming under his fringe. "No, it's… I was hoping you'd say that, I guess. Gives me a reason to scratch this part. Didn't even like it much, I just felt- Yeah. Thanks."

At the almost-grin spreading on his lips you had to smile as well.

Had your shoulders touched during the entire time you'd sat here?

He broke the eye-contact first, looking back towards the keys once before meeting your gaze again.

"Rough day hm?"

"Yeah." You looked ahead, not really seeing the wall there. "Yeah, you could say that…"

Another sigh and then you were feeling the exhaustion more and more.

It was a spur of the moment thing, really, and you asked before you could hold yourself back.

"Are you okay with touches?"

"Ha? What do you-"

"Can I put my head on your shoulder?"

"Oh. Uh-"

"It's- It's fine if you don't want that," You hurried to backpedal, already mentally chiding yourself. "I'll be o-"

"No, it's, uh, you, ah, you can! Put your head on… yeah. I don't mind."

His voice got quieter and quieter until he was mumbling the last sentence.

His shoulder, although cushioned by his hoodie, was bonier than you'd thought. But it was nice, to rest for a moment, and you closed your eyes, exhaling slowly.

Yoongi's breathing had his shoulders rising and falling, and unconsciously, you adapted your rhythm to his, until you were breathing in synch.

"Thank you." You mumbled, adjusting your head and feeling your forehead brush his hood.

"Don't worry about it." This up close his voice was even deeper, and the low tone soothed the rawness your ears had suffered under for the past days in crowded lecture halls and hallways.

Ever so softly his cheek came to rest against the top of your head as he gave into the shy touch.

"Do you sing, Yoongi?"

You still had your eyes closed, listening to Yoongi's breathing and the sound his clothes made when they rubbed against themselves, against his skin.

"Sometimes." He answered after a pause. "More rap than… singing lullabies."

"I bet you sound good doing either."

He snorted, which pretty clearly gave away how little he thought of your compliment.

A moment long neither of you spoke.

Then he let out a heavy sigh.

"Why exactly do you think that?"

Your left arm was slightly pushed forward as he moved his left arm, from where the backs of your forearms were pressed against each other.

"You have a very nice voice, deep, and steady, and- It has that ring to it, you know, the same undertone. Some people speak and you can't really make out the tone or… colour… of their speech, but your voice doesn't jump around. You could probably read a phone book and make it sound nice."

"Okay that just ruined everything you said before."

"Oh fuck off! You asked!" There was a laugh in your voice as you lifted your head to look at him exasperatedly. He blinked, looking a bit sleepy, as if he had rested his eyes a little, too.

At your expression he hollowed out his cheeks.

"Jeez, don't behead me. I'll take it, okay? Happy now?"

"Yes. Thank you."

You pursed your lips and waited, until Yoongi would break eye-contact, but he didn’t surrender as quickly. He blinked and kept looking, and everything in you wanted to put your head back down, back on his shoulder, and stay like that a little longer, talk a bit more.

But this small break had gone for a bit too long already and you knew you should get back to work. That text sadly wouldn't read itself.

An unfamiliar touch on your arm held you back.

"Can you stay a bit longer?"

Half standing above him already he had to tilt his head so he could look at you.

"I really should-" You began, and then sighed, admitting that you really didn't want to move to yourself, and sat back down. "...Screw that text."

Yoongi's shoulder bumped yours, almost like an invitation, and you gave in without much thought.

You felt the bones shift as Yoongi lifted his hands and began to press single keys, filling the silence of the room with tunes.

"That text got you all worked up, hm." He spoke again after a while.

You frowned at nothing.

"It's just so dull. The professor said it serves as an example of what not to write, so it's basically just- we're just supposed to read it and mark all the mistakes, to avoid doing the same mistakes, but honestly… I know how and what I have to write, I shouldn't- Ugh. See? It's annoying me again already."

You huffed, leaning a bit more on Yoongi.

His cheek found your hair again and he chuckled.

"What's that idiot done wrong in his writing then?"

You weren't so sure afterwards, if he really had wanted to know or if this was just Yoongi's way of getting you to review the material differently, but you supposed it had worked out.

It was a lot easier to read and complain aloud while he sat next to you and listened to you rant, even though the finer nuances were surely lost on him since he wasn't studying the same thing.

On your way back to your flat you held your left arm with your right until you saw yourself in a reflection and noticed it.

Sitting next to Yoongi like that had only further proved how comforting his presence was, and now, without anything like that to be repeated in the foreseeable future, the missing touch felt a lot worse than where you had been before.

Technically you'd see him again tomorrow, or the very least Thursday.

But who was to say he'd ask you to sit with him again?

You ran into him during lunch the next week after not making it back to his room before that.

He was looking off to the side, in the direction of the lousy holiday decorations that had popped up in the major community spaces - You needed a moment to recognize him as the same guy who was playing piano while you studied. His bare arms, sticking out of a black shirt that hung from his shoulders, were almost shocking. That, and the surroundings clashing so harshly with what you were used to see him surrounded by.

“Hey, Yoongi!” You called out after the realization had sunk in, and turned with the tray in your hand.

His shoulders jerked up, but as his searching gaze connected with yours he relaxed.

“Hi.” He rubbed over his neck. “What are you…” His eyes fell on the food you were balancing in your hands. “Right. Lunch.”

“Are you headed somewhere?” You shifted your weight from one leg to the other. Yoongi shook his head slowly, hands clenching around his hoodie he carried in them.

“Wanna sit with my friends and me? They’re just over there, next to the pillar.”

“Uh-”

“They’re all really friendly and don’t bite, I promise.”

“...Fine.” He sighed and trudged after you as you turned.

Whenever he agreed to do something you had proposed to him he made it out to seem like it was a decision that had taken him weeks to arrive to, or if it was something incredibly heavyweight he couldn’t just agree to, but whenever you offered him to go back on saying yes, or reminding him he could opt out any moment, he was always vehement to defend his point. It almost looked like he did things purely out of spite even when you’d meant well to second-guess his willingness to cooperate.

It was the same today, as he followed you through the rows, and then pulled out a chair next to yours as you put the tray down.

“Friends, this is Yoongi. He plays piano.”

“My most defining feature, apparently.” He grumbled in response and sat down, not after shimmying into his hoodie.

“Oh hey Yoongles!” Jin perked up, the burrito in his hands falling apart. “You two know each other?!”

“That does surprise me, I agree.” Hoseok added, stealing bits of the filling of Jin’s food that fell to the plate below. The quirky guy had one day invited himself into your circle of friends and nobody had had a heart to kick him out, but apparently he did know other people on campus save your group.

“You know him?” You retorted, pulling out your water bottle before starting on the food.

“Some people socialize, my dear friend.” Jin said, swatting at Hoseok’s hand.

“Yeah I know, I wasn’t aware Yoongi did that.”

“Ouch?” The black haired guy next to you said and got a round of laughs back.

“Sorry.” You apologized. He stole the small package of chips from your tray and opened it.

“I mean, it’s kind of true, I suppose.” He relented.

“Did you write down what the Prof wrote on the blackboard last Monday?” Jin had given up on his burrito and was furiously wiping at his hands while a happy Hoseok gleefully dug into the scattered remains. Jimin next to him made grabby hands and the plate got pushed over so he’d reach it too. Jin pursed his lips.

“Yeah. You need them or what?” Yoongi dropped a chip in his mouth and chewed slowly.

Jin turned his head and a more up-beat expression settled on his features. “Pretty please!”

Yoongi groaned.

Around half an hour later the cafeteria filled up as more and more students took their break, and soon enough your group rose to make room for the people who actually needed the space to sit down.

“You going to practice today?” You asked Yoongi as your group made its way towards the exit. He nodded absentmindedly.

“Oh, can I come?” Hobi suddenly appeared by Yoongi’s other side, apparently having overheard the conversation.

Yoongi glared.

“And have you leave prints on all my shit? No thank you.”

“Excuse you these sneakers are brand new! Not a single speck of du- Hey!”

To your utter delight Yoongi had stepped on the brilliant white of Hobi’s new shoe and left a dusty brown mark.

The sputtering outcry got the attention of Namjoon and Jin who’d been walking ahead, and after placating words and a glare from Yoongi you all parted ways, Hobi notably not tagging along with you.

“That was mean.” You told him, still laughing over Hoseok’s exasperation.

Yoongi shrugged, hands in his pockets, but you saw the smile on his lips just before he angled his face in a way that didn’t allow you to observe his features any longer.

The days until the short christmas break were counting down.

One weekend you spent baking with Jimin and Rose, and were left with so many cookies you put a good amount in a box, wrapped it in newspaper and brought it with you to give to Yoongi as an early present.

You could pinpoint the exact moment he saw the gift sitting on his chair after he had come in, because he stopped dead in his tracks.

“What?” He asked, and you looked up from the transcribing exercise.

“What what?”

“That.” He pointed, as if a motion detection sensor would go off if he took only a step closer.

You clasped your hands under your chin and looked from the chair to Yoongi.

“Didn’t you see the elf that came in and dropped this off?”

His eyebrows drew together and he glared at you.

“I have a feeling I’m looking at this ‘elf’ right now.” He crossed his arms. You shrugged.

“If you don’t want it, I’ll find someone else to give it to.” That cute first-semester from Jimin’s Survey of Linguistics and Languages class maybe, Jungkook.

“No.” Yoongi grumbled, and you mentally scratched having to rehome the box of cookies. Although, come to think of it, there were probably enough cookies left at home to pack another box. Maybe you’d ask Jimin if he could ask Jungkook if he’d like some.

He sat after picking the present up, hesitantly, and weighted it in his hands.

“What’s in it?” He turned to you.

You lifted an eyebrow. “Wait until the evening of the 24th and find out. Or abandon all social norms and just tear into it now, I wouldn’t judge.”

“Like fuck you would.” He huffed and then looked from the patched up paper to you. It seemed like he wanted to say something, and then decided against it, only placing the gift on top of the piano, in a spot where it wouldn’t be in the way.

You got up earlier than usual, wanting to get a bit of shopping done before leaving for your parent’s home for the holidays.

Yoongi’s head jerked up, and the pencil he’d twirled in his fingers clattered to the ground.

“Is it five already?” He asked, hands reaching for his phone.

“Nah,” You slung your scarf around your neck. “I’ll run some errands.”

“Oh okay.”

To your surprise, Yoongi started grabbing his things as well.

You paused.

“Yoongi, what…?”

His gift under his arm, the other froze.

“Huh? Didn’t you ask if I could drive you today?”

You blinked.

Dim, very dim was the memory, of having asked him, a week ago. You hadn’t decided to do the shopping today, back then.

“You- You don’t have to. Sorry, I forgot, my bad-” You bit in your lip. “You, uh, you stay, and… Compose a while longer. I’ll be fine.”

In the silence between you, you could hear the wind whistling around the corners of the building.

It was dark outside already.

Yoongi was still looking at you, and though you’d come to understand his expressions a bit, this one was undecipherable.

“So you… Don’t want me to drive you?”

He looked weird, the newspaper wrapped box under his arm, his jacket slung over the other. Ready to go, at your convenience.

It twisted your heart a little.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t remember you saying yes, and my shopping-”

“I could still drive you. It’s faster than the train?” His eyebrows twitched upwards in the middle, just a tiny bit.

“-Okay.” You agreed, and his posture relaxed at last.

His car smelled new, even though everything in it was carrying marks of the years it had been used.

You stayed silent, unsure how to proceed, and as the lights of downtown illuminated the inside of his car, you turned your head to look at him.

“Would you like to come do the shopping with me?”

The car rolled to a stop at the next red light, and in the low light, Yoongi’s eyes glinted as he looked over.

“If you want me to?”

“Yes please.”

“Okay.”

"I bought an iPad."

"You what?" You looked up from your work, across the room and met his eyes over the piano. He was glaring.

"You heard me."

"I did. Why though?"

January was almost over by now, but it would take a while longer until the sun would win back her intensity, and not let the daylight fade this early in the afternoon. Though, clouds littered the sky today, which was probably the main cause why the lights overhead reflected in the glass already at this hour.

Yoongi looked down on the keys, his hands rubbing over his thighs.

"You won't stop nagging me about losing the sheets or forgetting the tunes, so I thought… I could record some of the songs. Scan the sheets. That kinda stuff."

You smiled, unashamed and wide, and Yoongi's glare intensified.

"You're gonna come have a look or what."

He sounded a little pressed and without any more words you left your desk and crossed the room.

He shuffled aside so you could fit yourself next to him.

The tablet wasn't the latest model - which would have really surprised you, otherwise - but there was something like a microphone plugged into the lightning port and clipped to the edge.

"Is that a mic?" You leaned forward, having had half the mind to sit on your hands to not accidentally touch anything and ignite Yoongi's wrath.

"Yes." He grumbled, still a bit more fidgety than usual. "Cost almost as much as the damn thing so I hope you're happy."

The grin stole into the wonder and awe that had captured your expression before.

"I am. Very. Recorded anything yet?"

You'd arrived a bit later today, courtesy to an extended lunch with Namjoon and Jin.

Yoongi's eyes glinted when he looked from the keys to you.

"And have you chewing my ear off for not letting you be there? Fuck no. Was gonna wait until you got here. -Shut! It."

You bit your lip to keep the cooing at bay, opting to gently nudge his shoulder with yours instead.

"I appreciate it. Wanna play now?"

The nervosity was back, the way he bounced his leg so uncharacteristically agitated  for him. He was more like a pond usually, calm and undisturbed.

"Keep quiet alright?"

You nodded.

He sighed and rubbed his hands one last time. Then he extended one, woke the screen and unlocked the tablet. The recording program was already open.

He clicked the red button and instantly a flat line appeared, only beginning to curve up and down as he shifted and began to play.

Keeping your breathing flat was probably unnecessary and yet you couldn't help it.

Yoongi's hands danced over the keys, pushing down and lifting in such rapid succession you could hardly keep up with. It was mesmerizing to observe, but not only that.

With his eyes closed and his head angled he gave himself to the music completely, feeling every note.

There was a small pulling in your chest, from the area around your heart, at his sight.

It must feel good to be able to zone out this much doing something you loved and were good at.

Only after he'd repeated the chorus did you notice what he was playing - the melody that had initially drawn you in and led you to the table outside.

Your heart in your chest grew with every beat, until it felt like it pressed against your ribcage from the inside.

Yoongi slowed down, the notes came a little wider apart, and then he let the last chord ring out. Fingertips still resting on the keys, you looked between them, waiting if he'd play another song.

When he slid them down on his pants it became clear he didn't intend to.

Silence enveloped you.

"That's my favourite song. That one. I only found you because of it."

Your eyes went back to his face and caught him already looking. His eyebrows drew together.

He tapped the little square and the program stopped recording.

"Now you ruined the first ever song I played for the record, idiot."

You scoffed.

"I only spoke up after it was all done, you can easily cut that out, genius."

He huffed and you rolled your eyes.

"Not everything has to be perfect first try. Thought someone like you would know that."

He just shook his head, still frowning.

"Hey, I'm sorry. I'll keep quiet now." Thinking he was honestly upset, you apologized, hoping it'd sooth his temper.

But it didn't seem to be the right call as he buried his face in his hands, shoulders rolling forward.

"Just… Nevermind."

"Do you want me to get out of your hair?"

Your butt had already lifted from the chair when his reply came, mumbled through his hands.

"No."

You sat back down.

Dark eyes glinted at you through his fingers, then he combed through his hair and pushed it back from his face.

It was the first time you could really see his eyebrows well, and the expanse of his forehead.

You'd known he had one, of course, but seeing it was something else.

He woke the tablet again and started a new recording.

You smiled.

You didn’t get any work done that afternoon, but then again listening to a fraction of the repertoire that Yoongi had to offer was phenomenal compensation.

Still he looked a bit rueful, standing next to your desk while you packed your stuff, the iPad with its closed cover and Mic securely stored in the small bag over his shoulder.

“Sorry I… Kept you from your studying.”

You looked up while zipping your pencil case shut.

“It’s okay. Think I needed that, anyways. A break from all those words. It’s me who should thank you, really.”

He wrinkled his nose and kicked at a speck of dust, following you out the room once you were done.

“Still. Can I… Do you want a ride home? I know you missed the bus you usually take.”

“You’d do that?”

“It’s the least, really…”

A smile spread on your face. “Who am I to say no to such a gracious offer, why yes, thank you Yoongi.”

“Don’t make me regret it.” He grumbled, pushing ahead with a frown on his features.

"Play for me, Min, please." You sat next to him on the stool, hands underneath your thighs and gaze swimming from exhaustion.

Yoongi's shoulder softly bumped into yours as he repositioned himself.

"You okay."

"Yeah. Just. Please play."

"Alright." He looked at the keys, fingers caressing them but not pressing down hard enough to evoke the notes. "Anything in particular?"

"Can you play my favourite piece?"

His eyes stayed on yours and you grew almost uncomfortable by their scrutiny.

And then he blinked and turned back towards the keys, rolling his wrists once and setting his fingers down.

"As you wish."

As he played you watched his fingers move, trying to lean away whenever he came near you to avoid bumping into his arm. His skin looked healthier now, now that the temperatures were rising again and there were no angry, painful red cracks lining the back of his hands anymore.

It was like his body had its own gravitational field, drawing you in.

When he ended, your side was leaned against his, your heavy head teetering on the edge just before dropping to his shoulder.

The arm he wrapped around you would have come as a surprise, eliciting at least a twitch out of you, had you been a little more coherent.

As it was, your body sighed and curled into his, head tucked into his shoulder, while his hand pulled you closer by your side.

"Long day."

It wasn't a question, but you understood the offer he was making.

"Yeah." You sighed, the hoodie-clad shoulder pleasantly soft under your cheek. "Finals will kick my ass. Didn't want to do an all-nighter ever again but got peer-pressured into it anyways… Sucks."

Yoongi hummed, playing this and that note with the free hand.

"Didn't peg you for someone giving into that kind of thing."

You grumbled.

The impending doom of the next test hung low over your head, and still you couldn’t peel away from your spot next to Yoongi, wedged on the chair, with his arm around you. Didn’t want to. Felt like maybe if you’d made an attempt to get up, he might even have pulled you down again.

"Want me to drive you home?" He mumbled, an indefinite amount of time later.

"You're really nice today. Or is that just me being tired."

He chuckled, and you felt his cheek come to rest against your head.

"Don't tell anyone, okay."

"Okay."

You adjusted in your spot and snaked both of your arms around his torso.

He didn't flinch.

It was quiet for a moment.

"Hm?"

He hummed.

"What?" You lifted your head. He glanced at you from the corners of his eyes.

"Didn't answer my question."

"Which one?"

"If you want me to drive you home."

He jostled your shoulder.

You debated it for a moment.

"Alright. Yeah, okay.”

You put a hand to his shoulder that quickly morphed from a gentle pat into holding on for support as your quick standing up led to some instability in your legs.

He looked up at you.

"Okay then. Let's go." You repeated.

It was like the world was wrapped in cotton.

It was silent in the car. The radio didn't look broken, but Yoongi slapped your hand away as you wanted to poke it and see if you could turn it on.

"Nu-uh. No touchy." His eyes never strayed from the street.

"Next one left." You informed him, pouting.

"I know." He said.

Your hand was on the handle even before his shabby car rolled to a stop in front of your place.

It was unusually warm for the month, and you’d rolled the window on the passenger side down to breathe in the mellow spring breeze.

Now outside, you leaned your arms through it.

A grin spread on your face.

"Say, isn't it weird that you know where I live and I still haven't gotten your number?"

A rare, gummy smile appeared on his face, slowly.

"Please?" You jutted out your bottom lip.

"...Fine." He reached into the back, patting his jacket down.

He pulled his phone out of one of the pockets, handing it to you after unlocking it.

"'Musical Genius #1 Fan’?" He read out the contact name you’d given yourself. He glared at you.

You shrugged.

"If you don't like it, change it, genius."

He snorted and gripped the steering wheel tighter with his left hand.

The world was beginning to get very fuzzy beyond a two step radius around you, and you took that as a sign you should definitely head into your room now.

“Thank you for the ride.”

“Always.” He smiled again, his usual, small one.

You patted the hood of his car twice after leaning back.

Texting Yoongi was almost alarmingly normal.

Despite the fantastical circumstances of meeting him, you found he was very much engaged in normal life on campus, too. Occasionally.

He wasn’t much for the polite small talk to start a day, rather than just sending a text saying ‘There’s a lizard by the parking lot and ppl r clogging the way, will be late’ first thing.

You hadn’t believed him when he’d said he wasn’t much into memes, but send him a couple vine compilations anyways.

By now he was fully fluent in both them and most current memes floating around, further adding to you not really believing he hadn’t had a speck of an idea before.

The definite end of the semester came into view, but it meant every final was crammed into the space between then and now, which resulted in more studying and less listening to Yoongi playing. 

You were brushing teeth one evening when your phone’s screen lit up with an incoming video call from him.

Placing it on a slightly elevated spot inside the small cabinet above the sink, you accepted it.

“...Oh wow look at that, who is that raccoon?”

Your reply telling him to fuck off came warbled by the white foam spilling over your chin. He smiled, wide and easy.

“Wanted to ask what you were up to this evening but I guess I don’t have to anymore, huh.”

You cleared your mouth and dabbed a towel around it afterwards.

“Not really. I’m super tired, so I think I’ll just go to bed, honestly. Did you want to do something? In that case I’m sorry, but no.”

He rolled around, and only then did you see he was in bed, with the covers drawn up already and all.

“Uhh, no… Just wanted to check in. But now that you mention it… How about some music to help you relax?”

You took him from his spot on the shelf and flicked the light off before moving into your bedroom.

“I think I have enough music here, thanks…” Distracted by the device, you almost forgot to take your refilled water bottle. When you looked at the screen next, you could see Yoongi with his arms on his keyboard, phone propped up in a way that allowed you to look down the length of the keys. He was pouting.

“Not even a personalized little concert?”

You sat back on your bed and smiled at the screen.

“Okay. Just this once. And only because it’s you.”

“Yes!” He punched the air and grinned down at the camera. Lying on your side with the screen being the only thing illuminating the room, you watched and listened to him play, allowing yourself to breathe slowly and let go of the troubles that were plaguing you during the day.

You were almost gone, eyelids heavy and grasp on your phone slipping, when Yoongi picked his own device up.

“Sleep well.” He mumbled.

You hummed in response, eyes shut.

It was the last day of school before the semester ended. Technically it had ended already; The clock on the wall read something around two in the evening, and in any other case you’d be furious as to why you were still stuck here. As it was, you were sat next to Yoongi once more, in front of the piano, one last time before the break.

The window was wide open, letting in the chirps of birds and rustling of leaves.

"I'm not so good. With words." He looked up after a moment, the tips of this pointer and middle finger gently running up and down a crack between the keys.

The world outside was sunny and looked much warmer than it was, but in here, out of direct sunshine, it was still cool. Yoongi’s body next to yours was the only source of immediate warmth in the almost clammy air.

"I can speak better through the music. I think that's why… I think that's why you say my songs are expressive." His voice died down, but his eyes, glued to yours, won in intensity.

Even this close up you couldn’t tell where his iris ended and his pupil began. "Sometimes I wish I could be better with words. At least a little bit."

He looked down, where your hand lay on your thigh, with the fingers curled in and under the palm, to prevent from reaching out and touching the piano while he was playing it. Touching the piano or him.

With bated breath you watched him move, slip his hand from the keys, to then, lightly, as if you'd break at the slightest of pressure, cover yours.

Not taking your eyes off the palms, you turned your own around until you could slip your fingers between his.

You heard him swallow thickly when you squeezed your conjoined hands. Were acutely aware of how his thigh felt pressed against yours, him next to you.

Your eyes met again, but not for long. He looked away again, oddly reminding you of the first times you’d seen each other; him unable to look at your for longer than a second.

His tongue swept over his bottom lip before his teeth got a hold of it and he stared down on the piano. When you readjusted in your spot his fingers flexed and squeezed your palm, as if to prevent you from letting go. You saw his jaw ticking as he continued to avoid your eyes, the way his eyebrows furrowed, a tell-tale sign for the inner turmoil.

“Sometimes you don’t have to say much, you know. Sometimes… Sometimes I think I understand you just like that.”

“Oh yeah?” It would’ve sounded condescending if you hadn’t been able to filter out the self-deprecating downtilt of his words by now.

He glanced up at you before shuffling in his spot, twisting as best as he managed to be able to look at you without getting up. His knee dug into the dent in your leg just above your own, but you ignored the slight discomfort.

He lifted your joined hands briefly, letting them fall on his own thigh before his whole body calmed down and his eyes finally steadied on yours.

“Tell me, then. What am I trying to say?”

You let your eyes rise from his, into the mussed hair, to the one strand that was still sticking up from where he’d exasperated ran his hand against the growth earlier.

His eyebrows were still furrowed minimally, and only under your watchful gaze did he stop chewing on the inside of his cheek.

For several minutes you looked him over, observed the uneven rise and fall of his chest, in that old black shirt - it span over his chest now, its fit almost snug when it had been loose before. He’d really filled it out.

Eventually you sandwiched his hand between the both of yours, looking down on his fingers between yours.

“I have no idea.”

It was the truth. No matter how hard you looked, no matter how many clues you believed to see, it was impossible to tell just where his mind had taken him this time.

He swallowed and looked down, nodding once.

“Right. A-”

“If-” You interrupted him, looking up through your lashes. His shoulders were still rising along with his breathing, but now you had his undivided attention. “-you’re going to say something mean now, against you or me, don’t. Please.”

He bit on his lip and ducked his head to the side, obviously displeased.

“See?” He leaned back, balling his free hand into a fist. “You can do it after all! Somehow you got into my head. Don’t do that.”

“So?” You ignored the interruption, tone having shifted in the slightest. “Tell me. What...?

Two heavy breaths in which he kept squinting at you, attempted to speak up and then averted his gaze again.

When his eyes came back down from the ceiling his hold on your hand tightened.

“A hug.”

You were sure, if you hadn’t been holding his hand, he would’ve backed off as soon as the words had left his lips. But he couldn’t and so he stayed in the same spot, leaned back as far as he could, blinking and looking at you like you would start smacking him any moment.

“Please.” He added, and it had been almost too quiet to hear.

With only a nod as an answer, he relaxed a little, but the tension wouldn’t leave his shoulders.

“Here?” You asked, and he nodded, eyes flitting around. His left leg started jiggling, but before the nervosity could take more hold on him you disentangled your hands and opened your arms. He hesitated a moment longer but you didn’t rush him, waited, let him take his time. Let him come to you.

And he did.

With slow, careful hands that touched the lower part of your ribs cautiously before they slid around to your back, one upwards between your shoulder blades, the other down to the small of your back.

It was like someone that had been starved of water being allowed near a clean river - someone that had been deprived for so long that the madness of thirst had subsided into tired resignation already. When faced with the thing he’d been hungering for most, he didn’t run in blindly and submerged himself at once.

It was more like he couldn’t believe he was allowed to, was able to touch you sat next to him, that you let him close his arms around you.

His chin bumped into your collarbone as you lifted your own arms a little to lay them over his shoulders and hug him back, and he whispered a small “Sorry” before his head nestled into place next to yours.

He had to bend down and you stretched up a bit, and for the first moment you felt how uncomfortable he seemed with everything.

With a single, long sigh, he relaxed.

Gave into the hug, completely, and without holding back anymore.

Every breath he took you felt, were made aware how he drew his breath in several steps, as if he didn’t possess the strength to do it at once.

There was no more room between you but you felt his hold tighten, drawing you in closer.

This wasn’t a quick hello-or-goodbye hug, and it wasn’t a bear-hug, either. It was something entirely new and yet you felt incredibly safe.

There was no clock anywhere in sight and you closed your eyes.

Minutes passed. Eventually the desperateness fled his system, and then you were just holding the other.

At half past four, the bell rang again.

The sound drifted over the campus and reached you just as you entered the deserted lot, where only Yoongi’s shabby car still stood, under the trees, half hidden by bushes.

His thumb slid over the back of your hand as he lightly tugged on your connection.

“Can I come visit your place?” You asked, once you’d sat down. He’d been to your tiny flat a few times now, but had never asked if you would like to see his.

“Are you sure?” He turned the key and glanced at you before backing out of the spot.

“Of course! I want to see the musical genius’ living space. Pretty please.”

“Don’t remind me of that dumb nickname…” He groaned, and you laughed, turning the radio up and the window down.

Warm air came rushing in, and together with the upbeat song currently playing, it felt a lot like a scene from a movie.

For the first time in weeks you felt fully free. Able to smile at the wind touching your face, knowing Yoongi was there with you.

You sat on his couch together, scrolling your phones aimlessly after thoroughly inspecting his space.

The pizza he ordered in the evening was fluffy and sated your hunger, and afterwards you were too tired to move much.

“I think… I’ll just stay here.” You gesticulated around the room, stretching and placing your legs across his lap.

He wiped his hands clean of the last grease and tugged on your shins.

“Here? You sure? I can always-”

He pressed a hand against his mouth and burped. Afterwards he groaned and fell back against the backrest.

“No, you’ll have to stay. There’s no way I’m leaving this flat again today.”

You grinned and made grabby hands for the pack of cherry gummies.

Your head was buzzing with how late it was, and how tired you’d become.

With teeth brushed, the sweet taste of cherries was long gone, but in the dark of the room, it wasn’t unwelcome.

Yoongi was lying just a little away from you, head half buried in one of his many pillows.

“Is this weird?” He asked. You heard his palm slipping over the mattress, before his fingertips touched your arm and he momentarily pulled back.

Until you put your hand out, and he curled his pinky around yours.

“Hm?”

You asked.

“I mean this… We… We’re not…” He trailed off, his other hand covering yours as he rolled over. In the darkness you could only make out his eyes by the reflection of what little light there still was, in them. “Other people our age have been partying since noon, and we…”

“Is that bad?” You asked, turning on your side to fully face him.

“No, don’t think so.”

“Do you want it, any other way?”

He shook his head.

“I just wonder… Jin asked me if we were dating the other day. I didn’t know what to say. It doesn’t feel like we are, but I also… don’t feel like we’re not doing that. It. Something. I mean we’re not doing that, either, which I never thought about, and-”

He huffed. “It feels weird, to lie here, with you, and not do anything. But I’m glad. About it. In a way.”

You smiled and squeezed his hand.

“Then that’s enough for us. Isn’t it?”

He hummed, and slowly leaned his forehead against your joined hands.

Your phone binged with an incoming message from Yoongi.

It was two weeks into the break, and after staying over at his place, you hadn’t heard or seen too much of him.

His message read 'I uploaded it.', and a link to Spotify.

You clicked on it.

A playlist opened, and you bit on your lip at the name - He'd titled it 'Your Playlist'.

While you cleaned out your notes and organized your room, you listened.

It was a mix of his self-composed piano pieces, acoustic, or electric, with mixed other instruments and occasionally his voice.

The melodies came easy and wound their way in your ears, and it brought a smile to your face at the warmth you felt at their sound.

The last one was titled “My Favourite”.

You watched as the song’s covers changed, and sat back on your rug.

What unfolded in front of your ears was different than the rest - it was a blend of sounds, playing to support your favourite song of his, but a remix version. The beat slowly wound up higher, coming faster, until it dropped - to your voice, filtered and a little tuned, to fit the short space.

‘My favourite’, you heard yourself say, and then the whisper of Yoongi’s voice answered, ‘Just for you’, and you bit down on your lip.

He sung and rapped more, and you needed at least five listens before you’d caught it all.

‘Can I come over?’ You texted him, burning with energy and the deeply rooted wish to see him.

‘ofc’ came his answer, and you were out of the door.

Not much later, halfway across town, you hugged your arms around him as tight as you could, smiling so wide it had your cheeks hurting, and yet not able to keep the tears escaping your eyes.

“I love you, too.” You mumbled into his shoulder, feeling him tense a little.

“I’m so glad you understood.” He whispered, and leaned his head against yours. “I’m so glad you understand. Me. I’m so glad you. Found me.”

notes: for alex, who i send an ask wondering if she might know how to title a story i was writing and if she'd ever heard of this weirdly specific song i could not name? and then told me i should check out this song (the title of this fic) - which ended up being the very one i'd been searching for for four days. thank you.

[mypersonmyg]

here. | knj

pairing:  namjoon x reader

genre: angst, fluff

rating: pg-15

wc: 2k

warnings: angst, the stripping of clothes

summary: he just wants to take you to the cider mill OR namjoon draws you a bath

a/n: day 2 of drabble month! i’m actually not sure how i feel about this, i keep meaning to write fluff but somehow there’s always ANGST !!!! anyways, enjoy

prompt 2. B - Bath. The otp+ share a bath or shower, or bathe as in swimming or sunbathing.

november drabbles masterlist

main masterlist

The crackling of distant flames fills the canals of wind-kissed ears, temperate hands singing praise against the reprieve of mugged cider. You glance slides to the window nearest, the patter of rain the backdrop to an otherwise uneventful afternoon. Your hand falls mid-sip to the flash of your screen, contact bringing a smile to your face as the device is eagerly pressed to your ear. 

“Hello?”

“Hey, sorry I didn’t pick up earlier, I was--”

“Busy?” 

“Yeah, I’m sorry,” Namjoon sighs, tone saturated with disappointment. 

“You already said that,” Your words accentuate a forthcoming giggle, not the least concerned with pushed plans. You don’t miss another heavy sigh, your own following suit when you realize how distant this feels. “It’s raining, we would’ve gotten soaked anyways.”

“Yeah, but the mill is closing soon and I promised you we would go,” Namjoon looks for permission to blame, his words not untrue. Plans were made at the head of the season, the leaves only midway through routine transformation. It was before life made appearance, the two of you still on high from a summer filled with romance renewed. Now your schedules seems to perfect the dodge of time, one busy whilst the other remains free, a continued nuisance on your chilly plans.

“Joonie, it’s okay! There’s still time and even if we don’t go this year there’s always the next.” You’re aware that your words impact little, the determination of your dimpled lover never easily swayed. He doesn’t respond, the crackling of fueled flames continuing to drift through the air around you. “Joonie?”

“Yeah, I’m here, sorry.” The taste his words leave are bitter, tone resigned to failure, the imagined drop of his shoulders causing your lips to do the same. “Um...I have to get to class soon. I’ll talk to you later?”

“You could come see me…” 

“I can’t, I’ve got a lot of work and...yeah.” Your suggestion is met with immediate hesitance, your heart plummeting at hurried rejection and a half baked explanation. Suddenly the comfort of drops against the misted glass are simply a reflection, demeanor greyed without pause. 

“O-Oh, that’s okay. I should probably do some shopping anyways, my cabinets are screaming to be filled.” Your attempt at a natural humor sounds flat in your own ears, chuckle falling short. “Okay, well I’ll talk to you later.”

“Yeah...I love you.” Even coated in sincerity it feels off, spine tingling with a discomforting chill. Even so you respond in hum, a ‘you too’ drifting down the line before it altogether goes dead.

Your phone is tossed, hands immediately falling to a trace against the edge of your mug half-filled. The cider is lukewarm, it’s spiced appeal now no more than a withering tang. Your eyes fall shut, immediate images of flowered fields and tandem bikes taking you back to the season long past. You begin to wonder if affection fled just as soon, phased like newlyweds though you were far from such fantastical slopes.

You push up with a sigh, though your words were dropped from a hat your cabinets remained rather bare. It was usually at Namjoon’s insistence and begged accompaniment that you would float through the aisles of the grocery, haphazardly filling the cart whilst he sifts through with care, making sure all of your bases are covered. Now as you step to the door, galoshes shoved to feet and windbreaker covering sleeved arms you can’t recall what the bases are.

Your drive is silent, radio filled with festive cheer left on mute as thoughts race and worries bubble over a surface left unsteady. Your trip through silent storelanes is much the same, the ringing at the register leaving you uncertain if your purchase contains any objects of use. 

When you’re pulling back into your lot, it’s the realization of fatigue. Your skin is heavy and the dragging of your heart has made it even more so. You’re not unaware of your own dramatic curve of emotion, but it’s a symptom unshakable. Your own autumn fever, a nonmedicinal cold. 

The beat of rain against the windshield keeps you firm, desire to lug bags through the spill less intriguing than the snug of heated leather. Your train of thought is derailed by the cup of hands against the driver side glass, familiar rounds staring through breathed fog. Your hand his quick to roll the window, Namjoon’s hooded head peeking through.

“What are you doing?” He immediately ponders, glancing at your door and back. 

“Me? What are you doing? I thought you had homework,” You counter flinching at the drop of cold seeping around Namjoon’s towering form. He regards you for only a moment, pupils tracing your features, attention tunneled. 

“You’re upset.”

“What?” Not false, but you feel the relax of your muscles, sure that nothing external gives way to your inner storm. 

“You didn’t say it back...you’re upset. Come on, it’s freezing out, I’ll help you take your things in.” 

“You don’t--” He doesn’t leave room for counter, already rounding to the boot of the vehicle, easily scooping up a hefty sum. You retrieve what little remains, legs hurrying to grant access to your darkened home. Namjoon’s navigation is quick, if not a little clumsy, the clatter of bags followed seamlessly by the flick of a switch. 

“Can I use your bathroom?” Namjoon floats near the doorframe, feet shifting beneath him. Your face pulls to a confused squint, question sudden if not completely ridiculous. 

“Um...yes?” He takes not a moment, dashing off without another word. Your focus shifts to the unbag and refill, almost forgetting altogether that Namjoon inhabits the depths of your home. It’s only when you’ve placed a solitary bag of rice that your attention shifts. 

You enter the living room, the expectations of a muscled giant occupying the better half of your couch left unfulfilled. You traverse to the bathroom in the far hall, muffled mutters and the knock of a bottle from the counter telling enough that Namjoon is still inside. You raise to knock at the door, hands daintily tapping at worn wood.

“Are you okay?” 

“Uh,,,yeah. Are you done with the groceries?” He sounds just beyond the barrier, as if he’s pressed to the frame much like yourself.

“Yeah, I just-you weren’t in the living room so I wanted to see if everything was--”

“Everything is fine!” Namjoon yanks at the door, the sound of his displeased grunts at his own lapsed memory accompanying the twist of the lock. In his reveal, he’s smiling down at you, cheeks stretched to capacity. “Come in.” 

You do as told, eyes on Namjoon as you enter the decently sized space. The spillage of goop beneath your shoe draws your gaze and from there the overflow of bubbles from your bathtub. You surprise yourself with the laughter that spills without pretense. 

“Joon, how much did you put in here? It’s not a swimming pool,” You tease, frame turning to him once more, the blush of his cheeks heightened under low lights. Your hands easily find purchase around his middle, face burying into the fabric of his tee. “You drew me a bath.”

“I wanted to make you feel better,” He explains in short, sizable hands tracing the line of your spine. You inhale, his pine-like scent mixed with the wash of rain and a hint of bubble bath fills your senses. You’re almost content, the stiff of your limbs still apparent, Namjoon’s hold on your shoulders telling you as much. 

His hands travel to the hem of your shirt, easily lifting it over your head to be tossed from view. He takes only a moment to absorb your bra clad form before the gentle pull at your shoulders turning you from view. His fingers expertly unhinge the clasp of your bra, the material falling to the floor. Your hands take it upon themselves, sliding into the waist of your bottoms, sending them and your panties to the tile flooring. 

You grip the tubs edge, feigned porcelain cool against your fingers. The gentle dip of a toe falling to rippled waters as you shiver with intention, the rest of your body eager to dive into the satisfying grips of liquid warmth. When you’re fully submerged you breathe with content, head pushed to a backward tilt and eyes closing for the briefest moment until the click of a shoe forces you back to current.

“Are you not getting in?” You stop Namjoon mid step in the opposing direction, his lips pulled into surprised pucker hand tracing hollowed cheeks. “Get in.” 

You create space behind you, Namjoon watching you for only a moment before quickly stripping himself bare, sliding in behind you, arms immediately pulling you against his chest. Like this you remain, silent, surrounded by warmth and worries respectively. It’s the tightening of arms against your waist that breaks the spell, Namjoon’s voice deep, his breath fanning your neck.

“Are you okay?” You feel his timber in your core, head falling against his shoulder. You can only hum, though it’s unsatisfactory, “You seemed off earlier and...you didn’t say it back.”

You force yourself to shift so his face falls to view, those same words from earlier peaking interest. “What are you talking about, what didn’t I say?”

“I said I love you earlier and you said ‘you too’” It had seemed inconsequential in current time, your own emotions plunging you into freefall, but you can hear the hurt in his words and the tension of his grip. “And you didn’t really seem happy to see me.” 

“I was-I am happy to see you,” You assure, loosening his hold to an interwoven hold of your hands. “I was just upset.”

“About the mill, I know.”

“No. I told you I wasn’t upset about that and I wasn’t lying. I was and am upset that you just shut down on me! You made up some lame excuse so you didn’t have to come over and it upsets me that you think you have to lie or that you can’t tell me how you’re feeling.”

It wasn’t planned, your spill of words, but there they sit, floating upon a sea of bubbles and a tender silence. It’s with regret that a fragment of you imagines the loosening of limbs and Namjoon leaving you to sulk. You’re aware of the issue, but resolution has yet to present and you’re unsure if it ever will.

“I’m sorry.” You sigh at repetitive words, the direction of conversation looking familiar. “I just wish I could be better for you.”

You start at the revelation, attempt to turn to him in comfort rejected as he hold you still in a grip soft and steady..

“Namjoon--”

“No. Just let me finish...please.” You settle once more, water already turning luke around you, a heavy silence stewing you in heavy thoughts. “You say that things are fine and that you’re happy and I believe you, I do, but I also know that you hide your struggles just as much as I do. You hide them better, but I know you’re struggling.” 

No response appears adequate, the words you wanted to speak not moments ago dead against your vocal chords. Your anger seems hypocritical when he says the words, your ability to cover your fears blinding even you to your two faces. 

“I know that you wanted to go to the mill because it’s something that makes you happy and when I couldn’t give that to you I guess I started questioning whether I could give you what you deserve.” Namjoon continues when he realizes you won’t speak. “I started to get in my head and I knew you wouldn’t tell me that you were hurting and figured it was my job to pull away.” 

“Well it’s not,” You breathe, finally finding the will to speak. “I don’t want you to pull away or feel like it’s your job to make me feel better because it’s not. Not to mention that you leaving or creating distance only makes me feel worse.”

“I’m--”

“Don’t.” You stop him before he can conjure the words. “Don’t be sorry, I don’t ever want you to be sorry. Just be here. Be here for me and know that I’m always here for you.”

“Okay,” His lips find your shoulders, a series of kisses against smooth skin. After a moment he speaks once more in a hush, “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

[welllpthisishappening]

Should Auld Acquaintance be Forgot

Honestly, Emma was less mad about the whole thing than she expected. Disappointed, that was the word. And everyone knew that disappointed was far worse than mad. 

Because being dateless on New Year’s Eve was one thing. Being dateless while pining over a roommate with a secret Match.com profile and apparent relationship-type desires that were the complete opposite of her was—

Disappointing, really. 

If Killian kissed anybody, she was going to drink an entire bottle of champagne by herself. 

-----

Rating: Teen, kissing, far too many Grinch references

Word Count: 9.2K

AN: Today is our last festive prompt! Or, at least one that’s a stand-alone story. Our said prompts come from @kmomof4​ who asked for “i don't wanna get up-- you're comfy."// "i'm cold. come closer." //"i love you a lot, but please stop trying to cook me dinner, you suck.” And I got all three in. As always, I cannot thank you guys enough for clicking and reading and saying such nice things. Here’s to a 2021 that’s full of even more fic, satisfying TV storylines and lots of fictional characters making out. 

Also on Ao3 if that’s your jam

-----

“Shit.”

“Merry Christmas.”

Rolling her eyes over the top of the phone in her hand, Ruby didn’t look particularly amused at the distinct lack of enthusiasm in Emma’s voice. That was something of a theme. For like—the last thirty-six hours, but also the majority of their relationship, and none this should have come as a surprise, only she’d had a lot of wine in the last forty-six minutes, and it might have been catching up with her. Was definitely catching up with her. 

“How much did you pay for the garbage alcohol you’ve been shoving at me?” Emma asked archly, and she was only slightly worried about getting home. Her head felt muddled. Like there were too many thoughts, and this time of year always did that to her brain, and her consciousness, and at least eighty-two percent of this was Mary Margaret’s fault. 

For deciding that they were going to have a party. 

On New Year’s Eve. 

Like complete cliches. 

“I’ll have you know,” Ruby drawled, eyes dropping back to her phone and whatever noise it was making, “that I paid at least twelve dollars for—”

“—Lies,” Elsa yelled, and it was a testament their current situation that she’d raised her voice at all. Nothing like that ever happened, and the overall roll rate of Ruby’s eyes was going to give her a migraine. 

Her phone made another noise. 

“She’s lying to you,” Elsa added. “Straight to your face.”

She’d still be staring down a dateless New Year’s Eve, but—

Emma scrunched her nose. “What else is new?”

“Oh, I take offense to that,” Ruby cried, but she was almost too obviously distracted, and the inability of this conversation to be concise was starting to grate on Emma’s nerves. Or what remained of them. Maybe she was the Grinch.

No, that wasn’t right. The Grinch had an enlarged heart, which Emma certainly did not have — and that was nice and appropriately festive for the season, the Grinch, not her, and he had a dog. Emma didn’t have a dog. If she had a dog, there was no possible way she’d be annoyed as she was. 

Whatever, honestly. 

Her date, or lack thereof, was not important, and she was going to drink this entire bottle of Barefoot Moscato, price tag be damned, and then she was going to figure out some way to get home. Without falling over. 

Also, the Grinch didn’t have a roommate. Unless you counted the dog, and Emma didn’t think Max could conceivably hold so many titles in a twenty-two minute animated Christmas special, and she imagined the Grinch was also not pining after his dog slash roommate slash stand-in reindeer. That’d be weird. 

For a twenty-two minute animated Christmas special. 

She’d never seen the Jim Carey version. Or that other one with Benedict whatever-his-name-is.

Away from dating apps and wine that was very likely going to give her one hell of a headache, and Killian would at least make sure she was vaguely hydrated before she collapsed on some sort of horizontal surface. She wasn’t going to be picky about which one, honestly. 

“Why are there so many versions of the Grinch?”

Ruby didn’t look at her. Her eyebrows moved, though. Lifted ever so slightly into her hairline, and Elsa’s glance wasn’t exactly subtle, and Emma needed to go home. 

“Expand on that for me,” Ruby said, lips twisted as soon as she stopped talking. Something was wrong. Well, more wrong. In an alcohol-saturated sort of way that included all those previously discussed mobile dating apps. 

“There are so many Grinches,” Emma said. “You think that’s a commentary on society? Like as a whole? That we need to—”

“—Embrace the spirit of Christmas?”

“Because we as a general population are all assholes?”

“You’ve had too much wine.”

“Not a question,” Elsa mumbled, elbow bumping Emma’s shoulder when she perched on the edge of the sofa, and Ruby’s eyes were still doing that thing. Widening every now and then — a flash of understanding mixing in with surprise, and Emma wasn’t sure how many muscles were in a human thumb, but she figured all of Ruby’s were getting quite a workout, scrolling as quickly as they were. 

“If I have,” Emma muttered, “it is entirely Ruby’s fault. Who buys pink Moscato and expects their guests not to drink the whole bottle?”

“Seems to suggest you’re a guest, though,” Ruby said, “and that’s awfully prim and proper.”

Ruby couldn’t possibly be Cindy Lou Who in this metaphor. 

Emma couldn’t argue with that. Mostly because she’d drank so much of the pink Moscato. “Ok, ok, forget the wine for two seconds. And the Grinch. Why were you making proclamations before? They were very loud and—”

Nothing changed. The phone was still there — wobbling slightly because it seemed Ruby’s forearm strength was lacking just a bit, but the screen didn’t change, and Emma was certain this was somehow also Taylor Swift’s fault. For rerecording Love Story and letting Ryan Reynolds use it in that Match.com ad. 

“So…”

Although really that made it more Scooter whatever-his-last-name-was’s fault, for stealing all of Taylor Swift’s songs and being a noted and massive dick, and Emma’s inability to remember anyone’s last name was clearly something of a personality failing. 

“Thoughts?” Ruby pressed. 

At least twelve-thousand, but none of them seemed especially interested in being said out loud, and Emma’s tongue felt like it was simultaneously growing and dissolving in her mouth. None of it was particularly comfortable, what legitimately felt like cotton balls bursting out of her cheeks and making it difficult to breathe, and she should have lived in a cave. With her dog and the inexplicable set of antlers she owned to make that same dog look like a reindeer, and then she wouldn’t have to be staring at Killian Jones’ dating profile on goddamn Match.com eight days before a New Year’s Eve party she only marginally wanted to attend. 

“Don’t people just use Tinder now?” 

Emma’s voice did not sound like her own. Presumably because of the tongue thing and the cotton ball analogy, and she wondered if the Uber driver she was inevitably going to request would be especially annoyed by her desire to blast Taylor Swift in the backseat. 

She’d give them five stars. 

No matter what — because she wasn’t an asshole, but especially if they let Emma blast Taylor Swift in the backseat. 

Ruby rolled her eyes. “You’re very old; you know that?” 

Her face was very warm. 

“Buy me better wine.”

Emma had never gone into cardiac arrest before, but the sinking feeling in her chest was sudden and a little jarring and she tried very hard to swallow down the wad of emotion currently taking up residence in the middle of her throat. Didn’t work. 

“Only nine bucks, honestly?”

Failed spectacularly, quite honestly. 

“I don’t want to know,” she announced. “Whatever he put on there is his—”

“What Killian does or doesn’t do in the world of modern dating has nothing to do with me,” Emma said, only a little disappointed because she didn’t think people got multiple miracles in their lives and to having hers ensure her voice didn’t shake over those particular words in that particular order felt lame. 

“I don’t care.”

All things considered. 

Scrunching her nose, Ruby’s nod lacked a certain sense of honesty. “Sure, sure, sure, well—” She shrugged. “—He’s here. Being available. Presumably for New Year’s, and…”

Emma waited for the rest. All the reasons she’d heard before, and her friends were convinced. Something about inevitable, and happily ever after, but that second part was mostly Mary Margaret and it was likely easier to believe in the fairy tale when you were living it. 

Pessimism was also fairly lame. As far as defining traits went. 

“What are you—” Elsa started, but then she was moving and her teeth clicked exactly five times, as soon as she looked at the screen, and Emma was not capable of dealing with any of this. Watching her friends gape at her, Ruby’s phone still held loosely in her hand, and neither one of them objected when she finally managed to get to her feet. 

And the Uber driver didn’t offer to play any Taylor Swift, but Emma didn’t ask and she didn’t blast it in the backseat. 

So, that felt like a victory. Which she desperately needed — to counteract the state of her pancreas and half a dozen other internal organs when her thumb hovered over the button, and it took at least two minutes and twelve seconds for Match.com to download. 

She should have waited until she was on wifi. 

To say that Emma’s relationship with Killian Jones was complicated would be something of an understatement. And she wouldn’t use the word relationship. 

He was her friend. 

Her very good looking friend, with stupid eyes that regularly flashed at her like he was too aware of the mush-like state it sent her into, and he was friends with her brother, and once upon a time she’d briefly considered hating him, but that never really stuck and he made hot chocolate better than anyone she knew. Refused to use the prepackaged mix. Did something on the oven that Emma didn’t entirely understand, and never trusted herself to try on her own, and Killian was never late with his half of the rent. 

Or any of the utilities. 

Living together was a decision born of convenience and the extra room Killian had once Will moved out, but it also made a lot of sense and it was good. Really good. Would have been great if Emma wasn’t pining after him and his stupid eyes like some lovelorn idiot, but she had gotten almost impossibly good at rationalizing the whole thing in the last few years, and—

“Shit, shit, shit,” she chanted, slumped in the corner of the couch with her knees threatening to impale her chin and there must have been a record for frustrated cursing while staring at a roommate's dating profile. She’d definitely passed it, like, seven minutes ago. 

Scrolling down only led to scrolling back up, twisting her lower lip between her teeth while staring at photos and lists and options she was sure came from some AI or relationship-type algorithm and coming to terms with the end of the world was harder than she expected it to be.  

At least the end of her love life. 

Of which there wasn’t much to begin with, so it probably wasn’t very hard for the whole thing to topple over, but Emma was feeling especially melodramatic and they needed to buy some WD-40. For their very squeaky door. 

“Hey,” Killian said, shrugging out of his jacket and it was apparently snowing out. Flakes dusted his shoulder, clung to several strands of hair, and Emma couldn’t melt into the couch. They couldn’t afford to buy another one. “That can’t be good for your spine.”

Humming, Killian didn’t bother brushing the snow out of his hair before he walked forward, falling onto the other end of the couch and pulling Emma’s sock-covered feet into his lap. “Are they any cookies left?”

“I’m going to tell Mary Margaret you’re a cookie glutton and—”

Sixteen guys had messaged her already. 

“So I’ve heard. Whatcha you doing?”

Maybe that was a compliment. Emma didn’t think so, though. 

She couldn’t believe she had to make a profile. To stalk her roommate. And his interests. There were a lot of interests on Killian’s Match.com profile. 

Strictly speaking, she didn’t have much experience with shoulders and their proclivity to being rested on, but she liked to believe Killian’s was one of the more comfortable out there. Her head fit very well, at least. 

“Nothing.”

So as to avoid any lingering after-effects from its continued failure. 

“I’ve got twenty-seven bucks on him asking at the party,” Killian said, “but Locksley thinks he’s just going to lose any sense of self-control and blurt it out before, I just—”

Emma’s phone dinged. 

Again. Multiple times, in quick succession — and she should have turned off notifications for that stupid app, but she wasn’t really using it for its intended purpose and Killian was staring at her. With a look that made it all too clear he knew what was going on. 

That didn’t make her feel any better. 

“Ruby said she was thinking about bringing someone,” he muttered, “to, uh—to the thing. The New Year’s thing.”

The air shifted. Crackled with electricity Emma knew she was imagining, and want she was only barely managing to temper and if Will did propose to Belle on New Year’s Eve she refused to be held accountable for her emotional reaction. She’d totally cry. 

“Call it a thing again.”

Ruby would never let her hear the end of that.

Shaking his head brusquely, Killian’s grip tightened around Emma’s ankle. She had no idea he was holding her ankle — fingers wrapped all the way around the joint until the tips threatened to touch because apparently his fingers were that long, and she’d probably only obsess about that for like the next few years, or so. Which seemed reasonable. 

“Anyone good?” he asked, low and gruff and whatever was back in the middle of her throat did not appear intent on leaving any time soon. No matter how many times Emma swallowed. 

Or how often Killian’s eyes flickered. Towards her throat.

The idea never even crossed her mind, honestly. 

Flinching the way she did only guaranteed that Emma’s spine collided with the arm of their couch, but she was at least less inclined to melt and she supposed romantic beggars could not be choosers. “Yuh huh,” she said, “and you’re well acquainted with the noises and the reasons behind the noise?”

That probably wasn’t important. 

And just like that—it was fine. Well, maybe not fine, but at last fine adjacent, and something inching closer to normal, and Killian kissed her temple again before he stood up. 

“You’re avoiding my question.”

She didn’t pick up her phone until she went to bed, dragging every blanket they owned behind her down the hallway. 

On the ever-growing list of problems Emma had during a week when problems were supposed to be non-existent, Killian's Match.com profile had very easily cemented itself at the top of the list. 

It didn’t match — her, at least. Every single thing he was apparently looking for in some sort of potential life partner was the exact opposite of every single thing that made Emma her. Musical tastes were diametrically opposed, movies she’d never once seen him watch in the legitimate decades she’d known him were praised with the kind of adjectives even Robert Ebert would scoff at. The pictures were good, but Emma knew that was more a result of her attraction to her roommate than anything else, and he said he liked people who cooked. 

She couldn’t cook. 

She tried. 

Twenty-four hours after the weird couch incident, which was a name only Emma was using, she was sure, and the smoke alarm had gone off and—

This was Ruby’s fault. And Taylor Swift. Whose new album was very good, and made for perfect and consistent pining music. 

She was so disappointed she was positive she reeked with it.

“Cooking,” Emma said, like that was an explanation and not an excuse and she was definitely using too many of her personal miracles. “Nothing caught on fire!”

Lolling his head to the side, Killian leveled her with an exasperated expression. Brows pinched together and that shade of blue wasn’t quite as sharp, but was still somehow almost amused and she didn’t think the oven was supposed to make that noise. It was very loud. “Lack of flames is not a sign of success, love,” he said, “and it’s—ah, fuck.”

The smoke alarm was louder than the oven. 

Blasting through their apartment and, Emma was sure, through the entire building, the beep hit its rhythmic stride quickly, so she reacted like an adult to the whole situation by gritting her teeth and squeezing her eyes shut. Killian breezed by her, swinging open another squeaky door and fumbling through what sounded like several dozen boxes and he cursed. More than once.

Emma nodded. 

Emma cracked open one eye. “We do, I—”

Their neighbors must hate them. Rightfully so. 

“We definitely own a broom,” she promised, “we’re not savages. We clean.”

Graham was probably very nice.

“Was there a reason for that?”

Emma swallowed. Still didn’t help. 

“Swan.”

“Alright,” Killian said softly, “c’mere.”

Saying that what happened next happened quicker than Emma expected it to, also suggested that Emma expected it to happen at all, which was one of the bigger lies she’d told in the last week or so, and she was really growing a metric shit ton of lies, so that was especially impressive and she yelped very loudly. As soon as hands gripped her hips, lifting her off the floor and directing her underneath the questionably loud smoke detector. 

“This could wake the dead,” she proclaimed, shouting the words because if they were going to descend into total farce, then she was really going to lean into it.

Killian’s head fell to her stomach. If she died right there, she hoped he didn’t drop her. Although, she’d also be dead, so—she probably wouldn’t notice. 

“Just turn it off, love.”

She hated all that music. 

“See,” he grunted, “that makes it sound like we don’t have a broom, and—” Adjusting her, one of her legs twisted around his, something Emma was going to claim as instinct and not that same want that was another one of her more defining characteristics, and he definitely exhaled. Loudly. And directly into her t-shirt. “—Swan, I really need you to fix this, love.”

Using his shoulder as leverage, and keeping her leg exactly where it was, she still had to stretch her arm out and it took far more movement than either one of them could apparently handle silently for her to press the button that fixed everything. 

Despised The Godfather, on some sort of fundamental level and Kay deserved better than Michael Corleone, even if that version of Al Pacino was almost kind of attractive, but—

Relatively speaking, at least. 

He didn’t lift his head immediately. Or drop her. That probably wasn’t a metaphor. 

Emma’s metaphors regularly sucked, anyway. 

“Pizza or Chinese?”

Chuckling into her stomach, Killian’s laugh warmed her from the inside out and kept the goosebumps there and she’d kind of forgotten he was shirtless. Idiot bastard, that was her.

Graham Humbert had owned more plaid shirts than anyone Emma had ever seen. 

“Order extra egg rolls, and I’m in,” Killian said, finally working her back to the ground and they didn’t move. They stood there. Staring at each other, and conducting more inventory, and Emma could only imagine the penance she’d have to do for keeping her stomach in its correct spot. 

“Deal.”

“She’s in love with him.”

“Which part?” Ruby asked. “How in love Emma is with Jones or whether or not we were acknowledging his shitty dating profile?” 

“Doesn’t have to,” Elsa muttered over the top of her half-empty glass. “It basically broadcasts out of her.”

They took the batteries out of the smoke detector a day later. 

“Either or, I guess.”

Not the safest thing they’d ever done, but Emma kept trying to cook and failing spectacularly and she was certain the people at the Chinese restaurant fourteen blocks away knew their order based solely on the sound of her voice when she called. 

“Does this have a name?”

Slumped as she was over the edge of the bar, Emma barely noticed the lift in Killian’s eyebrows, but that also might have been her tendency to be preoccupied with his mouth and he was smiling at her. Wide. Meaningful—ly. 

Distractingly. 

At some point that afternoon, she’d decided she needed to respond to Graham’s messages. Or, well—keep responding. There’d been some conversation, what might have been construed as flirting if Emma’s thumbs didn’t keep cramping up while they flew across her phone’s keyboard, but that definitely wasn’t a sign either, and the overall lightness in her body was likely a direct result of whatever blue-colored alcoholic concoction Killian had put in front of her forty-seven minutes before. There were gummy—things floating in it. 

Or there had been. 

She’d eaten them. 

Her mouth felt a little numb. 

“What do you think we should call it?”

Propping her chin on her hand made Emma wobble a bit, Killian’s lips twitching again. Idiot bastard asshole. Poor Graham. She was a jerk. And his eyes were getting brighter. 

Killian’s. Not Graham’s. 

She had no idea what Graham’s eyes did. 

“Are you serving me unnamed alcohol?” Emma asked, and she was sure she did not slur her words the way it sounded. 

He shrugged. 

Good thing the holiday season was nearly over. 

And Will’s reaction was far too loud, tossing a towel over his back before he draped himself across Killian’s back, hooking his own chin over that slightly lifted shoulder. “He’s showing off, Em. That’s all it is. Are you going to die, though?”

At the bar. 

“Your tongue is blue.”

Four seats away from Leroy the regular. 

“Don’t move so quickly, Swan,” Killian said, a hand finding her cheek and that was fine. Totally fine. Great, even. Super—

Califragilisticexpialidocious. 

So, she was more drunk than she’d been. Like, ever. 

“Your fault,” she mumbled. Burrowing further into his palm was not an option Emma had, so naturally that’s exactly what she did and Will made another noise. “Something to add, Scar—” Emma paused, lifting an impatient finger when both men in front of her dared to laugh. “—Let, you jerky jerkface.”

“You will find out whenever else does, kid,” Will guaranteed. “And there were at least four different types of rum in that swill he gave you.”

That would have annoyed Belle.

Humming, Will untwisted his limbs from Killian, a different hand finding her cheek and the strands of hair that were hanging over her eyes and she scowled when he tapped her chin. “Trying to impress you,” Will repeated intently.

“Is he—” Emma’s brain couldn’t keep up. Thoughts rushed through her, firing synapses that were only passably functional, and the lights from the jukebox across the room were starting to float in her vision. Pressing her fingers into her cheek, Emma knew the skin there moved, but she also could not feel a single thing and—“You’re laughing at me.”

Her head hurt. Ached, even through the haze she’d only recently evolved into, and Emma hated bowling. Was absolutely God awful at it. The kind of awful that required bumpers whenever they’d gone, and they used to go when they were kids. On New Year’s Eve afternoon, some tradition that Ruth had come up with and David honored, even after he and Mary Margaret had segued into happily ever after, and Emma could count on one hand how many times she’d crested the 100-point mark. 

“I am,” he said, “but you’re also sloshed, so I’m willing to give you a pass. And no.”

She felt oddly similar now. 

Playing a game she wasn’t very good at, with more gutter balls than any self-respecting adult should record. Eight pounds of cylindrical force kept rolling through her, threatening anything in its path, but not hitting what it was supposed to, and she also could have eaten an entire tub of bowling alley snacks right now. 

“Why are fries better in a bowling alley? Like, better than anywhere else.” 

Will’s eyes narrowed. “Better than Shake Shack?”

Blinking continued to be one of Emma’s less impressive reactions, but she was stuck on that bowling ball metaphor and Killian’s arm around her shoulders made it impossible to talk. 

“‘S’totally different.”

“You ready, love?”

“We’re leaving, love,” Killian said, and there was at least part of her that was smart enough to pick on repeat endearments. And then promptly cling to them. In her swollen heart. 

“For?”

“Make sure you brush your tongue too tonight, Em,” Will advised, “otherwise that blue is going to stick.”

Saluting left her more off-balance than she’d been all night, laughter echoing behind them as Killian pulled the door shut and he’d ordered them a car. Emma honestly had no idea how they got in said car, but then they were moving and she was only slightly dizzy and he—

He made another noise, slumping next to her, which made it even easier for Emma to touch as much of him as possible and he didn’t object. She didn’t think he would. Ever, actually. 

“Smell really good.”

God, poor Graham. 

She was the worst. 

David played hockey when he was a kid. 

“Not as such, no,” Killian said, “just thinking we might be able to add something new and—” His shoulder shifted under her cheek, Emma’s soft hum of disapproval making him smile. She still didn’t check. “—Not that we haven’t been making money, but...people gotta have a schtick.”

No sound. Nothing except engines, and there could only be one engine in a car, Emma was fairly positive, so that didn’t really make sense and Killian stared ahead when she tilted her head up. “Sometimes,” Killian admitted softly, “but, uh—like I said, just trying to get something that might help us a little more and weddings are expensive, y’know?”

“Whatever,” Emma groaned, “just—I’m saying it’s a good bar.”

Thinking about melting as often as she was, was starting to become patently ridiculous. 

“You’re trying to come up with ridiculous bachelorette party drinks—”

With such God awful interests in the opposite sex. 

Emma rapped her knuckles against his chest. “To help pay for Scarlet’s wedding?”

The world was a joke. Happy Holidays. 

“You’re not getting ready with Lucas or Elsa or anything tomorrow, are you?”

Huh. No grand slam, then. 

Of all the questions she definitely wasn’t prepared for, that was at the bottom of the list. Emma was not actually making any of these lists. “This isn’t prom.”

Being hungover on New Year’s Eve was one of the crueler jokes the universe had played on her in the last week or so. 

“Yeah, ok,” she said, letting her head drop back to his shoulder and Emma wasn’t sure why it sounded like he exhaled. In something almost like relief. Eyes fluttering the way they were, she must have imagined it, another ridiculous metaphor and even dumber analogy and her groan was especially pitiful when the car stopped. No way her stomach was going to stay where it was supposed to for the rest of the night.

All of Emma hurt, muscles she hadn’t been aware she was in possession of seemingly rising up in revolt of her very existence, and she couldn’t really turn her head. Which endlessly delighted Ruby in a way that was making her reconsider their friendship, and Killian kept glancing in their direction. His arm bumped Emma’s no less than twenty-four times in the car over. 

And for as much as she wanted to crawl under several mountains of blankets and consider all her romantic shortcomings, something in the back of Emma’s mind preened a bit under his flitting gaze, trying not to meet his eyes too often. Only to fail every time — if Ruby’s laughter was any indication, and Will had groaned several times, but he also didn’t appear to be engaged yet and Emma had apologized to Graham that afternoon. 

Through text, though. So it only kind of counted. She wasn’t even sure parts of the messages were English. Her head felt like it was going to snap open, which made the champagne she was practically shotgunning at that point a very bad decision, but she’d been on a roll on that front, so she had no intention of altering course and it was nearly midnight.

“This is depressing,” Ruby announced. “He’s staring again.”

Rolling her eyes was an impossibility if Emma didn’t want to make a spectacle of herself in front of her brother and some of the teachers from Mary Margaret’s school, and Ruby’s date was nice. Had a lot of pictures of her dog on her phone, but nice all the same.

More blinking. Honestly, she was a mess. The teachers kept hogging space on the couch. Killian smiled when he looked at Emma, that time. “Elaborate on that.”

“Are you the dumbest person alive?”

“No, this is just our general opinion of you. Both of you, really. I—are you not almost painfully aware of how in love Killian is with you? Em, he is staring at you. Like, right now. Blatantly. Obviously. Some other adverb.”

“We live together.”

Wide eyes and an impressively straight row of teeth were all the warning Emma got before there was a hand on her shoulder and he smelled just as good as she was hopeful she hadn’t mentioned last night, but that felt like wishful thinking and Emma did not, in fact, eject any bodily fluids when Killian turned her. Victories, she was flush with them. 

“I’m so bad at cooking.”

“Hey,” she breathed, and Ruby groaned so loudly it likely did damage to the ozone layer. 

Frozen to the spot, she tried very hard to regulate her breathing and fix her pulse, and neither thing worked. And then. Something clicked — almost audibly in her brain, and her soul and her heart’s potential for explosion was suddenly something she had to worry about. 

Killian’s lips twitched. “You got a second?”

“Please don’t look at me like that,” Killian murmured. She barely heard him. Not when there were fingers tracing up her side and lingering on the small of her back, and Emma’s head moved her head as slowly as she could. 

If she moved any faster, she’d either fall over or wake up from this very lucid dream and neither of those things were all that positive. 

“Cooking, it’s—I love you a lot, but you are absolutely atrocious at it.”

“You’ve got to stop cooking, love.”

The world stopped. Paused, at least. Gave Emma’s muddled mind a second to catch up, and she’d need several more seconds, but she also wasn’t quite that greedy and Killian’s smile widened. As soon as her fingers curled into his shirt. 

He didn’t move his hands. 

“I—” she stammered. “I am...but we don’t match!”

“What is happening right now?” Emma breathed, only cautiously optimistic she wanted the answer. 

A chorus of angry jeers rained down on them — Will using Robin to keep himself upright while he flipped Killian off with both hands. “Pining piner who pines like a goddamn idiot.”

“Well, I’m fairly in love with you. To an almost ridiculous degree.”

“I do appreciate the cooking effort though,” he added. “But it’s a very old profile, made almost entirely by Scarlet in—”

“I honestly forgot it existed,” Killian continued, “I’ve never used it, really. Just knew that Scarlet had made the thing, and then I ignored the messages and—”

As it was, her fingers were already tight enough that Emma very easily pulled herself up and the hand at her waist helped keep her balanced and they were very good at this. Kissing, specifically. Heads tilted automatically to an angle that made it all too easy for Emma to open her mouth, and Killian’s tongue was even more distracting when it was brushing hers, and someone was groaning, but that might have been her, or possibly him and his hair was soft. Between her fingers. 

“Not as many as you did.”

Breathing was suddenly a secondary concern, and Emma’s lungs had already proved they were basically made of steel, or at least impervious to the flames currently exploding between her ribs and none of that was biologically accurate. 

She never did find out where her pancreas was. 

And she was so busy dealing with the way the solar system appeared to be reordering itself around the pair of them, that Emma didn’t notice the countdown or the metallic crown tossed at her feet. Only that there were eventually cheers and Ryan Seacrest’s face plastered across the TV on the other side of the room, and one of Killian’s hands had worked underneath her shirt. 

The sparkly one that had made his eyes noticeably widen several hours earlier. 

“How did you figure it out?”

[fandom-thingies]

This is an unfinished draft of a long, in depth analysis I’m planning of everything we know about Silksong. The final draft will have detailed analysis of enemies, areas, names, and many, many attempts to draw parallels with Hollow Knight. Without further ado, here’s the draft!

Will Hornet have her memories? Or will the winds of the Wastes have swept them away?

Prequel or sequel? (I’m thinking sequel, based on the implied presence of weavers in the trailer)

Lace fights Hornet (at least) twice, doesn’t call her by name, and knows things. IS SHE A HORNET PARALLEL AND HOW MUCH

What awful thing is going to happen to the flea-collecting village? Will they all die, or will they turn out to be evil? (My money’s on the latter)

Is the bell cult good, bad, or something else?

Who is the main villain?

Is Lace an antagonist or a Hornet parallel?

Lesbians???

Everything in Silksong seems much more vibrant than Hallownest. Instead of muted colors and effectively blank backgrounds, all of the areas we’ve been shown seem to be very saturated, and the design feels like everything is there for a reason. It’s a stark contrast to Hollow Knight’s busy backgrounds and dour themes, and is it possible the story reflects/is intended to reflect this?

Why does that one enemy look so much like steel soul Jinn?

Is Lace void??

Seriously though, she covers almost all of her body and her face is very similar to that of a shade’s. The existence of the shade trap room in the Colosseum of Fools implies the existence of other void creatures, though of course it could simply have been built for THK. We know void creatures are capable of having voices, as evidenced by the Collector, so IS LACE VOID???

That one area has a lovely juxtaposition between the white roses carpeting the ground and the industrial style pipes in the background, and knowing team Cherry, there’s definitely a reason for this.

Who kidnapped a Hornet and why?

Who sent the butterfly that breaks the seal of binding on her cage? Lace knows about Hornet’s imprisonment- could it have been her? Though she admittedly doesn’t seem to have much motivation to keep Hornet alive...

In Hollow Knight, the name of the game is also the name of the final boss. Could this also be true to an extent for Silksong? I doubt the boss would be named that explicitly, but perhaps someone who holds an association to both?

Multiple endings?

Will the final boss actually be the final boss? In Hollow Knight, the Radiance acts as a sort of hidden boss. Will this also be true in Silksong?

Will there be godseekers or the Grimm Troupe?

Will Ghost or THK be mentioned?

Will this focus more on expanding Hallownest’s lore or introducing Pharloom’s?

Points of interest:

1. Hornet appears to be performing a move similar to a great slash or dash slash here, which the enemy appears to be attempting (succeeding?) to deflect with their scissors

2. 2. In Hollow Knight, almost every fence or wall in Hallownest had the repeated motif of the king’s seal. This design looks a lot like a godseeker’s mask, as well as some of the enemies that have been revealed so far.

3. These appear to be at least four massive spools of silk. We know for a fact that there are weavers in Pharloom, and the sheer amount of silk here is more than we ever see in one place in Hallownest. Could it be possible that weaversilk is being farmed somehow?

4. It’s difficult to see, but this appears to be a massive control wheel, like you’d see on a valve. It’s much bigger than any standard bug could take advantage of, but we already know that Silksong is going to have some massive enemies, so it’s possible one of these also acts or acted as an overseer for this area.

5. This wall design heavily reminds me of both the walls in the Resting Grounds and the Birthplace. Are these corpses, or simply made to look like them? Either way, there’s definitely lore attached.

As well as all that, note how thin the support struts are, and how they appear wooden and cobbled together. I propose that what Hornet is climbing on here is the scaffolding around a massive silk related machine of some sort. Maybe an automatic loom?

Points of interest:

1. You’ll note that the enemy is holding a gilded pin, which is the same weapon Lace uses and is described as “the traditional weapon of Pharloom” by Team Cherry. I take this to mean that this bug has probably been in this place for a while.

2. This isn’t big or anything, but it’s very interesting to me that both Hallownest and Pharloom use lumafly lanterns for light. This implies some interesting things either about Hallownest and Pharloom’s proximity or the ubiquity of lumaflies.

3. This is clearly a graveyard. I find it very interesting that the stones seem to be entirely plain of embellishment or text except for the bell symbol. Also, I wonder if the graveyard being here means that we’re close to the Citadel?

4. This appears to be a fallen elevator. I’m not sure what else I could draw from it, but it definitely adds to the dilapidated and abandoned feel of this area.

5. This enemy has three golden straight pins. It’s very possible that you gain the ability to throw three at once after vanquishing one of these enemies. Another interesting thing to note is that the enemy isn’t holding these pins. If you look closely, their hand is at their side. The pins are instead seemingly fastened to their head somehow.

6. This is difficult to see properly, but the design on the fence here appears to be similar to the shape of the fallen elevator. It could also be read as a representation of the Citadel.

A few other things to note are that the colors here are almost identical to those of the resting grounds, including the enemies. This is unusual as far as Silksong goes, as most of the areas are far more intensely saturated.

These enemies appear to be wearing cloaks. It’s difficult to tell whether it’s the shadow of the hood that’s hiding their faces or whether that’s simply what they look like.

Also, Greymoor is a very interesting name and I’d like to explore what precisely a “moor” is, because I think this may give more clues as to the nature of the area.

Moors are defined as highland areas with acidic soil and low vegetation. The fact that moors are specifically highland areas makes me suspect even more that Greymoor connects directly to the Citadel, as Silksong appears to be a game mostly focused on going up, so where better to transition from the ground to the Citadel than highland?

1. We know from the Resting Grounds that this is how Ari draws mummified corpses. The fact that this corpse is walking around definitely implies some shenanigans. It brings to mind the description of Greymoor as “haunted”.

2. The fact that this corpse is lying on the ground makes me wonder if most of these mummified bugs will lie still on the ground until they notice Hornet, which would be an interesting enemy mechanic.

3. This lumafly lantern is tinted green, which I’m pretty sure we never saw in Hollow Knight. (Correct me if I’m wrong) It makes me wonder if something special was done to the lantern to achieve this.

4. Team Cherry has said that Hornet’s silk and soul are ��inseparably intertwined”. It’s a very nice design touch to see that healing creates both kinds of particle.

5. See those motes in the air? They look very similar to the spores of the Fungal Wastes, and I suspect they may be the reason moss covers everything here.

What I lined in dark blue is the visible boning beneath the moss, and what I lined in cyan is the places where the moss grows too regularly, implying yet more boning just beneath.

I’m not sure whether this is deliberate or whether the moss grew over already existing structures to cause this, but another thing to note is that the way this moss grows is very reminiscent of moss balls, or marimo balls, an aquatic plant that grows in freshwater lakes.

The reason this interests me isn’t because I think these *are* moss balls, but rather because of how natural grottos form.

Most natural grottos are formed by water eroding soft rock like limestone into large caves. It’s common for them to either be flooded or to flood at high tide, which when combined with the aquatic vegetation in this area, could imply that it will be flooded for part of the game or at intervals. It’s possible Team Cherry would use this to echo the way that the Forgotten Crossroads turn into the Infected Crossroads, or it could be a way of gating the first area behind you until you get more movement capabilities similar to the Howling Cliffs.

Lastly, one of the root words for Grotto is the Latin word for “crypt”. Combined with the mummified corpses here, it makes me wonder.

Points of interest:

1. Confirmation that Hornet can look up! I don’t think anyone was worried about it, but it’s good to know we’ll still be able to do that.

2. You’ll note, first of all, that this is unusually bare for Ari’s backgrounds. The designs are smooth with little shading and there are massive dark areas. This leads me to believe that this isn’t the finished background, nor the one we’ll see in game.

3. The two strange objects at the corners of the screen are difficult to identify. Personally, I think they look like plugs of some sort, though I have no idea what they might be plugging. Maybe magma?

4. What is it with Team Cherry and throwing dead bodies everywhere? That’s litter, it’s illegal. Anyway, what might have killed these bugs?

5. You’ll note the massive misshapen mountain of bones in the background. Where did all of these come from? Also, the fact that they are bones means that this is probably Bonebottom. I’d like to call your attention to the fact that bugs don’t actually have bones, just exoskeletons, which makes the source of these even more dubious.

6. There are several ember particle effects, which I take to mean that there’s a whole bunch of magma nearby.

7. There are a few links of chain attached to each plug. Likely this is to allow them to be dragged open. I’m very curious whether this is just a design detail or whether opening these plugs will be used as a mechanic somehow.

Circled in blue are the (brass?) rings on Shakra’s arms as well as a similar ring on the ground. I’m not sure why one of her arm rings would be on the ground, but maybe it’s similar to Cornifer’s pages?

[s-k-y-w-a-l-k-e-r]

My GIF making process!

I’ve been asked many times for a tutorial, but because I get really detailed, I always get overwhelmed by the idea. But I finally decided to buckle down! 

Just so you know: I don’t use PSDs in this, and I don’t import layers to frames or anything like that. I like the hard way—at least in gif making, I believe you get higher quality gifs. Join me as I show you how to make gifs by loading videos directly into the Photoshop timeline and my coloring and sharpening techniques.

Tools used:

Mac OS X (only necessary for the first step, and there are other ways around it with a PC)

Adobe Photoshop

YouTube Purchases (any streaming service will work)

Topics covered:

Obtaining the Source Material

Loading the video file into Photoshop

Prepping, Cropping, and Resizing the Media

Adjustment Layers

Sharpening

Exporting

Obtaining the Source Material

There are a few different methods for obtaining video to work with. Proper YouTube videos are nice, but finding any major motion picture in that format is difficult, if not illegal.

Once I realized I could get really great quality video by doing screen recordings from streaming services, I stopped worrying about finding (and pirating) high resolution video files. So now, I just go to whichever streaming service I need to, pick out the movie or show, find the spot, and record small snippets.

Mac screen recording instructions:

On a Mac, Command+Shift+5 will bring up the screen recording dialogue. 

Resize the frame of what you want to record within the browser. 

Go to a second or two before, press the “record” button, and then begin playing the video, remembering to keep your cursor out of the recording box. 

Use the Space bar to pause your video when you’ve gotten the snippet you need. Stop the screen recording by clicking the ⏹ button that is in your menu bar at the top of the screen.

Important: when the recording appears in the bottom right of your screen, click on it, and then trim the video on either end. This will help your computer convert the video file to the type that can be opened by Photoshop.

Click “done” and it will appear on your desktop, ready to be used!

PC Users: ??? Here’s a Google search I did for you

 Loading the video file into Photoshop

Lots of people use this process for making gifs (a great tutorial!). I didn’t even know it existed until last summer, when I’d already been giffing for years. I wish I could still do something like that with these screen recordings, but the files are absolutely HUGE, especially on Macs with double retina displays, which actually increase the dpi by a lot. Making screencaps of them fills up my hard drive, almost immediately—even when I’ve got 20 gigs of free space to work with. So what do we do? We just. Open the file. In Photoshop. Et voila!

You can do this with any type of video, not just screen recordings.

 Prepping, Cropping, and Resizing the Media

When Photoshop loads your videos up, it makes the video hilariously fast (something about frame conversion). You must slow it down for it to look natural. THIS MUST BE DONE BEFORE YOU RESZE. Your Photoshop timeline window should be at the bottom of the screen. See that little triangle in the top right of the video? 

Click on it, and a menu will appear to change speed and duration.

Change the speed first- usually between 80-85% will seem realistic. (I actually went a little faster than I usually would on this at almost 86%—I don’t recommend this)

Press the button next to duration and pull the toggle all the way to the far right (if you don’t do this, full length of the video will be cut off).

Now you’ll want to crop it. Ever since Tumblr upped its GIF size limit, I have been playing around with 7:5 ratios, but let’s go with 3:2 for now. Use the Crop tool, pick out 3:2 in the top left (it may say 2:3, but you can switch that) and then find the most suitable spot in your gif for that. Hit enter on your keyboard.

Some things to keep in mind when cropping:

Most videos come in 16:9 ratio (BoRhap is even wider). If it’s a wide shot, you’ll need to do the full 16:9 to not lose anything. Of course, experiment and find what’s right for you!

As you can see above, I moved forward in the timeline and made the crop to a point in the video when the broadest movement was happening.

Certain videos WILL have a black or red bar that may be imperceptible until you’ve already exported the gif. Just crop in a little tighter on top and bottom to avoid them.

Now you’ll need to resize your gif to be the correct size for Tumblr. If you don’t use Tumblr’s exact dimensions, your gifs (as uploaded) will appear blurry or pixellated. We’re doing a full-width gif here, which is 540px. On a Mac, I use Command+Option+I (for “Image Size) to open the resize dialogue. You can also find it under Image->Image size...

Make sure to also have “Resample” checked. Lately I’ve been playing around to see if different options are better. Most GIF makers use “Bicubic Sharper (Reduction)” and they are not wrong to do so. I’ve just been unhappy with it lately, so I have been trying this other setting out, “Bicubic (smooth gradients)”.

Click OK. A dialogue may come up that asks if you want to convert to a Smart Object. The answer is yes, okay, do it. The only major caveat is that you can’t go back and change the timeline speed. That’s why we did it first. But you can preview the speed now that it’s smaller, and if you don’t like it, use Command+Z (or “Undo”) and go back a couple steps to get the speed you like.

You may find, especially on a Mac screen (and possibly other displays), that at 100% your gif looks too small to be 540px. That is the curse and blessing of working with super-high resolution hardware. Zoom in to 200% and proceed about your business. This is what it will look like on Tumblr.

You may find it helpful at this point to begin by defining the beginning and end of your gif by moving around these bumpers. It’s safe to keep gifs under 02:00f in length. Under half of 01:00f will be way too short. (I tend to overshoot in length and then trim the beginning and the end once I see how big the gifs are upon exporting.)

 Adjustment Layers

Now the creativity and fun begin!

There are a LOT of ways to get creative here. I’m going to keep it simple, very simple, but I strongly recommend opening up a new adjustment layer of each type and trying to figure out what each does!

You’ll find the adjustment layer menu at the bottom of the Layers window.

Curves

There are a lot of ways to make Curves work for you! It can do the job of Brightness/Contrast, it can do Levels, it can do Color Balance! We’re going to use it mainly to help with brightness here, but also to level out some of the tones. One of the quick tricks you can do is use the droppers on the left side of the Properties window. There are three- one with a white tip, one gray, one black. These can help define what your white tones are (and whether they need to be more of one color or another), and so on with your blacks. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t; in this case, I think it doesn’t:

That looks totally blown out and somehow also too dark!

So instead, we’re going to use that little hand with the finger pointing out and some arrows pointing up and down. This lets you define which sections you want to get brighter or darker, and how much. It doesn’t do color correction. In the example below, you can see I dragged up on a white spot and down on a dark spot. Then, I moved points around on the curve itself to refine (which the gif here doesn’t show...).

Vibrance/Saturation x2

Next, I’ve been using @gwil-lee​‘s Vibrance/Saturation trick (I know you said you learned it from someone else, but I learned it from you!). 

Create a Vibrance Adjustment layer, bump the values up a bunch, and then change its Fill to somewhere between 2-9%. Change the Blend Mode to Color Burn. Then make a copy of that layer keeping everything the same, but make it Color Dodge. I can’t quite define what these do, but it makes it punchier!

Color Balance

Most people are familiar with this. For this gif, I’m going to make the shadows more Cyan/Blue and the highlights more Red/Yellow. Just a few points each. 

Exposure

I brought the Exposure up a bit, but not enough for you to need to read about, haha.

Selective Color

Here’s where you make fine adjustments to colors. This particular scene is extremely simple, color-wise, so keep it simple. I’m going to bump up the cyans/blues, take up the black by just a point or two, and maybe bump up the yellows and reds a tiny bit. (And as always, remember, the “opposite” of cyan is red, the opposite of magenta is green, and the opposite of yellow is blue. CMY/RGB!)

I think at this point I’m going to call it with the adjustment layers. You can go absolutely hogwild with more of them! But at this point, I’m ready to start sharpening!

 Sharpening

I do three sharpening filters these days. These are all under Filter->Sharpen. Make sure your media layer (default called Layer 1) is selected as we go through this! (Also, this can really take a toll on your processor, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.)

Sharpen- This layer does the basic job

Smart Sharpen (Amount: 10%, Radius: 10, Reduce Noise: 4% Gaussian Blur)- This layer gives texture

Smart Sharpen (Amount: 500, Radius: 0.3, Reduce Noise: 12% Gaussian Blur)- This layer gives refined sharpening and smoothing

Fiddle with these as needed! Let your gif play all the way through- this may go slowly as your processor works on it. Make sure the beginning and end points make sense.

 Exporting

After You’re going to have to use File->Export->Save For Web (Legacy)... or use the shortcut of Shift+Option+Command+S. This could take some time for the dialogue to pop up! Be patient.

In my opinion, these are the best gif export settings for crisp edges and no noise:

Now you see how big the file is in the bottom left. Tumblr won’t let you upload anything bigger than 10MB and it’s safer to stay under 9MB, in my experience. When your gif is too big, you have a couple options. You can close the dialogue and change the length of your gif. 

OR, you can uncheck “Interlaced” and bump up the lossy to 1 or or more. This will create noise. Sometimes, that’s a good thing!

Here’s without lossy:

Here’s WITH lossy: (Honestly in a fast moving gif like this, it’s almost imperceptible, but I can see it!)

And now that I’ve exported, I can see what there’s a little black line on the bottom! So I’m going to trim that off and call it good! You can see the full gifset here.

Hope you enjoyed! Reblog if you try this out or learned anything. Feel free to reach out with questions any time!

[cycat4077]

Paradise Found (pt. b)

Summary: A continuation from Paradise Lost (pt. a). Sonny has become extremely distant after Mike’s death and it seems that life has just thrown you one bad thing after another. Will Sonny finally open up? (Set after S17x23, Heartfelt Passages.) Pairing: Sonny x Reader Warnings: Angst and some fluff. Basically a lot of feelings. Words: 2100 AO3 here

Part 7b of the Changes verse. Masterlist here you’re interested :)

A/N: This has sat in my drafts for far too long. I’ve had to shelve my fic writing for academic writing and even posting this feels like I’m cheating on my school work. I’ve got so many more ideas in the waiting so I hope that I can squeeze a few more in here and there and hopefully people will still want to read my crap ^.^

They say bad things happen in threes. The death of Sgt. Mike Dodds was the first thing to set the world off kilter while the way Sonny reacted was the second. That leaves you fearful of how life could get worse with a possible bad thing number three…

It’s been about two weeks since Mike died and two weeks since you woke up alone. To say Sonny has been distant is an understatement. Initially, you tried phoning (to no avail) and eventually resorted to texts instead:

Good morning, Sonny. Have a good day. Love you. Sent 7:04am

Classes are done for the day and I just got home. Sent 5:32pm

Sitting down to supper. Tried making chicken parm. It's definitely not as good as yours, but not terrible! Love you. Sent 7:16pm

Miss you, Sonny. If you want to talk, know that I’m here. Sent 8:03pm

Night, Sonny. Love you. Sent 11:28pm

Worked late. Goodnight. Received 11:52pm

You persisted in this way for a few days trying to convey that you would stick by him through anything, but it was clear Sonny wanted his space and eventually you conceded into giving it to him.

One evening, when sitting down to the seven o'clock news, you find coverage of Dodd’s funeral. What seemed like a hundred officers stood in uniform paying homage to their fallen brother. The casket was carried down the church steps by Mike's closest comrades; Sonny being one of them. It was sort of surreal seeing him on tv as he was absolutely stoic, though you knew him well enough to recognize the grief that lay just beneath the surface.

It tore your heart apart seeing him that way. You felt powerless because you wanted nothing more than to take away his pain, yet he wouldn't let you in. The days were hard and every night you shed new tears.

Finally, after two weeks you receive a phone call.

"Hey," Sonny's voice comes through. It isn't saturated with sadness like it had been on the night he showed up at your apartment. Instead, it’s apologetic.

"Hey," you reply cautiously. As much as you were thankful to hear from him again, his actions had still left a hole in your heart.

"I'm sorry..." You hear him exhale. "I'm so sorry I pushed you away. I know you were just tryin' to be there for me through all this 'n I've been a complete dick."

You feel tears prick your eyes. "Sonny-" you manage but it's only a whisper.

"No, doll. You don't have ta say anythin'," he interrupts gently. "Would it be alright if I come over? Cook us dinner? Do a little grovellin'? Talk this out ‘n try ta get back in your good graces?"

As hard as the last little while has been on you emotionally, you simply can't refuse.

Sonny shows up to your apartment a short time later, ingredients in tow. He sets them down right away and takes your shoulders gently in his outstretched hands. You can still see traces of grief in his eyes but it doesn't drown out the light like it had before.

He apologizes again and again until you're accepting a hug. Two warm arms engulf you and the emotions hit you all at once: just how much you've missed this – how much you’ve missed him.

“Can ya forgive me, doll?” he speaks into your hair.

You withdraw from his embrace to look into his eyes. “Of course, Sonny,” you reassure him, “but I don’t think I can handle going through this again. I need to know that you trust me enough to talk about what you’re feeling.”

It’s an unintentional shot to his heart. Sonny’s brow furrows and his blue eyes soften. He glances at his feet for a moment and takes a shaky breath before meeting your gaze once again. “I’ve never been through this type of thing before,” he begins. “Partly ‘cause I’ve never stuck around a precinct long enough ta get attached to my coworkers. But with these guys – with Mike - it almost felt like he was my brother. And then his life was gone just like that.” Sonny snaps his fingers, the sharp sound piercing the air around you. “I prayed for him. For his fiancée. For his father. I was supposed ta take that call, y’know?” Sonny’s shoulders sink as guilt weighs heavy on his conscience. “I was supposed ta be the one in that house that day. But Mike wanted one last crack at SVU before he left ‘n he payed for it with his life.” Your hands are in his now as he gives them a gentle squeeze. “I didn’t know how ta deal with that ‘n least of all I didn’t wanna to drag you down with me.”

With Sonny’s true feelings exposed, your heart breaks all over again. You lace your fingers with his in an attempt to put him at ease. “Sonny, needing someone to talk to isn’t a weakness,” you state reassuringly. “We’re in this together. That’s why I kept trying to reach you…but it seemed as though you didn’t want me around. I didn’t want to pry, but…but this was really hard on me,” you sniffle, trying to keep the tears at bay. You in no way want to take away from what Sonny felt, but you still need him to know how his actions affect you. “I had no way of knowing whether you were okay or not. You left me in the middle of the night, barely answered my messages. We went from “all” to “nothing” in a matter of a day. What was I supposed to think? I tried to tell myself that when you were ready, you’d let me back in.” The tears now start to roll down your cheeks as you lay your feelings out in the open. “But – but I couldn’t help thinking about the worst-case scenario: that somehow all this would create something between us that would be too hard to fix.”

“God no!” exclaims Sonny as he disentangles one of his hands from yours to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear. He levels his gaze on you and you can see the shimmer of tears in his eyes too. “One thing that never wavers is how much I love you. You’re my everything, doll ‘n if Mike’s death has taught me anythin’ it’s that you never know what could happen. I don’t want to lose you. I can’t lose you. I need you more than you could ever know. So, I’m sorry I was so distant. I should never have -”

You silence him with a sad smile. “I’m sorry for everything you had to go through, but I love you with all my heart. So, all I ask is that you let me in. Whenever you’re stressed or something goes wrong at work, whatever it may be, I’m here. Talk to me. Hug me. Kiss me. I may not always have the right words to say, but I will hold your hand through it all. Just please don’t disappear.”

Instantly, Sonny gathers you in his arms once again. “I promise, doll. I promise.” As he gently sways you back and forth, all you can do is hope that he truly means it.

Eventually, the two of you part and the mood lightens as Sonny sets to work preparing dinner. The food is delicious, as his cooking always is, and you both quickly fall back into old routines of smiling, laughing and just being yourselves.

Later, Sonny is chatting to you with his back turned towards the sink while he puts away the last of your dishes. You’re already heading for the couch when a notification pings on your phone. Upon reading the email it suddenly feels as though the earth is dropping out from under your feet. Your whole body sags, pulling you down onto the sofa. Your eyes glue themselves to the screen, reading the lines of text over and over incredulously and as a result, you don't hear the lighthearted joke Sonny makes. And it's when you don’t laugh that Sonny turns in confusion.

Your ghostly state causes him to toss the dish towel and hastily arrive by your side. "What's wrong, doll?" Your hands begin to tremble. Your mouth is completely dry. "Doll?" Sonny repeats, the concern in his voice growing. "Everythin' okay?"

You manage to turn your head towards him and open your mouth to speak. "I...I...I'm being fired."

"What?!" Sonny blurts, jumping to his feet.

You follow him with your eyes as he paces, raising his hands in disbelief. "It...it says here that the professor who used to teach my course is coming out of retirement and they won't be...needing me anymore."

"Can they do that?" he exclaims, growing angry.

"Apparently so," you say, absolutely defeated. There it is. Bad thing number three.

Sonny lets out a huff, his hands emphasizing his frustration. "But it's the end of the semesta!"

"I don't know what I'm going to do," you admit. "Once this course is over, that's it. Where am I going to work? How am I going to pay my bills?" The tears begin to fall which instantaneously flips a mood switch inside your boyfriend.

"Hey, hey," his voice is soft and gentle. "Don't cry, okay? You'll be alright." Sonny sits back down next to you and wipes away a tear with his thumb. Then he suddenly lights up. "Move in with me."

"What?" you sniffle.

"Move in with me!" he repeats like it's the most natural thing in the world. "It's not outta the ordinary for two people who love each other to move in together. And I love you. Besides," his words tumble out at a mile a minute, "you won't have ta worry 'bout rent and it'll give ya time ta find a new job. Yourra great teacha so you will finda new job."

Your heart melts over his kindness. "Sonny, I couldn't," you shake your head dismissively. "I don't want to mooch off you -"

"Nah," he puts up a hand to shush you. "I want ya with me. Honestly."

You try to smile but there's another dreadful reality that emerges from the depths of your mind. "But Sonny...what if I can't get a job? What if there's no positions available in the city? I...I may be forced to move away."

You watch as Sonny's whole body droops. You can tell immediately that he never considered that possibility. He studies you for a moment with saddened eyes before taking your hands in his. They're soft and warm; a sense of comfort among this entire mess. "We'll cross that bridge if we come to it, doll. What we've got is bigger than any distance we may have ta face." He kisses your forehead, lips lingering so you know he means every word. All the heartache from the last two weeks just melts away. None of it matters now. It's just you and him against the world once more.

You squeeze his hands and look Sonny in the eyes. "Stay with me tonight? Please?" It's a desperate plea, vulnerable and exposed. Maybe it's because of his two-week absence. Maybe it's the fear of your uncertain future. Or maybe it's a combination of both. But the thing is: you simply can't bear the thought of being alone. Now, it’s you who needs him.

"Absolutely," agrees Sonny without a second of hesitation. He pulls you to his chest for a much-needed, comforting hug.

In the weeks that follow, Sonny helps you pack your belongings up and transfer them into his place. Your parents drive in from upstate to help you move as well, allowing Sonny to wiggle even farther into their hearts.

All the while you finalize the semester's grading and say a reluctant goodbye to the course you've come to love teaching.

Doing your research, you send your dossier to other colleges in Manhattan and the surrounding boroughs. Thankfully, your luck shifts and a phone call comes through with an offer for the fall. It would be a similar contract as before with courses you would enjoy teaching. The cherry on top is that your new campus would be even closer to Sonny's apartment than your previous job.

It would have to be a summer of tight budgeting to make up for your unemployment, but it would also be a summer where every night you get to fall asleep in the arms of the man you love. And really, there is no other future that could be as bright.

-x-

Thanks for reading!

Part 8 here :)

[shiredded]

A white animation student’s take on Soul and POC cartoons

This got long but there’s lots of pretty pictures to go with it.

Hi, I’m Shire and I’m as white as a ripped-off Pegasus prancing on a stolen van. Feel free to add to my post, especially if you are poc. The next generation of animators needs your voice now more than ever.

My opinion doesn’t matter as much here because I’m not part of the people being represented. 

But I am part of the people to whom this film is marketed, and as the market, I think I should be Very Aware of what media does to me. 

And as the future of animation, I need to do something with what I know.

I am very white. I have blue eyes and long blond hair. I’ve seen countless protagonists, love interests, moms, and daughters that look like me. If I saw an animated character that looks like me turn into a creature for the majority of a movie, I would cheer. Bring it on! I have plenty of other representation that tells me I’m great just the way I am, and I don’t need to change to be likable. 

The moment Soul’s premise was released, many people of color expressed mistrust and disappointment on social media. Let me catch you up on the plot according to the new (march 2020) trailer. (It’s one of those dumb modern trailers that tells you the entire plot of the movie including the climax; so I recommend only watching half of it)

Our protagonist, Joe Gardner, has a rich (not in the monetary sense) and beautiful life. He has dreams! He wants to join a jazz band! So far his life looks, to me, comforting, amazing, heartfelt, and real. I’m excited to learn about his family and his music. 

Some Whoknowswhat happens, and he enters a dimension where everyone, himself included, is represented by glowing, blue, vaguely humanoid creatures. They’re adorable! But they sure as heck aren’t brown. The most common response seems to be dread at the idea of the brown human protagonist spending the majority of his screen time as a not-brown, not-human creature. 

The latest trailer definitely makes that look pretty darn true. He does spend most of the narrative - chronologically - as a blob. 

but

That isn’t the same as his screen time. 

From the look of the trailer, Joe and his not-yet-born-but-already-tired-of-life soul companion tour Joe’s story in all of its brown-skinned, human-shaped, life-loving glory. The movie is about life, not about magic beans that sing and dance about burping (though I won’t be surprised if that happens too.)

Basically! My conclusion is “it’s not as bad as it looked at first, and it looks like a wonderful story.”

but

That doesn’t mean it’s ok. 

Yes, Soul is probably going to be a really important and heartfelt story about life, the goods, the bads, the dreams, and the bonds. That story uses a fun medium to view that life; using bright, candy-bowl colors and a made-up world to draw kids in with their parents trailing behind. 

It’s a great story and there’s no reason to not create a black man for the lead role. There’s no reason not to give this story to people of color. It’s not a white story. This is great!

Except...

we’ve kind of

done this

a lot

The Book of Life and Coco also trade in their brown-skinned cast for a no-skinned cast, but I don’t know enough about Mexican culture to say those are bad and I haven't picked up on much pushback to those. There’s more nuance there, I think. 

I cut the above pics together to show how the entire ensemble changes along with the protagonist. We can lose entire casts of poc. Emperor's New Groove keeps its cast as mostly human so at least we have Pacha

And while the animals they interact with might be poc-coded, there’s nothing very special or affirming about “animals of color.” 

So, Soul.

Are we looking at the same thing here?

It’s no secret by now that this is an emerging pattern in animation. But not all poc-starring animated films have this same problem. We have Moana! With deuteragonists (basically co-protagonists) of color, heck yeah.

 Aladdin... Pocahontas... The respect those films have for their depicted culture is... an essay for another time. Mulan fits here too. the titular characters’ costars are either white, or blue, and/or straight up animals. But hey, they don’t turn into animals, and neither do the supporting cast/love interests.

Dreamworks��� Home (2015) is also worth mentioning as a poc-led film where the  deuteragonist is kind of a purple blob. But the thing I like a lot about Home is that it’s A Nice Story, where there’s no reason for the protagonist to not be poc, so she is poc. Spiderverse has a black lead with a white (or masked, or animal) supporting cast. But, spiderverse also has Miles’ dad, mom, uncle, and Penny Parker.

I’d like to see more of that.

And less of this

if you’re still having trouble seeing why this is a big deal, let’s try a little what-if scenario. 

This goes out to my fellow white girls (including LGBTA white girls, we are not immune to propaganda racism)

imagine for a second you live in a world where animation is dominated to the point of almost total saturation by protagonist after protagonist who are boys/men. You do get the occasional woman-led film, but maybe pretend that 30 to 40 percent of those films are like

(We’re pretending for a second that Queen Eleanor was the protagonist, because I couldn’t think of any animated movies where the white lady protagonist turns into and stays an animal for the majority of the film)

Or, white boys and men, how would you feel if your most popular and marketable representation was this?

Speaking of gender representation, binary trans and especially nonbinary trans people are hard pressed to find representation of who they are without the added twist of Lizard tails or horns and the hand-waving explanation of “this species doesn’t do gender” But again, that’s a different essay.

Let’s look at what we do have. In reality, we (white people) have so much representation that having a fun twist where we spend most of the movie seeing that person in glimpses between colorful, glittering felt characters that reflect our inner selves is ok. 

Wait, that aesthetic sounds kind of familiar...

But I digress. Inside Out was a successful and honestly helpful and important movie.  I have no doubt in my mind that Soul will meet and surpass it in quality and and in message. 

There is nothing wrong with turning your protagonist of color into an animal or blob for most of their own movie. 

But it’s part of a larger pattern, and that pattern tells people of color that their skin would be more fun if it was blue, or hairy, or slimy, or something. It’s fine to have films like that because heck yeah it would be fun to be a llama. But it’s also fun to not be a llama. It’s fun to be a human. It’s fun to be yourself. I don’t think children of color are told that enough. 

At least, not by mainstream studios. (The Breadwinner, produced by Cartoon Saloon)

It’s not like all these mainstream poc movies are the result of racist white producers who want us to equate people of color with animals. In fact, most of those movies these days have people of color very high up, as directors, writers, or at the very least, a pool of consultants of color.

These movies aren’t evil. They aren’t even that intrinsically racist (Pocahontas can go take a hike and rethink its life, but we knew that.) It’s that we need more than just the shape-shifting narratives of our non-white protagonists. 

It’s not like there isn’t an enormous pool of ideas, talent, visions and scripts already written and waiting to be produced. There is.

But they somehow don’t make it past the head executives, way above any creative team, who make the decisions, aiming not for top-of-the-line stories, but for the Bottom line of sales.

When Disney acquired Pixar, their main takeover was in the merchandising department. The main target for their merchandise are, honestly, white children.

So is it much of a surprise

that they are more often greenlighting things palatable for as many “discerning” mothers as possible?

I saw just as many Tiana dolls as frog toys on the front page of google, so don’t worry too much about The Princess And The Frog. Kids love her. But I didn’t find any human figures of Kenai from Brother Bear, except for dolls wearing a bear suit. 

So. What do I think of Soul? 

I think it’s going to be beautiful. I think it’s going to be a great movie.

But I also think people of color deserve more. 

Let’s take one more look at the top people who went into making this movie.

Of the six people listed here, five are white. Kemp Powers, one of the screenplay writers, is black. 

It’s cool to see women reaching power within the animation industry, but this post isn’t about us.

We need to replace the top execs and get more projects greenlit that send the message that african, asian, latinix, middle eastern, and every other non-white ethnicity is perfect and relatable as the humans they were meant to be. 

Disney is big enough that they can - and therefore should - take risks and produce movies that aren’t as “marketable” simply because art needs to be made. People need to be loved.

Come on, millennials and Gen Z. We can do better.

We Will do better.

TLDR: A lot of mainstream animation turns its protagonists of color into animals or other creatures. I (white) don’t think that’s a bad thing, except for the fact that we don’t get enough poc movies that AREN’T weird. Support Soul; it’s not going to be as bad as you think. It’s probably gonna be really good. Let’s make more good movies about people of color that stay PEOPLE of color.

[georgemackayhey]

Lucky Stars

"George imagine idea where your acting in a movie with him as his romantic interest but it's ur first acting job ever and your super nervous because he's your celeb crush, but he's super sweet to you the whole time and maybe he invites you over to his flat for dinner so they can get to know eachother better xx"

Not gonna lie, it's been really hard for me to write the past couple weeks. Here's a request I've managed to whip up. Just know I'm still tryin' yall! Keep sane out there ♡

w/c: 2k

───※ ·❆· ※───

There wasn't much more that dazzled you aside from the big screen. Watching actors craft stories between laugh tracks and big band music was the closest thing to magic you knew.

So you moved to L.A, the beating, bleeding heart of showbiz. You weren't sure you'd get very far, but all you wanted was to try. And if you missed your shot at being a great storyteller, you'd still have all your favorites to watch back. It seemed you learned something new from them every new view.

The only thing you had to lose was a bit of shame. The few friends you'd made of neighbors and postmen since moving warned you that the harsh world of auditions and guest lists would make you bitter before too long.

But even after landing a few national commercials,  the voice on a low budget children show, and some walk-on television roles, you found out all your neighbors and mailmen were wrong.

A blush burned your cheeks every time you auditioned, whether you delivered a line perfectly or not. And every time you found out you'd been taken off the guest list to someone's exclusive get together you were thrilled at the concept of having ever been invited at all.

You'd come here to bring life to characters with a story to tell. You were so focused on finding new auditions and studying the art of becoming someone else, sometimes you'd lost track of your own value.

When you were sought out to play the lead on a Netflix series, you almost didn't know what to do with yourself. You stayed up all night, making newly matched outfits out of all your old clothes, in an excited daze of trying to get in the headspace of your new character.

You hardly slept the month leading up to table reads, scouring over the little information you had to memorize, determined to be at the top of the game you'd been trying to play for years.

You memorized all your lines, showed up early, and stayed late even when it seemed uncalled for. The truth was you feared if you stopped working so hard, you'd lose it all. Just the right number of messed up lines, just one wrong missed morning, and you'd be back where you started, trying to get to where you were now.

And everyone you met and worked with assured you that you must have had a natural talent in order to have landed a role in such a demanding spotlight. But you couldn't risk it.

By the end of the table reads, you felt like you'd aced a test you spent half of schooling studying for, but still managing to scrape by with a few missed steps.

By when it came time to start shooting, despite all your best efforts to come prepared, you found yourself in a bit of a predicament.

Enter George... your love interest. He was dangerous, in the sense that he had all the stunning looks of a fallen angel but the manners of a bashful 1950's soldier. And besides all his charming qualities, George was a damned good actor.

You didn't want to be the stereotypical girl who fell for her first majorly attractive costar, a low budget Kate clawing for a shred of the next Leonardo DiCaprio's attention, behind the scenes. So when George hovered near enough for you to notice, you reserved yourself down to shy nods and hurried manners to move through the day.

And besides that, when the director called action, you'd become ritualistically nervous. No matter who was acting alongside you, or what set you moved around on, before you got into the swing of delivering your lines, you always had to work at quick speeds to hurdle over a sudden rush of anxieties.

Your director was a kind old soul, always giving you space to breathe and the perfect instructions for you to get your head in the game.

But of course, your anxious jitters multiplied with every scene you were meant to shoot with George.

"Action!" Your director hollered, the sound of bells and whistles alarming everyone to quiet down. You were attempting your third take of a certain scene where your character was meeting George's for the first time. But every time he delivered a certain line alongside a certain longing gaze, you locked up, getting lost in the way his shining eyes seemed to search yours, for real.

And by this take, you hadn't opened up from shutting down the last time. You lingered nervously in the doorway you were meant to enter, mouth open, empty of the words you were meant to say.

George was meant to be distracted. But he curiously glanced over his shoulder, pricing eyes falling pitifully onto you. Then whipped his head toward the director, raising a pausing hand before spinning back in your direction.

Some of the crew went on chattering as George made his timid approach your way, like he was the nervous one. You admired his strong features, his unforgiving beauty. His bold looks were almost a contrast to his soft-spoken nature.

"Are you alright?" He asked in a low, concerned tone. You were almost embarrassed under his searching gaze, but you'd be a fool not to look right back at him. And he was the first person to ask how you were, instead of telling you how to be.

"I just get locked up sometimes. I know all the lines, I just..." You stuttered, ending your explanation with a nervous laugh. George softened too then, like he was glad you didn't have anything worse holding you back.

"Well you know you don't have to start right when they call action. I always take a beat and play the scene over in my head before I go into it." George shrugged, shifting his weight a little nearer to you.

"Yeah, that's a good idea."

"If you'd like, maybe we could run some lines together later. It's always easier to act with someone when you know how they intend to go about the scenes." George let out a gentle laugh, searching your face as you rose a brow in surprise.

"That sounds lovely. If we get through this scene alive that is." You chuckled, shooing him back toward his mark, with some kind of heavenly choir soundtracking your inner monologue. How had you just gotten so lucky?

You nailed the scene after George's well-meaning pep talk and as the day wound to a close, he followed you to a coffee shop on the lot of the studio. The pair of you ordered drinks and talked about the scenes you were meant to share.

He was right, it was much easier to think of walking through each line when you knew how each other felt about the character's motives and feelings. After you'd exhausted the week's script, you took the rest of your coffee and floated home on cloud nine.

After that day, acting with everyone became much easier. You'd settled into a swing, and learned to take deep breaths before diving into whatever scene you shot. But there were some days you were reminded of how important this all was to you. That you were living your dream. And thoughts like that overwhelmed you enough to screw up lines and freak out during lunch breaks.

Your director was kind and always gently eased you back from the brink of losing it. But on days where the script called for shooting profound and difficult scenes, you'd still get caught up in it all.

And, somehow, George always knew just how to talk you out of your nervous state. But today, the director kept changing up the set, and all the lines, shifting you around different camera angles, calling for you and George to kiss about a dozen times in a row. It was getting hard to handle your increased heart rate, and frustration.

"Please don't freak out, darling. It's myself I'm unhappy with." Your director insisted as you shuffled to the side stage to control the breath caught in your throat. He called for a quick break while he sent someone to go find another new prop.

By the time your director had everything sussed out, you still couldn't stop pacing in time to try again.

That's when George stepped in, right in time as always. He assured you that you didn't have to do anything you didn't want to do. Did he seriously think you were put off by having to kiss him a dozen times in a row? Quite the opposite really. Your heart was threatening to burst.

And your director seemed settled on his changes at last, and George was such an excellent example of overabundant patience and kindness that you took his hand and pulled him back on set to get it over and done with.

"You should take my place boy! She takes your direction better than my own!" Your director laughed. It was a funny little remark, one you barely registered in your anxious state.

George was absurdly kind to you. And you were frighteningly receptive to him.

He invited you to keep running lines, as a courtesy. You knew that.  Every other day, a half hour at the little coffee shop down the way, it was strictly business.

But you couldn’t help swooning a little when he asked you to dinner, one night. Sure, the rest of the cast had been invited too, but he asked you with a gleam in his eye, you swore you spotted a shimmer.

When it came time to join your co-stars at a fancy brewery, George saved a seat for you at his side. You spent the whole evening chattering about your characters and how you did or didn't relate to them. Your castmates broke into separate conversations when you and George rambled too long about your favorite old films.

And then you went home alone, but you'd never felt more a part of anything in your life. You felt like you belonged.

Days on set became saturated in pure fun. Everyone had gotten to know each other well enough to share commonalities and branch off into groups. And George was usually a part of yours.

He'd join you and a few others on lunch trips. And you were usually the one sent to wake him up from power naps in the middle of the day.

It probably helped that he was always apart of the scenes you shot, and you a part of his. It probably helped that your trips to the coffee shop to read lines turned into mini therapy sessions, where one or the other of you would decompress after a long day, talking about how exhausting it was to pretend to be someone else for so long.

By the time things were beginning to wrap up, you'd realized how utterly attached to George you'd become, without realizing it. You'd always fawned over him sure, but one day you spotted him across the room and felt some supernatural force moving you to meet up with him. And as you moved to join his company you had to wonder when you'd become so delightfully used to it.

You'd get a little too swept up Geogres soft laugh, and the way he asked your opinion about every little thing. You didn't want his company to fizzle away after this was all said and done.

You didn't want to move on to another set, memorize another script. You wanted your own tales to tell, thoughts of your own to share. And... you wanted George to be a part of all of that.

Going home alone at the end of the day seemed more lonely as the weeks went on. And by the time the production had come to an end, you were floored by the sadness that loomed over you.

Your director shouted hoorays and passed out proud sentiments during your last shoot, and as much as you wanted to give proper goodbyes to your fellow actors, you took cover in your trailer to manage your blue feelings.

When you were sure everyone had left, busy to catch another audition or dinner with a friend, you tried to do the same. But every time you tried to leave your trailer, your heart sunk to your feet. You didn't know how to walk away from it all.

By the time you started your slow drift through the shutdown set, all the camera stands and light posts having been abandoned, you soaked up the empty scene, searching for a bit of closure. But all too soon you realized you weren’t alone.

“You’re still here too?” George smiled, stepping into view. His eyes were still bright enough to see in the dimly lit soundstage. You took the sight of him in for a bit, struggling to accept there wouldn't be any more moments quite like this one.

“I’m having a hard time saying goodbye, it seems.” You smiled, despite your honest somber tone. It was probably the most transparent you’d ever really been with him, on or off set.

“What if you didn’t have to?” George asked after a silent beat. The quiet returned just after, as you searched his face, trying to understand what he was asking.

“I think… I think this stopped pretending a long time ago. At least for me,” His lean figure shifted closer to yours as his hand gestured to the space between the two of you. You wondered if this was some vivid fever dream.

“George…” You warned and wondered, all the same, your heart rising from the floor and threatening to burst right out of your chest while George kept his eyes delicately zeroed in on yours.

“Maybe it doesn't have to end here. Maybe we could be together… for real.”

You let out a nervous breath of a laugh. Was this some cruel prank? “Why are you saying this? Do you really feel that way?”

“I realized, maybe too late, that I wasn’t just acting. And I have a hunch you weren’t either.” George dared to step closer, his eyes falling to your mouth as you bit your lip to save from saying something you might have regretted.

“There are no cameras. It’s just us now, really us. And I really like you.” George dared to close the gap between you as he spoke each word with care. And when he raised a hand to tilt your chin, you were done for.

His lips melded with yours, one arm circling around your waist to pull you close as could be. Time seemed to freeze over and speed up all at once, thoughts spinning in a blur in your mind as you kissed George back.

You weren’t sure how long it lasted, only that he pulled away too soon.

“Come to the premiere with me?” George asked quietly, pushing some of our hair away from your eyes.

“Lucky for you that’s the deal.” You grinned, gazing into his eyes as he kept a stronghold around you. The whole cast had long been chattering about how excited you all were to promote your show together.

“But we’ve got a few weeks till then. How shall we pass the time?” George asked like he was afraid he wouldn’t get to see you until then.

“I’ve got a few ideas.” You admitted shyly, “You could come home with me if you’d like to start checking off that list.”

“I thought you’d never ask.” George smiled, leaning in for another quick, sweet kiss.

As you tangled your fingers together, walking into the warm summer night, you felt lucky for having ended up here when you did. You'd moved to this city of all cities to tell someone's story. And then it hit you. All those scripts and plots, they'd been born from something, from somewhere. You realized that you didn't just want to be a part of the narrative.

You wanted your own. And you wanted it with George. You wanted to live such a spectacular chain of events alongside him that in a few decades time, that one day they'd retell your own story on the big screen.

When you looked over to see George happily floating in step with you, you wondered who might play the pair of you in the rom-com they based off of your very own love story. Above everything, you hoped he'd always be your leading man.

───※ ·❆· ※───

[thejollyroger-writer]

THE WASTELAND - Chapter 5: THE ATHENAEUM // THE CABIN, Part 3

Some triggers: this story is rated TEEN, mostly for violence. It takes place during wartime, and some of the characters go through some violence and torture. If you need more information about this, please just message me!

SUMMARY:  In a world that has been saturated in war for as long as anyone can remember, Emma Swan has rebuilt her life as far away from the chaos as possible, opening her own maternity hospital after spending too many years in makeshift battlefield aid stations. But one night, a bloodied and battered soldier finds her hospital trying to get away from an enemy with a penchant for torture and a personal vendetta against him. With the help of Emma’s childhood friend Prince David and a motley collection of humans and magic-wielders, the quest to save Killian Jones’ life from the poison used by the enemy takes them to places even beyond the known world.

Header and the art for every chapter by the lovely @spartanguard​ – special thanks to @cssns​ for making this monster happen!

Prologue on AO3 // Prologue on Tumblr // Chapter One (ART) // Chapter Two (ART) // Chapter Three (ART) // Chapter Four (ART)

Chapter Five on AO3

ART

// 

The ride from Nephilysis to Prince David’s cabin outside the Northern Mountains takes a day and a half, stopping only when necessary — and most of those hours are completely silent, Mary Margaret, Regina, and Belle with their noses in books and notebooks when they’re not driving, but Emma finds herself unable to concentrate on anything outside of her own mind. 

Emma spends the whole ride — the time it's not her turn to drive — still trying to wrap her mind around everything. By the end of the first day, the only thing she can do to keep herself grounded is text Ruby, filling her in on everything she’s learned at the Athenaeum. 

Or, almost everything; she doesn't know why, but she leaves out the part about Killian. Everything else almost seems believable compared to that, and she thought she would be fine just ignoring it. 

Ruby, of course, is unsurprised by the news of her being a Vis. Everyone around her is unsurprised by the news, apparently. 

You really never knew? she asks. I always just assumed you stayed quiet about it. 

She thought she could handle herself, stay composed when they get to the cabin, when she sees Killian, but she finds herself incorrect. 

Seeing him with this new knowledge, seeing the warm way he smiles at her when she walks into the cabin, is too much for her, and her stomach flips as she turns on her heel to walk back out. 

Mary Margaret says something to cover for her, but her voice is nothing more than buzzing in her ears, and she shuts the door behind her perhaps a little too loudly.

She doesn’t care. She has to get away.  

Pulling her cell phone out of her pocket, she calls Ruby. When she doesn’t pick up the first time, she tries again — not usual for her, but she’s in dire waters here. 

Ruby answers the phone on the fourth ring with a grumble, which Emma ignores. 

"He's my true love," she blurts out. 

"What?" 

"I thought I could — along with everything else, I thought I would just be able to ignore this and just try to save him, but this is different." The words come pouring out of her, trying to keep up with the million miles a minute that has become normal in her brain. 

"Emma, what the hell are you even talking about?" 

Finally, she takes a deep breath, though she can feel her heart pounding in her throat. She tries to make the words come out slower, but by the time she reaches the end of her thought, she’s sped up once more. "Belle told me I'm a Vis, left her duties as Magistra to help train me because we're in a time crunch, but that's not the only thing she told me. There's apparently some sort of prophecy about a Vis and a Fae who don't know how powerful they are until they come together and need to use their powers to save each other. Their powers, and the power of their true love." 

Ruby scoffs. "And they think it's about you? And Killian?" 

"Belle seems to think so. It's apparently from some collection of writing from this Neverland place, one of the only things they've ever been able to decipher completely. Apparently Neverland is one of those places where, once you get there, you don't leave. Or can't. And that's why no one knows anything about it." Her mind is so muddled by it all that she can’t remember what she’s already told Ruby, or what they learned together before she left the hospital, but Ruby seems to understand.  

"But Killian's been there before? And he left?"

"Well, he hasn't shared the whole story with us yet, but I don't think it was a very positive experience for him. David knows more about it than I do, but I think — I’m almost certain at least one person didn’t make it out alive."

"And you guys… have to go back? To cure him from the effects of this poison?" 

"Yeah." 

Ruby lets out a low whistle. "Damn." 

The line is silent, Emma giving Ruby a chance to wrap her head around everything, but it doesn’t take long for her to come up with one of the very questions that has been rattling around Emma’s mind: "So then, because of this true love nonsense, you really are his only hope?" 

Even though Ruby can’t see the way she pulls her bottom lip between her teeth, she somehow knows that Ruby knows she is doing it nonetheless. "Yes. What that's supposed to mean I have zero fucking clue, but… yes." 

Another low whistle. “You really have yourself in a predicament there, Swan. Though there could certainly be worse prospects for your True Love.”  

At this moment — of course — Killian steps out onto the porch, and she feels the embarrassment that crept up her cheeks deepen, though the stump she has taken a seat on is still a fair way away from him. 

She laughs, trying not to let the Ruby's right thought take up too much room in her mind as she tries to change the subject. "How is everything going at the hospital? Did you get the replacements?"

"He's there now, isn't he? Either that, or you agree with me."

Ruby always was able to read her like a book, even over the phone, and sees right through Emma's ploy. She smiles. "Yeah. Just answer the question." 

"Emma, come on! Which one!" 

"Both," she says quickly, surprising even herself, trying to hide her smile as she glances quickly at Killian on the back porch; and then, "Now, did you get the replacements?" 

Ruby laughs, and Emma can see the way she tosses back her head, letting it move through her whole body. "I'm almost upset you left me here." 

"I wouldn't trust the place in anyone else's hands, Rubes." She tries to stuff as much sincerity and appreciation in her voice as she can, only hoping Ruby picks up on it from hundreds of miles away. 

If she does, she says nothing, though finally answers the question Emma's been asking, a seriousness to her voice that wasn't there moments before. "Johanna's been here for a few days and Blue just got here this morning. Ashley finally delivered, no issues. We probably would have been okay with just Johanna, but I think Blue is glad to be away from the war for a while."

Emma feels a soft smile curve across her lips. "I understand that completely." 

"Any idea how long you'll be?" 

Out of instinct, Emma turns to the porch again, where Killian is sitting under one of the lit lamps, a few moths flying around over his head. He smiles at her, raising his hand with a wave, which Emma returns. "I don't even know where I'm going." The anxiety of it all washes over her: she really doesn't know where she is going, doesn't know what will be asked of her, between this prophecy and her new knowledge of being a Vis, not to mention this whole true love/saving Killian piece that has to fit in this adventure somehow. "There's a lot about this I'm not sure about, really," she mumbles, talking more to herself than her friend. 

But Ruby answers anyway. "If anyone is capable of succeeding at something like this, it's you, Emma Swan. I've never seen you take on more than you can handle." 

"I appreciate that you have faith in me, but what if this is finally it? What if I've finally gotten myself in too deep?" 

"Then you'll find a way to pull yourself out. You always have, and you always will." 

Emma smiles, trying to instill a little of Ruby's confidence in herself. 

Before she comes up with a response, though, Ruby says, "Now, I gotta go, and I'll let you get back to lover boy—"

"Ruby!" 

"Don't forget to update me from your far-off lands. And be careful."

"I always am."

Emma ends the call, though her eyes stay on her cell phone until after the screen goes dark, searching for the very confidence that Ruby just instilled in her, which seems to have already disappeared. Sliding her phone back into the pocket of her jeans, she wraps her arms around her torso, hugging herself. She forgot about the temperature change this close to the Northern Mountains after spending the last few years in all the same climate, and especially after the warmth of the city, and the chilliness of the dusk air quickly seeps into her as soon as she focuses on it, her skin already cold to the touch. She hopes she remembered to pack a jacket, at least for the next few days in the Northern Mountains — though who knows what the weather in Neverland could be like. 

Neverland. How the hell did she end up in this situation, traveling with a pack of soldiers, the Prince and his betrothed, a sprite council member, and the Magistra to a land they have never heard of? This is just the type of thing that she thought she left behind when she traded in her medic's bars to start her own maternity hospital, needing to live a life far from the death and destruction of the War. What brought her into this mess?

Killian, she reminds herself. Killian Jones, who fought and forced his way out of a prison camp and back to freedom, who lost his hand in the process — only to find his way to her hospital? A man who, against all odds, has a connection to her oldest friend, the Prince of the Gale, and found his way through the rain and the mud and the entire damn war just to end up in her hospital.

Killian. 

A violent shiver forces it's way through her body, shaking her shoulders and her knees. She's cold, much colder than she's been in a while, and knows she should go inside and find warmth, a blanket or a jacket and a nice cup of hot chocolate. 

But she knows what's waiting inside for her: questions and expectations and too many people needing too many things from her. 

When she looks up from her stump, she sees Killian slowly making his way across the yard to her, his leather jacket removed to reveal a dark blue sweater that clings to him in all the right places — no, stop, she tells herself. Don't go there. 

"My apologies if you're trying to have some alone time now, love, but I couldn't help but notice that you're without a jacket, which isn't opportune in this weather."

"Thank you," she says, taking the jacket from his hand and slipping it over her shoulders. The inside is still warm from his body heat, she realizes, remembering that he was wearing it when he stepped out onto the porch. "It's been a while since I've been in weather this cold, not since I used to travel around with David, and I've sort of forgotten that cold even exists." 

He sits beside her on the stump, far enough away that his arm only grazes hers every once in a while, not pressed up against her. "No need to worry, I have some sweaters and jackets here from when I was here last that you can surely borrow for the journey." 

She turns to him, trying her best to offer him a soft smile, though she does find it difficult. "Thanks," she mumbles, then lets out a small self-depreciating laugh. "You can just add that to the list of things I wasn't prepared for when I left home." 

"Yeah, Mary Margaret was saying that you discovered you're a Vis, I can't even imagine that." 

She nods, though her mind is instead on the prophecy. A Vis and a Fae. Though, as far as she's aware, Killian's not a Fae. 

"You don't have any abilities, do you?" she asks, trying to broach the subject gently, though she realizes immediately that she fails. 

He shakes his head. "Liam — my brother — was a dryad, hence the airships. We were never sure about our parents, though. Mum died when I was very little and our father disappeared one day not long after, but neither used any powers that Liam could ever remember." 

If he wants to know why she asked, he keeps it to himself, even as she offers him no response. The silence that settles between them is soft, not thickened by awkwardness or tension, and Emma is thankful for it. It's the first time in hours — days, at least — that her mind is not travelling at top speed, and she seizes the opportunity to take a deep breath, close her eyes for a moment, and focus on the soft sounds of the forest around them. 

"What about you?" he asks after a while, and when she turns to him, she finds him staring at her intently, almost as if he is trying to take in every detail of her. Normally, she would find advances like this overwhelming, almost creepy, but there is something in Killian's eyes — a softness, almost, more of an appreciation than anything else — that seems to calm her, even as he asks questions that bring up her past, something she tries to hide from and avoid as often as possible.

She doesn't feel that here. 

"I never knew my parents," she says calmly, as if it's not the biggest regret of her life. "They gave me away when I was just a few days old. I don't even know their names." 

"I'm sorry, Emma," he whispers, reaching his hand out to take hers. It's the simplest of gestures, his fingers wrapping tenderly around her hand, but it seems to light a spark within her, a warmth that has nothing to do with the jacket and a shiver unconnected to the crisp air. An air of confidence washes over her, bigger and more powerful than the one she felt while on the phone with Ruby, and she lets it wash over her and clean the dust and doubt that hide in her darkest corners. Suddenly, everything about this mission feels attainable: flying in a ship to an unknown land to retrieve the antidote needed to save Killian. It's as simple as that, really, and she feels like nothing can stop them. 

Them. 

Her and Killian. 

Together. 

Everything around him is dark. Dark rocks, dark fields, dark, dark jungle as far as the eye can see. But they’re not in the jungle; in fact, they’re up on a cliff, looking down over it all. It looks so small from up here, the path that’s taken them three days to get through. Up here, he feels like he can see the whole island, though he knows it’s much bigger, since he has actually seen it from above. 

A whole island that no one had ever heard of, that’s been missing from maps and history books simply because… why? Nothing about Neverland is simple, he’s learned. It’s — what word did Pan use? — alive. It’s alive, hidden from maps and books and knowledge because it wants to be. 

Killian turns around to where Liam and Pan are standing beside a large bush, their arguing voices covered by the rushing of the waterfall behind them, but Killian can still tell they are fighting by Liam’s use of his hands. The three of them were the only men to leave the Jewel of the Realm once it took anchor off the shore of the foreign land, so they are alone at the top of the cliff. 

Pan turns away from Liam to face Killian as he approaches them. "I can assure you, Captain, Dreamshade is a very valuable asset to King Gold because of its immense healing power. I don't know where you found these books your brother speaks of, but I grew up on the island, so I would certainly know." 

"See, Killian, I told you." 

"Yes, Killian, trust your brother,” the boy spits, accentuating his name much more than necessary, almost mocking. “Come help us gather some of these branches, but be careful of the thorns. We want to make sure as much of it gets back to the King as possible." 

There is still something about the boy — Pan — that Killian can't stand, and he watches as he carefully snips off the end of a branch and drops it in the nearby pouch. 

Killian narrows his eyes towards the boy. "If the plant really does have healing powers, then what would be the need of avoiding the thorns? What is it going to do, heal me too much?" 

Pan opens his mouth to respond, but Liam beats him to it, stepping back towards the bush, moving slowly away from Killian. “Come, now, brother, don’t be like that. The king would not have sent us on such a diplomatic mission if it weren’t for the good of everyone, and he certainly would have informed us if we were to collect a deadly poison instead of a plant with healing abilities.” 

Pan smiles, and the sense of fear that Killian has felt since the King gave them their mission suddenly becomes paralyzing because of it. 

Something is wrong. 

“Here, I’ll even prove it to you,” Liam continues, grabbing one of the branches from the bag, and before either of them can react, he slices the skin of his arm with one of the thorns. 

At first, nothing happens, but the way Pan stares at him wide-eyed makes Killian’s stomach turn.

After a few more seconds pass, all with no reaction from Liam’s arm save a scratch in his skin from the thorns, he shrugs.

“See, Killian, I told—” His words stop in an instant, his eyes going wide as he turns down to his arm.

Where moments before there was only a scratch, the cut has now turned black, the darkness webbing out along his arm and up under his rolled-up sleeve. He tries to say something, but his throat is quicky closing, and Killian is by his side just in time to catch him as he collapses.

“Brother—” he chokes, and the blackness appears from under the collar of his uniform, spreading up his neck.

Killian can’t believe it, and he whips around towards Pan, who is leaning casually against a tree, a sly smile across his adolescent cheeks.

“Why didn’t you stop him?!” Killian screams, clutching tight to Liam's body. “You knew this was going to happen! You could have stopped it!”

“Well, where’s the fun in that, Captain?”

“I have to get him back to the ship, back to the crew, show them exactly what the king sent us here for!”

As soon as Killian lets go of Liam, though, Pan flicks his wrist and whisks his body into the air. “I’m afraid not. Your brother is never going to leave Dead Man’s Peak, ironically enough.” Another flick, and Liam is propped against one of the rocks along the edge of the water — and with another, Killian’s hands are bound behind his back.

Rightfully, he’s furious, but no matter how hard he fights against his restraints, he somehow knows he’ll never get out. “What do you think you're doing?!”

“I’m just doing as Baelfire ordered.”

“The Prince ordered you to kill my brother? To take me hostage?”

“Oh, no, nothing quite so intricate. He simply ordered me to make sure the Dreamshade arrived back in Nephilysis by any means necessary. You and your dryad brother were simply pawns in a much bigger scheme.”

Suddenly instead of anger, Killian is overcome with a paralyzing sense of fear. “What are you going to do to me?” he asks, his voice much softer than even moments ago. Trembling.

“Well, see, now I’m going to make your crew believe you killed your brother for power so the prince can gain control of your whole fleet of ships.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

Pan smiles, another flick of the wrist, and Killian finds himself unable to speak, all of his words coming out as mumbles. “Because no matter what you say, Baelfire is going to have you killed." 

 Killian is tied to the mast, his crew standing in a circle around him, every eye on him. He knows that many of these men — men that he has known for years, one that he’s known for most of his life — don’t believe the lies that Pan is spewing, but they’re all smart enough not to argue with him, backed always by Prince Baelfire. Not to mention the woman, the woman he loves, though he hasn’t had the nerve to tell her yet. The woman that’s not even supposed to be on the ship with them, that he begged Liam to let come. The woman whose eyes are brimming with tears, he just knows it, but he can’t bring himself to look at her. 

Milah. 

"The power the Admiral gained must have been too much for him," Pan says, his eyes filled with a fake sadness, but Killian knows (hopes) no one else sees it that way. "He saw how important the healing abilities of Dreamshade were going to be to the King and decided to kill the Admiral and take all the glory." 

That’s not true! his mind screams, but there is nothing he can do about it. Pan and Baelfire have worked their charm over the crew, and even if anyone did take his side, they would just be tossed overboard to their deaths with him. He knows at least some of his crew must be loyal to him, knows that they must know he would never usurp power from Liam. 

Right? 

Instead of focusing on Pan or the Prince, or even his love, he looks around the circle of men, searching for Merlin. Merlin, his oldest friend beside his brother — his oldest living friend, now — is the smartest man either of them ever met, and he must know this is all a rouse for the prince to gain more power. He must know that none of it is real. Finally, he finds him, and though he is weak from whatever charm Pan cast over him when they left Dead Man's Peak, he can focus on his friend enough to recognize his slight nod, the understanding in his eyes. If nothing else, he has Merlin on his side, and hopefully he is able to carry out the plan they discussed not long before about what they should do should the Jewel of the Realm ever fall into the wrong hands — as it is about to do. 

"Killian Jones," Prince Baelfire says, his voice loud, booming, demanding, and every eye on the ship is drawn to him — though Milah, he notices, is still looking only at him. "I find you guilty of treason and sentence you to death. Usually aboard a ship, the penalty would be walking the plank, and I do believe that would be equally efficient in these circumstances." 

Milah screams, but no one acknowledges her, which just makes Killian’s heart break more.

Killian gulps. Pan smiles, though no one seems to notice. 

"B-b-but your majest-t-ty," First Mate William Smee tries, his voice shuddering with fear. "We're th-thousands of feet in the — in the air!" 

The Prince whips around to face him, anger obvious on his features, and Smee practically cowers away. "That is precisely why it will be efficient, Smee," he growls between gritted teeth, then turns back to Killian, who has just a few more steps to reach the plank. 

He turns quickly, hoping to find Milah’s face one more time before falling to his death, but she is no longer looking at him. Instead, she has fallen to her knees on the deck, the winds whipping her wild, dark hair around her face, which she holds in her hands. 

“I love you,” he whispers, which uses all the strength he has left. 

"To your death, traitor," he says, and a whoosh of magic from Pan’s hand pushes him over the side of the ship, falling towards his death and towards the waters below.

 His eyes snap open moments before he hits the surface of the water, though every inch of his body remembers how it felt. But instead of the freezing cold that he expects, he feels… warm? Off-balance. Delirious. 

It takes him a moment to get his bearings, because everything around him is dark. There’s a light weight on his chest, a warmth emanating from it and through his whole body. 

“Hey, hey, no, you’re alright,” a voice whispers in his ear. 

Emma’s voice. 

She's comforting him, the soft light of her magic illuminating where her hands are pressed against his chest, relaxing him. A few more moments, deep breaths, and he has come to completely, so he relaxes, leaning back into her arms. There is something about her, something about the way she takes care of him and the care she has shown him since she first laid eyes on him in her office that he appreciates immensely, and he can't help the thoughts that come in his sleepy haze about how she has come to mean more to him than that. He hasn't opened his heart up to the idea of love his whole , but he can't help but think maybe, if they somehow succeed at their mission and save his life, he may be able to no longer hide from the feelings that he has been pushing deeper and deeper down. 

"You can't be comfortable like this, Swan," he whispers, realizing for the first time the position they are in on the back seat of the truck, but he is apparently wrong, since she's fallen asleep with her hands on his chest and her head resting back against the pillow pressed against the window.

He quickly drifts off. 

TAGS: @shireness-says​​​ @cssns​​ @kmomof4​​ @thisonesatellite​​  @teamhook​​ @darkcolinodonorgasm​​​ @cocohook38​​​ @ultraluckycatnd​​ @facesiousbutton82​​ @hollyethecurious​​​ @stahlop​​​ @tiguanasummertree  @angellifedeath​​​ @pepperpottss​​​ @mariakov81​​​ @scientificapricot​​​ @kday426​​​ @xarandomdreamx​​​ @ohmightydevviepuu​​​ @xhookswenchx​​​ @nikkiemms​​​ @carpedzem​​​ @superchocovian​​​ @resident-of-storybrooke​​​ @snowbellewells​​​ @courtorderedcake​​​ @captain-emmajones​​​ @killian-whump​​​ @officerrogers​​​ @killianjonesownsmyheart1​ – want to be added or removed? let me know!

[striderification]

How I make my Homestuck troll horns - Painting

This is the last major step! The big whammy: painting.

It can also be the most daunting though (definitely not what causes me to avoid working on them for weeks). You’ll have to set aside a good chunk of time for this, it usually takes much longer than the molding to get it right. For me, the right coloring can make or break troll horns, and the exact hue is really hard to get right (it just takes a lot of time and anger. lmao).

Basically my advice boils down to about the same as the molding; stare at canon depictions of the horns while mixing paint, getting an understanding of the hue and value before committing it to the horns. 

However, before all of that, I’d recommend adding a layer of matte Mod Podge. It seemed to make the paint I used less prone to soaking into the horns (necessitating additional layers), and smoother because it filled in the left over holes from sanding. Disclaimer here: My horns from years past did not have this, and the paint generally stayed fine. While my recent sets of horns that prompted the demand for this tutorial look much smoother, I can’t vouch for the longevity of the paint with such a step. Time will tell, and I’ll update if my horns appear to be suffering from the craft glue/finish under it.

For some reason, my photos of this step are corrupted, which is really unfortunate, but luckily it doesn’t take many visual cues to explain. After the Mod Podge is fully dried, you can sketch out lines where you think the sections of color will go. My general advice for this: most of the horns seem to have a general pattern of the lightest/top color having the most area. It’s not exactly in thirds!

Some examples:

Once you think you have them adequately sectioned off (make sure to compare them with each other; the most important thing is consistency within your own design!), you can move on to mixing.

Let’s start with the troll color palette:

Some things I like to remember while coloring troll horns (for both art or cosplay):

The bottom two colors are fully saturated in a digital depiction, the lightest is offset somewhat with white. However, most “fully saturated” paint mixes for troll horns end up looking brighter than canon, somehow. I offset all three with white (not much).

All three colors are more orange than you would expect. This is the biggest one, for me. I see a lot of interpretations of the horns as “red, orange, yellow” when really they’re just red-orange, orange, and orange-yellow. (Some breakdowns of the colors from a basic color picker off google below)

While I’ve kind of relentlessly insisted on canon adherence, it’s more important to have the colors internally agreeable. In most cases, it’s hard to tell when they’re off if all three work well together and the other tips are kept in mind.

So after you think you have a good understanding of what colors to mix, try out some combos! This is what I started with for the red-orange and orange-yellow:

These mixes are certainly not what ended up being the final mix, but they were pretty close and only needed minor adjustments on my end. As you can probably tell, I have several paints for red, orange, and yellow, and I kind of mix them in here and there to prevent the color scheme from looking too “primary”. 

Now, for me, with this latest attempt, I already had recent horns to compare back to, and I know that isn’t the case for most others. A general rule that I follow though is to have the “base” color as red, orange, and yellow, but add more orange to the red and yellow, and some yellow to both the red and orange. Then usually I will offset it with some white (sometimes the amount pictured, though more is typical too).

The general order I work in is bottom to top, or “darkest” to “lightest”. However, this process generally requires that you have all three shades at once and work on them in one sitting to be able to correct errors in your lines. It is also occurring to me now that you could use painting tape for this. Unfortunately, I’m stupid.

A mix for the middle color.

Since I had a former pair to compare back to, I used the base of one of my Kanaya horns to test my new mix. Again, I know this isn’t possible for others, but it may be helpful to see what the troll palette looks like off-screen, and wet vs. dry.

After deciding that the mix was satisfactory, I went through and painted the first couple layers of the bottom shade.

Letting that dry somewhat while still comparing it along the way with my former pair.

Comparing this mix to the last batch on the Kanaya horn.

It’s probably common knowledge that all of them will need multiple layers, though for me it depended on which types of paint I had mixed for each color. In this case, I think the middle orange needed the most coats.

Drying the final product! It should be noted that canonically, the troll horns do not appear to have any shine. Even matte Mod Podge has a shine to it, and for that reason, I do not add anything further to seal on top of the paint. While this may possibly compromise the horns’ safety with time, I felt that as long as I take good care of them, it’s worth it to have a more accurate look.

And now, comparing the latest pair with my ones from a few years ago before declaring them finished:

These previous horns had a foil core, hence the large crack in the left horn, exposing the foil at the center there.

Mounting is an even more subjective step, but if you wanted to see how I wear them, continue on to the next step.

Up next: Mounting!

If not, then thank you so much for reading! Please let me know if I seemed to make a mistake in my explanations or neglected to mention something, and don’t hesitate to reach out if you have questions about my process. As a reminder, I’m not a final authority on anything, lol, I’m just some 19 year old cosplayer that’s just been doing this for over 6 years and there’s definitely people out there more experienced than me.

As always, I can be found on instagram under @striderification​ as well. As I only intend to use this tumblr for longer posts such as these, that is the best place to find me.

Again, thank you all! <3

[cyberpunkcinema]

From the Air?

This is the time. 

It’s been a weird era for cyberpunk.  Not some four years ago, I remember staring at a screen in a now defunct bar, when Hilary lost.  She wasn’t perfect, but she wasn’t him.

During that election, I had hoped that some mass media Ant Farm art-terror event would eliminate the orange dude as he spouted tactical static on TV.  It’s why I watched, waiting, itching for a non-fiction fantasy:  a traveler would appear and eliminate the bad man, pulling him into a portal-- maybe even severing a small hand off as the aperture closed.  But what I remember most, in that climactic moment as the polls sunk in, was a stark detachment.  I couldn’t really process it, because I wasn’t really there.  It was just a movie.     

Years later, I would be sitting at a chinese restaurant watching live aerial views of the Grand Princess Cruise ship docking at the Port of Oakland.  There were fences and tents and sealed vehicles broadcast live on the local news.  Everyone was hazmat-ready.  I thought back to that time when the lady lost, and realized this Covid-19 moment was an extension of that detachment, the next sequence in the movie: a series of news clips and disturbing facts, mixed with Verhoeven commercials.  It was time to introduce the would-be protagonist.

Instead, an ochre authoritarian antagonizes a public with daily disinformation.  There are mobile fridges filled with the dead.  Millions have been made jobless.  EPA rules have been suspended.  Unemployment relief chokes on a demand for COBOL.  Remote learning classrooms are harassed by bigots.  Homeless shanty towns expand as streets empty.  That orange covidiot says none of this is his fault?

This was real before, but it’s in our faces now, or even on our faces: salient, frustrating and fogging up the view.  This forced pause looks no different than what we see at Cyberpunk Cinema.  Are we supposed to buy this shit?

And this is the record of the time.

Cyberpunk was once a small branch of print science fiction, informed by blossoming technology trends and crime-noir.  Oftentimes, it is distilled into pure aesthetic, to a certain gaze, a visual shorthand for a hurried imperfect future:  neon lights, hard tech, inequity, wet pavement, cigarettes, robo babes and “damn the man.”  A lot of this circulates around the ‘net as over-saturated sexy robot renderings interspersed with slice of life images like a protestor in neon-lit Hong Kong.  But this content manifests itself remotely for most users, on a screen, in an era where everything on a screen can be faked.  But for Cyberpunk fans, Covid-19 has catalyzed what once flickered on the liminal screen into an uncanny reality.  Dystopia now? 

If we look through the canon of Cyberpunk, we can see the common backdrop of dystopia, either veiled or in plane view.  The word dystopia itself means “bad utopia,” and utopia means either an “imaginary place where everything is perfect,” or “no place.”  Are we in a real world where everything is perfectly bad?  

On the flip side, Cyberpunk protagonists thrive in a moral grey area, where it’s okay to be uncertain, to play the odds and angles, to question authority.  It’s a genre without absolute good or bad, and often lacking hope.  Characters like Deckard, Major Kusanagi, Angel Velasquez or even Takeshi Kovacs rely on pragmatic action against the existential crisis.  And sometimes, a little utilitarian decision benefits the masses, even if at the hero’s own peril.

Cyberpunk spins us fiction so that we can see the truth.  As aspects of Cyberpunk become more real, where do we go?  Have we passed the peak of human human civilization as posited in the Matrix?  Or perhaps we are just entering Gibson’s Jackpot, with a series of looming global catastrophes significantly altering life on Earth.  And while the master has stated that the future is here but unevenly spread (and perhaps very, very tacky), it may be that the future just needs more people of cooperative positive action.

With each step you fall forward slightly.

A portion of people have the luck for bandwidth, digital subscriptions, delivery services and comfort at home.  Others are working the various frontlines.  Some people have it piecemeal, or even nothing at all.  It’s a poignant time to ponder what people really want.  The structures all around us, that keep this planet as we know it going, are transitory.  Some of these are artificial constructs, others are ecological realities.  These structures require a flow and exchange to operate.  But without that movement, the system goes stagnant.  Do people enjoy corrupt governments, mega zaibatsus, surveillance-states, face mask shortages, gerrymandering and that damn spray tanned puppet? 

I’m not sure what the next few months or years will be like, but as our science non-fiction dystopia movie manifests and becomes documented history, perhaps we need to reach deep and build what tomorrow ought to be?  The air seems temporarily cleaner.  Oil temporarily has no value.  Service workers are always essential.  

Maybe it’s a time to consider the options.  Doesn’t everyone have healthcare, a job, sufficient housing and a hobby in a future-imperfect?  Maybe “now” is just a crash screen, an errant data point when graphed over a long enough timeline.  Maybe, we are the protagonists in our collective cyberpunk movie.

Anyhow, our future is always serviceable.  And remember, until we get to reconvene: keep your distance space cowboys :)

10 things to watch at home, not strictly Cyberpunk: 

Until the End of the World by Wim Wenders.  This is excellent, whimsical, and fantastic for fueling fernweh!  Please watch the full 4+ hour cut.

Demolition Man.  What happens when the transfer of bodily fluids is outlawed but somehow Taco Bell employees can still prepare food?  

Soylent Green.  Because it’s about a quarantined, scarcity marketplace, cast society America.

The Cabin in the Woods.  It may be horror but it takes a lot of tech and magic to keep that bureaucracy going, until it all stops with godly giant fire monsters,

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (風の谷のナウシカ). I think this is the unofficial sequel to Cabin in the Woods on a certain timeline, after the godly giant fire monsters expire. 

12 Monkeys.  This may hit too close for home, but can someone systematically spread a plague?

Sleep Dealer.  This is for all you WFM, even I have been remotely “piloting” a device.

The Strain series.  Season one is like now, but instead of Covid, vamps.

Idiocracy.  The deterioration of society, but with funny.

The Andromeda Strain.  Can technology fight a biological weapon?

And one edit:  Please donate to the Knockout staff fund and keep the venue alive!

[littlev1234]

PopSocket

Fandom: Carole & Tuesday

Pairing: Carole/Tuesday

Words: 1,764

AO3 Version: PopSocket

Note: So at first I thought the present Carole gave Tuesday was a PopSocket, and I got a lot of cute ideas for that concept. Thus this fic was born.  

~~~~~

“It’s way past your birthday, and, well, you can see the state it’s in, but…”

Despite the wrapping paper’s scuffs and tears, Carole’s fingers are gentle as she unwraps the little box. Tuesday’s heart thuds faster, and it is somehow louder in her ears than when she’d been sprinting to the train minutes ago.

Carole opens the box flaps and pulls out a tiny replica of Tuesday’s Gibson guitar. Its stunning details gleam in the light, and attached underneath is a circular piece of plastic.

Blue eyes shine with building tears. This gift had gone through so much. Carole had gone through so much, for her, for their friendship.

At her mother’s home, Tuesday had many pretty trinkets decorating the bedroom, but they were just that: decorations. Meant to fill the space, and devoid of meaning. The guitar PopSocket is the very opposite of that. Her guitar is an extension of herself, and music is how they met. Having a miniature version of it that the brunette had carried with her through thick and thin—it has infinitely more value than just its store price.

In the end, no water spills down her cheeks; instead, a smile blooms across her face. “Thank you.”

As they discuss what to sing for the competition, the blonde carefully sticks the PopSocket to the back of her phone. When she looks up, she catches Carole watching her before the keyboardist quickly glances out the window.

-

“Ugh, I could sleep forever,” Carole groans and plops onto the nearest bench. Legs weary, Tuesday sits down beside her and releases a long breath. Today was a busy day. Last-minute shopping, apartment chores (that they’d been neglecting for a tad too long), rehearsals.

They should head home soon, but having a breather is too tempting right now.

While the taller girl rests her head against the bench back, Tuesday pulls the tie out of her hair and shakes out the wavy tresses. Then she sits back too. Her body aches with exhaustion, but her mind remains active as she glances around.

The river slides quietly by in the distance. Among the bustle of city life, she hears snippets of conversations between people and obedient noises from AI. She tunes into the familiar background noise for a while. Eventually she looks at Carole again.

The other had fallen asleep. Eyes closed, she breathes deeply through her slightly parted mouth.

Considering Carole had to clean up half of Tuesday’s attempts to clean the apartment, it is no wonder she’s more tired. She deserves a few minutes of rest.

The blonde reaches into her purse and retrieves her phone. Ignoring the screen, she turns the device around and traces the mini Gibson’s edges with a calloused finger.

She starts opening and folding the accordion part of the PopSocket. Its mindless amusement entertains her until Carole shifts, and suddenly there is a hand lying on Tuesday’s thigh.

Emitting a soft squeak, Tuesday tenses. Her eyes shoot up to her friend’s face. The other is clearly still asleep, if the snoring is any indication. Thankfully, Carole moves again, and her hand ends up on the bench between them.

She waits until her warm face has cooled down to wake her companion.

-

Chest-rattling coughs wake Tuesday from her nap. Bundled under two blankets, she huddles further into her cocoon and grimaces at the drying sweat stuck to her skin. A wet rag slides off her forehead. She has to breath in through her mouth; God, the things she would do for a clear nose.

She strains her ears for signs of Carole. Finding none, she searches for her phone and finds it tangled between the sheets. She checks the time.

It’s mid-afternoon. Where is Carole? Her foggy brain takes a moment to remember the answer. Right, she said something about going to the laundromat.

It’s silly, and maybe childish, but she suddenly wishes her friend (crush?) would show up through the door right now. Her mother did always say she became clingy when sick. (“Just rest, Tuesday, and you’ll be fine by yourself. You’re not going to have someone to take care of you forever, so it’s best to get over it now. I won’t coddle you.”)

She could call for Ziggy, but the owl clock just doesn’t feel like enough.

Shame curls in her empty stomach. Her gaze strays to the PopSocket. She runs her thumb over and over the high-quality plastic, and she finds an odd comfort in its smooth texture.

Carole will be back soon, Tuesday reminds herself. She holds her phone against her chest and lets sleep overtake her once more.

-

Tuesday opens the PopSocket so she can lay the phone on its side. After going to the camera app and putting it in selfie mode, she scrutinizes her appearance. Is she wearing too much lip gloss? Is her blouse too fancy for this restaurant? Oh, there are some hairs out of place!

She hurriedly runs her fingers through golden locks. Despite her nervousness, she wears an excited smile that won’t leave. Any minute now Carole will walk through the doors, and their first official date could begin.

As she smooths down her bangs, her mind runs through various scenarios. Pulling out the chair for Carole, holding hands under the table, giggling over gossip, recalling fond memories, sharing a milkshake—

“Tuesday!”

The blonde startles out of her imagination and spots Carole approaching. Her mouth turns dry.

Carole is beautiful. Always is, but now Tuesday can finally say it without holding anything back.

-

The house feels bigger than she remembers. At first she stands by the doorway, as if she is merely a guest, and then she migrates to the dining room table. The security AI greet her; their metallic voices seem to echo in the quiet.

She hasn’t been back here in two years. After the elections, her mother hardly spoke to her. When they did speak, it was cordial, if strained. Valerie had at least acknowledged her independence and genuine drive for music.

However, there are still things unsaid, things Tuesday needs her mother to know. So she pushed herself into returning here. According to the AI, a meeting Valerie is in is going overtime, which means it will be a while before she arrives.

Antsy, she can handle sitting only for a few minutes before standing. She wanders through the first floor briefly and then heads to the second.

The door to her old bedroom opens without a sound. Everything looks just as she left it; someone had even been regularly dusting. The bed shows not a crease, and no smudges blur the dresser mirror’s surface. Stuffed toys rest on the bed. Her gaze lingers longest on her old, filled notebooks stuffed at the end of her bookshelf.

…she wants to look at what’s written inside them, but not today.

Sitting on the bed, she focuses on keeping her breaths even. She reaches into her purse and presses her fingers against the little guitar on her phone. Whatever happens today, she has a home to go back to.

Footsteps approach. Not clicking heels or sturdy flats, but the soft press of loafers.

“Spencer!” she greets as her brother enters the room.

“I have some things to talk to her about too, so I hope you don’t mind me waiting with you.” He crosses the room to sit in her desk chair, and they chat the minutes away. She reminds herself to invite Spencer over to her and Carole’s apartment sometime.

-

Roddy leans over the table to hand Tuesday’s phone back. “There you go. Some of your apps kept running even when they were closed, so I fixed some settings. Your phone’s battery should last longer now.”

“Thanks.” She makes sure to accept it with her right hand; her other fingers are still wet with pizza grease. Carole hands her a napkin, which she gratefully accepts. Meanwhile, Gus slouches further in his chair and rubs his full stomach.

“You’ve had that PopSocket for a while, haven’t you?” Roddy casually notes.

Tuesday nods. Regardless of how well she took care of it, it was inevitable that it would be nicked and lose its luster. “Carole gave it to me right before the Mars Brightest finale.”

Carole leans against her girlfriend’s shoulder to examine the little guitar. “I should get you a new one. It’s looking pretty beat up.”

The blond hums, neither agreeing or disagreeing. Logically she should get another one, and she doesn’t need it to feel connected to Carole anymore. But the sentiment behind it makes it hard to let go of.

Gus sighs with a nostalgic smile on his face. “To think, only a few years ago you two were nobodies. I did a pretty great job, if I do say so myself.”

“I helped. A lot, actually, considering I work for Ertegun too,” Roddy mutters.

“Girls, look behind you. That’s a nice sunset,” Gus abruptly remarks.

The young adults turn to look out the floor-to-ceiling windows. Between buildings, bold oranges and soft pinks saturate the sky.

“It’s pretty,” Tuesday comments.

“Yeah…it is a pretty sight,” Carole agrees.

When the guitarist turns, she notices the brunette is watching her instead of the sky. Warmth spreads through Tuesday’s chest.

Carole takes her phone and opens the PopSocket. “Let’s take a selfie, Tues.”

Thanks to the guitar attachment, it’s easier to hold the phone up without it slipping. The sunset beyond the restaurant’s windows makes a lovely backdrop to their smiling profiles.

“Ready?”

“Yeah.”

Instead of taking the photo immediately, Carole turns her head and kisses her on the cheek. Tuesday’s mouth opens in surprise. Click.

“Carole!”

Her girlfriend wears a toothy grin as she shows the selfie to her. “It’s cute! You’re so adorable when you’re surprised.” She stands and heads over to the other side of the table, where Gus and Roddy had watched the proceedings with fond looks. “Don’t worry, we’re not leaving you guys out. Let’s all take a selfie together.”

“That’s all right, I’m terrible in pictures…” Roddy attempts to dismiss, but the phone is thrust in front of him anyway.

“I’m tallest, so I’ll take the picture,” Gus offers, and she hands it to him.

Tuesday glances at the PopSocket between his fingers. It has served her well throughout her journey, and even if she doesn’t have it for much longer, she will never forget that day on the train. She walks over to the others, squeezes herself between Roddy and Carole, and tries to stifle a laugh as Gus struggles to take a non-blurry selfie.

[keelywolfe]

FIC: Outside Influences ch.5

Summary: The Fell brothers have a disagreement.

Tags:  Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Off-Screen Sexual Assault, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Aftermath of Violence, Pre-Spicyhoney, Blood and Injury, Injury Recovery, Aftermath of Sexual Assault

Please read the warnings on this one!!

Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four 

~~*~~

Read Chapter Five on AO3

or

Read it here!

~~*~~

Before they’d come to Snowdin, before their well-protected house with locks on the door and wards layered over every barred window and entrance, Edge spent most of his life sleeping outside. Curled up in the alleyways of New Home behind trash bins, hidden in filthy pockets dug out from trash heaps in the dump.

His first memory of sleeping in a bed was in this house, and he still slept lightly. Wary of any XP seekers creeping up on him, ones too immoral to take heed of a striped shirt despite the punishment of death if they were caught. Depending on LV-maddened Monsters to be rational wouldn’t bring one back from dust; his own first LV came from such an attack, sending a needle-sharp bone into the eye of his would-be murderer and sometimes Edge still remembered the screams.

He summoned such a bone now, small and hidden in his hand before opening his sockets to see where the weight of the stare he could feel was coming from.

By the bedside, Red stood looking down at them, his expression unreadable. It cleared Edge’s mind to see him, instinct allowing rationality and memory to return.

He was in his own bed, that much he remembered. He didn’t remember sinking down from his sitting position at the headboard, nor did he remember allowing Rus to curl up closer to him, all his slim weight pressed against Edge. Currently, Rus was more on top of him than not, his skull snugged into Edge’s shoulder. One long leg was slung over both Edge’s and they each had their arms around the other in a messy tangle of limbs. Edge's free hand had somehow worked itself beneath Rus's shirt, his fingers circling the strong line of his spine almost possessively. Edge let go hastily, but Rus didn’t seem to have Edge’s sense of awareness; he only slept on, his breathing soft and even. One of his hands was curled up loosely on Edge’s chest, his sleeve pushed up and even in the dimness Edge could see the darkened bruise circling his wrist, a stark reminder of why Rus was here.

The harsh gleam of Red’s eye lights was starker, prickling sharp. He jerked his head towards the door, walking off without waiting for Edge.

With a clench of his fist, Edge dismissed the attack and went to work at detangling himself from Rus. It was a more difficult task than he’d expected; Rus clung like one of the parasitic vines that curled up the pine trees in Snowdin forest, making a low, unhappy sound as Edge carefully loosened his grip and slipped free. He still didn’t wake, sighing softly as Edge drew the blankets back over him, tucking in the soft folds. Edge lingered a moment, absently tracing one of his coronal sutures, following the curve of Rus’s skull. Then he turned away.

His bare bone feet were silent on the carpet as he went after his brother, but the moment he closed the door behind him, Edge jerked to feel harsh pressure on his soul, the soft, audible ting as it turned blue.

“What—” the fuck. The words were bitten off, unspoken, as he was yanked forward, dragged forcibly down the stairs to land painfully on his knees at his brother’s feet, hard enough to knock off a couple of HP points.

With some effort, Edge lifted his chin enough to look up at Red, who glared down at him with one darkened socket, the other filled with blazing crimson fury. The fingers of his raised hand curled fractionally and Edge choked, struggling to breathe for one beat, two, and then Red’s grip relaxed enough to let him drag in one harsh inhale.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Red snarled. It should be disturbing to see that raw anger directed at him and what did it say that some part of Edge was ruthlessly pleased to see his brother’s protective instincts so roused for Rus, even if it was against him. He’d watched Red fight other Monsters so many times before, that razor-grin of his recklessly wild as he easily sidestepped their attacks, dragging their HP down to one before leaving them to bleed out, kicking their dust off his shoes without a backwards glance.

Red was pitilessly efficient, his anger only tempered now by who Edge was, protective instincts warring against each other. He knew his brother, knew how deeply buried the fragments of Red’s caring were, and wondered dimly if part of his anger was because they’d been unearthed and brought to light.

Edge only panted, struggling to breathe around the pressure still heavy on his soul, shaking his head, "There was nothing untoward going on."

"oh, no, nothing untoward,” Red said, saccharine sweet, contrasting with the blaze of his fury. That crazed strobe of his eye light increased to a seizure-inducing pulse. “two pals curled up all cozy, was that it?”

"He asked me to stay!"

"oh, he asked for it, did he. think that’s what those other fuckers told themselves?”

Crimson was the shade of magic and anger to Edge, but in that moment, rage flared white-hot, his own magic rousing in sharp warning. It was too close to what Rus accused him of before, the memory of Rus offering sex to him, his desperation and fear. Bad enough from Rus, but at least understandable, twisted in confusion as he was. That his own brother would even consider he would do such a thing…! Edge pushed back against Red’s phantom grip with a pulse of his own, the laws of gravity slippery between them as he snarled out, "Don't you even insinuate that I would take advantage of him! Don’t you dare!"

For one brief, eternal moment, they glared at each other with their magic straining against control, violence trembling on the brittle edge of tipping over. Then Red dropped his hand and stepped back, allowing Edge to struggle to his feet.

He fell back to lean against the banister, still panting. Shook himself like a wet dog, sloughing off the dregs of his brother’s intent. It was more difficult to wrench in his own magic, dragging it sullenly inward when it was eager to be used, sitting pulsing and ready since the moment he’d found Rus.

Red only stepped back, putting necessary space between them as he stripped off his jacket. He tossed it carelessly on the coffee table, one sleeve trailing along the floor. His shoes followed, this time placed properly on the mat even though a trail of wet footprints were visible on the carpet, leading up the stairs, but not down. By the time he turned back to Edge, his eye lights were their normal crimson.

"sorry ‘bout that,” Red said, finally, with rare sincerity, “i don’t think you would, bro. not on purpose. but he's confused as all fuck right now and i know how you feel about the honey bun."

"What?" Edge pushed himself upright to look at his brother blankly, the remains of his anger draining into confusion. "How I feel?”

That confusion only worsened at his brother’s skeptical look. It morphed slowly into dark, sardonic amusement, his permanent grin widening with a flash of sharp teeth. "really, bro?” Red shook his head. “we’re really gonna go here. okay, what’s his favorite movie?”

“What?” The non-sequitur only threw Edge off even more.

“movie,” Red repeated impatiently, sharp fingertips tapping.

“I suppose it’s that wretched one with those ghost hunters.”

“uh huh. how does he take his coffee?”

“With enough sugar and milk to turn it to mud, what are you—"

“favorite brekkie?”

“Pancakes drowning in honey,” Edge snapped irritably, “Enough! What are you getting at?”

Red only looked at him with blatant disappointment, as he might if Edge stupidly allowed mercy only to be attacked the moment his back was turned. “bro,” Red said, deliberately, “you know an awful lot about a guy you don’t like. c’mon, you two argue like advanced foreplay. me and sans have been making bets on how long it takes for you two to sack up for weeks. personally, i figured you’d give in by now, but you always were a stubborn shit.”

It was one of the more ridiculous assumptions he’d ever heard. Edge stalked over to sit down on the sofa that Rus kept avoiding, kicking Red’s jacket aside to brace a bare foot against the coffee table. He propped his chin on one hand and asked with mocking politeness, “And when were you go to mention this absurd theory of yours?”

“what, and ruin this prime entertainment?" Red grinned wolfishly. But it faded quickly into uncommon seriousness, "but the game is postponed for rain, kiddo. he’s not in a good place. you don’t watch yourself, you’re gonna fuck this up.” He stalked over and poked a sharp fingertip painfully into Edge’s sternum hard enough to scrape a bead of marrow. “better think long and hard about what you're doing." Red grimaced. “okay, that's a pun even i don't like, scratch it."

“There’s nothing to think about,” Edge said, coldly. He pushed back to his feet, “from now on, keep your idiocy between you and Sans.” He started back up the stairs, wary of letting Rus wake on his own after what happened the last time.

“do you even get how deep you’re digging yourself?” Red called out, each word tipped with razor intent. “you don’t have your head on any kind of straight over this! wanna know why i was even in your room, little brother? you didn’t lock the front door. storm's over, the buns are out clearing the roads and you were sound asleep, all ready for a knife in the back!”

The words drove in between his shoulder blades and Edge hunched as if they were a knife, stabbing deep. The locks were saturated with magic as was the door and while they couldn’t keep out a determined opponent, they would at least provide enough warning for them to wake and defend themselves.

Unless the door wasn’t locked.

They were useless bits of metal if the bolts weren’t thrown, leaving the house and its occupants unshielded and vulnerable to anyone bold enough to simply turn the doorknob.

Blue had slammed the door closed when he left, Red had shortcutted after him and Edge hadn’t locked the door because he’d been worried about Rus, worried about his reaction to his brother’s unexpected denials. Too worried, enough to cloud his judgement. Red was right, always fucking right, and what else was he right about?

He liked to think he was self-aware and his sudden clarity was unpleasant. Edge didn't hide from anything, not even unwelcome realizations. If he looked inward, he could see that perhaps there were moments of absurd fondness for Rus even in the midst of their past arguments, his exasperation tempered with something else entirely. Rus had been abrasive and rude from the start and Edge gave it back in spades, but didn’t he always return for more, wasn’t there a certain thrill to a perfect insult given or received?

Unwillingly, Edge thought of the kiss that Rus had forced on him. How would it have been if they'd both actually wanted it, that remembered sweetness eager instead of angry. Only Rus was so hurt right now, lost, and—

Red sighed, breaking through his circling thoughts, “he could be good for you, bro. maybe you’d be good for each other. work on getting a collar on him and you can find out. but not now. let’s work on getting this problem taken care of and then maybe.”

There was a sound of movement and they both looked up to see the light showing from beneath Edge’s door. But the door remained closed and Edge exhaled slowly, asking with deliberate softness, “What happened with Blue?”

From the scoffing sound Red made, he wasn’t fooled by the subject change, but he let it drop, “eh, the blueberry skulked around town for a while then went home. He was in the kitchen when i left, taking his bad mood out on some veggies. least the kid can handle a knife. when our sugar skull is feeling well enough to head for home, he’ll have something to snack on.”

The thought of Rus going back to Underswap to face his brother alone made sourness rise in the back of Edge’s throat. He managed to swallow it down and nodded curtly, starting back up the stairs. Through the creak of wood, he heard his brother say under his breath, “keep it in your pants, boss.”

Edge ignored him. His pants weren’t the problem when it came to Rus.

~~*~~

Read Chapter 6

[those-pink-specs]

So, um, yeah … I finally finished my great long rave about the Klámstrákur video … make of it what you will …

Maybe this is a load of hot garbage, but my starting point was what they’ve said about self-image and toxic masculinity.

But I reckon that if your toxic masculinity shows up in a latex crop-top and corset, there’s probably something interesting going on.

I had a quiet Sunday a couple of weeks ago, so I watched it really, really slowly and overthought the hell out of it.

Sssooo … tl;dr (because the bit after the cut is really long).

What if ..

·         the lighting and colours (and costumes) have consistent meaning, and are part of the storytelling?

·         it’s basically all an attack of angst in a bathroom: an internal power struggle with no clear winner?

·         everyone who appears is part of that person’s own psyche (except Einar, who is a memory)?

 I’m definitely not saying that any of my thoughts are a ‘right’ interpretation, or especially original for that matter. It was just fun to fit all the bits into a nice pattern that makes sense – at least to me.

[Even I’m quite surprised by how much I had to say about this in the end...]

Klámstrákur

The toxic-masculinity-in-a-corset interpretation

*TW: low key for discussion about anxiety and gender angst. Nothing heavy, but, hey, I know how easy they can be to set off at times …*

 So, this thing is Art and it can mean basically anything you want it to.

Most people see a narrative around sex work. The lyrics make it hard to get away from, in fact (though could be a metaphor for queerness – but never mind that). Anyhow, while I agree that sex work is the background, in my overthinky way, I don’t think the song is about that, precisely.

I like to overlay it with the idea that the two voices are the same person, and we’re mostly having a tour through his angst. This works okayish for the song on its own, but it’s much better in the video (or so I think).

Anyhow, we start in the bathroom. The scene is saturated in a deep, velvety red light. (I’m going to talk about lighting a lot.) A choir hums gently in the background. Our lad stumbles in, washes his face and has one of those ‘is that really me?’ moments in the mirror.

He shakes his head, as though trying to dispel bad thoughts – and that’s where we immediately go … and stay.

Bad thoughts.

We get a flash of Einar alone in a theatre. Then three nearly subliminal flashes of Matthías as we see him at the end. Only with his head in hands like this:

(Sorry for the shitty screen shot. Perfect gifs of this bit do exist, just not here.)

This has got to mean something, surely. It’s not there by accident. I pause to mention it now, but I’ll come back to it later…

 00:25 – … on stage…

A curtain brushes aside and we’re on stage. My interpretation is that the stage is his perception of the outside world and/or memory of the recent past.

Why? Because that’s where Einar is – and it’s the only place we see him. Einar is the only ‘outside’ person we see. So he’s being recalled and thought about as an audience. It’s a perfect metaphor for playing a role, as the outside world looks on. As I flippantly said on another post – Einar is the ‘male gaze’ on this rather ambiguous body. (I wrote it as a weird academic joke [‘male gaze’ is a feminist art theory thing], then went … oh wait … what if he is?)

And then … there’s that red light bathing everything in the theatre. I think the red represents (or reinforces) a concept. Possibly desire … for sex, sexuality, submission, androgynous or feminine expression … money, whatever – anything except the accepted norm for a nice cis-het bloke, basically.

We’re just 26 seconds in at this point – and our lad is recalling stripping off and dancing on his pole for Male Gaze Einar. But the recollection is starting to make him feel guilty, ashamed, anxious and sick (or just more so than he already was). He starts to panic, and think he’s dying – as you do. But he’s not really dying: it’s anxiety.

His thoughts start to circle. There’s a nightmarish hospital trolley – that he’s literally chained into (perhaps by the anxiety if we want to really push the metaphor – or at least by those serious-looking girls in catsuits). And then there’s the theatre where he’s dancing like the sinful, slinky mink he accuses himself of being.

The first time we see the trolley (at 0:59), it’s in a blue corridor –the first real change from the red – but as the other three in the scene approach, the trolley swings slowly back into a red corridor. Then, just as we get to the end of the intro … ég sé að deya (1:16)… back onto stage.

Don’t worry – I’m not going through the whole thing this slowly. In fact, for the first verse – where we’re hearing about what a degraded, weak little smut addict he considers himself to be – it’s mostly visual escalation. We cut between him being strapped tighter into the trolley in the red corridor, the stage, and a few shots of Male Gaze Einar starting to look … frisky…

At the end of the verse, it’s crisis time, because we get our first, momentous: Þú ert klámstrákur!!! … and so enters Matthías properly.

He’s mostly lit with blue. He’s wearing some very important pink specs (ahem) and a lab coat. And he is most certainly playing the part of ‘toxic masculinity’ as in internalised shame, guilt, and a self-hating need to conform to society’s expectations of maleness. He’s a part of our pole dancer’s psyche, though. Not someone else shouting at him: just his own desire to be someone else, to be another way. To be in control of himself. To not be gay or gender-bendy or a pole dancer … or whatever.

So I see something implied in the settings and lighting: red scenes, desire and immersion in the klámstrákur lifestyle; blue scenes, self-loathing and a need to control, purify and conform. And it’s a real tussle with … I think … no clear winner.

 01:45 … The spin out

I particularly like the next little bit.

Don’t look now, but between one bellow from Matthías and the next, we’re back on stage. And Einar has got a bit over-excited and is clambering over the seats. As in a dream, the pole has transformed into a chair full of pole dancer, and in one of the most memorable snippets, we get fingers tenderly/sexily making their way down Klemens’s chest.

Let’s enjoy a crappy screen shot of that for no reason at all:

[… oh my …]

And then that fabulous chair spin from the red stage to the blue clinic room (screen shots do not do it justice, so please just replay that bit in your head … I’ll wait …)

… Now how about this?

When he stumbled into the bathroom at the start – he was just starting to get anxious. And that bit with Einar was what set him off. Desire for some stranger. A touch. Something too gay or too … something … for his self-loathing part to handle. He panics, spins out and goes into cold self-hatred (blue clinic) needing to regain control, and to conform and purify.

And from the two minute mark – right through the next bit of verse where he lists all the things that ‘sometimes’ happen – that’s what’s going on. The list maybe be factual, or his fantasies, or angsty exaggeration, or some of each. It doesn’t matter, he seems to think he needs or deserves the treatment he’s getting, and submits to it wholly, like a góður drengur.

But – as I said at the start, that toxic masculinity in control of the situation is dressed a wee bit less masculine than you might expect. I mean – when you think about gender-panicky homophobes IRL, you don’t usually think latex crop-top and corset. But maybe it’s more about domination and control. This is the part of the psyche that seeks and exerts those things – so dominatrix chic may be just the ticket.

Anyhow, he’s bathed in the purity of that blue light, busily head-massaging away the gay, while screaming at himself for being filthy and disgusting.

[This is so fucking camp … why am I like this?]

 02:30 – ambiguity – or who’s the anxious one here anyhow?

From here on, things get really ambiguous and therefore really interesting.

New setting: this is a chamber with a nice pole in it, and windows so the Matthías character (now in a nice fluffy red coat that just screams ‘pimp’) and the serious girls in catsuits can watch at a safe distance.

And our pole-dancing boy is released from captivity for observation. And what happens then?

This …

Followed by this …

This little backward glance. An implied moment of eye contact.

What do you see? Is porn boy anxious? Unsure? Obedient?

Well, maybe.

But I like my queer boys a bit bolshy, so I see defiance. A look that says: ‘Think you can control me? Well game on, bitch.’

Because he really goes for it on the pole after that. Surely that lightning-quick crotch grab at 02:43, when he’s being called ógeðslegur karlmaður is a very clear ‘fuck you’!

[Really though?

Well why not?]

It’s easy to listen to the Eurosonic version and hear the Klemens voice suffer and panic, and just assume that he’s a victim. There’s no real story line to the lyrics, but the Matthías voice gets the last word, so we naturally suppose that our poor little filthy boy is somehow lost, or fighting a losing battle for survival.

But to me, the video evens things up a lot.

One of the reasons that I thought that both voices might be the one person even just in the live versions, was that the name-calling is so over-the top it seems kinda panicky. The video reinforces that – with the shouty voice being so obviously controlling. And the need to control is an anxious need. Internalised homophobia as a fear. So, Mr Shouty in the crop-top is as much an embodiment of anxiety as the filthy boy. Maybe more.

Because if they’re both inside the head of a lad having a panic attack in a bathroom, then it’s Mr Shouty who has caused it. He (Matthías) desperately needs to control his impulses (Klemens), maybe because he’s afraid of what will happen if he doesn’t.

[Does that make sense? I hope that makes sense to someone besides me.]

 Anyhow … back to the action … it’s game on, and the next bit (02:45 to 03:00) is a lot of shouting about filth and a whole lot of arse.

Uhm …

[well … quite …]

The battle pushes to-and-fro until we’re suddenly back here:

 What is this? Opening his pores? Who knows, but it’s a very cool effect. It definitely looks like punishment/purification (so very like opening one’s pores). The light is blue – just as hard and bright as before. No red in sight (there was a lot of red in the observation chamber – such was the power of the filthy boy’s wiggles). So control is seriously asserting itself again.

The struggle is real.

Now, from 3:02 – the really difficult bit – the couch:

The couch is long and low, lit blue and red at opposite ends with a homoerotic / bondage picture partly obscured by curtains. What does it signify?

The messages are really mixed, even just with Mr Shouty. He’s in his pimp coat screaming about his disgust, sometimes lit blue sometimes red – but he’s got filthy boy by the leash now.

So what is it? He hates himself, but he kinda gets off on being a slinky-mink pole dancer? It’s the same mixed message as the clinic outfit: ‘I’m your need to be a normal bloke – but I’m rocking this crop-top and corset look.’

Well … at risk of overdoing it by trying to fit everything together too neatly – what if the couch bits are about balance? Getting over the attack with a little give and take between the warring selves. Or something like that.

In the last minute, the war between clinic and pole is fierce – with interludes of couch.

When we see the couch we also see:

Porn boy’s leash being held, him dancing obediently and wearing more clothes. So less impulsive – under some control. The purifying ‘treatment’ has worked a bit. Pores cleansed.

Control freak still shouting but, as I said, he’s not looking like a dominatrix anymore – more like a pimp. So arguably, he’s secretly enjoying porn boy’s show while calling it filthy and disgusting. I think that’s the point – which I guess means that toxic masculinity also makes one a moralising hypocrite (‘that type: making a scene’ – though that’s not the official translation, sadly!). However, for now he seems comfortable watching – and he’s no longer trying so hard to control his filthy-boy self.

But, of course, the war isn’t over. How could it ever be, for an androgynous pole dancer with internalised homophobia and gender panic?

[Sounds horrible and I don’t recommend it. Just be a happy slinky mink and a cheeky sinful seal, that’s my advice.]

 So lastly …

This whole emotional-breakdown-in-a-bathroom theory would have been greatly assisted if we had even the tiniest throwback to the bathroom right at the end. But we (probably) don’t.

What we have instead, however, is a throw forward from those flashes of Matthías on the couch at 0:24 (I said I’d come back to that!). If I’m even vaguely right, then those flashes show the balance breaking down. The visual is of Matthías’s shouty half of the psyche – head in hands. What’s he feeling?

Our pole-dancing lad is staring at himself in the mirror at that moment, thinking of that excited audience member. His inner control freak, who had been moderately at ease with the dancing, and sitting on his comfy couch, is suddenly overwhelmed by guilt and flickers into breakdown … and it begins where it ends.

So it’s a cycle. Maybe.

Or maybe this is a load of hot garbage.