#thinking about job setups that would accommodate me and just nothing really really does it

[cum-allergy]

..

[tossawary]

I need to know more about “SVSSS - Baby Brother Liu Qingge” bc I love tiny and very deadly baby LQG

I have a 3k-ish Shang Qinghua POV that was supposed to be the introduction to this fic concept! So... ah... baby Liu Qingge does not appear in this, but you can see the setup for how an 8yo-ish Liu Qingge was supposed to be introduced. My hope is that this will someday become a "Shang Qinghua and Shen Jiu go on a mission with Baby Brother Liu Qingge" one shot.

-cut-

Shang Qinghua didn't really have the words to describe what it was like having Proud Immortal Demon Way's characters finally come into his second life.

He didn't have the words to describe a lot of his transmigration experience, honestly! His words had described a lot of this world already, haha, hadn't they? Sometimes a person just had to put up with it and keep going.

And then excuse himself later to go scream into a pillow! Many times!

At first, life was just him in a body that didn't fit and strange memories that slipped between his fingers like sand. His memories of a past life had settled eventually, the System finally came fully online, and his relationship with his second family was fully fucked forever. That was fine, though! That was fine! With some unsolicited prodding from his System, he left to go seek his fortune soon enough and he never had to talk to his character's birth parents or siblings again.

But Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky had never said much of anything about Shang Qinghua’s family or home village, besides saying that the man had dreamed of more than his mediocre origins, so everything had been unfamiliar and original and real. Getting to Cang Qiong Mountain Sect, which he had described in great detail, was a real headfuck. There were no words for the experience of recognizing things that he’d written in another life.

He saw the glistening rainbow bridge and the intimidating sect entrance and the majestic meeting hall on Qiong Ding, and he nearly screamed. He definitely squawked. His vision got really fuzzy for a minute there and he had to sit down on the ground before he fell over. What the fuck?! What the fuck?! He’d made a world! The System had really made a world out of his web-novel! He was really stuck in Proud Immortal Demon Way!

There were upsides and downsides to joining Cang Qiong Mountain Sect. Downsides included: the hard training, the harder workload, the dangerous missions, the disrespect towards An Ding Peak, and being surrounded by arrogant and foolish teenagers looking to look down on someone. It was really something else to look some of them in the eye and think, "Bro, I don’t know your name, but you kind of owe your existence to me. Could you stop being such a fucking asshole about leaving your chores for me to do?! Respect your father!"

Upsides included: actually becoming a cultivator (pretty cool, even though the work of cultivation sucked more often than not), better living accommodations and food, and actually getting to see some of the cooler places, plants, monsters, and magic that were a part of his world. Sure, carting a monster corpse brought in by Bai Zhan Peak to Xi Jiao Peak for butchering was smelly and heavy and altogether miserable, but seeing an impossible animal was still kind of incredible. If this unwilling Shang Qinghua could stop being pushed around and stepped on long enough to appreciate the upsides, he’d really appreciate it!

It was interesting and infuriating to log the differences between what he’d imagined, what he’d written, and what the System had created. What sort of author described every single object in every single room? Who had time for that? Who wanted to read that? The System had filled in all the living details of An Ding Peak - the Leisure Houses, the training grounds, the storehouses, the warehouses, the kitchens, the lesson halls, the leisure gardens, the farming fields, the livestock fields, the stables, the cart lot, the water supply, the sewage systems, and so on - so that people could actually live here. Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky as an author had done many things worthy of complaint and criticism, but wasting his readers’ time with sewage systems was not one of them!

The System had also filled in all the little details and decorations - the paintings on the walls of sect history, the detailing on the rooftops supposedly offering protections from dream demons, the chipped and faded paint of old storehouses that disciples would be tasked with replacing, the statues in the fields to scare off scavengers, the carvings on the doors meant to reduce resentful energy, the childish etchings of bored students the surface of the lesson hall desks, the old bench where the An Ding Peak Lord liked to sit and eat flatcakes - so that it really seemed like people had built this place and maintained it and added to it for generations.

Shang Qinghua had his quibbles here and there. Sometimes the System had made choices that he objected to! He would have done it differently if it had asked him, the author, to contribute. He really felt as though the System should have asked him to clarify the plot holes and the gaps in detail, instead of choosing precedence randomly or building off random implications taken way too literally.

Sometimes he found out that the System had built things out of throwaway lines that Shang Qinghua himself had completely forgotten about. It turned out that Ku Xing Peak made a lot of purification tools and containment vessels because Airplane had offhandedly mentioned that this was their specialty, and now Shang Qinghua had to cart around delicate ceramics to be sold to city merchants or other cultivation sects. He never would have dared to write that if he’d known that it would one day in another life be his job to do things like take inventory and chase down signatures for successful deliveries.

Places, items, and creatures were one thing, but logging the differences between the people he met and the characters he’d created was something else. At first it was okay, because he was surrounded by nameless An Ding Peak nobodies - his fellow disciples, their teachers, the hardworking managers and merchants, even the peak lord - none of them had ever mattered in Proud Immortal Demon Way. If Airplane had been the one to name any of them, he didn’t recognize the names or remember them.

Then he met Yue Qingyuan.

Wow, it was a worse headfuck than first arriving at Cang Qiong Mountain Sect, when Shang Qinghua finally realized that this was the young version of one of his actual characters. It took him a minute. As a lowly outer disciple, Shang Qinghua hadn’t received “Qinghua” as a name yet (his name was Houhua, not that anyone ever used it) and the future Yue Qingyuan was still called Yue Qi.

Shang Qinghua was fourteen at the time. Yue Qingyuan must have been around the same age, so he didn’t strike the tall and handsome figure of the sect leader Airplane had described. The boy was broad, but actually a little short. He had freckles. He had acne.

But he also had a warm smile that seemed to go all the way to his eyes when he offered to give Shang Qinghua directions to the right office on Qiong Ding. He had a steady hand when he helped Shang Qinghua up, after the An Ding disciple had suddenly tripped over nothing upon being introduced. Yue Qingyuan - Yue Qi - walked him to the right office and did his best to make small talk, friendly and kind even though Shang Qinghua was having difficulty stringing more than a few words together in his shock.

Even then, it was obvious that the boy was developing the calm surety and the social charm that would make him a greatly admired sect leader someday! It was all Shang Qinghua could do not to blurt out: “Holy shit, you’re REAL?!” Which would be closely followed by: “Hey, is Shen Qingqiu really real too?!” And then maybe closely followed by: “FUCK!!!”

As the years went by, Shang Qinghua met more of Proud Immortal Demon Way’s characters, and it was weird every time. None of them were exactly like he was expecting. He kept expecting… well… he kept expecting them to look like the fanart, like flawless character models, more or less. Instead, he kept getting… people.

Wei Qingwei, head disciple of the sword-focused Wan Jian Peak, was also shorter than he was expecting, kind of stout, with a wide face and a wider smile. Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky had apparently had the man crack a few jokes upon his rare appearances in the web-novel, usually during tense situations, as he was reminded by the System upon thinking to himself: “Why is this guy LIKE THIS?!” So, because of just a few lines, the real Wei Qingwei had a relentless sense of humor and loved telling jokes.

Upon their first meeting, when Shang Qinghua was fifteen and had been sent over to help renovate some Wan Jian dormitories, fifteen-year-old Wei Qingwei had pretended to fumble a sword and, using a packet of dye and a sleight of hand, made it look like he’d accidentally cut off his own hand at the wrist. Of course Shang Qinghua had screamed and panicked! Anyone would panic! But Wei Qingwei had laughed at him and said, “Got you! Shang-Shidi, the sword wasn’t even unsheathed!” Asshole!

Qi Qingqi, the head disciple of Xian Shu Peak, was much taller than he was expecting. Apparently Airplane had once described a group of some of the peak lords by saying something like: “Each one of them was like a giant to young Luo Binghe.” That group had included Qi Qingqi. The System apparently had taken that to mean that Qi Qingqi was of a height with the likes of Yue Qingyuan and Shen Qingqiu. Shang Qinghua discovered this adaptational choice when he was almost sixteen, when this giraffe-like girl came to An Ding Peak to complain about an order someone along the pipeline had dropped completely, and he accidentally found himself (still waiting on a really good growth spurt) eye-level with Qi Qingqi’s chest.

Airplane had apparently once said in Proud Immortal Demon Way that Qian Cao Peak Lord Mu Qingfang appeared a little older than his colleagues, by which he’d probably meant that the man was just tired or something, but this head disciple Mu Qingfang appeared to have ten years on all the other head disciples. Which was good! Shang Qinghua approved of their future head healer not being a teenager and having more training!

On the bad side of things, Airplane had also once said in Proud Immortal Demon Way that the Zui Xian Peak Lord Zhang Qingyan liked his drink too much. This was the peak specializing in alcohol, so it had seemed to make sense! It was supposed to be funny, if anything! Well, at sixteen, Shang Qinghua found out that the System had focused too much on the “too much” part of that statement and now the head disciple of Zui Xian Peak was pretty clearly a budding alcoholic. (Sometimes a cultivator’s constitution and ability to “cure” themselves just… made a person drink more. A lot more.) Which was… not good.

At seventeen, Shang Qinghua met Mobei-Jun.

He didn’t know where to get started with Mobei-Jun.

Somehow he’d… forgotten that Mobei-Jun had been originally based on Airplane’s idea of “the perfect man” and not the super pretty, muscular but slim-waisted protagonist type? The real Mobei-Jun was… tall… and big… and thick. Mobei-Jun’s intimidating features were… more striking than pretty. The first time Shang Qinghua had come back to his Leisure House and found this spoiled brat of an ice demon napping shirtless on his bed, and gotten an eyeful of all that heavy muscle and chest hair, he’d nearly knocked himself out on the doorframe trying to turn away before he had a heart attack.

Mobei-Jun really was going to be the death of him, holy shit.

Especially because this ice demon really was a spoiled brat! Airplane had described this character as being arrogant and apathetic, so now Shang Qinghua had to deal with a Mobei-Jun who took long baths and then carelessly dripped water all over the floor and all over fresh sheets! Who ate all of Shang Qinghua’s cooking and ungratefully only demanded more food, sprawled over furniture not really fit for someone of his size, and then watched Shang Qinghua like a fat tiger! Ahhh, this demon really was lucky he was handsome!

Mobei-Jun was also kind of violent, and mean, which was… well, it sucked.

Back to the sect that Shang Qinghua was now actively betraying, however, as far as he could see, there was still one future peak lord missing.

It wasn’t Shen Qingqiu, who Shang Qinghua had thought would be the last one to show up. Shen Qingqiu had shown up and had been advancing through the ranks of Qing Jing Peak before Shang Qinghua had even met Mobei-Jun, which meant that Yue Qingyuan had finally stopped looking like someone had torn out his soul. (Shang Qinghua had been forced to grit his teeth every time that someone mentioned how privileged that Yue Qingyuan was to have been granted that year of secluded cultivation in the Lingxi Caves at such a young age.)

No, of all the peak lords, it was Liu Qingge who Shang Qinghua had yet to meet.

After meeting Mobei-Jun and becoming an inner disciple, the System had given Shang Qinghua three years to make it to head disciple, probably because the deadline for a new generation of peak lords to ascend was fast approaching. He was working hard to achieve that! Not only did he have to sabotage the current favorite, but he had to make sure all his own training, missions, work, and research were as close to flawless as he could get it! All while keeping an intruding ice demon happy! He wasn’t totally sure that he was going to make it at this rate, even though he’d been here for years.

So it was a little concerning that Liu Qingge hadn't shown up yet. There was so much left to do. A world-state that had yet to be established. Liu Qingge had work to do here!

Liu Qingge and Shen Qingqiu still had to develop a hatred for each other as disciples that would extend to everyone believing that Shen Qingqiu had murdered Liu Qingge as peak lords, after all. Granted, all Liu Qingge really had to do was beat everyone else on Bai Zhan Peak up to obtain the position, and it wasn’t exactly hard to get Shen Qingqiu to develop a lifelong grudge, but the guy was still cutting it pretty close.

It was possible that Liu Qingge was already on Bai Zhan Peak and making good progress, but that he was just so solitary and focused on searching out the next big battle that Shang Qinghua had just never had the opportunity to meet him. Shang Qinghua did his best to avoid Bai Zhan Peak most of the time, honestly! He was curious about where Liu Qingge was, about what the man looked like, but he didn’t let himself sweat at not seeing the future war god, when he already had so many things to sweat about. The System had taken care of bringing in everyone else, so Shang Qinghua was sure that Liu Qingge would follow sooner or later.

Shang Qinghua’s first sign that something was wrong was that, on the day that Liu Qingge finally announced his existence by beating up everyone on Bai Zhan Peak, everyone was saying things like, “I can’t believe some kid managed to topple all of Bai Zhan like that!”

He… may or may not have ignored this sign.

To be fair to this poor writer-turned-disciple, though, he’d been up all night finishing some paperwork catastrophe the An Ding Peak Lord had thrown at him to fix, as some kind of “test” of his logistics skills. Upon hearing the latest gossip, Shang Qinghua thought, “Oh, finally?” And then his overtired brain collapsed from the effort of thinking two words together in a sentence, and all he could manage from there was to feel the intense need to go to bed at a maximum, static-y volume. No words. No more thinky thoughts. Just the need for speedy sleep.

He stumbled through the rest of his day and then passed out for 18 hours straight. In hindsight, this would have been the time when the gossip was at its hottest. He missed all of it.

When he woke up, everyone was still dealing with the aftermath of what had happened on Bai Zhan Peak, but the conversation had shifted more towards replacing Qian Cao Peak’s depleted supplies and the repairs to Bai Zhan’s training grounds. Liu Qingge was the name on everyone’s lips, still, but everyone knew the basic information now. Now, everyone was just exclaiming over and over again how unbelievably young (and pretty) he was to have bested every other disciple on the sect battle-focused peak. This didn't seem too strange.

The System probably would have based the War God's appearance on his sister, Liu Mingyan, a strong contender for the most beautiful woman in all of Proud Immortal Demon Way. Liu Qingge apparently being a very pretty boy fell neatly into line with all the other character design surprises that Shang Qinghua had gotten smacked with so far.

If Airplane had known that he'd be transmigrating into his novel, maybe there would have been even more handsome men! And everyone would have lived happily ever after and nothing bad would have happened ever, probably, but also there might be more sexy guys too.

-

TBC

[libraford]

We interrupt the feral celebration of ousting an oligarch to bring you a story about Yeehaw and his Branch of Mystery.

  It has been a while since we last had some co-worker drama, but man- has it been a weird summer. I mean... we all had a weird summer in 2020, but I don't think I was really expecting this particular... flavor of weird?

 This is a story about Yeehaw, but it starts off with a story about Aggie.

 Aggie was someone we were excited to hire and part of our excitement was that it's rare to find someone with prior floral experience and we'd concluded at this point that it does no one any good to be picky about new hires in the middle of a pandemic. So finding someone who knew the difference between a carnation and a rose was a big deal for us.

 I say that in jest, but saying that we do 'on-the-job training' means that we've had to explain that yes- the flower in my hand that looks like a carnation is a carnation and not some other flower that looks like carnation but is not a carnation. Floristry is a very straightforward practice and for the most part a rose is a rose and a daisy is a daisy and if someone asks for those things, you give it to them.

 The hard part is, as always, making them look good together.

 Which is why we were pleased with Aggie- who previously did weddings for her friends and seemed to have a basic understanding of how to do things with her hands. We were happy to have her aboard.

 ... until you gave her criticism.

 She made her vases embarrassingly short, and if you tried to tell her how to fix it, she'd snap back with "I'm not DONE yet."

 She was done until you said something.

 If you gave her an order for two dozen white roses, she would take it upon herself to mix white and yellow roses together 'because it looks better.'

 It did not.

 Hashtag: #selftaught

 When a client asks for all white roses, there is likely a reason they asked for all white. Given that 90% of our work is funerals, it stands to reason that they are asking for all white because that is a traditional color for mourning. Working with a client means doing exactly what they asked for. Doing a wedding for your friends may get you high praise from people who trust you to work in the same aesthetic as them, but in a shop setting you are being paid to follow things to the letter. Doing so shows that you can follow directions, and they may come back next time.

 You don't know customer entitlement until you've been torn another asshole for leaving out a single rose.

 This seemed to never occur to her, and so criticism was a painful realization that perhaps she wasn't perfect at an art that was exceptionally susceptible to criticism. There were plenty of opportunities to make something in her own aesthetic, it wasn't like she was being stifled. There was a considerable amount of downtime where she filled the front cooler with her own creations- enigmatically giving each of them their own names like "Autumn Walk" or "First Snowfall." (This is not something that we do, on the whole.)

 Not very many of those sold.

 But I think what bugged me the most is that she only ever designed. She didn't take out the trash, she didn't answer phones, she never helped customers. She just... did flowers. Nothing else.

 Oh... and the chatter.

 "Do you travel? Oh, you simply MUST go to Bali sometime! You've never been to Asia? Well, there's nothing like achieving inner peace at a Buddhist temple on a mountaintop in Nepal. They have temples here in Ohio, but it's nothing like the real thing! You say you've never even been off the continent? Well, what are you waiting for? You only live once, you know!"

 Ma'am... we're in the middle of a pandemic. Ma'am... I only get paid so much...

 While trying to relate, I talked about my summer in Montana and she gave me the BIGGEST stank-face. "Montana? Ew, WHY?"

 Look, lady- I lived on a mountaintop next to an active, world-destroying volcano system. If that's not cool, I don't know what is.

 But thankfully, she only worked on weekends. See, this was her fun job. The job she does to stay social during a pandemic and flex her creative muscles while she makes money at her much more lucrative,but boring,HR job. So I only had to see her twice a month when I was manager on duty.

 Then she got fired from her weekday job and went full-time at the flower shop. Poor thing wasn't used to waking up at 7am every day. She was full of suggestions.

 "I think it would be easier for me if we only opened at like... 11am."

"Don't you think we should be taking proper photos of our work? All we would need is a nice camera and a soft lighting setup. Couldn't be much more than $1000."

"Oh I know! We should be doing inventory on tablets instead of writing things down!"

 Okay, you go buy those things then. It took her about a week of making those suggestions to realize that she wasn't real clear on how things worked around here and stopped. She became quiet, less enthusiastic about her 'fun' job now that she wasn't immediately the star of the show.

 Enter Yeehaw.

 We were excited about Yeehaw, too. He didn't just have experience with flowers- he had experience with a flower shop. He gave a good interview, he seemed like he knew what he was doing and was very passionate about flowers. He was definitely an entire hippie, but about 1/3 of all plant people are. Most importantly, we still had like three spots to fill left from our pre-Covid staff.

 Hired.

 There was an overlap of about a week where Aggie and Yeehaw worked at the same time. His work was... immaculate. Just... astonishingly beautiful work. You didn't even have to show him how to make anything. He just... knew.

 Well, Aggie didn't  like that much- we had only nice things to say about this new guy but all she ever got was criticism. And if we complimented him on something he made, he would give a little 'namaste' bow. And I could see her fuming with rage each time he did this.

 One day, she rushed into the back to take a phone call and any time someone went back there for a vase she would lower her voice as if keeping a deep secret. Twenty minutes later, she called Grandpa into the back as well to discuss something. Ten minutes later, Aggie left the building with her Live, Laugh, Love bag, looking pissed.

 "Where did Aggie go," I asked Grandpa.

 "She got a new job," she said. "Doing HR somewhere."

 "She didn't even say good-bye," Blue said, appearing unsurprised.

 And so we went on with out lives without really putting much further thought into Aggie, apart from the occasional 'you simply MUST visit Bali' line thrown in for bougie emphasis.

 Which brings us to the next part of the story, and that is Yeehaw.

 There are some details to know about Yeehaw that are kind of difficult to fit into a story neatly. Here is a brief list that may come in handy to know later.

-He lives with his mother.

-He drives a Tesla.

-He can afford the Tesla because he was in a terrible wreck that had him hospitalized, and a lawsuit was won.

-Because of this, he has two screws in his head at the temples.

-Unrelated, he has hair that goes all the way down to his back.

- And...

 "Grandpa, we need to tell you something," Blue said. "In private."

 Blue and Kali pulled Grandpa aside while Yeehaw slowly put together a funeral order. "Grandpa, there's no polite way to put this: Yeehaw is drunk as fuck."

 "He smells like whiskey," Kali said.

 "He's stumbling everywhere."

 "And he won't stop... burping."

 Grandpa paused. "There's something I need to tell you," she said, and she reached for a manila folder. "Yeehaw has something called... what's it called..." She leafed through the file and produced a paper, reading from it. "Auto-brewery Syndrome. His body actually produces alcohol anytime he eats bread or sugar. If he's drunk, it's because he can't help it."

 We each had a chance to go over the doctor's note, verifying that yes- that sure does look official. Everyone had questions, but it did answer the one I had about why he was sitting in the break room literally drinking peanut butter from the jar.

 So that was incredibly interesting and we no longer asked about the burping or why he was so slow.  

 However, the fact that he was so slow was extremely frustrating. Our average number of orders runs approximately 100 per-day. This can be eased somewhat when we have a full-staff with five designers- an average of 20 designs per person in an 8-hour day, 3 per hour.

 But it's a fine line some days, and if one person cannot keep up it turns into a struggle for all of us.  

 We did our best to accommodate. We gave him all the day-ahead orders so that we wouldn't be behind and he'd have all the time he'd need to make his gorgeous pieces.

 We were willing to make it work.

 A number of factors came into play one day, but most notably: Yeehaw's Tesla wouldn't start and he had to take the bus. So he was late.

 I think I saw him make one entire item in the two hours that we were in the same room. He went to lunch around 12:30, I took mine around 1:00. I saw him stumble back in from lunch, looking... out of it. Just... absolutely incomprehensible- mumbling, barely upright, his hair out of the bun, quite possibly sleepwalking- who knows?

 I saw him for that brief Sasquatch moment... and that was the last that I saw him that day. It was around 4:00 that  Grandpa asked the question:

 "Where's Yeehaw?"

 And no one had an answer. We all had places that we thought we'd seen him: cleaning the cooler, in the break room, heading to the bathroom... but no one had really... seen him since he stumbled back in around 1:30.

 We checked all these places.

 None of them.

 The person who actually managed to find him was Sarge, who noticed his feet sticking out from behind the bushes behind the building.

 "Huh," he said, presumably. He gave the feet a light kick and Yeehaw slowly sat back up. "Hey dude. You... okay, there? They're lookin' for you inside."

 Yeehaw mumbled something to Sarge and got to his feet, stumbling back into the shop without further interaction. He appeared into the workspace, holding a branch in front of his face for mysterious reasons. There were still twigs entangled in his long hair.

 "Where were you at," Grandpa asked, concerned.

 "Oh, I was in the bathroom," he lied from behind the branch of mystery. "I'm pretty tired. Is it okay if I go home?"

 Bewildered, Grandpa gave him permission to leave. It was soon after he left that Scout found his phone in the empty sink. "Who's trying to wash their phone," he asked in the loud manner that is characteristic of old white men. It rang while in his hand and one of our designers snatched it from him. It was his mother.

 "Hello," said the designer. "Yeehaw went home early, but he left his phone behind. Can you bring it home to him?" Mom agreed, she was just over at Trader Joe's anyhow.

 We thought, of course, that we were doing something smart and nice. Yeehaw's mom looks just about what you would expect the mother of a 30-year-old hippie that drives a Tesla to look. Grandpa, in a polite way, explained that he'd fallen asleep in a bush. To which Mom seemed neither surprised nor concerned about his behavior.

 "Okay. I'll be at Hallmark."

 Somewhere between the bus stop and Bexley, Yeehaw must have realized that his phone was not with him and so he came back looking for it. Despite his mother being literally in the same strip mall as we were, he seemed irritated that we'd taken the initiative to make sure his phone got to him.

 "Well, I bet if you just went down to Hallmark she'd give you your phone and probably give you a ride home."

 He mumbled something and then left.

 This seems like a decent place to pause, because him leaving the second time in the day should be the end of the story. However... at 5:00 in the evening there was still two hours left in the work day and from past experience... that is plenty of time for a lot of things to happen.

 The thing to happen was a phone call.

 "Hi, this is Jade from the main store. We've gotten... some... interesting phone calls. Is there... a... hmm... is there a dead body out in front of your store?"

 Pause.

 "We'll take care of it, bye."

 Who wants to be the one to poke the cadaver on the sidewalk? A volunteer from the audience! Ms Crowe: won't you come down?!

 I have had it planted firmly in my mind that Crowe certainly understands the concept of fear but does not recognize it. Apart from being one of our most reliable drivers, she is also a performer, a street medic, an activist, and most notably... a fire-breather.

 You have your hobbies.

 Point is- she's brave enough to check to see if the person laying on the sidewalk was dead or simply overdosed.

 As it turns out, it was Yeehaw- curled up in the fetal position with his arm covering his face.

 "Hey," Crowe said, poking him with her foot. "Heeeeeeey," she said again but more firmly this time. He moved, blinking in the evening the sun. "Buddy, you can't be laying around on the sidewalk. You gotta move on."

 Again, he slowly got to his feet. At this time, his mother emerged from Hallmark to see him talking with Crowe. A group of four people escorted him into Mom's car while he stopped every few feet to perform another 'namaste' bow.

 You think this is the end. But what have we learned?

 There's always more.

 He came in the next day as if none of this had happened. Conversation was difficult because we both desperately needed to know what the fuck happened and also did not want to trigger something. So we didn't bring it up. He apologized for leaving early: chronic fatigue syndrome, you know.

 Other places would have fired him, but we're a very forgiving workplace. Falling asleep on company time is not, in any way, the worst thing that someone has done at this location while still keeping their job. There was Sugar and her drugs, there was the dude that used the company van to pick up prostitutes (this was before my time), there was the guy that screamed at customers over the phone... it's a long list.

 The primary concern of our employers is whether or not you are a reliable person. If you routinely show up for your job and do the work, you're going to be okay at least for a little bit. And Yeehaw, for all his impeccable fuckery, at least showed up every day.

 We kept this at the back of our minds.

 One day, after the Day We Found Him In a Bush was behind us, one of the designers mentioned that they'd seen where Aggie works now. It was not in HR.

 It was our major competitor.

 Now, Grandpa knows this competitor well. She knows all her competition. It is the nature of a lot of florists to, once they've gotten sick of one place, move on to the next one and spill the beans on their operations there. So Grandpa gets the dirt on everyone.

 This particular shop was very regimented. You don't wing it- you follow the recipe as listed. He's been known to pick discarded flowers up off the floor and tell you exactly how much  money you're costing the company by letting it fall, to the cent. If you get so far as to make casket sprays, he will take your first one and chuck it across the room if it even looks like the stems are in there too loosely.

 This is what I mean about us being an easy place to work.

 Hashtag: #ohfuck.

 People come in and out of your life like that, in little ways. Sometimes you just have to have a little laugh at it. But what I thought was funny was that she felt the need to keep her new employer a secret, as though we would get jealous or tattle. Curious thing.

 Now that the glamour of Yeehaw's arrangements had worn off, we were starting to see more and more odd behaviors that didn't seem completely related to drunkenness.

 "Did you just fart?"

 "No, that was a spider barking."

 Amazing.

 Conversation with him was becoming... difficult. As I sat in the break room with my quick lunch and he drank soup out of a mayonnaise jar, he mentioned his area of study in college.

 "Cognitive Psychology and Hindu Philosophy, huh? That's an interesting combination."

 "Yeah," he said, funneling an amount of squash soup down his throat. "It'll take the rest of the world about 100 years before they catch up to where I am."

 I sat, posed in front of my beef and broccoli which I was eating with a fork, trying to process a logical reason why the rest of the world will be sleeping in a bush in one hundred years. "Uh... huh."

 This was followed by another thirty minutes of silence where I desperately wanted to know what he meant by that but didn't want to be the one to ask him.

 People will tell you that a hippie is generally an ineffective, benign kind of person who chants 'love love, peace peace' in a circle and consider that to be an action for change. But I can say with absolute certainty that I have met some downright egotistical hippies in my life. Those were lessons in bias- which I will have to save for other times.

 Eventually, Grandpa became frustrated with his slowness. We presumed that his speed of choice was a combination of his meticulous nature and his various ailments, but with the Christmas season coming upon us it was becoming much more than a series of symptoms.

 Previous persons who lacked speed were chatty, would play on their phone, or get distracted. But Yeehaw... Yeehaw simply moved like a tranquilized sloth. He slowly picked off each leaf, each thorn, each guard petal and took a minute for each action. He would put in his greens and then contemplate it powerfully for ten minutes before putting any flowers in... slowly.

 In the time spent doing this, I had already made something of a similar size and was starting on the second one.

 It was during one of these times that Grandpa finally said something.

 "Yeehaw, that spray is due in thirty minutes. Is there a way you can go any faster?"

 He looked up from his greens, held one carnation to his face, and said:

 "If you wanted me to move faster, you would pay me better."

 Let me start by saying that we do not get paid well. We don't. Compared to other flower shops in our city, we are probably the lowest-paid. This is something that the company is starting to work on with benefits and raises, but any amount of change takes time. (And its still better paying than when I worked in retail. But that's another book.)

 Yeehaw had been here for exactly one month. I don't know a single workplace that gives you a raise after one month and still lets you sleep on the clock without firing you. He knew what he was getting paid when we hired him.

 So anyways, he slowly grinds down our nerves to a very fine dust- burping, farting, falling asleep on his feet, staring intensely into space, talking about how much he should be making but isn't, bragging about his enlightenment, and generally just slowing down production.

 And then Grandpa had her well-earned vacation week. Blue was in charge for the most part and the week leading up to Halloween is generally pretty slow, so it was a good week for her to have a break with few mishaps.

 Eh... hehe. Yeah.

 Yeehaw... disappeared again. We checked the cooler, we checked the break room, we checked the bushes out back, we checked the sidewalk out front.

 He was in the bathroom.

 So we left it.

 He was still in the bathroom an hour later.

 We had one of the male drivers pound on the door to check on him. When Yeehaw opened the door to the men's room, there was a wad of toilet paper on the floor that he'd been using as a pillow.

 If I may pause here to explain- our men's room is disgusting. I have deep cleaned it several times only for it to become a germ-fest once more in a matter of hours. I don't ask who is peeing all over the floor because, honestly, I have no desire to know what grown man can't aim his willy in the right direction.

 So in order to fall asleep in the bathroom, you have to be willing to sleep in pee. During a pandemic.

 He reappeared in the workroom, put his apron back on, looked around at all of us still working and said: "Wow, it must be really hard to get fired here."

 It was at this point that Blue informed Grandpa.

 "Tell him that he's fired," Grandpa said, clearly 1001% done with this.

 "I'm not going to fire him," Blue said. "I don't think I can fire anyone."

 So she had the driver that found him do it, which was confusing for all of us. He ended up calling Grandpa to clarify. And by 'clarify,' I definitely mean 'beg for his job back.' A synopsis of the 20 minute phone call went like this:

 "What do you mean, I'm fired?"

 "Just that. You're fired. I'm tired of it, Yeehaw. You don't work here anymore."

 "Why?"

 "What do you mean 'why?' You spend all day making a total of three arrangements and then you wander off somewhere and fall asleep."

 "I can't help it if I have chronic fatigue syndrome!"

 "This is a physical job. If your body can't handle an 8-hour shift without falling asleep for two hours, this isn't the job for you. Tell me: where is that fair to the girls that you do 3% of the work while they pick up the slack and you wander off to sleep on the clock?"

 "I simply do not care about them."

 "You don't care that you're shoving all the work on your coworkers, and that's why you're fired."

 "I wish you'd given me a warning."

 "Tell me, Yeehaw: how many employers can you find that will allow you to sleep on the clock for two hours and let you off with a warning?"

 End of discussion.

 Now, you're probably wondering where Aggie comes back into this. Just hold tight, I'll get there.

 The Sunday after he was fired, he came in to pick up his paycheck. I was busy handling a minor emergency where one of our funeral homes forgot to order a spray and I had to make one as fast as I could. We held a brief conversation while I made the spray in a hurry.

 "I'm here to pick up my check," he said while I greened the spray and leafed through the paychecks simultaneously.

 "Here you go," I said, handing it to him without much fanfare. I presumed that he was looking for sympathy or some kind of followup or... I don't know. Sorry you suddenly care about your job?

 "So what are your next plans," one of the designers asked, trying to coax more information out of him while I did the work of three people.

 "It's kind of funny," he said slowly... as he did all things. "I've only ever been fired from flower shops." He paused, thoughtfully. "I think I'm going to go apply to the shop in Bexley that Aggie went to."

[sera-cb]

My vaccine experience has been terrible and stressful and it’s put me in a really weird spot where I 100% believe everyone should get this thing if they’re at all able, but also am terrified to try again myself. Which I have to do, it turns out! Because even with this capitalism’s efforts to do things cheaply and as automated as possible has just absolutely fucked me apparently.

Like first off, I have a day job five days a week and every other weekend I am scheduled to do art streams, one for backers and one for comms, which both are typically needed to make ends meet.  Work won’t pay me to miss time for side effects, and I’m finding it very difficult to do these big-ass seven hour streams two weekends in a row on top of my usual work weeks, so finding the right time to get the first dose was a nightmare, but also

that nightmare began with like an hour wait inside of a Walgreens to see if the last appointment would show up or not, because “walk-ins open” is sort of only half true I guess, but largely because if they just gave it to me they’d need to open a new set of the things and they’d all go bad for my sake and that sucks.  Fine, I get it, but the dude didn’t show so they scheduled me for the next day.

Then, as I was walking away, the dude shows up, and the guy flags me down and goes “hey let’s do it now after all.”  Rad, I thought. Progress.

Another hour waiting in Walgreens.

I finally get the shot. She hands me some papers. I need to wait around for 15 minutes to be observed, they said. Alright, fine. I read the papers while I wait; the side effects of the shot possibly killing you are basically 1:1 with what happens to me during a panic attack. I’ve developed this weird history with needles where I get panic attacks or something adjacent with some weird and mildly random delay after getting any kind of shot.  Now I’m thinking about that and the room is spinning. I call my wife hoping she’ll talk me down. I get about two sentences into that call before I wake up to my phone ringing on the floor.  Nobody on staff notices.

Three hours after getting there, I hobble out of Walgreens. I’m basically wiped out for three days - even without the shot, the weird lightheaded shit I get from these pass-out sessions does some vile stuff to the rest of my body that lingers for a day or two sometimes.

I was advised that since I got the shot day-of after all I’d need to reschedule my appointment, though, and this led to problems.  Walgreen’s vaccine setup only does appointments in pairs; if you missed the first, you won’t get the second, and there was to our knowledge no way to do just the second, especially via their robo phone tree. Kaz deals with Walgreens all the time for her meds, so she knows how to get through the phone tree - it’s by being so hostile that I feel bad for the robot, for the record - but when asking if we could schedule just a second shot either they hung up on us or the line went dead.

I said “screw it, I’ll just show up in a few weeks,” but then I just never did, because I didn’t have a hard deadline to my knowledge and I was quite stressed out from the whole experience, but it turns out that the day I finally worked up the will to get the second dose? Where I had people willing to be there for me in case things went south again?

Three days after the six week deadline before the whole thing is moot, which nobody told me about.

So now I’m back to square one, barely able to work my will up for one more shot but staring down two, wondering if this means I now have the option to go somewhere else or if that counts as mixing vaccines, which even I know to be bad, and feeling incredibly lost and frustrated with the whole thing.

And the brutal truth is that none of these places have accommodations for Kaz that would allow her to get the damn shot anyway! She can’t stand around a Walgreens for hours. She could barely walk back to where the pharmacy even is, and all like two chairs back there are made for skinny little asses so she’d have nowhere to sit while her spine declares war on her. (And this is all ignoring that she basically can’t go out during daylight without a bunch of excess precaution since her antidepressants have rendered her some sort of vampire in the skin department, by which I mean the amount of time it takes for her to get sunburnt is less than the time it takes to walk to the car from the house.)

So I’d still need to act like I haven’t had the shot, because even though it’d stop me from getting sick, I could still bring something home and transmit it to her. Nothing about my life would change. I cannot go back to “normal.” At this rate, ever.

So on the one hand I’m with everyone going “hell yeah get your shot”

but on the other I am effectively one of the people who hasn’t, with someone else who hasn’t and seemingly can’t (I do not understand why we can’t just set up an appointment with her doctor, who does have accommodations, for this??? Why does it need to be some retailer pharma??), and the whole thing is both deeply frustrating, confusing in implementation, and leaving me feeling like a hopeless statistic that’s here just to frustrate everyone else.

Like, I’m probably never going to have a group of people over again? Game nights are gone. Socializing is gone. Web calls never replaced it, we’re not that important to anyone. Holidays are well dead. My family has tried to talk us into attending church for several things, including Christmas and Mother’s Day, and just doesn’t understand how not plausible that is. Kaz is high risk; I have been assured that if she gets COVID, she almost certainly will die. I can’t play fast and loose with this shit like everyone around me wants to. I’m forced to come into work every day as it is and still dread coming up the stairs and being forced to be within five feet of another person, none of whom have ever masked during this thing. If I thought there was a safer job available to me that wouldn’t leave us homeless, I’d take it in a heartbeat.

Sorry for the long post. I just feel so defeated by this whole mess and I keep seeing post after post saying anyone who doesn’t get the shot is an idiot, basically, and while I realize we’re outliers I feel terrible all the same.

[sopewriters]

Mιɳԃ Gαɱҽʂ | 01

Summary: With a murderer prowling the streets, and a charming villain on the loose, all bets are off.

Pairing: Jaehhyun X Reader; Hero x Villain AU

Word Count: 4.9K

Warning(s): None yet.

“Run the tape again.”

The screen flickers dimly, lighting up your gaunt features. Every part of you screams of exhaustion, as it should – you’ve hardly gotten any sleep all night. Your fingers tap against the desk in front of you, restless, and it takes everything in you not to bounce your leg.

The man beside you – your partner – looks at your tense jaw, pursed lips, and frowns. “You can take a break for tonight, you know. I doubt they’ll come back so soon.”

“But you don’t know that.” You correct harshly, making him recoil. Guilt stabs at you, and you sigh. “Sorry, I… I’m sorry Mark, I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that.”

Mark smiles at you, and you only now notice the pallor of his cheeks, the shadows under his eyes. Your partner hasn’t gotten anymore sleep than you have. With a large, cracking yawn that could probably split a lesser man’s face open, you shake your head.

The protest – or lack, thereof – building on Mark’s lips immediately dies, and he exhales heavily.

“This guy is unreal.” He comments, dropping back into his seat beside you. “How does he avoid the cameras so well? They were even set up so no one would be able to dodge them – is this his Gift, do you think?”

You cast a wry glance at him, then. “No, Mark, we both know for a fact that his Gift isn’t invisibility. Remember the one time he made some sort of illusion to throw the cops off his trail?”

“Ah, right.” Something like awe passes quickly over his face, though he’s careful to school his expression at your chiding glance. “I forgot.”

“Funny, you were gushing about how wicked Joker was for weeks.” You nudge him lightly, a tiny grin on your lips – probably for the first time tonight. “It was cute.”

His cheeks immediately flush – adorable – and you wish there were better lighting so you could see them better.

Unfortunately, being a superpowered vigilante can really cast a wrench in your budget. Not everyone can be a millionaire-cum-superhero, no matter how much they’d love to be. And balancing the criminal nightlife with your actual life… well. University has always been particularly unforgiving.

“______…” He grouses, burying his face in his palms as you laugh. “Why’re you always so mean to me?”

“You just make it really easy.”

“ ______!”

“What? Am I wrong?”

Mark huffs out a breath, pushing away from the desk and standing up to flick on the light. “I’m not even gonna bother. I know you aren’t going to drop it!”

“You’re – oh my fucking god, turn the lights back off!” The measly light you do have is still blinding, making your head almost ache from how bright they are. “Mark!”

“Oh, how the tables have turned.” He laughs, dodging one of your well-timed swipes. “Alright, I’m going to jet before you actually manage to hit me again. Please try and get some rest? We’ll go over this again tomorrow.”

He looks at you imploringly.

You laugh fakely. “Oh, yeah, of course!”

Mark sighs, resigned, and gives you a waning smile as he moves to leave. He pauses, briefly. “We should really find a new HQ.”

You look around at your converted closet, thinking he’s not wrong. But, again, life isn’t quite like the movies and you don’t really have the money to spare on much beyond your daily necessities. Frozen food isn’t quite as cheap as it used to be around these parts. If anything, you’re lucky you have a walk-in closet large enough to accommodate a small desk, especially in your dorm.

Going to an expensive college in a rich part of town does have some benefits even if, tuition aside, you’re financially on your own.

“We’ll see,” you mumble tiredly, head thumping softly against said desk. “You know how tight our budget is.”

“Yeah, I do.” Mark looks apologetic, giving you a quick wave before he’s stepping out, likely heading back to his own room.

Now that he’s gone, though, your place is entirely too quiet, and it really puts you on edge. At least Mark turned the light on, earlier – you might as well credit him for that – so it’s not as creepy as it could be. But still.

You turn back to the monitor, mouth pursing into a frown as you watch the slight flicker of shadows – the criminal’s only trail. Something about this guy doesn’t seem all that right, and it’s seriously making you paranoid. You’ve never interacted with him, though – that, as it seems, only really happens to the licensed superheroes in your sector – but there’s just something about him…

You turn off the monitor with a sigh, wondering why on earth you’ve stupidly chosen to deal with this guy, of all people. You ignore the little niggling in the back of your mind that tells you that you’re really just trying to put off real-life responsibilities by taking unnecessary tasks upon yourself; that’s totally not true, no. What – why would anyone think that?!

You duck your head out of your closet, tentatively stepping out into your actual room. There isn’t much in there; just your bed, a cabinet for your papers and files, and a dresser in which your clothes actually go. Most of the place is just free space, honestly, and you could have your whole hero setup here, but… secrecy is important. And your closet is a lot more private than your room itself, for obvious reasons.

“ ______ !!” The door slams open, and your enraged best friend storms inside.

Case in point.

“Hey, F/N…” You say awkwardly, leaning against your bed so you can look at her fuming face. “Um. Fancy seeing you here?”

“Why aren’t you in bed?” She pinches the bridge of her nose, a frustrated sigh escaping her lips. “It’s almost midnight!”

“Why aren’t you asleep?” You counter, eyes catching onto her mussed hair, puffy eyes. “I was so quiet; how could I possibly have—?”

“Mark.” She says simply, to which you inwardly groan. Of course. Mark “Clumsy” Lee lives up to his name, yet again. “Are you sure you two aren’t dating? He’s been over for whole nights before.”

“What, are girls and guys not allowed to spend the night without dating or screwing around?” You snap defensively. Too defensively, judging by the smirk forming on her face. “No. No, no, no. Whatever bullshit you’re going to spew at me right now, save it, because I sure as hell won’t like it.”

“I’m just saying, denial isn’t just a river in Egypt,” she sings, ducking to narrowly avoid a pillow projectile. “It’s not a big deal! Mark’s super cute.”

“And you can have him.” You mutter in response, shuddering at the thought of dating him. Being in close quarters has really educated you to some of his more… quirky habits, and you couldn’t ever deal with that on a permanent basis. Plus, he’s not really your type.

F/N just rolls her eyes at you. “Whatever, pretend all you want. I know the truth though.”

“Is there something you actually need?” You level her with a flat stare. “Or are you just trying to snoop in on me?”

She smiles guiltily, like the guilty person she is. It might as well be branded on her forehead, G-U-I-L-T-Y, and you really hope she trips over one of her stupid pencils and stumbles down to hell.

What? You can be petty if you want to be, and it’s all in your head anyway. No one will ever know.

“No, there’s nothing important.” She assures you, though you really don’t need her assurance. “I just… worry about you sometimes, you know?”

“Well gee, thanks for making my night a whole lot better with that vote of confidence.” You mutter, sarcastic as ever, though your subsequent words die on your tongue at her sharp look.

“Relax, you know I didn’t mean it like that. I just wanted to know if you were going to go to bed, or if you couldn’t sleep or something.” She shrugs. “I’m being rebellious and staying up past my bedtime.”

Well.

You grin sharply at that. Maybe she can stay in the land of the living for a little longer. You take back everything you thought just a few moments ago. “Oh, have I been waiting for this day.”

So. Staying up last night was possibly the worst decision you’ve ever made. Your eyes feel like they might just pop out of their sockets any moment now and the only thing that could possibly make this better is a good cup of coffee. Or, even better, two.

But life, as always, is cruel.

“I hate you.” You mutter at your coffee pot, squinting angrily at it through stinging eyes. “You had one fucking job.”

Yep. The coffee pot, as fate would have it, has completely broken down – just to deprive you of your life, of course, no big deal. Who even needs to be awake for their 8AM discussion anyway, right?

“Stupid, useless hunk of garbage, I should just melt you down already.” Your fevered death chant follows you all the way to the front door as you sling your backpack over your shoulder. It stops there, though, because you’re too tired to keep it up.

F/N’s lucky she doesn’t have to wake up early today, and you angrily curse her in your head because goodwill? It’s all gone now. Maybe she’ll get a really bad case of the Hiccups. Maybe it’ll be terminal Hiccups.

You cringe at your own deviousness.

You manage to bike all the way to class without perishing which, in your books, deserves a gold star. You don’t know how you’ve done it, but you’ve somehow managed to not get hit by a car, or a bus, or a truck, or another bike, or a pedestrian (though you wouldn’t really mind that last option. People really need to stop looking at their phones while they walk, holy shit). It’s a miracle, truly.

Maybe it’s because you’ve got to attend a Classics discussion; shockingly, it’s one of your more bearable classes. Scratch that, it’s possibly one of your favorites. You might be a STEM major, but the way they discuss mythology in this class really gets to you.

And, of course, there’s your TA too. He’s probably one of the kindest, sweetest people you know – and that’s saying something, given that you know Mark and are even acquainted with Wong Yukhei, the Student Council VP. No, you don’t know how that happened and, frankly, don’t care to find out either.

“Hey there, ______.” You look up at the sound of your name, seeing your TA cock his head at you a little quizzically. “You okay? You seem a little out of breath.”

Yeah, it’s no big, I practically just pulled an all-nighter and biked all the way here using the mothballs that are my eyes, with the level of coffee running through my bloodstream hitting a critical low. It’s fine, it’s totally fine! And if you weren’t the unobservant piece of crap, sweetheart you are, I’d feel a hell of a lot better—

“I’m fine.” You make an effort not to let your gasps for air grow too obvious, giving him a strained smile. “I just, um – just biked here.”

“Ah, I see. You can come inside, you know, sit down.” He holds the door wide open for you, letting you slip inside. “Do you have water? Would you like me to get you some?”

He gives you an appraising look. “Though, something tells me you need something stronger? Coffee, maybe?”

He holds up a thermos, shaking it gently with a questioning look on his face; and, on cue, your mouth begins to water. You need it. You must have it.

“What gave it away?” You chuckle weakly, before shaking your head. “No thanks, Jungwoo, but I appreciate it.”

You last remaining braincells cry, extremely sorry for your loss.

Jungwoo sighs, “I don’t mind sharing, ______, trust me. I promise I didn’t poison it or anything, and I won’t give you much – just a tiny cup.”

He pours some out into the cap of his flask, offering it to you. You stare at the beautifully crafted drink of perfection, steam gently curling off it, and wonder if Kim Jungwoo is a god. He must be, with this sort of impeccable timing.

Still, you’d feel a little awkward taking a drink from a TA that you actually don’t know all that well. That… might not be a good idea.

“I’m really fine.” You smile tightly at him. “I promise. Thank you, though.”

But why?! your brain cells demand, and you don’t have a satisfactory answer for them.

“If you’re sure.” He shrugs it off easily, smile never dimming. He’s pretty cute when he smiles – basically, all the time – but he isn’t really your type.

You think back to the crush you used to harbor on Yukhei. Your cheeks burn when you remember that you still find your gaze fixed to his long, slender fingers on more than one occasion – but you can’t help that. He’s just… too much. It’s unfair, really. But yeah, that’s your type. Tall and handsome, and unfair.

Great, and now you’re thinking about Jung Jaehyun.

You settle back into your desk and will your blush away as you begin pulling out a notebook and a pencil. You don’t usually take notes during section – not unless you’ve got some big essay coming up that he’d review in class – but it gives you something to do instead of just sitting idle.

You quickly sneak a peek at Jungwoo and, seeing that he’s preoccupied leafing through some of his notes, play a game of Catch the Pen. You locate the nearest shadow and guide your pencil through it, propelling it with enough of a velocity for it to hurtle out of another shadow to nestle comfortably between your fingers. It’s basically like playing catch with yourself.

And yeah, it got boring after the third or fourth time, but your only other option is using your phone, which – hey, not a bad idea. A quick scroll through your social media has you holding back your coos when you see videos of cute puppies attempting to do even cuter things. God, do you love dogs.

It’s only when Jungwoo raps his fist against his desk – a cue for all of you to start paying attention – that you notice that the empty desks from before have all been filled up. You quickly stash your phone in your back pocket, before leaning forward on your desk, settling your cheek in the palm of your hand as you force yourself to pay attention.

Ah, damn it. Your eyes still sting.

“Good morning guys!” Jungwoo beams at you, entirely too cheery for your tastes, given that it’s eight in the fucking morning. “How were your weekends?”

Your mind flashes back to your weekend, and you suppress a wince. Yeah. That was… not a good time, especially for the vigilante Caligo – for you. After getting your ass pummeled by a random guy in a mask – a random guy who you think just might be Joker, thief extraordinaire, and the person who you were watching through the footage last night – you weren’t really having a great time.

Not to mention your purpled cheek, courtesy of a deck to the face. You bruise like a peach and you’re really fucking lucky that F/N has a healing ability and a penchant to not ask difficult questions. She probably thinks you’re getting caught up in some shady business – drugs, maybe? – and honestly, that wouldn’t be too far from the truth, if a little exaggerated.

Jungwoo, luckily, takes the grumbled mutterings from the rest of your class that perfectly encapsulate your weekend experience in stride, beaming excitedly and holding up a faded copy of the translation of Ovid’s The Fall of Icarus. “Well, nothing better than this to turn that around, yeah?”

You hold back a sigh as you flip to the page he’ll inevitably bring up. You’d rather read about Icarus, who the book’s title deceptively alludes to, than the rest of these short stories. But, well. As life would have it—

“Let’s talk about what happened with Theseus and the Minotaur, shall we?”

A part of you is grateful that you’ve managed to survive most of your day, and it’s really only the thought of going to your chem lab that makes you perk up.

Now, don’t be misled; you still hate having to go to lab. The actual practice, in itself, isn’t all that hard, but the fact that you have to do it at all is just so ugh. Frankly, you’re only going because it’s required for your major, because fuck chemistry, and doubly fuck organic chemistry. It’s all just way too stressful.

But, well, back to the main point: lab is only really fun because you get a whole two and a half hours to fully appreciate some A+ eye-candy. Not that you would ever actually want to objectify him that way, but your TA is just so gorgeous that it’s unfair, really. Just a smile from him could have you tripping over your feet and potentially spilling dangerous chemicals all over yourself.

As it is, you’ve managed to survive so far, if only to irritate F/N with your very accurate description of how sharp his jawline is, how his dimple is to die for, how he just looks so dependable and warm and—

“Hey Jaehyun.” You greet him as you wait outside the lab. No one’s really allowed in until your TA – Jaehyun, basically – lets you.

Jung Jaehyun, AKA “God who has literally descended from the Heavens to bless your undeserving soul”, smiles at you and – aw, yeah, there it is. That fucking dimple. Paired with his soft, unassuming smile, and the reassuring warmth of his eyes as they look at you through the soft fringe of his hair—

Deadly. That’s what he is.

“Hey ______, how’s it going?” He greets cheerily, not unlike Jungwoo earlier. The only difference is that it’s actually a humane hour of the day right now; a little past noon as opposed to oh, you know, the crack of dawn. You still hate any and all sunlight, no doubt about it – especially with the night lending itself to your element – but at least you’re somewhat awake now.

Jaehyun fiddles with the keyhole before pushing the door open. Is a lab coat supposed to look this good on a person? You aren’t sure.

“It’s pretty meh.” You offer him a shrug and what you hope is not a dorky smile. “Just stressed, you know.”

“Oh, I figured.” He nods, raising an eyebrow. “Apparently Professor Kim’s being super hard on you guys for this first midterm and, I won’t lie, with her past record…” Jaehyun winces. “Yeah, things might be a little stressful. But you’re capable, and I know you can do it with the right amount of hard work and effort.”

Then, like he hasn’t just sprung an unwarranted pep talk on what’s left of your dreary soul, he disappears behind the door. You stare at it like it’ll give you the answers racing through your mind; what the fuck, how the hell does he know exactly what to say, how the fuck is he always so gorgeous…? etcetera, etcetera.

Immediately, you pull out your phone and text F/N.

 You:

Oh my fucking god, I think Jaehyun and I just had a moment

Not like a Moment but he literally just gave me the best pep talk in my life, 5 stars on yelp

Jaehyun’s my TA btw

 Checking the time, you impatiently rock forward on the balls of your feet, biting at your lips. You figure that, maybe, instead of constantly thinking about how gorgeous Jaehyun is, you should probably also start thinking about the experiment for today. It’s just some simple identification tests, thank goodness, but those could take a long time – especially if you have to share your resources with the rest of the class.

Sharing is caring, they say and they’re wrong. Sharing, in most cases, is essentially just shooting yourself in the foot, and you’ll stand by that until the end of time. You used to share everything – even your heart – after all, and where did that get you?

You shove all of that away, filing it into the mental Untouchable cabinet and locking it up. You’re a busy person now, and you can’t waste time delving into the past. For all your bravado and bluster, though, you just… sometimes feel like you always make the worst decisions for yourself and you’re just tired of having to put yourself through the same things again and again. Like – like clockwork.

The door cracks open, and Jaehyun pokes his head outside. “Huh, that’s weird. No one else is here yet?”

A quick glance around you shows you that no, there really isn’t anyone else here yet. What the fuck? You check your phone, though, and see you still have ten minutes before lab actually begins. Ah, yeah, that makes a lot more sense now.

“You can come in anyway.” Jaehyun grins at you charmingly, and you dimly wonder if he knows the effect he has on people, with how easily he throws that smile around. “Maybe get set up? You can’t start before the rest of your class is here, obviously, but you can still be prepared.”

“Of course!” You beam at him, a little shocked at how easy it is to smile at him. With how things have been going, with both your personal life and – ehem – line of work, this is actually nothing short of a miracle.

Jaehyun really is a great guy and you think to yourself, a little sadly, that whoever gets to date him is a really lucky person. It’s not like you expect for life to work out like a fairytale with you as the persevering royal protagonist who gets the prince she’s only ever dreamed of.

Oh, you wish though. Sometimes, you even wish you had the power to make wishes come true instead of the shadow manipulation that comes so easily to you. When you think about it, you immediately discard the thought; you’re happy with your Gift, though it does get a little tricky navigating its faults.

Faults that Joker took advantage of over the weekend, obviously. You seriously screwed that one up though, to be fair, you kind of had to get home pronto to finish up your biology lab report. Still, a screw up is, ultimately, a screw up. It’s not going to change just because you slapped some excuses onto it.

Your fingers spasm, clenching tightly around your lab notebook and digging into its spiral binding as you remember, all too vividly, what happened over the weekend; the way Joker just slid out of your bindings and smirked at you, lips brushing against your ear as he revealed it was all a lie—

The spiking pain in your hand forces you to let go of your book, allowing it to drop onto the table with a muffled thump. It was all your fault, really, for not realizing that, since Joker had a Gift that allowed him to make illusions, he would obviously take advantage of it to distract you.

You were such a fucking idiot.

“Hey.” Your lab partner slides into the seat beside yours, effectively distracting you from thinking about your Weekend Failure some more. “Please tell me that I’m not the only one who thinks that the data for this lab report was ridiculous.”

“You’re not.” A light smile pulls at your lips and you try to forget about everything else. “It was pretty crazy.”

It’s not until you step out of lab a few hours later, blinking the sun out of your eyes, that you see that F/N’s finally responded to your texts.

 Wifey!! <3:

i’m glad he was so kind to you!

and yeah babe, i think you’d realize i know who Jaehyun is by now

you’ve only mentioned him a billion times

you’re such a puppy

You:

He was really nice man, he made me feel like I could actually do this

I mean idk how long it’ll last but it’s nice of him to even try ;-;

And I think you’d realize I know I’m a puppy by now

You’ve only told me, like, a billion times

 Let it be said that you’re never one to let the opportunity to be petty go to waste.

A week later, you’re sprinting up the street between your favorite Thai place and the café F/N likes to frequent, short puffs of breath escaping your lungs into the cold night air. Your worn sneakers slap against the concrete as you try to find a secluded location for you to change covertly into more appropriate ‘crime-fighting’ clothing, when your frantic gaze lands on a relatively abandoned alleyway.

Key word: ‘relatively’, because there’s really only a cat in there, of course.

“Fuck yeah!” You whisper triumphantly under your breath, stepping into the shadows cast by the nightlights, letting their familiar chill wash over you, twist its way around your waist and seep under your skin, a comfortable, cool pressure—

And you’re out again, a couple of blocks ahead of where you started, and sprint up the street, jumping shadows to the second floor of a building, from where you see figure flying overhead.

You smirk. Right on time.

“Hey! Mind giving me a lift?!” You holler up, and with a flick of his wrist, you’re being lifted off your feet, propelled to the very top of the building. A grin pulls at the corner of your mouth, and you give in as you zip along after the figure ahead, who’s dressed in dark blue. “Thanks G!”

Gravitas – Mark – spares a look at you through his mask as he runs ahead, leaping gracefully over to the next building. “Hey Caligo!”

A grin pulls at the corner of your lips through your own mask, fully visible since it only extends to the bridge of your nose. He wants to play it like that, does he?

“Impressive, but you’ve got nothing on me!” You arch in a graceful backflip over the gap between the buildings, landing steadily on your feet.

Mark chuckles lightly at you, shaking his head when you skip ahead of him through the shadows. Like you aren’t going to wring out every advantage your Gift could possibly give you; there’s no way you’re letting him have the satisfaction of possibly being better than you.

“See anyone we need to beat up?” You slow your pace enough for him to run beside you, not needing to shout to be heard.

Mark’s mask covers his entire face, but you’re pretty sure you know the look he’s got on his face right now; that little dip between his eyebrows and the lightest pout on his lips. He’s really too predictable.

“We aren’t looking for people to beat up.” He corrects you. “We’re looking for people to save.”

You come to a stop so you can face him properly, hands settling on your hips. The seriousness of the situation doesn’t stop you from keeping the playfulness from your voice, though, forced as it might sound.

“Now that’s the mind of a future hero-in-the-making.” You shrug, mouth pursing into a tense smile. “The rest of us don’t really care so much about that, you know.”

Mark falters, nearly tripping over himself even though he’s slowed to a walk. “That isn’t what I was trying to imply, you know that.”

“I know.” You provide him with another half-shrug. “I’m just saying that I’m here to beat people up; you can call it saving people or whatever else satisfies your hero-complex but, at the end of the day, someone’s still getting beat.”

No matter how close the two of you are, this is an age old argument that neither of you have been able to shake off; the constant debate of vigilantism versus heroism. At the end of the day, you’re getting the same things done, so why Mark needs to get so prickly about it is beyond you.

He is training to be a hero – which you’ve grudgingly accepted, despite your misgivings – so that might be it. Unlike you, he’s always interested in those caped fantasies, in saving the day and happy endings. Even he has to admit it; Mark is the definition of a happy fool.

And you? Well, that’d make you the tortured genius – though there’s nothing particularly genius about you. Just tortured.

“At the end of the day, we’re still saving people too.” Mark’s voice is low, brittle. “We’ve talked about this before.”

“And we’ve always ended it the same way.” You force yourself to keep your calm, though you itch to blow up at him. “So what makes this time so different?”

Mark starts forward, about to answer, only to be interrupted by a familiar voice. A very unwelcome voice.

“Hope I’m not interrupting!”

There’s a muffled thump, like someone’s landing on their feet, as you slowly turn around, eyes growing wide behind your mask.

Decked out in a tight-fitting leather bodysuit and a black choker, which delicately circles his neck, he looks at you with dancing, mischievous eyes. The black eye mask that sculpts itself to his face prevents you from being able figure out who the man behind the mask is, but that isn’t your priority right now, because you know who this is, standing in front of you with that cheeky grin.

“Joker.”

Written By: Midnight

The amazing moodboard was done by Sangria! Blessed that I am to have such a perfect wife <3

Next: 02

[wingsofkpop]

Finding SKZ - 10: YNXX 1/2

pairing(s): Hybrid!Bang Chan x Reader, Hybrid!SKZ x Reader

genre: Hybrid!AU, Dystopian!AU, it’s pretty much all Angst, eventual Smut

warning(s): Mature language, blood and gore, violence, use of drugs, traumatic events, character death, mentions of abuse 

Trigger Warning: This chapter does contain the death of a character. Please do not read if it will trigger you. 

word count: 6,4k

synopsis: After rescuing an abandoned hybrid from his fate of death, he has one other favor to ask of you. Not only do you have to find his eight other hybrid brothers, but you have to keep them safe from the deadly dangers of your city: Miroh

chapter directory

“Ch-Chan…?” Your eyes had to be playing tricks on your mind. This figure with silver wolf ears, ears whose velvet furs you once felt beneath your fingertips, could not be the person behind the glass. This person can’t be the one you’ve given your body, mind and soul to. And whose you’ve received in return. 

This person can’t be the man you love. 

“Well done, Bang Chan.” Another man emerges from behind the hybrid. His features were cold with eyes of steel and a sharp, pointed nose. His thin lips were pulled into a proud smirk, one that was neither genuine nor kind. A long, white lab coat shielded his small body. He steps closer to the glass and you shiver beneath his piercing gaze, “You’ve done very, very well.” 

“Who are you!? What the hell is going on!?” You screech, leering away from the strange man. Your back meets the cool surface of the metal wall behind you. Even more chills form across your skin. You were trembling violently, yet you felt numb. “Let me out of here!” 

The man hums, “I can’t do that, my dear. Not since we’ve worked so hard to get you back here.”

“What are you talking about!?” Your eyes avert to the wolf, who’s gaze was purposely avoiding yours. Betrayal courses through your veins, painting your blood black like oozing oil. You hold back a terrified cry and compress yourself even further against the wall. 

A ruckus emerges from outside your enclosure. Through the glass, you watch as Minho is dragged forward by a couple men dressed in black suits and large helmets. His struggles against their grip is useless, but he continues to do so anyway with a sneer stretched across his lips, “Let go of me, you bastards! I’ll fucking bite your heads off-!” 

“-Always so violent, Minho. A simple please would do.” 

“Fuck you, asshole.” Minho hisses as the men release his arms. He pays both the stranger and Chan a dirty glance before turning his attention onto you. His face falls and he launches forward, putting both hands up against the glass. You react immediately and dash toward the coyote. Your hands fly to where his are positioned, so if the glass wasn’t there, your palms would be touching. He shakes his head, “God, (Y/N), I’m so, so fucking sorry. I’m so sorry-”

“-What is going on? I-I don’t know what’s happening.” 

Minho’s eyes glitter underneath the fluorescent light, “Shit, I know. I tried to tell you… but you have to know, I didn’t want this. I tried to stop them, I really did-” 

“-Minho, please, save your sentiments. You should go to your brothers-“

“-Don’t. Fucking. Tell. Me. What. To do.” The coyote growls, refusing to remove himself from his position. The man sighs, shakes his head and signals toward the guards. Minho’s lips upturn in a sneer as claws emerge from beneath his fingernails. Never seeing him so angry, you back away from the glass. 

One of the guards attempts to grab Minho’s arm, but just as his fingers connected with his skin, the hybrid reacts. His arm flies so fast, you can barely see the blur as Minho scratches the guard right across his face. He falls backward, clutching at his bleeding cheek. Minho prepares to attack the others, but another voice calls him back. 

“Enough, Minho.” 

Incredulously, Minho turns to his brother, “You cannot be okay with this. You’re just going to give in, just like that?” 

Chan sighs, “We did what he had to do, to keep the boys safe. The job is done.” 

“You know what they’ll do to her.” The coyote murmurs darkly, “Are you really going to allow that to happen?” 

The wolf’s silence casts an even more disturbed feeling to enter your gut. Your breathing picks up and for a second, you thought you were going to pass out. You didn’t know what the hell was happening. On top of that, you didn’t know who to trust anymore. Everything was just too much.

“Enough of this. Take Minho to the rest of his brothers and prepare a car for them.” The stranger ushers. With a glare toward his brother, Minho begrudgingly follows the guards. Not before delivering you one last devastated expression. 

He shakes his head, “I promise you, (Y/N)-ah, I wouldn’t have gone through with it if I knew...” 

Your panic embiggens when Minho and his escorts disappear through a set of metal doors. What the hell did he even mean? You hold back a sob, unable to stop the loneliness from settling atop your shoulders. 

The man approaches the glass once again. Beneath his wandering eyes, you shiver. “My, (Y/N), you’ve grown so lovely. You resemble Dr. (L/N) beautifully.” 

Who the hell is he talking about?

“Oh forgive me, you don’t know who I am. You may refer to me as Dr. Bang.” 

Your eyes widen. 

Dr. Bang nods, “Yes, my dear. I am Bang Chan’s creator.” 

You watch as he walks toward Chan, lifts a thin arm and places his hand on the hybrid’s broad shoulder, “I know how upsetting this will be for you, darling, but this whole interaction you’ve had with the nine hybrids has just been one large setup since the very beginning. From the moment you found Chan in that alleyway to the boys bringing you here to us.” 

“What the fuck?” Your eyes narrow, “You can’t possibly think I’m going to believe that.”

“It’s the truth, my dear. Bang Chan and Minho have been working undercover since-“

Your dramatic cackle interrupts his explanation, “-You’re fucking hilarious. I found and saved every one of those boys, including Chan, since you’re the ones who threw them out into a hateful world of pain and suffering.” 

Dr. Bang raises an eyebrow, “Isn’t it funny how Seungmin knew where most of his brothers were to begin with?...” 

“What are you talking about?” 

“Seungmin, like Bang Chan and Minho, was working for us, or rather the MCHPF.” 

“And what the hell is that?” 

Dr. Bang runs a hand through his salt and pepper shaded hair. It reminded you of Chan. He answers, “Miroh City’s Hybrid Protection Force; a new army the president and District 9 staff have been building since the creation of hybrids. So far, we have over fifty members working undercover for us throughout the city.

“It’s how we found you, my dear. The one thing we’ve been searching for for years.”

You shake your head furiously, “No. That can’t be true… You kidnapped them! You’re forcing them to do this!” 

“On the contrary, Bang Chan has worked with us willingly from the beginning.” Dr. Bang shrugs, “You in return for the freedom of him and his brothers. A fair trade really.”

It felt like your heart was ripped from your chest. 

You turn to peer at Chan, who’s still refusing to meet your eyes. This suffocating weight crashes over your shoulders and for sure, you couldn’t breathe. Your hands fly to your hair, tugging at the roots with anxiety. None of this could be real. It just couldn’t be. Chan wouldn’t betray you like this. None of the boys would. 

You had to be dreaming. 

“It-It’s not possible…” You gasp, “You-You’re a liar!” 

The scientist remains unimpressed at your desperate attempts of denial. He sighs before turning to the hybrid, “Alright, if you won’t believe me, then Bang Chan will just have to tell you himself.” 

At the mention of his name, the wolf seems to falter beneath himself. Body sunken and eyes to the floor, he trudges in front of your cage. His closer presence both calms and upsets your nerves. Your body so used to his usual comforting effect. He visibly inhales a deep breath, judging by the rise of his shoulders, and musters up the courage to connect your gazes. 

All you could see was guilt. 

“I-I’m sorry, (Y/N)... But he’s right. I’ve been… setting you up from the beginning.” 

“You’re lying to me. You have to be.” You sob, rocking your head back and forth ferociously. 

A tear falls down Chan’s cheek. You watch as it trails the length of his face and neck, before disappearing into the collar of his shirt. He smiles weakly, “I wish I was…

“The president and the scientists promised the release of the boys and I if I completed one last mission for the Protection Force…” 

You continue to stare through the glass, “But… what about the boys? I… I helped you find them, didn’t I?” 

Chan’s eyes flutter shut, “Seungmin and I rigged most of the locations so you wouldn’t be suspicious…” 

You think back to each rescue mission. Woojin at the circus and Chan’s strange disappearance. Hyunjin at the fight ring and Chan’s quick victory. Jisung at the strip club and Chan’s wariness for you to interact with the manager. With more realization came even deeper heart ache. The more you think, the more evidence backs his story. 

“Did they know..? Were they in on it…?” 

The wolf shakes his head, “Only Minho and Seungmin knew. I-I… couldn’t tell the others…” 

More of Minho’s behavior makes sense. His sudden appearance. His distant moods. His reluctance. Liquid sadness spills down your cheeks, bruising tear tracks against your skin. Unable to accommodate your body weight, you sink to your knees and bury your face into your hands. You didn’t care about putting up a strong front anymore. 

Nothing was real anyway. 

“I think that’s enough, Bang Chan. You can return to the transport hall, I’m sure your brothers are waiting for you there.”  You hear Dr. Bang murmur, “You’ve completed your mission.” 

Like phantoms, Chan’s footsteps echo within your ears. Each step crushing the remnants of your soul like a dandelion beneath the wrath of a child’s fist. Against your better wishes, you lift your head and call out to the receding hybrid one final time, “Chan!” 

He stops, but he doesn’t turn around. 

You curse him for his cowardice, and with your bottom lips trembling, ask the final question plaguing your broken mind, “Was… was it real?... Any of it?...” 

Chan hesitates, almost as if he would actually spin around, press himself against the glass and confess that his feelings for you were never a ploy. That the moments you two shared meant as much to him as they meant to you. 

That he loved you. 

Lost in your thoughts, you fail to catch Chan send you one last glance filled with remorse. It was too late, because when you finally found the strength to lift your head, the hybrid was already walking away. 

“Don’t leave me…” But your voice go unheard and the man you thought you once knew disappears behind metal doors.

The string tethering you to reality snaps and you fall into a mess of uncontrollable sobs and relentless tears. 

Here you were. Abandoned once again. 

***

You don’t know how long you sat in that cage. Long enough to cry yourself into a deep sleep ridden with nightmares that contained Chan and the other boys. You were trapped inside a box while all nine of them just stood watching as you screamed and begged for them to get you out. And when you awoke, you realized your nightmare was just a figment of your reality. 

Some other guards came by to transport you from the glass enclosure to some sort of white room with nothing but an examination table and a couple machines you’ve never seen before. You didn’t put up much of a fight as there was no point anyway. Even if you managed to make it out of the building, which itself is impossible judging by the amount of security you passed, there was no place you could go. They obviously knew where you lived, so you couldn’t go home and you refused to put any of your loved ones in danger. Whatever these people wanted with you, they won’t let you go that easily. 

You overheard some of the scientists talking about some sort of special project involving a new drug: ‘Iramedicamen’. You’ve never heard the word before, so it must originate from an ancient foreign language. Latin… maybe? 

You still don’t understand what you have to do with anything or how you’ll help complete this ‘project’. But, they seem pretty adamant that you’re the one. 

You just wish you knew why. 

A knock provides a subject of interest other than the fluorescent flooring. You turn to watch the door fly open, another scientist emerging from the doorway. You never got her name, but she had come in a few times before to take your blood pressure, check your pulse and all that fun stuff. She wasn’t much of a talker. Then again, you weren’t really up for listening. 

But at her next words, you suddenly were:

“Your aunt is here. You’ll have ten minutes to talk before the procedure begins.” The female nods, “I suggest you continue cooperating, as we have no issue sedating you.” 

Before you can come up with a clever retort, she was already gone and in her place, the person you never expected to see. It didn’t really make much of a difference though as you still scramble to your feet and launch toward the woman. Your aunt catches you in her arms and holds your trembling body against hers. Tightly. 

“Oh, (Y/N), baby, I’m so sorry...” She whispers gently, carding her long fingers through your hair. “I’m so, so sorry…” 

 You shake your head and pull away with a gasp, “What the hell is going on!? I don’t understand-“ 

“-Shhh, honey, I’ll tell you everything but first, you need to calm down-“ 

“-I am so far from calming down!” You growl, wrenching your form from her hold. Furious and frustrated, you send her a sharp sneer before gesturing to the room. “I’ve been locked up, poked and prodded and fucking betrayed! I have no fucking clue what’s going on and you’re telling me to calm down!?” 

Your aunt’s expression falls, “I know, sweetheart… This is-This is my fault…” 

She lowers herself onto the examination table and buries her face in her gnarled palms. She begins to rock back and forth, the sight immediately diminishing your anger and increasing your concern. You rush toward her and wrap your limbs around her thin shoulders. 

She whispers, “I promised your mother I would keep you safe and look where you are now…” 

“Mom?.. What does she have to do with this?..” 

Your aunt silences again, limply leaning against your body. She sighs before murmuring, “Your mother… worked here, (Y/N)...” 

“What?” Your eyebrows furrow, eyes nearly bulging out of their sockets. “But, Mom was a waitress…” 

“Yes, you always knew your mother as a waitress, but I’m talking about before you were born, sweetie…” Your aunt takes your hands within her own. Her skin feels ice cold against yours. It made your nerves crawl. 

“Your mother was a very, very smart woman. Graduated top of her class in both high school and university. Landed a job at the city’s most advanced scientific facility. Created things no one thought possible.” Her face brightens as she recalls about your mother. You relish the fond memories strewn across her features, your lips upturning at the sight. “...Before you came along, your mother and your father had another daughter. Just as beautiful and bright as your mother.”

“I had a sister?” 

Your aunt nods, “Yes. She passed away the year before you were born. Murdered by a rabid dog hybrid one of the technicians forgot to sedate.

“Your mother became… different after her death. She pulled away from everyone and just immersed herself in work. She didn’t speak to me for almost two years…

“...Until she showed up at my doorstep with a little baby in her arms…” 

“Me…?” 

Your aunt smiles, “Yes. I fell in love with you at first sight.” 

“But I don’t understand. What does any of this have to do with this drug? Do you know about that?” 

Her smile falters. She disconnects your gaze, but you could catch a glimpse of sadness before she looked away. Her grasp tightens on your hands, her fingernails just slightly digging into your wrists. Before you could warn her, she was already speaking, “Your mother didn’t tell me much… but I know a little.

“The laboratory has been working on this project for a while. Why? I have no idea. I don’t even know what the drugs do.

“What I do know if they’ve never been able to finish it, because they were always missing something.” Her eyes return to you. Unlocking one of your hands, she lifts it to brush across your cheek. Her touch is still as cold as a ghost. “...They were missing someone special.” 

“But why me? What’s so special about me?” 

“You were… conceived differently than most babies.” Your aunt begins. You swear in the bright light, her lips almost looked a faint blue. “Your mother and father didn’t exactly make you, baby… The scientists did.” 

Your jaw drops, “Wh-...what?” 

“Like I said, I don’t know the exact science behind it, but they took one of your mother’s eggs, fertilized it and… added something.” 

Your mind was racing. Thoughts pounding through your mind like a jackhammer with no user. Even your aunt’s touch did nothing to soothe the growing panic in your gut. You didn’t know whether you were on the verge of an anxiety attack or fainting. 

Your voice is barely audible when you find the strength to speak, “So I’m not… human?”

“No, no, baby. Trust me, you’re just as human as your mother and I.” She shakes her head feverishly, waving your concern away with a flick of her wrist. “Even more human, I’d say. You just have… special additions.” 

“What additions? How does that help with the medicine?” 

Your aunt sighs, “I really wish I could tell you, sweetie, but even I don’t know. Your mother never wanted to talk about it after she ran.” 

“She ran? What do you mean she ran-?” 

“-Because she believed the child she voluntarily conceived for science was rightfully hers.” You whirl around at the new voice. A crowd had gathered near the doorway, including Dr. Bang, the female scientist along with two others, and a tall man in a crisp black and white suit. His eyes widen when your eyes meet his and an expression of disbelief crosses his face. He shakes his head, “You were right, Bang. She looks exactly like (L/N).” 

“I told you, Mr. Park.” 

You immediately recognize the man as Park Jinyoung, or JYP, as he’s referred to in your biology textbooks. He’s apparently the founder of the Hybrid Creation and Mutation Program, meaning he’s in charge of the “exotic” hybrids. You didn’t know if you were more intimidated or scared. 

“Your mother betrayed not only us, but the city as well.” JYP shakes his head with an ashamed look. “You were the key in making this world better. And yet, she allowed her own grief for her lost daughter overtake her.” 

“What are you-?” 

Before you can inquire further, a thud comes from behind. You turn again, freezing at the sight of your aunt sprawled across the floor. You rush to her side, alarmed at her shallow breathing and fluttering eyelids. Using two fingers, you check attempt to check her pulse, discovering it to be slow and faint. 

“What’s happening!? What the fuck did you do!?” Your screeches go unheard as the scientists begin to go about around the room. Dr. Bang and the other man remain where they are, chatting softly and unconcerned. 

Dr. Bang nods, “The booster is already taking effect. We need to inject the blood before her heart slows.” 

“Very well. Do it quick.” 

Hands are on you so suddenly, dragging you away from your aunt and back toward the examination table. You try to struggle and fight against their grasp. Your motivation embiggening when your aunt’s body begins to jerk. At a closer look, you also notice the white foam spilling from her parted lips. 

“Goddamn it! Help her!” Once again, the scientists pinning you against the table pay no mind. Through the corner of your eye, one of them was approaching with a large syringe. Another rubs some sort of cool liquid against the bend of your arm. By the smell, you could tell it was antiseptic. 

They were going to take your blood. 

“No! Get off of me!” You thrash and kick and punch at your assaulters, but it does nothing. They hold you down with ease until a pinch stems from your limb. You look away as the needle eases inside your flesh, sucking at the blood running through your veins. Dizziness erupts throughout your mind and you slip beneath the waves of exhaustion. 

When you come to, you’re still laid out on the examination table but the scientists are gone. You hadn’t been out very long, seeing as the place where the needle extracted your blood was still bleeding. Angling your head to the floor, you find your aunt in the exact same place she was before. Unmoving. 

You roll off the table, crash to the tiled ground rather ungracefully and crawl to your aunt. You call her name, hoping for some sign of life. Your attempts go without effect, so again, you try to shake her awake, “Don’t do this to me... Please, say something! Please!” 

Your aunt’s eyes snap open. You praise your luck and haul your aunt’s weight into your arms. Again, calls of her name go unanswered. She was probably too out of it anyway. 

“Hey, it’s me… Can you hear me? Aunt-” 

A sudden knock to your nose sends you flying back onto the ground. With a groan, you cup your nostrils, thick blood spilling down your fingers. You look up just in time to see a figure approaching and duck out of the way before they could trample over your body. You jump to your feet and station yourself behind the examination table. Through the slight blurriness of your eyes, you could see the familiar face of your aunt. Except she looked so different. 

Her features, once so sweet and kind, now hardened into what you would guess as anger. A violent sneer distorted her lips, juxtaposing the smiles she would always wear. The final kicker was her eyes. Irises a bright gold and pupils nonexistent. Filled with this animalistic hunger you have never, ever seen before. 

“Are you-?” 

At your voice, she attacks. You duck again as she lunges toward you. While you escape the impact, her fingers curl around the sleeve of your hospital gown and drag you forward, right into a dormant patient monitor. Your ribs connect rather harshly against the surface and sharp pain shoots through your veins. Her other hand snags a handful of your hair and yanks. Hard. 

You call her name and scream, “Stop, please!” 

She yanks again. This time, hard enough to snap your head backward. An arm winds around your now exposed neck, immediately pressing down on your windpipe. You gasp for air, bucking and wrestling against her hold. You manage to move the both of you toward the edge of the room and effectively ram her against the wall. She falls and so does her arm. 

Lungs working into overdrive and limbs shaking, you scramble toward the only exit. You try the knob, but it’s locked. You’re trapped. 

“Shit.” You heave. Abandoning the door, you attempt to search for another possible escape. But your options are limited. Seriously limited. 

You had to think of something else. 

A high-pitched wail steals your attention. Your aunt was charging again, a scalpel between her fingertips. You move out of the way, the weapon sinking into the wall just where your head would have been. You flail your leg and kick her feet out from underneath her. You wince as she connects to the floor with a loud thud. Your guilt doesn’t last for long. 

A searing pain shoots through your leg, tearing a scream from your lips. You peer down to see the small knife embedded within your calf, right above the bump of your ankle. Your aunt smirks, her blue lips a sore against the crimson of your blood dripping down her fingers. At this angle, you spot the tiny gash against her neck. 

Right where they injected your blood into her. 

Her elbow connects with your knee, knocking you to the ground. She tries to climb on top of you, but you quickly dislodge the scalpel from your leg and stab it into her shoulder. Her scream will forever haunt your dreams, composed of pain and animalistic fury. 

Using your hands, you scoot away from the leering figure. Your back rams roughly into another metal table. Various items rain down on top of you, including a glass jar that shatters beside your body. Through the corner of your eye, you spot the glimmer of something metal. 

Your gun. 

During your examination, the scientists found it. They confiscated it, but you thought they had put it away, away. Guess you have to be grateful for something. 

You reach for the firearm and flick off the safety. You aim the barrel straight at the creature, ready to pull the trigger. But you hesitate. 

Beneath the anger and bloodlust, she was still your aunt. She was still the woman that you always remember being there when your mother wasn’t. She took care of you when no one else would, to the point it drove you crazy. But even then, you felt loved and safe. 

But this creature wasn’t your aunt. 

“Please… Don’t make me do this…” You whimper. A zombie-like moan is all you get in response, followed by the snapping of teeth and a deep growl. Even if you did try to shoot, you’d probably miss due to the violent trembling of your hand. You couldn’t do it. But you had to. 

It’s her life. Or yours. 

Before you can change your mind, you squeeze the trigger. 

Like her scream, the bang of the gun will follow you for the rest of your life. Even so, it’s not as traumatic as the sight. You lower the gun with a wince, staring at the gruesome corpse of your once loving aunt. Right in the middle of her forehead, a bloody hole where the bullet entered. 

You look away when you can’t look at it anymore. Hot tears cascade from your eyelids as sobs spew from your lips. Somewhere beneath your grief, you find the strength to rise to your feet. A gentle ache radiates from your bleeding calf, but it’s not as tenacious as the ache inside your heart. 

“It worked!...” You flinch as a body flies past your own. Dr. Bang kneels beside your dead aunt, caressing her already fading skin. “We’ve done it… We’ve finally done it…” 

“What-what did you do to her..? I had to-” 

“-This is incredible!” Dr. Bang rises to his feet with a celebratory shout. “Miroh is saved!” 

Something in Dr. Bang’s pocket catches your eye. It was some sort of syringe filled with a glowing yellow liquid. The same color as your aunt’s eyes. 

The realization hits you like a train. 

“My blood activates the drug…” You murmur, “A drug that drives you to kill… Like a rabid hybrid…” 

At your voice, Dr. Bang turns and nods, “It took us years to perfect the genetic code. We needed just the right amount to keep you human, and enough that the hybrid aggression instincts wouldn’t be masked, but remain dormant.

“It was a miracle that you survived. But then your mother got cold feet and set us back for years.” 

“Why?...” You shake your head, “Why would you ever create such a horrible thing?...” 

“I’m not the one who created it, darling.” The scientist looks you straight in the eye, “...Your mother did.”

More tears spill down your cheeks. 

“Population has always been an issue since the Mass Genocide. Too many people equals a possible revolution against the government. And especially with the addition of hybrids, it’s grown out of hand.” 

“You’re going to use it for another genocide.” You guffaw, staring at the shameless scientist incredulously. “You’d murder innocent citizens just to keep people in fucking power.” 

Dr. Bang shrugs, “It’s politics, dear. You wouldn’t understand-“ 

You raise the gun again and offer your hand toward the man, “-Give me that vial.” 

Taken aback by your sudden aggression, the scientist gapes at you like a fish. He snaps out of his trance with a shake of his head before replying, “What do you think you’re doing?” 

“I won’t allow you to harm any more innocent people.” Your eyes glance toward the corpse. You don’t know where this sudden strength was coming from, but you weren’t about to back down. Firmer, you try again, “Don’t test my patience, I will shoot you.” 

A cock of the gun is all it takes for Bang to break. He reaches into his pocket and fesses up the filled syringe. The glass is cool against your palm, yet sears your skin. The man shakes his head, “I don’t know how you think this will stop us. We have more-“

Without hesitation, you tilt your head and drive the needle into your neck. The liquid running inside you is heavy, suffocating even. But you don’t stop squeezing until every last drop is inside. 

“What have you done?…” The scientist murmurs darkly. His hands fly to his hair, pulling at the tousled strands roughly. “Do you know what you just did!” 

“Tainted your only source. Yeah, I’m pretty sure I do.” 

Dr. Bang chuckles, “You’ll become just like her, you know. Soon, you’ll want to kill everything in sight.”

“I’d shoot myself before that happens.” You reply, tossing the syringe to the floor with a crack. Your eyes glance toward the open door, “Which way is the exit?” 

“You’ll never get out. The guards will take you down-“

A bang echoes throughout the room blending with the yelp of the scientist. You cock your gun to load another bullet and aim again at Dr. Bang, who’s clutching his wounded foot on the floor. 

“Don’t fucking make me ask again.”

Dr. Bang scoffs with a wince, “Left and down the corridor. There’s an elevator that will take you to the ground level garage. We’ll see how far you get.” 

You don’t pay the scientist anymore time and dash out of the room. Shouts emerge from the right end of the hallway followed by the stampede of footsteps. Luckily, you have to go left, so you take off as fast as your wounded calf would allow you to. You have to use the wall, but it moves you along all the same. 

“The subject is heading toward the elevators! Block her path!” 

Two guards emerge from around the corner and aim straight for you. You shoot the both of them, one in the thigh and the other in the stomach. They drop, unable to stop you from passing. You catch sight of the elevator at the end of the hallway. You were almost there. 

You could taste the sweet zest of freedom. 

Before you could savor the feeling, something latches onto your back and painful shocks run throughout your body. You drop to the grated floor with a loud cry, your figure jerking and trembling beneath the wrath of the electricity. Tears and black spots dance in your eyes. It took every bit of strength inside you to not pass out. 

So much for a getaway. 

The electricity finally ceases after some time. But even then, you couldn’t move. Gentle hands coax your body into an upright position before tying your arms around broad shoulders and an arm tucks beneath your knees. You’re lifted into the air, form resting against a strong chest. You didn’t know you had closed your eyes until you opened them. Even then, you thought you were still dreaming. 

“Chan…?” 

The hybrid gazes at you with soft, brown eyes, “Everything was real... I’d never leave you behind…” 

You wanted to say something, but beneath the shock, you couldn’t think of anything to say. More shouts and crashes come from somewhere down the hallway, stealing Chan’s attention away from you. He shakes his head before taking off down the hallway, “Woojin, Hyunjin and Seungmin are downstairs waiting. We’re leaving this shit hole.” 

“Wait, what-?” 

He turns through a door, almost bumping into another figure. You turn your head and almost burst into tears of happiness. 

“Minho!?” 

“Glad to see me?” The coyote smirks as Chan transfers your body into his arms. He accommodates to your weight, bouncing you into a more comfortable position. “I’d ask why you’re covered in blood, but we’re kind of short on time.” 

“Changbin and I will hold these guys off so you can get downstairs.” Chan nods, sending his brother a pointed look. “I want her there in one piece.” 

Minho rolls his eyes, “You doubt me that much, Channie-hyung?” 

“They’re coming up from the second floor,” Jisung, Felix and the last brother, Jeongin scramble up from the stairwell. The bengal shakes his head, “And they’re waiting for us in the garage. We gotta find another way out.” 

“What about the passage in the kitchen?” You hear Jeongin’s voice for the first time and it’s very sweet. “Remember, Felix-hyung? The one you and Hyunjinnie-hyung used to sneak food out through.” 

“Not a bad idea. We can fight our way through these guys and get outside through the kitchen.” Minho offers. 

Chan nods, “Sounds good to me. Bin, Sung, you guys good to fight?” 

The two hybrids agree. 

“Good. Innie and Lix, you guys are in charge of protecting Minho and (Y/N).” 

Felix nods and places a hand on the youngest’s shoulder. He shoots you a soft smile, “We got you, (Y/N).” 

You return his smile, feeling safe amongst all of your friends. 

Amongst your family. 

“Okay, we’ll go in first and clear a path for you four. Lix, lock the stairway door behind you.” 

“Got it, hyung.” 

“Good,” Chan positions himself in front of the door, followed by Jisung and Changbin. He nods, “Everyone ready?” 

No one disagrees. 

You wrap your arms tighter around Minho’s neck just as the trio push their way into the hallway. Gunshots and screams paint your skin with goosebumps, but you don’t have time to dawdle on your fears as Minho takes off right after them. He murmurs softly, “(Y/N)-ah, close your eyes. You don’t want to see this.” 

You do as he says. The cracking of bones and blood curdling screams are enough to give you an idea of what’s going on. Blood splatters on your skin as Minho makes his way through the chaos, and you really don’t want to know whose blood it is. 

“Sung, follow Minho and the boys! Get them out of here!” 

“Got it, Channie-hyung!” 

You open your eyes just in time to see Chan drive his long claws deep into a guard’s chest. The sight sickens you, but you could really care less. Jisung passes Minho to knock out two approaching guards and open a nearby door, “In here! Hurry!” 

Felix enters the doorway, soon followed by Jeongin. Minho was almost there, just shy of three feet when a pained yelp shoots from his lips and you go flying. Your figure connects with the floor for god knows what time and rolls a little of the way. You lift your head to see Minho clutching his knee with gritted teeth. A guard wielding an electric baton looming above him. 

You go straight to action, pull out your gun and aim at the offender. He drops after two shots, allowing Jisung and Jeongin to rush forward and help Minho to his feet. Felix assists you, acting as a crutch. 

The five of you make it into the kitchen without any other issues, soon followed by Changbin and Chan. The latter shuts and locks the door, and with the help of the panther, moves a heavy cupboard to block it. He nods with a deep breath, “Okay, that should buy us some time.” 

“The passage is right over here.” Felix leads you and the others toward the back wall. He has the two boys move the dining table, revealing a small, plastered hole. With a couple jabs and kicks from the panther, a large walkway is exposed. 

“Great. Here, let me take (Y/N)-” 

“-No, Channie-hyung. You may have to fight again.” Jisung shakes his head and turns around. “Here, noona, get on my back.” 

With Felix’s help, you do just as the bengal requests. He positions his hands underneath your thighs, holding you against his lean body. He nods, “Lix, help Minho-hyung and Jeongin-ah.” 

Once things are settled, everyone makes their way into the passage. Chan leads, followed by you and Jisung, Felix and Jeongin and Minho, and Changbin taking up the rear. You’re thankful the boys have night vision, since you couldn’t see an absolute thing. 

You don’t know how long it took for you guys to make your way outside, but when the cool winter air envelopes your skin, it fills you with relief. A loud honk and blare of headlights steals your attention. You turn to see an open cover jeep drive up in front of you guys. Familiar faces bringing a smile to your face. 

“Thank god! You guys are okay!” Hyunjin sighs, helping Felix and Jeongin pull Minho up into the vehicle. “We were worried when we saw the guards. I knew you’d try to get out this way.” 

“Good thinking, Jin.” Chan pats the dalmation on the back. “You guys did good.” 

“Noona!” You barely have the chance to slide from Jisung’s back before more arms are lifting you off the ground. You giggle into Seungmin’s shoulder, patting his back affectionately. 

“It’s good to see you, Min.” 

He shakes his head, “I-I’m so sorry, noona. I wanted to-” 

“-Save apologies for later. We have to go.” Woojin urges, “Everyone put on your seatbelts. This is going to be a bumpy ride.” 

“Where are we going?” You allow Seungmin to place you in a seat between Jeongin and Minho. 

The coyote chuckles, “To fucking Yellow Wood. Where else?”  

“Do we know where to go?” 

Chan shrugs, “We have a pretty good idea. Changbin tried to escape with some friends from the zoo.” 

“It’s outside the border,” Changbin says. “Two days trip at most.” 

“Well what are we waiting for?” You shake your head with a chuckle, “To Yellow Wood we go.” 

[vcsecretgifts]

Hi! I’ve never taken part before, but I would be very interested in doing so this round. I would prefer to take part in sfw prompts

(Edited this for a few grammatical errors and to clarify my responses a bit better)

Response from mod @i-want-my-iwtv: Excellent! Yep, we’re thinking of keeping this SFW, and perhaps starting up a separate kin/kmeme. 

This ask was re: a possible 2020 VC Secret Spring/Summer Santa, which got a surprising amount of support! 

…so we’re working on it behind the scenes, hopefully will have a setup and signups deadline soon! Responses to the tags/comments on that post below.

Just looking at that gif above, SUCH SIMPLER TIMES. I miss the days when our biggest fandom arguments were so fictionally indulgent and inconsequential, like Louis’ hair length and texture SIIIIIGH THOSE.WERE.THE.DAYS. 

——

@orangedarcy: Can I ask just a general question about fic posting in the VC fandom?  I know most fic is now posted on AO3, but is there another more community driven place like LiveJournal used to be? I have fallen so far behind on the fic world, where does one post stories these days? Is it all here on Tumblr or is it mainly AO3 now?

Very good question. AO3 is the main place for just fic, some comment threads there, and ppl sometimes posted drabbles here on tumblr, and there are roleplayers here who do threads that are like collaborative fics… you can check my #RP tag to try to find them, but I admit I am out of date myself having taken a big step back from tumblr to focus on real life. 

There were LJ-esque places on Dreamwidth long before Tumblr, and I believe they’re all abandoned except for VC-Media where I’m a mod. You can find it through @vcmedia, ppl do post fic there, mods post drabble prompts weekly, and there have been some wonderfully lively times!

I had started the VC-Media tumblr blog a few yrs ago when we (the mods) wanted to try directing some traffic to the DW comm, to bring in some fresh blood (pun intended), but I hadn’t promoted it much bc I didn’t want the tumblr anti-shippers and/or trolls flooding it and trampling ppl. At that time, I had seen the antis in other fandoms choosing targets to bully on tumblr and twitter, using social justice window-dressing that was really only about them wanting attention. In our fandom, I’d seen similar bad-faith arguments over problematic characters/ships and I didn’t want to engage with it or invite it to a comm setting, bc that’s not what fandom is about for me.

Not to go on a rant here but I need to say it: Criticism is going to happen, and everyone has a right to criticize media. What was lost for a few years there is the concept that no one owes you their time or engagement in a conversation, especially not one in which one side demands complete submission from the other, and nothing less. Whether or not the criticism is the “One True Interpretation,” no one owes you their time or engagement. 

That’s still a concern of mine, but I am confident that my wonderful co-mods of VC-Media are ready to freeze comments and ban ppl who attempt to bully others or provoke arguments in bad faith.

There are a few other obscure places, but I don’t like to promote them publicly, bc they have little traffic, or are older, or I’d rather that AR not be aware just in case she changes her stance on fanfic (she had waged war on it in the 90s).

So that was a long answer but AO3 is probably the best if all you want is just finding fic to read, but please check out VC-Media to post your fic and have a lively discussion, it’s still thirsty for fresh blood! 

@the-disgruntled-vc: I would like to participate but I don’t know what I have to do.

We’re not sure what the setup will be yet, but we appreciate your enthusiasm! We’ll post about it when we’ve decided and then you can choose to participate.

@the-disgruntled-vc: NYC is hell in a handbasket right now. 😰

I knowwww. I left NYC on 3/17, with 2 pairs of pants and 2 tops. I’m with my parents about 5 hours away. Wearing my dad’s clothes now :,-} Strange times.

@annabellioncourt: I’m not sure I want to commit to a direct gift exchange, but if it was done as an inktober style prompt filling thing, and we could just tag it/submit it as we did it, then maybe? I’m not sure what kind of free time I’ll have in the upcoming months as I job hunt.

Totally understandable, and I like your suggestions! We want to be able to accommodate ppl in your situation, so this is a good thing for us to keep in mind. Good luck in the job hunt! If running an awesome tumblr blog was a job, you’d be all set ;D

@amelthebravennian: //I would truthfully enjoy doing it!

We would love to have you back!

requiemforrose: Count me in. I need something to help my anxiety over the current climate

YES THATS EXACTLY THE POINT ^________^

@lestatthebiprince: Sign me up for the gift exchange!!

YASSSSS (let’s hope you still want to if we change the format ;D )

@pour-some-aspartame-on-me: I would be interested in participating in the vc secret gifts

Awesome! Would love to have you!

@desanctii: //I’d be in favor. this time around I even have the time to participate ;)

We need you for those Santino prompts! 

@amadeo-child-of-the-renaissance: //Count me in for the kink (obvs) XD

We love to see enthusiasm for the kin/kmeme… And your art is just *chef’s kiss*

@good-night-kick‘s tags: #great idea :3#It would be a good chance for me to get an excuse to draw art properly… I haven’t been drawing so much recently

Yes! We love your art and your comics and we need more of it, how can a person be so talented and so hilarious in their artwork, too?? Did you make a deal with the devil? (Sign me up.)

[pricechecktranslations]

TTDS: The Three Daughters of Sir Torture; Chapter 1

Torture Tower Doesn’t Sleep: The Three Daughters of Sir Torture infomine under the cut 

Character Info:

Benjii Kenpu (Benji Kemp): A regular of Stella’s bar. Wears glasses, and evidently works as a doctor. Doesn’t pay his tab.

Chenbaren (Chamberlain): Not a person but a wealthy family in Lion City.

Hanku Fieron kyou (Sir Hank Fieron): The popularly-called “Sir Torture”. Used to live in Torcia Tower. There are lots of books and plays based on him, as he was (in addition to being a torturer of war prisoners) a famous war hero. He apparently died midway through responding to a summons by the king, traveling there by boat (as in, fell from the boat).

Jibetto (Gibbet): Is a regular of Stella’s bar. Appears younger than Lloyd, but carries herself with a very mature air.

Rakku (Rack): Very childish. Has a short haircut.

Ransuroodo Haaku (Lancelord Hark): A fictional hero based on Hank.

Reimondo (Raymond): A street performer. Friendly. Apparently looks a little like Zepeto.

Roido Rooweru (Lloyd Lowell): A thief who fancies himself an attractive (to women) sophisticate, smarter than the average thug and talented with firearms. Normally works alone, and looks out for himself only. Not from Lion City. Has a favored pistol he keeps on his person. Close to his thirties (was shy of 10 years old when Hank died). Has plans to get back to the capital someday, and for that he needs money. He also originally wanted to be an actor, and as such has some knowledge of theater (and once played Romarius in a play). He doesn’t like talking about his past. Has trained himself to be able to see a little in the dark. Has killed six people in the course of his work as a thief.

Sutera Taunsendo (Stella Townsend): The owner of Stella’s Bar. Young, and has red hair that’s tied up at the back. She’s just scraping by herself as it is, her father unable to walk after his legs were injured and unable to hire any help.

Zepetto (Zepeto?): A member of Lloyd’s temporary team that betrayed them to the police. Apparently Raymond looks a little like him.

Setting Info:

Basuzu no tsufu(?lots of readings for this) (Pot of Basuzu): Could be written as Baths but I think it’s a pun on Pazuzu from the Exorcist. A pot that belonged to Beritoad. Has four silver handles, and is always full of water, according to Gibbet. Legend says all who drink it are cured of their ills, and gain eternal life.

Josephiinu (Josephine): The name of Rack’s torture device. Basically a rack.

Rionshiti (Lion City): East from Lloyd’s hometown. A city in the sticks, without much police presence. In an economic downturn.

(Sutera no sakaba) Stella’s Bar: A bar located in Lion City’s downtown. The sign has a bottle and drinking glass on it. It has 3 four person tables and 5 seats at the counter. There’s a bunch of glasses behind the counter, as well as something large and bell-shaped that’s covered in black cloth (a bird cage, probably). Originally, the sign read “Townsend’s Bar”, but Stella figured having a woman’s name would bring in more male customers.

Touruchiatou (Torcia Tower): Five stories tall, grey, old. Hank Fieron used to live there until 20 years ago. Supposedly empty since his death, but recently his daughters have suddenly started living there. Said to hold the “Pot of Basuzu” on its top floor. No windows below the third floor. First floor is divided into several rooms. There is an atrium on the second floor that lets in light from the third floor. The second floor is just one big room. The third floor is where the torturing happens. Fourth floor is nothing but jail cells.

Yookushiti (York City): West from Lloyd’s hometown. A city in the sticks, without much police presence (same as Lion City).

Youma (Wraith): A sort of demonic entity with strange powers. Rare, and not widely believed in anymore. Beritoad is an evil wraith, and Romarius is a good one—at least, so the stories say.

Notable quotes (admittedly I wasn’t looking too hard for them, I could probably find more, but this one stuck out to me at least):

Lloyd: (in thought, scene 1) I have real ability. I have top-grade skill with firearms, intelligence far above that of a common thug, and looks and wit that would make almost any woman weak at the knees! There was no need for someone so superior as I to rely on the assistance of such incompetents!

Plot Summary:

Scene 1

It opens on Lloyd walking through the street at midnight, getting the impression that someone is looking at him from Torcia tower’s third window. He dismisses it, hurrying along as he’s on the run from a “job” (burglar, I think) gone bad thanks to Zepeto (?). He rages over the whole thing a little (though usually a loner the last job was pretty intimidating, so he’d gotten help).

Eventually he reaches a fork in the road, the sign telling him that the right path leads to Lion City’s downtown. He realizes he’s been going in the wrong direction, having intended to go to York City instead, but figures this is just as well.

He wants to get some food, but all of the money he had squirreled away in his hideout was seized by the police.

Scene 2

All the shops and such are dark, being midnight. Lloyd doesn’t have much money on him for good accommodations. Eventually he finds Stella’s Bar still open. He goes inside, intending to take the opportunity to learn more about Lion City.

He’s greeted by Stella, who is the only person inside save for Benji, who soon decides to leave. Stella banters with him a little about his tab before he runs off, and invites Lloyd to sit down. They chat a little. He mentions looking for work.

Apparently the town has fallen on hard times recently (she mentions something called the “daiya keshiki” (diamond scenery I think? I’m not…sure what that means) relating to when the place was prosperous, talking about her own problems with her father and whatnot. She suggests the Chamberlain family might hire him (though they’re having their own troubles), but there’s also Torcia Tower.

They talk a little about Hank and his three daughters. Stella makes clear that they are very rich noble girls, basically (though she’s only met Gibbet). She thinks of it as they might hire him as a servant, but he decides he’s going to burgle them instead (though maybe try to get hired to scope the place out).

Gibbet suddenly enters. Though not well versed on women’s fashion, Lloyd can tell by looking at her that her dress is incredibly expensive.

There’s this nice kind of setup where Lloyd is clearly thinking of her as an easy mark (prey) when in reality he’s going to be prey to her. Anyway, he flirts with her a little (insulting the bar slightly in the process, but Stella doesn’t seem to mind), as a test of how she’ll react. She responds gracefully and happily, sitting next to him. Stella takes the bird cage behind the bar into the back when Gibbet looks at it.

She orders “Blood Grave” wine, the most expensive thing in the bar. Stella tells Gibbet they were talking about her, and Gibbet brings up how people have been spreading rumors of her and her sisters, as ruffians around town have gone missing since they showed up in Torcia Tower. Stella doesn’t believe they’re responsible.

Gibbet claims her sisters came to the tower to cure an illness where they can’t come into contact with sunlight (which is why only she leaves it). They talk about the “Pot of Basuzu” and wraiths and whatnot. She says her sisters are (briefly) cured of their ailment when they drink from the pot.

Lloyd resolves to steal the pot, as it’s obviously valuable. He tries to bring up the subject of being hired, but Gibbet brushes him off. She leaves, but says she’d like to drink with Lloyd again sometime. Stella takes pity on him and suggests an inn that he can stay at on credit for a month while he’s looking for work.

Scene 3

The inn is a bit run down (it doesn’t give a name for it). His room has two beds and little else (and is only really big enough for just those beds), and is sharing the room with Raymond. Raymond is friendly but Lloyd has no interest in making friends. Several days have gone by (it’s been a week since he arrived in town) and Raymond appears to have taken the hint.

While pretending to look for work, he visits Torcia Tower, receiving no answer when he rings the bell. There’s a new lock on the door, though Lloyd figures he can pick it easily. After ruminating on the job a little, Lloyd decides to try to break in that night.

Scene 4

The first floor of the tower is decently bright during the day due to having gaps in the stonework walls. It’s shabbier than Lloyd was expecting, with the front hall and the various rooms hardly feeling lived in, filled with old and smelly furniture. It’s also larger than he thought it would be. No sign that torture’s gone on here. He does find a pot of purplish red flowers that smell nice (Gibbet smelled like that earlier).

On to the second floor. It occurs to him that if he takes the pot of Basuzu, the “sick” sisters won’t be able to cure their illness, but he refuses to care for people he’s never even met. The light of the moon from the third floor comes in through the atrium, like a spotlight, and Lloyd is briefly reminded of his acting days.

Scene 5

He looks around the second floor a little, approaching some of the flowers from earlier. Suddenly the room is filled with light (all the lights come on at once?), and he sees that Gibbet is there in the center. She’s not scared to see him.

They banter a tiny bit, and then he pulls his gun on her. He tells her he’s here for the pot of Basuzu. She offers to give it to him and tell no one that he arrived—but Lloyd doesn’t like loose ends, and so says he’ll kill her anyway (though he’ll do it quickly to spare her pain).

Gibbet then acts confused on the matter of wanting to spare her pain—she says that pain is the greatest joy humans can feel, and starts laughing creepily.

Lloyd is caught—it’s a little hard for me to read exactly what happens (maybe I’m too tired reading this scene, and I don’t recognize the kanji. I’ll look over it again if anyone wants more detail). Something binds him and then hoists him into the air from the atrium (I think he’s in a cage?). Gibbet’s gone.

He realizes he’s been had, remembering what he’d heard about this place being a torture tower. The (cage????) that he’s in starts hurtling towards the ceiling in the third floor, and he loses consciousness right before hitting it.

Scene 6

He’s no longer in the cage thing when he wakes up. He’s laying prone on some weird rectangular box with gears and (a lever I think?), arms and legs aching from the collision with the ceiling and chained to the box. He’s able to look around, in some room in the tower with the same walls as the rest. There’s a large wooden double door further in.

Rack informs him he’s laying on Josephine. Lloyd recognizes her as the girl he saw looking at him from the window all those nights ago. He asks to be let go, and she goes to activate the rack. (Apparently this is her 63rd torture victim, if I’m reading this right?). The way the rack works is that when she spins the gears, it retracts the ropes that are tied to his limbs.

In agony, Lloyd begs for his life, but Rack just finds this funny (she’s very jovial with him, calling him “big brother” and such). He starts to pass out, and she stabs him with a large spike to keep him awake.

Basically, he gets horribly tortured.

Scene 7

Lloyd is eventually released from the device and locked in a cell on the tower’s fourth floor. There’s a young man there already, with stretched limbs covered in wounds. He tells Lloyd that the victims of torture are being used by the girls as sacrifices to appease their god, in order to bring their father back to life.

Maiden comes to bring them their food (so, she does talk—but is a girl of few words). The prisoner says they only feed them enough to keep them alive, and tells Lloyd who the other girls are.

Lloyd has no intention of dying there. He sees that the cell facing them has their effects in it, including his favored pistol. The other prisoner tells him that while many have tried to escape, all were killed. Lloyd has hope though—he doesn’t need to fight them, just not get caught. It’s difficult for him to work the lock due to his pain, but he manages to unlock the cell.

He gets his gun back, and then goes to get the other prisoner with him, rationalizing that he could sacrifice him to escape if need be. The prisoner gets something from his own effects, handing it to Lloyd and explaining it’s from when he used to work in a coal mine, and to use if push came to shove. Then they get going.

Scene 8

They reach the third floor. Several somethings fall from the ceiling—cylindrical metal lumps. They have lids, and look like coffins, but with protrusions that look like a woman’s face (these are iron maidens, pretty sure).

As Lloyd is wondering where the hell these fell from, the other guy starts freaking out, saying they’ve been caught. The maidens are apparently animate, as they float into the air and start attacking the two of them. Lloyd dodges, but the other man is hit and falls to the ground. Lloyd considers using what the man gave him, but figures the confines of the tower are too narrow.

The maiden sets down next to the man and opens up, revealing it’s full of spikes. His body is sucked inside. There’s no screams, but blood starts seeping out after a moment.

Lloyd leaps down the atrium hole to the second floor away from the maidens. One falls down after him. The second floor is bigger, however, and Lloyd brings out what the miner gave him, revealed to be dynamite.

Lloyd is caught in the blast and blown back. It also didn’t work on the maiden. Lloyd gets up, throws up (mostly blood), and falls back down again. Unable to stand, he tries crawling towards the exit, though his eyes have lost focus and he can hardly see.

The iron maiden drops in front of him. It opens to reveal Maiden inside. She gets out to look at him. From behind he hears Gibbet chide Maiden for overdoing it. Rack is with her. Gibbet says that they can’t just kill him—that’s not torture. And torture is to bring someone alive the pleasure of “agony”.

Lloyd intends to curse her as insane, but instead begs for her to let him go. She grabs him by the chin, wondering how he’d sound if she cut his pretty face. Lloyd asks her to spare his face. Gibbet has Rack stab his face with her spike instead.

Scene 9

One month passes. Stella goes to Benji’s hospital to see one of his patients, someone wrapped in bandages and near death. She’d found him three days ago when passing Torcia Tower, and he hasn’t woken up the whole time he’s been in the hospital. His face is pretty much ruined, so not only can they not recognize it, but they can’t imagine anyone else will either.

Raymond is performing in the town square. It’s been six months since he arrived in town, and he’s gotten a small following. At the end of this morning performance, people clap and throw money in his hat. As he’s resting and eating some pizza, he overhears some people gossiping about the person in the hospital and the Torcia Tower (like that it’s haunted, etc).

The narration says that no one knows the truth—Hank had no daughters. Only torture implements that he had loved like daughters.

Raymond muses on souls inhabiting torture devices. Then he stands and goes to perform his afternoon show.

[jira-chii]

Thoughts on the Shoumetsu Toshi Anime before it even airs

The Shoumetsu Toshi anime will air in April 2019, which fills me with both excitement and trepidation... 

Warning for long post. And a bit of language. I may have spoiled the bare minimum of the game in order to explain why it is awesome. There are no spoilers for the anime because it doesn't air until April 2019. 

NB: This whole post is my own personal opinion. I don’t claim to be an expert in anything anime or game related. In fact, I don't play many mobile games at all, and usually steer clear of anime adaptations of such games because I know how shit they can be. I sincerely hope Shoumetsu Toshi will be different because of the quality of the writing. Also yes I am very biased. And passionate. And this whole thing is written on the assumption the producers actually want to make this anime good and worthwhile, rather than just a quick money-grab. I just have a lot of feelings about this ok. 

During Shoumetsu Toshi’s fourth year anniversary, one of the projects announced was an anime! I'm sure everyone playing knew this was going to happen eventually. After all, the game has an all star cast of seiyuu, an amazing storyline, and has been marketing itself for quite a while now (collabs, live concerts, CDs, keychains and more). I have no doubt Shoumetsu Toshi has the potential to become an amazing anime if done correctly, but it will face many challenges on the path to adaptation. Here are some of them.

Too many tamashii

One of the game’s greatest strengths also becomes one of its greatest barriers to adaptation. Shoumetsu Toshi has done an amazing job at creating a huge community of characters (like, an actual city). We get to see their stories unfold and their characters develop bit by bit through various events and quest stages. Within the game, we meet characters that are strong and inspiring, characters with complex relationships, characters that are good-natured and goofy, characters with tragic pasts and so much more. There are characters with stories in this game that will tear your heart to shreds, stories with plot twists nobody saw coming until years later, and stories that were so impactful I had to write a 3000 word essay on it before I was satisfied.

Unfortunately, the anime cannot afford to invest the same amount of time and effort in its characters as the game does. Though we love them, including too many would be detrimental because 1. It wouldn’t fit the tone the anime is going for, 2. There's actually no point because the majority of these don't affect the main story whatsoever and 3. They won't be developed enough for first timers to become invested in them. Especially the ones with more serious stories.

The producers will need to carefully choose which characters to include: characters that are not only distinct and easy to invest in, but will actually contribute to the plot and make the time getting to know them worthwhile. Because one of the worst things an anime can do imo, is bring in a character nobody is invested in, who contributes nothing to the story, has zero character development (i.e. their character is based completely on cliches and tropes) but also gets about 200% more screen time than any other side character, because there is the assumption that they’ll be popular based on their character design alone. That is just lazy writing and is disrespectful not only to the audience, but also the character (I don’t care if they’re fictional, good characters deserve respect too).

I fear there is a very real danger SPR5 could become that. The in-game idol group got a real world debut, and, while I don’t mind seeing promotion in an anime (we live in a capitalist society after all), they shouldn’t contribute much to the overall story, and I will be very disappointed if the anime give them more screen time than they need purely for the sake of marketing.  

Complex storyline

If there is one thing I absolutely don't want this anime to get wrong, it’s the story. The Shoumetsu Toshi main storyline is frickin’ amazing. It is an epic quest that spans four worlds, involves characters literally jumping through space and time, and breaks the fourth wall in the creepiest way possible. The creativity that comes with that is my absolute favourite thing about the game, however I acknowledge some heavy changes would need to be made to make it fit the traditional anime format…

I have heard the anime will be an original story, however the PV suggests it will still retain key plot points from the game. Contrary to my general opinions regarding anime-original content, I think this is the right way to go. I think fans innately despise original stories in anime adaptations for one of two reasons: the story will either be too complex for non-fans to enjoy, ruining the reputation of the series, or the story will be too watered down in order to appeal to said non-fans and consequently lose much of what made the original actually great. Achieving harmony is an incredibly difficult balancing act, and part of this involves the series living up to its own greatness. Which very rarely happens. If Shoumetsu Toshi goes for a retelling of say, World 1, it is invariably going to be compared to the original. Also it becomes predictable for anyone far enough into the game. If the producers do want to go the extra mile and make it worthwhile for the OG fans (which is nice in theory but, admittedly, unlikely), they would need to add some meaningful original content that still retains the essence of what makes Shoumetsu Toshi, Shoumetsu Toshi. That is, it retains the same themes and atmosphere, conveys a similar message, keeps all the characters appropriately in character...basically anything that would not feel out of place if it were to be inserted into the original. Luckily for us, Shoumetsu Toshi writers have loads of experience with this. I am talking, of course, about the mountain of ranking quests, side stories and events.

I will admit not every single minor story in Shoumetsu Toshi is fantastic, particularly many of the ranking events, which usually only allow about three stages to tell a story focused on one character. However, what I think the game does do very well in respect to these short ranking stories (and many other events and side stories open to lower level players), is make them accommodating to both old and new players. This is usually achieved by including Easter eggs and hints to a greater plot for the former, while keeping the actual main story for that particular quest straightforward and accessible for the latter. This strategy avoids alienating newcomers and will be absolutely vital if the anime is aiming to appeal to a larger audience, namely the international one who are mostly not even aware of the game. Failure to adhere to this strategy is also partially why many anime adaptations of games have such a shitty track record. They try to pack in too much, usually by explaining multiple complex concepts without devoting enough time to see them properly work in action. The story might take a backburner in favour of the more technical stuff, leaving newcomers confused and bored. Then when it’s time for the climax, nobody actually understands what is happening on screen. “Just play the source material”, actual fans will say, but really, unless the premise or characters appealed to me, how likely am I to invest even more time into a game if I thought the anime was boring as hell?

I do not think Shoumetsu Toshi will be able to showcase its full potential in one anime season. But if the goal of the anime is just to promote the game, there is no need to. If the goal of the anime were to be an actual good anime though, I think the creators would need to take the same approach as the game does for its stories.

Shoumetsu Toshi’s most epic moments are its unpredictable and creative plot twists. The amazing thing is, they don’t just come out of nowhere. This game’s strongest stories are the long ones that build up gradually to spectacular and emotional climaxes, which are possible because characters are given ample time to establish their values and motivations. This helps us as an audience better understand important plot points without the story having to beat us over the head about it, allowing the game to weave a subtle yet sophisticated narrative that actually makes total sense by the end. This means the story needs to be planned out from the very beginning, and will need some time for setup. Which means it won’t truly shine until the metaphorical ‘late-game’.

Stories like these are at a disadvantage these days because, especially with the Internet giving us so much more choice, a lot of anime watchers now tend to drop a show if it fails to impress them from the very start. After about three episodes, the audience should have a good feel for the anime’s main characters, setting and a hint of the main plot. If by then, absolutely nothing about the series appeals to you, you would start to think there are better things you could be doing with your time. Unfortunately, sometimes a show just needs a long time to set up a good story (or sometimes producers dick around too much with filler episodes).  

On top of probably needing a slow start, the Shoumetsu Toshi anime is at another disadvantage in respect to one type of audience, because the game does not have an English version. Which means a lot of the Western anime audience will have had no prior interaction with it and don’t know what to expect. They have no idea who the characters are, what the story is, and why its fanbase considers it so much more than just another gacha game. We just have to hope the anime is compelling enough in the beginning to ‘hook’ these newcomers, and make them stay on board long enough to make their time worth it...

A good Shoumetsu Toshi story needs to take risks. I hope to God nobody at that studio makes the executive decision to ‘play it safe’, because the last thing any fan wants is a disappointing anime adaptation with a mundane story even a non-fan wouldn’t be able to enjoy.The writers need to be given complete autonomy and trust to fully realise their creative vision, because that is exactly what is needed if this adaptation wants to use Shoumetsu Toshi’s biggest drawcard to its full advantage.

Animating exposition

This is a pretty minor thing compared to the other two I mentioned previously, but the most iconic thing that sets an anime adaptation apart from the source material is, well, the animation. Visuals and animation are probably the biggest things influencing a new audience’s first impression. Unfortunately, the PV portrayed some pretty lacklustre animation for Madhouse standards and I don’t think people were that impressed.

Good animation is time-consuming and can actually take quite a lot of effort on the part of the director (not that I have that much experience to speak to). Where to place characters in the shot composition, when and how far to zoom in for a close-up, how to best direct movement for maximum impact, but also keeping the scene direction consistent enough that the audience can still understand what is happening on screen. Dynamic scenes are hard enough, but on the other end of the spectrum, how do you animate a static character reciting an information dump in an interesting way?

Shoumetsu Toshi has a lot of talking. It's just something that comes part and parcel with a game of this format. In the game it's alright because you can read at your own pace, and it's important information. Plus they usually keep you engaged by switching up characters’ facial expressions (Shoumetsu Toshi 0 does this in spades) or by distracting you with the stellar soundtrack. I expect the anime is also gonna have a heap of exposition. I mean, from the PV alone I already see at least three expositional characters: Geek, Eiji and Kikyou.

Personally I think expositions are the hardest things to animate. And I don't mean difficult to actually draw and turn into animation, but to actually direct something like that in a satisfying way takes brain power. There are an infinite number of ways to animate characters talking, ranging from the super boring still-image-with-moving-mouth-flap, to using dynamic camera angles to keep the composition interesting, or overlaying a montage of some sort to visually convey the message without having to look at a static character. The game provides only a generic idea of how the scene might play out when animated. While this opens the door to a heap of creative possibilities, I’m concerned that if it comes down to time and budget, or if someone gets lazy, it is very likely we could end up with one hella boring sequence of exposition. Which could be a serious problem if the action scenes aren’t able to impress.

Ahh, you guys have no idea how much I want this anime to do well. There's just so much potential there.

In my opinion, traditional anime can be seen as an incredibly limited medium that must, in the span of about 12 episodes, tell a good story to its audience, invest them in its characters, and keep them engaged for half an hour each episode through pretty visuals/cool animation. If they can’t do that the audience will probably drop the series because they a) get bored, b) don’t care, and/or c) fall asleep. This also means a good anime can’t afford to sacrifice story for character development or vice versa. They need to happen concurrently.

It is not easy to make a good anime, and even more difficult to make one that lives up to the hype of its very amazing source material. As a general rule of thumb, I keep my expectations of game adaptations low, and that is what I said to myself when the Shoumetsu Toshi anime was announced. But then one day I got linked a Shoumetsu Toshi drama CD, and I was blown away by how well they did it. The title is The Vanished Elephant, a literary reference to Murakami's short story of the same name. I'm trying not to spoil but basically, the CD fully utilised the fact we can't see the characters (but can hear them) to craft a mysterious original story with a wonderful plot twist. It works just as a stand alone story, but actual players who are familiar with the characters and motifs immediately get that sense of unease at the very beginning, which is finally paid off with the reveal at the end.

Thanks to that, I can't help but be excited for the anime. If they do fuck it up, I won't be surprised but I will be very, very, sad.

If you have read this far, thank you so much for your time. If you are unfamiliar with Shoumetsu Toshi, could I ask you to please give this anime a chance? And if after its run, it does turn out shit, by all means, complain to your heart’s content (because I will be doing the same).

[jeonghan-support-group]

Gloomy Night// Jeonghan

Jeonghan Fluff Imagine // 1,667 words

The bathtub was nestled between three walls in the far side of the bathroom. It fit perfectly in the narrow, slightly run down structure of the bathroom. There was a small window directly above the bathtub that you always opened on nights like this, to stare out of the window and in the night sky as you sat in the bath. No one could possibly see you when you had your window open- your apartment was far too high in the building. You could see the entire city but no one could see you, which you figured was a rather good resolution.

On nights like this- where you sat horizontally in the bathtub, knees pulled to your chest to accommodate for the lack of space between the sides of bathtub, to stare into the night sky which you wouldn’t be able to so conveniently look out of had you sat properly in the tub- you usually sat with a plastic cup of cheap wine.

The wine glasses were too expensive, and you didn’t have the money to spend on proper, ‘fancy’ glasses to drink your alcohol out of, so you opted for plastic cups. There wasn’t much of a difference- the wine tasted like shit either way.

You had found two half-used candles sitting on the coffee table in the living room and decided they’d be good enough to help set the mood for one of your ‘gloomy nights’, as you liked to call them.

Normally you would find some sort of flower petal to sprinkle sporadically around the tub, but the only flowers you had at the moment were the ones Jeonghan had brought home for you two days ago, and you didn’t want to put them to waste to quickly. So instead, you just grabbed the vase of light pink roses, and set them down on the corner of the tub to at least help the situation feel more aesthetically pleasing.

And there you sat- facing the small window that showed you the stars, sipping slowly on your cup of wine, naked, slightly cold, and trying to give yourself an excuse as of why you should be happy right now, but nothing was working.

Usually this was the trick- spend an hour in the bathtub, commencing your ‘gloomy night’ ritual, and you’d bounce right back to how you normally were, but it seemed you’d been sitting here for well over an hour, and nothing had changed.

You were still sad and felt like you were disappointing everyone. You sighed, convincing yourself at last that tonight just wasn’t your night, and trying to accept the fact that the infallible bathtub routine had, for the first time ever, failed you. You gripped the side of the tub behind you, about to climb out of the tub, when you heard the front door of your apartment shut lightly. It must’ve been around 10:00 at night at this point, and Jeonghan had finally arrived home. You heard the sound of his backpack being lazily thrown down beside the door, and the familiar clink of his keys as he set them down on the coffee table, calling out your name.

“Y/N?” You could hear his voice down the hall, growing closer as he approached further and further. You slid back down into tub, in your previous position, gripped your wine cup, and looked back out the window. “Y/N, where are the can- oh. You’re using them in here, I was wondering where he candles from the living room went.”

He was suddenly in the doorway, his hair slightly tousled and his tired eyes meeting yours as you turned back to look at him. His face dropped slowly as your features met him, and he stepped into the small bathroom, crouching down behind you, and rubbing your back soothingly.

“It’s one of those days, huh?” Jeonghan immediately noted the setup of the bathroom having been witness to many ‘gloomy nights’ before. He gave you a weak smile, kissing your cheek and waiting for your answer. Not that he really expected one anyways- he could tell that you were upset, and when you were upset, you grew quiet. You turned back to the window, leaning into him slightly as he stared out the window with you, still crouching behind you. His figure, fully clothed and warm completely contrasted yours, which was naked and cold.

“What are you thinking, huh, love?” He asked once again, moving his hand to your right shoulder and squeezing lightly. Once again, you didn’t give Jeonghan an answer, only shifting slightly closer to his touch. His hand left you suddenly, causing you to let out a small sigh and take another small sip of your wine. You winced, this shit tasted horrible.

The sound of clothes being thrown onto the floor made you turn back, and your eyes were suddenly greeted by a naked Jeonghan who climbed into the tub and sat beside you. His knees were pressed to his chest, almost uncomfortably, as he was a fair bit taller than you, and didn’t have as easy of a time trying to force his body into such a small space.

And there the two of you sat, just staring out of the window, looking at the stars. It seemed like a while before Jeonghan turned to you.

“Have they said anything?” He whispered in your ear, shifting closer to you so that the entire sides of both of your bodies were touching. Comfortable. “The stars, have they spoken to you yet?”

You shook your head, sinking lower slightly as you just sat.

“You wanna talk about it?” Jeonghan pushed a stray, wet piece of hair our of your face, letting his fingers delicately trace your features. You were quiet again, staring at the water now, debating whether or not to say anything. “That’s okay, jagiya. You can tell me lat-“

“I got fired today.” You croaked out finally, cutting Jeonghan off midsentence. His fingers stopped tracing your face for a second, freezing in their movements before continuing like nothing had happened.

“You got fired?” His voice was low, and the air was slightly tense between the two of you, but he wasn’t mad. You knew Jeonghan well, and the way he was speaking to you was calm, but not the type of calm that came before the storm. You just nodded, not knowing where to look, ashamed and disappointed in yourself.

Jeonghan let out a deep exhale, chuckling slightly after. “Thank god. I was beginning to think you were perfect, Y/N!”

You nudged Jeonghan, who giggled slightly before grabbing the wine cup that was held loosely in your right hand. He smelled the wine, crinkling his nose afterwards.

“It’s okay, Jagi. It makes me relieved to know I’m not the only disappointment.” He smiled at you before taking a sip of the wine he had previously cringed at. “What the fuck kind of wine did you buy?” He muttered, glancing at the cup in disgust before setting it on the floor behind the tub, out of reach of both of you. Probably for the best too, it was really shitty wine.

“What do you mean ‘not the only disappointment’, Jeonghan?” You asked, turning to face him at this point. His words had peaked your interest, and while you were glad to know that he wasn’t too upset, you were suspicious as to why.

“You know that literary analysis paper I worked really hard on?” Jeonghan met your eyes, and you really saw the exhaustion that he had been through due to that paper and the stress of his results. It hadn’t even occurred to you. “I got a C- on it. Found out today, that’s why I came home so late. God, I must have read it a thousand times over trying to find what was so wrong with it. And when I asked my professor, he gave me the most useless advice I’ve ever heard. ‘Better luck next time.’”

Your hand found Jeonghan’s hand, and you brought it up to your lips, planting a soft kiss there. He smiled at the action, wrapping his arm around you and looking back out of the window. The stars were bright, and the water you two were sitting in was cold.

“Don’t be upset, Jagi. It’s okay.” He whispered, taking a deep breath and letting it out before looking back at you. Your eyes hadn’t left his face, and at this point, you could finally feel the hot tears pooling in your eyes.

“Hannie, we both have student loans, we live in a shitty, run-down apartment, and we can’t even afford a real fucking wine glass, let alone good wine. How are we going to manage if only one of us has a job?”

“Talk to the stars, Y/N. It always helps. The universe has an answer for us. It always does. Maybe we won’t get the answer we want today or tomorrow, but we will get it one day. You will find a job, I promise. Please don’t be too harsh on yourself about this.” Jeonghan took your face in his hands, kissing your nose once, your forehead, both of your cheeks, and finally meeting your lips with his own. The kiss was deep and intimate, and lifted the heavy weight from your chest until finally you felt okay. He wiped the small tears on your face away with his thumbs, and shifted to move underneath you, so you were sitting between his legs. The positions should have been slightly awkward- hell, you two were naked and cold, but honestly, you had never been more comfortable.

“I love you, Y/N.” You heard Jeonghan whisper in your ear before letting his chin rest on your shoulder and wrapping his arms loosely around your waist.

“I love you, Hannie.” You whispered back, leaning into his touch once again. Maybe the window, the ‘gloomy nights’ weren’t your savior. Maybe it was Jeonghan.

“Are those the flowers I gave you two days ago?”

Cities are really nice :) -H

<3

[violetsystems]

#personal

Sometimes you can tell when a dark cloud passes just by the way things sort of end up bare.  Everything feels like an epilogue like you are walking in the rain or something and it’s quietly drizzling on the pavement somewhere.  I was saying today that Chicago sometimes feels like a city with no closure.  Most of the time there’s just no resolution.  Not a just one anyway.  Sometimes if you pay attention too closely you can see another layer.  Maybe the reasons why you don’t really feel the need to pry anymore.  I was in Japan awhile back with a friend Renick who performs totally in code.  We were eating curry at this place called coco curry and talking about music.  He had mentioned this phenomenon of a brick wall in the music industry that you hit.  It was something that was described to him by a guy named Matt Dryhurst.  I knew vaguely what it might be but it’s another thing to be slammed up against it unknowingly.  And in a healthy mind and a very social one in the real world, what has transpired the last month is nothing I can even explain.  I was reading an article about people who have the most compassion possibly have the most boundaries.  And maybe it’s far more complex than that but I’ve seen my feet tramped over for no real reason or reward.  In that last week I’ve finalized a lot of my trip to Asia.  My flights, my accommodations, my passport, my intentions to have a nice vacation and nothing else are mostly done.  I don’t ever really believe I’m going on vacation until I get on the plane.  I don’t really know what to expect other than to be free of all of this for awhile.  What I’ve come to know of the music industry and what it does for people is wrong.  It’s counter intuitive to everything I’ve fought against my entire life.  There’s people I’ve literally given my blood, sweat and tears for here who just laugh it off.  And I’ve seen those people cover each other’s tracks and manipulate the situations and narratives around them to be seen in a positive light.  And a lot of me has no business trying to fight any of that by myself.  Which is why I’ve been thinking about just forgetting everything I know about music the last four years and being happy.

If it sounds fucked and dramatic, trust me I am tired at this point of my life even having hints of it.  The time I’ve spent here has always made me analyze myself and be critical of myself to a point.  But I feel like after all these paragraphs, shitty images, and esoteric quotes, we all at least respect each other’s desires to be free and human.  People can hide all they want in their back rooms and clubs and talk shit about me for all I care.  At this point, some people including myself see it more of a performance.  I’ve tirelessly tried to explain myself for years.  It’s only this week where I had to watch a friend from Vancouver experience the same wall.  He was supposed to play a show and crash on my couch.  The promoter changed their mind.  I think it’s unprofessional to go any further.  But this is the way it is.  The unspoken hush of despair when it comes to people like ourselves just trying to find a decent and human community.  One that accepts each other for who we are inside and out with no bullshit, no expectations and no abuses of power.  I was getting coffee earlier in the morning before work and the cashier was trying to make small talk.  She had asked where I worked and I repeated it three times.  She assumed that I was a security guard.  Which if you put the entire last month I’ve written about in context paints a very problematic picture of this city.  People assume they know.  And I guess the hallucination of what you are has some weight in the real world.  If people generally in passing think I’m a piece of shit daily then I’m probably going to have to work on that if I want to even think about surviving in life.  You would think that would be true.  I put a lot into that formula and risked being alone a lot.  I ran 600 miles in six months last summer.  Nobody really cared or payed attention.  People used to think I was depressing and sad.  Now people think I’m too aggressive even though I don’t really say anything to people.  Now some people think I’m safe enough to patrol the streets of Chicago in an Undercover jacket on my commute and off hours.  The expectations build from there.  Imagine when somebody gets offended that you talked to them for whatever reason.  Now imagine they tell everyone that you are a shitty person because of it.  And they largely believe it because they want to believe a shitty person like you won’t succeed.  So you have no choice but to walk away and roam the streets.  And somewhere in there you become like ghost dog or something.

What I’ve learned from all of this is that if I keep playing this game with people it will hurt me even more than it has already.  I really believe people in Chicago don’t ever believe you are successful until you fit into this bizarre hallucination of a utopia built by people with too much money.  I also believe the streets are a different story.  It’s not like I want to quit music and become Solid Snake or some shit.  I just don’t want to be a part of any of these shitty people anymore.  I used to think I could fight it.  But there’s no reward.  I don’t even want to play music here for people.  I don’t feel safe.  I always feel like I have to watch my back for some setup.  I walked out of work today and some people were street snapping me from across the street.  It was totally uncalled for.  Maybe it was flattering.  But I’ve been beat down so much by Chicago to think I’m a piece of shit.  A piece of shit with a job who took it upon himself to stand up for people time and again.  Of course I’m always the villain.  I’ve never been able to tolerate fake shit.  There’s no payoff in any of these spectacles that people maintain when they’re all secretly run by white male gatekeepers anyway.  It’s futile to argue with them.  Sometimes those scenes are more trouble than their worth.  I’m flying directly into a communist country I’ve never been to before outside of an airport by myself.  I’m actually flying to three countries by myself for two weeks.  I haven’t travelled in a year.  I took the last year off because I thought I should try to make things work here.  I thought I should play the game.  I thought I shouldn’t be another colonizer expat fetishist and face the fears everyone has projected onto me.  And what I found out was that people out here are on another level of bullshit that I do not want to fathom.  I’ve learned to keep my head down and walk away.  The last week I’ve liked to think I’ve been led around on a ghostly sort of leash.  Sometimes it feels that way.  It’s a cold chill and a knowing.  Maybe it’s just me facing reality finally.  The reality is I still care about all of you here.  I don’t much care for the rest of society now.  I don’t think it deserves my thoughts.  Only you guys do right now.  And my thought to you is to have fun this weekend whatever you do.  I’m going to get some rest.  <3 Tim

[livingwithashipname-blog]

Ermanda’s Inner Sanctum: Scorpion 4.04 “Nuke Kids on the Block”

As much as I loved the end scenes, the episode copied the mission setup of 3.03 It Isn't The Fall That Kills You.  I love parallels and moments that recall past Scorpion jobs and tech to solve new problems or heartfelt character & ship developments (e.g., the “bored” Waige parallel to Quintis at the end of 3.15 Sharknerdo).  Given that season 4 is a reset of the series, I expect a revisit of various topics to show character development over the past 3 years, but unilateral copies are weird deja vu moments that spoil the magic of the series in my opinion.  The remaining elements of the episode were very enjoyable though because they led into the touching end scenes that I think sparked excitement for everyone in this fandom.  Let's get into the juicy bits! 

Sylvester Dodd, Esq. 

Sly is juggling his responsibilities as a Scorpion employee and Alderman of West Altadenia quite well since he uses his experience in one field to assist with another.  Now he plans to be Cabe’s defense!  Yay!  I am guessing he learned his lesson after Heywood Jahelpme Morris! 😂  Anyways, this is a great development because it serves as an extension of a father-son bond Sly and Cabe strengthened during Sly’s Alderman campaign last year.  With Patty Logan in the mix, this new arc will be comedic and touching!  Sly’s character development has really improved from previous seasons.  He gives an amazing speech to rally the team behind his goal to study and pass the bar exam in 2 DAYS!!!  All I can say is GO SLY GO!!! 

🎧 WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER - High School Musical cast🎧 

Waige

Ow my Waige!  Walter supports Happy’s presence because she could act as a buffer if he drones on and on about genius things.  He fears the same result will occur with Paige as his previous romantic interests.  He really wants this to work after the road it takes for him to get here!  And as she does best, Paige finds a unique way to accommodate Walter!  This scene takes me back to 2.15 Da Bomb, which is my all-time favorite Waige scene.  It reminds us how Paige is different from every other woman in Walter’s life whether she and Walter are on good terms or bad!  I love their new dynamic and I look forward to more cuteness from these cuties! 😍😍😍💙💙💙😍😍😍 

Baby Quintis

IT'S OFFICIAL!!!  Happy wants a baby ASAP!!!  EEK!!! 😃😃😃👨‍👩‍👧👶🏻🍼🤗🎉  Given the nature of the press release and the sneak peeks for the episode, the prevailing question amongst the fandom is why Happy wants to spend more time with Waige than her own husband.  When Toby realizes Happy’s behavior change is a psychological response to a strong emotional desire, he remains supportive.  He is not jealous because he knows how badly Happy wants a family of her own. 💚💚💚💚💚  

This is really great for everyone in the fandom who have wanted to see a pregnant Happy since the idea was teased in season 2B!  If you have been paying attention, you have noticed the foreshadowing elements that indicate the story's direction.  Since the writers teased this storyline at the end of season 3, I have tossed between the direction the writers would choose because of Toby's words to Happy in episode 3.07 We're Gonna Need A Bigger Vote.  But this current episode strongly suggests that Quintis' first child will be a bio baby in my opinion.  One of the biggest reasons why I am now convinced of this is because Quintis literally can not afford to adopt considering their current financial status.  Another is found in Happy's wardrobe, which is uniquely tied to all pregnancy mentions.  I forgot to mention this detail in my last review, but there was a significant wardrobe change, reflective of the looser and softer clothing of season 3A. The episode, along with 4.03 Grow A Deer, A Female Deer, also foreshadows how this new arc will unfold.  

Happy will carry a child.  She has stated that is what she wants.  Happy and Toby can not afford adoption.  However, TV is funny like that and could create a unique adoption scenario, if desired.  

Baby Quintis will be a girl.  The fawn from episode 4.03 was female (and spoiler alert: sneak peeks of the next episode reinforce this).  

Quintis will struggle with conception because nothing comes easy for these geniuses on this show, even in their personal lives.  The writers’ goal in season 3 was to explore how Happy and Toby would navigate a sudden life change given the stress of their current circumstances.  This season’s arc will likely test their resolve to develop their EQ and overall preparation for parenthood, teaching patience and perseverance. 

Happy will experience complications, but at which moment is unknown.  Her mother, Grace, died from childbirth complications, but this is not Happy's fate unless Jadyn Wong or CBS surprisingly decides not to renew her contract for another season, if ordered.  In addition, I do not think the story about the soldier's wife and her circulation problem and their infant is a coincidence.  

The baby will likely be a preemie.  The fawn was delivered prematurely and survived in episode 4.03.  If this baby is born at the end of the season with a pregnancy reveal between now and Christmas, then the length of the season without a significant time jump makes this a likely scenario.

These are factors I believe are inevitable.  However, these are very focused on Happy.  Where does Toby individually fit in this scenario besides being a sperm donor and supportive husband?  I go back to the conversation between Scotty and Toby in episode 3.24 Maroon 8.  Scotty's wife was prepared to give birth very soon and he was very concerned that the injury he sustained in the crash landing would cause him to miss the birth or never see either of them again.  Since there have been subtle clues about an impending struggle in Toby's personal life likely slated for the second half of the season, it might be possible that the writers play with an idea where Toby faces difficulty in reaching Happy for the birth of their child.  This is also likely considering Collins is still at large and we don't know what role he plays in the story later this season.  Yet, one could also argue that the comment Toby makes while he's dancing links to a future parallel with the "Shiny Happy People" moment of 2.13 White Out on a lighter note.  Baby Quintis is going to create a lot of character growth and influence a lot of other arcs for the season!  I am really excited about the possibilities!!! 

STOP WITH THE QUIEEN DRAMA!

If you are reading this title and think I am about to bash Quieen as a ship, then let me ✋🏾 you right there and say hello because you must be new to my blog and these reviews. 😉😂😂😂😂  This is more of a mini rant about the missed opportunities in a Happy and Paige friendship for the series.  I personally do not expect these two characters to have the same relationship that Happy has with Walter or that Paige has with Toby because their personalities are different and thus they will not naturally flock to one another as friends.  (Yes, I am aware of the irony of this statement considering Paige is in a relationship with Walter.)  The tension that exists between them in this episode is understandable given the circumstances.  At first, it didn't make sense why Happy would want to hang with Waige and Ralph out of the blue when the press release for the episode dropped.  The sneak peek revealing Paige and Walter's initial conversation before the mission suggested that Walter may have been behind this change given what we know about him as a character.  He does weird things when he is concerned about something.  Thus, he naturally defaults to experiments to test his hypotheses.  But throughout the episode we see that Happy's behavioral change is a result an inner emotional turmoil just as Walter's defense of Happy's presence on his dates with Paige suggests the same.  It's another unique Walter/Happy parallel showcasing their EQ struggles as the most robotic characters in the series.  The situation on a whole also links so well with Happy’s characterization.

Yet, the navigation of Waige's relationship presents opportunities for Paige to come to Happy to seek more insight about Walter since this show has established the strong Happy/Walter friendship and how they are very similar people.  Heck, Happy and Walter had the same walk when they entered the warhead hangar! 😂  The impending Quintis baby developments also create a chance for Happy to come to Paige for parenting advice like she did in 3.04 Little Boy Lost now that she wants to start a family.  She is inspired by the bond between Ralph and Waige and follows them to understand the scope of that connection.  Her focus on this is the reason why she is projecting her guilt over an accident leading to a catastrophic event and disappointment over being dismissed from the drive-in movie towards Paige and her EQ contributions to the team.  That frustration extends to a lesser extent to Toby and Cabe.  She is uncomfortable with the emotion, hence, she regresses.  However, the function of drama between Happy and Paige is annoying to use as a bonding tool in high stress situations when there is so much potential in their friendship without it.  As Toby states, Paige's work with Scorpion is a reason why he and Happy are married today.  Paige managed to piece together a last-minute wedding ceremony for them.  Happy gave Paige advice regarding Drew and Ralph from her own personal experience and even hilariously called out her jealousy towards Linda.  So all I'm saying is WHERE IS THE LOVE?!!  The drama is reflective of a common trope and societal fault that simply needs to dissolve.  The women of Scorpion do amazing things for this team and it is about time we see more SIGNIFICANT heartfelt moments between them!  My hope is we will eventually see a bond form from respective learning experiences because there is so much potential and new material that can blossom from a portrayal of this relationship on screen. 

Drabbles...

The lawyer interviews... 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

So who is really Alderman? Sly or Patty? Patty is cracking me up because she is clearly running this ship! 😂😂😂😂😂😂

Ralph is so throwed and Paige doesn't like it... 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂💀💀 Geez guys, how did we get here already?! He was a little kid just the other day!

Walter is lucky Paige didn't hear his "I told you so!" He would have been in so much trouble! 😂😂😂

Paige and Happy are in full-on petty mode... 👀😱😱😱😳

How do you not have an explosion protocol even though the warhead is being decommissioned?! *facepalm*

Toby's moves to The Commodores are downright hilarious!!! 😂😂😂😂😂💀💀 I wonder if he plans on using those moves in the bedroom... #KinkyQuintis! At least Toby notices the danger before the others literally die from exhaust! Silver lining? 😂😂😂😂😂😂 He's such a dork!

Happy: Why do you want to be human anyway? Being human sucks! She's ruined all of us. Toby: Well... she is the reason we're together. That is a good thing, right?! (Happy remains silent). Aww Happy! My baby is all emotional and she is uncomfortable about it! 😢😢😢😢

Omgness! The way Walter closes the plug after Paige shoots down his definition of a fun date during catastrophe… 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂💀💀💀

H: The sign says, "No Swimming,” boss! 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Walter (to Happy & Paige): You two make a great team. Me: I agree! Why use a fight to get them here, writers?! We've been known this!

Explode the warhead?! Lordt, here we go again! 😳😳😱😱😱😱😱

Did anyone notice Happy’s subtle question of concern over the safety of the lighting guy given the new plan?! HOLY CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT!!! 🙌🏾 🙌🏾 🙌🏾

Okay Happy… don’t drop this plastic wrench! 😂😂😂😂😂

Paige and Happy make up and Walter is confused… this is the subtle comedy I like!!! 👍🏾😂😂😂😂

Cabe being treated as an intern is just too much! 😂😂😂😂😂😂 Cabe coming up with a method to locate the warhead based on the science the geniuses presented earlier… PRICELESS! He’s a great fit for this team as Toby suggests! Papa Cabe FTW!!! 🙌🏾😂😂😂😂😂

These geniuses are terribly direct at the worst times!!! 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Sly saves the county money and funds science club in one fell swoop! And he’s gonna be Cabe’s lawyer?! Oh yeah! 🙌🏾 🙌🏾 🙌🏾 🙌🏾

H: I want a baby... soon. You were right. I want a family... I’ve always wanted a family and I want one with you because I love you. T: The woman who hates being human wants to make another human? H: Yeah, something like that. T: Shall we start now? OH MY QUINTIS HEART!!! 😍😍💚💚💚😍😍 ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY LOVE OAK!!! 😍💚💚🌳💚💚

Waige is too stinkin cute! I am feeling 2.15 end scene flashbacks! Are you?!! 💙💙🐟🍹💙💙  Also cue the “bored” parallels between Waige in this episode and Quintis in episode 3.15.  Paige and Toby, respectively, remind their robot significant other that they will never get tired of their antics/personality!  GIVE ME ALL THE WAIGE AND QUINTIS PARALLELS!!! 🙌🏾 🙌🏾 🙌🏾😍😍😍😍😍😍💚💚💙💙

[dailytechnologynews]

Downsizing from ITX to ATX...wait...what?! | My Cerberus X impressions (warning, LONG)

Case Photo

Product Configuration Page

NOTE - While his post has been essentially cross-posted, for /r/hardware I have adjusted the focus to be more on the case itself, and less on the "look at my PC build" aspects, in order to be more in line with the subreddit and rules. IF the mods still feel that this isn't quite right for this sub, I understand, and thank you for what you guys do :)

Contents:

Introduction

Purpose and Problems

Configuration and Results

Imperfections

Regrets?

Conclusion

What's Next?

Introduction

I recently switched from the NZXT H200i (mini-ITX, ~26L) to the Cerberus X (E-ATX, ~19L). After a few weeks of usage and testing I wanted to go ahead and give my thought process and results.

Purpose and Problems

I had been attempting to downsize my PC case while maintaining adequate thermals. More importantly, I wanted lower noise output as the case was going to be right next to my head.

I started with the NZXT H200i, which I bought at launch in December 2017. But that brought with it some unforeseen problems. The EVGA G2 PSU that I was using completely covered the bottom intake, while completely choking off the GPU from air. Temps were higher than expected and I tried several workarounds. If your PSU completely closes off the bottom intake, you're going to have a bad time. The GPU and PSU trap air between them, causing the GPU to cook itself. You need negative pressure and an open bottom filter to get that air out of there. And even then, the thermals/noise become only adequate. I wanted my PC to be as quiet as possible, and when a case is 2 feet from your head, you are going to hear fan noise.

To clarify, this is what I mean by fan noise. I've heard people tell me that the Noctua NF-A12x25 is silent up to ~1,500 RPM. Some claim it's quiet at up to 2,000 RPM. It's not. At least not when 2 feet from your head. I have to run mine at around 900 RPM for effectively total silence. So clearly, I have a more stringent definition of silence for my specific use case, so now you should have an idea of what I was going for.

The MSI GTX 1070 Ti Titanium that I was using, and it was running at 77-82° in World of Warcraft at up to 2,100 RPM on the stock fan curve. It ran cooler and quieter in other games, but still warmer/louder than I would like. There's something about WoW that pushes cards to a higher power draw despite not being a modern looker. Since this was my worse case scenario and the game that I play the most, it's what I'm using to measure temps with. Also, my case is above the forced air vent in my office, which is bi-directional. So in the summer it's fine with A/C blowing at it. In the winter? With heat blowing at it, it's a problem.

Enter the Cerberus X, manufactured and distributed in North America by Sliger. I had a few criteria for a replacement to the H200i, and they were:

Able to accommodate a wide range of parts, not too many compromises

White

Opaque panel so I didn't have to color-coordinate the interior

Ability to allow for good airflow without the need for liquid cooling

A small footprint so that it could remain on my desk

Support for ATX motherboards for the next round of upgrades

The Cerberus X appeared to be the solution to my problems.

Configuration and Results

I knew that I wanted to do air cooling exclusively, with a tower-style cooler. I opted to maintain my Cryorig H7 (which does fit, if you remove the included side bracket). This meant a few things. First, I'd need an SFX or SFX-L PSU, so I opted for the Corsair SF450 Platinum (I did try it in the H200i for about a week, and it didn't make an impact, surprisingly).

Then, I needed to come up with the case fans and layout. I opted for four Noctua NF-A12x25 PWM fans. I used two for the intake at the bottom, one as a front/bottom intake, and the last one to replace the stock fan on the H7. You can see the layout HERE. I apologize for the lack of cable management. The idea behind this fan layout is positive pressure (all 3 case fans pulling air in) plus convection cooling (heat rises), forcing most of the warm air either out the top vent or forced out the rear by the CPU cooler.

Finally, I needed to swap the GPU. The MSI GTX 1070 Ti Titanium was 140mm tall, but with the power connectors, it went past the 154mm allowed for the side panel. So I got the MSI RTX 2060 Gaming Z. This would be a sufficient side grade as GPU performance wasn't an issue for me. The rest of the system specs:

Intel Core i7-7700k

EVGA Z270 Stinger ITX motherboard

G-Skill Ripjaws V 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4-3000 CL 15

Samsung 960 Evo 1TB NVME

And that's literally it aside from the aforementioned PSU and GPU. I really could have gone with a smaller case, but I'll be switching to an ATX platform later this year or early next. Just getting ready.

First I ran the system with the MSI Titanium. I wanted to see if it cooled down. This was more like an open-air test bench as the side panel could not be put on. Temps dropped from a peak of 82° to 67°. Fan RPM plummeted. It was quiet. Mission accomplished. Time to put in the 2060, put on the side panel, and see how bad it gets.

The new card? 63° under full, sustained loads. I can get it to spike to 65° if the home heating is going full blast, but the card quickly knocks it back to 63°. Fan RPM is typically around or under 1,200 RPM, with an occasional push to near 1,300. It's quiet. In fact, it has one minor issue. For lighter gaming loads the temps will on rare occasion drop into the low 50s and the fans will eventually cut off, so you can hear them spin back up briefly when the temp surpasses 60°. But it's a short burst and not very loud.

My next concern was CPU temps. The setup that I have greatly favors the GPU. Using an extremely conservative fan curve on the Cryorig H7, gaming temps tend to be in the 50s (I can get into the 60s in Forza Horizon 3 and Rise of the Tomb Raider). This is a few degrees warmer than the H200, but nothing to complain about. Using Handbrake, my most demanding CPU task, it fluctuates between 67° and 70° C. That's with the Noctua NF-A12x25 attached to the H7 running at only 1,335 RPM. This thing is silent! (CPU is not delidded, but I'm also running at stock speeds).

Imperfections

No case is perfect, so here I'm going to mention ALL of the flaws of the Cerberus X.

First, it's not a mass-produced case. As such, the price is higher than what a similar mass-produced case would potentially cost. However, there's no mass-produced competition so while the price is high, we can't say it's a poor value for what it gives.

Next is the overall design. It is not filtered (though you can order compatible filters), so dust will be a concern. I'm going to watch this and see how bad it gets, and if necessary, I'll move to the filters down the road.

Another issue with the design is that there is almost zero thought given to cable management. Basically, everything was put into making this as compact as possible while housing larger parts with fewer compromises. Yes, you can use an ATX mobo, an ATX PSU, a 280mm AIO, and a fairly large GPU. But there's no room between the rear-side panel and the mobo tray. Absolutely none. So you'll need to get creative with the cable management. No big deal for me (as you saw from the mess in the interior photo), but those who opt for the windowed panel will take issue with this to some degree.

While the case supports E-ATX, ATX, and ITX, there's no standoff holes pre-drilled for MicroATX. So keep that in mind if buying this case over the non-X version, which supports both MicroATX and ITX.

Finally, the top vent/panel. In white, I can see what look like black dots along the top, because the paint job is less than perfect. Basically in many of the holes, at the edge of where the hole meets the top, there's a small chip in the paint. This is in the majority of the holes and from where I sit it's quite obvious, and you can see it HERE (zoom in if needed), though it's more pronounced in person. I suspect this will be an issue with the white and red versions, but fine for the black and grey. I'm ok with it, but if you're OCD, get the black-top option for your white or red case.

In summary, the flaws are price, lack of included filtering, lack of included cable management options, lack of MicroATX support, and chips in the top white (and likely red as well) panel.

Conclusion

I outlined above what I was aiming for in a case. The Cerberus X met or exceeded every requirement. The flaws that it has either don't impact me, or can be mitigated through reasonable measures (separate filters, black top). Every time I purchase a product there's some form of compromise that I have to make. Not this time. After 4 cases in 3 years, I think I've finally found the successor to my Lian-Li K10B, which I used for 7 years (May 2008 - August 2015).

I highly recommend the Cerberus X for users who want an ATX tower that is extremely compact, won't make you compromise on every piece of hardware like an ITX chassis would, and offers solid thermals. Oh, and...so long as you can fit it within your budget ($235 - $360, depending on configuration).

[juicy-cookie]

Through The Valley - Chapter 3

Fic Summary: A deeper look into The Sanctuary.

Boy meets girl. Girl meets boy. Boy has a weird obsession with a baseball bat, promiscuity and the word “fuck”. Girl has to find out if she can look past these things. Also, zombies and shit.

AO3 Link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/10075958/chapters/22913145

Pairing: Negan X OFC

Chapter Summary: How to make friends and annoy the shit out of people.

The woman, while still pointing her gun in their direction, had lowered it to her hip, but was nevertheless back in don’t-bullshit-me mode.

“What makes you think that we need to be saved?”

Negan smiled and spread his arms, nearly hitting Connor on the nose. She was just where he wanted her to be.

“This whole setup you got here? Really fucking nice. Cleared streets, a fuckton of supplies… you probably even know how to hunt, make a fire, the whole Survival 1-0-fucking-1. You’re both obviously smart and capable. So I’m damn fucking sure that you know that this isn’t gonna last forever. I mean, sure, right now you’re all fine and fucking dandy in your little house in the suburbs, but how are you gonna heat the house this winter? What are you going to do when you’ve scavenged every last place in the area? Plant a fucking apple tree in the backyard? And you’re just two people. One of you kicks the fucking bucket, the other one is fucking dead, too, either from being eaten, or because being alone out here is a fucking death sentence.”

Negan watched their reactions to his little speech very carefully. They had to agree that he was right. The guy –What was his name again?- was looking at Dwight with furrowed brows. The girl, Lilly, was still watching Negan intently, her face not giving anything away. It was a little unsettling if Negan was being perfectly honest to himself. Was that approval, or was she one wrong word away from shooting him in the head?

“Any-fucking-way… there are so few fucking people left in this fucked-up world… we have to save everyone we can, right? So how about you two join us? We have food, walls, people. A whole fucking community that works together. You get jobs, a place to sleep and two awesome fucking meals per day. We even have a fucking doctor plus meds if you need them.”

“Sounds like a real utopia.” The man said. “And you’re offering us all this just like that, without asking for anything in return?”

“I just told you that you’re given jobs, weren’t you fucking listening? Of course you’re gonna have to fucking work if you want to stay with us, nothing in this world is for fucking free anymore.”

The two of them exchanged another look and then Lilly asked the million dollar question:

“How do we know that you’re not just trying to gain our trust and as soon as we let down our guard and our guns, you kill us and take all our shit?”

Negan couldn’t help the Cheshire cat grin that was creeping up on his face.

“Oh we are going to take all your shit. Just see it as an entrance fee to a very fucking cool and exclusive club. As for how you’re gonna know we won’t kill you? Because I have a gun in the inside pocket of my jacket and Connor here has another hidden in his boot. We could have fucked you up three times over by now. And yet here we are… as nice and fucking friendly as a fucking 30-year-old virgin on his first visit to a hooker.”

That finally got a reaction from them. The guy -Jax!- looked about ready to start a bloodbath and pointed his gun straight at Negan’s head. Connor reached down to go for his own hidden gun, but Negan put a hand on his lieutenant’s arm and then returned his attention to Lilly.

She uncocked her gun, leaned back against the sideboard behind her with crossed arms and gave Negan a grin that made his heart flip and his dick twitch. He had known from the start that she was the one calling the shots and he was sure that he had won her over, when she finally said the five magic words:

“Jax, put the gun down.”

Her partner was about to protest, so she repeated herself.

“Put the gun down and light the candles. It’s getting dark outside and I want to take a better look at our guests.”

Jax finally did as he was told and went in the direction of the staircase, only to come back with matches and the weapons that had been left there by Dwight and Connor, holding them out to them.

Lilly, still smiling, went around the couch and out of their field of vision. When she came back, she was twirling Lucille in her hand.

“Unusual choice of weapon you got there.”

Negan was torn between annoyance and arousal. He didn’t like it when people touched Lucille without his explicit permission. On the other hand, seeing the girl’s pale and slender hands wrapped around his bat’s dark wood made his mind go to some very dirty places.

“Maybe I’ll let you play with her sometime,” he said with a wink. She chuckled and pointed the barbed wire end at him, which he took with a gloved hand.

Meanwhile, Jax had been busy lighting several candles that were standing between the food and the bottles of water. The room slowly started to light up and Negan finally managed to get a better look at the girl, who had now taken a seat in the armchair next to him. Her eyes, which he had found so unsettling just two minutes earlier, were actually a warm green and the full lips and small nose that was covered in a faint dusting of freckles made her less intimidating in the warm glow of the candlelight than he had initially thought.

Not that he had been scared of her, but she had looked like a far tougher bitch in the darkness.

“Well, if this isn’t fucking great, right boys? Two new additions to our family and one of them is even pretty fucking easy on the eyes.” He smirked at Jax, who raised an eyebrow at him and disappeared into the kitchen.

“We haven’t agreed to anything yet. We merely decided not to kill you,” Lilly remarked, before reaching for a gallon of water next to her and placing it on the table.

Jax came back from the kitchen with five glasses and put them next to the water gallon, went to the table behind Lilly and sat down on one of the chairs with crossed arms.

“Oh, come the fuck on. After everything I just told you, not to mention my awesome fucking personality and looks, you’re still not convinced? What do I have to do to help you make up your mind?”

“How about answering some questions about you and your community?”

“Sure, ask away. Oh and the answer to your first question is: Yes, I’m available and DTF.”

“Right. Thanks for clearing that up.” She looked like she could barely contain her laughter and Negan wasn’t sure whether she found him ridiculous, or was genuinely amused by his crass attempts at flirting. That would be a fucking first.

“You said that we would have to work for food, shelter and so on.” She changed the topic. “Does that mean that you have to earn these things? You don’t just get them for free?”

“Dwight, pour us some water, I’m fucking parched.” He leaned forward. “No, we have a points system. You get basic accommodation, including two meals per day and a spot in the dormitory. Anything more than that, you have to use your points.” He took the glass of water from Dwight and made sure everyone else got a drink before continuing. “Now I know what you’re gonna say… What’s the fucking point of a points system in a world like this where everyone fucking struggles to make it to the next fucking day…”

“Actually, I was going to say that a points system is a good idea in a world where laziness and incapability gets you killed.” she interrupted. “It’s not fair that some people risk their lives every day while others freeload off them.”

Negan had the feeling that she was speaking from experience.

“Have you lived in a community before?”

“Yes.”

“What happened?”

“It didn’t work out.”

He decided not to press the matter further, but made a mental note to keep an eye on those two, if they decided to come back to Sanctuary with them. He couldn’t be sure that it hadn’t been Lilly’s and Jax’s fault that it didn’t work out with their last community and a nice pair of tits and a smile were not enough to make him endanger his people back home.

He was just about to ask for how long they’d been out there, when the sudden noise from Dwight’s radio gave them all a collective heart attack. He saw Lilly and Jax going for the guns on their belts and held up his hands in a placatory gesture.

“Easy guys. It’s just our back up on the roof. They probably want to know if we’re busy fondling our balls and if they can join us.”

They kept their hands on their guns and Negan motioned to Dwight to hand over the radio with Gavin’s voice coming from it. “Boss? Are you there? Everything okay?”

His eyes never leaving the two people sitting across from him, he brought the radio up to his mouth, but addressed Lilly first:

“Can they come down here? You have my fucking word, everything is going to stay as fucking pleasant as it is. But my men have been up on that roof all fucking day and they are tired and fucking thirsty.”

She gave him a small nod.

“Gavin, yes. Everything is A-O-fucking-K here. We actually found two mushrooms.”

“Huh?”

“Forget it. We’re still talking. Get your asses down here. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

“Uhh… alright boss. Over.”

He tossed the radio back to Dwight and stood up to stretch a little, leaving Lucille on the glass table before them. Lilly was still eyeing him warily, clearly uncomfortable with the idea of having even more strangers in her home.

“Hey, don’t fucking worry, babe. Seth is a really nice guy. Oh and you have my full blessing to slap the shit out of Gavin whenever you feel like it… and you fucking will.”

“Oh great, I like a good a slap”, she smiled. That made him do a double take at her. God fucking dammit, the others would kill him if he made her a wife. Not to mention Thor Assholeson over there.

She stood up and he was finally able to make a good guess at her height. Definitely taller than he usually preferred, her head reached up just to his shoulders, while most women stopped somewhere between his bellybutton and his chest.

She stood close enough now that he could smell her and his attraction to her vanished instantly. The stink of someone who hadn’t had access to large amounts of water and soap hit his nose with a mixture of sweat, unwashed clothes and bad breath with a hint of rotting walker guts thrown in for good measure. He could also just make out the weird herbal scent he had detected when first entering the house and it made his lip curl in disgust.

“Well, since you were all so obsessed with stalking us all day, I bet you guys must be really hungry. I’m gonna go get us something to eat,” she said right before someone knocked on the door.

“That is some awesome fucking hospitality.” Negan grinned and walked to the door to open it for Seth and Gavin while Lilly got busy in the kitchen. He let his men in, who were both wearing shiny red sunburn on their cheeks and noses and who went straight for the water in the living room.

After each of them had downed a couple of glasses, they took a closer look at the room and the people in it and stopped in their tracks when they noticed Jax.

“Who the fuck are you?” Gavin asked.

Negan had since approached his man with the reddish blonde hair and put an arm around the significantly smaller guy, squeezing just a little too tight for comfort.

“That, my boy, is our new friend Jax. He is the reason that you, Dwight and Seth are going to have a whole fucking fuck-ton of unending fucking fun with fence duty for the next three weeks.”

The three men erupted in a collective groan.

“Why? How? Where is the girl?” Gavin cried out.

Dwight pointed at Lilly, who had just come back from the kitchen, carrying a tray full of assorted snacks: beef jerky, peanuts, pretzels, a couple of granola bars. She placed the tray on the glass table in front of the couch, carefully picked up Lucille and placed her against the wall by the door, right next to a bow and a quiver of arrows that Negan hadn’t noticed before.

“Oh, sweet. How about you make me a sandwich next, baby?” Gavin wiggled his eyebrows at Lilly, who tilted her head to the side, smiling sweetly at him.

“Sure thing, honey. Do you want your testicles roasted or cooked to go on that sandwich after I ripped them off?”

The room went silent until Negan couldn’t hold it in anymore and broke out into a booming laugh, one hand on his belly, the on his thigh.

“Never mind that slap, babe. This was in-fucking-finitely better.”

After the final introductions were made, they all proceeded to sit down together to eat, drink and answer questions. Lilly and Jax were guarded about revealing too much about their past and Negan’s men were too well trained to tell the two potentials anything that could endanger the Sanctuary’s inhabitants.

What they did learn, was that Lilly and Jax had known each other since before the outbreak, that they had lived in a community in D.C. for quite some time and that they had left of their own accord because they hadn’t agreed with how things were going there.

Negan and Dwight told them more about the points system, potential jobs for them and some of the rules and expectations they had for future Saviors.

There was one tense moment when Jax asked Dwight about the scar on his face, but Dwight was smart enough to mumble something about “rule breaking” and a “serious offense” without going into too much detail. Jax didn’t look completely convinced after that and he and Lilly soon excused themselves to go upstairs to discuss things.

They talked for a good hour. Gavin made a comment about halfway through that he had had enough of waiting and about getting them, but Negan told him to shut the fuck up. He wanted to give them ample time to decide whether they should go with them in the morning.

When they got back, Lilly motioned for Negan to follow her into the kitchen. She sighed and put her hands on the counter between them.

“Sorry for making you wait that long.”

“Don’t fucking worry about it. I know that shit takes time to think over. Did you come to a decision?”

“I think so. But first, why do you even want us at your place? Isn’t it a bit of a risk to take in strays in times like these?”

“Don’t get me wrong, sweetheart, I’m sure you’re a fucking badass, but you’re not exactly the crazy mass-murderer type. It has become a really rare fucking occasion that we find other survivors out here and if I think that they’d be an asset to our community, why not invite them in?”

“Well it still sounds a little too good to be true. I mean… your men seem nice enough. What about women and children? You have those at your place?”

“A whole fucking bunch of them. I even have two female lieutenants. The rest are just regular people we try to keep safe. Look, I’m not gonna fucking lie to you and tell you it’s always fucking sunshine and lollipops at our place. But I want you to know that you are always free to leave if it doesn’t work out. I can’t use people who don’t want to fucking be there.” Negan leaned back against the counter, Lucille on his shoulder. “So what about your boy Jax? I got the feeling he’s not a huge fucking fan of the whole idea of you two coming with me.”

“Jax will go wherever I go. He’s just cautious. We both are, especially after it didn’t work out with our last community. He just wants us to be safe.”

“And what do you want, Lilly?”

She focused her gaze on the wall at the other end of the kitchen and bit her lip.

“I just want to have a home again.”

“Well, you’re welcome to share mine.”

Their eyes met and she smiled up at him. The moment was immediately ruined, though, by Jax poking his head around the kitchen door.

“Everything okay in here, Lil?”

“Yeah, we’re good.”

“Did you tell him?”

“I was just about to.” She turned back to Negan. “Well Negan…” he really liked the sound of his name on her tongue. “We thank you very much for your generous offer and we have decided that, if the night goes without any incidents, we’d like to go with you in the morning.”

“All-fucking-right! That’s fucking awesome news.”

“I’ll go tell the others” Jax excused himself.

They soon heard animated chatter from the living room and Negan couldn’t stop grinning until he noticed that Lilly looked a little concerned.

“What’s wrong, babe? I thought you’d be doing a fucking happy dance for me.”

“It’s gotten pretty late. How is this going to work? We don’t have enough room for all your men and, frankly, I don’t feel very comfortable sleeping in a house with five strangers.”

“What about just one stranger?”

“What do you mean?”

“I am going to stay here and your boyfriend goes with my men and stays with them in the school. That way we both have at least some sort of fucking leverage. Though I have to say that you are really fucking hurting my feelings, babe. I have been nothing but a perfect fucking gentleman and you still don’t trust me?” he was actually pouting at her.

“Do you trust me?”

“Good fucking point.”

[doomedandstoned]

Discarded Self Cooks Up a Simmering Stew of Dread in Foreboding Debut LP

~By Billy Goate~

Album Art by Thahir M

Flooding forth with misery and hate comes the first album from Discarded Self... Created during a time of personal isolation, the album ranges from tales of the macabre to introspective trips into self-loathing and personal degradation that dredge up terrible memories of the past to drown in personal regret. There is no hope for the future here.

Thus speaks the introduction to this self-titled debut from DISCARDED SELF, the brainchild of one Jarret Beach. Nestled on the border of Alberta and Saskatchewan in the small city of Lloydminster, Jarret has been jamming on bass with Ashes of Yggdrasil and fronting Destroy My Brains on vocals and guitar since at least 2014. It was the pandemic that drove him inward and inspired him to write this harrowing opus -- an album that erupts with pitch black sentiment, exploring unhappiness, hardship, and distress through several different lenses.

"I Smell Pipes" sets the record in motion with devilish growls over a searing guitar lead. The song becomes increasingly emotional with dissonant harmonies. Whether intentional or not, the drums sound muted, giving it a dank, low-fi feel throughout. The emphasis seems solidly on the riffage, which is all fine by me, though some listeners may wish for a more spacious approach. For full effect, turn those speakers up high!

"Orbitoclast" follows next with a strumming opening and jarring amp feedback. When the vocals join, it's a sludge moshfest ala Iron Monkey and Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean. The guitar is clear, dark, and menacing, and it contrasts with the harsh singing effectively. There are burts of frenetic grinding, with fevered drumming from Joaden Paluck (Destroy My Brains, Wrought) joining Jarret's fire and brimstone riffing. The song ends with clip addressing depression and the danger of suicide, from some old training video in a rather clinical tone.

"Push The Knife" is the longest track of the album, opening with death-soaked drumming (this time with Brett Steward from Ashes of Yggdrasil on the skins) and solemn doom chords that become increasingly animated, finally spilling over in a torrent of blackened tremeloes. The instruments pause long enough for Jarret to proclaim, "I'm barely being held together...fuck this life." The lyrics contemplate the misery of one's existence and the utter despair of realizing: I could really end it all. Having been there, I can identify with practically every word of this song. Also, I'm picking up on a Buzzov*en vibe here, with Jarret's raspy, metallic vocals drawing us into the hardship of the subject quite well. It's as though the pain of depression has gradually worn away at his person, transforming him into this savage beast before us. The sonic mix on this track does a decent job of accommodating the swirling array of death, doom, and black metal styles without sounding too thin and distant.

"On The Unlevel" is another 10-minute monster, with death-obsessed lyrics (this time, it seems, from the perspective of the oppressor). It takes on the mess of politics and policing, though at times I had trouble distinguishing between rage against the system and actually taking revenge on one's enemies. In some sections, I'm reminded of Eyehategod and their propensity for simple, melodic guitar motifs. The drums are especially pronounced here, a collaboration with Daden Paluk (Destroy My Brains). About 7-minutes in, a solitary bass announces the fiery coda, which grinds down on the words "This is what you get, greedy piece of shit." There are some maniacal screams mingling in the backdrop that made me think of a human being who's finally snapped and will no longer be trodden over.

"I'm Weak" is my favorite of the record, beginning as it does with those grim downward steps, followed by irradiated crooning grungy milling. The song is about living with guilt, shame, anxiety, and self-loathing while in isolation. For many of us, nothing felt more like solitary confinement than those unending weeks in lockdown, which forced some to come face to face with what they hated most about themselves. "I'm not well, in my cell, in my tomb, crying for doom" Jarret sings. A headbanger for damned sure.

"Cultist of the Pentagram" wisely picks up the pace with a tonal shift from self-pity towards an imagined deity from some dark dimensions, perhaps Cacus of Roman Mythology ("I am your Caco god"), who was said to be the fire-breathing son of Vulcan -- and a giant at that (eventually taken down by Hercules). Regardless of the cultist's identity, it is a most interesting lyrical theme and I found myself easily pulled into the narrative. Musically, this pure sludgey, grindcore!

"Abused (e)Motionless" turns our attention to the victim of treachery, attempting to see the word through their eyes. An interesting mix of circular, grinding guitar and drums, with slow, doomy progressions, and venomous vocals (which remain omnipresent throughout).

Finally, we arrive at the conclusion of this stormy, angst-filled journey. "Dance Upon The Dead" established a gentle arpeggiated acoustic theme, which is frequently interrupted by a crashing guitar and drum combos, until vocals join in with their usual corrosive fashion. This time, we're dealing with a true doomer, full of mordant chords and deep, emphatic bass notes. Jaden is up once again for drumming duties and executes his role with taste and tact. The song develops with increasing variation and intensity as it goes along. I thought of Grief as I listened, a band that also traffics in fierce, hot-blooded, sludgey doom action.

No doubt, Discarded Self is an enormous work and may be taken in doses on first spin. It will mean even more to the suffering, as I can imagine it being quite a cathartic listen for those who feel trapped, maligned, and in dire straits. Overall, a welcome entry from a prolific and highly motivated artist who does an admirable job collaborating with his drumming compadres. I can only imagine the beast that Discarded Self will become when the Lockdown is lifted for good and public performances become a viable option in Canada and places beyond.

Give ear...

Discarded Self by Discarded Self

An Interview with Discarded Self

By Billy Goate

How would you describe the vocal approach to the songs on this record?

After recording the guitars and bass to a programmed click track, I soon realized the song arrangements had some real potential to be something aggressive and memorable so I went for my first run of lyrics on a song. I wrote the lyrics for the song "I'm Weak" before I even had any drums (which is something I almost never do) and I wanted to record them since I was really feeling the flow and ideas I had for delivery, but it was too late at night and everyone in my house was asleep. So I decided to do a little practice vocal run in a quiet voice. When I do metal vocals in a quiet voice for practicing and stuff, I use kind of an evil Satyricon-Dopethrone black metal kind of voice. It's easier on my throat than my normal hardcore Destroy My Brains full blast screaming, and it helps me lay down my ideas without any type of voice damage.

You collaborated with a number of drummers on this release. How did you work in tandem with them during the Great Lockdown of 2020 and what impact did it have on the final outcome of your tracks?

After I recorded my idea, I sent the track to the drummer of the track Rob, and he said he really dug it. I told him those weren't the real vocals and I would do the real ones in a day or two after I practiced them a bunch and got my delivery down. But when the time came to lay it all down, I had the practice voice stuck in my head and when I tried to lay down my normal vocals, it sounded weird because I was already used to the way the black metal style vocals sounded. So I decided to give what was once my quiet practicing voice a try, and record the full song in that style. It blew me away when I was all done, so I decided to change up my idea and use this vocal style for the whole album. I really like it.

Talk about the artwork. It's a tremendous piece! Really stands out.

After that it was time to go on the hunt for some artwork. Almost as soon as I started looking, an artist I follow, Thahir M, put up a piece called "Monster Hunt" and I immediately knew that was the artwork I needed to represent the project. A very powerful giant demon with dragons flying above almost like a World War II photograph with the fighter planes littering the sky. It took me about a second and a half to rapidly fire him an offer on the art before someone else snatched it. That is where the album art came from. I actually used this art as inspiration while I was recording almost all of the vocals on this album. As I recorded them I would stare at the image of the art and try to imagine I was a demon soldier in that army. I already had the lyrics memorized, so I didn't need to read them as I recorded them.

I'd venture to guess that a lot of us assume one-man bands are just wunderkinds, you know, born with all this multi-instrumental talent. Were there areas you found particularly challenging for you as you sought to bring your vision to life?

I am not a drummer. I suck real bad, and I probably won't ever practice enough to ever record anything so I needed some drummers. I had this idea of using all of the best metal drummers in my city, and it would kind of help bring the scene together a little bit. 3 of the drummers I wanted to get, I was already in bands with, so that was easy, and the last drummer was a guy with some serious skills and creative talent, plus he had his own drum recording setup.

I ended up getting all the guys I wanted on the project which were, Jadan of Destroy My Brains, Rob the drummer of Ashes of Yggdrasil, Brett the lead guitarist of Ashes of Yggdrasil (who also plays drums), and BJ from the band Dahlmers Realm. I couldn't really be more happy about it. So every time I would finish my guitars on a track I would send them off to the guys with a click, and let them stew on ideas. Slowly the ideas came in and we got them all recorded. I was really impressed with what the guys came up with and we worked and tweaked the ideas until they all felt perfect.

It sounds like a very meticulous process!

Almost every time I got the final drums and guitars all together I would stay up for days with almost no sleep writing lyrics furiously, and perfecting my delivery for the songs. The last song Dance Upon the Dead, I actually stayed awake for about 30hrs, writing and recording. I even blew my voice out real bad, but I have a real stupid and bad habit of fighting through it and I finished the song with a pretty buggered up voice. (it just adds to the torment).

What's the benefit to writing metal as an independent musician-composer, compared with being in a band?

The best part of this project was I did it all in my studio at home, and I didn't have to change any of my mixing ideas because other band members did not like it (not that that is a bad thing having extra input or anything). So this album turned out 100% how I wanted it to sound. I went with a less is more approach, and didn't really do a lot of processing on the instruments to get the sounds I ended up with.

You initially were sharing songs as you created them. What kind of response did you get from your tracks early on?

As I completed songs, I would release them on Bandcamp and YouTube, and I set a goal to have one completed every two weeks until the release date I set, which was Jan 15th, I believe. The day I released "Orbitoclast," is where everything changed and I started receiving a ton of positive feedback. "Orbitoclast" was only the second song released, so I was really getting excited to pump this project out.

I was only about two or three weeks away from my release date when I was contacted by Piers Andersen from Cvlt Legion, and he said he is starting a record label called Sarcophagus Recordings and he asked if I wanted to be his first band. I didn't even need to think about it, because I knew he was a part of Cvlt Legion and those guys promote bands at a ridiculous rate, so I went for it. He wasted no time and he had me pull all my material down from Bandcamp and YouTube, so he could properly promote the album. We changed the date to April 30th, and he went to work promoting the album. He is good, he's had me on more sites and pages than I even knew existed, and we've even done a pile of interviews which I enjoy doing.

What did you learn from diving headfirst into such an ambitious first record?

All and all, this project taught me a lot, and I do believe I have further evolved my songwriting and recording techniques for the better, so it was a real good experience, and I've also learned more about the promotional side of music which is really important if you want anyone to hear your stuff. I hope everyone enjoys this album, and you can expect to hear another album from this project in the future as I'm already at six rhythm sections written for another album.

Let's close by getting into the specific breakdown of the album's songs.

1. I Smell Pipes

Discarded Self by Discarded Self

The opening track of the album is actually written about a close friend I used to have when I was younger. It is describing a short chapter of his life, which in turn was the end of his life. He was a good friend but became a fiending drug addict "I Smell Pipes" was actually a quote he used to say when he would arrive at a party, and it signaled for all of the other crackhead/jib users to go into a room a light up rock and crystal all night. What started off as what he called fun recreational drug use, turned into full on lying, cheating, stealing, robbing, rock bottom living on the streets drug use. He passed away with a needle in his arm banging speedballs.

I wrote the song with more fun style riffs, because that was the last thing I remember about him before he disappeared and wound up succumbing to his chemical addictions. He used to be a fun guy. Hard drugs are no joke, there are only two ways it will go for you, if you want to live that kind of life. The lucky ones go to jail and sober up. The unlucky ones die, or live a long time as a worthless drug fiend. If you are having trouble with addictions, talk to someone and seek help. The alternative is more than most likely going to be a coffin. I wrote this song with a heavy heart, and it was really hard to record the lyrics.

2. Orbitoclast

Discarded Self by Discarded Self

The song "Orbitoclast" is a collection of riffs and vocal ideas I actually started this project with. It starts off slow, but gets straight down to it with a thrashy section that has shredding vocals bleeding all over it. For those that aren’t aware, an orbitoclast is the instrument that is hammered into a person’s brain, when they were the poor individual who received a lobotomy in the late '40s early '50s. The song is of course about the horrifying practice of lobotomy, but has an extra hidden meaning. It’s a metaphor for giving your trust to someone who doesn’t have your best interests in mind, and only their own personal interest, with no concern of who they damage along the way.

3. Push The Knife

Discarded Self by Discarded Self

"Push The Knife" is a slow moving look into the mind of someone who is sick with depression and touches on the topics of suicide/blood sacrifice. How it feels like you don’t want to exist in society, and you want to disappear and be forgotten. The song was originally titled "Staple", and is essentially about barely holding your life together like a “bent staple with one arm” as the lyrics suggest. The song takes a horrible turn as the protagonist of the story performs a blood sacrifice of themselves in an attempt to become a demon, and seek revenge upon the whole world who has wronged them throughout their life, joining Satan's and executing revenge upon the world. This song features Ashes Of Yggdrasil’s lead guitarist Brett on the drums, and backup vocals as well.

4. On The Unlevel

Discarded Self by Discarded Self

This song is my hate-fueled message to the government and other forces of oppression and control. I wrote this whole album in 2020, and being the naturally rebellious person that I am, the government control, restrictions, and lockdowns are not anything I ever pictured happening in my life and the damage they have caused to our society is mindblowing. If you feel the same as me, I strongly suggest looking up the lyrics to this song to understand the anger seething from within me when I was writing this. "On The Unlevel" is an attack against oppression, control, racism, division, and lies. Things can’t continue like this, and everyone needs to work together to repair all of the damage, and seriously think about the crucial changes that need to be made in our world if we are ever going to see it the same way it was, or better than it was. This is a true rebellion song of 2020.

5. I’m Weak

Discarded Self by Discarded Self

"I’m Weak" is an ode to all those who are born into this world as a person with crippling disabilities, mental health problems, or sub-par lesser functioning beings, that are unable to accomplish anything in life, and the feelings that are often associated with that, which are often followed by self doubt, self loathing, low personal esteem, drug abuse and suicide. "I’m Weak" is a tribute to a close friend who lived with all of the above named issues, and is no longer a part of this plane of existence. They will remain unnamed. This song embodies what the band name Discarded Self is all about.

6. Cultist Of The Pentagram

Discarded Self by Discarded Self

The track "Cultist Of The Pentagram" is about those who follow the rebel and master Satan, and their efforts to complete Satan’s work, in destroying God and his followers. This song is a complete assault on the world’s organized religions, and their slaughters and atrocities committed against their fellow men, women and children of earth, in the name of their so-called God. The true liar and evil presence that plagues our realm we exist in.

7. Abused (e)Motionless

Discarded Self by Discarded Self

This song was another personal and painful song to write. It is about the many forms of abuse from a loved or trusted person. The damage and trauma caused is generally irreversible, unforgettable, and leads to all sorts of problems throughout the person who was abused. It is a deep look into the person’s mind, and how fucked up they can become from it. If you or someone you know is being abused, be brave and get out of that situation. Reach out, someone will be there to help.

8. Dance Upon The Dead

Discarded Self by Discarded Self

I’ve been watching a lot of serial killer movies for I don’t know, the last 25 years. (laughs) I used those types of films for the inspiration of this song. This song was written from the perspective of a husband or father of a victim of a serial killer. It is clearly a revenge song, and describes the hate and rage that would be felt by the families of the victims. It’s a disgusting dive into that reality, and ends in a way that quenches the thirst of pure revenge.

9. Upside Down (Fistula cover)

Upside Down (Fistula cover) by Discorded Self

I wanted to pay tribute to a band I love and admire, so I recorded a cover of Fistula’s song "Upside Down." Almost every single time I’m hanging with friends I always make them listen to Fistula. Almost everyone I know now knows about them, so that’s really awesome. That also must mean I drink a lot! (laughs) The original song "Upside Down" is a real simple one, so I wanted to really spice it up and added a few things, yet kept it the same, and my drummer Jadan, who is also a big Fistula fan, does a two and half minute drum solo at the end of the track. If you are reading this, and you haven’t heard of Fistula. Do yourself a favour and just turn my Discarded Self album off and check them out. You are going to get simply destroyed!

Follow The Band

Get Their Music

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From zero to local heroes – MozCon 2019

Questions:

How long does it take at the local degree?

How do you arrange a local registration?

What number of referrals are indexed on common after constructing references?

What are the consequences of estimates on rankings?

Is establishing service areas in GMB to enable you to find in these areas?

How beneficial are links to local investments?

How properly can a company rank on the GMB listing alone?

How a lot better is a perfect website for rating towards a single GMB search equipment?

Understanding the Concept November 9, 2018 – Most search engine marketing campaigns start by operating many various web optimization techniques and methods immediately. Investments sometimes improve, however how have you learnt which methods have been actual boosters, and what techniques appeared to be minor? How can we measure the impression of sure local search strategies independently? To test this, I had to start a local search engine optimisation marketing campaign for a corporation that was "pure slate" and had no present online presence. This may permit me to undergo every tactic separately and see how they affected the rankings.

Case Schedule December 15, 2018 – July 15, 2019

Business Check Subject Hmm, of the 113 corporations that have offered for this, every of them already had some on-line presence. That they had a fb web page or a GMB listing or an internet site or a very good variety of references already

Thankfully, I keep in mind some associates with a company that was really a clean slate I was on the lookout for. FC Developments, Edmonton Family Builder, Alberta didn’t exist online.

Accumulating Knowledge I had a call with the house owners and picked up all of the enterprise info wanted to build a quote and write some web site content.

Register Company Identify

Because FC Developments had a web-based presence of zero, it was a golden alternative to embrace their key phrases within the firm identify and register the corporate "FC Developments Custom Home Builder". Firm identify key phrases are recognized to have a big influence on local search placements, but by including keywords when it's not a real business identify, you’ll be able to droop spam, so the perfect state of affairs is that if this is the company's real enterprise identify. key phrases in it.

The Google My Business Regulation

20. December 2018

Created their GMB record.

The primary class is essential

One of the key elements in local search rating is setting the optimum main class. On this case, the customized residence builder is one of the best class and their key phrase. It’s also essential and priceless to add other classes which are affordable for your corporation, however watch out for "class confusion" as a result of it may well have a unfavorable influence in your funding.

What else might you optimize on the GMB record?

There’s not far more to categories than to have a clear optimization on the GMB record. Issues like including key phrases to descriptions, providers, and messages haven’t been shown to have an effect on rankings, however these GMB properties are nonetheless very helpful. Think about them "Conversion Rate Optimization for Google List". There’s one thing to spend money on, but you also have to drive individuals to contact the itemizing and make contact with the company. It is best to work to get probably the most out of your GMB record by filling in all fields and utilizing all out there options regularly. We have now a superb guide to GMB enhancements for do-it-yourselfers, and we’ve got an reasonably priced GMB Management Service for all those who need to outsource this work.

9. January 2019 – confirmed listing

Because it seems to occur so typically, the postcard by no means arrived, however thankfully, and surprisingly, the telephone verification choice solely appeared on the dashboard.

get them an internet site

Google gives a fast and straightforward website builder for Google My Business, so I assumed I'd begin it and see how properly it labored.

Constructive info on GMB web sites

Primary settings look fairly respectable

It's easy and straightforward to use with the company

Perhaps the content you add to your website is being fed instantly to Information Graph? That is simply speculation, and I don't know if it helps, however on the GMB web site you set your content instantly into Google's database.

All Google messages and scores you receive are mechanically added to the website, so it is continuously up to date with recent content material

10. January 2019 – Get the fitting domain for them

The default space you get on the GMB web site seems to be fairly terrible:

https: // fc-improvement-customized -home-builder.business.website/ buttons19659012] I didn't need to distribute this URL an tackle in all places online in their references and then they want to return to the update later, so I bought a website from Google.

Setup Rank Monitoring

11. January 2019

Wow. The day they entered their Google record, FC Developments ranked # 1 with one bid.

Welp, it was straightforward. Rank # 1, My Job Here Has Executed

A Few Notes:

This particular investment end result was a obscure lengthy tail time period: residence builders in Glenora Edmonton.

I checked the investments in the area. My house is situated just about 10 blocks from their enterprise location. Google locations great emphasis on the proximity of the applicant and in addition influenced our means to invest so shortly.

Nevertheless, it is rather fascinating that Google locations enterprise so shortly that no different local search component is in use. No references, no evaluations, hyperlinks. Only GMB listing and GMB website. If your corporation is a relevant time period and the applicant is situated nearby, you possibly can spend money on the itemizing!

Ensure you comply with placements from multiple postcodes

Most individuals comply with local investments in a single level in the city middle. Poor motion. Investments range each 10 meters. So as to get a tough which means on how you classify a metropolis, you want to set up an inventory follower to be able to examine a number of postcodes. I clicked on Google Maps and chose these places to comply with the listings:

By establishing these totally different search engines like google and yahoo in Whitespark Local Rank Tracker, we will see how we classify every postcode and it's straightforward to filter the situation. This provides you a a lot better concept of ​​how we are actually situated and never simply to comply with one level within the metropolis middle.

Are the references impressive in rankings? A small pace but nothing dramatic (the picture under is ranked) 1 month after the references are constructed). Referrals are extra elementary than a rating enhancer. You will have a troublesome time investing with out them, but other local techniques might move the needle.

Add Content material

6. March 2019 I added more content material to the GMB website. and the subsequent day, the first organic investment by FC Improvement appeared

Quotation Indexing

eight. March 2019 Whenever you create lists in the listing, Google plans to index solely about 40-60% of them. What raises the query are references that provide advantages if the pages the place the knowledge is listed aren’t indexed on Google?

Answer? Create links to referrable web page references, and then submit the page to crawl by means of the search console.

What is indexing? In order for the content material of your website to seem in search results, it have to be included in the Google index. Google screens all web sites which are aware of an enormous database, so when Google visits the location and sees new and updated pages, it updates the database. You’ll be able to make it possible for Google is conscious of the pages on your website, and you could search for content that accommodates search results, and you may submit crawl requests using the Google Search Console

One widespread means to make citation indexing is:

Create a web page in your website with all hyperlinks to referral URLs,

Inner link to web page,

Submit page for indexing on Google Search console

On March 8th I tried to add Ad Indexing:

I added a reference URL to the GMB website,

I despatched the page for crawling within the search console, [19659003] Then I used this Google Crawl Check Device (which sadly not works),

12. March – No actual change to indexing and outcomes differed at totally different occasions through the day.

Attempt hyperlink indexing service

When the GMB web page did not assist in the quote indexing, I assumed I was making an attempt one thing else. I did some research and located this case research from Matthew Woodward. I tried a service that was the preferred answer. Additionally, this did nothing to improve crawling. however hey, at the very least Matthew received some candy affiliate bux! 🙂

A Higher Strategy to the Loan Index

I know I do know why the GMB web page was not in a position to help with quotation indexing. It had no authority to transfer references! It is a model new website with no links to it, so there isn’t a worth for referrals. So I created a better authority with a web page, right right here whitespark.ca website, and linked to all the references. Then I sent the web page to the search console.

BOOM. The subsequent day, the quote indexing fee doubled, and it seems to have a constructive impact on the rankings!

The day on which indexing of the Whitespark listings appeared to react and has been on the rise, but evaluations and links at the moment are

Service Space Check

19. February 19, 2019 Many people have asked if service areas in GMB would assist to improve their location, so I decided to take this opportunity to check myself. I up to date the GMB listing by together with service areas for each monitoring code I comply with of their rating marketing campaign. I was positive I took all of the service areas out of GMB on April fifth. I assumed that if they helped in the rankings, I ought to see a small drop after they have been taken.

Conclusion: Service areas are meant for display only. All of them have to be determined, how to draw a map of your service area to the results. Google won’t use them to enable you to find in these areas.

Google Messages

24. February 19, 2019 Began pumping Google messages every day, and the rankings might reply slightly. If Google posts promote rating, I feel it is rather small, and I feel it’s possible to have a secondary effect. All investment benefits have been more probably to come from office-related dedication alerts and from the inclusion of postal content on GMB's website.

Critiques

7. March 2019 Direct influence on local search placements, so I needed to see what a couple of good evaluations might do for this firm. I gave a mannequin for enterprise house owners that received estimates from past clients and began sending our requests. On March 14th, they acquired their first Google assessment and then two on the subsequent day

How did the scores affect rankings?

Seems prefer it!

The conclusion was that (H) igh (A) uthority (D) their own (R) raise hyperlinks with branded or URL anchors, slightly than keyword anchors, are probably the most favorable rankings. Utilizing optimized anchor text can harm you in case you don't have a robust hyperlink profile, so in the case of FC improvement plans and lots of other small businesses which are just beginning out, branded anchor textual content links are the best way to go. 19659012] This led me to use the providers offered by Outreach Pete bloggers and acquired three HADR hyperlinks on March 29 and April 1. Our request for hyperlinks was that the variety of websites to link to DA was over 40, and these have been the industries relevant sites. Oh, and I additionally cheated on a crawling hyperlink from the Whitespark Local Citation Finder touchdown web page. I do know. Tsk tsk.

How did the links have an effect on rankings? Wowee! These hyperlinks had a huge effect, and we noticed an enormous peak within the placement and classification of many various key phrases.

Solely 4 links made this massive impression, in all probability due to the fact that this firm is in a local market with less competitors. Typically in your local search, your competitors shouldn’t be in the latest strategies and search engine marketing, so a couple of links will take you to the needle. Hyperlink building is troublesome, and other people can't do it, and if you get these hyperlinks, it will possibly actually separate your small business and make an enormous distinction.

Concept: Reducing Legal guidelines.

No one knows how Google really works, however I feel we've already taken our competitors with links. It was not a distinguishing issue that arrested us. No more hyperlinks wanted to go forward. We had to make improvements in other areas

Building and Deploying a New Web site

9. July 2019

One of many key areas we have been lacking was the web site. One of many GMB's pagers did not minimize it very a lot, so we constructed the fitting web site, created lengthy-type content material that targeted on key areas of the town for brand spanking new tasks, optimized header tags, highlighted earlier tasks, and so forth.

just a week or so, but after the new The location has been revealed, I crawl the location again with the search console and we already see a report.

This was Google's face once we saw a new website

Key Takeaways

# 1. Don't just comply with local investments within the city middle. Comply with several postcodes around the city.

# 2. If you’d like to get the complete value of your advertisements, be sure they are indexed.

# three. The part of the GMB service area does not make it easier to find in these areas.

# four. Spend money on a Google Evaluation Technique. Scores have an effect.

# 5. These first links, hey?

# 6. Each single strategy finally hits a decreased return.

# 7. The right website is best than a GMB single pager. Apparently.

# eight. It isn’t one particular activity, it is a abstract of all of the shifting features of the needles.

Google's concept as a new residence web page is the key to local search. The results that Google returns to the candidates provide them with a lot of the info they want to make selections instantly from search results. Corporations working in GMB that present quality and accurate info are in competitors. It is a large distinguishing factor. It isn’t just about rating, however about changing candidates immediately to the Google record.

GMB Conversion Fee Optimization (CRO) is a new space where every local company focuses.

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