#sorry these tags are longer than the actual post

[some-stars]

a whole lot of people in the comments seem to think that there's an impermeable forcefield around their home, and will be very upset to learn just how much fecal bacteria there is on every surface in their living space at all times no matter what they do. sorry to be the one to break this to y'all but the barrier between "inside" and "outside" is more psychological than material!

obviously it's good to wash your hands more often than the average person probably does. i wash mine more frequently since 2020 than i did before--previously it was before cooking/eating and post-bathroom plus anytime something got on them; now it's also when coming home from anywhere medical or crowded high-touch settings like public transit or concerts or handling cash (interestingly this has had zero impact on how often i get sick, which was and remains "virtually never"). however, it is literally impossible to shame people into adopting a new behavior, because that's not how the human/ape brain works. you can shame someone out of doing something bad, but not into doing something good. sorry! you just can't! i know it feels so nice to yell and throw things but it accomplishes the opposite of what you want!

also, here is a sampling of tags on this post that are not thought patterns anyone should be encouraging, and if you find yourself thinking/feeling this way (when you aren't actually medically immunocompromised or living with someone who is, in which case these thoughts still aren't great for you emotionally but at least serve a real function) then you should be concerned:

#i feel so unclean if i don't do it immediately

#does no one else feel like u physically have germs on u when u touch stuff out in public#i come home from shopping and im like ewww eww eww my hands

#any time i leave the house it feels like theres an invisible layer of filth that covers me and gets worse the longer im out

#everything is dirty

#it's like I can feel how my hands are unclean when coming back from outside

#sanitize my hands everytime i'm outside because the world is FILTHY goddamn it

#like you really don’t feel nasty covered in all those outside germs??

further points:

"you all deserve to get covid and die/this is why covid is so bad” COVID is, quite famously, airborne! this reaction tells me that y'all are not logically assessing risks but instead are reacting to the vague horrifying concept of "the Bad Outside World is unbearably filthy and i must preserve my safe clean sanctum", which is not a great starting point for making public policy.

if someone washes their hands before eating, after using the bathroom, when showering, and any time they actually feel or look dirty, we're already at 8-10+ times a day. reacting with violent performative disgust to "i don't wash my hands whenever i return home from outside" as though it was "i never wash my hands ever" is another sign of where these reactions are coming from (not the thinking brain), because that is not what anyone actually voted for!

baffling to me how many people are assuming that everyone is taught as a child to wash their hands every time they come in from outside, because i wasn't and most people i know don't do that (or didn't pre-pandemic). as usual, Your Experiences Are Not Universal.

COVID trauma is very real and understandable, but this level of utter vitriol and loathing for people who don't feel viscerally contaminated when they step outside is just not reflective of reality, and it's certainly not useful for you or anyone else.

We ask your questions anonymously so you don’t have to! Submissions are open on the 1st and 15th of the month.

[grudgecollector]

hii queen! i saw that your requests are open, could you write something with daryl and a reader in the earlier seasons who are dating in secret? (they dont want no one to know because daryl is new to relationships and i believe he would be more reserved a little in the beggining), however the group ended up noticing how soft he is to her and how he always keep an eye on her😩 and also i just wanted to say that i read some of yours writtings and they are amazing💕💕

Gimme Shelter | Daryl Dixon x Fem!Reader

Tags: Swearing, twd typical violence, kind of slow burn, fluff, lightish angst, half proof-read

Words: 4.4k

A/N: Fank you so much nonny 💖😭 I've been really enjoying writing for Daryl, he was one of my biggest obsessions as a teenager, and that obsession will continue to prevail.

And this is such a cute request, I love secret relationship tropes so much. I decided to do Prison era!Daryl if that's okay, I assume you probably meant for like season 1 or 2, but I felt like it would be cute in the prison.

I know that a slow burn wasn't requested BUT the thoughts just kept coming the more I wrote. Also sorry this took so long to post.

Growing up people would always say you will find the one when you least expect it. Whether it’s in a grocery store, at the park, in a museum. That one person you’re bound to spend the rest of your life with will be there. As if they were waiting for you, and you for them. It was a fairytale dream, one that you lost faith in long ago. 

There were moments you had thought that maybe you finally found that person. Until disappointment would strike time and time again. Your experience with relationships had been less than ideal, never lasting longer than a year. Cheaters, liars, and worst of all abusers. Those types of men had always been the most drawn to you. Making you feel as if you were cursed somehow, unlucky. 

After a while and a slew of pity attempts, you gave up on dating for your own benefit. Deciding it would be best to focus more on yourself. Not allowing yourself to succumb to the societal pressure of getting married by twenty and popping kids out by twenty one. 

That was the dream of a delusional small town teenager, too young to think for themselves let alone plan a future family, and that had been your dream once upon a time. Maybe you read too many stories about young girls finding their prince charming and living happily ever after.

You started to value your alone time. Enjoying the feeling of not having to walk on eggshells in order to keep the other party happy. Things were smooth sailing for about two years. You changed your life around, got a new job, a new car, and a new apartment all within a few months. 

A newfound happiness was settling inside of you, you were beginning to find yourself again. You became more confident in who you were as a person, allowing yourself to actually live your life instead of just simply being alive. 

But life had a twisted sense of humor. 

Things started with frantic breaking news segments on the news. Reporters talking about the horrifying developments coming out of France. In the beginning you had hoped that things wouldn’t escalate past that, hoped that this would be an isolated incident. But things just got worse the more you watched. An unknown virus wreaking havoc across the entirety of Europe, spreading like wildfire across each country. 

After the first case of the virus was reported in Ohio, you started to worry. Things were getting too close for your liking, and with the details they were releasing it wasn’t going to get any better. With each new segment that aired your mother would call, urgently telling you to come back to live with them until this sickness blows over. You knew that it would be your best bet. 

Once the local grocery stores started getting raided, you found yourself being thankful that your family was full of survivalist nuts. Growing up hearing them praise people like Jim Baker, and other televangelist hackjobs like him that weaponized fear mongering for profit. 

Your parents home was stocked full of all the essentials thanks to your aunt Jess. First aid kits, canned food, water to last just a little over a month. It was everything you needed and more. 

“Y’always gotta be prepared, honey.” Your wine-drunk aunt had told you after a week, the both of you lounging on the sofa as you watched the news. “You don’t know how long this crap’s gonna last.” 

It all went by so quickly. The news stations eventually stopped airing not long after the first report hit Georgia, they were urging everyone to evacuate to Atlanta, leaving the streets a mess of honking and dead-stop traffic right outside of your parent’s home. 

And for a short while you had settled into this false hope that you were safe there with them. 

That was until you came back from a short trip to a ransacked Dollar General just down the street. 

The house was oddly quiet when you walked inside. The TV was muted on a flickering static screen, your dad’s recliner was empty, a blanket on the floor. The backdoor that led to the porch was ajar, the sun shining through the crack onto the wood flooring. You remembered that feeling in your stomach as you walked closer, fingers slowly curling around the doorknob. 

When you walked outside it felt as if a bucket of ice water was dumped over your head. The horrifying sight of your mother’s body being gutted by your own father and uncle, fresh blood dripped down the side of the RV next to your aunt’s already mangled corpse. Your hands were trembling fiercely, a nauseating coppery smell filling your nose. 

All you could remember was running. Packing whatever you could get your hands on before taking your mother’s minivan.  

Not long after the death of your family, you were taken in by a small group of five. They were unstable, barely hanging on by a thread, with almost nightly arguments tilting them further over the edge. 

It made things harder for you. The tension starting to make you too nervous to sleep without a knife tucked securely under your pillow. 

The self appointed leader demanded too much, wanting more than half of the rations to himself. He was a cruel hearted individual, mind diluted by the atrocities you were all forced to witness. A dangerous man who was quick tempered, and ruthless to anything or anybody you came across. 

After a month of running with them you made a mistake. You hid a portion of your findings from him. Food that he would have taken the majority of. But you were starving, at the point of hardly caring about your survival if it meant you could eat just a little bit more.

Other members had found out though, outing you quickly. As a punishment he tied you up, stole everything from you. Photo albums, your weapons, your food, bandages, it didn’t matter what it was. After beating you he left you in the supply closet of a convenient store you were temporarily camping out in. 

Part of you half expected them to come back, but you knew better than to think positively now, that could get you killed nowadays. 

The minutes blended into hours into what felt like days. The zip ties around your wrists and ankles dug harshly into your skin, biting into the raw bleeding flesh as you struggled to free yourself. Eventually it got to the point where you started slipping in and out of consciousness, your body exhausted and dehydrated. You were sure you would die there. 

But, much to your surprise, your luck hadn’t run dry just yet. 

In your haze you could hear the sound of once shuffling corpses hit against the door with a heavy thud. Hushed voices barely graced your ears through the door, two men talking to each other. 

Your voice was hoarse as you pathetically attempted to call out. Your throat was dry from the lack of water, forcing your words to come out as a croaking squeak.  

The door had been opened cautiously, the beam of a flashlight assaulting your eyes. You attempted to focus on the man crouching down above you, his blurred features obscured by the baseball hat he wore. 

“Rick!” The man called over his shoulder, another figure coming into view. He was wearing what seemed to be a police officer’s uniform. Whether it was stolen or actually his, you didn’t care, you just wanted out of this damn closet. 

Both men were quick to cut your binds and hauled you to your feet. The quick motion was all it took for you to finally pass out. A thick blanket of exhaustion pressed into you, forcing your eyes to flutter closed and your body to go completely limp. Unable to cling onto consciousness any longer

In those last moments you almost thought that they would just leave you there. Not wanting to bother helping a now passed out stranger, and you wouldn’t have blamed them if they did abandon you. 

Instead when you woke up you were laying on a couch, an older man with short white hair standing over you. 

At first you had almost believed you dreamed it all, the outbreak, the group. That you were in some sort of comatose state and the world was not overrun by flesh eating monsters. But the stinging pain deep within your wrists proved otherwise, the gashes covered by white gauze and medical tape. 

The white haired man, Hershel, ran you through your current state. Malnourishment, dehydration, feverish temperatures. It was evidently clear that you had been through the wringer, and if Glenn and Rick had not found you when they did, you would have died within the day. In fact he had said it was a miracle that Hershel himself could have saved you. 

You figured you had always been stubborn, though, you never gave up easily. 

Hershel had been kind enough to allow you to stay in his house until you got better. Providing you with enough water and food to get you back on your feet. 

The family allowed you to use their shower. When you looked at yourself in the mirror you understood why they were so insistent. A thick layer of grime and blood coated your skin, your hair was matted, your clothes ripped beyond repair. 

You couldn’t help but cry, realizing just how quickly you lost yourself out there. Your humanity has faded so much in such a short amount of time, leaving you a hollow shell of your former self. You looked like a stranger to yourself.

Over the next week Rick’s group urged you to stay. They knew you had nowhere else to go, no family to run back to. 

You were hesitant, though. You didn’t want to continue to be a burden, you were a stranger infiltrating an already close knit group. The closeness they had made you feel even more lonely than you did in your previous group, because at least when it came to them, you didn’t crave that companionship. 

Gone were the days of blind trust, knowing that everything always came with a price these days. So your knife stayed tucked beneath your pillow, fingers clutching onto the handle as you kept an eye on the zipped up entrance of the tent. 

On many sleepless nights, which were frequent, you would sit yourself in front of the dwindling fire outside of your tent. Mind wandering to everything that’s happened to you in the past three months, the things you’ve done to stay alive, the permanent scars you would carry with you for life. 

You stewed in your bitterness. Chewing ruthlessly on the skin around your fingernails. 

Your tent was further away from the rest of the group’s, tucked away in your own area. You found yourself watching the rest of them at first. Thoughts of running away while everyone slept crossed your mind more times than you could count. 

Until one night you heard a twig snap behind you, your knife quickly unsheathed and pointing towards what you thought to be a threat, 

“Geez. You’re almost as bad as Daryl.” One of the older men from Rick’s group, Dale, chuckled as he walked closer to your secluded camp, his hands up in surrender. “But I can go if you want.” He smiled softly. 

“Sorry… Bad habit.” You said quietly, setting your knife back down next to your thigh. 

He shook his head, taking a seat in front of the fire, “No need to be sorry. I can’t blame you for still being a little paranoid.” 

Dale quickly became a source of comfort for you, sporting an almost fatherly personality when talking to you. He was kind, and realistic which was exactly what you needed after everything you’ve been through. Over the course of a few nightly visits he was able to get you to open up a little, telling him about your former group, he was sympathetic and understanding. 

“The world has truly gone to hell.” He grimaced, taking his bucket hat off of his head. “But, we have good people here. Believe it or not.” His smile was reassuring. 

After a few days you started to come around more. Helping the women with laundry, listening to the stories they told about their lives before, anecdotes to keep themselves sane. 

It wasn’t hard to understand why they were so close. The tragedy of their former camp just outside of Atlanta, the C.D.C, Lori’s son getting shot, the people they’ve lost along the way. 

Slowly you felt more like yourself again.

Every so often they would mention that same name Dale did, Daryl. The only member of the group you had yet to meet personally. 

You had seen him walking around the camp, or tucked away in his own tent, further away from the group much like yours was. He was gruff looking, intimidating to the eye, and his occasional temper didn’t help much. But with how insistent he was on finding Carol’s missing daughter, you could tell there was warmth beneath his rigid exterior. 

The first time you talked to him was less than ideal. You were attempting to set up a snare trap in the woods, wanting to try and contribute a little bit more. The frustration quickly turned to embarrassment when he snuck up on you. Your feet got caught in your own trap and caused you to trip and fall. 

“Looks like y’caught somethin’.” Daryl attempted to joke, walking past you and deeper into the woods with his crossbow pointed towards the trees. 

You cut yourself free of the poorly made snare and ran to catch up with him. Choosing your words carefully. 

“Daryl, right?” All you got was a grumble in response, “Listen I know you don’t know me or anythin’... But could you teach me how to hunt?” 

“Teach yourself. I ain’t got time for babysittin’.” His response stung a little, harsher than you had hoped it would be. 

You figured you should have expected that, though, the conversation him and Shane had this morning was heated. An argument almost leading to a full on fight. The tension was growing higher and higher as the days dragged on with no signs of Sophia. 

Then the group found out about what was inside the barn.

One day when Rick was out helping Hershel, Shane took it upon himself to break the chains on the barn door. Walker after walker spilled out, being shot down ruthlessly by some members of Rick’s group, while the Greene family cried out for them to stop. Their worst nightmare coming true, as well as Carol’s. 

A little girl limped out, skin grey and beginning to rot. Her hair was matted with leaves, eyes a milky grey color, and a rasping snarl emitting from her. There was a large gash on her shoulder, a bite. It was devastating to see a child fall victim to such a death. But even more so for Carol, coming to realize that each day they restlessly searched, she had already been dead.. 

The safety that the farm provided didn’t last long after that. 

Shane was quickly losing his grip, Dale was killed by a lone walker, and eventually the fields were overrun by walkers. A massive hoard stumbling onto the property, drawn in by the frequent gunfire. 

You had lost quite a few on that night, good people that had helped you come out of your shell, people that didn’t deserve what they got. In all honesty you didn’t think you would have made it out either if it wasn’t for Andrea and Daryl. 

After the fall of the farm, you were all lost. Hershel and his family had lost their home, and the entire group was left to search. 

But you had to bury your sadness for the time being, winter was quickly approaching. The leaves were changing into a crisp orange color, and the wind had a bite to it in the mornings, leaving you shivering as you huddled closer to the fire. Daryl had been kind enough to let you borrow his poncho some nights, insisting you probably needed it more than him. 

Daryl seemed to warm up to you after a while too. He would subtly make sure you ate by leaving a half eaten can of vegetables next to you, or would occasionally sharpen your knife for you after doing his own. It was a kind gesture, letting you know that he was starting to trust you. 

Eventually it got to the point where your group finally ran out of canned food. There were no stores around, and everyone was too cold or tired to go anywhere. So Daryl decided to take you out to the woods, finally going out of his way to teach you how to hunt. 

“Y’know what you’re trackin’?” He asked one day, slowly walking beside you, following a small winding trail in the woods. 

You were quiet for a second, thinking as you analyzed the tracks next to your feet, “Could be a deer, whatever it is, it’s got hooves.” 

“Obviously.” He huffed, resisting the urge to smile when you glared at him. 

“Shut the hell up, man.” A small sigh came from you, “Could be a hog.” You crouched down and moved the leaves out of the way to get a better look, “The prints are close together, if it were a deer they’d be further apart, right?” 

Daryl just shrugged, “You tell me.” 

That’s how your hunts would usually go, Daryl providing frustrating nonanswers as you attempted to close in on your prey. He wasn’t going to babysit you, as he had originally said when you first asked, you had to figure it out yourself. You knew that was the only way you’d be able to learn, even if it was mildly annoying. 

The winter finally started to melt into spring, temperatures rising and falling occasionally until settling into an in between. And soon enough your restless searching came to an end, the high chain link fences surrounding a prison with walkers meandering the expansive field calling your names. A soon to be shelter for your group and many others. 

The fight against Woodbury had been a painful ordeal, with Maggie and Glenn getting taken hostage, and Daryl leaving with his brother. The group was briefly left in shambles, hanging on by a thread as Rick slowly faded away, losing his way after Lori’s untimely death and the birth of her daughter. 

When Daryl left it broke your heart a little. The two of you had bonded over the course of the harsh winter, often seeking each other out as a heat source. Whispering stories of your families filling the silence as the biting wind wrapped itself around you. But you could never blame him for leaving, knowing you would do the same thing if you could. 

The first attack from the Governor was when Daryl finally returned, his mouthy brother in tow. They had rescued Rick on the outskirts of the fence, luckily finding him just in time before he was overpowered. 

It made you happy to see your friend again, a hand squeezing his shoulder before pulling him into a hug. It had been a lot less awkward than you expected, his arms wrapping around your middle and squeezing softly, reassuring you that he was okay. 

“Well, ain’t that just cute.” Merle had teased, pinching his little brother on the cheek. 

But the tragedies were never ending, your group seemed to constantly be one step away from death’s doorstep. 

The Governor decided to make his way back to the prison, armed gunmen following behind him. 

They wanted to execute every last one of you no matter what it took. Your group had laid out traps, pretending to have left as requested, lulling them in with a false hope that you were gone. Until the shrill sound of the prison sirens started, smoke grenades being thrown down at their feet in the darkened hallways. 

The armed militia of men, mothers, and teenagers the Governor recruited had run away in fear, knowing that their fates would be sealed if they stayed any longer. 

As the weeks continued after the attack, things started to look up. That once forgotten positivity slowly makes its way back into your heart, along with a smile as you allow yourself to get to know the former residence of Woodbury. Your community was slowly forming, a home being made out of the prison. 

It was easy to become comfortable. 

And as your fondness grew for Daryl, you remembered what your mother used to tell you. 

“You will find the one when you least expect it.” 

Who knew that the world had to end in order for you to find him. With every soft touch, lingering whisper, and a quick stolen kiss in the shadows of your cell, it grew increasingly more obvious that your mother may have been right. 

Daryl was the only person you felt safe enough to be vulnerable around. His gentleness towards you breaking down the walls around your heart, settling himself deep within it. And you gladly let him. You both decided to keep your relationship a secret. Enjoying the thrill of sneaking around, while also avoiding any teasing remarks that would come from your group. 

You knew that this was Daryl’s first serious relationship, so you wanted to allow him the grace of warming up to the idea. You wanted him to become more comfortable with himself, taking his time with you, soothing any anxious wandering thought he may have. 

But you knew that the group would notice eventually. Hell, they already were. The small teasing remarks being thrown your way would make Daryl stiffen. He would pick at the strings on his denim jacket as he huffed and grumbled something in response. 

“You want me to slip her a note or somethin’?” Carol teased him, nudging her elbow into his side, “Do you like me? Check yes or no.” She laughed quietly when he rolled his eyes, “Come on Daryl-” 

She was cut off by someone running up to him, Glenn’s frantic eyes meeting Daryl and Carol’s before quickly sputtering out your name, “I don’t know what happened but-” 

The poor boy could barely get the words out before Daryl ran off towards the cell block. 

You were laying in your cell, blood covering your shirt as your side bled profusely. Hershel was quick to try and stop the bleeding, urging everyone to give him room to work. 

“If you want her to live, get out, now!” 

The blood drained from Daryl’s face as he looked at you. Bruises were beginning to bloom on your face and arms, your nose was bleeding and there was a slash on your cheek. Your boyfriend directed his anger towards one of the new members you had taken on a run, pinning him roughly against the concrete wall with his forearm. 

“The hell happened out there?! Huh?!” Daryl shouted in the scared man’s face, shrinking in on himself as Rick and Maggie tried to pull Daryl off. “Talk!” 

“We-” The man gulped, “We got attacked by a small group…” There were tears in his eyes as he tried to explain, his swollen lip trembling. He didn’t look much better than you did honestly, his eye was almost swollen shut, and there was blood coating his hairline, “She said- said she knew them, some group she was with. I thought they were gonna k-kill us.” He swallowed harshly, “They shot her…”

Daryl swore he could see red. His shoulders heaving as he started to pace, fingers running through his hair as he tried to process what the man had said. His face was hot, body pulsing with anger as he glanced back into your cell to see you lying there motionless. 

He stalked back up towards the man, his gaze hard and threatening as he spoke in a gruff voice, “If she dies, her blood is on your hands.” He pressed his finger hard into the man’s chest, pushing him harshly back into the concrete wall before stalking towards the exit of the prison. 

It took the entire council to talk Daryl out of hunting this group down himself. Carol telling him it was a suicide mission, and he would die if he left like this. Going into a situation blinded by rage was never good for anyone, especially now, with you lying unconscious in your cell. 

Luckily for you the bullet went straight through, and all they had to do was wait for you to wake up. 

Daryl didn’t dare leave your side, a rag gently dabbing across your forehead as he whispered softly to you. Unspoken words that he had wished he had told you sooner, words that only you were allowed to hear him say, something he had never dared utter to another person. Not even his own family. 

“I love you.” 

The time seemed to drag on slowly as he waited, his watchful not leaving you for more than a few seconds. His gentle fingers traced patterns on your skin, ignoring the occasional staring that would come from someone passing by your cell. He couldn’t bring himself to care about the secrecy, not now. 

“That fuckin’ tickles.” He suddenly heard you rasp, your eyes fluttering open and glancing down at his fingers on your forearm. 

Relief washed over Daryl like cool rain on a hot summer's day. His shoulders sagged and he couldn’t help but lean his head down to rest on your arm, a long sigh being released from his lungs. 

“Daryl…” You whispered, making him look at you, “It was my old group.” 

The look on your face was similar to the one you sported when they first found you, terrified, lost, confused. You didn’t know what to do with yourself knowing that not only were they still alive, but a lot closer than you would have liked. 

“I know.” He replied, his hand holding onto yours, “You don’t have t’worry about that right now.” 

Even though you were able to find happiness in the apocalypse, tragedy never ceased to sneak up from behind every corner. And you guessed that it had become easy to forget that life had a cruel sense of humor. 

It always would.

[minoulapin]

Chapter Four: A Game of Teeth - Between Giving & Taking - Y. JW

Pairing: Demon!Jungwon x Angel!FReader

Genre: Forbidden Love, Fantasy, Romance, Mystery

Wc: 6.7k

Tw: This chapter contains subjective content, implied jealousy, and mild violence with brief mentions of blood. The characters and their actions are purely fictional and do not reflect the real-life personalities of the individuals they are inspired by.

Synopsis: A love unspoken, a fate unwritten, An angel and demon, forever forbidden. Bound by the laws of heaven and hell, A story of longing they dare not tell. At the Academy of the Occult, angels and demons coexist under a fragile truce. But when a celestial heir is assassinated, war looms, secrets unravel, and forbidden desires ignite. In a world where their love is a crime, will they defy fate or be consumed by it?

A/N: Coucou… okay, I’m sorry I lied. It did take me longer than expected to post this chapter. The truth is, I was literally just brought back from the dead to celebrate Beomgyu’s birthday… I actually died because of Buff Beomgyu last week (not fiction, it actually happened), but now I’m back. Okay, I think this chapter is kinda fun!! I did use my favorite plot development device… Heeseung, my love! Hee main character era? But guys, don’t misinterpret Hee☹️ Heeseung is not the villain. He’s just a little shit😌 As always, if you have any questions or want to just scream at me or discuss anything, feel free to send me an ask!! So, on that note, enjoy this long-awaited chapter. -Joe

Tag list: open!! @stormy1408 @miraeluv @indigoez @riribelle @iifrui @m3l4nchol @bamguetismee @w1dyvnn (Comment to be added)

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The Celestial Heir was more than a ruler.

He was a beacon. A legend passed down through generations, his name woven into the fabric of history like divine scripture. His deeds were not merely recorded, they were carved into the foundation of their world, upheld as absolute truth.

The savior of the First War.

The leader who drove the demons back into the depths of their domain.

The strategist who sealed the Rift, ensuring peace for centuries to come.

Without him, the celestial world would have fallen. That was the belief. That was the story.

His existence was proof of the Dominion’s divine power. His leadership had delivered them from ruin. His death, the single greatest tragedy of their time. But history was a fragile thing. A story told by those who had the power to shape it.

And the more Y/n searched, the more the cracks began to show. The heir had disappeared for years before returning as a hero. No one questioned it. No one wondered why. His name was revered, yet few could recall the specifics of his rule. His victories were celebrated, yet the records of how he had achieved them were incomplete. Vague.

Carefully constructed. And now, with his murder unraveling the foundation of their world, one question lingered like an unspoken curse.

What was the Heir’s true role in the First War?

The morning air was crisp, carrying the scent of dew-damp stone and freshly brewed tea from the Academy kitchens. The early sunlight cast long shadows across the marble pathways, its golden hues giving the illusion of warmth even as the air remained sharp from the lingering chill of the night.

Students filtered through the courtyard in slow-moving clusters, chatting lazily, finishing the remnants of their breakfast, or hurrying to their first lessons. It was an ordinary morning. But Y/n felt anything but ordinary.

“I swear it was there, Jake,” she said, voice tight with frustration. “The door was real. I saw it. I was standing right in front of it.”

Jake gave her a long, level look, the kind that said he was listening but also deeply debating whether or not to believe her.

“And yet…” He gestured to the empty space in front of them, voice unimpressed. “It’s not here now.”

She gritted her teeth. “That’s exactly the problem.” They were walking toward the eastern wing of the Academy, past arched windows that overlooked the training grounds below. The same dimly lit corridor where she had seen it, the heavy, ancient-looking door at the end of the hallway, its presence almost wrong in how it had drawn her forward.

And yet, now that she was back—

It was gone.

Y/n came to an abrupt stop, staring at the empty space where it should have been. The corridor stretched before them, plain, normal. Nothing out of place.

Jake raised an eyebrow. “So where’s your magic door?”

She ran a hand through her hair, scowling at the perfectly ordinary wall. “I don’t know. But I’m not crazy.”

Jake sighed, rubbing a hand down his face. “I never said you were crazy.”

“You were thinking it.”

“I was considering it.”

She shot him a glare, arms crossing tightly over her chest. “It was here, Jake. I know it was.”

Jake studied her for a long moment, then turned back toward the wall, squinting like maybe, just maybe, he’d see something she didn’t. He wouldn’t. She had already checked. Already searched for anything that would prove she hadn’t just imagined it. A hidden mechanism, a leftover trace of magic, anything. But there was nothing. No markings, no symbols, no hint of what had once been there.

Jake clicked his tongue. “If the door was there…” He trailed off, rubbing his jaw. “Then what the hell was it doing there in the first place?”

She exhaled sharply, her fingers twitching. That was the real question. Why was it here at all? And why was it gone now? Doors didn’t just disappear. And it wasn’t just that it had vanished, it was that it had felt important. Like something was waiting on the other side. Like something had called her there. And yet, Someone, or something, had erased it.

Y/n clenched her jaw, frustration simmering beneath her skin. “It has to mean something. If that door wasn’t supposed to be there, then why did I see it?”

Jake exhaled, hands finding his hips. “I don’t know, Y/n.” He gave her a careful look. “But I do know you’re spiraling.”

She opened her mouth to argue, but Jake held up a hand.

“You barely slept,” he pointed out. “You spent half the night chasing something that apparently doesn’t exist. And now you’re dragging me across campus to stare at a wall?” He gestured toward the empty space. “It’s not here. What do you want me to do?”

She clenched her jaw.

“I want to know why.”

Jake gave her a tired look. “Of course you do.”

She gritted her teeth, willing herself not to snap at him. She knew how it sounded. But that didn’t make it any less real. Because something had happened last night. And Professor Aldric knew it.

Y/n’s fingers twitched, pulling at the hem of her sleeve. “Aldric was there.”

Jake blinked. “What?”

“Professor Aldric.” She turned to him, voice dropping slightly. “He found me right as I was about to open it.”

Jake frowned, his interest piqued.

Y/n’s lips pressed into a thin line. “He wasn’t surprised to see the door.”

Jake’s brows pulled together. “What did he say?”

She hesitated, remembering the professor’s words. The way his voice had been measured, almost cautious.

“He told me I shouldn’t be there.” She met Jake’s gaze, jaw tight. “And then he said something else. ‘The Academy isn’t as safe as it used to be.’”

Jake’s eyes narrowed. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know,” Y/n admitted. “But it sure as hell wasn’t just some warning about wandering the halls at night.”

She let out a slow breath, rolling her shoulders like she could physically shake off the unease curling in her chest.

Aldric knew something. Something about the door. Something about the Academy. And he hadn’t wanted her to find out.

Jake exhaled through his nose, rubbing the back of his head. “Well. That’s suspicious as hell.”

She nodded. “Exactly.”

Jake studied her for another long moment, then exhaled sharply. “Alright. So let’s assume the door was there and Aldric knew about it. Why show up right as you were about to open it?”

She swallowed, suddenly feeling the weight of that thought. Maybe it wasn’t about her. Maybe it was about what was on the other side. Jake must have caught onto her silence because he nudged her with his elbow.

“Think, Y/n.” His voice was lower now. “Have you found anything in your research that could explain the meaning behind it?”

She exhaled sharply. “No.”

And that was the problem. She had found nothing. Everything she had read so far, the records, the archives, the official documents, was too neat. Too perfect. Everything was either too normal or incomplete. Nothing new. Nothing interesting. It was like she was going in circles. And she hated going in circles.

She clenched her fists. “I need to get inside the restricted archives.”

Jake’s brows shot up. “Y/n.”

She ignored his tone. “If the books we have access to are just carefully selected versions of history, then I need the ones we’re not supposed to see.”

Jake exhaled, rubbing a hand down his face. “This is a terrible idea.”

She smirked. “Wouldn’t be the first one.”

Jake gave her a flat look. “I mean it, Y/n. If you get caught—”

“I won’t.”

Jake narrowed his eyes. “That’s what you said the last time you—”

She waved him off, already turning toward the main building. “I’ll figure it out.”

Jake groaned. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

But Y/n wasn’t listening anymore. Because for the first time since she had started this investigation. She finally had a real plan.

They started walking again, cutting through the main courtyard where students milled about, finishing their breakfast or preparing for morning lessons. The soft hum of conversation filled the space, ordinary, predictable.

But Y/n barely noticed. Because she could feel it again.

That weight on the back of her neck. The sharp, unshakable awareness of being watched.

It wasn’t the first time. And somehow, she had grown familiar with the feeling. She didn’t know why. Didn’t know how she could recognize his gaze so easily. But she did.

She didn’t need Jake to tell her. She already knew who it was.

Jungwon, stood across the courtyard, under the shadow of the archway, arms crossed, his gaze locked onto her. Not subtly. Not casually. With an intensity that made something in her chest pull tight.

Jake noticed too. “Did you do something new to piss off the demons?”

She frowned. “What?”

Jake nodded toward Jungwon, lowering his voice. “Because he’s been staring at you like you cursed his entire bloodline.”

She scowled, shifting her weight. “Maybe I did.”

But she was already thinking about it. Because Jungwon had been everywhere lately. Always watching. Always present. Like he knew something. Like he was waiting for something.

And the more she thought about it, the more she realized it had started long before today.

Their first encounter had been nothing but a battle of sharp words and pointed remarks. She had expected him to ignore her after that. Expected him to forget her, the same way she had tried to forget him.

But he hadn’t.

Instead, he had been there.

Watching her during class, lingering a second too long when their paths crossed in the halls. There was something about the way he looked at her, like he was waiting for her to slip up.

Like he was trying to figure her out.

And Y/n?

She hated to admit it, but she had started noticing him too. Because Jungwon was strange. Unpredictable. When he spoke, his words were sharp, calculated. But there were moments, small, fleeting moments, where something flickered behind his eyes. Something unsaid. Something she couldn’t place.

And Y/n hated not knowing. She had tried not to care. Tried to convince herself that Jungwon was just another demon. Just another obstacle standing in her way. But every time she looked at him, every time his gaze held hers for a moment too long, it felt like his presence lingered even after he was gone. Like she could still feel his eyes on her. And she wasn’t sure if she was imagining it. Or if he was doing it on purpose.

She exhaled sharply, tearing her gaze away.

Did he want to know the truth, too? Or was he just trying to stop her?

Because if Jungwon had been keeping tabs on her, if he had been watching her this whole time, then he already knew she was looking for answers.

And that meant he was either curious. Or he was waiting for her to make a mistake.

The thought frustrated her more than it should have. She hated things that didn’t make sense. She hated questions without answers.

And Jungwon?

He was all of those things at once.

Unreadable. A walking mystery. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to figure him out Or tear him apart just to see what was inside.

Jungwon wasn’t watching her. At least, that’s what he told himself.

His gaze was on the courtyard, drifting past groups of students, past the idle chatter, past the ordinary rhythm of the Academy. But even as he tried to focus elsewhere, his eyes kept finding her, kept catching flashes of her, the curve of her posture, the subtle furrow in her brow as she spoke to Jake.

She was a problem. A problem that had nothing to do with him. And yet, He was aware of her in a way he had never been aware of anyone.

It was more than just noticing her. More than just keeping track of where she was, what she was doing, who she was talking to.

It was deeper. More instinctive. And he hated it.

Jungwon had spent years learning control. It was what made him different. It was what made him better. While others acted on impulse, he measured his steps. While others let emotions cloud their judgment, he remained detached. That was why he had survived this long. That was why he had risen above the rest.

So why—

Why the fuck did she make him feel like this?

“You might as well admit it at this point.”

Jungwon didn’t react, but his jaw clenched.

Heeseung slid up beside him, moving with that insufferable ease, hands tucked into his pockets, his ever-present smirk already in place.

“You’re watching her again,” Heeseung drawled. “Honestly, it’s getting embarrassing.”

Jungwon exhaled slowly, refusing to take the bait.

“What did you tell her yesterday?”

Heeseung arched a brow.

“Oh? You mean last night?” He tilted his head slightly, smirk deepening. “You should’ve seen her, Jungwon. Out past curfew, wandering straight toward something she shouldn’t have seen. It was almost cute.”

Jungwon’s fingers twitched.

Heeseung let the words settle, then leaned in slightly, voice dipping lower.

“You don’t even have the excuse of following orders this time,” he mused. “No one told you to keep an eye on her. And yet…”

Jungwon finally turned his head, gaze sharp, cutting. “What did you tell her?”

Heeseung sighed, long and theatrical.

“You’re asking the wrong question.”

Jungwon’s patience was hanging by a thread.

“Enlighten me.”

Heeseung hummed, as if savoring the moment.

“The question isn’t what I told her,” he said slowly. “It’s why you care.”

Jungwon’s breath stilled for half a second, just enough for Heeseung to notice.

Heeseung grinned.

“Oh, that hit a nerve.”

Jungwon’s fists curled at his sides. “You’re full of shit.”

Heeseung simply laughed, unbothered.

“Relax,” he said lazily. “All I did was offer my help.”

Jungwon’s stomach twisted.

Heeseung smirked. “Didn’t you know, Jungwon? Your little angel’s been digging. Searching for answers she has no business looking for.”

Jungwon went still.

Heeseung chuckled. “Come on, she’s not exactly subtle about it. Did you really think I wouldn’t notice?”

Jungwon gritted his teeth.

This was bad. Heeseung knowing was bad. Y/n was reckless, but Heeseung? He was opportunistic. He could be the reason for her downfall if he wanted to be. If he got bored. If he needed some entertainment. And worst of all, he wouldn’t hesitate.

Jungwon exhaled, steady. Controlled. “Stay out of it.”

Heeseung tilted his head.

“Now why would I do that?”

He sighed dramatically. “Such a shame she turned me down. I could’ve been a wonderful… stress reliever.”

Jungwon stiffened.

Heeseung grinned, sensing an opening.

“You know, I don’t usually go for angels,” he mused. “But Y/n…? I’d make an exception.”

Jungwon’s nails bit into his palm.

Heeseung continued, deliberate. Cruel.

“I wonder what she tastes like,” he murmured, almost to himself. “Sweet, probably. That holier-than-thou attitude can’t be real. Bet she’d fall apart just the same—”

Something inside Jungwon snapped.

The image flashed unbidden in his mind, Y/n, tangled in Heeseung’s sheets, flushed and breathless under his touch, her mouth forming curses or maybe his name, Heeseung’s hands where they had no business being.

Jungwon moved before he could stop himself.

His hand fisted into Heeseung’s collar, yanking him forward. Cold steel met Heeseung’s jaw. A blade, sharp and gleaming, pressed just below his skin.

Jungwon’s voice was quiet. Dangerous.

“Say another word.”

Heeseung went completely still.

For the first time, his smirk wavered.

“Oh, there it is,” Heeseung murmured, a slow grin stretching across his lips. “There’s the demon.”

The shift.

The change.

Jungwon was always so controlled. So composed.

But this, This was something else.

Heeseung had found his breaking point.

And he loved it.

“You know,” Heeseung said, voice smooth as silk, “for someone who insists he doesn’t care, you sure do have a lot of feelings about who she spends her time with.”

Jungwon’s breath was slow, measured, steady. But his fingers twitched against Heeseung’s collar. Heeseung watched him carefully. Then, voice dropping lower, mocking.

“You should watch her sleep too, since you’re already watching her every move.”

Jungwon yanked his hand away like he’d been burned. The moment stretched between them, thick with something unspoken. Heeseung smirked, straightening his clothes like nothing had happened.

“Careful, Jungwon,” he mused. “You’re starting to act like she actually matters to you.”

Jungwon didn’t dignify him with a response. Didn’t look back. He just turned, exhaling slowly, forcing his body to relax as he walked away.

Because Heeseung was wrong.

Y/n didn’t matter.

She couldn’t matter.

Jungwon clenched his fists.

But Heeseung couldn’t have her.

The classroom was warm, the flickering lanterns casting long, slow-moving shadows over the stone walls. The faint scratch of quills on parchment filled the air, a steady rhythm that should have kept Y/n grounded in the present.

It didn’t.

She sat stiffly at her desk, elbow braced against the wooden surface, her chin resting in her hand. Her notes lay open in front of her, ink drying on a half-finished sentence, but she wasn’t reading them. She wasn’t even really in the classroom anymore.

Her mind was elsewhere. Because she was getting nowhere. She had combed through the records. Searched archives until her eyes blurred with fatigue. And yet, nothing. No inconsistencies, no conflicting accounts, no whispers of doubt in the official retellings.

Everything about the Heir’s past was pristine. Too pristine. The Heir was a hero. The greatest warrior in celestial history. The savior of the First War. His victories were endless. His strategies unparalleled. His fate, tragic yet honorable.

And yet, someone had killed him.

Someone had taken down the most revered figure in their history. And no one seemed to be asking how. She hated that.

Her fingers tapped absently against the desk, frustration simmering beneath her skin. She wasn’t just hitting dead ends, she was hitting walls. Walls that had been deliberately built. Every record she found was meticulously written, carefully preserved, as if history itself had been scrubbed clean.

She needed another way forward.

“History,” the professor’s voice cut through her thoughts, sharp and deliberate, “is only as permanent as those who write it.”

She blinked.

The words felt too precise.

Her back straightened slightly as she turned her attention to the front of the room. Professor Aldric stood before the class, his gaze sweeping methodically over the students.

“Records are kept,” he continued. “Some are lost. And some…” He paused. “Are erased entirely.”

The words struck something in Y/n’s chest, cold and certain. This wasn’t just a statement. It was a warning. A challenge.

“Knowledge is power,” Aldric went on, voice even, unreadable. “But power attracts danger. Be careful what truths you chase.”

Y/n’s breath stilled. He knew. Maybe not about her search, not exactly. But he knew that someone was looking. That someone, somewhere, was asking the wrong questions. Her fingers curled against the desk. This meant something. The only problem? She didn’t know what. But the thought lodged itself in her mind like a hook, sinking deep. What if the answers I’m looking for aren’t in books? If the Academy had only preserved the history it wanted remembered, then whatever had been erased wouldn’t be found in libraries. It wouldn’t be in the records. It would be buried. Hidden. Or worse, kept by the people who were never meant to have it.

She exhaled slowly.

A door that had vanished overnight.

A professor who spoke in half-truths.

A past that had been rewritten.

There was only one person she knew who operated outside the Academy’s carefully laid rules.

Only one person who had already made it clear that he knew something. Only one person who had been waiting for her to come to him. She clenched her jaw.

Heeseung.

She hated the idea. But she hated getting nowhere even more.

She finds him exactly where she expected, leaning lazily against one of the Academy’s stone pillars, the flickering lantern light sharpening the amused glint in his dark eyes.

He was waiting for her.

The realization only pisses her off further. Heeseung’s smirk deepens the moment she stops in front of him, arms crossed, gaze sharp.

“Took you long enough,” he muses, like this is all one big joke.

she exhales sharply. “I’m reconsidering.”

Heeseung doesn’t even blink. His smirk widens, slow and knowing, like he’s already won.

“Knew you would.”

Y/n clenches her jaw. She hates that he’s right. Hates it more that he knew she’d be back before she even did.

Heeseung pushes off the pillar, stepping closer, unhurried, deliberate.

“So,” he drawls, voice dipping lower, “what changed?”

“Nothing.” She lifts her chin. “I just realized I don’t have time to waste.”

Heeseung hums, dragging his gaze over her. Not just looking, assessing. Like he’s peeling back layers just to see what’s underneath.

“Impatient,” he muses. “I like it.”

She rolls her eyes. “Are you actually going to help me, or are you just going to be insufferable?”

Heeseung smirks. “Why can’t it be both?”

She exhales sharply. “Forget it.” She turns to leave.

But Heeseung is quicker.

He catches her wrist, not rough, not forceful, just there. Just enough to make her pause, to remind her that this is his game, that she walked into it the second she sought him out.

“Relax, angel,” he murmurs, his tone a little too smooth, a little too amused. “I’ll help you.”

She eyes him warily. “On what terms?”

Heeseung tuts, shaking his head like she just doesn’t get it. “Terms? Now, that’s a dangerous word.”

She doesn’t budge. “I don’t trust you.”

“You shouldn’t.” His smirk sharpens. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t have what you need.”

She hates this. Hates standing here, entertaining this game. Hates that despite everything, he’s her best shot at finding something real.

Finally, she mutters, “Fine.”

Heeseung grins, slow and satisfied. “Smart girl.”

Before she can react, he steps in.

She doesn’t move, doesn’t react, but Heeseung notices the slight tension in her shoulders, the way her breath hitches for half a second.

Of course, he does.

She’s about to snap at him when he reaches into his coat and slips a folded piece of parchment into her hand. His fingers brush against hers, deliberate, lingering, his touch warm and slow.

Y/n yanks the paper away, glaring. “What’s this?”

Heeseung leans in slightly, his voice barely above a whisper. “An invitation.”

She narrows her eyes. “For what?”

“Answers,” Heeseung says simply. Then, after a pause, he smirks. “Or fun. Depending on how much you’re willing to give me.”

Y/n’s grip on the parchment tightens.

She unfolds it.

It’s a room number.

She looks up sharply. “This is your dorm.”

Heeseung grins, tilting his head like he’s enjoying her realization.

“That a problem?”

She scowls. “Yes.”

“Shame.” Heeseung exhales, feigning disappointment. “Because if you want what I know, angel, you’re gonna have to come get it.”

She doesn’t trust him.

But she needs something. Anything.

She shoves the paper into her pocket, shaking her head. “This better not be a waste of my time.”

Heeseung chuckles, stepping back just enough to let her breathe. “Wear something nice.”

Y/n scoffs, tilting her head. “Choke.”

Heeseung’s smirk deepens. “That an invitation?”

She rolls her eyes.

She flips him off, middle finger high, sharp as a blade. “Fuck off.”

Heeseung just grins. Like he loves it. Like he loves pissing her off.

She doesn’t react. Doesn’t look back.

She tells herself she isn’t actually affected by him.

But in the back of her mind

She knew she had made a mistake the moment she walked away from Heeseung.

She had barely made it a few steps before the weight of it settled in her chest, pressing down like a stone.

Because she didn’t trust him. She shouldn’t trust him. But she had no other options.

And now, here she was, slipping out of her dorm in the dead of night, moving like a shadow through the Academy’s empty halls, the silence pressing against her ears.

Y/n had snuck out a hundred times before. At this point, she knew the Academy halls better in the dark than she did in the daylight. She knew which steps creaked, which doors had loose handles, which corners the professors patrolled more frequently.

And yet, tonight felt different. Maybe it was because of where she was going. Or who she was going to see.

She kept her steps light, her breath measured, every sense on high alert. The faint crackling of lantern flames flickered in the distance, casting elongated shadows that stretched across the stone like reaching fingers. Somewhere deeper in the halls, the Academy bells chimed softly, marking another hour passing.

The cold bit through the fabric of her uniform, sharp and unforgiving.

She ignored it. Just like she ignored the voice in the back of her mind telling her to turn back. She had made a deal. And she was going to see it through. Even if every part of her was screaming that this was a mistake.

She hated this. Hated that she was doing this. Hated that, despite all her efforts, she was getting nowhere.

The Heir’s past was too polished. Too perfect. Every lead she followed turned into a dead end, every book she read repeated the same story, the same curated, carefully preserved history. No gaps, no contradictions. Too clean.

She clenched her fists. She needed something. A new angle, a new path, anything to push her forward. And Heeseung was the only one who had given her a way out of this maze. Even if she had to walk through fire to take it.

The deeper she moved into the Academy, the heavier the air became. The lower halls weren’t unfamiliar to her, but she rarely had reason to be here. The walls were darker, the architecture slightly different, less polished, more severe.

It suited them.

The demons.

It suited him.

Y/n barely caught herself before the thought fully settled in.

Jungwon.

Her pace faltered for half a second, irritation flaring hot in her chest.

Why the hell was she thinking about him?

She forced her steps to steady, clenching her jaw. Of all the things that could occupy her mind right now, of all the actual problems she had to deal with, why was it him?

Because you’ve noticed him more. Because he’s watching you, always watching, like he knows something you don’t. Like he’s waiting for something.

She scowled.

No.

She wasn’t going to entertain that thought. She wasn’t going to waste time trying to figure out Jungwon when she had much bigger things to deal with.

And yet, her mind wouldn’t let it go.

The way their eyes met across the room, the way she could feel his stare before she even saw him. The way their first conversation had ended in an argument that still lingered in her mind, like a puzzle left unfinished.

Like a challenge she hadn’t yet solved.

Every time their paths crossed, it was the same.

His gaze lingered too long.

And somehow, it still felt like it followed her even after he was gone.

She exhaled sharply, rolling her shoulders like she could physically shake off the unwanted distraction.

Then, finally, she rounded the last corner, coming face to face with the heavy wooden door that led to Heeseung’s dorm.

Her pulse wasn’t uneven.

Her hands weren’t shaking.

She was fine.

This was just another step forward.

Just another bad decision waiting to be made.

She lifted her hand and knocked.

Y/n wasn’t expecting much when she stepped into Heeseung’s dorm.

But still, this wasn’t what she expected.

She had imagined something chaotic, messy, and unpredictable, something that mirrored the reckless way he carried himself. Instead, the space was disturbingly neat. Dimly lit, heavy with the faint scent of something sharp, smoke laced with something sweeter underneath.

His uniform jacket was lazily tossed over a chair, his tie undone, his blouse slightly open like he hadn’t fully bothered to dress after class.

And Heeseung was already waiting for her.

Leaning against his desk, hands braced on the surface, smirk perfectly in place, like he had been expecting this exact moment.

Like she had just walked into a game she didn’t even know had started.

She met his gaze, unimpressed. “If you’re about to say I knew you’d come, save it.”

Heeseung’s smirk widened.

“Good.” His head tilted slightly, sharp eyes scanning her from head to toe, slow, unhurried. “That means we can skip the denial and get right to the fun part.”

She clenched her jaw. “If your definition of fun doesn’t include actual information, I’ll leave.”

Heeseung let out a soft chuckle, like she had just told him a joke. “Come on, angel. Don’t act like you’re not enjoying this.”

Y/n exhaled sharply, stepping further inside. She wasn’t about to let him dictate the tone of this conversation.

She crossed her arms. “I want answers.”

Heeseung watched her, eyes gleaming with amusement. “That’s all you came for?”

Y/n clenched her jaw. “What else would I come for?”

He pushed off his desk, closing the distance between them with slow, measured steps.

“Power,” he mused, voice low, deliberate. “Danger. A little bit of both.”

Heeseung reached up, trailing a slow finger down the collar of her blouse before smoothing it out, like he was fixing it, like she was already his to adjust.

“Or maybe,” he added, a smirk tugging at his lips, “you just wanted to see what would happen if you let yourself have a little fun.”

Y/n scoffed, shoving his hand away. “You’re delusional.”

“Am I?” Heeseung’s gaze was locked onto hers, the sharp edge of something knowing lurking beneath his amusement. “Then why are you still here?”

She refused to react. Held his gaze. Waiting.

Heeseung sighed, dramatic. “You’re impatient. And a little predictable. I like it.”

Y/n’s patience was hanging by a thread.

“I don’t have time for your games, Heeseung.”

Heeseung smirked. “Then why are you playing?”

She had enough.

She turned sharply on her heel, heading for the door. But before she could take a single step, Heeseung moved.

Fast.

One second, her hand was reaching for the door handle, The next, she was caged against it.

His palms braced on either side of her head, his breath warm against her temple.

Not forceful. Not dangerous.

Just testing.

She stilled.

Not out of fear.

Out of sheer, burning irritation that she had let it get this far.

She exhaled sharply through her nose. “Move.”

Heeseung didn’t. Instead, he reached for her tie, undoing the knot with practiced ease.

“You need to loosen up a little,” he murmured, slipping the fabric from around her collar and tossing it onto his bed.

She clenched her jaw. “You really don’t know anything, do you?”

Heeseung hummed, stepping even closer. “That depends. Define ‘know.’”

She swore under her breath. I hate him.

Then, he reached for the buttons of her uniform jacket.

Slow. Deliberate. Taking his time.

One button. Then the next. Then the third.

By the time he was slipping the fabric off her shoulders, his gaze had darkened, the smirk softening into something more insidious.

“It’s too hot in here,” he mused, voice smooth as silk. “You’ll think better once you take off a few layers.”

She let him.

Not because she was falling for it.

Because he was.

She softened her posture, let her gaze shift, let her shoulders drop just slightly, just enough for the sharp edges of her irritation to smooth out, just enough to let something vulnerable slip through the cracks.

Heeseung noticed.

And his smirk widened.

Y/n let her lips part slightly, exhaling like the warmth was actually getting to her, like her guard was finally lowering.

She reached for his tie. Slid it off completely.

Undid the top button of his blouse. Then another.

Heeseung didn’t stop her.

Of course he didn’t.

His ego was too big to think she wasn’t falling for his trap.

She took a slow step forward. Then another.

By the time his knees hit the edge of the bed, he was grinning.

“Oh,” Heeseung murmured, hands settling at her waist. His grip was light, almost teasing, fingers ghosting over the fabric like he had all the time in the world. “Now this is interesting.”

Y/n didn’t move. Didn’t push him away.

Instead, she leaned in, her breath warm against his skin, lips just shy of brushing the shell of his ear.

“Tell me what you know,” she whispered, voice smooth, unwavering.

Heeseung’s chuckle was low, rich with amusement. “You want answers?”

She nodded, slow. Calculated.

He smirked. “Then work for it.”

And before she could react. His hands slid downward, grazing the front of her blouse, fingers slipping against the fabric as he undid one, two, three buttons.

She saw red.

Her body reacted before her mind fully caught up.

She moved fast.

Before Heeseung could blink, her hands were in his collar, gripping tight, twisting the fabric as she yanked him forward—

Then threw him back.

His back hit the mattress with a forceful thud.

A sharp inhale, the ghost of a curse under his breath and before he could process what just happened, Y/n was on top of him.

One knee dug into his ribs, pressing just hard enough to steal his breath for half a second.

A fist tangled in his half-open shirt, keeping him right where she wanted him.

Then—

She swung.

Her fist connected with his jaw, sharp and satisfying.

Heeseung let out a breathless laugh, head snapping to the side as blood beaded at the corner of his lip.

He grinned.

“Oh, angel,” he murmured, voice laced with something amused, something dark. “I didn’t know you liked it rough.”

Y/n’s grip tightened. “Tell me what you know. Now.”

Heeseung’s smirk didn’t waver. If anything, he looked thrilled.

“You’re looking in the wrong places, angel.”

Y/n’s jaw clenched. “What the hell does that mean?”

Heeseung tilted his head slightly, studying her.

Then—

“Books will only tell you what they want you to know,” he murmured, voice smooth despite the split in his lip. “But if you want to find something real…”

He trailed off, letting the silence stretch, his smirk deepening.

Y/n’s patience was hanging by a thread. “Finish your sentence before I break your nose.”

Heeseung’s laughter was quiet, rolling through his chest like a dangerous secret.

“Try looking beneath the library.”

She frowned. “There’s nothing beneath the library. Just stone and dead air.”

Heeseung smiled, eyes gleaming with something unreadable. “Is there?”

She stared him down, searching for the lie.

He could be bluffing. He probably was.

But she had nothing else.

And she wasn’t leaving empty-handed.

She shoved off him, rolling off the bed in one smooth motion.

Didn’t bother grabbing her tie. Didn’t even spare her uniform jacket a glance.

Heeseung sat up, watching her go with an infuriating smirk. He ran his tongue over his bloodied lip, tasting the split, eyes still gleaming with amusement.

She didn’t look back.

Didn’t need to.

She had what she came for.

And for once, she had won.

Jungwon had spent too much time searching for Y/n.

Too much time slipping through the halls, lingering in the shadows, waiting, always waiting, for that glimpse of her.

But tonight, she wasn’t where she usually was.

Not in the library. Not in the secluded hallways she favored when she thought no one was watching. Not in the training grounds, where she always pushed herself too hard, too fast, too recklessly.

Jungwon clenched his jaw. This shouldn’t bother him. She wasn’t his responsibility. And yet, Irritation sank its claws deeper, sharp and unrelenting. His patience was thinning by the second.

Then, he caught something.

A scent.

Smoke. And something sweet underneath.

Jungwon exhaled slowly.

Heeseung.

His thoughts snapped into place like a blade sliding into its sheath.

Y/n was missing.

And Heeseung’s scent was the only lead.

His feet moved before his mind could fully process the thought.

By the time he realized what he was doing, he was already storming toward Heeseung’s dorm.

He didn’t bother knocking.

Didn’t wait for an answer.

He shoved the door open—

And froze.

For the first time in a long time, his mind emptied. His eyes swept over the room, cataloging every detail in an instant.

Heeseung.

Sitting lazily on his bed, jacket off, shirt unbuttoned, lip faintly bleeding.

The bed itself, sheets wrinkled, twisted, like someone had been pushed onto it.

And worst of all, The celestial uniform jacket, messily abandoned on the floor.

The matching necktie, tangled in Heeseung’s sheets.

Jungwon’s vision blurred with rage.

The thoughts hit him too fast to process.

She was here.

She was here, with him.

Heeseung, of course, saw the storm brewing in Jungwon’s expression.

And he grinned.

“Oh?” His voice was smooth, amused, dripping with satisfaction. “Jealous?”

Jungwon snapped.

He moved before he could think, before he could stop himself—

A hand fisting into Heeseung’s collar, shoving him back, slamming him against the wall so hard the wooden frame of the bed rattled.

Heeseung let out a breathless laugh. Blood from his split lip smeared against the corner of his mouth.

“You’re acting awfully possessive, Jungwon.” He tilted his head, eyes gleaming with delight. “You sure she belongs to you?”

Jungwon’s grip tightened.

His heart was hammering.

Something ugly, something sharp, something new curled up in his chest like a vice.

Heeseung was playing with him.

And it was working.

Jungwon’s voice was low, dangerous. “Tell me what the fuck you did.”

Heeseung’s smirk widened.

“You mean besides letting her take my clothes off?”

Jungwon’s patience shattered.

His fist drove into Heeseung’s gut, knocking the smirk right off his face.

Heeseung grunted, bending forward slightly.

But he was laughing.

Laughing.

Jungwon’s grip didn’t loosen. He yanked Heeseung back up, slamming him into the wall again.

Heeseung coughed out a chuckle, wiping his lip.

“Damn,” he mused, voice breathless but still far too amused. “I knew you’d react, but this?” He lifted a brow. “You’re kinda scary when you’re pissed, y’know that?”

Jungwon didn’t move.

Didn’t speak.

His breath came slow and sharp, his pulse thundering.

Heeseung sighed, stretching slightly against the wall, like he wasn’t being held against it by force.

“Well,” he drawled, voice smooth. “If it makes you feel better—”

He leaned in slightly, grinning.

“She was the one who punched me.”

Jungwon stilled.

His fingers twitched.

Heeseung smirked, knowing.

“Oh yeah. Pretty little thing hits like a devil.”

The realization slammed into Jungwon all at once. His gaze swept over the room again. The jacket. The tie. The bed.

But—

No blouse. No skirt. No actual sign that Y/n had been here for longer than a few minutes. Jungwon’s mind worked fast. Too fast. The pieces weren’t adding up. His eyes flicked back to Heeseung. The smirk on his lips. The laughter in his eyes.

It was all a game.

A calculated, deliberate setup.

And Jungwon had fallen for it.

Heeseung saw the realization dawn on Jungwon’s face. And he grinned. Jungwon’s stomach twisted, rage flaring in his chest.

“You’re full of shit.”

Heeseung stretched lazily against the wall, grinning like a predator.

“And you’re fun to mess with.”

Jungwon’s fists curled. His jealousy had been for nothing. His anger was misplaced. And Heeseung had played him like a goddamn fiddle. Jungwon wanted to rip that smirk right off his face.

But he didn’t have time.

Y/n was in danger. Real danger.

And he needed to get to her. Jungwon finally released Heeseung with a shove, stepping back.

His voice was clipped. Cold. “Where is she?”

Heeseung licked his split lip, still grinning.

“She’s gone,” he said simply. “Went looking for answers.”

Jungwon’s stomach dropped.

His pulse thundered.

“Where.”

Heeseung wiped at his lip again, careless.

“Beneath the library.”

Jungwon cursed.

Because he knew.

That area was heavily guarded. Locked down.

And Heeseung knew it too. That was the only reason he had sent her there. Not to help her. But to watch her fall.

Jungwon turned sharply on his heel, already moving for the door—

Then—

“Careful, Jungwon.”

Jungwon didn’t stop. Didn’t turn back.

Heeseung’s laughter followed him.

“Acting like you care about her,” he mused. “Like she’s anything more than a distraction.”

Jungwon ignored him. He was already gone. And if he didn’t get there in time.

Y/n would be, too.

PREVIOUS | MASTERLIST | NEXT CHAPTER

[vimbry-moved]

the first real experience I've had of being fascinated by technological developments in adulthood is getting on a bus that has charging ports in the seats and a screen displaying the route with an announcer.

[a-most-beloved-fool]

For the writing prompts;

19. For luck - Rom and Leeta

"And then," Bashir was saying - though in truth, Rom was paying only half attention, far too busy thinking about Leeta - "she came right up to me, and kissed me on the lips!"

"Oh, she did, did she?" Chief O'Brien said, scoffing good-naturedly.

"It's true!" Bashir insisted, though he didn't look insulted by the Chief's doubt. He was smiling into his glass, seeming quite delighted by the disbelieving frown on O'Brien's face.

Rom didn't quite understand what was supposed to be so 'unbelievable' about the story. In fact - "It seems pretty believable to me," he said. "Doctor Bashir's always kissing beautiful women." (Including, at one point, Leeta - though not anymore, Rom thought with some pleasure.)

"Yes, but this one was out of his league," the Chief said, batting his hand playfully across the table.

Bashir just smiled bashfully, ignoring the swipe. "Ah, well. You're right about that. She wasn't really interested in me after all. Turns out, she'd just misconstrued the human concept of a 'good luck kiss'".

"Ohh! A 'good luck kiss'!" Rom said eagerly. Then, after a pause, "Uh, what's a 'good luck kiss'?"

The Chief sat back, idly crossing his arms. "Well, it's pretty much exactly what it sounds like. It's a kiss that you give someone to wish them luck."

"Oh," Rom said, considering that. Luck was always a good thing to have. Perhaps... "Oh! Leeta!" He stood, sending his chair clattering backwards. "I'll be back!" he shouted, then raced from Quark's bar, ignoring his brother's parting shout out dismay.

He needed to find Leeta.

--

"Leeta! Waaaait!" Rom hollered, shuffling through the crowded promenade as quickly as he could manage, chasing after her familiar voice. "Leeta! I need to give you something!"

This would be easier, he thought, if Bajorans could hear as well as Ferengi could.

But, at last, Leeta stopped, turning to find him. "Rom? Rom, what's the matt-"

The rest of her sentence trailed off into a hum as Rom reached up, pulling her down to plant a kiss square on her lips. One of her hands cupped Rom's cheek, soft. Rom didn't really know how long a 'good luck kiss' was supposed to last for - he really should have gotten more details before running off (for example, does it need tongue? Bashir never specified.) - but he thought that this should satisfy it.

He pulled away, grinning toothily up at his wife. "Hi, Leeta," he said.

She smiled down at him, cheeks flushed and lovely as always. "Hi, Rom. What was that for?" she asked, looking bemused and delighted.

"It's a kiss," Rom said, perhaps unnecessarily. "For luck," he added. "It's a hoo-man tradition!"

"For luck? Rom," she asked, laughing, "what are you wishing me luck for?"

Rom blinked. "Uhhh... For your day?"

Leeta beamed at him, and then leaned down, pressing a kiss to his forehead. "Well, I think it worked. I do feel pretty lucky now."

Rom grinned. "Me, too."

--

(also if anyone else wants to make a request, the ask game is here. i can't promise they'll get done as quick or be as long as this one is, though!)

[anghraine]

It feels extremely silly that only today did I realize that pantry and panadería are slightly similar-sounding for a reason >_>

(The English word pantry is one of the many, many common modern English words derived from Anglo-French: in this case, panetrie, from Old French paneterie, "bread room" ... Spanish panadería also has a complex etymology, but all are related to Latin panis, "bread.")

[sukugo]

i have to ask because i adore you and i want to know about your new blorbos- who are they and what are they and why are they always soaked in blood

JDHSJFHJFDDJFFSDFDF, oh man where do i start cassie.

they're from the anime/manga jujutsu kaisen, and they are:

gojo satoru. love of my fucking life. my fucking everything my boy my man, i am so so in LOVE with this man i cant even begin to tell u. he consumes my every waking thought, my life is dedicated to seeing him get fucked. (he's the guy in my header humping his all into the other's arm)

and (ryoumen) sukuna. beautiful sexy evil man.

(can u tell who's my fave)

so in this world, we have jujutsu sorcerers, who are people with special powers that they use to defeat/exorcise curses, which are basically evil spirits born of negative human emotions

gojo is the strongest jujutsu sorcerer alive. he is insanely strong, not a single person can go against him. his powers make it so that u literally physically cannot touch him. he controls "infinity" and can warp space, and he also has pretty special eyes that let him perceive things at a much deeper level than a regular person. those two things combined make him quite literally untouchable. and insanely powerful.

as for sukuna, he used to be a human who lived thousands of years ago, who used to be the strongest sorcerer of his time, and is considered to be the strongest sorcerer in history. he is the King of Curses, no one could ever defeat him, or destroy his soul, which he divided into his 20 preserved fingers so it would survive through time, even after dying.

so itadori yuuji

this lil baby boy (literally the babiest sweetest boy to exist btw) (he's actually the main character haha)

due to some stuff, he ends up eating one of sukuna's mummified fingers and sukuna reincarnates inside him. yuuji becomes a vessel for sukuna, who lives inside yuuji's mind now and sometimes takes over his body (reason why they look the same)

and now, yuuji is sentenced to be executed bc he holds the most evil sorcerer in history inside him, but gojo goes nope! wait a minute, let's not do that. and manages to convince the people in charge to postpone yuuji's execution, saying that they'll get yuuji to find and eat all of sukuna's fingers and then execute him, getting rid of sukuna all in one go.

ok so that's the context (that's actually what the anime's about haha), but as to gojo and sukuna.

THEY ARE IN LOVE

well, they're there. sdkkhfkjdkfdf

ok no, so like they do their things right. gojo is a teacher (tho we never actually see him do any teaching lmao) and sukuna lives inside yuuji and causes trouble sometimes. they don't really ever interact in the story (they literally meet and have a lil confrontation, decide to kill each other and never talk again djshjfdasdadfd) (until they actually have their Fight, more on that later)

BUT!!!!!!!! they may not interact, but they are completely tied together narratively.

as u can see, they're both the strongest from their respective times, so they have a lot of links when it comes to their characters themselves and what they are referred to in the story. specifically that, in being the strongest, they exist in a plane above everyone else, literally untouchable.

now, in the story, this position of strongest is coupled with solitude, being the strongest meaning u're alone and no one else understands you bc of this

and SO they have their fight. bc plot reasons right. this is obv what it was all gonna lead to. fight of the two strongest.

and the fight, consequently, revolves around that idea of solitude, and understanding each other.

which like. ok. yeah we saw that coming. ofc. no big deal.

EXCEPT, to make reference to their relationship and that idea of understanding each other, the term that is used is, and i kid u not, love.

there's a very specific phrase that is used multiple times between them. which is actually used originally with a character who shows romantic feelings towards sukuna.

she challenges sukuna to a fight and sukuna promises to marry her if she wins. her goal in this fight is to share in sukuna's solitude and show him love (read R→L)

but she says this to sukuna and this. this is his reaction.

SUKUNA KNOWS LOVE ALREADY

to which she gets super pissed bc that's not!!! love!!!!!!!

sukuna defeats/kills her. and u know when the next time that exact fucking phrase is used? when sukuna and gojo finally meet again and set up the date to have their Fight, where sukuna remembers her words

which tells us that.

sukuna was.

thinking about gojo when she said that.

*screams into hands*

BUT IT DOESN'T STOP THERE. this phrase is then repeated. multiple times.

1. right after gojo punches the fuck out of sukuna:

2. said in reference to gojo, when he realizes there's a chance of him losing:

3. gojo reminiscing about their fight:

so, as u can see, they were going to teach each other love. their fight is. canonically. about teaching each other love. what the FUCK.

but ENOUGH love talk (or else i'm at risk of going crazy insane)

LET'S TALK ABOUT HOW THEY'RE LOADED WITH SEXUAL TENSION

this was in their first meeting where they fought (for quite literally 10 seconds)

like... why he do dat.... .......... . ....

next day sukuna goes "hey im gonna kill u first <3" and gojo just goes "teehee omg really? *hair twirl* <3"

they also decide to have their final battle on dec 24 which is like a super romantic date in japan (explicitly said so by another character)

and their FIGHT. it is LITERALLY just them flirting and touching each other

LOOK AT THIS SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i fucking lost it. i still haven't recovered. that is the hottest thing i've ever seen in my life. gojo wants that dick so fucking bad

not to mention thigh grabs and hand touchies

and the entirety of the fight is just them having fun 😭😭 they're supposed "enemies" on opposite sides and the fate of the world is at stake here, but they actually don't give a fuck about that.

they're literally smiling and having a great fucking time. this fight for them is just play. their fight is just for them to have fun as the strongest and to connect with each other. they're enemies but they don't hate each other or anything, they only search for that sense of fulfillment in each other OTL

AND ABOUT THAT, oh my GOD

sukuna wins. he defeats gojo. and at the end, this. is what sukuna says to gojo at the end of the fight:

FUCKING. I'LL NEVER FORGET YOU. SCREAAAAM THAT'S ROMANCEEEEEE.

and the soft smile? the fucking petals falling all over them? oh GOD they're trying to kill me

but that's on sukuna's side, what about for gojo? well

HE GENUINELY TRIED TO REACH SUKUNA, GAVE IT HIS ALL TO CONNECT WITH HIM. TO TEACH HIM LOVE AGFKDHSKFHFKJFHDF (BUT HE FAILED HE COULDN'T GIVE SUKUNA WHAT SUKUNA GAVE HIM 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭)

HHRRRRGJFHSJDFHDSJFSDFA KJHDKFJSFKASLDKS ADKJKFHEWRKJEKRKTRELRW

and if i start crying OTL

but alas *deep breaths*

even without all that they're just very fucking sexy. two insane powerful men going at it? come on. how could u NOT want them together. they both hold the same title of the strongest, might as fucking well fuck nasty about it.

and oh god, when i tell u gojo is a fucking brat and he's so strong and untouchable, but then sukuna is capable of putting him down which is. insanely sexy. and i need it. i need gojo obliterated. and i know sukuna won't let me down (AND HE DID NOT. HE OBLITERATED THAT MAN) can he now obliterate his holes too

agdkhfhdkhdhs, anyways.... yeah.. that is the situation.........

im just gonna end this by saying

SUKUGO MY LOVES

[xxplastic-cubexx]

sorry if you've already mentioned but what (re?)ignited your love of comics/x-men/cherik? curious because there are so many different adaptations of them

i think im gonna speak for a few (or a lot of) people when i say that TL;DR the wolverine x deadpool movie that came out this summer is what pulled me back into comics and i COULD leave it there but i will go into excruciating and unnecessary detail instead because i love an origin story and i love oversharing.

under the cut tho because im nice sometimes (there's also wxdp doodles in here. if you want to see that)

ironically (and probably commonly), growing up i was more of an avengers kid. Kinda. Loosely <- binge watched the cartoons and movies and read copious amounts of comics and fics and i am hoarding fanart in my old dresser as we speak ok 'loosely' is a modest lie.

embarrassingly i remember getting into discus cause of captain america LMAO so yeah needless to say i was a Humble Fan- me joining my school's comic class/club didnt help either (shoutout to my teach from that she was the realest one out there for. A Multitude of reasons). she definitely is was inspires me to even draw still and make comics and i often think bout the tips i learned from her class tbh she was great

back to the movies t and comics tho, i got into em because my brother would offer to take me and that's how we'd hang out (i rarely saw movies in theaters and i even more rarely went anywhere as a teenager. still kinda like that today tbh ooops) and yk. it just snowballed after that.

my brother and i have always liked comics- he just more than me for a while (though he still very much loves comics and As We Know From My Posts we still talk about them whenever i see him To An Exhausting Degree)

durin then i was really into stony and i have a few surviving doodles i made but those are between me and god. and anyone who asks tbh LOL

'snap can you make this related to x-men again this is long' ok so fast forward to This Summer again I Still Don't Really See Movies but my brother offered to take me and this was the first time i'd actually seen an x-men movie in full

as a kid i only remember seeing the 'perfection' scene between erik and raven in first class while i was channel surfing. pretty sure i changed the channel after seeing mystique naked cause i was scared my parents would get mad at me if they caught me watching it LOL

BUT MOVING ON As A Kid i think it's also natural you'll sometimes watch 92 if it's on And I Did though evidently it didn't stick too hard (i do remember really liking beast and gambit though.... still do really): my knowledge of x-men was. INCREDIBLY sparse. like diabolically so so i didnt have too much expectations (aside from the fact i vaguely liked deadpool beforehand).

tbh i dont know why my bro never took me to see any of the x-men movies. it's not like he doesn't Also like x-men (90% sure nightcrawler's his favorite but my brother will be caught dead saying he has absolute favorites like that)- he owns a bitch load of deadpool comics/omnibus sets too (of which ive read over the years and reread this year) but Shrug moving on

Much Like Most Of The Internet i fell down the rabbit hole that way. i have some doodles i made a couple days after seeing WxDP that i now have an excuse to throw at all of you Look And Perceive

and so. As I Do. i got curious and told myself i'd binge watch all the x-men movies the week before i went back to school And Then I Did ft. My Brother Sometimes and then i said i'd binge watch all of '92 and And I Did That ft. My Brother Sometimes But Less So and now we're here. currently watching Evolution...

once i got to school i realized i lived near a comic shop and started getting into the comics that way (the first ones i got since going down this rabbit hole was Magneto Was Right!, The Resurrection of Magneto, and The Trial of Magneto. if you were curious !!!!! clearly i didnt care too much about context i just needed to see My Guy jelvejlkvj i have no regrets and Evidently ive read more since)

i'm pretty sure what dragged me into cherik specifically was the fact i saw a clip of The Famous ending to 92 where erik's aghast at the notion jean even has to question his love for charles. i think that was what officially had me refocus my lens on them: not a single poolverine thought after that LOL (all the cherik posting i saw on twitter definitely helped too but that was the nail in the coffin for any other interests i had: i was locked into cherik and x-men in general now)

that clip specifically, i was surprised at the fact they- frequently even- have the x-men franchise say erik loves charles and vice versa so bluntly. even if it's not meant to be romantic, i fear im just a fan of how casually the word's thrown around with them two and i got tender bout it all. Then Yk. i just live for the drama. the hilarity even. the sincerity .... they make me sick if i think of them too long so im gonna end it here

before i go tho ironically enough, the first x-men issue i owned was This one (story a this is that while stuck in some wacko dimension charles accidentally gets himself trapped in logan's mind while utilizing his astral projection. if you were curious). pretty sure i got it for free with another comic set i got years ago since our old comic shop loved to do that, but it's poetic aint it. maybe ill doodle something referencing it..

i should probably look into finishing this arc someday im Dummy curious to even know how it started and how it ends.....

[redbootsindoriath]

Okay so I didn’t remember that International Don’t Stab Your Best Friend Day was coming up until I was in the middle of a multi-day road trip, so here’s a comic I threw together in a huge rush while traveling in a moving vehicle and then took ages uploading on hotel wifi.

Transcription:

[Gurthang:] “Hey Túrin.” [Túrin:] “Yeah.” [Gurthang:] “I still can’t get over the fact that you literally murdered your best friend lol.” [Túrin:] “...” [Gurthang:] “Like how stupid do you have to be to do something like that, haha?” [Túrin:] “Oh yeah, you’re so right!  If only there had been someone there who could have said something!  A talking sword, for instance.” [Gurthang:] “Hey now, don’t pin this on me.” [Túrin:] “‘Dude stop, it’s just us, don’t freak out and stab anybody, even though it’s dark and you can’t see anything!’” [Elf 1:] “Is he okay?  Should we...do something about this?” [Elf 2:] “Absolutely not, I am not going near that situation.”

[sixthear]

Liu'er has woken up in strange places he did not remember falling asleep in before. But this definitely topped all those other times. He did not like this place. There were too few trees. Strange metal contraptions that flew down roads made of paved black stone. The air around here felt thick, and bitter. Almost like he was trying to breathe in smoke— except there was no fire in sight.

More alarmingly, there were so many people! His hearing was blissfully muffled, and for once he wasn't concerned— even with dampened powers, this place was too much! But he cannot sit idly by and lament the situation. He needs to find the other monkeys. Maybe— maybe Shihou and the elders were brought to this strange place, too. He'll even settle for Yutu. Any familiar and friendly face, really.

He's not sure how much time is spent aimlessly wandering around, sticking to side streets and eventually the rooftops, before he finally spots something vaguely familiar. Another monkey, one with black fur! He... Doesn't immediately recognize the older monkey beyond that though. So with a small and anxious chitter, he carefully trails after Macaque for a bit. Staying mostly out of sight and a safe distance away...

After narrowly losing track of Macaque, though, he finally announces his presence by scrambling around a corner into view. Worried about completely fumbling his chance to talk with the only other monkey he's seen so far, he gives a definitive loud CHIRP, a signature sound of distressed young monkeys.

"Wait up, please, mister!"

@sageshadowed

[the-a-collective]

all roads lead to autism (for us)

[pt: all roads lead to autism (for us) end pt]

So we found out recently that we're autistic and now we're recontextualizing everything in our lives.

I think we'd be a trans guy either way. However, our "schrǒdinger's femininity", as we call it, caused by a simultaneous connection with femininity (even if it's just because we've been forced in the Woman Box for our entire life) and disconnection (caused by alienation because we're autistic). It's Autism.

Disconnect from gender as a whole? It's Autism. The typical, western allistic view of gender doesn't really fit us. We do (kinda) and don't fit the binary. It's all a blur. That's why we prefer autonomous and abinary-like labels, such as outherine, autonine, and maverique. (and autigender, of course. Because It's Autism)

Also shouting out mid-binary/midbinary and midabinary. ¿Por qué no los dos?

We also connect with the concept of xenogenders because of that disconnection. They also don't really fit? It's like a game of tug-of-war between our connection to anthrogenders and our connection with xenogenders. That's where diastine comes in.

We like the little boxes (because they're easier for our autistic brain), but we also don't like boxes (because we struggle to tell what's relevant, so matching our experiences is Too Hard). It's schrǒdinger's boxes. That's why we love centrigenders. We can be in two boxes, but also not in those boxes, while being in-between the boxes. Centrigender is our brain in gender form. It's Autism. Same with proximal genders and neogenders (neoboy, neomasc, etc.. Lovely simultaneous connection and disconnection. Us.

Speaking of love, our attraction is a huge fucking mess. Yeah, we're aspec-everything, but narrowing it down further is Not Happening 1) because we're plural and everyone has a different experience with attraction and 2) (you guessed it) autism. What's a friendship? What's romance? What the fuck is happening? It's Autism. We Cannot and Don't, until we Do.

We're also gay and straight and queer for everyone. No, we're not omni. That would be too easy. Instead, we get a garbled mess of vaguely queer feelings. It's static. It's not. It's chunky fruit juice.

Our nonhumanity/alterhumanity is very clearly autism. It's the result of growing up Feeling Different, but not knowing and not learning The Social Skills, so now we're alien copingkin. We also get Vague Divine Feelings, as a treat. Yippee!

Last, but certainly not least: plurality. We're all Autistic(tm), of course. If you take one look at our main sidesystem, it's very obvious that we're neurodivergent. Past that? We don't really know. We id with quoigenic, unknown origins, and the like because we don't remember how we formed. Thinking back on it? We wouldn't be surprised if autism played a role. Again, the alienation thing. That + other things we don't want to talk about (because tmi) caused us to retreat into ourselves and daydream and talk to ourselves. That could've easily caused a system. Again, who knows? Not us.

Anyway, yeah, that's our late-night goofy ramble. Have a great day/night/etc.

[oceanwithouthermoon]

okay i just put this in the tags of a different post but now i have to put it in another post so i can talk about it more <3

celestia and luna : kusuo and kusuke is NOT a cut and dry comparison and neither of them fit one or the other perfectly.. for the most part, kusuo is celestia and kusuke is luna (kusuke lashing out because he thinks kusuo is better than him, that things are easier for kusuo, kusuo not understanding, etc etc.) but the problem with that by itself is that that goes BOTH ways in almost the same exact way, the biggest difference is in how they cope with it all.. kusuo also sees himself in luna A LOT, but unlike kusuke he keeps his issues bottled up and never once takes it out on him.. he competes back to kusuke, especially when they were kids, but for the most part he doesnt WANT to and only does it because either 1) kusuke tries to make him feel inferior or 2) kusuke BRIBES him to do it ???

they both think the other has it better and wish that they could live the others life, and neither of them understand the others struggles (and probably never will fully, but hopefully itll get better for them.)

kusuo definitely watched mlp and thinks of HIMSELF as the luna or the 'nightmare moon' of the two of them because, even though he hasnt ever actually lashed out in that way, he knows how perfectly capable of it he is and he believes himself to be some sort of monster.. and its not really a rational way for him to see things, especially since he doesnt even usually view kusuke in a positive light ? but lunas story just hits home with him that badly..

this is just one reason why i think it sucks that kusuo being "powerless" basically only lasted a weekend, because we totally couldve gotten to see a "celestia and luna switching cutie marks for a day" kind of dynamic between kusuo and kusuke.. obviously not with kusuke having powers, but with him being above kusuo and more powerful than the general human race and realizing that being better than kusuo isnt what he wanted it to be..

and seeing how absolutely depressed and in denial kusuo becomes at first when he starts getting his powers back wouldve hit so much harder for kusuke if it had been a slower realization before kusuo could begin accepting himself again

[thedandelionresistance]

Screenshot is a post with username cropped out which reads:

goodnight to people who are unable to run

goodnight to people who used to be known for 'running/skipping' everywhere until it

became far too painful and dangerous

goodnight to people who have a walking gait that shows deformity and 'disturbs others'

goodnight to people who have limbs that 'move wrong'

goodnight to people who walk with a limp

goodnight to people who stumble and fall

goodnight to people who use a mobility aid

goodnight to people who use elevators

goodnight to people who use shower-chairs

goodnight to people who use ramps

#cripple punk #cpunk #physically disabled #chronic illness #chronic pain

#disabled positivity #this is about physical illnesses and such please do not derail

#do not derail

Oooh what a nice positivity post, I can't walk because of a condition generally considered neurological (it's under-studied so that's just what we currently understand of it) and also severe executive dysfunction that can leave me catatonic or nearly s-

Oh it's not for people who are in these categories for the "wrong" arbitrary reasons. If your illness is not considered "physical" even if it impairs or completely gets rid of your ability to walk get fucked I guess? /s

Like of course these kinds of people are always like "oh but if it physically disabled you then it's a physical illness" but if you say "okay, my schizophrenia severely disables me to the point of being unable to move" they always say "no it doesn't you attention seeking abled faker!!!"

Like, even setting aside that all neurological conditions are considered neurodivergence, including migraines, seizures, chiari malformations, traumatic brain injuries, depression, PTSD, and so on (neither being permanent nor being something you're born with are requirements for something being neurodivergent, just that they make your neurology different from the norm)...

There is no even divide between physical and psychiatric/neurological conditions.

Schizophrenic catatonia can cause people to literally be completely able to move for YEARS to the point they need a full time carer (I'm lucky that my episodes tend to only last less than an hour/not always be full body and tend to be triggered more when sleep deprived, but I have still nearly LITERALLY DROWNED in the bath because of them, and have had lesser episodes that resulted in me soiling myself because I could not move).

ALS is a degenerative neuron disease, one that affected Stephen Hawking and was the reason he needed a wheelchair and AAC device over time.

Potentially deadly heart conditions are extremely commonly comorbid with anxiety.

Conditions like IBS, which have an extremely high mortality rate when untreated, are highly comorbid with... well, half the DSM, so to speak.

Trauma is suspected to be a possible catalyst for or driver of multiple multisystemic chronic illnesses, including mast cell disorders.

Many common "mental illnesses" can cause tremors, heart palpitations and chronic tachycardia, gut dysbiosis, and more.

Many physical chronic illnesses directly have neurological symptoms, including severe cognitive impairment/dysfunction, and mood swings/emotional dysregulation, to the point where cognitive impairment is part of the diagnostic criteria for chronic fatigue syndrome that can be used even in the absence of orthostatic intolerance (which is a symptom understood to be typically neurological, as well, though not neuropsychological).

Even ADHD can severely physically disable you, because it essentially shuts down your bodily control center's ability to send commands and run physical tasks. I know so many people think ADHD cannot be that disabling and that it either must be something else or people are just lying, but it turns out that ADHD isn't just not being able to find your keys where you last set them down and being a bit late to scheduled events!

No good night for me, because my physical and psychological symptoms can't be neatly sorted out into simple palatable little boxes. Yeah, I've heard all the "but if you have physical disabilities that counts!! If you have physically disabling symptoms of a condition, that makes it a physical disability!!"

Those same exact people called my housebound, sometimes bedbound, semi-ambulatory wheelchair-using, incontinence-product-needing, caregiver-reliant ass a liar, a faker, attention-seeking, abled, drug-addicted (in a derogatory way, we don't fucking shame addicts here), crazy, delusional, "schizo" freak who just wanted to feel special and talk over "real" disabled people.

The people who said "hey, the brain is a physical organ and part of your nervous system, psychiatric conditions are a result of biochemical and physiological processes in that organ, and often because your brain controls your body and has a lot of interaction with every other system, symptoms and conditions don't neatly fit into one category or another" were the ones who believed me about my experiences with disability, interpersonal and systemic ableism, my mental illness causing actual literal physical inaccessibility in the same way a lack of a ramp for my wheelchair does, that ADHD is my most disabling condition including over ones that could cause me to go into actual organ failure, and so on.

So I'll make a positivity post for people with mobility and gait issues who use mobility aids and such, that doesn't shut out anyone with neuro and psych issues causing those things, that doesn't draw a smug and quite frankly unnecessary line in the sand just to stick it to people they don't consider to be "really" disabled or ever as disabled as "physically disabled" people (something that these kinds of people have directly admitted to my face, that they don't believe neurodisability can ever be as severely disabling or dangerous as physical disability, or even really significantly disabling, while also accusing me of tokenizing myself and other low functioning high support needs neurodisabled people).

I mean, this is the flip side of the coin of making posts about universal or (category-transcending) general ableism or disability experiences and claiming they're physical-disability-exclusive. It's making a post about symptoms that clearly manifest physically, then saying "don't derail and make this about NON-PHYSICAL stuff," with the unspoken threat that any mention of a diagnosis or symptom mechanism they refuse to believe CAN cause significant physical issues will be considered derailing.

I know because it's happened to me a thousand times already.

I honestly hope no one like that sees this, but if they do, be honest with yourself.

What would you do if the 87 percent of autistic people with gait issues talked about their experiences with those things overlapping? What would you do if I talked about how I had to go to occupational therapy as a toddler to change the mobility issues caused by the trauma of infant CSA (with no actual physical injury or trauma related to it)? What would you do if schizophrenic people talked about how catatonia causes them to need mobility aids? What would you do if someone talked about how OCD or delusions or uncontrollable stimming or Tourette's causes their limbs to "move wrong" and "disturbs" other people? What would you do if someone uses a mobility aid, physical accommodations, or has mobility issues for the "wrong" reasons; because of a "mental" illness.

Don't immediately react. Don't jump in to defend yourself about how "oh you'd accept that because it's a physical symptom and therefore a physical disability". Don't tell me, because the majority of you have already SHOWN me what you'd really do. I'm not talking about a small amount of people.

I'm talking about thousands of people who have admitted, either directly or in other posts of theirs, that they actively deny the experiences of, fakeclaim, and speak over people who are physically disabled AND neurodisabled, especially those of us who cannot divide our conditions and symptoms neatly like that.

I'm talking hundreds of examples of blatant sanism and neuroableism, from calling me and people like me crazy and stupid and dangerous and saying we should be institutionalized and have our autonomy stripped from us and even directly using my trauma from exactly that to try and trigger me into a meltdown or self-harming.

I'm talking telling me to prove autistic meltdowns could be dangerous by going and giving myself the brain damage I pointed out self-injurious behaviors during meltdowns can cause. I'm talking people telling me that my suicide attempts should have been successful and that they hoped I'd face actual ableism, often on the same days I was in the ER as a direct result of ableist medical neglect.

Saying "oh but we'll be nice (if we choose to believe you) if you say you're physically disabled" for optics, so you can look like the reasonable tolerant victim of those meanie able-bodied barely disabled neurodivergent disabled people (who are most often also profoundly physically disabled) when they point out your actual behavior towards them 99 percent of the time" isn't going to fly.

Because saying your post is about physical illnesses isn't actually about derailing. If it was, you'd say it's about mobility aids and issues. Because I guarantee it's not about every other physical illness, from sensory impairment to non-mobility-related gut and organ dysfunction and failure to allergenic disorders.

But it is about exclusion. It's about controlling the narrative. It's about a shibboleth to denote that only other people who agree that neurodisabled people are stinky mean invaders in the disability community who make everything about them, while making posts claiming shared experiences are exclusive are all about you and your disability. It's deflecting accountability by giving yourself the out of "oh but see this isn't about anyone with these issues and if you think it is maybe you're the meanie able-bodied ableists we write it for" and weaponizing your own neurodivergence to claim you're not neuroableist in the same post you claim someone is lying about how disabling their neurodivergence is because in your own words yours doesn't disable you that much.

So no, it's not actually open to all physical disabilities, even assuming generously that that's what you mean when you specify physical illnesses (which would generally imply that nonphysical illnesses with physical symptoms don't count to most fluent english speakers).

It's not open to those of us who have messy complex disabilities and who acknowledge that all of emotions and intelligence and cognition and identity is caused by electric currents and chemicals being sent through a slab of meat wrapped in bone (and even that we barely understand, with scientists discovering that a lot of those things might actually be partially caused or driven by processes elsewhere in the body, even leaving aside that the brain itself is also just the CPU of the whole machine and that CPU issues do in fact affect not just the whole operating system but can even cause or lead to hardware issues themselves.

It's not for any of the people who experience or understand these things the "wrong" way.

It's for your little clique to be able to say "you can't sit at our table" and then put on convincing crocodile tears and play victim for your followers when someone dares to call you out for being a petty bully punching sideways at MOST at the severely disabled people you're claiming are your oppressors.

Yeah no, honey. I've seen it in a dozen marginalized communities and every time it's the most vulnerable members that get fucked over by it. I'm not playing your games or engaging with your pathetic power grab.

If anyone is actually interested in how you can create spaces tailored for specific needs and experiences, we're going to shamelessly plug our own medium article about Selective Inclusion. (We probably need to redraft it honestly, but it's got the point at least.) For a brief explanation, selective inclusion is about choosing to focus a space around a need, experience, or identity, and then letting anyone in who believes they share it.

Now, that sounds like what "oh but if you have physical symptoms that counts" covers, but even if that weren't a pretty falsehood, selectively inclusive spaces around an identity focus on the identity itself, without claiming shared experiences are exclusive or that shared needs should only be met for people who use the right label. It is a space explicitly intended to be safe and comfortable for people who are "[identity] AND" - som a space that allows neurodivergent physically disabled people (and people with only "neurodivergent diagnoses" who have physically disabling symptoms) room to talk about how their identities intersect and affect each other and how sometimes they cause seemingly contradictory effects and experiences.

That is not what cripplepunk spaces, which co-opted a word that has historically been used against all of us*, and claimed its reclamation is exclusive only to some of us because a person not fully aware of its history (because I choose to believe it was not maliciously coined) defined the rest of us out of our own history.

*Despite people denying not just disability history but direct evidence of it, the term "mental cripple" appears in a number of actual scientific papers and was in fact the official term for a time, and was used specifically in the context of the institutionalization and brutalization of neurodisabled people in asylums. People were tortured and even lobotomized for daring to be a cripple whose "deformity" (another historically used term for neurodivergent people) was in the brain. But of course, historical revisionism and claims that it's an "outdated" usage despite lived experiences of neurodisabled people contradicting that are "counterevidence" to this.

Anyway usual disclaimer if you're just here to insult me, ignore everything I've said and try to argue with things I either didn't say or that aren't true, fakeclaim me, or all the usual stuff, just block me. You will be filtered and blocked by my comment screener before I ever see it anyway.

People who want to ask good faith questions or discuss personal experiences (including with neuroableism and corpoableism in the disabled community), as long as you don't act as if ableism is stored in the (physical or neuro) disability, you are welcome to interact. I am usually pretty good about assuming good faith and giving the benefit of the doubt as long as there is any to give, and I think it is really important to have conversations about lateral ableism that the majority of us are absolutely capable (hm, maybe an ironic word here, but I think still accurate?) of perpetuating.

[ritzyperry]

just found out that some people apparently think milo murphy's law is transmisogynistic, perry is bad ace rep because he's ace as the "safe" option for queer rep, dan and swampy are bigots who shoehorn all of their queerphobic rhetoric into all of their media, and that phineas and ferb was a bigot's paradise all along... it's joever

[jennchecks]

.

[turtlemagnum]

god, i suck at mario 2. i'm disparaging my legacy.... seriously, how the fuck have i beaten the lost levels without save states but can't get past 1-3 in american mario 2???? why am i not instantly good at a game i've never really played, god!!!! my mother would be disappointed in me

post writing the tags turtle here: i started rambling about my childhood made the tags longer than the actual post and don't feel like putting them onto the actual post because that'd be too much work and i'm feeling lazy. read em if you want personal bullshit! or don't. i'm not care