#this is where i get REALLY wordy guys

[codacheetah]

AGREE WITH YOUR PREVIOUS POST. I like mean Loop as a facade only, but we know they still care and love...

Now I have a question, what's your favorite Loop takes/headcanon

Oh my god I'm so sorry I took like two weeks to answer this one I prommy it's not bc I'm exclusively a hater or whatever. I just straight up forgot to answer Oopsie. I'm putting this under cut bc it got long enough that you all would shoot arrows at me for putting it on your dash

Anyways there's a lot of Loop Thangs I like frankly. A big one that I enjoy is when fic authors in postcanon make the transition of Loop into the party structure kind of rocky. Usually bc Loop's neuroses creating a level 12 psychic barrier between them and the party + the inherent awkwardness of meeting somebody who's apparently super close in a way (that you'll never fully understand) to one of your friends. Who let's be real I feel like half the party (coughIsabeauandMirabelle) would catch the aura of "oh they do not like us at all" from Loop. I want Loop to be happy and with their family but you just know this bitch is going to make it as difficult for themself on purpose. The Siffrin Special.

I also just generally like when they keep Loop as a star postcanon. I'm not at all a hater towards Human Loop (in fact I think it can be itself an interesting setup for a Loop fic) but I do like Loop as a star more thematically. Something about having to accept that things have changed and moving on from it regardless. Also bc Loop being dysphoric about their body scratches a very transgender projection itch in my brain Yessss little star you're stuck in a body that draws unwanted attention and which you have no control over how it looks and functions in a way that feels fundamentally wrong to you. (Pointing at canonically transgender character) Yooooo this guy is such a cool trans allegory omg

Hmm what else. This is more of a sloops thing but I always enjoy in fics when they lean into the fact it's selfcest frankly. I've become a selfcest enjoyer bc of this ship I'll never get over that act 5 dialogue abt the cautionary tale where Siffrin says he never understood the moral of the story bc the idea of having somebody just like him who understands him. Oh my gyoooooooooooooooood. I want them to melt into sludge I'm always thinking of that analogy from superflyghtheart on discord comparing Loop and Siffrin to endlings of an endangered species. 💥💥💥It's like. This is less sloopy now but I'm caught between the intersection in my head of "Loop would probably benefit from developing their own identity as a person separate from Siffrin bc they need Something they have control over" and "Loop is of the Siffrin Species and they are significantly too sentimental to let go of the shreds of what they used to have, especially after having lost all of it once already". Both of these things are yummy as fuck when ppl smarter than me explore them and they're kinda the main Story Paths for postcanon Loop anyways so I'm always winning. So like idk tldr I like it both when ppl have Loop diverge a lot as a person and when they have Loop try their best to stay as much of a Siffrin as possible!

I'm limiting myself to four paragraphs so you don't all want to hit me with hammers but I do have Loop Biology Headcanons. I've explained mythoughts on their guts before and don't feel like recounting them but whatever True #codacheetahwarriors remember my deranged rambling. ANYWAYS I kind of mentally run on the assumption of Loop's body as like. The Universe couldn't keep Loop in Siffrin's body, bc they needed Siffrin to be in it (and I guess a system situation introduces too many factors of its own? idk). The Universe operates with the goal of fulfilling wishes with the least intervention possible, so The Universe makes a body out of cheap inorganic material (star-scrap basically). Miniature star for a head fueling the body with Craft energy (I'm not going to get into my conspiracy that all Craft is the same here). Molds the star scrap into a vaguely Siffrin-shaped/sized vessel and plonks Loop's conscious into it and calls it a day. So Loop's body as a poor simulacrum of a human body is like. They're capable of breathing but they only really benefit from doing it on a psychological level. They can't eat or drink and don't have a mouth because it would require a significant level of added effort to make a digestive system, when they can just derive energy from their star. They don't have reproductive organs because they're not made from organic material anymore anyways. They don't need to sleep bc their body never gets tired but they still do it because it's not really a great idea to leave your brain on running for too long anyways.

I fucking lied I'm on paragraph five bc the block of text is annoying me. To continue that's all a preface to say I think it's super fun when Loop has body functions that are weird and unpredictable. Their little frizzles on their body are reactive to their emotions the same way their headstar is, and feel like static if you touch them. Their head has a vague boundary so their eyes have something to be rooted to but the function by which their optic nerves work is unclear to everybody including themself. They glow based on intensity of emotion and the temperature of their star changes via specific mood. Bc I think it would be fun if the battlefield in twohats when from ice cold to boiling hot frankly. Ok these are all just my headcanons (temperature one very loose though I'm not a hard subscriber to it) but they're not uniquely mine it's just examples of what I mean. One I don't have as a personal headcanon but I do enjoy is when Loop feels the same physical sensations as Siffrin bc it's funny and I like inflicting misery on the star.

I'm going to shut up now like actually . Loop for your troubles

[candycryptids]

Hiya! I hope you're doing well today! I love your characters and how you've structered their bios! Since Chuusday is listed first, is she technically your official WOL or is it someone else? Do you canonically have a WOL in the first place?

Also, I find it SO sweet that you and one of your partners both play FFXIV and have characters paired together ;w; Did you meet ingame or long before either of you started playing? Either way I wish you both the best!!! <3 - gardenofballads 🌻

Awaaaah! Im doing pretty ok!!! Taking time to answer this as a wind down from Emerald Weapon Ex Brain Soupage. And I’m so glad! ;W; I think I butchered one of those “Get To Know An OC” thingies- uhh… oh [this one] actually! I chopped a lot out and I think added a couple different thingums instead because there was so much to that that it felt overwhelming to try to look at let alone fill out LOL but it was a really good jumping off point uvu;

And!!! Hilariously Chuu was my First XIV Character, so she’s dear to my heart for being the first one- but she very quickly made it known being the WOL even as an AU was something of a Joke (Her character showed great reluctance and even frustration at having to do So Much World Saving, maybe a side-effect of me rushing through MSQ to catch up with my other spouse [Who plays Talia, though they’ve got less time for XIV these days ;0;] and the rest of my friends who were all EndGame already at the time in Shadowbringers fhdjfjsjfs.) So I made…… many alts. Throwing spaghetti at the wall but I have SEVERE side-character/NPC brain and kept making “supporting cast” types =w=; it actually took me like. 3? Alts before making an ACTUAL WoL with my husband (Ishi’li and Kizuna) (as of Right Meow, they’re in post ARR, but we’ve been working on Keathan and Tuesday together because Keathan was… Keathan’s first character in xiv XD so we’ve been jaunting through the story together and experiencing every inch of it so we can pick and choose what The Boys™ get up to when we wanna focus on them x3)

🥰 I knew both speece during at least high school- but I actually knew Keathan as early as Elementary school hehe 😌 tho the speece didn’t proper marry until… i’unno, 2017? (For frustrating legal reasons, I’m not legally married, but. As it goes. Someday we’ll have money to visit the one state that has legal poly marriages. Also I struggle to remember our wedding year 🫢)

Since managing to make a Co-WoL with my husband I’ve managed to make one other Alt meant to be a Solo-WoL (Mochiie) but I have to really wrinkle my brain to sink time into playing him, since I’m trying to take screenshots throughout the story at what I find to be inspiring beats xD And even still he has an alt-universe where he’s just a side-character for the ‘Main Timeline’ (where there’s a bunch of spaghetti and like 8+ confirmed WoL’s and the Msq entourage looks HILARIOUS in canon, someday I’ll get all the data together and take pictures, but I think it’ll cook what’s left of my brain x’3) [it’s less concrete than anything I’ve posted about before or I’d try to explain it ;v;’ it’s just interesting mostly to see how the story gets stretched to fit around a larger community of heroes than a solo guy shouldering the whole burden lmfao.]

🌸🌸🌸…. I also hope you’re having a lovely week @gardenofballads !!!! I am tossing flower petals into the air around you !!! Thank you for the ask and well wishes n kind words 🥺💖 🌸🌸🌸

[girlfictions]

hari can i ask a stupid question... how does one go about reading/liking poetry actually ???

idk how to explain, whenever i read poetry i kinda just think, huh ! like i don't know how to interpret it or where to start with figuring it out in the same way as other forms of writing etc. i think i am just too dumb to get poetry a lot of the time or just not on the same vibe. i like stuff other ppl curate tho so i will try some of your recs! persevering :(

this isn't a stupid question at all! honestly, i struggled with this at first when i was younger and hadn't read much poetry yet. i think poetry is something that can be much more personal than prose — that is, you often feel as though you need to connect to the source material in a far more significant way in order to really "get it." and i don't necessarily believe that to be wholly true, but it does serve as a good starting-off point; i, for one, initially found myself veering towards the work of female poets when i began reading poetry. similarly, certain poets are famous for focusing on particular subjects; mary oliver's poems on nature are some of my favourites of all time, and they're also very digestible to someone who might not particularly be a huge reader or a poetry reader at all! it might take a little research to find a poet whose work you click with, but once you do, it's so so worth it. from there, branching out into particular styles (contemporary, free verse etc.) is just a matter of personal taste.

when it comes to "interpreting" poetry, there's a quote i think about a lot from angela carter:

“Reading a book is like re-writing it for yourself. You bring to a novel, anything you read, all your experience of the world. You bring your history and you read it in your own terms.”

poetry doesn't need to bring about some grand epiphany of the self — it can be as simple as connecting to a singular phrase, or even just a word, and carrying it with you.

[andivmg]

speak up andi, I beg of you, you have been mistreated the most here, I know it took shubble a lot of courage but she has helped so many people

i want to start this off by saying it is not a competition and i do not want to compare my experience to anybody else’s. shubble is so fucking strong and i admire her and everyone else who has spoken up about experiencing abuse endlessly.

DISCLAIMER 1

this is way longer than i intended it to be. i did not plan to go into as much depth as i did but the words just kinda kept coming and i kept thinking that if someone else is in a similar situation to the one i was in, it would be good to point out even some of the smaller details so that they can see that these behaviors are not something to be overlooked and could be a symptom of a bigger issue… idk. i apologize for how lengthy and wordy this is but i hope it all makes sense somehow

DISCLAIMER 2

a lot of you know who one of my exes is and i am asking you to please not make this about him. i am simply sharing my experience with some of my past relationships in hopes that they help someone else. i beg of you, do not go on twitter making threads speculating on whatever because it’s just going to cause me a bunch of problems and i don’t want this to be brought to his attention. if you share my story, please do not do it with the intent of starting drama. if you share my story, focus on the behaviors i am talking about instead of trying to figure out if it’s about him.

DISCLAIMER 3

this goes without saying but i’ll put it here anyway: i will be talking about toxic relationships, mention of self harm, mention of sex, implied violence. if any of these topics are triggering to you please scroll away, protect yourself.

I have been in a lot of relationships, but there are 4 that i would truly identify as the ones who had the biggest impact on me. Two of those i would consider emotional mistreatment. I don’t want to say i was abused for reasons that i will be discussing with my therapist this week, but i can certainly say i was mistreated. For the sake of privacy, i will be referring to these two dudes as 1 and 6.

I think the biggest difference between 1 and 6 is that 6 was obsessed with me to the point where i felt like i was being suffocated, whereas i’m not sure if 1 ever cared about me in the first place.

6 and i started out pretty normally. we had a bunch of friends in common and we were around the same people. so eventually, we became friends too. we would text and call all the time until feelings developed into a relationship. in the beginning he was really sweet and caring, saying all the right things that got me falling head over heels. now, something important to note is that i am someone who has always had a lot of guy friends. when i was little and in school, my mom made friends with a bunch of other moms and those moms were boy moms, so i grew up surrounded by boys. i bring this up because 6 didn’t like my guy friends. actually, i think he just didn’t like the fact that i had guy friends at all. so, whenever i would hang out with my friends, it was a problem. so this resulted in me never being able to go out or hang out with my friends unless he was there. then it got worse. before we started dating he had decided to cut back on drinking and to stop smoking. so because of this, i decided that i wouldn’t drink or smoke around him in solidarity. this was not enough for him. i had to stop drinking and smoking altogether. so once, when i was hanging out with my girl friends we decided to stay in and get wine drunk. we posted about it on our private stories on snap and once he saw, 6 called me arguing and yelling at me because i was drinking and posting about it on my story for “attention”. after this incident, i was no longer allowed to hang out with my friends because they were a “bad influence”. he also didn’t like the clothes i wore. sorry, let me reiterate: he didn’t like my clothes when he wasn’t around. it was perfectly fine for me to wear a short dress… if i was with him. i was not allowed to wear “revealing” clothing if he wasn’t around. mind you, none of the clothes i wore were revealing, it’s not my fault i’m hot yk? he took over my life. who i talked to, what i did, what i wore, where i would go, it was all up to him. my life no longer belonged to me. and at the time, i was okay with that. i didn’t realize that he had so much control over everything. i was young and naïve and he convinced me that he knew what was best for me. that he had lived more than i had and experienced more than i had and that he knew better. he was so good at making everything my fault and making him the hero or victim depending on the situation. i got catcalled on the street? “because you were wearing that fucking dress again, andrea you know how that looks. of course you got catcalled. this is why you can’t wear things like that when i’m not around to protect you”. I decided to have a fun night in with my friends and get drunk? “i just don’t understand why you would be posting yourself on your private story like that. you’re drunk and vulnerable. why do you want other people, other guys, to see you like that? and you know i’ve cut back on drinking so how do you think it makes me feel to see that? don’t you love me enough to do this for me?” the worst part is i believed him. because, in the beginning, he helped me so much and i looked up to him so much, surely he had my best interests at heart, right? this relationship went on for way longer than it should have. you may be asking yourself, how did you leave? if you were so in love with him and entranced by him to the point where he consumed you, why did you leave? he raised his hand. that’s what got me to finally leave. a year after we broke up, i found out that he was drinking, smoking, and doing all kinds of shit he told me he wasn’t throughout our entire relationship. he was awful, and i’m really proud of myself for being strong enough to leave when i did. i’m also really grateful for my friends, who stuck out that whole train wreck with me. who i lashed out against in order to protect him and defend him. they stuck by me through it all and i don’t know where i would be without them so shoutout to them lmfao.

1 was a bit more complicated. it started out in a similar way. we had the same friends, hung out around the same people, so it was only a matter of time until we became friends too. we would call and text every day until feelings were developed. at least i developed feelings, i’m still not sure he did. i told him this and i don’t remember how the conversation went but basically we had decided that we were talking as more than friends now. enough time went by where i was ready for it to become a relationship and i communicated that to him. looking back, i think he felt pressured into the relationship by me and by our friends. anyway we started dating and everything was fine. we would hang out and talk all the time but i felt like he was bored or disinterested by me, so i would constantly beg for his attention. i became this needy clingy version of myself that i hated. it felt like when we would hang out, he was always distracted by something else. i basically felt invisible to him. that is, when i wasn’t hanging out with my guy friends. similarly to 6, 1 did not like my guy friends or the fact that i had guy friends in the first place. i had a guy best friend at the time who is one of the most amazing people i have ever met. let’s call him S. S and 1 were acquainted with each other, hung out in the same circles etc. but 1 still didn’t like him. sometimes, whenever 1 was busy doing whatever he did when he wasn’t with me, i would hang out with S, we would watch shows together and just talk. Some days, it felt like i talked to S more than my own boyfriend. this did not sit well with 1. he would ask “why the fuck are you always hanging out with him?” to which i would reply “maybe if you hung out with me more, i wouldn’t have so much free time to spend with him” (toxic ik but what can i say? i was feeling neglected). so you can see what problems this caused. eventually i cut S off. I stopped talking to him completely and i haven’t spoken to him since. Back to 1. even after cutting off my best friend, nothing really changed. He didn’t spend much time with me and whenever we would, i felt like he couldn’t wait to go off and do something else. this got exhausting. at that point i was begging him to love me, to pay attention to me, to care about me. this led to us breaking up. he broke up with me over text. it read, and i quote, “i think we aren’t meant for each other. i think you deserve someone that will treat you better than i do. I don’t think i’m in love with you and i tried to force myself to love you because i thought that’s what i wanted but i really don’t think it is. we started this relationship when i was just tired of being alone and i really just don’t think it is right anymore. i don’t think i am attracted to you. I am sorry, i really didn’t know how to end this and this probably isn’t the best way to do it but it’s time”. The relationship went on for another six months after this. granted, i should have had more self respect and never gotten back together with him but it is what it is. so after he told me that he didn’t love me and that he wasn’t attracted to me, we stayed “friends”. which basically meant that we did everything that a relationship involved. without actually being in a relationship. that is, until one of his friends hit me up. there was some flirtation going on but nothing serious. i was still in love with 1 but, at the time, i was in desperate need for attention and his buddy was there to provide it. when i told 1 about it he flipped out, called me all kinds of crazy and decided he was done with me. his friend and i talked about it and poked fun at the fact that he broke up with me but got mad at someone else paying attention to me. when 1 saw this (he ended up forcing me to show him the screenshots of the conversation) he was even more pissed and even more done with me. the next day he called me and we were basically back together again.

however, this time, i was meant to earn his affection. because i did something so unforgivable and atrocious, he was basically in the clear to treat me like shit. and he did. he would cancel plans to go hang out with his friends. he would only come over late at night, even when i had class the next day. i was basically at his mercy. we only hung out when he decided. we only spoke when he wanted to. i honestly can’t even recall us going on any date after that incident, save for one dinner. in short, i was not a priority to him. this, combined with some other stuff, really took at toll on my mental health. i entered a deep depression and began self-harming after being clean for 3 years. i sought out help and found a wonderful therapist who really helped me. but, 1 only saw this as one more problem. when we hung out he would complain that i was too sad. important note: because of that text he sent me i was incredibly insecure. so, little arguments would always end up escalating because i felt like he literally did not care about me and he would just keep making me feel like shit about being depressed. whenever we argued (which was very often) it would end in me locking myself in the bathroom, sobbing, nearly throwing up, while he was on his phone. i remember one specific argument started because he asked me if i would leave him for harry styles and i jokingly said yes (i am not and have never been attracted to harry styles). that argument escalated to the point where we almost broke up and he said to me “you should warn people before they fall in love with you that you are so mentally ill. because you’re always going to bring down the mental state of who you’re with”. he used my mental health against me like that a lot. whenever i would bring up something i wanted him to do or something that i didn’t like, he would call me needy, clingy, and say that he was trying his best but that i needed too much, that i was too much. all i wanted was reassurance. looking back, that’s all i ever asked for. whenever i would ask him if he loved me he would say “well i’m with you aren’t i?”. this is the same man who decided to go to vegas with his friends on my birthday after he promised he wouldn’t. this is the same man who said that he didn’t love me. the same one who said he wasn’t attracted to me. the same man who i would catch looking at other girl’s (some being his “friends”) provocative pictures on twitter. (this is definitely tmi so i’m just going to put a bunch of asterisks at the end of the tmi so you can skip there if you don’t want to read it) but there was a long period of time in our relationship where we had zero intimacy, and it wasn’t because of me. this fucked with my head a lot because i had this idea that because i was so emotional and needy that i could compensate physically. but when that stopped, my thoughts looked something like “the only thing i was useful for was sex and now he doesn’t even want that from me”.************whenever i remember this, a part of me thinks he might’ve been cheating on me during that time, but i have no proof so i guess we’ll never know. also during that time period, we were arguing over the same things over and over “it feels like you don’t love me” “but i’m hanging out with you” “that’s not the same as loving me” “you’re so fucking needy. and then you wonder why i don’t like coming over”. it was exhausting. we had the same friend group. and even our friends got so sick of us that they would tell me to break up with him. this went on for months until one day, on our one year anniversary, he told me that his plans for the day included playing video games. nothing else. that’s when i broke up with him. that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. i just couldn’t do it anymore.

we stayed friends afterwards in order to keep the peace within the friend group. after about a month, he told me he was going to do better. he said he was going to start going to the gym, and maybe even going to therapy, that he was going to eat better and live a better lifestyle for me. he said he was going to plan dates for us and treat me the way i deserved etc. very much vibes from that one euphoria scene. but i was done. maybe i didn’t communicate that well enough to him and that’s my fault. but i was really confused at the time and i didn’t know what i wanted. eventually we had a conversation and that’s when i told him that i was no longer interested in a relationship. i think i just didn’t believe him anymore. i didn’t believe that he would change for me or anyone else for that matter. through the entire relationship he was mean to me, he neglected me, belittled me, and overall made me feel like shit at worst and invisible at best. even when i would offer to plan things or suggest activities for us to do together, he would be disinterested the entire time or just cancel and make plans with his friends instead. and of course it was all my fault for one, flirting with his friend that one time, and two, just not being interesting enough. he made it feel like i wasn’t good enough, and at the same time victimized himself. he would tell me “nothing i do is ever good enough for you” while i was the one putting in all the effort in the relationship. then he would go “well why would i put in effort with you? remember when you were flirting with [redacted]? I still think about that and it fucks me up”. mind you, he would only bring this up whenever i brought up any concerns or issues. anyway, as you can tell it took me a really long time to realize that this relationship was toxic and unhealthy and i’m really proud of myself, again, for having the strength to leave and never look back. i think one of the reasons why it took me so long to realize that i was being mistreated was because everyone around him loved him. and to me it was hard to see how someone that was so well liked could be bad. so i felt like i was the problem. i felt like there was something wrong with me and if i just fixed that, then he would treat me better and love me and care about me. it took a lot of therapy to realize that he just wasn’t that into me. i was like a toy to him that he could just pay attention to when he was bored but ignore me the rest of the time. but then, when someone else showed interest in me he would suddenly care and be like “no she’s mine, you can’t have her”. he didn’t want me but he didn’t want anyone else to have me and that was the bottom line. that was the base off all the problems and toxicity that happened while we were together.

in conclusion, both of these men were awful in their own unique ways. i hope that by sharing this, someone who is in a similar situation will see it and identify these behaviors as something to watch out for. i hope that someone will see it and realize that they are not alone, and that they are not the first person to go through it, and that it gets better. these events all happened over two years ago and now i am in a beautiful and healthy relationship, i’m studying something that i am passionate about, and i am surrounded by people who love, care about, and support me. i am in a much happier place now and you will find that too, whoever you might be <3

[senblades]

Hi :)

I love your art and your writing, and you have such a great grasp of these characters that I was wondering if you have any fic recs? Rating doesn't matter ;)

boy do I! (and ty for the compliment <3 <3 <3)

[cracks knuckles] alrighty:

The Dissapearence of Goro Akechi by Kupowonders - Probably my favourite fic ever, honestly- it's like. derailing the plot of persona 5 post-medjed thanks to the persona 4 accomplice ending years prior. (So, spoilers for p4 in that, too) it's. very good.

Marigolds by Colbub - Akechi gets ng+'ed to right when he started working for Shido, and has to take a good look at the future to come and be like "Aight how the fuck do I fix this". Fun times!

Daredevil, You've hit the wall by ez_cookie. Essentially, p5 Strikers but Sumire and Goro get to be in on the fun, too. And, there's a direct sequel currently being updated that's a similar premise for p5 Tactica. very very good stuff

A Tale of Two Tricksters by Zoe2k8 - Murder boyfriends! ...sort of? Angst! Angst and murder boyfriends! An oversimplification, obviously, but I'm not kidding when I say this fic is amazing and is also over a million words holy shit-

Throw away your mask by MollyPollyKinz - Another ng+ situation for Akechi, but this time the poor guy gets thrown all the way to 2009. You can imagine how well that goes (For the audience, less so for Akechi himself.)

The Crow Cries at Midnight by Dorked. hehe this one is very fun. Basically, a series of coincedencs causes Akechi to get thrown into the plot of persona 4. No time travel here! Just a grumpy 12/13 year-old Akechi trying to solve a murder mystery

The entire Tales of Chaos series by Eternalmomentss (The first one is called Like sand between your fingers) Very very good stuff! Something of a character study, I would say, of Ren and Goro. Plus, all the funky plot stuff that comes from trickster-typical bad luck and poor descision making. I really love this series hehe

uhh this post is getting very long I need to make this less wordy- lightning round?

Hunger for a life by Leonawriter - do you like vampires? I sure do! Mix that and the p5 plot and you get shenanigins. [evil laughter] a lot of shenanigins

Fishbowl by KivaEmber - Akechi has a terrible time in Maruki's reality. And I mean a terrible time

You have a beautiful smile underneath that mask by Saposaki - Akechi has a crush on Akira and Joker has a crush on Crow. No one is aware of the other's secret identity. Dramatic irony and hilarity ensues.

MASTERMiND by StumblingBlock - No Metaverse au where Akira really doesn't want to follow in the footsteps of his crime family, and fails miserably

Rose and Rot by SixteenJuniper - Read this!! I'm serious!! "A fun fantasy adventure" don't listen to Juniper. You'll be in tears by chapter two. (/pos, of course) (Seriously this fic is incredible)

Redressing the Balance by Convocated - ...almost a ng+? Ng+, in the sense that shuake are getting funky visions that are very quickly derailing the standard plot of p5r. This causes problems of the "Someone get the popcorn and maybe the tissues" variety

She's got a heartbeat full of lead (And she's aiming straight for the head) by Dots - This fic haunts me, often. In the best way possible, of course; but seriously, read it

Cracked into by SydneyHorses - Ren makes bad descisions and it becomes Akechi's problem. 2/2 timeloop, perhaps most notably featuring HaruGoro friendship! Love love love this fic

Okay that wasn't as "less wordy" as I intended but it'll do

Aaaand that's a wrap! Sorry for the long post.. and this is by no means all of the fics that I've ever loved (nor are the ones here in any particular order) but I swear we'll be here all week if I keep going HAHA

ty for the ask (and again for the kind words), anon! Hope this was helpful and to your tastes! (I... hope you like Shuake HAHA it's present in most of these- I assume you do, since you came to me (points at literally everything shuake I've made) of all people, but uh. Some of these fics are gen if it's not to your liking?)

[assholepants]

I've been wracking my brain trying to figure out why Dirk's splinters always end up being manipulative and abusive. Because, as another post on here mentioned, when you look at the actions of Dirk himself in homestuck proper, he's actually just a sweet kid who is very hard on himself and cares about his friends.

Everyone is well aware that one of Dirk's major character motifs is control. But pretty much all of the examples we see of Dirk, himself, being controlling, are all directed inwards, as he attempts to maintain a frankly unhealthy level of self control. There's lots of little examples but the most glaringly obvious one is his reaction to Calliope's juju lollipop. It's also evident in the way he insists on taking person responsibility for his splinters, despite having little to no influence over them, and in many cases, having never even met them.

So what happens, if you take a guy who maintains unhealthy levels of self control, and take away his sense of self?

Because all of Dirk's splinters are well aware that they are not the 'Original' so to speak. Even Bro, I think, is aware that he is not a protagonist in the narrative. It's pretty heavily implied across cannon that the guardians have a certain level of awareness of the game, to varying degrees, and that they are aware that their role is Guardian to the protagonists. The splinters know they're not the 'true' Dirk, and so a huge part of their identity exists outside of the realm of their control.

And I think that's where issues start to come in. The nature of the existence of these splinters forces them to build a sense of self that is defined by other people. And so their attempts at self control can never be fully internalised like Dirk's, and end up as manipulation and abuse of the people they have constructed their identity around.

Brain Ghost Dirk is fundamentally Made Of Jake. Jake is a core part of his sense of self, because he literally doesn't exist outside of Jake's mind. So in order to maintain self control, he manipulates Jake.

Lil hal manages to get involved in a lot of different things, but all of these actions boil down to manipulating Dirk's life. Because his entire sense of self is Dirk. So in order to maintain self control, he needs to control Dirk. I think Dirk was right in that hal was dangerous, but I think he was wrong to think that denying him a physical form would be safer. I think if hal had been allowed to have a physical body at an earlier stage, he could have begun developing his own identity, outside of Dirk, which would lessen his reliance on control over Dirk's life.

Bro is like. The reason I'm making this post basically because I can't stop thinking about it. Obviously Dave is the subject of Bro's control issues. Bro is aware he is not a protagonist in the narrative. His function is to Be Dave's Guardian, and so his sense of self is firmly rooted in Dave. But it's done in such a different way to how we see the other splinters behave. Dirk is a really fucking smart kid, and so his splinters generally tend to be pretty good at calculated manipulation. But Bro isn't particularly calculated as far as we can see. He's kind of a fucking mess. His abuse is far more physical and impulsive and far less wordy. He's controlling Dave, moulding him into the kind of protagonist Bro thinks he should be. But it's not elaborate and calculated. And THAT'S where Lil Cal, and by association, Caliborn come in.

There's obviously huge amount of debate and like 172784 different theories about how much influence Caliborn had over Bro, and how much responsibility he holds for Dave's abuse. Personally, I think Bro would have always ended up manipulating and abusing Dave in some way, in the same way that BGD manipulates Jake and Lil Hal manipulates Dirk. The underlying cause of Bro's abuse comes from the same control issues as the other splinters and I think it does a disservice to Dirk, as a character with flaws, to insist that Bro's abuse was 100% down to puppet manipulation. But I do think that Caliborn influenced the method. The random violence, the Saw style psychological horror, the impulsiveness, the obsession with sex and masculinity. All very Caliborn methods.

What I'm interested in is if Bro knew what Cal was. I think it's very easy, and completely plausible to say that he came across this puppet due to Paradox Space Is Just Like That, and fell under its influence without realising it. But if he's a Dirk splinter I just don't buy it. He doesn't allow himself to fall under the influence of Calliope's Juju, so why should his splinter fall under the influence of Caliborn's?

It sounds counterintuitive but stick with me, I think Bro allowed himself to be influenced by the puppet, because it gave him a sense of control. Being a guardian made him a side character. Side characters are often much less developed than the protagonists. In the case of homestuck, they don't even get to have a face. How do you form a coherent sense of self without any development from the narrative? He can channel that into controlling Dave, but at the end of the day that doesn't allow him any more agency than the other guardians. Bro knows he can't be a protagonist. But allowing himself to be influenced by the puppet places him in proximity to the main antagonist of the entire comic. And Caliborn influences EVERYTHING. He's woven through every part of the narrative, his existence sends ripples through every action we see.

Characters that are influenced by Caliborn tend to be integral to the shape of the narrative. Gamzee being an obvious example, but also those who communicate with Doc Scratch, like Vriska and Rose and even the reader themself. I just think it would be interesting if Bro knew what Lil Cal was, and allowed himself to be influenced by it anyway, in an attempt to gain even a little more control over the narrative, and by extension, himself.

[theofficialpresidentofmars]

did I ever tell you guys about how I would adapt (the tragedy of) Hamlet (prince of Denmark) if ever given the chance. because I have so many thoughts and I’m adding onto them all the time so here’s a post with all my ideas compiled.

- firstly, it would be an animated mini-series of five episodes, each one corresponding to an Act. I think Animation is a highly under-utilised and underappreciated medium that would suit this particular story well in terms of what it could achieve visually and also these are just a bunch of words to say I’m heavily biased towards animation and just love it so much.

- there are so many fun little character design tidbits i would implement. including but not limited to: Horatio being the shortest, Claudius/Hamlet Sr identical twins (and Claudius having a Scar reminiscent scar on his face for the drama… and also the eventual Act 5 Scene 2 parallels when Laertes wounds Hamlet with the rapier in an incidentally similar way), Laertes having a silly curly moustache, Horatio and Ophelia resembling the other, Hamlet looking tired, pale and ghostly at all times, character’s hair being used as a way to show passing of time (Hamlet having hair on the long side of short in Act 1, growing but in a little ponytail over Act 2, medium-length and unkempt in Acts 3 & 4, and cut shortly and neatly in Act 5. also Ophelia’s hair growing noticeably as well and being often neatly braided with little flowers in Acts 1-2, loosely braided without flowers in Act 3, but being down and wild in Act 4 etc), and so on so forth.

- I would shamelessly be including flashbacks to pre-tragedy memories of the castle/inhabitants. Baby R&G&H running through the castle halls and playing hide and seek. Hamlet actually, god forbid, practicing fencing. The Players entertaining at the castle in Hamlet’s youth. Ophelia and Hamlet sneaking out into the garden beneath the willows by the pond, Hamlet braiding flowers into her hair while they sit together. Yorick entertaining baby Hamlet. All coloured with the softest, goldenest glows that nostalgia can manage to contrast the desaturated depressive hues of the current day. I think a lot of the tragedy of *Hamlet* specifically lies in comparing what was to what ended up being, and since the play starts after Hamlet’s entered his mourning period, it’s hard to fully comprehend the true nature of such a fall.

- Each Act having a lovely stylised title card in its introduction with themes and motifs that are specifically prevalent throughout. Act 3 would have curtains, for example, given the play staging and Polonius’ later poor choice of hiding place. Act 5 introduces the classic skull we all know and love.

- Very purposeful dramatic lighting and colour throughout. Daylight lighting and then the switch to a lot of Hamlet’s soliloquies seeming to appear under more ‘spotlight’ lighting. Early evening during the play, sunset during the scene where Claudius prays (golden light tricking through beautiful stained-glass windows), nightfall when Hamlet yells at Gertrude. Lighting also being used to dramatise entrances perhaps, such as Claudius’s prayer being interrupted by the shift to ‘spotlight’ lighting before we even see Hamlet at the door.

- Same goes with music and motifs, interwoven character leitmotifs and themes that shift keys and qualities and work together to make larger pieces and show up to herald the arrival of a character, or turn sour to match their emotions.

- the visual humour of the play being upped, as well as the wordy humour being emphasised, in order to really contrast the shift in tone throughout the halves of the play. I’ve always been a tragicomedy truther when it comes to Hamlet, I think if done well it could be a really neat way to get the audience to invest more in the characters while also really highlighting how quickly everything goes south.

Probably add more on as I go

[xxkissesforchanniexx]

Hi! sorry if this is wordy but could you make a story of the reader being an fbi agent undercover as skz personal bodyguard? Skz are having a concert soon and this evil organization wants to harm them. It is the readers mission to keep the members safe. But with the distraction of a specific loud and short muscular guy of the group, she gains feelings and struggles to do her task.

As long as this is the main point of the story, I don't mind with what you add. Be as creative as you like with action, romance, or anything.

ihfvnirhfnjnfoernfrihbgt jhebfrherkjfnkrjtgng hehehe

Thank you!

𝐒𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐞

Pairing: Changbin x FBI Agent!fem!reader Genre: action? >.> Angst (im so bad at writing that) Fluff >.> Word Count: 6.5k Warnings: Cringe T_T, not proofread (they never are.), parent death, REVENGE, reader is shorter than changbin >.>, guns, bombs, someone gets shot (not reader or stray kids.), brief horny reader, i think thats it? tell me i missed anything

A/N: AHHH THIS TOOK SO LONG AND I FEEL LIKE ITS SO BAD AND CRINGE IM SO SORRY UH if you do like it (i really hope you do) please consider reblogging and following ALSO TAGLIST APPLICATIONS >.>

December 19th 2005 "Several bombs were set off at the University of Music last night, there is a total of 59 casualties and counting as authorities work through the rubble. 80 more are critically injured and 127 are in stable condition or have minor injuries."

Janurary 17th 2008 "This is your new home."

"Guys this is Y/N.. She's going to be your sister from now on."

August 3rd 2010 "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

"I want to be a police woman so I can find the person who hurt people a long time ago..

You stared at the case, "So they fled to Seoul?"

"Not just that." Your boss said, "We found this." he set a phone on your desk and pressed the play button on an audio recording.

"How should we go about it?"

"The security is tight, if we put the bombs on the little drones and get the crowd scared, we have an opening to get the people on the stage."

You sucked in a breath. "A bomb threat for-"

"A concert." Your boss sighed deeply, "I trust you to handle it. Without being reckless."

"Sir-"

"It would be best if you did it, considering your experience with these types of events." He motioned to the posters and merchandise littering your office walls and shelves.

You pursed your lips. "Where and when?"

"We're flying you out to the US embassy in Seoul tomorrow , you'll meet someone there." He said with a big smile, "Pack your bags, Special Agent L/N, you're going to Korea."

You had arrived at the US embassy in Seoul at 4:30 am, you learned from the person you met up with you were going to be protecting a k-pop boy group under JYP Entertainment.

"So, this terrorist group wants to attack a boy band?" You looked at the embassy worker.

She nodded, "But it's not about them, for the most part... they want to prove something apparently, did they not attack several concerts in the US?"

"They did." You nodded.

"Then it's not too crazy to assume they want to get some point across world wide." The woman shook her head, "It's alright though, you're going to meet them later in the morning."

"Meet who?" You tilted your head.

The woman blinked slowly at you. "Stray Kids.."

"Who?" You had to hold back your laughter.

"The boy band under JYPE."

"Ah." You cleared your throat. "Alright."

"It must have been a long flight." She smiled, "You can go to your hotel now."

When you got to your hotel room you sat on the bed, laptop open, looking for "Stray Kids". You made a face as you saw their pictures, a particular image caught your attention and you burst out laughing at the sight. He was a short, muscular man, with unruly dark hair under a hat with floppy bunny ears, You copied the image into google image search and said the name softly. "Seo Changbin."

Felix looked like he was going to cry, Hyunjin bit his bottom lip looking at the ground.

"They want to bomb our concert..." I.N asked quietly.

"Hurt our STAY..." Lee Know twiddled his fingers.

"Safest option is to cancel." Chan sighed.

"We can't cancel a concert a month before it's supposed to happen," their manager said, "The company hasn't got the time or money to return everything. Besides, boss said he has it handled."

Changbin looked up, "JYP handled it?"

"No," the manager made a face.

"Then why would you say that?" Seungmin pursed his lips.

"He found someone who can handle it." the manger explained. "That's why we're here for breakfast, she arrived in Seoul earlier."

"Who?" Han asked.

"She should be on the way here." the manager said as a waitress arrived with coffee.

"She?" The boys all asked at the same time.

It was at that time you walked in, you were dressed fairly professionally, a white button up shirt tucked into black pleated slacks and pretty black heels.

"I'm Y/N L/N," You smiled at the men.

"Hi, thanks for coming. Coffee?" The manager offered.

You shook your head.

"Please sit," he motioned to the last seat.

You sat beside a man you remembered as Hyunjin, his long hair pulled back with his bangs on either side of his face. He eyed you incredulously for a moment before you shifted slightly, making the taser you'd carefully tucked into your pants visible. He bristled.

"This is the person who's going to handle it?" Felix asked the manager. "We take STAY very seriously, if something happens-"

"I assure you nothing will go wrong, though, I doubt the people i'm looking for are really aiming for.. STAY..." You put your phone on the table and let the audio recording your boss gave you play.

The leader of the group, Chan, looked scared. Felix put his head in his hands and Minho hugged him.

"So..." Seungmin said quietly. "What happens now?"

"She's going to live with you until she figures out the threat. Please boys, I hope your dorm is clean." The manager said, sipping his coffee.

Chan turned slowly to Han.

Han huffed a small laugh. "Of course.."

"TADA!" Changbin shouted as he opened the door to the dorm.

You walked in looking around, the place was fairly secure. Changbin smiled brightly, shouting "Your room!"

He opened the door to a room that looked like it was cleaned rather hastily. You nodded, going into the room the boys had cleared out for you, you chuckled as you recalled how you'd seen Changbin and Han playing rock paper scissors for who would give away their room, Han lost.

You had sat in your room most of the rest of the day, then you got hungry, only then did you notice how dark it was outside. You considered ordering food but then dismissed the idea, what if these people found out where the boys lived. That was a big no.

You sighed, dragging yourself out of bed and into the kitchen, you opened the fridge making a face and grabbing eggs. You got noodles from the cabinet and got to work making something easy.

It was late, almost midnight, so you hadn't expected any one to be awake. So it scared you when the loud, boisterous Changbin spoke quietly next to you.

"Is there enough to share?" He whispered.

You almost jumped out of your skin. "What the fuck?!" You whisper-shouted, clutching your heart.

"Sorry, I smelled food.." he laughed lightly, watching as you worked. "You know how to cook?"

You hummed. "I know how to not get food poisoning."

He laughed. "Let me help?"

You opened your mouth to protest, but the man was already moving around the kitchen grabbing things. You couldn't stop staring at the way his muscles strained against his shirt.

Get your head in the game. You shook off the thoughts that were invading your head as you stared at his arms.. My head could be in a headlock there... WHAT ARE YOU THINKING????!!!

You left the noodles aside and started frying the eggs, semi-watching as Changbin made instant tteokbokki.

When you both finished, he sat with you and ate.

"Y'know I expected cops to be more serious." he said, before putting some noodles in his mouth and jumping at the taste.

You made a face. "I'm serious."

He looked at you. "Let's be real here."

"I'm so serious." You pouted before popping a rice cake into your mouth.

"Uh huh." He teased.

You rolled your eyes. "I was under the impression that a dark rapper should be moody and brooding."

He made a face. "They call me baby Changbin as well."

You smiled to yourself as you remembered the picture. "Of course," a smirk came to your face. "I should invest in Dwaekki."

Changbin looked up from his tteokbokki. "Have you even listened to our music?"

"I can start." You said proudly.

Changbin stared at you for a moment. "Whatever you say, Princess."

It wasn't even two weeks after you had met the boys something happened. You were on the couch in dorm 1, writing an email on your laptop.

Chan poked your head, "We're going to practice choreo."

You shoved your computer into your backpack and followed the boys out. You got to the dance studio and looked around curiously at the big room, a mirror covered the full length of the wall opposite the door.

It was the mirror that let you see it.

You whipped around just as the person at the door fled.

Changbin stared at you in confusion as you blitzed past, running after the person. It didn't take you too long to catch up, tackling the man to the floor of the hall just before the lobby and grabbing his badge.

You remembered what the manager had told you, all the badges were recently issued in an off white color...

You held the man down, pulling his arm in an awkward position. "Try me and I'll break it. Who the fuck are you?"

The man stuttered before shouting.

Your brows furrowed. "That's not going to wo-" You stared in confusion as a firework looking object rolled towards you.

Then it popped.

A loud bang resounded through the lobby and you instinctively covered your ears, stunned. Your ears were ringing.

The man pushed you off and ran for it. You were about to get up and run after him but that Changbin...

He grabbed your shoulders and shouted at you a few times, then Chan pushed him looking at you with wide eyes for a moment.

Changbin sat with Chan, listening to what the doctor said about your ears, you'd be fine, it was just a very loud sound, the doctor recommended quiet for a few days to stop the background ringing.

Licing with Changbin, Chan, and Han let you know that they really couldn't be quiet, in the dorm, only Hyunjin was ever not shouting. But the moment you walked in, that changed. Changbin and Han were quiet, the others from dorm 2 were all staring at you.

"What?" You asked, raising a brow.

"Are you okay?" I.N asked.

"Oh, of course." You smiled. "I just almost lost my ability to hear."

Lee Know sighed and looked at you. "We're sorry to put you through this."

"Put me through what." You raised a brow before sitting down. "You guys didn't put me through anything. This is what I do."

The boys all stared at you for a moment.

"Is it okay if I hug you?" Han broke the silence.

You smiled slightly. "Hey hey hey. We just met. Back up chipmunk."

"Squirrel." Seungmin corrected, laughing.

"It's a quokka!" Han groaned.

You spent almost two weeks researching the group that had threatened the concert. Most of the time the dorm was quiet, Changbin was usually the only one awake when you were up. He would usually eat late night snacks with you or hover over your shoulder as you worked. In most cases it would make you uncomfortable, but with Changbin it was different.

You watched as the group prepared for the concert, weeks dwindling into days. It was two days before the concert, you were sitting on the couch, it was almost 3 in the morning but you were making calls and asking about security and establishing that no bags would be allowed into the concert.

Changbin watched you for a moment, leaning against the wall.

"No bags of any kind." You sounded so professional.

He smiled and walked over to the couch standing over you as you continued talking to the person on the phone.

"Clear diaper bags?" You sucked in a breath. "Why would a baby be at a- Never mind, leave it on hold for now."

Changbin tapped your head. He looked down at you, dark glasses framing his eyes, his hair looking unruly.

You leaned your head back and looked up at him with a raised eyebrow as if you were already aware of his presence. "No, backstage should be secure. I'll be there myself."

Changbin huffed a small laugh. "You're going to protect me princess?"

Despite your blank expression you felt the blush creeping to your face.

Changbin smiled at you muttering, "I want to take you out."

You stared at him as the person on the other end of the line said something to you. "Uh- Repeat that...?" You asked both the people you spoke to.

"Are we still doing the drones?"

"So will you go out with me after the concert?" Changbin leaned down, his face was so close.

"Yes." You answered.

"Alright ma'am." The person on the other end said. "Will that be all?"

"Yeah..." You hung up the phone and looked at Changbin.

He smiled and leaned down, closing the distance between you and pressing his lips against your forehead gently. "It's late, go to sleep."

He pulled away and walked back to his room, you sucked in a breath and exhaled slowly.

Focus...

You were almost as busy as the manager the day of the concert, running back and forth making sure metal detectors were working and security was extra tight.

"You're taking this very personally." A security guard said behind you.

You looked at you the man. "These are terrorists we're talking about. Of course I'm taking it personally."

One of the staff walked past you with coffees in his hand.

You stopped them. "Where to?"

"Hyunjin, Han and Chan asked for coffee." the man said, looking at you, you noted the mole beside his eyebrow.

"I'll take it." You moved to take the coffee.

"No ma'am. You're very busy-"

You tried to grab the coffee and he turned away quickly. You managed to knock it out of his hand. The cups scattered, empty.

He turned and elbowed the security guard hard as he lunged for him and the man started running. You barely caught the stumbling guard, settling him down before started chasing him, pulling up your walkie talkie you said into it, "Gate 4 check?"

"Good check," Came a flurry of voices through the walkie talkie.

"Lock down on gate 4, all security personnel on west wing on alert."

"Copy."

"Backstage security, do you copy?" You said barely dodging someone pushing a huge sound system.

"Loud and clear."

You cursed as people pulling a big screen moved between you and the man. "FUCK MOVE!" You snapped and they scurried out of your way. Much to your utter horror and dismay, the man was gone. The door to the outside of the backstage area wide open, leading into th lines of people waiting to enter the conert.

You kicked a trashcan, "All units do you copy?"

"Copy."

"Keep your eyes open, goldilocks."

"10-4." they all said and your eyes narrowed as you stared at the door.

You sat outside the dressing rooms twiddling your thumbs. Was it really safe... were you just stupid...? You bit your lip, feeling tears brimming in your eyes at the thought of letting these people bomb this concert full of innocent people.

You looked up as you the sound of footsteps. It was just Changbin, he looked much different, more like those pictures you'd seen online, with his tight, shiny, black leather pants and dress shirt that hugged his arms so perfectly, the black vest and fingerless gloves giving him a scary edge. You quickly wiped your eyes and sucked in a breath. "What?"

"What's wrong?" He kneeled in front of you, being more able to move in the pants that you'd thought originally.

"It's nothing." You lied.

His eyes narrowed at you. "You're going to make my perform badly, I can't perform if I feel bad. I'll mess up rapping, Seungmin might do better than me."

You giggled and looked down as he took your hands in his. "I'm scared." You whispered.

"Of?" he prodded quietly.

"There are really dangerous people here, and I fucked up and lost one." You muttered.

"It's okay." He squeezed your hands gently, moving to sit next to you. "If you can't protect all these people, Chan will protect them all himself."

You smiled gently.

"Hug?" Changbin opened his arms and you leaned into him. You relaxed as he hugged you.

"And I said 'There's no way! It's ok YOU EAT~' " Jisung and Jeongin came around the corner and paused.

Jeongin tried to grab Jisung and turn him around but the man smirked and cleared his throat.

You pulled away from Changbin and stood. "Good luck. Uh, get down if something happens."

You sat there off to the backside of the stage hearing the loud music and screams as boys got on stage. In all your time watching the boys practice there was something about actually seeing them on stage as Hyunjin had told you in the dorm.

"Being in the practice room is one thing. Actually being on stage is another thing, there's an energy we get in front of our STAY."

You were particularly amazed at the volume of the girls who shrieked when Felix started singing, his deep voice reverberating through the dome. You couldn't help but marvel at Changbin for a moment, the way his muscles strained against his clothes as he danced, his hips moving so seductively... FOCUS!...But it's fine isn't it... nothing has happened yet..

The stage lights reddened and you looked up as the drones filled the air, flashing lights everywhere. You exhaled slowly, realizing everything was fine with the drones. After finishing off S-Class Chan calmed down the crows and stared to say a few words.

A scream ripped through the soft buzz of the crowd. You looked in the direction of the scream, Chan raised a brow, opening his mouth to say something and then...

"HE HAS A GUN!" On the opposite side of the huge hall.

You jumped over the railing.

All your time studying these people.

Fear.

Ease.

You ran up the stairs to the stage.

Unrest.

And a big boom..

You grabbed the mic from Chan and shouted, "GET DOWN!"

And the first bomb exploded.

You had your ears covered, head down. There was someone there shielding you, you heard him shouting and knew.

"We have to go!" Changbin shouted.

Chan was staring at the crowd, which was frantic after the series of explosions, many of them were running for the exits. "We should've cancelled..."

You saw a red light flashing on a wall, and a man moving away quickly.

You got from under Changbin, who tried pulling you back but you were already sprinting off the stage. You ran into the crowd, pulling out your gun as you shoved past the scared fans.

The man was so close to the exit, you were going to lose him. Lose another, because you lost focus.

You heard a deep voice, it sounded like it was crying.

"STAY! LISTEN TO ME!" Felix shouted into the mic.

The crowd was still moving.

"THE BOMBS WILL KEEP GOING OFF IF YOU'RE RUNNING AROUND SO STOP!"

The crowd stopped and you looked at the stage, your eyes meeting Felix's as he dropped the mic.

You ran through the crowd toward the red light and grabbed it tossing it out of the open door far from the crowd. The police were already gathering and you turned to see the man moving through the crowd for the door.

You pushed past the people and tackled him gun to the back of his head. "Don't move. I'll shoot." You said.

You sat on your bed, staring at your hands. What type of shit was this...?

"Who gives you orders?" You and a police man had interrogated the man yu had caught for almost two hours but he refused to speak.

"My boss isn't afraid of my death." he huffed.

You grit your teeth, "Who is your damn boss?"

"I won't say anything."

and maybe you punched him a little too hard.

A knock on your door made you look up. "Come in."

Hyunjin entered and closed the door quietly, behind himself, walking over to you. "You did well." he said quietly.

You saw the tears filling his eyes. "Hyunjin..."

He got on knees beside your bed and took your hands in his muttering. "You're doing well... Thank you."

You touched his head and whispered, "It's what I do.. It's okay... I'd do it again without hesitation.."

He shook his head. "You fit in so perfectly, you fill the cracks that we haven't been able to fill," He looked up at you and smiled, "Thank you for being our sister... Thank you for saving our STAY.."

You hugged Hyunjin. "Don't cry, you idiot..."

He sniffled and nodded. "But really.. thank you."

You smiled, "Of course."

Following Hyunjin out you stared at the other members who also looked like they had been crying.

"You caught someone.." Seungmin said quietly. "Does that mean you're leaving us?"

You stared at the boys for a moment, your gaze lingering on Changbin.

"I caught someone." You said quietly. "But my job isn't finished until you're safe.."

Felix was the first to hug you. and then suddenly you were attacked by all of them in a big bearhug.

"You're one of us." Chan smiled, "Don't go back."

You looked at all the boys and for the first time since you got here, you let the tears fall.

Changbin ended up not taking you out due to the lockdown placed on the group by their boss, it didn't stop him from spoiling you, in the building, he came to your room with flowers and (fav candy). He would bring you food and bought you a few clothes he thought you'd look good in.

Everytime he'd surprise you while you were working, Jisung would give you a look. The kind of look that said, "I KNOW WHAT YOU TWO ARE", but was completely wrong, because even you didn't know what you and Changbin were.

You were sitting in at the kitchen table staring at your laptop, it wasn't too late, just around 10pm, but the noise that met your ears made you flinch. Han and Hyunjin came in shaking you wildly as Han shoved his phone in your face.

You grabbed it and made a face. "ARE YOU DONE?"

"LOOK!" They shouted back.

You looked at the screen and your eyes widened. "Is that me?"

There was a video, of the events from a few days ago.

"GET DOWN!"

there was a series of loud bangs and a fast forward, of you grabbing the bomb and throwing it out. Then another fast forward to you tackling the man.

You stared at the comments.

"such a strong woman"

"Our savior."

"why did binnie grab for her like that 😭"

"are we gonna ignore how felix calmed the crowd.?"

You pursed your lips, "I was doing my job."

"You saved them though." Han smiled. "You should come with us later when we can go out as a treat. Chan will pay."

Hyunjin cackled.

You rolled your eyes and shook your head, "Alright."

You sat in your room, when your phone rang, you answered.

"We've got a name and a face. We've sent you the necessary info. When you close the case contact us, we'll book you the next flight back to the US."

and the line cut.

You stared out blankly for a while.. so soon?

And when you opened the email you were sent your ear throbbed at the memory of nearly going deaf... That man... you'd tackled that man and he set off the firework that nearly took your hearing.

"Ah Changbin." Minho sighed. "Look at you. I never thought I'd see the day."

"Seriously." Chan smiled. "Just, tell her how you feel. She's Fiona and you're Shrek."

"You need to hit her with the immature swag." Jisung snickered.

"You-" Changbin raised his hand like he was going to punch the man.

Jisung ducked behind Chan.

"What am i supposed to say hm? 'I think you're strong and really pretty and I want to go out with you.' Seems a little eh?"

Chan cringed.

Han just stared at him.

"I like the Shrek and Fiona thing better." Minho shrugged.

"Changbin just wing it." Chan gave him a thumbs up.

You opened your door in the morning and almost stumbled over a box. "What in the world?"

You picked it up and examined it for a moment. You took it into your room and set it on the bed, carefully you lifted off the lid and stared at (fav color) dress. You took it out and smiled at it a little. You noticed the card at the bottom of the box and picked it up.

Your smile grew as you recognized the writing as Changbin's,

I think this dress fits you just right, wait for me outside at 7 tonight.

You rolled your eyes at his poetic nonsense and stared at the dress.

Hyunjin and Jisung were all over you at 6 pm, pampering you and making you look as pretty as they could.

"You look so gorgeous! I'm a master!" Hyunjin said proudly.

Han gasped exaggeratedly, "Are you saying she only looks good because you did her makeup?!"

You gasped with Jisung. "I thought you were my friend Hyunjinnie!"

"Oh- Oh MY GOD!" Hyunjin groaned before giving Han a side eye.

You giggled and looked at yourself in the mirror, you were really pretty.

"It's 6:45." Han sighed smiling at you, "Our Y/N is all grown up."

hyunjin wiped fake tears. "I'm so proud."

You made a face and rolled your eyes, standing and smoothing your dress, you hummed as you patted down the area where your gun sat on your thigh, just in case, and you grabbed your bag and went to the door.

You only waited about five minutes before Changbin pulled up in front of the building with a sleek, black company car.

"You look pretty." he said as he stepped out of the vehicle and came around to open the door for you.

You smiled. "Thank you, you good too." You stepped into the car and giggled, "Such a gentleman."

Changbin took you to a fancy restaurant and after you ordered, the conversation flowed so smoothly. Even the silence was comfortable, but you noticed it from the corner of your eye.

Two men, sitting at a table a few back from yours, eyeing you... no. eyeing Changbin. When the server came and poured your wine you paid close attention..

Using his right hand he turned the bottle to the left when he poured the wine for your but to the right Changbin.

You swallowed and looked at your wine, something was going to happen.

The thought left your mind when Changbin took your hand in his and smiled. "Y'know during my last stream, STAY kept asking if you were my girlfriend. I couldn't exactly say."

You blushed slightly, "What did you want to tell them?"

"Yes, I'm dating her." He laughed slightly, "Though, since it's jsut me and you," he squeezed your hand gently, "I can say you're only mine."

You blushed even more and laughed. "You're so stupid."

"I think you'd really like only belonging to me, I wouldn't let any guy touch you, I'd buy you food and spoil you."

"You do that anyway, Binnie." You smiled slightly.

He leaned close and whispered, "I guess that makes you mine."

Your heart skipped a beat.

Changbin stared into your eyes and leaned in close, his lips gently brushing against yours. All thought left your mind, it was just Changbin.. but..

You heard the dull click, and whipped around, pulling your gun from the holster under your dress, just as one of the men from the other table, cocked his gun.

You were faster and fired. The man fell back and Changbin grabbed you, pulling you back as the other man sprang up, he pointed a gun at you and it was a intense stare down.

You held your breath. Changbin remain unmoving behind you.

Your heart stopped as a white car pulled up in front of the restaurant. "Changbin get down!"

Changbin kicked the tabled over and grabbed you pulling you back with him as bullets flew through the dining room.

It was a long moment before they stopped, and as you peeked over the table, you locked eyes with the man from the picture, pulling his gun back into the car and smiling at you before they drove away. (Insert evil villain name cus I couldnt think of one)..

The boys were on lockdown again and you were busy, searching everything, everywhere for that man.. for (villain name).

You'd moved to the other dorm, much to the dismay of Hyunjin, who moped about being surrounded by gym freaks.

You took Seungmin's room, which was tidier than Han's. You hadn't moved because you needed quiet, in fact they boys had been quite good at being silent while you worked. It was because you didn't trust yourself, you were scared you wouldn't react as fast as you had at the restaurant with Changbin, you were scared he'd become a worse distraction... you were scared he'd get hurt because of you.

After a month, your informant intercepted another message saying that the man you were looking for was going to a shopping mall to put things up with a bang.

You discussed with the manager, he increased security to compensate for you not being present in the dorms and allowed you to go.

So there you were, sitting in your car outside the mall, staring at the entrance for anything suspicious. You remembered how Changbin had asked you what was wrong when you left, and where you were going...

"You're going alone?" His brows furrowed. "Y/N, be serious, things could happen-"

"What do you want me to do? I'm dragging anymore people into this."

"I'm not asking you to, I just want you to be safe."

"I'm here to protect you and the guys. It's not my choice what I do anymore, this has gotten too out of hand. You can't even go outside without the fear that someone might try to kill you! That's my fault."

"Take me with you then, I'm not afraid of it, I just don't trust the idea of you being alone!"

"Seo Changbin. I'm doing my job. It's not just about you and them anymore."

You pursed your lips and looked at your phone, tempted to say you were sorry..

but your phone rang before you could even take action.

Your brows furrowed, it was an unknown number.

You answered and lifted the phone to your ear. "Hello?"

"I'm glad we could lure you out. I like this game we're playing. Cat and mouse is fun no? It's a two party game. I have to eliminate the extra players, they're taking away my fun. If you involve the police... well that won't be fun."

"What?" You sat up straight.

"I'm not that cruel anyway... I'll give you 30 minutes."

Your heart dropped into your stomach. "WAIT!"

"Starting now."

The man hung up and you stared at your phone for a moment. "Changbin..."

Yongbok stepped out of the bathroom, drying his hair and he tilted his head as Chan sat down with a box on the floor. "What's that?"

"I was going to ask you." Chan said.

Seungmin stared at it. "It has a bad aura about it."

"Since when did you care about that?" Hyunjin looked up from his phone.

"We should open it." Jisung sat beside Chan.

"But-" Jeongin started.

"Didn't Y/N say don't be stupid while she's gone." Changbin said, glaring at the others.

They all nodded.

Minho sat on Chan's other side. "Opening a box isn't stupid."

"I agree." Hyunjin said.

"Guys-" Felix started.

"It's fine Yongbok." Minho said and pulled the lid of the box off.

Chan's brows furrowed, every one sucked in a breath.

"Fuck." Changbin said.

A timer sat in the box on top of a black thing bound with plastic straps, it read 15:50...

Changbin's phone rang. Everyone jumped in fear. His eyes widened as he saw you name. "Y/N- Calm down I can't understand-"

"PUT HER ON SPEAKER!" Felix shouted.

Changbin did as he was told.

You sounded on the verge of tears. "Did you get it?"

Chan looked at the box. "Yeah... We got it."

"I won't make it." You sniffed, "I need you to get scissors and listen carefully."

Jeongin ran to get scissors.

"Someone with steady hands. Listen close. There's no mistakes right now. This isn't acting."

Chan took the scissors from Jeongin and nodded, "I'm listening."

"Remove the timer by cutting the plastic straps. Be careful not to cut the wire surrounding them."

"Are we diffusing a bomb right now?!" Hyunjin shrieked.

"I CAN'T MAKE IT THERE IN TIME THERE'S TOO MUCH TRAFFIC! I CAN'T CALL THE POLICE AND NEITHER CAN ANY OF YOU!"

Chan cut the plastic binding, exposing the explosive and a few more wires.

"There should be a blue wire leading into the bomb directly."

"I see it."

"Cut it."

The boys watched in fear as their leader cut the blue wire.

"Black then grey."

"ok..."

"What's left?"

"Green, red, orange, and purple."

"Purple."

Another cut.

"Orange."

"Now what...?"

"Someone needs to push the button on the back of the timer for 5 seconds. It will give you a 20 second window to cut the last wire."

"What's the last one?" Minho asked.

"Whichever leads to the center of the explosive."

You met silence on the other end of the line before Jisung's voice said, "They both lead to the center..."

You sucked in a breath. "Wait for me."

"We don't have time to wait!" Seungmin shouted.

"How much time is left?!"

"2 minutes!" Felix said.

You slammed the steering wheel and cursed loudly.

Changbin stared at the bomb for a long moment as the members began freaking out.

Hyunjin pulled out his phone and opened instagram starting a stream. "Stay, I love you, we love you!"

"Tell my parents I love them." Jeongin sobbed.

"Chan push the button." Changbin grabbed the scissors.

"Changbin!" You shouted.

"Green means go." Changbin said as Chan pushed the button. "STAY, we love you. Y/N, I love you."

And he cut the green wire.

You heard a loud bang and the line went dead, your heart plummeted. You finally pulled off the highway and into the parking around the dorms. You ran to the dorm and-

Changbin hugged you tightly as you opened the door.

Your hands trembled before you hugged him back. "I thought you died."

"You were that worried about me." He muttered into your hair.

"Yes.."

Jisung coughed loudly, earning a punch from Minho.

You laughed and pulled away from Changbin, arms open.

You shrieked as Chan bear hugged you and then everyone was on you.

As you laughed you saw someone in the hall shaking their head. You pulled away as the man started running.

And you took off running after him. Not this time. You wouldn't let him get away again. You jumped onto him just as he got to the stairs, he stumbled and fell with you. You felt the cold metal of a gun barrel brush your arm and bit down on his arm hard.

The gun fell away and skidded away. You hit the landing platform hard, your shoulder taking the brunt of the force before you rolled for the gun.

You thought about a statement you'd heard from your boss months ago. I trust you to handle it. Without being reckless.

Why were you reckless? Why did you never give a shit what happened as long as you caught the criminal..? Because you didn't care then. Because it was your job... your obligation.

What was it now?

The man grabbed your leg and dragged you towards him and you kicked his face hard.

You scrambled with your opportunity for the gun.

Your fingers wrapped around the grip, as the man dragged you back towards him..

and it all seemed to go in slow motion as the boys came down after you. And the man's hands wrapped around your throat. You held the gun to his head and shouted with the last of your breath as he squeezed your windpipe, "BANG!"

and you pulled the trigger.

17 years ago December 19th 2005..

"Shh, she might hear."

"The gifts are better down by the college anyway."

"Honey. You're being loud."

"Fine fine."

You heard them giggling before you poked your head outside your room. You watched your parents leaving the house. You smiled to yourself knowing they were going to buy Christmas gifts.

When the morning came and your parents weren't in their room, you became confused. In the snow, dressed in your pajamas and bunny slippers you went to your neighbors house to ask if they'd seen your parents.

The little old lady next door stared at you before the tears welled in her eyes, "You poor thing.."

You were only 5 when your parents died. You were only 5 when you learned what it meant to yearn for revenge. You'd spent all your years in the force since you were 17 trying to find the organization behind the bombs...

And you were today many years old when you learned revenge wasn't a liberating feeling.

"BANG!"

BANG!

The boys stared in shock as you pushed the man's body off of you and sat there. Changbin didn't hesitate to run and wrap his arms around you, examining your face before looking into your eyes.

"Y/n... y/nnie?"

And you passed out.

The past week had been a blur of appointments with press and a million other things.

It was Friday you finally got to lie down and breathe.

You were lying in bed staring at the ceiling when you got a call. You rolled over and answered the phone. Your boss's voice came to your ears.

"Good job, L/N. We're glad you could do it. We're booking your flight back to the US already."

"Sir-"

"You'll be receiving a promotion to a less risky position as a token of our gratitude."

Changbin entered your room and stared at you.

"I can't-" you tried.

"I have to admit I myself am shocked, L/N you've proved your reckless behavior is productive and I owe you-"

"SIR I QUIT!"

The other end of the line went quiet.

Changbin sat beside you and pulled you against him.

"I- I accomplished what I wanted. I'm pretty young still. I'll go to college. It's time I change careers."

Your boss was quiet on the other end of the line.

"Consider this my resignation letter. It was an honor. But i can't be reckless anymore."

The boys were poking their heads into your room now.

You looked at them all and smiled.

"I have something... some people..." You leaned against Changbin. "Someone... I want to keep living for."

"We'll send your pay for the case..." Your boss said softly. "I'm glad I met you L/N, it was an honor to have you in the force."

You lowered the phone and hung up.

"Soo....?" Minho said, looking at the others. "She's NOT going back to the US?"

"No Minho. I'm here to stay."

The boys cheered and jumped. You smiled slightly and looked at Changbin.

He leaned in and kissed you.

You blinked. Stunned.

Jisung jumped and held his hands out to Hyunjin "5000 PUT EM IN MY HAND! ALL OF YOU!"

You stared at them for a moment, "You were-"

"Green is green!" Jisung ran away cackling.

You laughed and shook your head. "I love you guys."

"I think you love me most." Changbin said and kissed your cheek.

"I love you just a little bit more than them."

He rolled his eyes as the others ran shouting about their money. "I love you."

You hadn't gotten the feeling you dreamed for in revenge but in them... in Changbin you found something more.

"STOP BEING LOVE BIRDS AND MAKE THEM GIVE ME MY MONEY!" Jisung shouted.

[jesncin]

please do tell about why woman of tomorrow sucks i love reading your takes they’re always so well written

Sure! And thank you for throwing me this bone because WOOF

(btw it's totally fine for people to like Woman of Tomorrow, and I can even see why! This is just my experience with it that I wish was talked about more)

Quick context: Woman of Tomorrow is about a space farmgirl named Ruthye who seeks revenge on Krem, a guy who killed her dad. Supergirl guides her on this journey so they can learn lessons about grief and revenge.

The biggest flaw of the comic is the narrative prose. Ruthye's dialogue is a rambly, over-indulgent, stylized mix of an attempt at medieval Shakespearian speak, but then in the last few issues the writer remembers she's a farmgirl so he decides she should suddenly say "ain't" more often and speak in double negatives to sound a bit more Southern. I can enjoy wordy comics! But Ruthye's dialogue and narration is blatantly excessive purple prose. So many scenes would hit harder with a less-is-more approach while still being stylized and characteristic. Sometimes the narrations pairs nicely with the art to create layered irony, but most of the time it feels like it's disregarding the comics medium altogether.

The other thing about Ruthye's narration is that it holds the story back. I get that the narration is Ruthye writing from the future, but the way it's done gives us a very passive relationship with the events of the story. We don't get to be with the characters in the action heavy moments because we're reading caption boxes of Future Ruthye rambling about poetry recounting The Battle of Capes. I'm not experiencing grief or dread with the characters, I'm being told about it. All of Ruthye's narrative rants boil down to "Supergirl is really badass, sad and kind. I promise this is deep." and "here's how my farm girl experience is relevant to this". Ruthye also speaks in glowing admiration, idealization and worship of Supergirl; it makes it really hard to get to know Kara in a humanizing way. I'm sure the purple prose hits differently for others, but I personally think the story would have more room to breathe without it.

You know how people like saying "Superman is boring because everything is too easy for him, he's too powerful" yeah that's Woman of Tomorrow. The conflict Kara faces are not challenges to her character, they're inconveniences. The resolutions to each story don't feel clever or earned. Kara just knows where to find the murdered purple aliens, Kara just happens to have a silver age-reference magical horse that can outrun the suffering-ball Krem throws at her, Kara just toughs out 10 hours in the green sun. Why be a smart storyteller when you can just give your heroine the upper hand every single time? There could've been a great bonding moment where Ruthye uses her famer-smarts to build shade for Kara, she could've crafted a salve to protect Kara's skin. But I guess having her guard Kara from dinosaurs is ok. Kara helps of course, even though she's dying because she's so cool, badass, sad, kind, etc.

Kara's internal conflict is that she was hoping that taking Ruthye on this journey would teach the farmgirl a lesson about revenge, but has Kara herself learned to move on? She's still thinking about Krypton after all. The problem with how this is presented is that it's not a flaw that we get to see evolve with the story. We see Kara act mopey, get an origin story flashback and then Kara tells us this- in hopes it'll recontextualize everything you've read before. By the time we make it to the end, the characters act like they've learned so much and I'm just standing here wishing I got to see all this growth they're talking about.

At the heart of it, I feel like Woman of Tomorrow represents the side of Super-fandom that wants to see the Kryptonians deified by the narrative. They hate seeing Kara do silly girly rom-com teenager things, she needs to be SERIOUS and EDGY and SAD and ALONE but like a god would be and not how a young woman would be that way. How else will boys take her seriously? Don't forget to remind the reader that she's STRONGER than her boy scout wholesome cousin! There's potential in a short revenge story about young girls finding hope in seeing a role-model woman survive loss, but not like this.

"You don't think I could've solved all those problems? C'mon I'm Supergirl." I sure love seeing female characters be badass girl-god legends who don't get to be humanized by being unflatteringly flawed people. Anyway the better Supergirl grief+revenge story is "Supergirl: Being Super". I don't think it's perfect because it misses the crucial difference between Kal and Kara among other things- but as a story about a teenage heroine learning how grief shapes her and those around her, it's way better.

Woman of Tomorrow's art is stellar though lmao would get a copy just as an artbook to reference.

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

Hey, this is going to be long and wordy but I’m kinda desperate. Lately I’ve been having doubts about whether Jesus actually said what’s recorded in the gospels and whether those accounts are true, and the uncertainty there scares me, especially since I know the gospel writers almost certainly had their own agendas and that’s why accounts of the same event can sound different, why the birth narrative was skipped over or not, etc. On top of that I’ve seen posts from Jewish users outlining why Judaism typically doesn’t accept Jesus as Messiah/why you can’t be Jewish if you believe that, and their arguments seem pretty sound. So it all boils down to this big scary question of “What if this whole Jesus-as-Messiah thing was just the result of projection onto some random guy who seemed to be the real deal because the writers were so desperate to be rescued from the Roman occupation?” It sucks cuz I’ve been enjoying my renewed interest in church (for the most part) and while I’ve tried my best to learn not to take the Bible literally all the time (yay for growing up in an inerrantist doctrinal tradition 🙄), I still want to take it seriously and I still want to believe in Jesus as savior/Lord/etc. I don’t want to just be like, “Yeah I don’t buy the whole Messiah thing but I can still follow his example!” I want there to be meat behind why I follow, if that makes sense. So inasmuch as this could be my OCD being bored and trying to take hold of whatever it thinks would bug me the most (wouldn’t be the first time!), I would really appreciate any advice you have. I know there may not be any certainty or reassurance to be found here, but I still want to hear from someone who’s been there before so I can chart a path forward, and I think this is an important question to wrestle with. Plus I remember from one of your posts you said you have seminary notes on this exact topic so I’m curious lol.

"Gospel Truth": how do we know what Jesus really said and did?

Hey again! Sorry for the long delay on this one but I wanted to do some research before responding! You're right that these are important questions, and you're absolutely not the only one to feel doubt and anxiety over them. You're also right that I can't offer you certainty, but I do hope you'll find encouragement here, and places to go as you continue your journey.

This got super long (as always lol), so let's start with aTL;DR:

In this post, you'll find that there's a lot that we can surmise is very probable about Jesus' life story, but that ultimately we can't know much for certain — and that's okay. In Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions), Rachel Held Evans gets to the heart of the matter:

"I don’t know which Bible stories ought to be treated as historically accurate, scientifically provable accounts of facts and which stories are meant to be metaphorical. I don’t know if it really matters so long as those stories transform my life."

This is a time where scholarship & faith go hand-in-hand: using the minds God gifted us, we study and learn what we can; and we cultivate faith in the things we can't — a faith that doesn't deny doubt, but makes room for it, and calls us into community so that we can wrestle out meaning together.

A couple other notes before we kick off:

Please know that you don't Have To Study All The Things if you decide it's healthier for you not to go chasing those rabbit holes. You don't need to be an expert in Biblical studies to be a "good Christian" or to take scripture seriously or to get to know God deeply.

I trust you know yourself and how your OCD works better than I could. So I'm going to share the information I have, and leave it to you to determine for yourself how much information you need in order to feel reassured, without giving your mind new problems to ruminate over.

So here's a link to a Google doc that has A Lot of information — like, too much lol. But save it for after you read this post; I'm putting the most relevant & important info here! If you finish this post and feel satisfied, you never even have to look in the doc.

However deep you go, if you find yourself getting overwhelmed, know that whatever you are feeling is valid and probably pretty common, and take a break! Do a calming meditation or an activity you enjoy to help regulate your mind and body. If possible, have someone you can unpack this stuff with — or have a notebook ready to journal in. <3

Okay, all that outta the way, let's dig in!

Who wrote the Gospels?

Tradition goes that the authors of the four canonical Gospels are three of Jesus' closest disciples — Matthew, Mark, and John — plus a disciple of Paul — Luke. But academics have determine that this tradition is very improbable; it's much more likely that none of the four authors knew Jesus personally, and that the earliest of them (Mark) wasn't recorded till the 60s — decades after Jesus lived and died!

When people learn this, it often leads to something of a crisis of faith. If these writers didn't even know Jesus firsthand, where the heck did they get their information?? And come to think of it, why do their accounts differ? Is some of it made up? Is all of it made up??

The anxiety and fear that wells up is normal, and it's healthy to acknowledge that you're feeling it. But once that first shock abates, it's possible to discover a sort of freedom in the knowledge that the Gospel writers (and all the authors of the biblical texts) were human, with human biases and specific goals fitting their unique context; and that they didn't have all the answers!

This realization can free us to approach scripture without certain expectations (that it's all inerrant and prescriptive, etc.), and allows us to bring our doubts to the table with us. If something in the text seems questionable — particularly if it seems to promote bigotry and injustice rather than God's love — we can consider whether something in its author's cultural context might be responsible for that part of scripture.

So taking some time to learn the unique contexts of each writer can be quite enriching to how we engage the Gospels. For a chart that sums up the Gospel writers' unique contexts, audiences, and priorities, see this post.

For even more, you'll want a book that digs into that stuff — I recommend Raymond Brown's An Introduction to the New Testament (the abridged version!!). As you learn about the Gospel writers, I hope several things become evident:

First, that they weren't just making things up whole cloth, or relying on a game of "he said she said" telephone for their information! Each one drew from different primary or secondary sources, eyewitness testimonies or written texts (many of which no longer exist, but scholars have pieced together evidence of, like the famous "Q source" that both Matthew and Luke drew from).

Yes, each author does have an agenda in writing about Jesus, and in how they tell his story. But that's not a nefarious thing; it's true of any text, whether biography, poetry, novel, song — you don't take the time to write something without a purpose in mind! With variation between their specific goals, overall each Gospel writer's agenda was to persuade their audience that Jesus is worth following, and/or to offer encouragement to those who already believed.

Another thing that modern readers sometimes interpret as intentionally deceptive is that, yeah, the Gospels contain things that aren't strictly factual, and that the writers knew weren't strictly factual. This is because ancient ideas about history & biography are very different from our own. When we read a biography, we expect it to be all facts, with citations proving those facts. But the ancients were much less concerned with making sure every detail was accurate; instead, they were focused on making their specific point about whatever thing or person they were writing/reading about. So yes, they might embellish one detail or leave out another in order to fortify their desired message. They cared more about the Truth as they interpreted it than a purely factual account.

On a similar note, each Gospel writer understands Jesus and the meaning behind his story a little differently — hence why they all tell things in slightly different orders, and characterize Jesus differently, etc. This is also understandable — we all interpret stories differently; we all come to different conclusions even when we have the same or similar information. See the section in the google doc titled "each Gospel's essence" to learn more about the different ways each writer characterizes Jesus, and why they may have interpreted him the way they did.

On that topic, let's get to your question about...

Jesus — Messiah, or no?

If you read the Gospel of Matthew and take it as pure fact, you'll determine that Jesus is the Messiah his people were waiting for — that he did indeed fulfill various scriptures. But if you read Mark, you won't find that argument at all! To the author of Mark, Jesus clearly did not match the stipulations of the awaited-for Messiah — and for Mark, that's kinda the point: that Jesus is something new and surprising, unlike anything human beings expected, upturning our ideas of power and salvation.

...So how did they come to these vastly different views??

Well, Matthew was a Jew writing to persuade his fellow Jews that the Jesus movement was worth joining; to do so, he felt he had to "prove" that it fit into Jewish tradition. So he prioritizes showing how Jesus is a righteous Jew who abides by Torah, and that he is indeed the Messiah they've been waiting for.

(It's also worth noting that when Matthew writes, over and over, about Jesus "fulfilling" various bits of Hebrew scripture, that verb "fulfilling" doesn't mean what it might sound like to us — that a given text was always and only about Jesus, with the prophet having Jesus in mind when they wrote it. Rather, to Matthew "fulfilling" the text meant "filling it up" with more meaning — adding to its meaning, not replacing the old meaning. More on that, with citations, in the Google doc.)

Meanwhile, Mark's author was a Jew writing mostly to gentile members of the early Jesus movement. He knew they wouldn't care whether or not Jesus fit the Jewish expectations for a Messiah! (In fact, giving Jesus a bit more of a "Greek" flair would appeal to them more.) So Mark doesn't perform the mental and rhetorical gymnastics that Matthew does to try to make Jesus fit the Messiah requirements.

So which Gospel got it right?

For many matters of scripture, I say "it's open to interpretation!" or "Maybe both are right in different ways, conveying different truths!" But for this particular case, it is very important as Christians to accept that Jesus absolutely does not fit the Jewish requirements for their Messiah. To argue otherwise is antisemitic — it's supersessionist, meaning it claims that Christianity supersedes or replaces Judaism.

We might understand, as the author of Mark did, Jesus to be a messiah — which just means "anointed one" in Hebrew (the Greek counterpart is "Christ") — without making antisemitic claims that Jews "failed to recognize their own Messiah." (In fact, there are multiple messiahs in scripture, e.g. in Isaiah 45, the foreign king Cyrus is referred to as God's messiah; though later scriptures like Daniel do start talking about a specific Messiah who will usher in redemption & a new age for the Jewish people.)

We can understand why some of the biblical authors, like Matthew, interpreted Jesus as this specific Messiah as a result of their own specific context, without agreeing with their view. See this post about “Anti-Jewish Content in the New Testament: Why it’s there and what we should do about it” for more on this important topic.  (You can also find even further resources on supersessionism in this post.)

...Okay, so we've looked at the authors of the Gospels a good bit. We've learned that their idea of a "biography" is very different from ours — that they didn't consider it bad to rearrange, leave out, or embellish accounts — but what does that leave us with when it comes to knowing who Jesus "really" was?

What can we know for sure about Jesus?

Let's look at the facts. The first one is: we don't have any. Not any 100% certain ones, anyway. The guy lived before audio recorders and cameras; we're relying on written and oral accounts, which can be fabricated.

However, there are points about the Jesus story that are regarded as almost certainly historical by the vast majority of historians today, so let's look at those first:

Jesus almost 100% certainly existed. There is enough historical evidence (both inside and outside the Bible) to confirm this — even non-Christian historians almost unanimously agree that there was a historical Jesus. (Phew, am I right?)

Almost all historians also agree that several parts of Jesus' story almost definitely happened: that he was baptized in the Jordan; that he traveled around teaching and offering miracles (whether or not they agree he actually had the power to perform real miracles, of course); and that he was arrested and crucified by the occupying Roman Empire.

Some of these almost-irrefutable claims lend plausibility to others: if he traveled around teaching, what was he teaching? Why not the sermons, the parables recorded in the Gospels? And if he was crucified — the death of a criminal, an insurrectionist — what did he do to get himself crucified? He must have done something to cause Rome to see him as a threat to their Empire — why not some of the sayings and actions that are recorded in the Gospels, like his claim to be "Son of God" (a title used for Caesar); his protest march into Jerusalem satirizing Caesar; and his disruption at the Temple?

The attempt to determine which parts of scripture are "authentic," i.e. things that really happened / things Jesus really said," is often called "The Quest for the Historical Jesus."

Over the decades, scholars interested in this pursuit have developed various "criteria of authenticity," which they use to try to determine how probable any given bit of the Gospels is. In the google doc, I summarize the history of this "quest" and describe some of the most popular criteria. But what's important to understand is that these criteria have major limitations — they're often applied somewhat arbitrarily, for one thing, and ultimately they can't "prove" for sure whether something in the text is definitely historical or definitely not. So honestly, this is not a field of study that I recommend everyone go immerse themselves in! When I do, I have fun for a while, then kinda end up more overwhelmed by how much we can't know.

Still, sometimes these criteria of authenticity do yield some interesting points. For instance, the "Criteria of Embarrassment" (yes, that's what it's called lol) asserts that anything in the text that would have been embarrassing to its author is more likely to be historical fact — because why would the author have made something up that puts them in an unflattering light, or might be used to argue against their message?

For example, a lot of Gospel stories depict Jesus' disciples being kinda clueless, or saying petty things, or failing miserably (e.g. the denial of Peter). Why would the Gospel authors have wanted to make these earliest believers, who are meant to be role models for their audience, look so bad? This criterion says that wouldn't — that they must include those stories because they really happened, rather than being things the author made up to make their point.

Or take the Criterion of Multiple Attestation, which determines how many sources include a certain saying or event. The more sources contain a specific story, the more plausibly "authentic" that story is, since it means that different unconnected communities knew that story. Logical enough.

So yes, there are ways to consider the historicity of the Gospels — but not definitively. So the question becomes: is the historical knowledge we do have enough for me to feel some level of, I don't know, peace? stability in my faith?

And, at the end of the day, how important to me is it that every single thing the Gospels say is completely factual?

Back to what matters: the Good News

Facts are great — God gifted us our minds, and various scripture stories show God encourages us to wrestle with the text! — but we are called to faith as well.

Furthermore, taking the Bible seriously means accepting it for what it is — a collection of ancient texts compiled by humans, even if guided by Divinity — rather than insisting it be what it is not. For the Gospels, that means accepting that they are not biography, but story, and prioritize Truth over fact.

My pastor friend Roger puts it like this:

“For me, it isn’t about deciding which things Jesus really said or didn’t say. That’s a road that goes nowhere. As a pastoral response, I take scripture at face value and work to empathize with the people in and behind the text. Through that empathy, I can find some meaning that connects with what we’re facing here and now.”

When we acknowledge that the Bible includes human interpretations of the Divine, and that we bring our own human interpretations to our reading of it, where does that leave us?

It leaves us in need of conversation, of an expansion of our perspectives by talking through scripture in community. We do that conversing with friends, or attending Bible studies at church, or reading a variety of theological texts — getting as many unique understandings of Jesus as we can, joining our ideas together to get an ever broader glimpse of the Divine.

There's a reason Jesus taught in parables: he didn't want there to be one definitive answer to matters of life and faith! He wanted to ignite conversation, to draw us into community — because it's in community that we are the image of God, the Body of Christ.

So keep on wrestling, wondering, talking it through (taking time to rest when needed — there's no rush!). We discover scripture's meaning for us in our own place and time through the wrestling, together.

[fob4ever]

patrick stump & neal avron on tape notes podcast (12.15.23)

songwriting stuff, demos, lyric process, a bunch of things! they talk about the songs lftos, heaven iowa and smfsd.

long summary under the cut!

talked about how they sat outside “emo” because they leaned more towards hiphop/rnb, but also how they didn’t fit in the “pop” genre too and how they would be put on pop shows and “comparatively it was like slayer was playing” lmao “but we’re still a pop band!”

they experimented with reggae and 90s shoegaze and hardcore during the pandemic

they recorded most of stardust together in neal’s house :D at the beginning it was mostly just neal and patrick working together, at the end of the day everybody would come in to listen

patrick said he got “kinda obsessed” with streamlining pete’s lyrics in the chorus over the past few albums: “pete is very wordy. he has all these ideas that take up a lot of space.” and that their manager sat him down at lunch and said “don't do that. you guys used to ramble. why don't you ramble?” and lftos was the first song patrick put together after that convo

lftos writing process: patrick followed what he was feeling, and most of what he did in that song were things that years spent working in pop music had scared him off on doing.

the “every lover's got a little dagger in their hand” lyric tied it all together for patrick: “[i was] singing that line and EAGERLY emailing neal: listen to this!”

they play a little of the lftos demo (16:55). it's wild. VERY guitar-forward

“neal and i lost most of the demos for [folie a deux].” the burning of the library of alexandria. to me

talks about how the folie demos were infinitely stranger than the final versions, “psychedelic at times”

for stardust, they didn't really keep much of the demo stuff- patrick: “and my demos are pretty decent!”

lftos piano demo (21:35)

patrick: i want some drama. when i look back at our records, our best ones start off with a sense of melodrama

they play individual parts of the lftos instrumentation (31:25), andy's drums, pete's bass, joe's guitar. <3

bridges are patrick's favorite thing to write, because he just gets to play

patrick: "pete doesn't even send lyrics in lyric-form, he just sends words. and it's interesting when you see it- it's almost like one-liner after one-liner. and i'll just get an email of those, and then you kinda have to figure out what thematically goes together, what feels like the same song. but then i also try to keep lyrics together as much as possible, because i feel he's in a place where it does feel like one thought."

"when i read it, there's almost a passive thing where i just imagine what it sounds like to me. and [the lyrics for heaven, iowa] scared me a lot, because it felt kind of sparse, and i don't really like sparse- i don't really like singing by myself. [...] i don't like being so front and center, and i could tell that there was something really intimate about this song, and it was a big challenge for me."

everybody immediately went for the heaven, iowa demo- it's from the first stardust session and it took the longest to complete because patrick wasn't satisfied with just his voice over keys- "it was too naked."

patrick doesn't ask pete about lyrics because: "first off, he will not explain things. but second off, i think there is something to that. where i'll read his lyrics, and i'll interpret it one way, and years later i'll realize it's another way. there's so many double entendres that i've only gotten decades later, i'll be singing and go, 'OH it's a sex thing.'"

patrick really attaches to the story of a lyric, the craft of it, and then years later he'll be like "oh that was a HEAVY lyric. [and] pete must have felt that thing! i don't really question it when i'm writing- it's kindof unfair on him, like, should i check on him?"

heaven iowa instrumental demo/instruments isolated (53:30)

patrick would tell joe to "go nuts" on heaven, iowa!

neal talks about the ambient guitar pedal joe plays during heaven iowa and how it worked really well. patrick says this was the kind of thing that saved (the song).

patrick and andy double drummed at the same time in the studio for heaven iowa! <3

pete told joe to go "full slash" at the end of heaven iowa : )

patrick almost didn't send out the demo for the title track, smfsd! he was almost sure no one was going to like it, even though he liked it. but he sent it out, and it "kept surviving"

both patrick and neal brushed smfsd off because they assumed they "couldn't do that", but pete really pushed for it, which surprised patrick.

so much for stardust demo (1:25:07) patrick plays drums on it, sloppily. which he freely admits to lol. it is quite sloppy indeed

patrick: "i'm a drummer too, but andy and i are very different drummers. and it's very cool translating our things between each other, because he comes from metal (...) and i'm more a funk drummer."

lotsa joe layering in heaven iowa and smfsd : )

it was patrick's idea to do a lyrical callback in lftos/smfsd, and pete was hesitant about it. but patrick pushed for it, becasuse it made sense as "story beats"- "it's like 'empire strikes back'!"

patrick doesn't like to putz around the studio that much, he just wants to be recording something.

patrick: "my routine [during the writing of the album] was just to make it to the studio as on time as i can be- i have adhd, it's very difficult- but i'd be there within 10-15 minutes of when i was supposed to be there, and then we'd just work through it."

patrick's advice: FROM ELTON JOHN: when you find your producer that understands you, stick with them. patrick: "and that was on a record we didn't do with neal, and i remember thinking [makes unsure noises]..." also prioritize in the short-term, what's important. take a step back.

neal's advice: if music is your passion, do it, and do it all the time

patrick was afraid people wouldn't like him "rambling" in songs, even though it was honest and natural to him. he was terrified of doing it again, thinking people wouldn't like it. but people did! "don't subvert yourself too much."

the host asks for them to choose a stardust song to close out the podcast, and patrick chooses what a time to be alive :)

the end

[cosmic-navel-gazin]

Finished Felvidek and had a grand time!

Thought I'd do a lil list of things/moments/details I loved off the top of my head:

gave cursed coffee bean to a chicken and it mutated. Did it for science

game's got some twin peaks vibes, some monty python, a tad of hylics, along it a bunch of other ingredients, but it feels very much its own thing with its own identity

pear man and his daughters deserve the world, wish we hung out more

there's a fight with an invisible enemy, all your attacks miss because your guys can't see shit and I was laughing just imagining Pavol and Matej swinging their swords at nothing hoping to slay the forest fiend. Very Don Quixote, I love it.

the PS1 style cutscenes are sooooo beautiful I love them to pieces, they drip with style and charm. I knew I needed to give this game a go the moment I watched the trailer and was greeted by the cinematics. God I love them so much. And not just the syle but the directing itself, the way shots are framed, god...

I love the character portraits for everyone. There's so much detail and everyone feels unique/like an actual person with distinct features. From the Priest's very punchable face, to Pavol's grin to Josef's sexy ass... From main characters to NPCs to enemy sprites, I love everyone's design and colour coding (don't know if it was intentional but the purple for the cultists was neat, seemed to subtly imply early on that they were being funded by rich folk, since pruple is associated with nobility, power and wealth)

speaking of character design, shout-out to this lil guy, look at him please

Numnut the drunkard my beloved, I recruited him and less than a minute later he fell on flat ground into a nearby river (and drowns???). I reloaded a previous save to see if I could have him in my party a lil longer. I took a different path, got into a fight. "yay I get to see him in action!"- I thought. I used his one special move, called: 'good idea', and Numnut proceeds to punch his own face, dealing 90 damage (not even in the endgame did I deal such high numbers!). THE Character of all time, he drowned again after that and I'll never forget him.

BALLOON IN THE MIDDLE AGES! (possible Andrei Rublev reference? I can dream...)

just, the way things are worded:

cutting people's ears after killing them as spoils (and giving the ears to a maiden, as you do)

there's a quest where you have to cut a man's tattooed buttock to give to another guy, and it's all for nothing, you ruined a man's ass for nothing. I love it. The dialogue during this whole section had me dying.

I love that there's just this guy who lives in the castle's well. And our boy Pavol thinks it's a great idea to throw a bomb in there to make him come out.

this:

there's these lil inisghtful and mournfoul comments on the dead bodies you leave behind. Like, expressing regret at all the senseless violence and death or how cheap life is here. And I'm not sure if it's Pavol or Matej making them. It makes more sense for it to be Matej but I kinda like the idea of it being Pavol's comments, these small moments of introspection and realization in the midst of a drunken adventure. You've been engaging in all the violence while pissed drunk but then after you kill your opponents and look at their corpses... and it's like this sobering moment, before you're back at it with all the merry-making (I also like that a lot of these bodies don't disappear and just remain on screen, and you can see the carnage your guys leave behind in their quest)

the whole adventure felt to me like, this series of odd little events in a knight's life before it's passed down, told by and retold by different people, and after many generations it's been touched up and made more coherent and noble than the clusterfuck it actually was. Before it became a narrative I guess is what I mean

it can get a bit wordy and hard to follow but I really like the old timey way the dialogue is written and its dry sense of humour

there's these little subversions of gaming tropes that I found really fun too! Like as soon as Pavol's wife and your falling out with her is introduced you may expect a reconciliation between the two, or a moment where you have to save her and prove your worth and love to her to win her heart. As you would expect from a story with a knight and a damsel. But no she hates his guts lmao tries to murder him too! (tho I do think Pavol took her in that balloon ride at the end). There's also the fact that I am not allowed to play minigames! Josef wants to play tabletop games but your character always replies no. No minigames for you son! And like, this feels especially catered to me as someone who, more often than not, will dread whenever a game will introduce some sort of card game or the like. I was so happy that wasn't forced on me for once! Couldn't believe it. Kinda felt bad for Josef tho, I'm sorry Pavol doesn't wanna play Pexeso wth you.

the battle animations! I'm particularly fond of the eating porridge one, or the chugging down a bucket of sour cream, and the petard

the little *slaps face* animation

Pavol and Matej as a duo and the whole tavern scene with the two exchanging clothes

the lil moments of humanity where Pavol talks about his broken life and sense of self

the rare moments when Pavol stops grinning

it goes without saying but the art is absolutely gorgeous. Its nostalgic monochrome melancholy speaks to me on a deep spiritual level. Inject it directly into my bone marrow please. Shout-out also to the ost, it fucks and has tons of bangers. The Hrad track, the one that plays on Josef's castle... god... love at first listen, and have been listening nonstop for the last few days now while going on walks.

[oftenderweapons]

Natural Connection | KNJ | Ch.5

A Small Town Swoons story

Pairing: Namjoon x reader (nicknamed Plum)

Wordcount: 3.6k

Genre: stragers to lovers, fluff, mild angst; ranger/trainer!Namjoon, Chef!reader

Rating: 18+

Synopsis: Plum wakes up needy, too bad Namjoon has already left her room. Their confrontation doesn't go where expected.

Trigger warnings: swearing, semi-public sex. Making out, grinding, dry humping, mutual masturbation, peaches and cream (i guess???). Musings on unprotected sex. Just a pinch of postcoital misunderstandings. Feral, possessive kissing and light biting.

A/N: Holy moly it's been two years???, but I guess it's better late than never, right? 😅💖 I decided to post this only now since I've already written the final 2 chapters. It's been tought, but I've decided it's time to return to this story and finally complete it (even though Ranger!Joon will be oh so dearly missed. I really didn't want to let go of him LOL, esp since it's time to drop this sunshine baby's full back story 😞🥺🥺🥺)

Here is my Masterlist, enjoy!

Navi: Part 1 – Part 2 — Part 3 – Part 4 - Part 5

When you saw Namjoon the next morning, you only remembered waking up to an empty bed. 

It wasn't a pleasant feeling and you weren't ready to acknowledge it like a mature, emotionally stable adult. 

“Good morning, Plum,” he murmured, standing very close beside you as he waited for his band of jocks to join you. 

“Morning,” you replied, a bit grumpy, but hiding it behind the pretense of courtness. 

“Did you sleep alright?” he asked, gentle and apprehensive. 

“Uh-huh.”

“Not very wordy, mh?” He nodded to himself. “Okay.” And just like that, conversation was over. 

You hated having him right beside you and wasting time in silence when all you wanted to do was hear him talk, but apparently you had to make do with what you had. 

The guys arrived all together maybe two minutes after he stopped talking to you. 

“Okay, let's stop by the equipment office so you can all get your climbing gear.” 

Cruelty didn't even begin to cover the ugly feeling coursing through your every limb. It was a sour kind of betrayal, both from your own body and from the person who has so perfectly won you over in nothing but four days of half smiles and hard work and competent guidance. 

It felt like your stomach was being played tennis with, slammed from one side to the other. 

Namjoon seemed entirely oblivious to the wretched state you were in, especially once he knelt in front of you and tugged at the straps around your thighs, slipping two fingers in between the harness and your skin to make sure there was enough space for your muscles to flex comfortably. “All set?” he asked, but his voice was dark and once his eyes shot up to your face he couldn't hide a flicker of lust lighting up his guts.

This angle, he thought, was just the same as when he'd lifted your leg and placed the back of your knee over his shoulder, his nose diving in the metallic, earthy scent of you. 

He was getting hard. He could tell. 

But you took a step back. “Yes.” Your reply was glacial, and it seemed as if you couldn't remove your harness fast enough. 

“I'll be right back,” you told him over your shoulder as you headed for the closest restroom in the sports hall. 

Namjoon just nodded and watched you go.

“What did you do to her?” Jackson asked him, an unwelcome afterthought, like his personal little devil perched on his shoulder. 

“I have no idea,” Namjoon replied, sincere and confused. 

“Did you tell her something rude? With your typical lone wolf harshness?” Jaebeom pitched in. 

“Who made her mad?” Asked Wooyoung, staring at your figure as you dashed across the hall. 

“Namjoon,” said Jackson, not even bothering with stating that maybe you weren't mad at all, and that Namjoon had done absolutely nothing to upset you. 

Yet, it was his interaction with you that had made you dash. Or so he thought. 

“Go check on the girl, you fool! Didn't mother teach you anything?” 

All the guys turned in Bangchan's direction and he seemed to quote, “Broke your heart I'll put it back together, I would wait forever and ever, and that's how it works, that's how you get the girl.” 

Jackson and Jaebeom just stared at him, as if they couldn't recognise their friend at all. 

“She literally said what every girl wants and we still act like girls are a mystery. Just listen to them, for goodness’ sake.” 

Namjoon nodded for a couple seconds, then started in the direction you went. 

He entered the corridor to the restroom, and hesitated by the shared washing room that gave access both to the men's toilets and the women's ones. He walked through the women's door. Three other doors in front of him. 

He really, wholeheartedly hoped there weren't other women around. 

“Plum, are you okay?” 

Silence followed. 

“I know you're here, Plum. I just need to know you're alright. I don't know what I said or did to upset you, but—” 

A door opened and for a second he thought he would die of mortification, then he registered your face. 

Relief, at first. 

Then something else. 

Your cheeks were aflame, and your chest too seemed to be on fire. 

Your lips were as red as he'd ever seen them, and it wasn't makeup because he hadn't noticed any bright colour on your face earlier. 

“Are you okay?” he asked. 

You nodded, still speechless. 

“You don't seem okay. What is it? Did I—?” 

“I am fine, Namjoon. Don't worry. I'm alright. Perfectly okay.”

“But you—” 

“Wonderfully fantastic, Namjoon.” Your tone was clipped 

You made your way to the door when he stepped in front of it. “Are you?”

You rolled your eyes. “I just told you so!” 

He pinched a lock of your hair in between his thumb and forefinger, straightened it, then released it. “You were grumpy this morning.”

“Just stressed about climbing.” 

“Nothing to do with me, so?” 

You rolled your eyes. Why would he be so perceptive? “Absolutely not.” 

“Am I frustrating you?” he asked, and stepped closer. 

“Yes, immensely, with all your questions and— The guys will be suspicious. Do they know you—” 

“That I came after you? Yes, they saw you dash and suggested I check in on you, which I wanted to do myself, but I wasn't sure it was a good idea, and their validation sort of helped. I know you're mad at me, I don't know why, though!” 

You narrowed your eyes at him. “You don't know why?!” 

You tried to sidestep him, but he was like a wall in front of you. “I don't.” 

“I woke up! Alone! I was…!” You gesticulated as if to complete your accusation, but the words wouldn't come out. 

“I see,” Namjoon replied, and he immediately noticed it was patronising, which made you seethe at him, pointing a finger against his chest.

“Do not use that tone with me, mister. You could at least have left a note.” 

He looked at you like you were nothing but a tiny little mouse he was about to thwart with his big bearish paws. “I'm sorry, Plum. You're right, I should have left a note.”

It was true, he'd dashed earlier that morning, but it was only because a deer had been found not far from the main road, his hind legs severely damaged, and he'd been called to help the local wildlife ranger to pick the animal up for rescue. “It was an emergency and I dashed out and—” 

“I woke up and you were gone.” Your eyes were wide, perfectly showing the disbelief you'd felt. “I woke up—” you said, and the pause that followed was like you were looking for words and only the wrong ones were coming up. “I woke up,” you repeated, “wanting you,” you added, cheeks aflame again, eyes aimed at him like guns, like saying ‘you know what I mean’, “And you weren't there,” you concluded. 

He stared at you for one or two blinks. “Wanting me?” He asked, and you shoved him back with both your hands, even more fed up. 

He, however, caught your wrists and brought them down to your sides, jutting his chin forward in a cocky expression. “You wanted me.” 

Your cheeks were boiling and your eyes couldn't bear his face any longer, so you turned them down, to the floor. “Yes.” 

“Plum,” he called, his hands trailing up your forearms, all the way to your shoulders. 

You shivered, but he proceeded still, headed for the sides of your neck, then your cheeks. 

“You want me still, sweets?” His thumbs forced your face up, but your eyes were glued to the floor. “Come on, Plum. Look at me, darling.” 

Reluctantly, you did. 

“Oh, sweets,” he spoke, ever so gently, so tender. “I was called on an emergency by the rangers of the local park. We were rescuing a deer.” 

Your pout was still glued to your face, and you weren't sure why. You're used to commandeering around ten men at a time, but this one, this specific man is not a force you can reckon with. 

“I wanted to stay, Plum. I truly did.” He kissed your temple when your initial frustration seemed to subside. “Let me make it up to you, sweets.” 

He touched the curve of your neck with his forefinger. “Was it when I asked about your day this morning?” He asked, his finger roaming across your collarbones. “When I asked how you slept?” His finger aimed even lower, just a few millimetres beneath the neckline of your top. He lowered his mouth to your ear, and when he spoke “Or was the sight of me kneeling in front of you, like when you came all over my mouth?”

Your insides clenched like you hadn't just given them the sort of satisfaction they were looking for.

“How can I make it up to you?” He asked, as if he needed to be in your good graces. “Anything you want, sweets.” While one hand drew the line of your side, coming to rest on your waist, the other rested on your jaw, the pad of his thumb tracing your lower lip, and his brow knit as if he were in physical pain from the longing. And goodness, if he knew how to pine…

You let your lips disclose for him and he inhaled sharply as the warmth of your exhale slithered past his fingertip. 

His right hand slid from your waist to the small of your back, pulling you closer. “Can I kiss you?”

You nodded. 

“Do you want me to?”

You nodded again, and he smiled, so softly it killed you. 

“Use your words, Plum.”

Your heartbeat skipped, your temper now entirely dissolved into warm honey. “Please, kiss me.”

He nodded, his smile so blindingly happy. And he lowered himself to you. 

His lips were soft against your own, so delicate and tentative. No tongue, just tiny pecks. 

He seemed ready to let go of you, but you had other thoughts in mind. He was already rising, and all you could do was grip the nape of his hair, and keep him still, kissing the line of his jaw now that his mouth was out of reach. 

He pulled back, fighting you a little as you kept delivering open mouthed kisses to his throat, by now reaching his collarbone. 

He tipped his head back to make eye contact with you and you stopped. 

“You wannit?” He said, the words coming out like a dark purr, smooth and vaguely threatening. 

You nodded, exasperated, then remembered his correction from before and whispered, “Will you fuck me, please?”

His grin was devilish and helpless at the same time. He shook his head and tried to angle himself away from you, running his hands through his hair. 

He had only as much restraint as a well-disciplined, civilised, mannered man, no more no less. 

Even a saint would break for you. 

You thought he was about to head for the door and leave when he stood before it, locked it shut and turned back to you, with two great strides before slamming his mouth to yours and grabbing your ass, picking you up like you were nothing compared to what he usually lifts in the gym. 

You found yourself with your back to the wall and him pressed up against your front, squeezing you in a way that could have been suffocating, except you loved the way he was so explicit in wanting you, and how easy you could read the restraint he was imposing on himself. 

You ground against his navel and he lowered you just a little, so that your core was square against his pelvis. 

“Woke up late,” you told him in between kisses and gasps. “I stretched over to your side—“

He tried to focus on your words but all he could do was stare at your mouth and register the bits he needed.

“I wanted you,” you said, and it came out like a cry. 

“I know,” he said, soft, understanding, soothing. 

“You weren’t there, and I was late, and I couldn’t—” You gasped as he dove for your throat, biting gently, making you arch into him, against him, your bodies flush against each other. “I was so mad. So frustrated.”

“Let it all out, sweets,” he said, reliable, steady, strong. “Lay it all on me.”

“I didn’t even have time to pull myself together ‘cause I was late,” you whine, and it came out so weak, so silly. 

“I can fix that for you, if you want me to. Just say the words.” He didn’t even need anything done to himself, he just wanted to please you. So many years of well-spent solitude and self-control had taught him everything about patience, everything about himself. It was not his own pleasure he’d learnt to desire, but the pleasure he could give to someone else. 

“Want you inside,” you mumbled, chasing his mouth, needing his lips sucking your own, tongues tangled together. Feeling him through his shorts, through your own shorts too was torture when he could be skin to skin against you, inside you, even.

“We’d need to stretch you first, it’s gonna take a bit, baby,” he reminded you, worried. 

You bit your lip and looked away. “What if I’d already handled that?”

His eyes went wide, then he bit your chin fondly with a curious enthusiasm. “Just cause I looked at you while kneeling?”

You felt your cheeks flush with fire. “You were— It was like when, the other day you—”

“Hold tight,” he said, then freed an arm by using his forearm to hold you up from beneath both your thighs. With his spare hand, he shoved his shorts down before stopping. “Condom. Damn!”

You squeezed your eyes shut, then let your forehead fall to his shoulder. “Please…”

“Plum, I—”

You weren’t on birth control, and you couldn’t risk going bare. You possibly never could. Not with your period being the most irregular thing ever, and knowing that you could be ovulating any day now. 

He helped you slide down his body. “You don’t happen to—”

“Left them in my bedside drawer.”

He let his forehead fall against the wall. 

“I cannot go bare—” you offered weakly.

He kissed your temple. “I wouldn’t ask you that. Not even if we were both one hundred percent sure.”

You bit your lip again, thinking, a frown forming on your forehead. And then— 

You took his hand in yours, dragged him to the washbasin, with its mirror right in front of you, and as you stood against the counter, his body pressed up behind you, you lowered your shorts, exposing your naked behind to him. 

“Plum, I don't think this is a good idea,” he said, biting his tongue. 

“You can just grind and I'll—” You brought your hand to your labia and traced a circle against your core that almost made you shiver. 

“This could get messy,” he said. 

You turned to look at him from over your shoulder and with a flirty smile you added, “I don’t remember it being a problem last time.”

He shook his head and grinned, wolfish and sexy. 

You couldn’t quite align the sight of him now with the person he had been out in public about thirty minutes ago; and it got worse when he grabbed the left side of your face with his right hand and brought his mouth to your cheek, biting it gently, his lips giving it a slight suction, as if he were half between nibbling and kissing. 

Your head was playing some hard rock soundtrack while it all happened, and it was feral, and you were almost disconnected from yourself but it was heavenly. 

It was all heavenly until they knocked at the door. 

You stared at each other in the mirror and he cursed under his breath. 

“Keep going,” you whispered. “Let them eat cake.”

It took maybe a millisecond to win him over, and it got even rougher, his hand was at your neck, grabbing at the base of your jaw, and he gave a little jerk as your eyes rolled shut. He called for your attention and as soon as you mustered the strength to open your eyes, he brought his other hand to the hill of your pelvis, his hand dwarfing you as he cupped you. “Eyes on me, Plum.”

And you kept your pupils glued to his as he stuck two of his beautifully long, perfectly thick fingers inside you. 

Your jaw went slack and he grinned, your hand reaching behind you to grab his ass, pushing him even closer up against you, clawing at his glute. 

This time it was his jaw that was left hanging. 

You were moving just right against each other, and the knocking stopped, and the last thing you knew was that he groaned, head thrown back before you felt it, hot and wet against you. His head snapped forward next, teeth sinking at the spot between your neck and shoulder as he tried to muffle a moan. 

Similarly, you pressed the ball of your hand to your lips as your left one assisted his own between your legs, his fingers inside you while your digits worked on the outside.

He murmured sweet nothings in your ear as he focused on you, kissing, sucking, nibbling at the sensitive skin near your neck and jaw and collarbone. “Come on, Plum,” he whispered. “Come on my fingers, sweet thing. I promise I’ll be so good to you.” His mouth was everywhere on you, and his hand — the one not inside you — was so sweet on your face and your hair. 

“I’ll give you anything tonight, I swear, Plum. Anything you want, you’ll have it. It’s all yours,” he said, back to his chivalrous, servicing self. “You’re so beautiful, so precious, so lovely.” His nose was deep in your hair, inhaling you, the osmanthus and elderflower of your shampoo. “I never thought I would find something like you. You’re unbelievable.”

And there was so much pining, so much longing in his dark and shimmering eyes, that when you looked at him again, you crumbled, your legs giving out, and you were lucky his arms had you locked in his embrace: his left one holding your torso and head upright while his hand cradled your face; his right arm instead ran across your waist and navel, his fingers still deep inside you, and it was only thanks to his forearm that you didn’t melt to the floor. His hips were pinning you to the hard edge of the counter, and you knew it would feel tender later, maybe bruise even, but in the haze of your ecstasy you almost found it sexy. 

“There you go, Plum,” he cooed at you, his smile all gentle and apprehensive. “That’s my good girl.”

Your head fell back on his shoulder and he kissed you on your lips, a polite little peck that made your stomach flutter. 

He was strong, he was dependable and steady, responsible, and it came so easy to you to give up control and just let him take over. 

You’d always been neurotic — is that the right word? — about sex. About letting yourself be vulnerable and weak and passive, but with him you just let yourself float to his current, and that was probably one of the best choices you’d ever made. 

Your eyes opened and when you finally put him on focus, he gave you this dreamy little smile, and just then you realised how rare it is to see his face like that, up close, but also so serene. So… happy?

“Hello?” you said and he shook his head slowly, as if amused. 

“Hello,” he answered. 

And you both giggled. “Are we in trouble?” You asked.

“Not sure. But I’m sure you’re nothing but trouble to me.” He gave you a squeeze as you were still in his arms and you were about to frown, not sure how to interpret his sentence. “Despicable, unresistable trouble.” His hand was still inside you and you clenched a little, ready to take more. He inhaled sharply. “Sweet, lovely trouble.” His thumb skimmed your hipbone fondly. 

You breathed out slowly, trying to steady yourself. “I guess we should go before we get into any more trouble than this.”

He froze for a second, then nodded and let go of you. “Sure. I’ll just clean you up.”

Your eyebrows shot up. “Oh, I’ll take care of that.” 

“I don’t mind,” he said, but he was staring at the floor, and he was covering himself, and you could tell you’d made a mistake somewhere. 

“You sure you don’t mind?” you ask, and he stopped and looked at your reflection. 

You were dishevelled and half naked, but he stared at your face like that was the only thing that mattered. 

“Of course I don’t?” He said, but it came out almost as a question. He grabbed a towel and soaked it under the tap. “I don’t know the etiquette about this kind of situation,” he murmured while rubbing the towel gently against your glutes. “I’d like to think this would be the polite thing to do. Fix the mess I make.”

Is it just a matter of politeness? you asked yourself, eyes averted. “Sure,” you said and smiled, like it’s no big deal. 

Navi: Part 1 – Part 2 — Part 3 – Part 4 - Part 5

Taglist: @blushingatyou @ladykadyrova @sweetjellyfishland @starxclouds @ayanyamnyam (taglist is open!)

[zombeebunnie]

Trembling Essence:💙Choice exploration + finished scenes💙

Hello and welcome new followers, here's an update on how things are going with the game! Firstly a big thank you to the sudden influx of support I got this week, I'm happy knowing people liked the little meme video I did! :,]

This post might be a little long since I had to rewrite a few things, I was trying to upload a picture of one of the new areas you can go in but I got an error and couldn't save what I wrote. :,S

Anywho, I mainly focused on quality of life changes and continued working with the one of the endings you can get at the start of the game.

I don't really know where to start but this ending took a lot longer than expected to really hit what I've been trying to go for. At first, it was going to have two different endings. I took out one of them because I didn't have much of a connection with it and I liked the idea of it being straightforward instead. When I went back over it, everything happened too quickly for my liking. To fix this I went back and added a few choices to at least give you an idea of what the area is like and how it effects the player(Y/N) while making sure the dialog transitioned correctly with what you see on the screen. It's nothing too wordy but I do like it a lot more than I did before. Even though this is still considered one ending there is a alternate version you can get depending on a certain choice. Towards the end I fixed up all the spelling errors I could find and happily enough, there wasn't many. For right now I'd say this ending is finished! Yay! x]

Here's one of my favorite CG's I drew for it:

I love how it turned out because I really want to do different angles and perspective through the terrain, I think this one is my favorite so far! :,,]

Here's a evening time version of it:

It's suppose to be raining in this image but I still need to practice getting the angle correct. :,,]

I'm also fixing/brainstorming up the second/third ending. This one will have two different areas you can navigate through to get an idea of where you are and a few hints of lore that will be referenced later on in the game. Those that have played the [Extended Demo] you probably know which ones I'm talking about. >;]

I already like the idea of them but for one of the paths, I didn't have enough time to branch it out and make backgrounds for it in the [Extended Demo] so here's a peek of a placeholder since I'm still sketching stuff out, nothing is finalized yet. :[]

Super close to the cabin section, yay! I actually miss writing/drawing out the segments in the cabin a whole bunch so I really can't wait to fix up that part once I'm done with the swamplands. :,,]

I said last week I'd post some of the new backgrounds/areas so here you go:

Kofi update:

I also had a small talk with my play testers and one of the things they brought up is that I should be promoting my ko-fi better so from now on I'll have little mini doodles doing so at the end of every game development post as a way to promote it! :] All donations and tips help tremendously while I work on the game. If you like what I create, please consider supporting what I do here! I was able to use previous tips to get a new wrist support brace when I'm drawing so a very big thank you to everyone who gave a tip! :,,]

Q&A / Ask box is open:

If you have any questions about Trembling Essence/Noah feel free to ask here or on itch.io please. This makes it easier for me to see and answer accordingly! I would really like to hear from you guys!

I enjoyed answering the asks I got recently this week! I'm trying to finish the rest when I can including the ones I remember that got deleted. There were some I genuinely couldn't answer because it would require me to mention major spoilers/the questions have spoilers in them. :,]

This post is getting really long now so that's all I have to discuss, thank you guys very much for all of the encouraging support this past week, I appreciate it a whole bunch! :,,]

[melancholysway]

Hello! So I saw TMNT 2007!Raph x GN!Reader: The Confession, and it got my brain pumping, Could I request an Angsty Unrequited 2007!Leo x GN!Reader, where Leo has a crush on Reader, that he didn't acknowledge or think too much about, and he only realises the full depth of it when he left (absence makes the heart grow stronger) but does comes to accepts it as a truth and plans to grow closer to them and pursue his feelings when he returns, only to find out Reader is dating Raph, they're a perfect pair and are so happy together, and Leo isn't sure how to respond but it sure hurts.

This can be as Long or short/formatted as you like, sorry if this is extremely wordy, thanks for reading!

Omg omg I’m so excited for this one!?!?!? btw, this is over 4,000 words long, so I hope this isn't too much! this was a great request and I wrote the entire thing just now lol

I hope you enjoy!

TMNT 2007!Leo x Reader: Unrequited

(also a 2007 Raph x reader, BUT ITS NOT A POLY FIC!)

Chapter key:

~ = time skip

--- followed by italic text = flashback happening

--- followed by normal text = flashback ending

+++ - scene change (minor time skip)

________________________________________-

It started small, very small

Because you’re just a person to him in the beginning, a sorry sucker that got dragged into the depths of a New York City robbery in a small convenience store. 

You get out (kind of,) but it lands you being chased by the big guy who decided to point the gun at the cashier who noticed you left when he ordered everyone to stay put

But you’d rather run than get shot, so, there’s that. 

Thus, you unknowingly run into an unknown savior of the city you resided in, and though you thought you’d die a sorry death in the back alley of a street you couldn’t recall the name of, you’re saved. 

You thank your savior, to which, he with a slightly raspy yet calm tone answers you from the shadows. 

“You’re welcome.” 

And that’s it. But, who was he?

“Um…I’m not exactly sure where I ran to, do you happen to know which street I’m on?” You didn’t know Manhattan like the back of your hand at all. Not only that, but you were just…running. Though the city never sleeps, fate just so happened to make this new area you came to empty. This side was asleep. It had to be the gentrified area of Manhattan, huh?

And that’s how you meet Leonardo. Sort of. He gives you directions to your apartment complex, but you didn’t feel safe going alone. 

So, when he steps out of the darkness, he’s covered in a brown hooded cloak where you can’t see his body shape or face. 

He takes you home like that. But oh, here goes fate once again, and there goes this sudden gust of wind that catches him off guard, and his face is revealed. 

He’s a…

“Turtle. Mutant turtle.” 

And THAT’S how you meet Leonardo. He’s surprised at how well you take it, but, in all honesty, you really could use a friend in this crazy city you just moved to not too long ago.

Time goes on, his brother (Mikey) gets nosy as to why he sometimes goes solo during patrol going a direction, not in their usual route, and follows him quietly (kind of, he falls a couple of times, but meows so his older brother thinks it’s just a clumsy cat)

He watches as Leonardo stops on a fire escape and knocks on the window, the light from inside getting more intense as the window is opened, revealing why Leo goes off on his own sometimes

He watches as you rub your eyes, slightly tired as you greet his brother, only to be a little startled as another turtle…mutant turtle, lands right beside him

“Dude! Another human!? Hey!” 

And THAT’S how you meet Michelangelo. 

Word goes around, Mikey just can’t keep his mouth shut, plus, he accidentally set off the emergency button on his T-Phone, so Raphael and Donatello are tracking him together. Suddenly, two more mutant turtles are at your fire escape. 

“Ya jokin’ right? THIS is tha emergency?” Piercing golden eyes engulfed by a red bandana look you up and down confused, then back at Mikey. You’re the threat? 

“Mikey…are you harassing another human again?” A purple-banded turtle, who appears to look identical to Mikey, begins apologizing on his baby brother's behalf.

And THAT’S how you meet Raphael and Donatello

After inviting Leo and his brothers inside your apartment, you introduce yourself properly. Donnie takes it well, and Raph is always the warier one. But, he trusts his older brother. With his life, even. So, if he trusted you, Raphael felt obligated to do the same. 

Plus, he thought you were cute. 

Come to think of it, Leo also thought that, too. 

And thus, begins Leonardo’s small crush on you. 

It’s platonic. At least, that’s what he tells himself. He doesn’t act on it, and you show no signs of having a crush on him, so, why risk it?

You progressively become closer with Leonardo’s brothers, and soon- after knowing them for almost two months- they introduce you to their sensei. 

He loves you, by the way. How accepting you are, how sweet you are to his sons, and he can sense the hidden affection his eldest son has for you.

Time goes on, but time is a thief- waiting for an opportunity to steal the happiness of those who take it for granted. 

~

To: Y/n

I miss you. A lot, actually. I didn’t think I would miss you and my family so much, but, I do. 

Sometimes when I’m sitting in this dark cave, I feel like you’re going to run up behind me and try to scare me like you always did when I was around. I always knew you were there, but sometimes I would fake it just to see you smile. You pouted whenever I told you that you didn’t startle me. 

My training period is almost up, but I don’t feel any different than when I first landed. Are 3 months really enough to turn me into a better version of myself?

Anyway, I hope you’re doing well. I hope you’re keeping the others in line, lol. Donnie is easily overwhelmed, and I know Mikey and Raph together are nothing but trouble. 

~ L

That was the first letter you had gotten from Leo where he showed his feelings towards you. The very first letter was much more lighthearted with an exciting tone to it, and you could hear Leo’s voice in your head while you read it. 

You begin a collection of all the letters Leo has sent you so far in a blue folder. To look back on them when you miss him. 

It’s almost been 3 months already. That’s how long Splinter made Leo’s training period. But, he was doubting himself and venting to you through this letter. Was it enough for him? No, Leo’s a perfectionist. That’s not a lot of time for him. 

So, you wait, wondering just how long Leo is planning to potentially stay in South America. 

Back in the city, everything is doing fine. Sure, the 3 remaining turtles miss Leo, but he’s supposed to be coming back. As long as he keeps sending his letters to them, they’ll know that he’s safe and alive. The jungle is a dangerous place, and who knows what types of threats Leo is facing over there? 

You come around the Lair more to spend some time with Leo’s brothers while he’s gone. Raphael seems to be the most stoic about his absence, and upset about the fact that they can’t go up to the surface and fight crime. Mikey does his own thing, and for some reason, wanted to do something crazy and get a job. You had no idea how he was going to pull it off, but you were excited to see the outcome. Donatello is keeping both of them in line while trying to fix things in his free time. He starts to tell Mikey to break the toaster as Leo did so he has something to fix weekly. Yes, Leo broke the toaster weekly. 

You were already close with Leo’s brothers, but now? You found yourself gravitating towards Raphael. The topic of Leo was on his mind, and he worried. He always did, even if he tried to hide it. Though his expression was always a straight face when it came to his older brother, on the inside, he cared. He cared so much. 

And as 3 months come to a close, Leonardo isn’t back. 

To: Y/n

I tried to write this particular letter so many times. Especially to you and Raph. I know it’ll be a lot for you. 

I’m staying here. I can’t go back yet, not when I have so much more to work on. 

I’ve already discussed with Splinter back and forth with these letters, and he thought it would be best if I wrote to you and the others in the next letter I sent. 

I keep everyone’s letters. I try to keep track of the conversations we’re having. Right now, I’m having a debate with Mikey over whether the Earth is flat or not. Spoiler: It can’t. Ask Donny.

So, I guess I can ask you as well for a third opinion, do you think the Earth is flat? I mean, the Earth turns, does it not? Is that not some indication of time passing? Time passes as the world turns. Time goes on, right?

I want to keep this as light-hearted as possible, but for some reason, it’s hard to write this letter to you. I don’t want to bombard you with my feelings, but I can’t help but wonder if you think about me as much as I think about you. I’m not sure what that entails, but you are such a great friend to me, that I’m forever grateful for you. 

Just a few more months. That’s it. Just a few more months and I’ll be finished. I want to come home and see you and the others again. I’ll be a better me in that time. Swear it. 

~ L

He swore it. 

He swore to you he would be back in a few more months.

When this round of letters comes to the Lair, Raphael is livid. 

Livid because, well, he doesn’t take promises lightly. Leo promised he would come back in a few months in his letter. But Raphael was more upset that he wasn’t coming back after these 3 months. And even MORE upset about the fact that just because Leo is gone, doesn’t mean crime left with him. If anything, it’s at an all-time high. He can’t keep sitting here and watching it all happen on the news, either. 

“It’ll be a few more months, okay Mikey?” Donnie tries to soothe his baby brother, as Mikey was visibly hurt by the news. He wanted his older brother back. Now. 

“Don’t give Mikey false hope, Don.” Raph glares at the brown-eyed turtle, “It ain’t good fa him. Mikey, Leo ain’t comin’ back right now, God knows when he is, alright?” 

That’s what Mikey needed to hear, according to Raph. He didn’t want to sugarcoat anything for Mikey. Hell, he was never good at sugarcoating anything for that matter. 

~

 It’s been almost a year. Almost a year without Leonardo. A year without your best friend, and a year without the person you cared for immensely. 

You and Raphael get closer during this time. He’s the only turtle that rebels against Splinter and begins to stop crime on his own, and you appreciate him for it. You tell him that one day before you leave the Lair. 

---

So as Raphael sits up from his position on the couch, he can’t help but smirk at you. 

And good God, that smirk got you hooked. 

By this point, the city had created a vigilante name for him: The Nightwatcher. You remember seeing a news article online in which the title photo had been a blurry shot of the vigilante, which was just Raphael in metal armor. Though the rest of the family was oblivious to this, you sure weren’t. Mikey becomes a Nightwatcher fangirl, and Donnie becomes a Nightwatcher hater. 

“Wanna take Betsy out wit me tonight?” Raphael asks as he stands at your fire escape. Funny, he always gets deja vu when he stands there, it reminds him of when he first met you. How he was standoffish at first, but he found out that you weren’t so bad after all. 

“You think Betsy can handle two crazies on her back this time?” You joke, looking down your fire escape and onto the street, seeing sleek and shiny ruby Betsy parallel parked in between two ivory Hyundais. 

The last time you went on a bike ride with Raph, Betsy- the name you gave to it- sort of broke down. But, thanks to Raph’s fix-it skills (thanks Donnie,) she was up and running. 

He chuckles at your response and puts his helmet back on. He motions you to follow him down the fire escape and hands you the spare helmet you used for all bike rides. 

This one was different. 

Why? Well, the others didn’t end in a kiss. 

Raph let you do donuts around in an empty parking lot with his motorcycle, and he couldn’t help but smile at how happy you looked. How you wore your smile so well, and how he thought about other ways he could get it to appear over and over again.

He always thought you were cute. 

But as the night went on, you find yourselves rendezvousing all across Manhattan on ol’ Betsy, letting your frustrations out about Leo’s extended absence on the highway, going 65…80…85 miles on the interstate. You lost count, you were having so much fun. You both spill your feelings about the current situation with your best friend and Raph’s brother. You’re hurt. But, can you blame him? You find it in your heart to forgive Leo after that. Raphael doesn’t. It’ll take more time for him.

When it was all said and done, you wind up falling asleep on the ride back, something that never happened. But there goes fate, again. Coming at the most unexpected times. Raphael carries you back up to your apartment- to which you tiredly ask if he stays with you. You knew- as tired as you were that Raph would get questioned by Donnie when he got back at this ungodly hour. The sun was damn near starting to rise, and sleeping over at your place is one hell of an alibi. 

And then it just happens. You comment on how tired he looks, but it just makes him look even more attractive to you. THIS wakes him up, and as he wonders if he heard you right, you plant a kiss on his cheek as a thank you for staying. 

Raph tests the waters a bit and takes a risk. 

He kisses you. But, not on the cheek. 

And that, dear readers, is how your first kiss with your now boyfriend went. 

---

~

Raphael was right, it’s been an entire year. And now? There’s word from April that Leo is very much alive in South America. Though, you knew he was just fine. Despite the letters stopping completely, you knew in your heart Leo was okay. He knew how to take care of himself on his own. 

So it’s no surprise when April gives you the news. 

Your boyfriend is angry at him. Raph misses him, he told you that much, but he had this burning hatred for his brother for scaring the rest of the family like that. I mean, Mikey thought he was dead somewhere in the jungle miles and miles away. 

You think about the last letter Leo sent you.

So, I guess I can ask you as well for a third opinion, do you think the Earth is flat? I mean, the Earth turns, does it not? Is that not some indication of time passing? Time passes as the world turns. Time goes on, right?

I want to keep this as light-hearted as possible, but for some reason, it’s hard to write this letter to you. I don’t want to bombard you with my feelings, but I can’t help but wonder if you think about me as much as I think about you. I’m not sure what that entails, but you are such a great friend to me, that I’m forever grateful for you. 

You wonder what his next letter would have been to you had he not stopped all those months ago. He sure would have had a lot to say in response to yours, anyway.

To: Leo

To answer your question, of course not. The Earth is NOT flat. 

But Leo, time is a thief. You of all people should know that. You were always the philosophical type. The world turns, yes. It’s an indication of time, yes. But it matters not how much time has passed, but what you did with said time. 

To answer your other question, I do think about you. I wonder what you’re doing, if you’re swinging on vines like Tarzan or something. I care a lot about you, and that hasn’t changed one bit. This time away from you has been difficult on everyone, but getting these letters every 3 weeks helps. 

You can never bombard me with how you feel, your feelings are always valid to me. I want you to know that all those feelings you have for me are reciprocated. 

~ Y/n

Maybe it was a miscommunication? You thought that for a while. You thought you had read his last letter wrong. Did he mean he had feelings for you? Because you had also developed a small crush on him. Before he left, you liked him. 

But, what if you read it wrong? Did he just mean his feelings toward you as a caring friend who missed the yin to their yang?

Maybe you were thinking a little over your head. You weren’t even sure if he got this letter, anyway. 

You never knew. He stopped writing after that. Not just to you, but to the others as well. It was simply a thought of what once was. 

~

A few days after April comes back from her business trip, Leonardo seems to follow. It’s unexpected as hell. After spending the first half of a warm Saturday working and getting ready to head down to the Lair for the second half, you get a text message from Raph.

 

Raph, 8:00 pm 

Babe, lmk when you come down, okay? There’s a surprise for ya 

You start to think about what it could be. Maybe Mikey had a party gig earlier and got to take a slice of your favorite cake home. You always liked being surprised with a slice of cake wrapped in tinfoil when you went down to see your boyfriend. 

But only it’s not cake. 

You come toward the entrance of the Lair a few moments after you messaged Raph you were close, and there he was, giving you a quick kiss and covering your eyes. 

“Ya might like it more than I did,” His gruff voice comments. As you’re helped by Raph into the Lair, you sense something you haven’t in a long time. 

It’s Leonardo. 

You knew it from the moment Raph took his hands away from covering your eyes. You were face to face with someone’s plastron, and judging by the arm muscles you knew it was Leo. He was the only one who wasn’t as bulky as Raph, yet not as small as Mikey or Donnie. He was right in the middle.

“H-hey.” 

You thought a lot about how you would react to Leo if he came home. Would you cry? Would you not forgive him anymore? Would it go back to the way it used to be? You could only predict how your brain would react but failed to predict how your heart would. 

You hug him first. 

You always did, anyway. 

Leo wished he had hugged you first right now, though. But, it’s a sweet moment between you two. 

“I missed you, jerk.” You say into his plastron. On the surface to everyone but Leo, it’s two best friends reuniting after a year of not seeing each other. But deep down, it’s Leo hugging the person he’s grown to love. He loves you.

Raphael- as much as he despises his older brother at the moment- calms down for the time being since Leo stepped foot in the Lair an hour earlier. He knows that you and Leo were close before, and how much you missed him as a friend. You never told Raph about what you last sent Leo and what you thought of it. It wasn’t relevant, and it was sent MONTHS before that night you became a couple. It was sent way before you fell for Raph. And once again, it just wasn’t relevant. Leo never bothered to send you a letter that confirmed your feelings were friends or more than that. So, it had to be just friends. He saw you as just that, and you had to accept it. Which, you could. You could accept being platonic with him, and just be the good friends you were. 

Once you break away, you and the others sit down in the living room like old times. Mikey’s asking Leo all these questions about South America, and Donnie’s asking about the native wildlife. You and Raph on the other hand, ask the harder questions. 

“Why’d ya stay longa?”

“Did ya forget us?” 

Raphael asks him these questions, and Leo’s honest about each one. 

He stayed because he needed time. He never- not for one second forgot about you guys. He missed you all. He knows he fucked up. 

“Why did you stop writing?” You ask. 

This is a tough question. You look at him with concerned eyes, and Raph puts an arm around you. 

“I um…I got caught up in my own world, and…” Leo trails off as if he was thinking of what to say. But, he lost it. That’s when it hits him. He doesn’t say anything. He’s so fixated on the way his brother is touching you, and how you let him. Almost as if it’s an afterthought. 

“I ran out of ink.” 

“You couldn’t like, buy any?” Mikey asks, earning an eye roll from Raph and Donnie. 

No. No, he couldn’t. 

+++

As you spend your evening down in the Lair and hanging out with everyone, you notice Leo going to Splinter’s room, and you hear indistinct chatter coming from upstairs. Leo had spoken to his father when he first got back. In fact, nobody even knew Leo came back until Raphael overheard them talking from the cracked sliding door. 

Though it wasn’t your business, you wondered what they were speaking about. 

You weren’t one to eavesdrop, but the bathroom just so happened to be across from his room, so you heard their conversation for a few moments anyway. 

“The best you can do is let them be happy, my son. Which they are. You cannot reverse time when things do not go as planned.”

“I…I know, but…I realized how much I liked Y/n when I was out there. I just…I was too late.”

‘Using the bathroom could wait,’ You thought. As you continue listening. You listen to the pain in Leo’s voice as he describes how his heart shattered when he realized Raph found his way into your heart. He wondered if you noticed. Splinter says no, you wouldn’t have noticed. You would be oblivious, as Leo never took that chance to send you those letters when he was away. 

He saved them and brought them home to give to you. Well, he was going to give them to you. 

Leo lied earlier. He never stopped writing. In fact, that’s all he did in times of loneliness. He wrote. He wrote until his hand was cramped or he had to start over because he felt he wasn’t conveying his emotions well enough. He had as much ink as a turtle could have. 

That hug meant more to him than you could think. He planned on getting you alone and giving you the unsent letters to take before you went back to your apartment. But he couldn’t anymore. He couldn’t ruin the relationship you had with Raphael. He wouldn’t- no- couldn’t be that selfish. It just wasn’t in his nature. 

So what did happen with those letters?

This burning curiosity seems to take over. You take a wild guess and enter Leo’s room- seemingly untouched for the past year. There’s a small pouch on his bed, the same one that he wore when he said his goodbyes before leaving way back when. You open the front zipper, it feels flimsy from all the wear and tear. Your senses were correct, and there was a folded yellow paper in the compartment. The same color paper that Leo wrote letters on. 

You lock yourself in Leo’s room and sit down on his bed to open up this folded mystery. 

You’re surprised to see that upon opening, 3 more letters fall out in a crinkled mess on your lap. After sorting them by date, a part of you wishes that he sent them sooner. But then another part of you disagrees- the part that loves Raph. You were happy with him, so fucking happy. You were a near-perfect match for each other. He saw you at your lowest and was there to help you out. He was always caring, even if he didn’t always tell you- he showed it. 

 Not only that, but you couldn’t go back and change the past. 

7/10/2007

To: Y/n

You always were so good with words. It’s the one thing that I always admired about you.

I’m glad you feel the same about me as I do about you. You’re always on my mind, Y/n. I thought it was just a little crush at first but…gah, I’m not sure. I think it’s more. I’ve never had a crush before. Haha, I’m pretty good with unintentionally rhyming, huh?

You’re absolutely right, time is a thief. I hate myself for not realizing that with all the time I’ve taken up. I write little by little, and I apologize for taking so long with this one, but I wasn’t sure how to write that I feel like I’m falling in love with you.

And I know it’s a lot to use the word love- but I’m positive that’s what it is. As I sit here and think about you, I always go back to the first time I ever laid eyes on you. How gorgeous you looked despite the situation. How you were so sweet when fate got the best of me and revealed my true self to you. How you were sweet to me even after, and how you were warm and welcoming. The average person would have run to the hills, but you stayed. You stayed all this time, and I think that’s one of the reasons why I’ve come to love you. How accepting you are of those who are different. 

7/20/2007

To: Y/n

It was selfish of me to leave you all. I know that if I send this letter and the others I wrote to you months after I received yours, there’s a chance that you don’t have those same feelings anymore. And there’s also a chance that I’m completely taking what you said the wrong way.

But, if I didn’t, and you truly feel those feelings for me- the “more than friends” kind, then please, read on. If not, take what I say with a grain of salt. 

I guess the saying is correct; absence does make the heart grow stronger. 

With that being said, I have a rather…odd request. I know it’s a lot, I know it is. 

I want you to wait for me. I should have told you this before I left, but it was just a small crush back then. I wasn’t sure if I should tell you. 

I know, it’s extremely selfish to ask you to lock your heart and throw away the key until I return, but we all get at least one selfish pass, right? If you can’t, I understand. I hope you find someone that loves you the way I would have when I came back home. 

But a small part of me hopes you don’t find someone, and we get to be together after all. 

Then again, I can’t control anything. I can only wish. Wish upon the millions of stars that scatter the South American sky. 

8/1/2007

To: Y/n

I was always the philosophical type, and I’m glad you noticed. If this is the world where I get to be with you, I’ll cherish it. I’ll cherish you. I’ll cherish us. 

But, if the cards aren’t in our favor, then I know there’s a parallel universe where I get to be with you. 

Perhaps all I had to do was choose to write back to you instead of waiting and getting caught up in my training. Or maybe I choose to never go to South America. All of these decisions happen in the multiverse--I just so happened to get the short end of the stick in this one.

+++

Your eyes, welling up in tears, fold the slightly worn papers back up and into the pouch, zipping it back up. Curiosity didn’t kill the cat, but ignorance sure did. And right now, as sad and torn as you are, you feel relieved that you read these. Leo would have had to suffer in silence, without ever telling a soul but his Sensei. 

As you exit Leo’s room, feeling a sense of confusion and uncertainty. you ask yourself the grand question, despite being in a daze:

//

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I wanted to throw in my opinion on the Trans MC if you want it! Option 3 would be a lot of extra writing and coding, so I get that it wouldn't be a decision made lightly and it would be added pressure to get it right and it's a sensitive topic for sure. I will say that if you chose to go this route tho, it would make a huge difference and mean a lot to us. I'm a trans athlete, and the lack of representation can be really discouraging. It's time like these where we are receiving so much hate, especially when it comes to sports, that allies could really step up and make a difference. Reading can really open people's minds! It may be difficult and uncomfortable, and take extra work, but that's our everyday tbh. We out here living on hard mode 😂 that's just my thoughts on the matter but I will respect you and read your story either way. Much love 🏳️‍⚧️♥️

Hey! Thank you so much for sending this! This gets long, forgive my wordiness.

First off, I really feel your statement to the bone, the part about how allies could step up and make a difference, and how positive rep in media, games etc. is insanely important.

So many stories, TV shows, movies have shaped my experience of being queer and POC, and while some of them have been nice just so I could see someone like myself being represented, the ones that really made an impact are of course the ones where these identities were explored in a sensitive, thoughtful way. (When I watched Saving Face for the first time at 17, about a queer Chinese American doctor, I bawled my eyes out and dont think I've been the same since).

I would absolutely love if CT:OS/my IFs could do this for trans athletes too.

I've seen/heard so many worrying statements about trans athletes (both in real life and in the media)—and it makes me so sad.

Some that really get me really riled up are: The idea that a trans athlete's accomplishments mean nothing because they "have an unfair advantage" (or putting it down to "just hormones" or whatever instead of recognizing the hardwork, skill, and dedication behind EVERY successul athlete, trans or not). Or the idea that trans athletes shouldn't get to choose to be trans if they want to be athletes. Or the idea of policing trans athletes' bodies or forcing them to undergo surgery in order for them to be "valid"...

Well, FUCK THAT. FUCK those people.

If my IF can help celebrate trans athletes, and combat/shut down the really harmful (and ignorant) rhetoric out there? I'd love to do that.

But since I am not trans myself, it feels doubly, triply important that I wade really carefully here. I'd really need to spend time making sure I like and can stand behind what I'm putting out. I don't think it'd be responsible representation, otherwise!

I'm not really a perfectionist about my writing and that's how I make progress on my IFs while working a full time job. I'm more the... "slap shit tgt, get it out there, get feedback and edit if I feel like it" kind of writer. And I don't think I'd be able to finish CT:OS / Merry Crisis any other way. But when it comes to race, gender, and sexual identity? I really. Really. Wanna get things right.

(I rewrote that Rayyan convo about being a POC athlete with Deepal so many times haha and it was already marginally less scary, since I am a POC athlete.)

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I agree it's so goddamn important to have trans stories, and rep, especially in sports, where views are often so toxic and polarized.

But I don't think I know yet whether I see my IF being more a simple "yay, trans rep" kind of space or an actual deeper exploration of what it means to be a trans athlete. I was quite prepared to add the option to be trans (+ any accompanying scenes etc.) when I have the complete CT:OS 1st draft, but I was also toying with the idea of just putting something imperfect into the game earlier.

Faced with indecision, I've opted for: procrastination. I am still waffling, but it was helpful to hear what you guys think. Thank you so much for your message.

Lots of love, keep being awesome ❤️