#this is like a pseudo sequel to that one about someone being so alive it makes me less scared to die.

[therevengeoffrankenstein]

'grays and greens (unidentified fucking objects)'

lie in the grass,

serving up ass;

is it alien to you?

the master of all youth?

you pair your grays with greens,

like i think i know what it means:

you know too that you're alive

and you're scared you're gonna die.

how come you're calling time, ref?

when you know we have time left.

even though it might not be too much,

you know i felt life in ev'ry touch.

when we were there under the trees, deep, in this city,

the streetlights weren't the only thing with electricity.

(i mean it truthfully when i say we were eye-fucking.)

now i'm encouraging the encourager to keep on trucking:

i say that you don't need dye

(but you can have it, of course,

rainbow, pain-bowed, pony-horse.)

because we're all gonna die;

let's do it like we did it in spite of the distance,

your hand in my hands and ankles in the waists of pants.

unidentified fucking objects seen in the sky

when we know we have to die.

- ellie revenge

[mrcowboysmovieroom]

Staying Alive (1983)

Directed by: Sylvester Stallone Genre: Romance, drama (horror.. im kidding but really)

CW: SA is mentioned briefly as it pertains to this movie and Saturday Night Fever.

The only thing this movie improves upon it's predecessor, is that it's a much shorter runtime.

Staying Alive attracted me because it looked bad and I was obsessed with how incongruous it feels for Sylvester Stallone to have directed it. The screenshots I was seeing of Travolta scantily clad in torn clothing while arms reach for him were too appealing for me to simply ignore them. In fact, it low-key reminded me of the poster for Barbarella which is a movie I do love the appearance of.

Of course, I couldn't simply watch the sequel to a movie I hadn't seen before, so I first watched Saturday Night Fever from 1977. Saturday Night Fever, faultless it is not, was still a pretty swell watching experience. But it definitely impacted how I was to see the sequel. And how could it not?

When the emotional through-line of the film is class struggles, racism, and especially sexism, then it's hard not to notice how a sequel carries on with those themes.

Staying Alive's solution is largely to ignore these things. Or ignore them in part. There is still some pointing and gesturing at the class disparity between Tony (Travolta) and those around him, especially Laura (Finola Hughes). Sexism is also very much alive and well but, unlike SNF, there isn't really a point to these themes and conflicts being there or a lesson we are meant to learn.

SNF managed to make the character of Tony still a tad likeable despite it all. In Staying Alive I feel none of this goodwill. SNF ended with a promise of change and self awareness. Staying Alive begins with a Tony as problematic as he started. There is something macabre about it to be honest. Between those six years of lost time, Tony spurned Stephanie for good and has now been meandering around Manhattan terrorizing women, jaunting about like a gangly, unsteady gazelle. At times he is borderline terrifying, and you'd expect his character to feel right at home as the dangerous stalker in some horror flick.

Somehow he still has a girlfriend named Jackie (Cynthia Rhodes), whom he decides to cheat on very immediately into this movie. And despite all logic, she still gives him a chance, not only to be her friend but picks up dating him again. And even in the end he cant help himself. He has to kiss Laura without her consent for what? To prove he can? Both women end the movie interested in him, though he decides to commit to Jackie.

On to Laura, she is a pseudo antagonist. She's meant to be annoying and bitchy, but can you really fault her? She has to deal with Tony this whole movie and that is so much to ask of anyone. Her character is so inappropriately handled. Tony expects much from her and ignores all her very DIRECT declarations that she is not at all interested in him in a long term sense at this point. He makes it her fault, and in turn, the movie never sees him serve time for his poor behavior towards her. At times she or someone else will call him out on it, but you never see his character learn from this behavior. After he forces a kiss on Laura, she apologizes to him and he doesn't even bother to say it back himself, which is the LEAST of what he should be doing.

Tony IS the bad guy. He's annoying and rude to her, grabs her and touches her without permission, and is just all around unapologetic for any of it. It feels like he only really stops bothering with her because Jackie's still throwing herself at him, and it gives him a sense of power to see Laura wanting him.

AND THAT'S NOT TO MENTION THE DANCING. SNF almost manages to endear itself to me PURELY for the dancing. Travolta's little disco floor scene (you know the one) is the best part of the movie. In this movie, the dancing is all so meeehhhhh. We spend all this time building up the final Broadway show, and the resulting product was so underwhelming.

If this movie had been about male entitlement and ego, it would have been so perfect, but it's not about that even though it so perfectly depicted it. Feeling like a 2/10 on this one.

[chrysalizzm]

Do you have fic recs or head canons? please ramble for paragraphs im bored and looking for something to read.

oh boy do i have some fic recs for you (and everyone who sees this), my friend! this one is quite long because there are a lot of fics i like and this isn’t all of them, so if you’d like more, you can check out my bookmarks page ^^

The Run and Go by Numanum 

“That’s not fair,” Bad protests. Dream raises an eyebrow at him and jerks his tied hands in emphasis, clearly saying that none of this is fair.

“Look, you keep running! Who runs if they’re not guilty?” Bad challenges, staring him down with obvious distrust from the generous distance of exactly five feet. It’s fair, as much as Dream hates to admit it; it’s not like he’s been the most honest hostage in the past, with all of his escaping and running and framing himself for his own murder, apparently.

“Only the good die young, and only the guilty run,” Technoblade chimes in, holding his own potato and sitting in the snow like it’s not cold at all.

A hot flash of irritation burns through him.

“Someone being chased?” he counters sarcastically, jerking his tied wrists up again to wave them in front of the group. Sapnap laughs so hard that he almost chokes on his potato, but it dies off when Dream gives him an icy stare.

Or: Dream is having a hard time, and the hunter just want to adopt him like a stray puppy that bites you at every opportunity.

multi-chapter, ongoing.

a manhunt with plot-style fic! exquisitely written, visceral in the emotions it evokes. it’s the kind of fic that makes me feel all shaky with anticipation, the kind that i have a physical reaction to; you can’t put it down.

pain. all-consuming pain. this one feels bad, man

and as he fell (you walked away) by Teahound

Once upon a time, there were three hunters.

They were good at what they did. If you wanted something-- or better yet, someone-- found, discovered, or destroyed, they were the people you asked. They didn’t have much to their name, besides a formidable reputation, but they were a team, and that was enough for them.

Once upon a time, there was a king in the forest.

He wore a mask, but it didn’t matter. That deep in the forest, in a hidden fortress, buried behind leaves and monsters and broken stone, no one could see his face anyway. He had been there a very long time, and he was alone.

Being a king can be a very lonely thing. So one day, the king left the fortress.

A Minecraft manhunt AU, with a fantasy twist. Dream is a cryptid, and Hunters are idiots.

multi-chapter (11), complete.

tea’s fic!! a manhunt-with-plot fic, featuring a forest spirit dream and circumstantial hunters and friendships that feel both intensely real and desperately melancholy because they can’t last.

or can they?

The Real World by Cinammonzoa and Fire_Fly464

"Ten, paces fire!"

Time stopped.

Tommy’s entire body went numb. He tried to open his mouth to say something, but his body was determined to keep him silent. His vision went dark, and he could no longer feel his headphones over his ears. The mouse in his hand. The slight breeze of his ceiling fan. For a few seconds, he couldn’t feel anything.

His senses came back to him all at once. The first thing Tommy noticed was the weight in his right hand -- a bow. His nostrils stung with the lingering scent of gunpowder. In front of him was a masked figure. Their right arm was bent, their elbow by their face. In their left hand was a bow, aiming directly at--

~~~

Aka Dream and Tommy get transported into the SMP world and have no idea what the fuck is happening

multi-chapter (23), complete

you’ve probably seen this one if you haunt the video blogging rpf/minecraft tags of ao3 often! an irl!dream and tommy replace their smp counterparts type of beat, very upbeat in dynamic and fun to keep pace with, great read.

staying alive (though the city is dead) by Alice_Not_In_Wonderland

"Damned if you do, damned if you don't," Schlatt smirks, his words lilting, almost song-like. His eyes seem to glow brighter. "Tell me, Dream, when did you realize that you could talk and talk and talk and no one would ever believe you?"

---

or: if dream's damned to be a villain in every story he's in, then he's going to show them exactly how much of one he can be

one-shot, complete.

the gratuitous greek mythology references are truly everything and this fic is such a good dissection of dream and schlatt’s motivations and how their goals intersect, and dream’s likening to cassandra really hits different 

Green & Gold by HognoseSnake

George’s legs ached.

His lungs felt tight and too small.

His breath was loud in his ears.

His pack bounced uncomfortably on his shoulders.

George, homeless and adrift, is an outlaw of the Mad King's reign. He'd spent the last two months being hunted across the wilderness at the fringe of society by a ruthless killer in a smiling mask and bright green coat. This, he understood.

What he didn't understand is why such a ruthless killer kept letting him go.

multi-chapter (8), complete. sequel ongoing.

a breathtaking pseudo-manhunt-with-plot fic, with george and dream running from a kingdom that wants them dead for perceived transgressions. this shit hurted, and the sequel hurts even worse ;-; snake please i beg

We’re Only Young series by ImperialKatwala

It's easy to forget amid the chaos and bloodshed how similar - and how young - Dream and Technoblade really are.

collection of both one-shots and ongoing multi-chapter fics.

((bangs on table)) please read this series it is dream and techno friendship fics that alternate between lighthearted and heartwrenchingly comforting and imperialkatwala’s characterisation of them and their respective groups of family and friends is so frickin’ good i read this series when i’m not having a good day and it never fails to make me crack a smile

kept promises and old ruins and names carved into stone by verecundiam

"Would you... would you want to stay here?" Bad wrings his hands, looking away. "Like, like actually stay? I know it's not, ah, not exactly comfortable, or all that homey, but I don't want you two to get hurt out there on your own, and I just... I think maybe you could stay? If you want?"

"That sounds nice," Sapnap says, because it does.

(Or: How four kids managed to build a family, against all odds.)

one-shot, complete.

muffinteers found family that makes me want to go to the smp writers and beg it to be made canon. unbelievably soft yet excellent at parsing out the younger counterparts of the four and creating backgrounds that feasibly form them into the people they grow up to be.

in the age of icons by BananasofThorns

“Yeah, keep digging,” Tommy crows.

The pickaxe hesitates on the downswing. The air shifts; Dream’s aura bursts into visibility, brilliant green and jagged. Ozone hums on Techno’s tongue and Bad stutters in the middle of his sentence. Up on the wall, silhouetted by the sun, Dream stands frozen and furious.

L'manberg messes with something it shouldn't. Techno watches the repercussions and tries not to laugh.

one-shot, complete.

i love deity aus (figures, i wrote one myself akjdfh), and this one hits. there’s something exquisitely delicate about how dream and the repercussions his godhood both on himself and on the people who are exposed to him in that moment of unbridled rage.

that's how we keep going (we make the best of things) by lieyuu

[ i can’t decide if this is heaven or hell. the walls keep closing in and we’re running out of space, but you’re pretty cute ]

“So, do you want to build a flower shop, a cottage, or a coffee shop?” Puffy asks, smiling like just Niki’s presence is enough to light up her world.

Niki looks at her, thinks, I want to bend nature to my will and weave tapestries in your name, says, “I think I might like the flower shop best.”

one-shot, complete.

a niki/puffy fic that crushed me in its hands in just six hundred words.  the delicate love and wonder and beauty of this fic killed me softly and i welcomed it. it’s girls in love rendered by lieyuu’s masterful hand, what more could you want

i need it to be known that as i was typing up my thoughts midnight love by girl in red started playing from my playlist if that’s not a shining endorsement i don’t know what is

did i ruin the moment? by itisjosh

Ranboo drags himself through the snow, burn wounds going up and down his body. His suit is crumpled, half of it discarded as he crawls along the ground. His eyes are firmly pressed shut, and he refuses to open them, just in case he sees him, Dream, again. Ranboo sobs as the snow melts on his skin, the water scalding him as it trickles down his arms and chest.

one-shot, complete.

it’s character death, i do need to put it out there because it felt like i was punched in the stomach at the end even though i knew. josh knows exactly how to drag his readers kicking and screaming into angst hell, as always - a ranboo is rescued by phil fic wherein ranboo ends up convincing himself that the only reason for his presence in the nearly-empty anarchist commune is because phil sees him as a placeholder for his sons ;-; pain

Frame The Halves, And Call Them Brothers by MusicallyActive

"Let's go!" Quackity roared. "Let's fucking go!"

The anvil dropped, and Techno reached for his totem of undying. This was going to hurt like a bitch.

Phil screamed something, and instantly a crushing force struck Technoblade's skull. It rattled him to the core, doused his vision in red, and then all he knew was black.

He gasped awake moments later to the sound of his communicator pinging softly at his bedside table, and when Technoblade opened his eyes, New L'manburg was nowhere in sight.

one-shot, complete.

a techno timeloop fic that shows off the unintentional cruelty of the children who run l’manberg and techno’s own inability to allow the people he tries so hard not to love to come to harm. techno’s rendered in painstaking detail; this one was cathartic in the best way.

on i go (move to move) by Aenqa

If you ask someone whether they’ve ever experienced real, severe physical pain, you’ll learn a lot from their response.

Techno knows what it means to be in pain. He’s accepted it as a necessary consequence of keeping his family safe. But when the pain he's experiencing starts to become too much to bear alone, it takes his family to show him what it might mean to feel better.

one-shot, complete.

chronic pain fic featuring sbi!! it’s really good - aenqa wrote chronic pain well, and incorporated respawn mechanics into it well, and the dynamic between sbi is impeccable.

Yellow and Blue and- by nic_takes_Ls (nic_L)

It’s another gorgeous day in New L’Manberg. Tubbo’s stilted streets of deep toned spruce and honey-touched oaks are warm under his feet from the sun, and a sign and a small banner proclaim the country’s name in front of his face. Wilbur is so happy to let the ‘L’ roll of his tongue as he says it, ‘Manberg’ was harsh and too guttural, but the two extra syllables make it something that could fit on a melody, a four-note beat he could set the pace of his unbeating heart to.

The citizens of New L’Manberg track him with cautious eyes at first, until Tubbo changes his eyes to slightly sad ones, listening along to Wilbur’s rambles, warming up to the truly soot-grey sight of his face and sunshine yellow of his ever-present sweater. The rest of the population soon follow, laughing at Wilbur’s strange innocence and telling him what he’s done with only a little bit of spite in a pitying mask and fixing their mouths in a line when he suddenly forgets what he’s doing or stares into space or laughs at nothing.

But all the people who get sad when Wilbur starts laughing after shock-still silence are dumb.

Because Wilbur’s not laughing at nothing.

one-shot, complete.

a ghostbur fic from quite early on! it includes references to wilbur and schlatt’s older videos/smp experiences and has a super interesting take on the nature of wilbur’s amnesia i enjoyed this fic a lot ^^

east of eden series by subwaywalls

Philza protects his home.

(An angel with a singing blade of fire guards the gates to paradise.)

two one-shots, one ongoing multi-chapter fic.

READ IT READ IT READ IT. the eoe series is exquisite in both content and presentation, centering around sbi and the powers they all respectively have but also bringing in people like grian and dream, and subwaywalls is a master of packaging her words ever so delicately to create an experience that is ethereal.

[the-golden-ghost]

fic writer meme

Tagged by the esteemed and lovely @eldritch-elrics

Tagging: @3wisellamas, @seagoing-nerd, @gallifreytreeflower, @bookshop-cryptid, @skeleton-richard, @oceans-foundfamily , @chimicalbomb, and anyone else who wants to do it!

How many works do you have on AO3?

19 I think? It says 18 but one is still under ~anonymity~ until Friday and once it gets released it’ll be on there. It’s readable, it just doesn’t show up under my name yet.

What’s your total AO3 word count?

78,592 babey.

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

I’ve written for 6, but 2 of them are pretty much the same thing (TKLUTS/The Mysterious Island, and Richard III/Henry VI, Part 3)

The others are Lupin III and Undertale.

My Lupin fics are probably the most consistently popular. The TKLUTS fics are the vast majority (11/19!!) the Shakespeare fics were both written for ficathons based on Shakespeare’s histories, they did well for what they are, but they’re pretty different than most of my other fics. (I also have a ton of non-archived fics on my Shakespeare blog; mostly for Twelfth Night. Maybe someday I’ll polish those bad boys up.) The Undertale fic was purely a study in “can I even write for this fandom?!” the answer was a resounding no lmao

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

A Terrible Conflict (169 kudos) which was a collaborative fic about Nemo and Ned engaging in a sexual relationship. It’s unfinished but the parts that are up are about their tangled and messy feelings towards each other and it’s a good time

Measuring the Depths (73 kudos) it’s a cute fluffy fic about Pierre Aronnax and Captain Nemo flirting with each other. I think they take a nap together at some point idk I haven’t read it in a while lol. It’s just sort of soft and sweet, not much to it really! I had a couple of good jokes in there if I remember right.

Night’s Passage (60 kudos) this is literally the same thing as Measuring the Depths. Exactly the same, just shorter, and not as good. I’m not a one-trick pony, but people like what they like!

Hold Out Til Morning (54 kudos) This is a weird and angsty fic about Goemon getting shot and Jigen trying to keep him alive until help comes. I was actually surprised this one ended up getting so popular.

Off the Record (43 kudos) the Jigen/Zenigata fic I said I was going to write as a joke and boy did it end up delivering lol

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Yes, I try to respond to all of them! I just feel like it’s polite. The only times I won’t are when I can’t think of anything to say or if I feel like the conversation has reached a natural end (or occasionally I just forget ^^; )

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Gonna have to say Discordance for this one, which used to be a favorite of mine but has fallen out of favor with me (pretty much for this exact reason). I mean I love to write angst but I feel like an angsty plot needs a lighter ending, and this one doesn’t have one so it’s just Emo For Emo’s Sake. Not good.

Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you’ve written?

Unless you count the TKLUTS/Mysterious Island fic which isn’t really a crossover since the two were pseudo-sequels anyway, no. 

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not really, at least not full-on hate, but I’ve gotten a couple backhanded compliments.

One was “I hate this character but the fic is good! :) “ Which... I know they probably meant that my writing was SO good it made them be able to stand the character, but... I dunno, the concept of them just hate-reading my fic kinda put me off. You do you, man, but don’t tell me about it.

The other was kinda like “that’s an interesting narrative choice considering [x that happened in canon]” which seemed like they were asserting that I didn’t know the source material or made a mistake. They may not have meant it that way but it came off kinda rude.

Do you write smut? if so what kind?

If smut means like a full-on porn fic then I’ve written one and I don’t think I did very well so I don’t intend to write any more.

If it just means a fic with sexual content then yes, I do write that. I don’t know what “kinds” there are lol. Just... your standard... lovemaking... scene?

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don’t think so. I’m not sure anyone would steal my fics anyway, they garner  ~100 hits on average so if you’re stealing for the sake of popularity or fame mine aren’t the ones to swipe lol

Have you ever had a fic translated?

I did have someone ask if they could translate a fic into Chinese and I said yes but I don’t think they ever actually did it. ^^; 

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yep! A Terrible Conflict, referenced above. I really need to do more collabs, they’re good fun.

What’s your all time favorite ship?

I don’t know if I have an “all time favorite” as my tastes tend to change and grow. I’m pretty big on Nemo x Pierre from TKLUTS and have been for a while, and also am Vibing hardcore with the OT4(5?)/Polygang from Lupin III.

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

There’s the ever-popular TKLUTS Sequel Thing which is a whole 3 years into construction and going completely nowhere...

The JiGoe Thing (unremarked on) which I may just hack to bits so it’s short and palatable and I can actually finish it...

And the Other ZeniJi Thing (which has rapidly devolved into a hellscape of the most bizarre circumstances and nonsense. I HOPE I can finish this. It’s funny as shit until the ending. But dear lord.)

There’s like 3 others but they’re just ideas and not WIPs. Yet.

What are your writing strengths?

Apparently I can Set A Scene with the best of them

What are your writing weaknesses?

Voice. I absolutely cannot get characters to sound like themselves. They always sound the same, which is the same voice as the narration, which is to say - my own voice.

I’m also not that great at plot, use too much Purple Prose where it’s unwarranted, tend to go ham on the weird metaphors in a corny way, don’t do enough research... You Name It, I’ve Committed It

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I can’t really do this due to being monolingual. When other people do it? It’s fine, although if the whole fic is in two languages I won’t be able to read it of course. But they can do what they want; I’m obviously not the audience for it.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

It was Adventure Time but I learned early on that I am NOT the writer to be working in Adventure Time, dear god. I just couldn’t get it right.

The first I ever successfully wrote for was Twelfth Night.

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

After the Nautilus. NO contest, I LOVE that bad boy. I think if someone asked for a single fic that’s indicative of me and how I write, that’s the one I’d show them.

[readyplayerhobi]

Sleigh Bells Ring

; (Not so)Single Dad!Hoseok x Reader

; Genre: Fluff

; Word Count: 10.2k

; Synopsis: This Christmas is going to be different than usual; it’s you first spent with Hoseok and his daughters while living with them. You’re not sure who’s more excited though, you or Hoseok.

; A/N: Revisting our favourite dad and his family on Christmas! :D please reblog if you enjoyed and send me comments and questions! :D

; Sequel to Silver Bells and Cockle Shells

; Part of the 12 Days of Bangtan Collab

-

“You’ve got all the presents right? And the cookies? I definitely packed them in that bag for you. The presents are there aren’t they?” The insistent nattering of your mom makes your eyes roll exasperatedly, looking at her with love and affection alongside just a hint of annoyance.

She means well and you try to tell yourself that repeatedly. This is the first Christmas that you’ll be spending not at your parent’s house for the day. It sounds a little lame when you say that, considering your age, but you’d never been in a committed relationship where you’d been living with someone else to spend Christmas with them instead of your own family.

Until this year.

This year marked your third Christmas with Hoseok, but it was your first Christmas living with him. You’d only made the transition into not only his heart and his bed, but his home, a few months ago. Both of you had moved slowly, letting his daughters get used to the idea of you being around more frequently until the prospect of you living full time with them wasn’t strange.

For both them and you.

Hoseok had been painfully aware that he needed to move slowly and carefully with his daughters and you’d been completely amenable to it, recognising that his three little girls were his entire world. But he’d also been careful to make you aware that his small world had expanded to include you.

And that meant he knew that he couldn’t simply expect you to just be perfectly fine with gaining a purpose built family. Accepting him meant accepting his kids, and he had never expect you to be a mother to them but it had been inevitable that they slowly looked to you for things that a mother would be the most likely to give them.

Such as when you’d given Soo-ah plenty of advice when she’d shyly come to you one morning a few months ago, her cheeks flushed red with embarrassment while stress made her eyes big. It had been so early that Hoseok and you had still been fast asleep in bed, his eldest daughter quietly shaking you awake and hoping not to wake her father.

That hadn’t worked, of course. Hoseok was a dad, and he’d been a solo father for so long that he was automatically attuned to his kids needs which meant he’d startled awake faster than you. But she’d insistently tugged you out of his arms, a frown on her face as she’d steadfastly ignored his concerned gaze.

You knew that it had hurt him that she hadn’t felt that she could come to him, especially when you’d told him later that the reason she’d come to you had been because she’d started her first period. While he knew logically that she’d probably be more comfortable talking to you, as a woman, you’d still had to soothe his hurt parental feelings.

Still, you knew that he appreciated the fact that you were there for those more awkward talks. Though he had been adamant at making it clear to all his girls that he was not going to be a squeamish and awkward dad with them. No, he was very much ready to talk to them about whatever they wanted.

It had pleased you both though to know that Soo-ah was finally comfortable enough with you to discuss personal matters such as that. She’d struggled more than the twins at accepting you in her father’s, and therefore her life. But she was getting there and she’d been trying.

“Yes mom, they’re all in my bag. The presents, and the food. And the books. And everything else you’ve snuck in there. Probably the cat if you’ve tried.” You muse, glancing down at your phone as you respond to a text from your best friend with an amused smile.

Your mom just lets out a snort, causing you to look up and watch as she flops down onto the couch in an exaggerated manner that makes her look far younger than she actually. A glance at your dad lets you see that he’s not even phased, his gaze focused firmly on the 4K television he’d managed to coax your mom to buy a few months ago, a Playstation controller in his hand while he plays his game.

“You don’t have to act so rude. I’m just being nice and caring.” Sighing deeply, you sense that you’ve affronted her deeply held maternal instincts and so you place your phone down, giving her a sweet smile.

“Thank you mom. They will all appreciate the food. You know that Hoseok loves your cookies and the girl’s adore your cupcakes. And they will all love their presents, even though Hoseok said not to get them too much.” That was probably the wrong thing to say.

She’d looked pleased at hearing their love for her baking, and you wouldn’t fault her there because you also enjoyed eating her baked delights, but then your words about the presents filtered in and she scowled deeply. Internally, you winced because you knew that she was going to get mad now.

“What do you mean?! I haven’t got them too much, I’ve got just enough. There’s two presents for Hoseok and three each for the girls.” You can’t stop the smile that spreads as you listen to her, watching as she counts on her fingers while also explaining what she’d bought.

Your mom had been wary at first when you’d told her about Hoseok. She’d been delighted to find out that you’d found someone you really liked, especially when he treated you so well and made you much happier than you had been beforehand. She’d liked him even more when you’d finally shown her pictures of him, her eyes widening as she took in how handsome he was and the beautiful profile he was blessed with.

And then she’d found out that he was a widower and had three daughters. Not only that, but three daughters all over the age of five. That had thrown her a bit and you knew that she wasn’t sure what to expect. 

Which had been entirely understandable. One child might have been surprising but not too much, two would have been a little more brow raising but three? That was a ready made family that you were walking into and she’d seen the potential fallout that could occur long before you’d properly thought about it.

As strange as it was for you to accept that you had entered into a relationship where you had become a pseudo-mom for three young girls, it was even stranger for your parents who had suddenly gone from no grandchildren to technically three. Even though you repeatedly told them that the girls were not their grandchildren.

But when did semantics ever matter to grandparents? They’d thrown themselves into it once they’d realised that Hoseok and you were serious, badgering you to introduce him and then his girls. Hoseok had been very hesitant and unsure, not wanting to make his previous wife’s parents feel uncomfortable at the idea of their grandchildren gaining ‘new’ grandparents.

So after permission from them, he’d finally brought them to your parents house for dinner. It had been his first time meeting them, which he’d handled like a trooper given the circumstances. And yet it had been almost instant love for your dad and the twins. 

They’d latched onto each other instantly, enjoying his loud laugh and playing games together until Hoseok was apologising for the loudness of his progeny. But your dad hadn’t cared. In fact, he’d looked happier and more alive than you’d seen him in recent years.

And Soo-ah? Well, she’d surprisingly latched onto your mom pretty well. As said before, your mom was phenomenal at baking and often sold her stuff to friends or for small catering events. Soo-ah had discovered a love of baking through her, enjoying spending all her time in the kitchen as they baked delicious food.

You supposed it was your mom’s kind and loving nature. She had worked for a long time as a support worker, caring specifically for a group of girls with severe disabilities and ensuring that they got to enjoy their life to the fullest. It had been the perfect job for her, suiting her nurturing personality and she’d done amazing at it, but ill health had forced her to retire a little earlier than she would have liked to.

With Soo-ah, she’d inadvertently found someone to nurture who hadn’t even realised they’d wanted or needed it. You’d felt bad that Soo-ah seemed to like your mom better than her own, blood grandparents but Hoseok had waved off your concerns with a smile.

In his eyes, they would be just as much her grandparents if your relationship kept going well as her real grandparents. Besides, it had endeared her to you a lot quicker now that she always wanted to visit your mom.

“Did you leave any for me?” You tease lightly, smiling as she pauses and gives you an imperious look. It’s a look that she’s given you many times throughout your life and it causes you to chuckle, knowing that of course there are presents for you. As an only child, you would fully admit to being spoiled by your parents throughout your life. 

It wasn’t something you’d ever asked for, but they’d done it either way. And you knew that they revelled in the concept of having more people to dote affection on. Particularly given how much they liked Hoseok. You were pretty positive that they’d begun saving for a wedding months ago, even though there had been zero hint of that from either Hoseok or you.

“There’s some for you...yes. Hopefully you’ll like them.” Your dad finally deigns to say, glancing over at you with a small smile before he’s looking back at the television screen. Chuckling lightly, you nod and stand up, stretching with a small grunt.

“I’m sure I will. Remember, yours are under the tree,” You pause slightly, warmth rushing through your chest as you look over at the small pile of presents for each of your parents. “There’s one each from the girls and then...ones from Hoseok and I.”

It leaves you a little breathless to say that and you feel silly, looking down at your hands. Last year, Hoseok had brought the presents for your parents separately and it had simply been one present from all four of them. But this year, he’d gone with you to buy them and had picked out the presents from his daughters.

Your heart fluttered slightly, knowing that the presents from you now bore gift tags that said ‘To Mom, love Y/N and Hoseok’. It had strangely made everything seem much more real, as you’d never had a relationship serious enough to warrant dual signed presents. He’d written the tags to his own parents presents as from both of you as well, leading to a little anxiety from you that they wouldn’t be fond of that.

They hadn’t said anything when he’d dropped them off though, just gave you both a hug and him an extra kiss on the cheek while thanking you and handing off their own presents. It had been with excitement that you’d seen presents labelled to you in them, leading you to silently believe that they approved of you.

Things like that were probably normal in most relationships, but everything seemed to be done different for Hoseok and you. After all, he had three daughters over the age of four when you first started dating. The rules were a little different in situations like that.

“Okay, I’m gonna head off. Anything else you desperately need to do?” You ask teasingly, grinning at your mom’s outraged expression before she shrugged lightly.

“Maybe I’ve got one more present for Hoseokie.” Her endearing nickname for him was cute and you try to hide your smile, knowing that she only calls him that when he’s not there. If she thought he didn’t know though, he was very wrong. She’d called him it once on a call to you only it had been on speakerphone while you did something else, leading to him overhearing her nickname.

He liked it though.

“Mom! Seriously?” You whine at her quietly, standing and heading out to the hall. The bag that she’d put all the presents into is waiting for you beside your boots which you pull on before slipping your arms through your black winter coat. A scarf is being wrapped around your head before she appears again with a smile and a small box in her hand.

“Hush. He deserves to be doted on after all he’s gone through. It’s nothing big.” Staring at her in suspicion, you look down at the plain box with a wary eye. It’s got no wrapping on it so you presume it’s something she bought rather late.

“Is this something he can open in front of the kids?” She gets an affronted look before snorting a laugh, something that sounds incredibly similar to what you do. Hoseok had noted that you seemed to favour your mom a lot in terms of mannerisms.

“Y/N! Seriously! It’s not a cock ring. It’s...it’s a photo frame. I’m not sure he’ll like it but I hope he does.” Pursing your lips, you look down at the box with an undeniable inquisitiveness and your mom tuts in gentle admonishment, taking it from your hands and opening it.

It’s one of those frames that let you put multiple pictures in and each one has been lovingly filled by her. There’s a photo of the girls, then one of Hoseok and the girls together, then one of you and them together. And finally, a photo of just Hoseok and you, arms wrapped around each other with silly grins on your faces.

You find yourself smiling softly before you hesitate, letting your fingers run down the side. “Mom...there’s no Yoo-jin picture. Maybe we should swap the one of me and-”

The cover is placed back on the box and she puts it into the bag at your feet before looking at you with a sad smile. Her hands come up to fuss with your scarf and you feel like a child all over again.

“Sweetheart, Yoo-jin still lives in that house and I’m glad she does. She is the mother of those beautiful girls and she shouldn’t be forgotten. But it makes me sad when I go there and I see more of her than you. You live there now. I’m not saying that I want her photos gone, I don’t. I just want to see more of you in there. If it offends Hoseok then he doesn’t have to put them anywhere, but I’d like to think that he’d be amenable to it.” 

“Mom…”

“I’m not saying to erase Yoo-jin, she has a firm place and she should never be removed from that place. But it’s your home now too. You live there, you care for those girls, you love those girls and you love that man.” You can’t find it in yourself to say anything to her so you simply nod, hoping to find a way to explain it to Hoseok.

There were photos of you in the house, but they were still minimal compared to those of Hoseok, the girls and Yoo-jin. You’d been okay with that, knowing that you were the imposter in that perfect little family. But your mom had hit a hidden nerve, the worry that you wouldn’t be allowed to grow in the space he’d invited you into.

Shaking your head, you smile brightly at her before giving her a tight hug.

“Thank you mom. I’ll call you tomorrow. Until then...Merry Christmas!” 

-

Later that evening, you’re sat on the couch and watching as the twins shout at each other while playing on their Nintendo Switch. Hoseok had bought them it for their birthday and you weren’t entirely sure buying twins a single present was a good idea, but he’d pointed out that if he bought only one of them it then he’d have to buy the other and he didn’t want to spend that much.

Which was reasonable, and it also meant that they had to take care of it because Hoseok had threatened that if it got broken, it was staying broken. So they treated it like a prized toy, having advanced from their superhero love to loving video games. You weren’t sure how Hoseok was managing to raise two girls who adored all things nerdy, because he wasn’t exactly a geeky person himself.

Another reason they loved you so much.

But for the moment, they were absorbed in playing Mario Kart with each other and trying to beat the other. If there was one thing being with Hoseok had taught you, it was that twins were perhaps the competitive creatures on the planet. 

Soo-ah was curled up in her usual spot in the comfy armchair she’d claimed as her own when Hoseok had bought a whole new suite the other year. The old one had ended up breaking when Ji-soo had jumped on it too hard. It was the angriest you’d ever seen Hoseok.

Not that he’d let that anger be seen by the girls, but when they weren’t in ear shot he’d used an amazing array of curse words that you hadn’t thought he’d even known frankly. But he conceded that he liked the new couches better, and Soo-ah had loved having her own little space in the living room.

A book was in her lap, one of the Percy Jackson books and you smiled at her softly even though she wasn’t watching. She was going to be a teenager soon, and you could already see the way she was starting to grow taller, her limbs starting to get that gangly look teens got when their bodies weren’t quite growing at the same rate.

But you’d never deny that she was the spitting image of her mom. It was like looking at Yoo-jin, which was an odd feeling for you given that you’d never actually met the woman. You felt proud of Soo-ah though and hoped that her mom was happy with how you were helping to raise her.

Warm lips press to your temple gently and you shift, looking at your boyfriend with a gentle smile and enjoying the tender gaze he gives back, eyes shimmering in the glow of the Christmas lights wrapped around the tree. It was decorated in rose gold and gold, a request from Soo-ah who was a little obsessed with the former at the moment, but you had to admit it was pretty.

The delicate baubles and other decorations hung from the fake trees limbs prettily while glitter tinsel wrapped its way around the branches, mingled with the warm lights that flickered softly. Icicle lights of the same colour decorated the main window while a sweet Christmas scene played out along the window sill.

Above the fireplace, which was currently lit and giving off a cosy warmth, were three stockings that had been personalised with a name each. They were for the girls evidently, and Hoseok had been using the threat of Santa all month to get them to do what he wanted.

You knew he was going to hate it when he couldn’t do that anymore.

More tinsel surrounded the shelf above the fireplace, shimmering softly as tiny snowflakes nestled amongst the festive decorations while various Christmas themed figures sat atop it alongside Christmas cards from family and friends.

It was all mostly matching, but some of it was a little odd. Like the plastic reindeer in the corner of the room, taking up the space that the vase which held ornamental branches normally held. That had been Ji-eun’s purchase. She’d threatened to have a nuclear meltdown in the store, despite being seven now, and Hoseok simply hadn’t had the willpower to put up with that.

Hence Meteor, the reindeer.

The name was Ji-soo’s choice. Again, something neither you nor Hoseok had wanted to fight.

But overall, the house just felt like Christmas and it pleased you. The candles which flickered gently atop the bookcase gave off a delightful cookie scent and everything just felt...nice. Three happy and content girls, a decorated house, presents under the tree and the most wonderful man in the world sat with you on the couch, his arm wrapped around you.

Yeah, this was definitely happiness. And you were glad that Hoseok was open to letting you experience this joy with him.

“You okay?” Hoseok whispers, his voice husky from how low he has it but you get the sense that he doesn’t want to interrupt the general mood of the room. It had been a worry as to how the girls might react to you not only coming over for Christmas, which is what you’d done last year in the afternoon, but actually being there for Christmas Eve and Christmas morning.

Despite how well they’d taken your presence in their lives, there were some things that they had as a routine that they didn’t like changing. Their birthday had bizarrely been one of the things that set the twins off. They had generally been amenable to you, latching onto you even but their birthday had been something that they had only ever celebrated with their daddy and grandparents.

It was made all the more awkward in that it was also the day Yoo-jin had died, meaning that Hoseok had juggled between celebrating the girls and commemorating their mom. Your appearance in their life had shifted that tradition and it had been one of the only major times that they’d thrown tantrums over you.

But everyone seemed to be okay this Christmas thankfully, and you smiled up at Hoseok.

“I’m fine. Just...gathering wool I guess,” You laugh quietly, feeling his body move against you as he lets out a breathy laugh too. “It’s exciting, spending Christmas with you and them.”

“I’m glad you think so. Part of me is a little sad that I can’t spend a Christmas with just you and give you that but then I wouldn’t trade a Christmas with the girls for anything. They make Christmas fun again.” He’s still got his voice low so they can’t hear, but the twins are making more than enough noise to cover up anything.

“Hey, don’t worry about that. It’s okay. Christmas is meant to be for family right? So...this is your family and I’m honoured to be part of it this year.” Hoseok grins at that, pursing his lips at you playfully and you roll your eyes before giving him a quick kiss.

That had been something new to get used to as well. Neither of you had really known how to introduce the concept of you both showing physical affection to each other in front of his kids so you’d just slowly worked your way up from holding hands to an occasional kiss.

Nothing too intense, neither of you felt it was appropriate to do anything more in front of them. You’d been mortified when Soo-ah had come across you both making out like teenagers and you’d been horrified when Hoseok forgot to lock the bedroom door one day and Ji-soo had woken up from a nightmare.

Thankfully, none of them particularly turned their nose up at a quick kiss and Hoseok in particular revelled in being able to show you affection. You’d discovered quickly that he was a very affectionate person when allowed, always wanting to be touching or holding you in some way. It was sweet, even if you had a suspicion that he’d likely always been affectionate but had been starved of romantic touch for so long.

“I love you.” He murmurs as he pulls away from your lips, pressing them to your forehead before looking over at the girls. “Okay, come on. I’ve got one present that Santa has given me early for you to open now and then it’s bedtime.”

The girl instantly stop their game, pausing it while Soo-ah looked up with bright eyes. She’d been told the truth about Santa two years ago but the twins still believed. And this was one of the traditions that you’d been worried about interrupting.

Hoseok squeezed your hand reassuringly though as he stood, heading over to the bookcase and pulling down four presents. He came back over to the girls and sat down on the floor with them, legs crossed as Soo-ah knelt next to him as well.

You remained on the couch, unwilling to intrude in this tradition. Hoseok had tried to get you to agree to get involved but you’d refused, deeming this to be something that only he and the girls should do.

“So, let’s look. This one...is for Ji-soo. This is Soo-ah, this is mine and that means that this is yours.” Hoseok grins at Ji-eun, handing her the prettily wrapped present. This was a tradition Hoseok had started after the twins were born and you hoped it continued on.

On Christmas Eve, he would give the girls a present each like he was doing now. Only they weren’t implied to be from him or his grandparents that Santa was delivering. Instead, these were special presents that Santa had retrieved from their mommy and delivered for them to open before Christmas.

As such, each tag wished them a happy Christmas and told them how much their mom loved them. It was the perfect way to keep her involved in their lives while also creating a sweet tradition of their own, and you’d refused to get involved with this one.

This was for them, to celebrate their mom on Christmas even if she wasn’t there.

“You go first Soo-ah.” Ji-soo says sweetly, smiling at her big sister and shuffling closer to her to see what she’s got. As with everything she does, Soo-ah opens it carefully and precisely before smiling. She obviously knows that it’s not from Santa, nor is it from her mom. But she plays along with it anyway.

Inside is a little black box and inside that is a beautiful necklace with a rose gold fox, enameled with white highlights. Soo-ah smiles brightly, lifting the delicate chain and watching as it shines prettily in the soft tree lights.

“It’s so pretty.” She whispers before placing it back down, letting her finger run over the pendant before looking at Ji-soo. Her younger sister has big, wide eyes before she looks down at her own present, tearing it open eagerly.

As she does so, Soo-ah looks at Hoseok and gives him a smile of thanks before focusing back on the mess Ji-soo is causing. Inside Ji-soo’s present is a set of Harry Potter books, something she’d been bugging Soo-ah to let her read for months now. Like her sister, Ji-soo was getting more into reading and Hoseok evidently wanted to encourage that.

“Thank you.” She said softly, smiling sweetly as she turned each book over reverently. No doubt they’d end up on the floor of the twins bedroom sooner rather than later but you had no doubt that they’d get read.

Ji-eun is already opening her present, revealing a LEGO set that at first glance doesn’t seem to be much but is in actuality, a Star Wars model. Immediately she’s squealing with excitement, about to tear into the box before Hoseok is tutting and taking it away from her.

“Tomorrow Ji-eun, I said we open the presents then we go to bed, right?” She pouts before nodding, her shoulders slumping and Ji-soo hugs her tightly.

“It’s okay! We can build it tomorrow sis.” Like magic, the words from her sister calm Ji-eun down and she’s back to being her smiling self, hugging Ji-soo back before babbling on about how cool it would be to play with. She’d already got around six other LEGO sets, enjoying the Star Wars ones because she could pretend to be in space.

Hoseok had made some good decisions with the presents and you let your foot run along his back slowly, letting him know that you approved of what he’d bought. Not that you hadn’t known, but he’d chosen these ones himself with no input from you. And he’d always been one to encourage any interests his daughters might have.

“Open yours dad! Open it!” Ji-soo exclaims, her twin practically vibrating next to her as she nods in excitement while Soo-ah moves a little closer too. This was the present that Hoseok had felt most awkward about, because he normally got his mom to get him something. But this year he’d asked you to get it, hoping to integrate both his deceased and his current loves.

You’d felt honoured and worried, unsure as to whether it would look good if you bought a present from him that was to be given in his dead wife’s name. But Yoo-jin’s parents had given their blessing to Hoseok’s idea, telling you that they knew you would do a good job for her because you were already doing good with her husband and children.

Maybe that made you cry. Just a little. Not a lot or anything.

As such, Hoseok had no idea what his present was, so shifted slightly to let you see his face too. He opened it up slowly, head tilting as he looked at the frame in his hand. It showed three star charts with a date below each.

And then he stiffened in realisation of what they symbolised, his eyes getting glassy as his lip quivered ever so slightly. Soo-ah frowned as she leaned forward, wondering what it was and she queried it softly.

Hoseok sniffed slightly before blinking rapidly and giving his girls a bright smile.

“It’s a star chart. It shows what the night sky looked like at a specific date so you can see what constellations were there. This...is your birthday Soo-ah and this is your birthday,” He points at one before gesturing to the twins. “And this...this is the day your mom and I got married.”

You can tell he’s struggling then for a moment and you reach out once more, just resting your foot against his hip in a simple gesture that said ‘I’m here’. He looked at you with a smile that wobbled before nodding slightly, pressing his lips into a firm line.

“I’ll have to put this up somewhere, huh?” There’s quiet for a moment before he places it to the side and gestures to the girls, pulling them all into a tight hug and kissing each one firmly on the head as they squirm and giggle. “I love you, and your mom loves you. I hope you like the presents Santa got from her.”

“We love them!” Ji-soo responds softly, wiping at her eyes that suddenly look a lot more tired and you can’t help but laugh gently. You swear the twins are battery operated because as soon as they lose power then they seem to shut down.

Hoseok senses it too, kissing her on the forehead before standing up.

“Okay, well...let’s get ready for bed then yeah? Santa can’t come if you’re awake! Don’t forget to leave out the carrot and cake for him, he’ll be very tired after all the travelling.” With that, you stand with him to help get them all ready and sent off to bed.

As they leave the kitchen after leaving out their treats for Santa and his reindeer, Hoseok pulls you to the side and presses a quick but deep kiss to your lips, holding your cheeks between his hands. He shifts back just as quickly, resting his forehead against yours and giving you such a fond look.

“Thank you. I love it. You should have left a space open on it though.” You feel yourself heat at that, unsure as to whether he means for another child or a wedding or what. “She would have approved.”

With that, he gives you another kiss before heading up the stairs to where the cacophony of girl voices tells you that the usual night time routine is in full motion. Standing in place for a moment, you look to the photo of Yoo-jin and Hoseok on their wedding day that sits atop the mantlepiece.

“I hope he’s right Yoo-jin. Happy Christmas.”

-

Shrieking voices wake you in the morning, alertness coming far too fast even though you’d been in bed by 11pm. Quietly you groan, voice gravelly from sleep while your eyes refused to open. Instead, you just roll over and curl closer into Hoseok, his warm body combining with the comfiness of the bed to try and lull you back to sleep.

But Hoseok is already alert, heaving a big sigh as he lets his head flop into the pillow for a few more moments before he’s shifting. You whine at him, fingers clutching at his shirt and he lets out a broken laugh, sitting up and running his hand over your shoulder.

“Come on baby, time to get up. It’s Christmas!” Despite how tired he sounds, you can tell he’s excited. Then again, he’s used to getting up crazy early with three kids by now. The man doesn’t know how to have a proper lie in, practically physically incapable of staying in bed past 9am. Unlike you...you hadn’t quite learnt that skill yet.

All of this meant that he was already pretty alert, a smile on his face despite his puffy eyes and cheeks, dark hair a complete mess. He hated what he looked like when he’d just woken up but you thought it was adorable.

The door slams open suddenly, left unlocked by Hoseok specifically for this reason despite the closed door policy of the house and two incredibly hyperactive girls come barreling through, voices getting increasingly louder as they talk over each other. Shuffling in bed, you move enough to let your head rest on Hoseok’s thigh as the twins jump onto the bed too, telling you both to hurry up.

“I’m guessing Santa’s been?” You ask, licking your lips and smile at the enthusiastic response you get from them. Soo-ah is stood in the doorway, looking far more tired than them with her plaited hair messy and pyjamas wrinkled.

“Yes! So you have to come downstairs! Come on! Please! Hurry up dad!” Ji-soo is tugging at Hoseok’s arm, jerking him as he laughs and holds up his free hand to her.

“Okay, okay. Go wash your faces and brush your teeth first then we’ll go down and open presents. Let me and Y/N get ready too.” They both pout immediately at the prospect of having to do chores, they thought of brushing their teeth as a chore at the moment, before opening presents but Hoseok is giving them The Look and so they speed off.

Soo-ah smiles at you both. “I’ll take them downstairs, don’t worry.”

With that, she closes the door behind her and leaves. Hoseok lets out a deep sigh that seems to come from the bottom of his stomach. “God...she’s getting older so quick. Where did my little girl go?”

Chuckling, you push yourself up and finally escape the confines of the duvet, stretching with a groan as you get out all the kinks.

“She’s still there. She’s growing up really well though.” You say absently, rubbing your eyes as you yawn. As such, you don’t see Hoseok come up behind you, wrapping his arms around your waist tightly before kissing your shoulder.

“She is. Come on anyway, we can’t leave them alone too long. They’ll chew off their arms in impatience.” You snort in response to that, following him into the bathroom and quickly doing your morning routine at a much faster pace than you normally do.

Despite Hoseok saying that you didn’t need to change, you take the liberty of pulling on some clean underwear and leggings at least, wanting to be comfy and at least feel a little more like a person. He just pulls on some sweatpants before leading you downstairs.

The Christmas lights have already been turned on by Soo-ah you presume and you can’t help but laugh as all three of them sit eagerly on the floor in front of their respective present piles. Soo-ah doesn’t have as much as the twins, but then she’s reaching the age where her presents get smaller but more expensive.

“I see you’ve been good girl’s this year then. Santa must have enjoyed his time here,” Hoseok grins, pointing at the half eaten pie and empty glass that sat on the mantelpiece. “So come on then, let’s get on with it.”

He sits down on the couch, letting the girls take up the space and tugs you down next to him. The girls immediately tore into their presents, no consideration given for the time that had been spent wrapping them or anything and Hoseok has to repeatedly remind them to read the tags.

Soo-ah is finished first obviously, her pile consisting of books she’d asked for, a few films, some cute plushies and a bunch of clothes. That was everything she’d gotten from her grandparents and other family members. Her pride and joy though was the iPad that Hoseok had finally caved and bought for her.

The only reason he’d given in was because you’d told him that you’d pay part of it too so that he wasn’t spending a crazy amount on her. So it was the first dual present you’d ever gotten for her before and it made your stomach flutter with nerves and excitement as she squealed excitedly, holding the box to her chest tightly.

“Thank you dad!” Soo-ah said with the biggest smile, her eyes bright and Hoseok laughed, wrapping his arm around your shoulders and pulling you into him. 

“You need to thank Y/N too.” Without a second's hesitation she turns that pretty smile onto you and thanks you as well, jumping up and hugging you both tightly. She smells of the body spray that she’d started to wear lately, just a cheap one from the grocery store.

Ji-eun and Ji-soo distract you soon after, looking down at them as they both gasp in awe of the Playstation 4 that had been bought as a dual gift for them. A benefit of them both having the same bedroom was that Hoseok had only needed to buy one, letting them finally play all the games they begged to play on the console in the living room.

He was finally letting them have a little more time with electronics and you’d supported his decision the whole way. 

Alongside the PS4 came a whole host of games that they’d been desperately wanting to play along with a VR headset and an extra controller. That hadn’t been in the plan but Hoseok had been completely taken with the sales rep and ended up coming home with the thing. You hadn’t known whether it was a good idea for two girls so young but you figured they’d grow into it.

Plus...you kinda wanted to play it too.

Hoseok had admitted that to you as well and you had a feeling that it was probably more of a guilty present for himself as well. Not that you were going to out him about it or anything. At least...not until you’ve played Astrobot Rescue…

Their final presents from both you and Hoseok had been new bikes, bikes that would last them a few years as they grew. They weren’t cheap either, those fancy mountain bike styles because Hoseok wanted to be able to go on trails with them or take mini vacations to go biking. He liked that apparently, which was why you’d bought him a mountain bike for Christmas too.

Thankfully, you already had one so he had no reason to buy you one and Soo-ah had been gifted one last year from his parents. Their presents this from family were an assortment of superhero themed dolls which they still enjoyed playing with and a few small LEGO sets. For the most part, they both had similar interests so presents were a lot easier but you knew that would change as they grew older.

Then they’d watched with excitement as you and Hoseok opened presents. He got a bottle of expensive wine from his parents along with some expensive new shoes while Yoo-jin’s parents had gifted him a record player. You were surprised they still got him something but you thought it was sweet too.

Your own parents had gotten him one of the instant cameras, which confused you at first until he’d explained with a grin that he’d said to your dad he wanted one to take pictures and put them into books for the girls, and a box of fancy biscuits. The picture frame you’d hurried to say that you’d suggested changing one of the photos to Yoo-jin but Hoseok had just looked at you fondly, shaking his head lightly and telling you that it was perfect the way it was. 

He’d obviously got a bike from you but then you’d also splurged on him and gotten him the dash camera he wanted for his car. A more fun present was the series of figures that he loved. His face lit up in a smile that was a mirror image of his daughters as he examined the limited edition models with pure glee and your heart felt like it was going to explode in love.

From the girls, he got a whole range of small things that you’d gone and bought with them. Just stuff like funny socks to funny shirts, books to a new phone case. And you could see that he loved and appreciated every one of them.

Your own presents made you feel a little shy, the pile smaller than everyone else’s but they were just as eager to watch. The first thing you opened were from the girls. Hoseok had gotten you something from them last year but obviously you hadn’t seen them. This year you had them watching avidly.

And you let out a gasp of delight as you look down at the box of your favourite perfume, perfume that was not cheap.

“Oh my god! Thank you! This is my favourite!” You say excitedly, grinning broadly as you open the box and take out the pretty bottle. Soo-ah giggles as she shuffles closely, dainty fingers reaching out and touching the glass reverently.

“I know. I looked at your perfume and told dad.” Glancing at Hoseok, he shrugs with a small smile and you feel warmth blossom within at the fact that Soo-ah had taken the time to properly look. Despite feeling closer to the twins due to their immediate attachment to you, you still loved Hoseok’s eldest daughter and every step forward with her felt like a small victory.

“I love it. Thank you all.” 

Your parents had gotten you a new laptop and you vaguely remember that you’d told them you needed a new one. What’s surprising though is that it’s the exact one you’d been eyeing. Suspiciously, you glance to Hoseok who has a very innocent look on his face, eyes widening and brows rising as you watch him.

His parents had gotten you a beautiful military style long coat that had you ooh-ing as you ran your fingers over the luxurious black material and shiny gold buttons. It was truly exquisite and you just knew that it would look good on you.

Your eyes widened in shock as you were handed another present, this one small and delicate. But it was the tag that had you pausing, stating that it was from Yoo-jin’s parents. Almost immediately you look at Hoseok in confusion and he just leant forward, kissing your forehead.

“They’ve never met you but they know you’re in our lives and they didn’t want to be rude.” It was strange, opening up the present that his deceased wife’s parents had gotten you. Like you were breaking the rules or something, betraying Yoo-jin’s memory.

Inside was a delicate silver bracelet, little stars and moon breaking up the chain every now and then. It wasn’t an expensive brand or anything, but it could have been a cheap $5 ring and you would have been in awe given who it came from. Tenderly, you run your fingers along it while the girls all make noises at how pretty it is.

And then came the presents from Hoseok. Who appeared to have spoiled you given what you opened. Which was saying something given how much you’d spent on him.

A new Pandora bracelet complete with a set of Disney charms alongside a second bracelet that was rose gold, the hue shining in the dainty Christmas lights. New boots that you’d been considering for the last two months, your size and the exact colour you’d wanted. A set of tiny Harry Potter themed snow globes for your desk and a bunch of your favourite Pokémon in plush form. The console games you’d been wanting for a while but had been unwilling to spend money on and some new books for you to enjoy in your downtime. 

And then on top of all that, which was ridiculously honestly, was the Canon DSLR that he’d bought you. You’d been wanting to get a new camera and try out photography again, something you’d done years ago, but the cost had been putting you off.

“Hoseok!” His name comes out in an exasperated tone that’s threaded through with love, knowing that he’d just come with some excuse as to why he spent so much on you. You knew that he earnt enough and with you sharing the bills now he was even better off, but you’d never had so much stuff bought for it.

It left you a little flustered.

Almost as if he can tell, he grins broadly and kisses your cheek with an overly loud noise. The girls giggle to themselves at his display of affection before he squeezes your hand tightly.

“It’s Christmas! The season of giving. You can’t complain. Santa said you’ve been good.” You give him a look that tells him there’ll be a conversation about this later but you’re both distracted when the girls start to get antsy, wanting to play with their own stuff.

His foot came down rather quickly when the twins began to beg him to let them play outside on their bikes, desperate to have fun and probably scrape their knees multiple times. You’re sure he would’ve been okay with it, except that it was 5:30 in the morning and dark outside. Not exactly the right conditions to be letting them go around screaming.

Instead, he made them all go upstairs and shower to make sure that they were all clean before getting dressed in their comfy Christmas clothes that you’d bought for them. That was a tradition you’d brought from your own family; every year you got a new outfit for Christmas. Hoseok had been bemused by it but he’d gone along and the girls were just excited to have new clothes.

Once everyone was all dressed, you watched Hoseok for a moment as he helped to set up Soo-ah’s iPad as the twins got settled into playing on their PS4 already. He’d already turned it on and set it all up the other day so they were fully immersed in one of the LEGO games he’d bought, each chattering away as they played split screen.

A sudden wave of isolation hits you as you watched them, realising that you could easily walk out of the house right now and the picture here would still be the same. They wouldn’t really notice your loss and they’d survive happily without it. This was a family, his family. And you were just the interloper in it.

Chewing your lip, you turn around and head into the kitchen with a deep sigh. You try to keep those thoughts out of your head but it’s always a worry at the back of your mind. The anxiety that it all might fall apart. That you’d lose not only the man you love dearly, the man you’re positive is the love of your life, but also his beautiful daughters whom you had also come to love.

The kitchen is quiet as you turn on the oven, letting it pre-heat while you pull out the meats that you’d prepared the day before with Hoseok. Christmas dinner was easily one of the best moments of the day for you and you’d worked hard to combine his dinner with your family. Which meant you were eating honey glazed ham and roast turkey stuffed full of sage and onion stuffing.

Checking them over, you tut slightly and work at making sure they’ll be okay before placing them both into the oven, thankful that it was big enough to accommodate both. He had a grill above this that could also function as a second oven and you would be playing the vegetables into their later on to roast them to perfection with the seasonings and spices you’d lavished upon them.

You’re so invested in the food, taking out the cookies and everything your mom had given you yesterday and laying them on the side so that everyone could snack on them while the food cooked throughout the morning, that you don’t notice Hoseok sneaking in. It’s only when his arms wind around your waist that you realise, jumping slightly.

“Are you mad at me?” The childish tone to his voice tells you that he’s pouting and you resolve not to look at him. He has the most ridiculous puppy-eyes that manage to get him anything he wants and you’re not falling for it today. Not that you were actually mad at him or anything.

“No, I’m not. Though you spend way too much!” You whine petulantly poking his arm with your own lips turning into a pout. Hoseok chuckles, his chest vibrating against your back before he turns you around and gives you a bright smile, dimples appearing in his cheeks adorably.

“I love you. Christmas is when I get to spoil you.”

“You spoilt me on my birthday and our anniversary too.” Eyeing him suspiciously, his tongue pokes at his cheek as he looks at the ceiling and considers.

“Okay maybe so, but still. Point stands. I love you. And you never buy yourself anything! You always talk yourself out of it.” He argues, voice getting lower and more mumbled and you can’t help but smile at his face, reaching up and cupping those cheeks until they’re comically smushed. Despite the grumbles coming from his throat, he lets you be silly with him and you know it’s because you’ve gotten over it already.

“Did you like your stuff?” He nods, head jerking your hands before he reaches up and moves them away from his face. 

“I did. I’m a lucky guy.” Not responding, you just lean against his chest and exhale deeply, eyes closing as you just enjoy being with him in a small moment of silence in the madness that is his house. A madness that you’ve come to love and adore, something you’re not entirely sure you could live without anymore.

“This has been the best Christmas in a while.” Hoseok whispers softly, resting his cheek against your head while his arms wrap around you tighter. You don’t respond for a moment, hands grasping at his shirt before a response slips from your lips in a small, meek voice.

“Really?”

“Yes. Really. It feels...whole again. It’s been really nice to just...have someone else here. Someone I love, you know?” You don’t really know but you nod anyway, unwilling to let the moment slide between you both.

“I love you.” It’s whispered against his chest but you know that he hears, arms tightening for a moment before he kisses your head.

“Love you too.”

-

A click and a flash of light makes you jump, eyes widening as you look up at Hoseok who grins from behind the camera your parents had got him. It was after 10pm now, dinner a long distant memory and you were sipping a glass of mulled wine on the couch, curled up in your pyjamas and reading one of the new books you’d been given.

The girls had tired themselves out and had gone to bed over an hour ago, the early start and excitement of the day knocking them out quicker than you’d ever seen. Hoseok had spent that time cleaning up the room to his liking, putting their presents into neat piles before sitting on the floor in front of you and messing around with some of his own presents.

And your’s, he’d also been playing with your own camera. You were content to let him do so, the silence between you both comfortable and pleasant. His very presence was just soothing and the tiny noises he made without realising amused you.

But evidently he was feeling playful now, his face a picture of mischief as he takes the photo that prints out and waves it, letting the picture develop. Shaking your head, you roll your eyes at him before reaching out and pushing at his shoulder with your foot.

He chuckles, grabbing your foot and kissing your ankle. The close vicinity to your feet makes you cringe, pulling back immediately as you make a sound that would be more at home coming out of Ji-soo or Ji-eun’s mouth.

“Having fun?” You ask, lips pursing as he holds out the photo to you once he’s scribbled something on it in black Sharpie. It’s not bad in reality, those cameras always have a way of bizarrely making people look good and you run your finger over the photograph carefully, admiring the way he’d written ‘First Christmas together’. Hoseok takes it back and places it on the coffee table reverently.

“Yep. You’re beautiful.” That gets a soft laugh and the camera flashes once more, capturing the emotion forever. You whine, disliking the momentary blindness but he just lays his head on your knee for a moment, waiting for the photo to develop.

Once it’s done, he pushes up and sits next to you, holding out the camera in front of you both and gestures to you. You smile prettily for the camera, head leaning in towards him and waiting for the flash once more.

“Will you marry me?”

Any thoughts of the camera disappear as your eyes widen and your jaw drops, turning to look at him in shock. The click of his finger on the camera button combines with a blinding flash, the camera whirring as it prints.

“What?” It’s the only thing you can say, shock freezing you as you’re not sure if he’d just said that to get a reaction out of you or because he genuinely meant it. But then he looks at you with a gentle smile, handing you the photograph and getting up to retrieve something he’d hidden behind a frame on the mantelpiece.

Sitting back next to you, you’re still experiencing that bizarre sense of uncertainty, body flushing cold and hot as you try to assess the situation. But then Hoseok opens the tiny box, revealing an elegant silver ring with a beautiful diamond set into the centre. It’s simple, but you love it already and without even realising you start to cry.

“Hoseok…”

“Will you marry me? Final present, I swear.” He grins, his own eyes looking ever so slightly misty while his cheeks take on a slightly rosy glow. You can’t stop looking between his face and the ring, hands shaking as you drop the book onto your lap and reaching out for it.

“Really? You...you really want to marry me?” Part of you knows that you should just say yes, but your emotions are so overwhelmed. Marriage was obviously something that you’d both discussed, it was something that anyone who had inclinations of wanting to get married and in a long term relationship discussed, but you just hadn’t thought he’d want to so early.

It wasn’t even ten years since his wife had died and he’d always said that she was the love of his life. While you knew that was likely true and you hadn’t wanted to try and compete against a woman who couldn’t fight back, you had that struggle in that you were faced with a woman who would forever be perfect in his memory.

Marriage for Hoseok meant cementing your place into his family, truly allowing you to take the place Yoo-jin had left. You would legally be the girls step-mother. It just all felt so final and you hadn’t been sure that Hoseok was ready for that.

“Of course I want to marry you. I love you. As cheesy as it is...you made me realise that it’s okay to love again. That’s it’s not betraying Yoo-jin, or myself or my kids. I have so much to thank you for; for embracing my kids, for loving me even though I came with a lot extra, for not trying to erase Yoo-jin, for just caring so much. I love being with you, I love how my kids love you, I love how my parents love you, I love your parents, I love you try so hard. Being with you...makes me feel younger than I actually am, like I’ve got a partner in crime again. That sounds lame,” He snorts, rolling his eyes.

“But it’s true. It’s not just me being ganged up on by my daughters anymore. I have someone to confide in, someone to trust, someone that I can break down in front of and not be seen as weak and who will hold me up until I feel strong again. I don’t think you realise how much you’ve done for me, or my family. Our family. I know you always think about Yoo-jin and your respect for her is amazing. But I don’t want you to think about her this time. I just want you to think about yourself. I love you and I really, really want to marry you.”

You have no doubt that you’re ugly crying now, your nose going alongside your eyes and you sniffle pathetically, rubbing at your face with the ends of your sweater. It makes Hoseok laugh gently, reaching out and pulling you into a tight hug. Neither of you realises for a moment that you’re nodding your acceptance, body already doing what your mind had decided.

“Yes. Yes, god yes. I’d...I’d love to marry you. I mean if you’re okay with that.”

“Sweetheart...I just asked you. I think I’m okay with it.” But he doesn’t push further, grinning broadly as he pushes the ring onto your finger before kissing it. His eyes are still shining with his own unshed tears, happiness dancing in them before he pulls you closer, pressing his lips to yours in a deep kiss, neither of you caring if anyone interrupts this one.

“God I am so glad you said yes. I was very stressed about this.” He murmurs when you finally pull apart, foreheads pressed together while your noses brush. You sniff one more and he gently wipes away the tears, cooing in the softest voice as he consoles you.

The two of you hug and kiss for a while longer, unwilling to let each other go in the bliss of happiness and excitement that his proposal had engendered. Any worries you may have about being officially part of his family disappear finally, simply enjoying the moment with him and in awe of the fact that he loves you enough to marry you.

This guy, who you’d started talking to at a get together years ago simply because you were sat next to each, had become such an important part of your life and it genuinely shocked you to know that you’d become the same to him. He pulls away, reaching for the Sharpie and the photograph that had fallen to your lap.

Carefully, he writes on it before lifting it up to look at it with a smile. “I think that was a good proposal.”

Turning it, he lets you look at the photograph and you feel warmth blossom as you remember that he’d captured this moment. In the small picture, he’s grinning broadly, that mischief you’d grown so used to in his eyes, that he’d passed onto his daughters, very prominent while you stare at him in complete shock.

Along the bottom, he’s scrawled out ‘Will you marry me?’. Laughing, you kiss his cheek.

“Is this why you asked for this kind of camera?” He shrugs in response, expression mysterious and you just burrow yourself into side deeper.

“Happy Christmas sweetheart.”

“Happy Christmas.”

[davids-cartoon-corkboard]

Brothers

I watched the Sonic movie a few days ago and I’ve got a theory about Knuckles and his place in the sequel! I’m not an expert on the franchise though, so let me know if I get something wrong.

The story usually goes like this: a few thousand years before “present day”, the echidna tribe’s leader ticked off the Chaos brain goop thing by being a violent warmonger; Chaos retaliated by killing most of the echidnas. Chaos was sealed inside the Master Emerald and the remaining echidnas renounced violence, but the tribe faded over time until Knuckles is the only one left in “present day”.

But it seems like the Sonic Movie timeline runs a bit differently. The movie echidnas were willing to kill Longclaw and kidnap Sonic for the sake of power. They had not renounced violence. So perhaps Chaos’ rampage didn’t happen ages before that scene, but instead happened shortly after! Here’s what I think went down on Mobius after Sonic escaped:

We didn’t see Longclaw die, so there’s a chance that arrow didn’t kill her. The echidnas might have patched her up so she could stay alive long enough for them to interrogate her. Tracking down Sonic would no doubt take ages, so the echidna leader looked for a closer (but more dangerous) power source in the meantime. Then he angered Chaos. It didn’t kill “most” of the echidnas, though. It killed all of them.

All but one.

What’s Longclaw gonna do, not adopt him?

Obviously there’s going to be Drama™ when Sonic and Knuckles meet because hey this guy looks like the guys who shot my mom is probably one of the quickest ways to make someone lose their shit in the history of trauma, so why not add an extra layer of discomfort by making them pseudo-brothers?

Longclaw would have told Knuckles how much she wished he could have met Sonic. “You two would have gotten along like a house on fire!”

*cut to a shot of a house on fire, collateral damage from Sonic and Knuckles beating the snot out of each other*

And we know Knuckles has a temper, so what if he says something hurtful to Sonic in the midst of such a heated fight? :)

“She’s more my mother than yours!”

Longclaw took care of Sonic for, what, five years? And she would have taken care of Knuckles for ten. It’s a statement with no true logic behind it, a statement only meant to hurt. But knowing that doesn’t make it hurt any less.

And then we get some flashbacks to Sonic’s ten years alone. Sonic probably also says something bad but I can’t think of anything else off the top of my head. Anyway there are hurt feelings. :)

But they apologize to each other in time to work together during the finale and then they call each other brothers and they take a trip to Mobius to see Longclaw and she is so happy her boys have bonded. Roll credits. :,)

(I know there’s rumors floating around that Knuckles will be voiced by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, but with this timeline in mind it’s entirely possible Knuckles is like 11-12. Just. A very small and serious and grumpy baby with a squeaky voice.)

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Hey Steph, Brownie here, yes, I'm alive and well! First off, I wanted to ask if you had some proper (and possibly long) Reunion Johnlock fics post season 2 that just majorly ignores Mary. I don't care how old, I'm craving that and I can't seem to find anything on AO3 that fits, maybe because it's so far buried in the archives. Second: How is the fandom doing? I'm uploading a two years old german Johnlock fanfiction now, edited it yesterday and fell back into the Johnlock hell. Oh well... :D

Hi Lovely! Ahhh I’ve got a few fics for you with my reunion fic list, as well as an update to that list!

As for the fandom, honestly? I’m not really sure… I stay so deep in my happy corner of fic recs, playlist recs, and the occasional meta writing-or-hunting because my mental health needed a break so I stick to things I enjoy :P It’s not as big as it used to be obviously, but I think we have a great little niche here, LOL

Anyway: back to the initial recs! :)

REUNION / OTHER POST TRF FICS Pt. 2

See also:

Reverse Reichenbach

Reunion Fics and Other Post TRF Fics Pt. 1

PRE-TRF

Never Change a Running System by Lorelei_Lee (E, 54.246 w. || Pre-TRF, Romance, Humour, Drama, Sex Toys, Anal, Rimming, Masturbation, Frottage, Blow Jobs, Public Sex, First Kiss / Time, Virgin Sherlock / Loss of Virginity, Accidental Voyeurism, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Experiments, Naive Sherlock, Pining Sherlock, Jealous Sherlock, Possessive Sherlock, Straight With an Exception John, Hand Jobs) – Sherlock discovers his sexuality – with far-reaching consequences for John.

POST TRF / HIATUS

Together is What we Have, Together Protects Us by Phantom of the Black Pearl (K+, 1,566 w. || Post-TRF, Friendship / Platonic or Slash, Hurt/Comfort, Insecure Sherlock, Worried Sherlock, Slice of Life) – After a case one evening in the flat Sherlock voices a concern that causes the pair to consider why they’ve chosen to stick together after all that’s happened.

The Deafening Silence by occasionally-maybe-never (T, 2,238 w. || Angst, Major Character Death, Post-TRF) – ‘Sherlock hopes fiercely that John can hear him, as sometimes coma patients can. He knows that John will understand, that his admission of love isn’t a grand, sweeping romantic statement, but simply an expression of truth.’ When Mycroft retrieves Sherlock to bring him home, it’s not to John having dinner, but to John on his death bed.

glimpses through a closing window by radialarch (T, 2,430 w. || Hiatus / Post TRF, Vlogging, Pining Sherlock, Angst, BG John/Mary) – John starts a domestic vlog. Sherlock watches it on stolen phones, over flickering wi-fi, and aches.

When Evening Falls So Hard by Ballykissangel (K+, 8,251 w. || Heavy Angst, Hurt, Comfort, No Slash) –  All the kings horses, all the kings men couldn’t put John Watson and Sherlock Holmes back together again. Post reichenbach prequel to We Might Not Make It Home. Returning Sherlock never dreamed they would end like this, he never thought he would be watching a shattered John standing on the roof edge of Barts leaving a death note as Sherlock begs him not to jump.

Our Sudden and Strange Return by Arwen Jade Kenobi (T, 10,314 w. || Post-TRF, Friendship) – One year, eight months, and an odd number of days after the alleged fatal fall Mycroft gets a message from Sherlock saying that he’s back.

Shuteye Shenanigans by Ayakae (K+, 13,263 w. || Post-TRF, Friendship / Epic Bromance, John’s Nightmares, Angsty Fluff, Bed Sharing, Humour, Cuddles, Taking Care of Each Other, Domestics) – John Watson has never slept with Sherlock Holmes. Never ever ever. And never will, thank you very much. Well, there was that one time, but John didn’t count that. It was completely different, just like the second time it happened. And the third. And the fourth. Epic bromance, but it can be read as pre-slash if you wish.

Nothing to Make a Song About by emmagrant01 (E, 36,833 w. || Post-TRF, First Time, Reunion, Jealous John, Pining Sherlock, Romance, Angst with Happy Ending) – When Sherlock returned from his faked death, John could not forgive him for the deception and broke off their friendship. Ten years later, John returns to London in search of yet another new beginning. Sherlock, not surprisingly, is waiting.

REUNION

A Long Way To Home by PeaceLoveAndCheese (T, 1,568 w. || Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Reunion Fic) – Human emotions are tiring, troublesome things. And Sherlock wants to be known as anything but that. No matter how hard you try though, you’re only human. And it’s been a long year.

Hide and Seek by Arwen Jade Kenobi (T, 6,934 w. || Angst, Rev. Reich-ish, Mycroft is a Dick, Depression, Case Fic-ish, Friendship, Reunion) – Pseudo sequel to “The Refining Fire.” “You owe him the truth, and you owe me the proof that will convince him that I had no part in this.”

A Friend Indeed by Sanru (K+, 8,190 w. || Missing John, Friendship, Drama, Introspection, Possessive Sherlock, Worried Sherlock) – Something has gone terribly wrong with a supposedly simple case. John Watson is missing. While the search for him is proving to be fruitless, it has made Sherlock realize that having an emotional attachment to someone may have its disadvantages but he liked being able to call John his friend. Now if only he could find out what happened to him…

Nothing to Make a Song About by emmagrant01 (E, 36,833 w. || Post-TRF, First Time, Reunion, Jealous John, Pining Sherlock, Romance, Angst with Happy Ending) – When Sherlock returned from his faked death, John could not forgive him for the deception and broke off their friendship. Ten years later, John returns to London in search of yet another new beginning. Sherlock, not surprisingly, is waiting.

Sentenced by SarahKnight (T, 44,777 w. || Dev. Rel., Alternate S4 Canon, Drama, Angst, Pining, Feelings are Hard) – Virtual series 4 opener. Sherlock’s in prison being targeted by a murderer, John’s married to a pregnant assassin and Moriarty’s back.

[loretranscripts]

Lore Episode 1: They Made a Tonic (Transcript) - 18th March 2015

tw: horror, bodily mutilation, blood, disease, death, vampires, pseudo-cannibalism

Disclaimer: This transcript is entirely non-profit and fan-made. All credit for this content goes to Aaron Mahnke, creator of Lore podcast. It is by a fan, for fans, and meant to make the content of the podcast more accessible to all. Also, there may be mistakes, despite rigorous re-reading on my part. Feel free to point them out, but please be nice!

Hollywood is… obsessed. Sure, we often think of obsessions like sex, violence, gigantic robots and of course, epic battles between good and evil. But another obsession of Hollywood is vampires. You have to admit though, that there’s a lot to love about vampires. Immortality, wealth, power, and superhuman abilities such as flight and strength. Yes, they come with trade-offs, such as incredibly bad sunburns, but every movie I’ve seen, and I’ve seen a lot, believe me, tends to show vampires that are fairly happy with their lot in life. My exposure to the world of vampires happened in the late 1990s, when I was in college. A friend of mine recommended the Anne Rice novel, Interview with a Vampire. I devoured that and many of the sequels. They’re fun reads! And they certainly set the tone for a decade or more of vampire-centred entertainment. I won’t touch on the vampires of the Twilight books, mostly because I haven’t read them. But I will say this: those books, however lambasted they have been by critics, have shown that popular culture’s love of all things vampire is as undying as the creatures themselves. I’m Aaron Mahnke, and this is Lore.

When most people think of vampires, they envision something that is a purely European creature: a foreign accent, Victorian Era dress, and dark manor homes and castles. It’s a common visual language for most of the western world, so I don’t blame bad movies and books for portraying that image, but it’s one small facet of a legend that has hundreds of expressions. The single most prominent historical figure attached to the modern notion of vampires is of course Vlad III of Wallachia, otherwise known as Vlad the Impaler. Vlad was the ruler of a small Eastern European kingdom known as Wallachia. He ruled from 1456 to 1462. He was known as Vlad the Impaler, because he preferred to execute his enemies by impaling them on stakes. The Ottomons called him “Lord Impaler” after entering his kingdom to find forests of impaled victims. Vlad was a violent guy, you see, rather bloodthirsty, you might say. Now he, like his father before him, belonged to something known as the Order of the Dragon, a group established to protect Christian Europe from the invading Ottoman army. Vlad’s father, Vlad II, was known as Vlad Dracul, which meant Vlad the Dragon, from the Order of the Dragon. When Vlad III rose to power he took the hereditary title and was known as Vlad Dracula, the son of the dragon. That name might sound very similar to the most famous vampire story in the world, and that’s because Bram Stoker, when creating his famous creature of the night, used Vlad III as his inspiration. Well, part of it, but we’ll get to that more later.

The roots of most vampire stories can be traced back to superstitions rooted in ancient cultures all across the world. Western Europe played host to countless stories of reanimated dead known as “revenants”. These were animated corpses which climbed out of the grave to torment the living. The word “revenant” comes from Latin, which means “to come back”. And come back to do what, you might ask? Well, I’m glad you did. At first it was just to terrorise the living, but as the centuries passed the legend became more specific. Revenants were said to return from the grave to torment their living relatives and neighbours. What was key though, was that revenants were specific people, not anonymous zombies of our modern horror genre. These things had a past, and a purpose. Now, in Norse Mythology, we can find stories of creatures known as draugr, “again-walkers”, who would return from the grave and wreak havoc on the living. These creatures possessed superhuman strength, they smelled of decay, and they were reported to be pretty ugly in appearance. They could enter the dreams of the living and while they were doing that, it was said that they left tangible objects near the sleeping victims, so that when they woke up, they would know that their dreams were more real than they feared.

Let’s go back earlier than the Middles Ages though. The legends of some ancient cultures spoke of creatures that, while not immediately similar to the vampires we know today, nonetheless share many core characteristics. First we have the Greek myth of Empusa, who was the daughter of Hekate. Empusa was said to lure young men, at night, and then feast on their blood, before moving on to the main course, their flesh. Another Greek tale involves Lamia, a mistress of Zeus, who becomes cursed by Zeus’ wife Hera, and is doomed to hunt children, devouring them. Stories of undead creatures, or creatures that feed on the blood of the living, seem nearly as common as written language itself. I mean, even on the small, isolated island of Madagascar, there are legends of a creature known as the Ramanga, which was known to attack nobles, drinking their blood and eating their nail clippings. Yeah, I said nail clippings. Deal with it.

Are vampires real? I’ll let you make the final decision on that, but what is clear, is that most of these stories find their genesis in the human need to explain the unexplainable. For instance, early Europeans used the myth as a way of explaining why a corpse wasn’t decomposing at the normal rate that they expected. You can see evidence of this in Bulgaria, where graves dating back over 800 years, have been opened, to reveal iron rods that have been driven through the chest of the skeletons. And in a time when it was very common to bury someone that was thought to be dead, only to find out that they weren’t really dead, you can imagine that stories would quickly circulate that the dead were coming back to life. As a result, Taphophobia, the fear of being buried alive, swept Europe and the United States. Now, of course, when medical science caught up, people got more practical. They built alert systems into graves, just in case the person woke up and, you know, wanted out. Now, I realise that being buried alive sounds like a rare occurrence, but it happened frequently enough that many people were sufficiently paranoid about it to actually spend time looking for a solution.

One of these people happened to be a medical doctor, a man named Adolf Gutsmuth. Now, in 1822, and driven by the fear of being buried alive, he invented a “safety coffin” for his own interment, and then he tested it out himself. Tested it out? You bet! Doctor Gutsmuth allowed himself to be buried underground in his new “safety coffin” for several hours, during which he had meals delivered to him through a feeding tube. He enjoyed a wonderful meal of soup, sausages, and a lovely local beer. Sounds like a great date night destination, doesn’t it? Now, Doctor Timothy Smith of New Haven, Vermont, was another paranoid inventor. He created a grave that can be visited still to this day, if you happen to be passing by Evergreen Cemetery, in Vermont. It was a crypt, buried in the usual manner, but it had a cement tube positioned over the face of the body, and a glass plate was affixed to the top of the tube at ground level. Doctor Smith died a real, natural death, and was buried in his fancy coffin with a view. He never woke up, but early visitors to his grave reported that they had a clear view of his decomposing head, until condensation obscured the glass decades later. Side note: vampires no longer scare me. Waking up inside of a small box buried six feet under the surface of the earth is what true fright looks like to me.

Now, another culprit in humanity’s use of the vampire label, was porphyria. It was a rare blood disorder, but modern science has pretty much closed the case on that one, saying that it’s too far of a stretch to connect the two topics. Rabies, of all conditions, has also been used as an explanation for the rise of the vampire mythology. Surprisingly there are a lot of commonalities between them, such as a sensitivity to light and garlic, as well as altered sleep patterns. But the most recent medical condition with a strong connection to vampire mythology was actually Tuberculosis. Those who suffer from TB had no vampire-like symptoms though, and that’s what makes this one a harder connection to explain. It’s also, incidentally, where one of my favourite New England legends comes into the picture. Ladies and Gentlemen, meet Mercy Brown.

Lena Mercy Brown was a young woman who lived in the latter half of the 19thcentury, in the rural town of Exeter, Rhode Island, and she was a major player in what is now known as the “Great New England Vampire Panic”. Stories like hers can be found repeated all across Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont, echoed in the lives of others in similar situations. And the results have surprising connections to both the modern idea of vampires, as well as the ancient stories, as we will see. The first person to die in Exeter was Mercy’s mother, Mary Eliza. That was December of 1882, and she fell victim to what was then called “consumption”. Consumption, because, as the disease of Tuberculosis ravaged the body, the person would appear to waste away; consumed, if you will, by the illness. She, of course, was buried, because, well, that’s what you do with a loved one who passes away. The next year though, Mercy’s sister Mary Olive died, at the young age of 20. Same illness, same symptoms, same process. I’m not sure when exactly the people of Exeter, Rhode Island started to wonder if the deaths were connected , but it might have been then, or it might have been a few years later when Mercy’ brother Edwin took ill. Edwin, though, was smart. He packed up and moved across the country to Colorado Springs, which had a great reputation for the healing properties of its dry climate. When he finally returned from the resorts out west, some years later, he was alive, but not doing so well, and in December of 1891, he took a turn for the worst. That was the month that Mercy herself became ill. Her Tuberculosis moved fast. They called it the galloping kind, and it moved through her body quickly, like wildfire. By January, 1892, she was dead, and the people of Exeter were more worried than ever. You see, they suspected something… supernatural.

Now, this was surprising, considering how close Exeter is to Newport. That’s the seaside city known for the summer cottages of the wealthy, folks like the Vanderbilts, the Asters, the Wideners, the Wetmores. It was the pinnacle of educated society, yet just a handful of miles away, one small town that should have known better, was about to do something very, very creepy.

Edwin was still alive, you see, and someone got it in their mind that one of the women who died before him, either his mother or one of his sisters, was somehow draining him of his life from beyond the grave. They were so convinced of this, you see, that they wanted to dig them all up. Yes, all of them. Once they received the father’s permission to do this horrible thing, a group of men gathered in the cemetery on the morning of March 17th, and began to dig up the bodies. Now, what they were looking for was any evidence at all of an unnatural state. So, blood in the heart, blood around the mouth, or other similar signs. The first body, of Mary Eliza, the mother, was satisfactorily decomposed so they ruled her out. But of course she was, you might say, I mean, she had been dead and buried for a decade. Mary Olive was also in a normal state of decomposition. Again, being dead for ten years usually helps convince people that you’re really dead. But when they examined Mercy’s body, a body that had not been buried because she died in the middle of winter, and so had been put inside of a stone building inside the cemetery that was essentially a walk-in freezer, they discovered a remarkable state of preservation. Shocking, I know. So what did they do? Well, these superstitious folk did what they learnt from their ancestors. They cut out Mercy’s heart and liver, within which they found red, clotted blood, they burned them on a nearby stone, which, by the way, is still there if you ever visit the cemetery, and then, mixed the ashes with a tonic. That tonic was then given to Edwin, to drink. Yeah, Edwin drank his own sister’s liver and heart. Did it work? No, of course it didn’t work. Edwin died less than two months later. What it did do, however, was set up Mercy Brown to be known as the first American vampire.

As unusual as an event like this must sound, you might be surprised to learn that it happened quite frequently. In 1817, almost a century before Mercy Brown’s exhumation, a Dartmouth college student named Frederick Ransom died of Tuberculosis. His father was so worried that the young man would leave the grave and attack the family, that he asked that he be dug up. Ransom’s heart was cut out, and burnt on a blacksmith’s forge. Even Henry David Thoreau heard tales of these types of events, and he mentioned one in his personal journal. In September 26th, 1859, he wrote: “The savage in man is never quite eradicated. I have just read of a family in Vermont who, several of its members having died of consumption, just burnt the lungs, heart and liver of the last deceased, in order to prevent any more from having it.” So of course, word spread about what happened to Mercy Brown, as it usually did when a body was dug up and carved into to pieces like that. Mercy’s case, though, actually made it into a newspaper called The New York World, and it made quite an impression on the people who read it. How do we know? Because a clipping from that article was found in the personal papers of a London stage manager after his death. You see, his theatre company had been touring America in 1892. He evidently read the story, found it inspiring, and saved it. Inspiring so much so, that he sat down a few years later, and wrote a book. Who was this man? His name was Bram Stoker. And the book? Oh, I’m sure you’ve already guessed it by now. It was Dracula, published in 1897.

Lore was produced by me, Aaron Mahnke. You can find a transcript of the show, as well as a bibliography of the source material, at our website, lorepodcast.com. If you enjoy scary stories, I happen to write them. You can find a full list of my supernatural thrillers, available in both paperback and ebook formats, at aaronmahnke.com/novels. Thanks for listening.

Transcriber’s Notes:

(These notes a purely from me, the transcriber, and have nothing to do with the official podcast or Aaron Mahnke).

1)     The word draugr does not in fact mean “after-walker” as the podcast seems to state, and actually derives from a Proto-Indo European word meaning “deceive”. There is, however, a related term aptrgangr, which does mean “again-walker”, and is thought to be pretty much synonymous with draugr.

[skyplayer37]

Worm Liveblog: End.

   So thats how Worm ends.... where do I begin?

   I haven't done a serious liveblog for the second half because I just wanted to take it all in, but I guess I'm at the point now where the taking it in is over and I need to vomit out some words. The fact that I'm writing this one in a word processor instead of the Tumblr text editor means I'm already subconsciously knowing that this is going to be pretty long, so buckle up.

   In short? It was awesome. Everything in the story came together perfectly. At the beginning I just couldn't concieve an ending that would involve Cauldron, Scion, Endbringers, Passengers, and all the various capes in a way that was satisfying. But it was pulled off pretty damn well.

   Let's take a look at some of my predictions and use those as launch points for some discussion:

   - Arc 1: "Taylor remains adamant about being good even after enjoying the company of the villains. Her descent to evil will be a slow corruption, but the story will justify it by making the superheroes look bad."

   She did indeed descend into madness as Khepri, with a large focus on self-justification. Taylor always thinks she's doing the right thing, which is a staple of any good villain. Except she wasn't truly a villain and did save the day in the end. Except she accept her villainy and wanted to die in the end. Except the heroes decided to keep her alive. So the morals are all over the place. In the end, Taylor gets a happy ending. With  (kinda) both her parents, and a self that isn't defined by her powers.  Skitter and Weaver were personas shaped by her Passenger, and for all intents and purposes were actually killed in the end. But Taylor, the little girl from the beginning of the story, gets the happy ending.

   - Arc 3: "the Birdcage sounds like an interesting location. And no story ever says “No one has ever escaped that prison!” without the protag later escaping that prison (or the big bad to show how big and bad they are)."

   Nope. The  Birdcage was made rather pointless by Doormaker, despite the set-up that teleportation tricks wouldn't work. Even Kehpri, without much practice with Doorman's power, was able to break in and out easily. There wasn't the all out war in the Birdcage that I expected, but I expect a similar prison to be used in Ward, perhaps the same Birdcage but upgraded. At the very least it made Panacea much more tolerable and brought in Marquis, one of the coolest parahumans. But it also introduced Teacher, one of the more boring ones. Assuming Ward is a true direct sequel, I expect Teacher to go down in the first few arcs as the intro-villain before being surpassed by someone a thousand times more evil.

   - Arc 5: " It’s too obvious that Grue’s little sister will get powers".. " Regent’s gonna die real soon. He’s expendable."... "Taylor is going to get a good boost to her power soon"

   Correct on all accounts. Imp is one of the best characters left alive by the end. Regent had to go because Taylor just ends up with a better version of his power. It's left pretty vague when she had her second trigger event thought. I'd guess sometime during Leviathan? It was after that, when she took over her  territory, that her multi-tasking powers really ramped up.

- Arc 10: "Everything happening went right over my head until they arrived at the Wards after being “caught”, which is to say I didn’t realize we were being introduced to Regent’s actual power of body possession. A power eerily similar to what I guessed Taylor’s endgame powers would be, just a bit more limited and requiring conscious movement on Regent’s part for every motion and not how Taylor just taps into natural instincts."

   So let's talk about Khepri. Taylor finally thinks she has the power-limitation thing figured out, so she goes to Panacea who just... kinda gets it instantly? A bit odd that the ability for Taylor to go crazy like that was so easily reached and out of nowhere. But I guess Panacea had gotten to the point where she barely needed to second-guess messing with someone's head. So Taylor comes up with a crazy idea and 5 minutes later has powers worthy of instantly jumping to Class-S, taking control of every parahuman in existence with some quick synergy, combining Doormaker and his clairvoyent bf and ballooning in power like a good Binding of Isaac build. Thematically though, it works beautifully. She's become the Queen of her swarm, with all of humankind nothing but insects in comparison to a mighty godlike entity. Scion treated humans like we would ants, toying with them as one would burn ants with a magnifying glass. But as Taylor proved with her insects against humans, enough humans working together through a hivemind can overcome an entity thousands of times their scale. She killed the impenetrable Alexandria by commanding bugs, and now the immortal Scion by commanding humans. Wow you can really look back at the first few arcs where the teenage girl is learning about the heroes and say "yeah she fucking kills all of them eventually, weird huh?"

- Epilogue

   Where does the story go now? Assuming again, that Ward is a standard sequel. Which it heavily implied by Bitch's epilogue, with trigger events now going haywire without Scion and being a very cool way to get his POV on the last few moments of his life. Teacher is doing his thing but again, I assume that wouldn't last for long into a sequel besides getting a new hero protag set-up with someone easy to fight. Dragon and Defiant had a very touching epilogue, and I'm excited that at least they might be around for a whole other 2 million word story. Unsarcastically: these characters are good enough to warrant ~44 YA novels worth of story.  I'd hope that Taylor doesn't make much more than a cameo though, her story is over. But if this story grew to be so epic in scale, its hard to imagine a sequel that wouldn't involve Earth Aleph getting fucked up. Imp is set-up to get a pretty good protag role, I'd wager one of the Heartbreaker kids as the most likely to get the main POV. Someone with the birthright of a villain proving themselves to be a Hero, in contrast to Taylor being a hero trapped as a villain and succoming to the role. Although I've figured out myself that Dragon already fills the role as her foil, being coded and trapped into being a Hero against her will, with the pun of being a "Wyrm". Which might have made for a cool sequel name, albiet a very confusing one when talked about out-loud.

   Is a sequel to a nearly 2 million word story needed? I'd say.... yeah. There's still plenty left unanswered. The Endbringers for instance. It's implied that Eidolon made them, outside the knowledge of anyone else, but only really implied. They go silent after Scion goes down for some reason. How much did The Simurgh know of the future? She was responsible for setting up Panacea's stay in the Birdcage (fitting name here) and of the Yang-Ban Emperor being one that was critical for Taylor to have control over after Panacea fucked up her head. So did she know about Khepri? She was, after all, responsible for setting up Echidna, the only other Human-Turned-Endbringer. And what of Scion's partner? How did Cauldron kill something like that? Granted it was the more passive of the cherubic-twins. (Aranea's talk about Cherubs was before the Interlude about the Entity right? Let's check... Aranea's was in March 2013, 26.X Interlude was in August 2013.... pretty crazy to both have the idea of invincible serpents flying through the multiverse, reproducing by tearing their scales off, with one more aggressive and one more focused on passively studying humans, granted I’m taking some liberties but you get the idea) (Chuckles the Clown raised Scion calling it now).  But I guess the same odds as Vriska/Marceline being introduced the same summer with the defining traits of "grey skin, gay, and loves wearing red-colored boots".

   This would be the part where I talk about how emotionally wrecked I am from this journey being over. Of investing in these characters and seeing them grow up. From clueless children to powerful pseudo-gods with the power to kill unfathomable monstrosities. Of the good times and the bad, of the nostalgia of the simple bank heist scenes, of taking a moment to remember those that didn't make it. Regent, Emma, Clockblocker, Grue, Taylor's virginity. Damn, Clockblocker dieing actually hurt me the most. Maybe I should say a few words about how Worm has changed me as a person and become one of those major pillars supporting my future that I'll someday look back on with "that specifically effected the way I Create" as Homestuck once did.

   But no, I don't get to say that quite yet. Because even after 6 months. Of reading almost nightly since I started on the plane-ride home from spending a weekend across the country with my boyfriend, knowing it would be this long and still not see him again and deciding to start on this  journey to take my mind off being in such an emotional ride home. Thousand of feet in the air and reading about some girl trapped in a bathroom stall having juice poured on her head... Half a year dedicated to Worm, around 5 times longer than it took me to read Homestuck. Nearly 2 million words, an estimated 22 regular novels in length, longer than the entire Percy Jackson series I was obsessed with as a teenager (probably not anymore, theres way too many of those) and now, having read that much, what can I say now?

   There's still more I haven't read.

   Guess this liveblog is gonna keep going into Ward

[deepseawritings]

A Friendly Visit (part 1/2)

Author’s note: This is a sequel to The Long Road. It picks up shortly after where that one left.

The weather was always unpleasant in the Great Swamp. There was a permanent dampness in the air, and fog always covered patches of both land and water. Even when the sun shone the light appeared to be weak and lacklustre. None of this bothered Doc much, he was used to it. The only thing that irritated him were the mosquitoes, but thankfully those only appeared in summer. All things considered, living in the swamps was a pretty peaceful life.

However, there had been an unusual amount of activity around here lately. The bandits were on the move again and there had been several firefights that echoed along the marsh. Perhaps they were fighting among themselves again, it would not be the first time. Of course, none of them knew Doc also lived in the swamp, he preferred the peace anonymity granted. Only a few stalkers knew the exact place where he lived, and most of them were dead. Perhaps all of them had died by now, he wasn't sure. It was possible Strelok managed to survive, but Doc wouldn't get his hopes up, he knew it was a remote possibility.

"I guess it's just you and me now." Doc patted the head of his remaining friend. He always liked dogs, and while most people would not consider a pseudo-dog to be pet material, to Doc he would always be that little puppy he rescued from a bloodsucker.

A dark formation of clouds was gathering in the sky, but the day remained calm for now. Still, it would be better to turn around and head back home before the storm began. He hadn't found any wild fleshes or boars today, and while his stores of canned food would last for another month at least, fresh meat was always nice.

"Let's go back home, Druzhok." The pseudo-dog regarded him with its yellow eyes and barked happily. "Yes, I'll get you some dinner."

Following Druzhok was the quickest way to find the right path in the swamp. The pseudo-dog knew how to get back home and had a sixth sense that allowed him to avoid anomalies. It was always interesting to watch the mutant find new paths between the reeds.

Their current path led them close to the old village. Doc was careful to make as little noise as possible around the village ruins, since it was a base of bandits. Or were they renegades? It was difficult to tell the difference, as far as he knew they were the same. Such a nasty lot, all of them. And of course, his PDA had to start beeping like crazy just in that moment. Christ on a crutch, that electronic device had the worse timing!

Doc scurried away, hidden between the bushes and praying that nobody had heard the insistent beeping of his PDA. Thankfully, no one seemed to be following him. The blasted thing continued beeping all the time, it was certainly alarming. What could have happened that warranted such an amount of messages circulating around? The last time his device went crazy like this was after the Big Emission.

Once he was home, Doc took out the PDA from his pocket and went to check the messages with certain apprehension. He started reading them and stared at the screen incredulously. All this commotion for some gossip?! Unbelievable. Was it really that important that a loner and a merc had been making out? Stalkers these days, they had some strange idea of... Wait. The loner was Marked One? That was how Strelok was named during his time with amnesia. Strelok was alive! Doc smiled happily, that was wonderful news. And then he put all the pieces together. Wait a minute; Strelok had a fling with a mercenary? How in the world did that happen?

Last time he'd seen Strelok, he still called himself Marked One and was about to embark in a trip to Pripyat to find the truth behind the Wish Granter. When had he found time to... No, this made no sense. To make matters worse, the description of said mercenary was eerily reminiscent of that one merc who gave Strelok's group so many problems. It was not possible, right? It must be another person, or another mercenary.

With a sigh, Doc decided to not give further thought to this silly gossip. Pondering about the possibilities made his head hurt. Besides, he had urgent matters to attend, like feeding Druzhok. The pseudo-dog had been whining at his feet for quite some time now, demanding the food he had been promised.

#

"I don't understand why you want to go to Cordon," Strelok said exasperated.

"Because I don't think we have any other option." Scar's patience was starting to run thin, and it showed. "I would prefer to not die in a suicidal charge when there are other choices."

Alright, he got him there. Their current road was blocked. Worse, it was being patrolled by the military. Strelok had no idea when the military claimed such a strong position in Agroprom, but he didn't like it. He decimated their improvised base last time he visited, and now there were even more of them walking around. They even had a helicopter surveying the area!

Loathe as he was to admit it, the mercenary was right. In their current situation, it was much better to go to Cordon than try their luck against the military and their chopper. At least not without an RPG-7. Even if they were further away than this one, there were two well known entry points to the Great Swamp in Cordon.

"Fine, we'll do it your way." Strelok sighed, although he still thought that waiting until it was dark and sneaking past the patrol wasn't such a bad idea.

A detour through Cordon wouldn't delay them much. They would have to go across Garbage first, but it was a pretty straightforward route. Garbage was oddly populated for being a place well known for its bandit attacks. It was very common to find rookies and other stalkers scavenging the trash piles, or making camp for a few hours by the side of the road. It was also fairly easy to find bands of roving bandits, trying to impose a toll to cross into Garbage or simply robbing people in a more direct fashion. Their trek between scrap heaps was thankfully uneventful and soon they were out of there.

An empty army outpost marked the entry into Cordon. It felt weirdly nostalgic, almost like going to your old hometown. Or so he imagined. Strelok did not remember which city was his hometown. Not all his memories came back, he still had some blank spaces in his mind. Not many, but mostly concerning his life before the Zone. And the few things he remembered from then were not worth the effort to think about them.

Walking down this road was so familiar he could do it with his eyes closed. He wouldn't really do so, of course, you could fall right into an anomaly if you weren't careful. The day was nice and peaceful, so different from other areas, like Yantar or Red Forest. No wonder the rookie camp was here, this was indeed the nice and easy part of the Zone. And it could still be as deadly as any other place.

The peace was broken when the sky started to darken ominously and sirens started blaring in warning. Someone had set a really nice alarm system, potent enough to reach all corners of the Cordon. Strelok and Scar looked at each other and broke running towards the nearest building, which turned out to be the old farm. Luckily, it was a loner camp and not inhabited by bandits. That would have complicated things. A dozen of stalkers were huddled inside, listening as the psi energy built up outside.

"Fuck, these things didn't use to happen so often." Scar complained.

"You sound like a grumpy old man," Strelok told him. But Scar was right.

The Zone was indeed more unstable now than it was months before. If they were still around, would Clear Sky have blamed Strelok for this? He suspected the answer was yes. The worst part was it might actually be his fault, because... His train of thought was interrupted when he caught part of some whispered comments from the loners.

"Do you think it's them? They sort of fit the description."

"Probably. How many stalkers do you know that travel alone with a merc?"

Oh fuck, really? Strelok hoped something would happen soon, so people would stop talking about them. He would even settle for another bout of endless Duty vs. Freedom rhetoric, as tedious as it was. Scar didn't appear to have heard the gossiping rookies, or so he thought until the mercenary got closer and put his arm around Strelok's shoulders. The whispers spread like wildfire, and Strelok shoved him away.

Waiting for the emission to end was always a tense affair. It didn't matter if it was your first or you fiftieth. There was something deeply unsettling in seeing how the daylight quickly died out and then a flare of red light illuminated everything like an explosion. Hopefully, after this, there wouldn't be another blowout for a few days at the very least.

Once the emission ended Strelok and Scar continued on, followed out of the farm by the furious whispering of the rookies when the merc tried grabbing Strelok's hand. The key word was tried, of course. The asshole was just doing it to mess with the rookies' minds. Most probably.

They followed the train tracks up to a small path that disappeared between the thick bushes. This was it, one of the most well known paths to the marshes. Little by little the trees became sparser along the way as they got further into the road, the grass got taller and the fog made its appearance not long after that. A small smattering of decrepit buildings, cordoned by a pitiful wooden fence full of gaps, marked their arrival to the northern farm.

This place used to be a bandit camp, a nasty surprise for the unwary traveller who just arrived to the fog covered swamps. However, these bandits wouldn't bother anyone ever again. They were all dead, gruesomely so, a mess of congealed blood and deep gouges. Some of them barely looked like a human anymore. Fuck, that didn't bode well.

"Wild dogs or pseudo-dogs?" Strelok asked in a whisper to Scar, who was looking around like he feared something would come out of one of the houses at any moment.

"Or worse," Scar answered in an equally low voice.

Whatever had killed them couldn't be very far. And that was definitely not good. The mist was like a blurry veil over their surroundings, making it difficult to see far away. They both readied their weapons and listened intently, trying to pick up any suspicious noise. But the only thing that could be heard was the slightly distorted croaking of the swamp frogs. It was only logical to think the mutant that killed those bandits had either gone away, or was indeed hidden in one of the houses.

This place was not safe. It could even be a bloodsucker nest. Fuck this. The sensible thing was to discreetly go away before they attracted the wrath of whatever mutant was around. So they hastily left the ruins behind, making sure nothing was following them. The muddy paths along the Great Swamp were difficult to notice sometimes, and it was easy to get lost when the fog got thick. So they chose the clearest path possible and hoped for the best.

Eventually they found another abandoned building. The place was empty, except for the rusted vehicles lined up on the car park. There was a blackened circle full of ashes in one of the buildings, but it was impossible to tell how recent the campfire was. Everything was damp because of the ever present sticky fog, it filtered even inside the building. Although that was kind of expected when there were great chunks of roof missing, or when you could get inside the building through a man-sized hole in the wall instead of using the entrance door.

This barn, or whatever it was, had clearly seen better days, but there were signs that it had been occupied until not so long ago. Apart from the campfire, there were a handful of thin mattresses scattered around. Not to mention the walkway made of wooden planks that went all the way across the room, a clear effort to keep things out of the mud in the ground. They sat on some big crates piled up in a corner, which groaned alarmingly under their weight but ultimately resisted without collapsing.

"Catch," Scar tossed him a can of tourist's delight and Strelok caught it before it hit him in the head.

"I can feed myself, you know." He commented as he opened the can of food.

"Yeah, but you always pick bread." Strelok had been rummaging in his backpack for bread, indeed. He tore the loaf in two and threw half of it to Scar in mock irritation. The mercenary grabbed it mid air.

"So where are you actually going? The swamp is pretty big..." Scar wasn't very subtle in his attempt to fish for information. That was alright, he kinda liked his total failure at subtetly.

"It's complicated," Strelok sighed, evading the question. Scar's non-committal grunt told him the mercenary was disappointed by that answer. Damn, that shouldn't make him feel bad.

"I'm visiting someone who values his privacy, so I can't really tell you." Strelok explained between mouthfuls of bread and canned meat. Scar nodded, and that tiny gesture of understanding made Strelok feel slightly better. "Where are you going?"

"I don't exactly know," Scar confessed, "but I have an approximated idea."

"You don't know?" Strelok found that hard to believe. How could he not know the location of a base where he'd been before?

"Look, Clear Sky was very secretive about their base, the blindfolding people kind of secretive," Scar sounded irritated by that. Strelok found the whole situation amusing. "I just know it's somewhere on the southern fringes of the swamp."

"You could have tracked someone's PDA signal and then you would know where the base was." It was a very basic trick, even rookies knew that one.

Scar said something about not knowing how to do it as he dug into his can of food. Strelok snorted because, really, he was so easily surpassed by technology, just like an old man. Although Scar wasn't that old, was he? It was difficult for Strelok to guess his age. He supposed the mercenary was, at top, about ten years older than him.

The sunlight died out quickly, smothered by the fog and the late hour, and by the time they finished eating it was nearly impossible to see anything without turning on the flashlights. They debated about lighting a fire or not, and in the end decided to not. The firelight could give away their position easily. So to keep the chill at bay they wrapped themselves in their sleeping bags and set to sleep. It wasn't necessary to keep watch, years of living in the Zone made Strelok a very light sleeper. If anyone, human or mutant, tried to get in the building, he would hear it long before it was inside.

#

The Great Swamp had nothing great about it. Scar detested its heavy smell, the perpetual mist and the tall reeds and grass covering everything. To make things worse, it had been raining since they woke up at dawn. It was just a light drizzle, but after a while it got you as drenched as any other kind of rain.

Truly, the highlight of the day had already happened, when upon waking up he noticed Strelok had rolled closer to him during the night, and the stalker was now pressed against him. It felt nice, even through the layers of the sleeping bags. It would be great to forget about the dreadful swamp out there and stay like this all morning. But alas, it wasn't meant to happen. After waking up, and expertly ignoring the fact he'd been cuddled up to him, Strelok wanted to get going. Swallowing his disappointment, Scar agreed with him.

Surprisingly, the main road was inaccessible. The bridge was barred by an overturned truck and a couple of abandoned jeeps, so they had to search for another path. And soon Scar rediscovered the nightmare it was to navigate the small paths criss-crossing the Swamp.

The water in the Great Swamp was a murky, irradiated soup with pieces of debris sticking out, and the bones of mutants and careless stalkers resting below the surface. Getting into it was a terrible idea, and that without counting the possibility of getting sucked into an anomaly. Because yes, anomalies did appear underwater too. There were a handful of wooden bridges interconnecting different areas of the swamp, and a lot of shabby walkways hastily put together by stalkers who wanted more crossing points. Finding them was easy; navigating the maze of walkways and dirt paths hidden between the tall reeds was harder. It was a common occurrence to go in circles for a while until you noticed your mistake. And that was exactly what happened to them. It didn't help that the fog never truly went away, it was still there, dulling their surroundings. Some trees' silhouette were visible in the distance, but no matter in what direction they went, everything always seemed to be in the same place.

"Are you sure we're going in the right direction?" He asked to the stalker. Scar was sure he'd seen this same piece of rubble sticking out of the water several times before.

"I'd say yes, but so we thought the last time." Strelok sighed in defeat. He pointed at a certain walkway to their left. "The only way we haven't tried yet is that one, and well..."

"Yeah, I get it." As if the faint distortion in the air wasn't proof enough of an anomaly's presence, the water around the walkway formed a curiously rounded hill, the planks also bent over the mound of water.

"Do you think –" Strelok abruptly stopped talking. Scar had heard something too.

A horrifying humanoid creature appeared out of thin air, running in front of them, and then disappeared again. It had an unhealthy greenish colour and was covered with patches of moss. With its unhealthy colouring and mottled skin, it looked like a corpse that had been rotting on the irradiated waters. That illusion of being weirdly human was completely broken by its lambent eyes and the tentacles around its horrifying mouth. It looked different than any other bloodsucker he'd seen, but that was definitely some kind of bloodsucker.

Shit, if there was something capable of making any situation a thousand times worse, it was this. It was nearly impossible to shoot something that you could not see and moved unnaturally fast. Strelok started running in the opposite direction and Scar followed suit. Behind them, the reeds parted to let something invisible pass through, something that was chasing them.

The otherwise undetectable creature became visible again and jumped at Scar, its claws reaching for him. He evaded the mutant's attack, but he stumbled and fell to the ground. The mutant towered over him and opened its mouth tentacles, revealing uneven rows of pointed teeth. Strelok whirled around and shot at the mossy creature with his shotgun, but the mutant shrugged it off and became invisible before stalking away.

"Thanks," Scar was very appreciative of Strelok's fast reflexes, he didn't fancy being a bloodsucker's snack.

It would be very naive to think the creature had really gone away. No, it would be lurking nearby, ready to jump at them when they least expected it. They marched on, hyper-vigilant and startled by any sound. Something jumped in the water and they both swivelled towards the sound, weapons in hand. It was a bloated, white thing; probably a frog, or some kind of mutated fish, who knows. The reeds on their left swayed ominously, despite the lack of wind. Scar fired in that direction, but nothing happened. The sensation of being spied never went away.

Be it by dumb luck or divine providence, they eventually arrived to a clearing, with charred remnants of houses in the middle of it. That meant they finally stopped walking in circles across the walkways. And still not another sighting of the ugly son of a bitch, despite the constant feeling of being observed. Distracted as they were, neither of them though about throwing some bolts to check the suspiciously blackened terrain around the houses.

Strelok was the first to step where he shouldn't, and a column of fire rose right before him. He jumped back, smashing himself against Scar's chest, and luckily got away with just a singed boot and a minor burn on the sleeve of his suit. The bloodsucker growled in pain when it stepped on another burner, and then went away. It was strange to see the flames lick up something invisible, it was like the flames were suspended mid air.

The burners certainly acted like a barrier between the mutant and them. The mossy son of a bitch seemed to have banished after nearly getting roasted. Now they could breathe easier. Or so they thought. After leaving the charred clearing and crossing another walkway, they suddenly found themselves face to face with a group of well armed people. All the newcomers wore their hoods up and covered their faces with balaclavas or scarves. They looked like a ragtag bunch of bandits, or worse, renegades. And it was pretty damn impossible to do anything when you had at least half a dozen weapons aimed at you.

"Drop all your weapons and kick them forward." One of the guys ordered them. He was almost identical to any of the other bastards around them, down to the ever present balaclava, which only served to emphasize his bulging, frog like eyes.

With the utmost care, Scar left his Vintar in the muddy ground and threw the Martha as well. By the corner of the eye, he saw Strelok doing the same with his shotgun and the SIG. They didn't ask for any other weapon, so neither Scar nor Strelok volunteered their knives. Even if they would be useless in a gunfight, it was better than nothing.

"Good. Now we're going to take a walk, Butcher will want to ask you some questions."

Two other guys stepped forward and poked at them with their respective rifles to make them follow the frog eyed guy. What choice did they have but to obediently follow? Nevertheless, this did not bode well. Butcher must be these scumbags' boss, and with such a call sign Scar imagined having a chat with him would not be a pleasant experience.

#

As Strelok soon discovered, this was way worse than when Scar tied him back in Limansk. At least Scar never pressed his weapon's muzzle between his shoulder blades every two seconds. Now he felt like he was being guided and prodded like cattle, completely at the mercy of their captors. They looked like bandits or renegades, and for them asking some questions meant beating the shit out of you while they asked the same two questions all the time.

A faint buzz of machinery could be heard in the distance, growing stronger the more they walked. However, they never arrived to the intended destination. An invisible entity leapt out of the reeds around them, pinned one of the renegades to the ground and jumped away with the screaming man. The screaming stopped abruptly soon after that. Of course, this left everyone nervous and screaming at each other, but no one really wanted to go searching for the guy that disappeared. While the renegades argued, the creature leapt back again, pinning another guy to the ground. The fucking moss covered bloodsucker had followed them, but at least now it was attacking their captors. All hell broke loose. The renegades started shooting at the thing, but the guy on the ground was as good as dead. The creature went away with its victim, presumably to feast on the unlucky guy.

But getting rid of the creature was not that easy, as Scar and Strelok already knew. It came back again. And this time it was intent on killing anyone in front of it, probably angry they were shooting at it. Strelok dodged out of the way just in time to avoid being mauled by the creature, instead leaving the path clear for a renegade to get its throat bitten off by the mutant. In the reigning chaos, no one was actually keeping an eye on them. He looked at Scar and the mercenary understood his wordless message, for he nodded once before he started running. They disappeared between the reeds, leaving behind the renegades and the strange bloodsucker. Strelok prayed they wouldn't find another one of these creatures, fighting it armed only with a knife would suck majorly. Actually, encountering any mutant would suck majorly, he didn't want to try his luck against a boar either.

The screams from the renegades and the echo of gunshots followed them. Perhaps it was only the sounds of their fight with the creature, or perhaps they had noticed Scar and Strelok's escape and were following them. He wasn't going to wait and see if they were indeed being chased, so Strelok ran after Scar as best as he could.

However, it was not easy to run when the mud seemed to suck his boots in, trying to trap him. And the vegetation slapped him on the face as it whipped back and forth as they ran. Although going through the shallow pools of water in their way was the worst. He stumbled with a rotten tree branch and fell face first into the water. Ugh, he was so going to need at least a half a bottle of vodka to get rid of all the radiation. After he got up again he continued running for a while, and then he noticed he had no idea where Scar was. To be fair, the tall reeds usually blocked his field of vision completely, but Scar was usually easy enough to notice. And he was nowhere to be seen.

Damn, he'd been right in front of Strelok just before he got his foot stuck in that tree branch! Strelok continued walking forward, hoping he would eventually catch up with Scar. But he saw no one; not Scar, neither the renegades nor another mutant. Eventually, he arrived back to the burnt clearing where they had been captured.

A rustle in the nearby bushes got his attention, and Strelok watched with a sinking feeling in his stomach as the vegetation parted and a pseudo-dog came out. Just great, his luck never ceased to amaze him. The pseudo-dog regarded him with its yellow eyes and then ran towards him, barking like crazy. Before he had time to react, the dog jumped at him and sent him toppling to the ground. However, instead of the expected bite, he felt the dog's tongue happily slobbering over his face.

#

Doc had been enjoying his daily walk when Druzhok suddenly ran away. Surely it would be a flesh, or a boar, nothing to worry about. The pseudo-dog liked to hunt his own food whenever it was possible. Nonetheless, he chased after him.

When he emerged from the reeds into a clearing, the sight that greeted him was unexpected. Druzhok had pushed someone to the ground and now was sitting by the man's side, looking incredibly satisfied with himself. However, it was the stalker that caught Doc's attention

"Strelok? Is that really you?" Doc was could scarcely believe his eyes.

"Doc," Strelok panted as he got up. "I always told you that dog of yours was a menace."

Doc chuckled at that, flooded by memories of all the other times he heard that. It was a nice moment, only slightly tarnished by the ghosts of their missing friends. They should have been here as well, Ghost complaining about how Druzhok always tried to bite his ankles, and Fang bribing the dog with diet sausages. But now wasn't the time for melancholy. He should focus on the important part: against all odds, Strelok wasn't lost to the Wish Granter.

Doc helped him get up. "What are you doing here?"

"I told you I would come to visit if I survived, right?" Strelok cleaned his face with the sleeve of his suit, smudging mud over his cheek. "I always try to keep my promises. But then the renegades ambushed us and took all our stuff."

"Yes, they're like a plague. I think they are at war with someone, fighting over the control of the Swamp." Doc explained, and then he registered what Strelok said. "Our stuff?"

"I was travelling with someone," he replied, looking vaguely uncomfortable. "But it appears I lost him."

Oh. That was new. Doc remembered the gossip floating around, but he put it out of his mind. He should know better than to put much stock in some ridiculous hearsay.

"Let's go back, I'll prepare some tea and you can tell me about your last trip to the centre of the Zone."

They walked together, following Druzhok through the winding paths of the swamp. The pseudo-dog was always some steps ahead, looking back every now and then to make sure they followed him. Doc's home was hidden somewhere in the middle of the swamp. The moss and lichens growing on the roof helped make it go unnoticed among the surrounding vegetation. Up close, however, it was impossible not to notice how well tended the house was. At least in comparison to the rest of the ruins littering the Great Swamp. And thanks to his dedication, the inside could almost be called cozy.

Strelok plopped down on the worn couch, while he put a pot of water on the fire and grabbed two cups and a package of dried leaves. It was a mix of five different tea packages he'd accumulated over time, and it honestly had a peculiar taste. Nevertheless, stalkers were not overly picky about what they ate or drank, and if the taste was truly horrible, well, you could always add some vodka to improve it.

"You said you were travelling with someone?" Doc asked while they waited for the water to boil, or at least to be hot enough.

"Scar, a merc. We met in Limansk" Strelok said.

Doc wasn't sure what he found more unbelievable, the fact Strelok teamed up with a mercenary, or the fact they had been in Limansk. The old secret city was supposedly inaccessible.

"Sounds like quite the tale." He sat on the other end of the couch and poured a handful of dried leaves in the cups. Druzhok settled at his feet, as he always did, crushing Doc's achy bones with his considerable weight.

Then Strelok launched into a retelling of his travels since the last time they met in Strelok's old hideout, on the Agroprom Underground. He didn't stop talking, not even when Doc retrieved the pot of boiling water and filled their cups. When he finished speaking, Strelok finally took a gulp from his now cold tea and grimaced. Doc didn't want to break the contemplative silence, but he had the distinct impression Strelok had omitted certain details from his otherwise long tale. That was fine, really. It was just that Doc was now almost sure this mercenary was indeed the same one who caused Strelok's group so much grief. And there was no nice way to broach the issue.

"Strelok, do you think this new friend of yours could, perhaps, be the same merc who–"

"Yes, he is." Wasn't this the same man who caused Fang's death? Doc had a million question in his mind, yet most of them could be boiled down to "What the actual fuck, Strelok."

"You need to find better friends, son." Doc sighed. The stubborn set of Strelok's mouth told him he would not appreciate further commentary into this issue.

"Anyway, those renegade have our weapons and backpacks, and I want my stuff back." Strelok swiftly changed the direction of the conversation. "Doc, do you still have the old AKM I left you?"

"Yes, as well as an old P99 and some ammo." Judging by Strelok's fierce grin, Doc's answer was exactly what he wanted to hear.

#

He lost Strelok. Fuck, he could have sworn the stalker was right behind him not that long ago. But no matter where he looked, there was no one around. Maybe... maybe a stray bullet hit Strelok in the back, and now he was lying in a pool of his own blood. The idea hit him like a punch to the gut. No, he refused to entertain this idea. Scar decided to track Strelok's PDA, if he could remember how to do it, and find him. But then he discovered the pocket where he always put his own PDA was empty. Shit. It could be literally anywhere.

Combing down the area, searching for his PDA and Strelok –mostly looking for Strelok, if he was being honest– took a lot of time. And no luck so far. But that was good news, right? It meant the stalker was still alive somewhere on this damp hell. And finding his PDA among the mud and the thick vegetation was impossible, so in the end he gave up.

A tall, rusted tower could be seen in the distance, despite the milky haze of the fog. It was a landmark as good as any. He walked down a narrow track between the reeds, created by the passing of mutants and the occasional stalker. When he arrived closer to the tower, he glimpsed a smattering of dilapidated roofs further away. That would be the old fishing hamlet, most probably. There would be a better view of the whole area from the top of the tower.

It wasn't until he emerged out of the narrow trail, and went into the clearing around the tower, that he noticed the group of three stalkers going down the tower's stairs. They all wore the same white and blue camo suit, and seemed as surprised to see him as Scar was to find them. Wasn't the faction supposedly dissolved?

"Are you lost?" One of the stalkers asked him, keeping his weapon in a loose hold. Then recognition slowly dawned on his eyes. "Fuck, not you again merc!"

"Trodnik?" It was impossible to not remember the guide Lebedev assigned to take him in and out of the base. He'd always been kind of a sour asshole.

"You survived, like a cockroach," the stalker spat out. "While good men like Lebedev, Suslov and the rest never came back from that crazy chase of yours."

"It was not my crazy chase. For me it was just another job." If Trodnik had been simmering with anger, Scar was like a cold wall of indifference. The other two stalkers, who Scar didn't recognize, stared at them, unsure of what was going on.

"The boss will decide what to do with you." Trodnik eventually declared. His eyes said he would have preferred to kick him in the head. "Follow me."

The angry stalker led the way, followed by Scar, and the rest of the squad behind them. There were no threats and no weapons drawn, but it was clear they were keeping an eye on his every movement. Trodnik led them along a path that went into the edge of the swamp territory, until they arrived to a fence guarded by a lone stalker. The guide greeted him with a nod and the guard opened the gate. Stepping into the base was like stepping into the past. Except in the past, this place was bustling with activity, and now he only saw a pitifully small group of stalkers. The faction may have not dissolved, but it certainly was nearly extinct.

"Hurry up, I don't have all day."

The two new faces accompanying them went towards a shed in the far end of the camp, while Trodnik led him to Lebedev's old office. The room was illuminated by a lone light bulb that flickered irregularly, just as he remembered. Some things never changed, it seemed. There was a man sitting behind the desk, looking at some documents and muttering to himself. When he lifted his head up, Scar was met with yet another familiar face. Cold was the new leader? They surely were short staffed, the man used to be the bartender. A decent guy, but not exactly who he imagined being the boss. The grumpy guide was dismissed with a gesture from Cold, so he went to guard the entrance. What a mistrustful bastard.

"Never thought I'd see you again merc." Cold appeared amused, not angry. A much welcomed change.

"I never thought I'd see you out of your bar." Scar sat on the wobbly chair in front of the desk.

"Didn't leave my old post voluntarily. But believe it or not, now I'm the most veteran Clear Sky member." Cold laughed, but it rang hollow, and his expression was worried. The ex-bartender then reclined on his own chair and adopted the same expression he wore in the past when he haggled with people over the loot they tried to sell him. "I remember you were quite proficient at killing renegades, merc. Would you be up for it once more?"

"Usually I'm paid for my work." Scar reminded him.

"I cannot pay you for your old mission." He said nothing. If Cold believed he was seeking payment for the CNPP fiasco, he wouldn't disabuse him of that notion.

Scar's continued silence was starting to unnerve Cold, who fidgeted in his chair. "Look, I cannot pay you for a mission that wiped out most of our ranks, even if you kept your end of the bargain. But I could pay you for helping us out in cleaning a renegade base."

"I don't think you can afford it." The Clear Sky leader let out a deflated sigh.

Things were not going well for them, anyone with half a brain could tell. Besides, Scar had already been promised a juicy payment, and all he had to do was retrieve some information.

"How about an exchange?" Scar offered him.

"What kind of exchange?" Cold put his elbows on the table and leant forward.

"You see, I was robbed by the renegades, so vengeance sounds really good to me. I just need a weapon with enough ammo." Cold was nodding along, it was a sensible request. Time to go for the kill. "And as compensation for my services I only ask for a copy of all your scientific data."

The stunned silence that followed his proposal stretched way too long. Eventually, Cold regained his bearings.

"Why would a merc want scientific data about the Zone?" One needn't be very observant to notice how wary the man was.

"Professor Sakharov thought it lost and wanted to save the data from oblivion if possible." Yes, that did the trick of appeasing Cold. Studying and understanding the Zone, as well as collaborating with the scientists, were the original goals of Clear Sky. And Professor's Sakharov good reputation was legendary.

"As long as you remember to mention to him how Clear Sky is always willing to cooperate with the ecologists, then I agree." Smart of him. And most important, Scar would get his payment and the opportunity to kill the bastard that took his Vintar.

Everyone was happy with the outcome, except Trodnik, who let out a huff of displeasure from his spot on the door, but Scar didn't give a damn about his opinion. It was decided then, Scar would help a couple of Clear Sky stalkers clear out the renegade base at the Pumping Station. They gave him a Kora-919, which was honestly in a better condition than he had expected. And even better, Trodnik would not be in the group accompanying him. Cold detected their mutual dislike and wisely decided to keep them as far away from each other as possible.

The guys that were to accompany him were new recruits, an enthusiastic rookie called Senya Spaghetti, and a veteran ex-loner by the name of Moss. Moss claimed to know the swamps like the back of his hand, which was good, because without his PDA map Scar had no idea of where to go. Well, it was time to go renegade hunting. Just like in the old days. Moss lived up to his promise and led them straight to the Pumping Station, the familiar rumble of old machinery getting louder and louder the closer they got. The problems began when they bumped into a pair of boars. The mutants were angry at their presence, and they only got angrier when the rookie shot at them with his sawn-off shotgun. The boar charged against the rookie and threw him flat on his back. Killing the mutants was a waste of bullets, so Scar was more than happy to let the rookie and Moss deal with the issue. After all, he was hired to kill renegades, not mutants.

Unfortunately, the sound of their shots was loud enough to give away their position. Another two shots were heard, coming from their left, and then Moss stumbled back before falling to the ground. The man was bleeding like a stuck pig and had a sizeable hole on his stomach.

A renegade came out of the reeds, still reloading his hunting rifle. The rookie was closest to the renegade and fired his own shotgun. Those were good reflexes, maybe he could become a half decent stalker if he survived. Scar finished off the screaming renegade while the terrified rookie reloaded his weapon. The man fell to the mud, half of his face blown off by the shot.

Meanwhile, Moss had stopped convulsing and moving, although he was still alive, barely so. Judging by the way he kept bleeding, he wouldn't last much. Senya was freaking out, trying to apply pressure to the massive wound and achieving nothing. The merciful thing would be to put Moss out of his misery. Scar pointed at him with his gun, but then Moss stopped breathing. There was literally nothing they could do for him now.

The Pumping Station was so close Scar could hear the renegades shouting at each other from here, despite the buzz of the machinery. They had undoubtedly heard the shots and were getting ready for an offensive. Staying here like sitting ducks was the worst possible idea, better to attack while they still weren't completely ready. Besides, a moving target was more difficult to hit.

"Alright, we're going in now. Keep after me until we arrive to the Pumping Station and you might have a chance to stay alive." He said to the remaining stalker.

Without giving him time to answer, Scar got going. He didn't bother to check if the rookie was following him or not. It wouldn't be the first time he wiped out a camp by himself, and being honest, he wasn't counting on anyone's help.

The renegades were expecting them. In fact, there was one patrolling one the closest access walkway. Even at this distance, Scar saw him perfectly well. Missing his Vintar more than ever, he risked shooting at the unsuspecting bastard. A couple of shots, just to be sure. The bullets hit him, one on the thigh and the other on the stomach, and now the man was bleeding and screeching like a banshee. Another bullet, this time on the chest, silenced him permanently.

Scar ran to the dead guy. He'd been carrying an AK, and Scar wanted it. Having more than one weapon was always a good idea, especially during an assault. But he was careless and didn't check if there was anyone else coming. Another renegade came to investigate the death of his comrade and caught Scar out of cover, running across the wooden plank. Fuck.

Scar knew he wouldn't be fast enough to dive out of the way before he was shot. A loud shot rang out, and the renegade fell down like a ragdoll. He was dead before he touched the ground. Scar wasn't going to question his luck, really, but he didn't understand what just happened. Or at least he didn't get it until he saw him, wielding a Dragunov almost as tall as him, looking like the angel of death. Maybe he hadn't been counting on anyone's help, but Strelok's presence was reassuring.

The second part is coming soon. I hope :)

EDIT: The second part is here.

[emeraldembers]

Rogue One spoilery thoughts

And I’m going to try and keep my excited rambling organised this time, for once!

ETA: Failed to keep excited rambling organised, but An Attempt Was Made.

I could honestly talk about this movie for hours, because it just means so much to me on so many levels. I haven’t felt this loved by media for being a fan of it since I played Soul Reaver 2 in... *checks imdb* 2001, that came out. Good lord, I’m getting on.

Anyhow! I’m going to try and split this up into things about the movie in general followed by things about the characters, just to try and be a bit tidy about my thoughts, despite the fact that what I really want to do most is to grab someone and happy-cry all over them.

Also, please note that I have only ever watched the movies, so if you’re an extended universe fan or a book reader, I apologise in advance ;).

The Force finally felt like the Force of my childhood again. It felt like something real and alive and present, it felt like something that could exist in my world again. No pseudo-science, no wincing at how much of a deus ex machina it could be, it finally, finally felt like... it felt like something to believe in. I was raised Catholic, and have always been fascinated by other religions, and while I am not always certain of there being a God, or indeed any gods, I have always felt there is something more to this universe and this existence, and it’s just... the Force always felt tangible to me as a child, in concept, and this movie let me feel like that once more.

SO MANY WOMEN VISIBLY AND VOCALLY INVOLVED IN THE END SPACE BATTLE. SO. MANY. I felt like the team involved were taking me by the hands and personally apologising for what was cut from the original trilogy.

The way the film managed to go "People working for good causes sometimes do bad things. People working for bad causes sometimes do good things. This does not make the good causes bad, or the bad causes good”. After the mess of 2016 thanks in part to media trying to offer a ‘balanced view’ of things that cannot be balanced, and after hearing that the movie had morally grey characters and being braced for the worst as a result, this was a breath of fresh air.

Almost every single villain was a white man with a British or American accent. Of our heroes, it’s a genuine struggle to remember a single white man. In fact, after racking my brains a bit, the only ones that come to mind are Galen Erso (who retains Mads Mikkelsen’s lovely Danish accent and gets fridged to further Jyn Erso’s woman-pain) and a side character with rather magnificent ginger facial hair. In particular, I’d also like to thank the film for expanding on the good work of The Force Awakens by adding east Asian heroes into the Star Wars movieverse (and a Mexican actor doesn’t hurt either, especially after the mess of a year that was 2016).

The Death Star is terrifying. Seeing it blow up a planet from a distance in the original trilogy? That makes it a clearly Bad Thing but it doesn’t give proper context because it’s almost impossible to imagine that kind of power. Seeing it performing a ‘small test’ from the perspective of people on an affected planet, watching the land come up and just - “There’s a problem on the horizon. There is no horizon.” - it’s real. It suddenly feels real and possible and it’s a threat that matters and god, almighty, I can’t get over it. That plus the justification for it - I can’t remember the lines for this one properly but it went roughly, “This will bring peace to the galaxy.” “You mean terror.” “We have to start somewhere.” - shivers. Just. Shivers.

Also I only very vaguely knew of Kyber Crystals before, in that my brother is more into Star Wars videogames than I am and as such I’ve learned that they’re part of the lightsaber creation process, but Kyber finally means something to me now, so that’s a neat little touch.

The action scenes felt new and exciting again! I do love a lightsaber battle or two, but it was so good to see blasters and martial arts and space battles used in ways that didn’t feel overwrought or over-choreographed, they were fun and fresh to watch and everything was just so interesting, and you felt like the fights mattered, you felt how outnumbered the rebels were, how much power the empire held in comparison.

The script deserves credit as well for the fact it was so dang quotable. The simple and solid “Rebellions are built on hope”, the hilarious in context “Are you kidding me? I’m blind!”, the badass “Be careful not to choke on your aspirations”, the epic “The Force is with me, and I am one with the Force”. It’s a delight to run through the film in my head and realise just how much of it I can recall despite having an appalling visual memory, thanks largely to the strength of the characters and the script.

It made the original trilogy better. I’m not kidding. Prequels and sequels to movies so often have the effect of taking away the magic of the original one by making enemies less of a threat, explaining things that were better off without an explanation, making heroes Grim And Dark, introducing plot holes... so on and so forth. This movie made the universe of the originals make more sense. Grand Moff Tarkin was established as a credible threat. The reason anyone would board Princess Leia’s ship and risk angering the Senate was made clear. The Death Star’s weakness was explained on SO MANY LEVELS. Why was it built with a weakness? Explained. Why no engineers noticed that weakness? Explained. Why no one went over the plans for it and discovered the weakness? Explained.

I cannot emphasise enough that Rogue One genuinely makes A New Hope an even better movie.

Moving onto the characters:

A brief summary regarding characters from the original trilogy: Princess Leia (and Bail Organa, who gets a shout-out despite us only really meeting him in the prequels)? Already awesome, even awesomer now. Mon Mothma? Gorgeous and glorious and pretty much the Galadriel of the Rebel Alliance. Grand Moff Tarkin? Deliciously evil (and not as distracting as I thought he would be based on some reviews - the voice is perfect, and the CGI is more... acceptably not quite right like Gollum, than Uncanny Valley). Darth Vader? FINALLY SCARY AGAIN.

Jyn Erso is the lone wolf woman-pain character we deserve after enduring so many of the lone wolf man-pain leads Hollywood foists upon us year after year. She has a mean streak and an attitude and I love her. I love that she’s angry and she’s vicious, and I love that her character arc doesn’t demand she become a soft and sweet thing, her character arc is about her putting her anger to use, putting it into the fight for hope. She’s wonderful.

Cassian is also wonderful. He’s this gorgeous mixture of hero and anti-hero; we know he’s done bad things for his cause, we see him do them on screen, but he is the character who has done these things for the right reasons and you believe he wishes he hadn’t had to do them. You know he carries the pain of what he’s done with him, and you cannot go through the movie without realising that regardless of what he has done, his is the heart of a good man.

K-2SO is hilarious and a welcome addition to the herd of Good Star Wars Robots.

Bodhi Rook is the epitome of Beautiful Cinnamon Roll Too Good For This World, Too Pure. I loved all of the heroes, every last one of them, but if I had to choose one I would fight to protect, it’s Bodhi. He is so sweet and nervous and gentle and I just want to scoop him up and make everything bad go away, especially the hentai monsters (because I know Star Wars has had tentacles before, but the monster they sicced on him in this? That was. Certainly something).

And lastly, because if I want to wrap this up with anything, it’s these two - and yes, they’re coming as a pair in this, because how could I separate them even into paragraphs?

Chirrut Îmwe and Baze Malbus are perfect. I could leave it at that, but I don’t want to. From the second they show up to the last seconds they spend on screen, they are perfect. The majority of the lines I remember from the movie come from their exchanges, on account of them being hilarious, badass, or touching. The way their fighting styles contrast and compliment each other’s, the way their personalities do the same - the way faith is something they argue over and are held together by - I just fell completely in love with them. And I fell in love with their love, too - because you cannot tell me they weren’t. You can’t. Not when they bicker like an old married couple. Not when Chirrut reaches for Baze’s face, and Baze takes his hand, and Chirrut says “You will always find me in the Force”. Not when Baze’s last living action is to look back at Chirrut.

Not when their theme song, the Guardians of the Whills Suite, takes SO MUCH INSPIRATION FROM THE DAMNED LOVE THEME FOR PADME AND ANAKIN, ACROSS THE STARS.

I am in love with this movie.

I am absolutely, head over heels in love with this movie.

And I cannot thank it enough for being brave enough to do something different with the Star Wars movieverse, and in doing so, make it feel so new and so vibrant and so alive, I feel like a seven year old watching the original trilogy on VHS for the first time.