#this post is entirely unnecessary and likely incoherent

[autisticburnham]

The Supernatural fandom has this term, the Ghostfacers Effect, named after the episode Ghostfacers, which is presented as though it is an episode of the in universe Ghostfacers webseries where some dweebs do your average real life ghost hunting bullshit. In the episode Sam and Dean are both swearing up a storm using real swear words, not the "frig" they typically otherwise use, and are bleeped out with the Ghostfacers logo covering their mouths the way they do in reality TV. The Ghostfacers Effect then refers to the idea that we the audience do not see the true story of what is happening in universe but instead an unreliable recounting of the true story, which is why we typically hear "frig" despite knowing the characters actually say "fuck."

Which, ignoring the concept of a story "really" happening in a way disconnected from the canon because that's a can of worms I do not want to touch right now, is generally a good explanation for why characters who you would reasonably expect to swear don't. And you can of course apply this to any character and say that even if they don't swear in canon, you know they do really.

You could say Captain Kirk always swears as much as he does in The Voyage Home, we the audience just aren't being told the truth about it usually. But I reject this notion. The point of this post, why I explained the Ghostfacers Effect, is to say I refuse to believe it in relation to Captain Kirk. The Voyage Home is an outlier which should not be counted and 99% of the time the most scathing insult Captain Kirk will level you with genuinely is "go climb a tree."

[happi-tree]

your eyes look like coming home

On their two-week journey back from Earth, the protective paladin watches over his sleeping friends. As it turns out, though, he's not the only one having trouble getting some shut-eye.

Title from "Everything Has Changed" by Taylor Swift (yes, that one)

*waves* Hello dndads fandom! Enjoy some post episode-23 taylor/link (taylink? swiftli?) softness bc they deserve it 💗💗💗 ft. my part-demon trait hcs for Taylor and a nonzero amount of unintentional foreshadowing!

Lincoln had always been an early riser - more out of self-imposed obligation than anything else, really - but lately, he���s been finding himself staying up later and later, unable to rest. The concept of sleep itself is like a dream he can’t quite grasp, reminiscent of the firefly-golden flickers of memories that are not his. 

Gossamer and effervescent and magical and horrible, they sear themselves into the backs of his eyelids even now, miniature sunbursts in the darkness (and all of those metaphors in English class make sense now that he’s actually seen a sun) filling his senses with too-hot-too-bright-too-much. Every time he closes his eyes, the flashes linger like so much of its static in the back of his mind, always present like the undulating black not-sky of his true homeland, always watching like the red-black eye that gazed blinkingly upon his entire childhood. 

And this is all too much for Link to deal with, and he can’t change the past no matter how it haunts him, and he can’t command its all-seeing form to turn away, so he sits quietly in the middle row of the Pussywagon and watches with bloodshot eyes as his companions slumber. 

If he’s awake, at least he can look out for his friends. 

He can look at Scary and take comfort in her even, deep breaths and her ramrod, borderline vampiric posture as she mutters in her sleep, her nightcap slightly askew atop disheveled black-magenta hair. He grimaces to himself a bit as she grumbles incoherently - Link doesn’t trust this Willy guy one bit, but after these past weeks, he’s just glad to see her sleeping peacefully. Glad that her chest rises and falls with each breath, glad that her typical sneer has faded at the corners, rounding out her face into something younger, more like the girl that used to lead the varsity soccer team.

If Link’s still conscious, he can look at Normal and breathe a quiet sigh of relief that he’s not thrashing in his sleep anymore, every cell in his body begging for its presence to get out of his head as he dreams. Even still, silent tears stream down his acne-ridden cheeks, face contorted into an anguished mask so unlike his enthusiastic smiles, and Lincoln finds himself mumbling words of comfort on instinct. He feels the now-familiar twinge of magic siphoning from between his cells and coalescing into an invisible, intangible something that smooths the furrows between Normal’s brows, eases the tension of his jaw as the boy exhales more steadily than before.

If Link can force his eyes to stay open, he can look at his father, now more childlike and more intensely violent than he has ever known him. He had fallen asleep at the wheel (and Link is eternally grateful that this cat-bus can drive itself), smartphone abandoned on his lap playing the low-volume, tinny Fortnite theme on its dim screen. He snores annoyingly loudly, and Link is hit with a pang of homesick-nostalgic-bitterness at the sound. Link gingerly reaches across to shut off the device and has to shake off the innocent, desperate part of himself that wants to cuddle up next to his dad and feel safe in his warm embrace. (That ship has long since passed, now. The only protection Link has is the safety he makes for himself.)

If Link refuses to sleep, he can look at Hermie, who has graciously taken the passenger seat next to his dad. He’s been through a lot of unnecessary trouble for their little group, and despite his initial misgivings, Link can’t help but worry for him, especially given the more recent revelations about his parentage. Hermie twitches in his sleep, hissing when the worn upholstered seat rubs too harshly on his partially-healed burns. Link’s going to have to see about healing those the rest of the way soon - maybe Normal can help with that, too, since he seems to have a soft spot for the guy. A conversation for the morning (or what amounts to it in the void), definitely. 

If Link just stays awake, he can look at Taylor, who -

“Hey,” a familiar, nasally voice calls out from the purple-tinted not-quite-darkness, accompanied by a crooked smile that looks several shades thinner than usual. 

Oh. Taylor’s still awake. 

Carefully, Link shuffles across the seat toward Taylor’s prone form. A singular eye is cracked open, glowing amber like a yellowed headlight. It’s a different hue of gold than the shades from the church, Link thinks, a soft, pretty color, and then wonders why he thinks that. Must be the lack of sleep.

“Hi,” Link says, trying to keep his voice as quiet as possible.

“You’re trying to stay awake, aren’t ya?” 

“Someone’s been working on their perception, I see,” Link replies in lieu of a direct response, and it earns him a quiet huff of laughter. It’s such a childlike sound, like a secret shared at the sleepovers they had as much younger kids, and it makes Link ache for something that none of them can ever get back. 

“You look exhausted, man,” Taylor says, and both of his eyes are open now, molten-honey sclera fixated directly on Link. 

“Says you,” he retorts, taking in the bags beneath those lamplight eyes, the way Taylor’s knees press against the seat in front of them. “You don’t even have a blanket, dude, no wonder you can’t sleep. You must be freezing. Here, let me -”

“No!” Taylor says, the sudden volume making Link freeze as he holds up the edge of a thermal blanket (it’s actually Taylor’s, one of many the boy had stashed in his “go bag”) for his friend. 

“I mean, nah, man,” Taylor repeats, quieter. “I run pretty warm usually - ‘s why I gave my blanket to Scary. I actually, uh, overheat a lot? And Mom and I could never figure out wh-” and Link watches realization cross Taylor’s face in tandem with his own. 

“Oh,” Taylor says, a soft, broken syllable as he looks down at his hands, clenching and unclenching them. “Oh. That tracks, I guess.”

His eyes shift upward, easy to track in the dark, and something in Link’s body language forces a half-laugh out of Taylor.

“It’s, uh, pretty cool, actually! Another power to add to my main character repertoire. Living furnace, baby! Perks of being half-demon,” Taylor cracks a grin, and it’s a bit wobbly around the edges. 

If Link was to put Taylor’s typically unshakeable confidence on a scale of, say, one to twenty, he’d probably give it a solid six. 

“Speaking of, how are you dealing with, uh, all of that?” Link offers hesitantly, briefly looking down at the way Taylor’s hands clench-unclench-clench.

“Pfft, all of what? The fact that my dad’s a kickass demon and now the government’s after me? Just a typical day in the life of a cool shounen protag like me!” Taylor jerks a thumb toward himself in emphasis, slightly-sharp teeth glinting in the purple-tinted dark. 

“If you say so,” Link says, uncertain. “It’s just, I meant to check in with you earlier, but between all of the… well…” Link makes some stupid, aborted gesture with his hands that does absolutely nothing to convey all of the mind-bending shit they’ve seen since the FBI. 

“You worry a lot, don’t you, big guy?” Taylor mutters, forcing Link to look up from fidgeting with the hem of his tattered Ho Topic shirt. 

“I mean, aren’t you worried?” Link responds. “It’s just - a few weeks ago, the biggest thing I had to worry about was getting on varsity next season, and now the fate of the world is at stake? And we could die at any moment? And I don’t even know my own dad anymore? We’re just - fuck, we’re just kids. We shouldn’t have to deal with… everything. Of course I’m worried, and I’m stressed, and I don’t know what we’re-!”

“Woah, woah, woah, dude,” Taylor says, waving his hands in a lowering sort of motion, and Link hadn’t realized how loud his voice had gotten.

“Sorry,” he squeaks, voice cracking pathetically.

“All good, my man,” Taylor reassures, and he must’ve scooted closer to Link without him noticing, because -

“Wow, you really do run warm,” Link says, almost to himself. “You’re like a tiny space heater.”

“I - I’m not that tiny!” Taylor splutters, temperature briefly spiking even warmer. “Some of us haven’t hit our growth spurt yet, mister tall-dark-and-handsome!”

“I - wh-” Link hopes his complexion hides the heat in his cheeks, because he’d hardly call himself handsome.

Taylor just scoffs. “Unbelievable. I know being all sheltered is like, your whole thing, but you’re really pretty, dude, you gotta know that. Like, prime shoujo love interest material, here!” He sounds genuinely exasperated that he has to spell this out, and then his pupils constrict comically (kind of like a cat’s, Link notes. It’s pretty cute), and he blurts, “In like, a totally platonic no-homo kind of way, uh. Yeah. Heh.”

“Oh,” Link says, because how the hell is he supposed to respond to that?

And then, because he apparently likes shooting himself in the foot, he says “Did you know that your eyes glow in the dark? They look pretty cool.”

“I’m always c- wait, really?!” Taylor nearly falls over in his attempt to pull his phone from one of his many, many pockets, only to pull a face at whatever he sees.

“Damn, guess they don’t show up on camera that well,” he mumbles. “Lame.”

“The white parts are like, this warm, pretty coppery-amber color,” Link tells him, only half-aware of what he’s saying. “Like honey. Or apple juice. And it’s kinda faint, but they glow like Christmas lights, or like, candles or something. They suit you,” he says, voice low, and he realizes that he’s much closer to Taylor’s face than he had been thirty seconds ago. “Uh. I mean. They look cool. Yeah.”

Open mouth, insert foot. At least he hadn’t said that Taylor’s eyes remind him of home or something ridiculous like that. Jesus Christ. 

“Didn’t know we had another poet in the bus with us,” Taylor says after a moment of stunned silence. “Not gonna lie, that was kinda fruity, dude,” he teases, nudging an elbow to his ribs.

Link’s stomach briefly drops, and then he remembers the pink-purple-blue striped pin on the jacket Taylor always wears, and Link lets out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding.

“Says the guy who called me handsome,” he deflects.

“Hey, I said no homo! What’s your excuse?”

“I’m wearing socks,” Link counters.

And Taylor laughs, sudden and sharp and incandescent for the briefest of moments before he claps a hand over his mouth to stifle it.

It’s stupidly contagious, and Link bites down on his grinning lips to suppress any sound, his shoulders shaking with the effort. 

He really likes Taylor’s laugh, Link realizes. He should get that sound to happen more often.

Eventually, Taylor pulls his hand away from his mouth, and Link is greeted with a smile - a real, genuine smile, not one of those fake smirks he uses like a shield, but something open and unguarded, matching the warmth in those shining eyes. 

The temperature spikes again from beside him, and Link’s eyes dart away from curling lips and flashing teeth in concern. “You alright, man?”

“Yup!” Taylor chirps, wobbly and high-pitched. Link decides not to comment on the voice crack. His eyes dart around a bit, and then he asks, “Uh, got enough blanket there, man?”

“Wha- oh,” Link says, looking down at the way that his feet and the majority of his shins peek out from the borrowed rectangle of fabric. “Most blankets don’t really uh… account for taller people. ‘M used to it.”

“Tch. Not if I have anything to say about it,” Taylor murmurs.

“Seriously, dude, it’s fi-” suddenly, it feels like Link’s holding the sun again, except this warmth doesn’t burn him and it’s also person-sized. Because Taylor is pressed up bodily against him, a line of soothing heat from shoulder to knee. 

“Uh.” 

Taylor leans away the slightest of millimeters, and Link has to stop himself from leaning with him. 

“Oh, I totally should’ve asked if you were okay with that, man, I just thought that since-”

“You’re fine, Taylor,” Link says, and he finds that he truly means it. “Just surprised me, is all.”

“Really?” Taylor asks. “Not too weird or like, awkward for you?”

“I mean, we’re both wearing socks, aren’t we?” Link jokes. “It feels pretty nice, actually.”

“Well c’mon, then, get some of this hot half-demon bod!” Taylor says, winking as he pulls one of Link’s arms across his shoulders. 

“Mmkay,” Link mutters, the comforting supernatural heat already beginning to lull him to sleep. He turns onto his side, curling subconsciously around Taylor’s warmth, and if he was any less exhausted he might’ve realized that he was practically spooning his smaller friend. As it is, though, he pulls Taylor closer to his chest and rests his chin atop greasy black hair with a quiet “Thanks.”

And as the warmth spreads through his body, his dreams are colored with a blessedly warmer shade of gold.

[uranium-city]

@june-doe-event’s June Doe is finally here & with that I made my first entry to the with the pride prompt!! Here are a bunch of ramblings about my headcanons for the choir!! Maybe I’ll do little icons or something in the future but for now I just wanted to write my thoughts in the incoherent mess that is these few paragraphs 😭

Ocean is an asexual lesbian! As someone who only likes women she just radiates those vibes, it takes one to know one, y’know? Anyways with Ocean’s strong need to conform to societal standards I can very much see her as someone who suppresses their sexuality to feel more desirable by society. Girlypop’s got a lot of internalized homophobia she’s working through & is the last member of the choir to come out. The rest of the choir lowkey realizes she’s queer before she does 😭. She’s very “[Woman] is so pretty… but I’m NOT gay guys I’m NOT GAY!!” 

The ace part is pretty self explanatory. Throughout the whole musical Ocean is repeatedly disgusted by anything & everything sexual. While it could be argued she does this to keep up her goody-two-shoes, moral persona, the fact that her acting like this only serves to antagonize her from the rest of the choir leads me to believe it’s less of a “Look at how moral I am!! You should vote for me!!” thing & instead a bit more personal. Her putting down Noel, Constance, & Ricky for expressing sexuality most certainly will not get them to vote for her I feel like she’s saying these thing just because that's genuinely how she feels about sex. 

I posted this the other day but I’ll add it again here since I wanna make this point “I always found it odd how in Every Story’s Got a Lesson straight A student, miss smarty pants Ocean O’Connell Rosenberg interprets the lesson behind Romeo & Juliet to be “teen sex kills” & not that baseless hatred leads to unnecessary bloodshed. I’m sure it’s just a throwaway joke & doesn’t matter at all.. HOWEVER I will be using this to spread my ace Ocean agenda. No one that smart misinterprets such a simple message like that unless they already view sexual relationships in an inherently negative light.” Big sex-repulsed ace vibes to me.

Noel is canonically a gay man so there’s that. In my mind he’s a cis man but enjoys presenting himself in a fem-leaning lense. Like he definitely would’ve gotten into drag if he had lived & doesn’t mind she/her pronouns despite identifying as a dude. He’d probably get all giddy if you referred to him as Monique. Overall just very comfortable in his identity.

Mischa is THE bicon of all time. I feel like it took him a while to realize that as well but not because of internalized homophobia like Ocean but instead because he just?? never really thought of it as an option?? Mischa’s not homophobic in the slightest but grew up in a country where queerness is typically regarded in a negative light & because of that the thought of him being queer never really crossed his mind. It wasn’t until he met Noel that he was like “Wait… man can actually like man?? Like romantically?? …like actually??! Woah... that’s awesome..”. I also like the idea of Mischa being polyam because he has two hands Goddammit & one’s for Talia & the other is for Noel. 

I feel like the entire RtC community collectively agreed on Ricky being trans which is really funny to me /pos. In my mind he’s gender-fluid & uses any pronouns & is usually referred to with he/him due to being masc presenting. I don’t really have any strong opinions on whether he’s transfem or transmasc I just know that he hasn’t got a cis bone in his body lmao. I feel like I tend to gravitate towards transfem since that seems to be the most common headcanon in the fandom but transmasc Ricky has really been starting to grow on me. I like the idea that despite the language barrier he faced & more traditional urban-ness of Uranium City he was able to express himself through transitioning & presenting more masculine. He’s not a trans man but he’s typically more comfortable settling with a masculine identity so it’s the best way he can express himself to a town that’s not understanding of his identity as a genderqueer person. + he was actually played by a transmasc actor once & that’s really cool!! Either way, trans Ricky is so real & I love how creative the fandom is when applying that headcanon to aspects of the musical like with the many interpretations of what Savannah meant to Ricky. Sexuality wise?? He definitely likes women & is either flat out only attracted to women or bi with a heavy female lean. 

Jane Doe doesn’t even know her own name let alone her sexuality. But that can’t stop me from giving Penny Lamb headcanons >:]

Despite the fact that I think about Penny the most out of the choir I never really could settle into a set lgbt headcanon for her?? I would love to say that Penny’s a lesbian but Legoland is very complicated with how it portrays her sexuality. Like it comes across that Penny does like men with her remarks on Johnny Moon & is only bullied for being a “lesbian” since this is the 2000s & being homophobic to the weird kids was the norm back then. But also?? Penny is pretty much implied to not even know what a lesbian is?? With her sheltered upbringing in Elysium it’s possible she didn’t even know what the concept of being queer was until she started being bullied at St. Cassian. Like if she didn’t even know being queer was a thing until she was like 15 then I highly doubt she has any sort of grasp on her identity. Like this isn’t your everyday normal comphet, this is… ADVANCED comphet.. + with all the Ride the Cyclone productions that have so many different futures for Penny (or whoever Jane is brought back as) including ones where she takes a husband, outside Legoland sources saying Penny’s not gay, but also the knowledge that Legoland is admittedly dated & if it were to be revised in modern day it would likely make Penny queer or at least leave it ambiguous since it’s more appropriate, I am so endlessly confused. I like lesbian Penny a lot !! I would like for it to be semi-canon but I definitely wouldn’t die on the hill that it is because of the way Legoland is written. Anyways those are my thoughts.

On a more brief note I feel like Penny’s agender but in a really apathetic way. By that I mean she just does not care at all. She doesn’t mind being referred to as a girl, she just doesn’t feel very connected to it. She doesn’t feel really connected to any other identity either, like in regards to gender she feels like she could just take it or leave it lol. She was born female & has such been referred to with feminine terms her whole life so that’s she’s become used to it, but if one day everyone around her inexplicably started referring to her with masculine terms she’d just continue her day like “oh okay that works too I guess.” 

Additionally Ezra shares the same feelings surround gender except that he’s accustomed to masculine terms instead. The main difference is that if you asked Penny her pronouns she’d probably be like “Oh I don’t really have a strong preference, thank you!” while Ezra would be like “Gender is a socially constructed scam created by the U.S. government to sell more toys at the McDonald’s. I am above that meandering capitalist propaganda. Do not refer to me.”

& finally Constance I go back & forth from her being the STRONGEST straight ally known to man & her being pansexual. (She does claim to see the gold, the pink, & the blue… coincidence?? I think not… /j.) Either way she definitely threw everyone little parties when they came out with cupcakes decorated as pride flags. She very supportive regardless of if she herself is queer or not. & while I hadn’t thought about this before, my one ace friend brought up that the way she regards sex as just something she needs to get out of the way comes across as ace reminiscent & I’ve been thinking about that a lot. I can def see her as being on the ace spectrum!! To me she doesn’t experience a complete lack of sexual attraction & definitely isn’t sex repulsed like Ocean but falls in the middle of ace & allo. Gray asexual Constance is very real to me. 

[furballfaggot]

hi and welcome to Giovanni's Bookshelf (formerly just the concept of a book club aptly named Champ's Book Club). because i do not learn my lesson about my more fleeting ideas. todays book, in the looser sense where the book is just a creepypasta, is

Has anyone heard of a pill called Ichor? - A.K. Kullerden

"EXCEL THINE SENSES"

a man named Dale becomes intrigued by a televangelist with strange mannerisms, orders mysterious pills, and he and his roommate Al end up in a deep rabbithole he's not sure if they can get out of. heres what i thought of it. spoilers under the cut!

BEST WAY TO EXPERIENCE THIS BOOK CLUB: entirely blind to the overarching plot. read the pasta yourself and then come back here. this book club is pretty disjointed and i do not apologize. the pasta is also written really well and uniquely so i highly recommend. feel free to discuss the story in the notes! its a bit of a long read especially compared to most creepypastas but its absolutely worth it. and it doesnt even have any unnecessary slurs in it! (unlike SOME pastas *glares at glitchy red*)

READ ON?: at the very least creepypasta.com, not sure about anything else. i read it on my ipod touch. yknow how it is! tws for forced drugging, vomit, mind control, bugs under skin, and death. [🔗]

WELL WRITTEN?: yes

EASY READ?: depends on attention span -- takes at least an hour according to creepypasta.com

RECOMMEND?: absolutely. its wonderfully crafted and it had me hooked the whole time

a pill called ichor is told first-person through journal entries, transcribed conversations, and audio logs. right off the bat the descriptions of the strange mannerisms of the preacher on tv had me just as intrigued as dale. what was up with the scratching? what was the new box? why did he freeze like that? so many questions already. the way the whole bee and honey things unraveled were absolutely stellar. the imagery is so strong that i could vividly picture most parts of it each time they came up. the entirety of siphos is so wonderfully foreshadowed throughout and all ties up neatly in the end. carrie is admittedly kind of a nothing character but tbh i dont mind all too much? it helps with the worldbuilding and works as a nice foil to als feigned ignorance. the bit with the mention of the vacuum packing trash in als room is also brilliant -- i didnt think too much of it as i started my post-read skim to write this, but it clicked when i remembered that the ichor that kicked the whole thing into motion were also vacuum-packed. i love how even when al was on the fast track to Literally Dying in one of the most gruesome ways possible because of something so nightmarish dale still wanted to save his friend. and he did! wonderful. truly wonderful. the descriptions of the worms/siphos under the duos skin were also horrendous, but like in a good way. in an effective way. thinking on it now the mentions of the ancient hole-punched corpses could either have been that byron guy just Completely losing it or maybe like. the siphos breaking through the other explorers??? idk. my brain works sometimes. the realization where dale figured out the weird yellow shit in the ichor capsules was honey was also super well crafted, it felt so natural. and also shoutout to how dale surfs wikipedia and then infodumps about peru it was both a really effective and simple way to get exposition across and also very funny to me on like an inherent level. hes like "hey i might end up dying but uhhh heres some shit about mountains" and honestly thats awesome. autism slay. i know this sounds entirely incoherent but i am just Like This about things. AND THE PART WHERE AL FORCES A PILL DOWN DALES THROAT IN HIS SLEEP that kind of shit usually doesnt really do anything to me but ill be damned if it didnt here the stakes raising like that are insane. the words in the back of the brain are also super effective and i love the comment on how theyre like a waltz. fuckign awesome. the "first get outta my journal" bit was a much-needed bit of humor in the midst of the suspense and terror. beautiful all around. etc etc im tired suorry. very good. i cant put the whole plot in here bc the way its told makes my brain refuse to put it any other format bc i like the original too much and also im hoping anyone whos still reading might decide to pick it up and somehow immediately forget everything ive said here so they can still go in somewhat blind. bonus points for the plot starting a day before my birthday bc im biased like that. tee hee

[hikaruklaus]

Heya, my name is Klaus. I'm a hentai artist and professional game developer. This post acts as an introduction, as well as a semi-incoherent rant.

... Enjoy?

I'm in a bit of a rut at the moment, I haven't been happy for a while now and I feel like I need some sort of space to write about my thoughts and stuff. I know very little about tumblr and how it works, which is part of the reason I picked it as my little "vent space". I've never been fully active on social media, but I know that I really hate Twitter, Facebook is frustrating to use, TikTok is overwhelming and irritating, and Reddit has a lot of unnecessary negativity floating around constantly. Hopefully this place is a little bit better. I'm not expecting people to follow or even see the stuff I post, but I hope the environment is less hostile and irritating than its competition.

I'm in my early 20s, and I'm a real goddamn nerd (you know, in case the whole "game developer and hentai artist" introduction didn't make that obvious). I love Nintendo games, heavy metal, cats, and vtubers. I have an off-beat sense of humour, don't know how else to describe it. Earthbound and Monkey Island kind of stuff.

I'm definitely on the weirder side (again, in case that wasn't obvious), at least partially because I'm autistic. I doodle ahegao faces while waiting for meetings to start, I have a compilation of various Hololive vtubers screaming as my alarm in the morning, and I have a Spotify playlist that jumps from Metallica's recent "Screaming Suicide" to the full version of that "Japanese Goblin" song that went viral like a year ago.

I'm a massive degenerate (in case that wasn't obvious [3× COMBO]). I have the whole starter package, a daki, an oppai mousepad, and like a dozen physical doujinshi.

They say tattoo artists shouldn't be tattoo artists unless they themselves have been tattoo'd, because they should know what the experience is like.

...Let's just say I'm glad the same doesn't go for hentai artists.

I speak a variety of languages, but I'll primarily be posting in English. Might throw in some Japanese dialogue into a drawing or something if I'm in the mood, it happens.

I've studied both art and game design. I'm a character artist/animator, and a generalist game designer. Don't feel like I'm particularly good at either one of them to be honest with you. : P

I use Clip Studio Paint EX to draw, and I'm slowly getting used to its animation tools as well. (I've mainly used OpenToonz, Krita, and FireAlpaca in the past, but I love the CSP brushes and layout so much that I'm trying to switch over entirely.)

I have experience with a lot of game engines, ranging from the Unreal Engine (aka my mortal enemy) to the much more simple and comfortable GameMaker Studio. I've worked on a variety of projects, some solo, others with different groups of people. Very unlikely anything you've played though.

I'm probably going to be posting a hentai drawing or three here. I tend to draw lewd shit when I'm sad, dunno why. Never had a place to post them before. I might just post a quick 5-minute sketch, or maybe a rough animation. I don't really know yet. Might do it daily, might do it once every few months.

Like I said, I haven't been happy for a good while now. I jump in and out of depressive episodes pretty often but this one's managed to last for a little longer than they usually do. I would love to tell my friends about it, but I just feel like I'd be a massive nuisance to them.

There's a lot that's bothering me, and I feel like I have to express it somehow. I'm not really a fan of "venting" on the internet, maybe because it reminds me of my teenage years, I don't know for sure- but posting it here feels "safe", it's in some random blog post no one will read, not an alarming message on discord or whatsapp, so I won't have to worry about bothering anyone, and I'll still get to write about how I feel.

Nothing I do feels right. My drawings look bad. My conversations are stale. My sleep schedule is fucked. My code is messy. I know things will get better eventually, I've been through this before, but it's hard to convince myself that that's actually the case and not just something I'm making up.

I've been feeling extremely lonely lately. As you can probably imagine if you've read all the stuff written above, I'm not exactly what you'd call a "chick magnet". I haven't been in a relationship since I was in my mid-teens, and the one I was in back then was long-distance. I haven't held a girl's hand since I was five or so and we were practically forced to do so in kindergarten. I've never kissed anyone in my life. I'm awful at nonverbal communication, and I get really jumpy whenever someone touches me, neither of which are great in a relationship. Finding someone with the same interests as me is practically impossible. I googled a whole bunch of statistics a few months back and came to the conclusion that every time I meet someone in the country I'm currently in, there is a 0.000773% chance that we have some interests in common, are both attracted to each other, and that they are single. (Oh yeah, I like numbers. Forgot to mention that.) That 0.000773% is obviously just an estimate, but I tried to be as "fair" as possible with the calculation. I very rarely leave my house, my eyesight is really rough so driving is out of the question, which means meeting new people is a rare occurance. At this point I feel like the best move might just be to give up and accept that I'll be alone forever, but that just makes me even sadder.

My real name isn't Klaus. It's an alias I came up with a few years ago that I only ended up using once to post a drawing. The drawing in question was on the lewder side of things, and I didn't want it to be associated with my other alias because no one knew about my "un-seiso" drawings. I've improved a lot as an artist since posting that old drawing and decided to pick the alias back up.

My reason for this isn't that my drawings are some kind of "DEEP DARK SECRET" that I have to keep from anyone- to be completely honest with you, I don't really care if anyone finds out what my main alias is. I just want to keep my hentai drawings separate from my more, ahem, "family friendly brand", that's all.

Sorry for rambling so much. It's very, very late, and I should be asleep by now. Bless your heart if you actually read all that crap. Cheers.

PS. Unless I decide to change it in the future, I realised right before posting this that I never set a profile picture, so I doodled an ahegao face as fast as I could, and for some reason I actually kind of like it. Really wish it weren't off-center though, might fix that tomorrow.

[havin-a-wee]

Dreamer

warnings: smut, thigh riding

word count: 1.7k

His sleepy eyes opened at a slow pace, his eyelids falling back down at each attempt to open them. He persisted however until his eyelids stayed open and the blurriness of his vision cleared up. He was quite surprised at himself for being so adamant about waking up, but something in his subconscious was telling him that he needed to be awake.

A hushed groan slipped out of his pink lips, the warm air from his mouth hitting the tiny strands of facial hair that he hadn’t gotten around to shaving. As the sound of his groan died out, a small whimper echoed through the dark room.

His eyelids snapped open, no longer heavy. Although it took him another few seconds, this new wave of awareness allowed him to decipher the reason he had woken up from his deep slumber in the first place.

The source of the whimper was obvious now. It was his best friend Y/N, with whom he had been cuddling when he fell asleep.

Y/N and Harry were the closest two people could be without being in a relationship. They spent almost every waking and sleeping second with each other, and they knew one another like the back of their hand. Harry sometimes thought that he may know Y/N better than himself. Of course, with a friendship like that people thought they were dating, especially the media. But they always denied it, of course, assuring people that they were just friends. Only friends.

Only friends that were both in love with each other but too scared to say it because they are afraid to ruin the friendship.

You know, regular best friend things.

As Harry’s brain fluttered out of the hazy state it was in, he realized what was going on, and why Y/N’s mouth was dropped open, her lips glistening from the moisture of her own saliva.

He snaked his hands under the covers to confirm that he wasn’t dreaming. He wasn’t.

Y/N’s legs were actually wrapped around his muscular thigh, and her hips were rolling on top of it as soft mewls escaped her small lips. The shock of it all rattled through his body and he blinked his eyes harshly in disbelief, just taking an extra precaution to ensure that he most definitely was not dreaming.

His darling girl was grinding her hips against his thigh in her sleep.

She must have been having some sort of wet dream, and Harry internally prayed that she was dreaming about him. It was a bit of an awkward situation because he didn’t want her to stop, but he felt weird just lying there until she finished.

His cock was already painfully hard in his boxers, and he cursed himself for choosing the pair with thin fabric.

Harry had dreamed about this happening many times, but now that it was he wasn’t quite sure what to do. He kept his eyes locked on her face, eyes squeezed shut and lips pursed, as he felt the thin lace of her panties rolling against his thigh.

The plan was to avoid touching her, to save her from any unnecessary embarrassment she might feel. But a particularly arousing whimper poured from her lips, and Harry couldn’t help himself anymore. He lifted his hand and caressed her soft cheek, a little shock leaving a slight tinge of pain on his fingertips. She clearly felt it as well because her bright eyes fluttered open quickly in response.

Her eyes darted around for a moment until she suddenly stopped the movement of her hips. Her teeth sank down on her wet bottom lip and her eyes met Harry’s, welling with embarrassment.

“Harry I-I’m so sorry I didn’t mean-”

He could sense the fear and embarrassment in her face, so he made an adrenaline-induced decision to cut off her rambling by placing his finger gently on her lips.

“Shhh s’ok love, keep going.” His hands touched around beneath the blanket until they met her hip bones.

The encouragement from Harry convinced her to keep seeking her release, albeit hesitantly. But once she found her rhythm again the large hands on her hips moved with her, pushing her down onto his thigh. He assisted her movements, assuring that her clit rubbed harshly against his thigh each time. She clenched her eyelids shut again, relishing in the euphoric feeling that was running through her veins.

Harry could tell she was close as her grinding became more frenzied and needy, curses and moans spewing from her lips.

“I’m close Harry” Her words were slurred and incoherent, but they just motivated Harry even more.

“C’mon baby, finish on my thigh.”

Within seconds she reached her release, white spots clouding her vision. He rode her through her orgasm, slowing his movements until fully coming to a stop.

Watching her face as she came down made Harry think he might just cum in his boxers.

They both inhaled a big breath before sighing it out, her eyes closed in bliss and his glued on her. When she finally looked at him, he was a bit red in the face, his gaze searing with lust. She watched them trail down to stare at her lips, and in a moment of confidence she blurted out.

“Kiss me, Harry. Please.”

He needed nothing more. Their soft lips met and they melted against each other, scratching the itch that they both had developed for one another. His tongue slipped into her mouth and she accepted it gratefully, taking the opportunity to tug on his bottom lip with her teeth.

He growled at the sensation, sending vibrations through Y/N’s mouth. In one swift motion, Harry had Y/N on her back and he was on top of her. Their lips fit so well together, almost as if they were made to be together.

Although he never wanted the kiss to end, he needed to know that she was alright, and what she wanted to happen. He pulled his lips away from a kiss, eliciting a small groan from Y/N.

“I need to know what y’want Y/N” He stared down at her dilated pupils and swollen lips.

“I want your cock Harry, I want it so bad.” She writhed underneath him, her body aching for another release. He chuckled at her needy response, even though he needed just as much as she did.

“Are you sure?” She nodded frantically. “Do you have any condoms?”

She shook her head. “I’m on the pill and I’m clean.”

“I am too.”

“Can we do it without a condom? I wanna feel you.” She bit her lip in anticipation of his response.

“Fuck..” he muttered under his breath. He ripped the blanket away from her body, revealing her exposed breasts and black lace panties. He had never been so grateful that both of them preferred to sleep naked, and that they were comfortable enough around each other to do it.

He reached for her nipple, squeezing and tugging on it slightly before bringing his attention to her bottom half. Her legs were clenched together tightly, but Harry pried them apart, tugging of the panties that covered her core. He sat up on his knees and looked at her for a moment. She is the most gorgeous person in the entire world to him, and he was in disbelief that she was actually lying naked in front of him.

“Harryyy” Her whines pulled him out of his trance, and he made quick work peeling the thin boxers off of his body. His cock sprung free and he pumped himself a few times before moving back to being on top of her.

“Y’ready darling?” She nodded and made eye contact with him, assuring him that she wanted this.

He ran his tip through her folds, collected the moisture that was pooling in her core. Lining himself up with her entrance, he slipped himself in, shouting curses along with her.

“God baby y’so bloody tight, such a good girl f’me”

“All for you Harry, I’m all yours” He let out a gutted moan at her words, and finally began to move. He pulled himself all the way out of her then thrust right back in.

“Fuck Harry!” Both of them were on a different plane of existence, the pleasure they were feeling was immeasurable. He found a steady pace as he rammed into her. The pad of his thumb found her swollen clit and began rubbing quick circles on it. She arched her back at his attack on her bundle of nerves and she let out a string of curses and moans.

“So good Harry, keep going” she rasped. Her words fueled his ego and he picked up the pace, determined to make her feel good.

“Such a good girl fo me, such a pretty little cunt.”

The sounds of their bodies collided filled the room, and both of them lost themselves in the immense sensations that were wracking through their bodies. After a few more thrusts, Harry felt her clench around him and he knew she was close to reaching her second climax.

“Come f’me darlin, wanna feel y’come on my cock” And with that she was climaxing, the knot in her stomach fell apart and the wave of pleasure flowed through her fucked out body.

His climax came only a few thrusts later, white ropes of cum painting her walls. They eased each other out of their orgasms, both of them red in the face. Harry slipped out of her core and plopped down next to her on the bed, both of them just staring at the ceiling, attempting to process what had just happened.

He turned his face to hers, something that she had already done. They stared at each other in their post-orgasmic states, neither of them knowing what to do next. Harry opened his mouth to speak, but Y/N quickly hushed him. “Let’s just enjoy this right now. I just wanna be next to you.”

He smiled at her and she returned it, grabbing his waist and pulling herself into his chest.

They both drifted off to sleep, just like they had earlier that night. But this time was different because they both knew that their feelings were reciprocated, even if they hadn’t verbally expressed it.

But that was enough for both of them.

[intyalote]

What makes a good ending?

not what shl did that's for sure

this is my analysis of the novel vs. drama ending, and why I don't think the drama had a good ending (not happy, but mainly not good in a storytelling sense).

below the cut there will be spoilers for all of shl and the 7-minute "extra," as well as the ending and extras of tianya ke. also, though i've seen the raws of both drama endings, my chinese knowledge is very imperfect, so do let me know if I say anything actually wrong in this post.

Before I talk about why shl's endings make no sense, I'm just going to list what I consider the three different "canon" endings.

Drama "sad ending" : Wen Kexing opens the armory and uses the Six Harmonies cultivation to heal Zhou Zishu, but can't bear it and dies as a result.

Drama "happy ending" : Same as above, but Wen Kexing is successful in cultivating to immortality. They go live half-lives on Changming indefinitely, until they decide to die.

Novel happy ending: The armory is not opened because Wen Kexing destroyed the key a long time ago. Wen Kexing goes to finish his plan during the second Heroes conference, with Zhou Zishu saving Wen Kexing's life at the end. Wen Kexing never had the stupid idea of faking his death, so afterwards Wuxi can heal Zhou Zishu and they spend the rest of their normal human lives wandering with Chengling.

ok. now for the actual point. there are three main issues I have with the drama endings.

The first is that given what we know about Ye Baiyi and Rong Changqing, healing Zhou Zishu that way should not work. I can go into detail on this but I won't, because this is honestly not as big of a deal as the thematic problems.

The drama ending is inconsistent with many of the themes of the story. The whole point of the fight over the liuli armor is that what everyone wants is fabricated by their greed - the armory is forever inaccessible, the key is destroyed, no one will ever get there. By having the key still exist, even if the only people who enter are WenZhou, it weakens the idea that greed is ultimately pointless - after all, if someone had been strong enough to beat WenZhou and known that the hairpin was the key, they could have been the one to enter.

The other main theme of the novel is escape - to quote the last extra:

"Ye Baiyi had wanted to jump out of that curse of being one with the Heavens. Madam Rong had wanted to jump out of the iceland that was Changming. Wen Kexing had wanted to jump out of being an evil spirit and return to the human world. Zhou Zishu had wanted to jump out of Tian Chuang and be free." (tl credit to chichilations)

So in the drama, Zhou Zishu succeeds in escaping Tianchuang and Wen Kexing succeeds in escaping Ghost Valley, only for them to be trapped in the same hell as Ye Baiyi. May as well die, reincarnate, and be together in the next life like Gu Xiang and Cao Weining.

The entire point of Ye Baiyi's subplot is that the Six Harmonies cultivation is not a blessing, but a curse - everyone wants it, but they don't realize that it's really not a good thing. The drama even acknowledges this with "If it was such a good thing, how could I not have given it to him?" But in the end, he still gives it to Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu - what was the point of that whole conversation with Long Que then? It's not like WenZhou are somehow different or more deserving than Rong Xuan or anyone else. That they manage to "escape" in the novel is largely out of pure luck, which works because they want to escape not in order to become ~special~ and immortal but in order to live and die normally (as one fic on ao3 says, they have "mundanecore" fantasies). Them being immortal removes so many layers of complexity from the story of Ye Baiyi and the Six Harmonies method, and doesn't even add anything to their own story - it just feels empty.

What makes a good ending? I've seen a lot of people say that as long as WenZhou live and are together, then it's all fine. Though I see where they're coming from, especially after Guardian, I have to disagree. In my view, an ending is happy if the main character gets what they want, and an ending is good if it wraps up the plot and themes of the story in a satisfying and coherent way. "Cultivating to immortality" was never a goal for our main characters and does not qualify as an escape. And as we've seen, opening the armory and having Six Harmonies cultivation save Zhou Zishu is thematically incoherent. So, sorry scriptwriter, but this is a bad ending.

The worst part of all of this is that it's not like these issues are deeply rooted in the drama plot. The entire pointless, nonsensical ending is because of the contrived drama around Wen Kexing faking his death, something that was unnecessary, illogical, and OOC. How hard would it be to just have Wen Kexing tell Zhou Zishu his plan, or have Zhou Zishu figure it out? Only a couple scenes would be majorly different (no nail removing scene, no armory scene, and a scene where Wuxi cures Zhou Zishu), and a few more would have minor differences without all the fake, contrived angst. If they really wanted more angst, how about having Wuxi's initial treatment fail before he thinks of something else? There are so many options. This whole thing is just... why... you were doing so well...

[lilyrachelcassidy]

Summer Nights (2)

A/N: Is that... is that...? The unbridled enthusiasm I’m hearing? Or are you trying to reach me with torches and pitchforks for being so untrustworthy? Assuming the first option.

Anyway -- Yes, as I promised, this is the second part of the Summer Nights which you would hopefully enjoy. Waiting for your feedback. It’s the INDEX if you need a refresher.

ALSO, I give a lot of credit to @drawlfoy and @bored-and-botheredwho helped me with editing this chapter and steamed off my emotional breakdown related to my writing (lmao). I love you so much gals and a big THANK U once more!!!

Word Count: 2.7k

Warnings: coarse language; alcohol; Narcissa turning into a shitty-mother (lol)

Tags: @war-sword @paradigmax @winnsmills @idkatee@bforbroadway @okaydraco

The next thing Draco knew, he was being woken up with a massive hangover in the snuggly, way-too-comfortable bed by the high-pitched squeal of his mother.

"You, darling, made a lot of trouble for yourself yesterday," Narcissa admonished her son, a glacial cool look on her face. Entering Draco's hotel apartment, she walked over to the window and opened the drapes with one swift movement, splashing an annoyed Draco with light. He groaned, not yet daring to complain due to his mother's livid mood, to say the least.

"You have no idea of what happened yesterday, do you?"

"Yyy-" was the only sound he could make. God, where to the fuck was he? He hadn't been this plastered in forever.

"Of course you don't." Narcissa shook her head and laughed nervously, although she made it plainly obvious there was nothing humorous about the situation. "You blacked out so hard in that sleazy bar there is no way you can recall anything from yesterday. Look at you -- you are squinting at me like I'm the sun!"

Draco nervously ran his finders through his disheveled hair. He was definitely not in the right mind to provoke the conflict. "I left you the note at the reception," he informed her, trying to slickly get out of the unenviable conversation. "Told the receptionist to hand it over."

Contrary to his mother's accusatory ascertainment, he actually had some glimpses of the previous night (or should he say an all-night rave?). There were for sure drinks -- a lot of drinks; a variety of kinds he didn't recognize from the magical world but still guzzled delightfully. The second recollection was dancing --which wasn't his intention, but with some luck of his -- got invited by some hot-looking chicks from across the table. And yes, he definitely remembers the swaying and the rhythmical moving of the hips along with some cheesy muggle vibes mixed with the smell of booze and weed. Maybe he even hooked up with one of the girls? The last thing he recollects before passing out, almost like through a haze, was seeing Narcissa's furious face screaming something incoherent at him. Overall, that's his all night wrapped in one.

"Do you think the mere note 'I will be fine' was going to calm down my shattered nerves? Draco Lucius Malfoy, I swear to our dear ancestors, I did not raise you to act so irresponsibly." She waved the finger at him warningly. “We come from rich history. You are the descendant from a line of successful forefathers who put their effort into building up our reputation. Do you think Lucius would approve of such unrestrained behavior? I’ve been already hearing of letting you be too careless. Is tha-"

"Mother, could we skip the lecture?" Draco snapped angrily, try as he might to suppress it. "I've heard it too many times. All I’m trying to have is a peaceful life. Without the prying eyes of the media and the meddling of my family..."

"And all I’m trying to have is an integrated, happy family to offer you support and love.” Draco opened his mouth to cut her in, but she shushed him with a wave, clearly suggesting 'Don’t even get me started’ meaning. “I’ve been- been trying  to get a job, going through the infelicitous job interviews and looking for a solution to help our household through the post-war crisis. Have you shown any interest in that? Any?"

"But mo-"

"The last thing I want to have on my mind is dealing with your ignorant, boyish transitional stages, and let me tell you -- you do not make it any easier for me," she said without taking a breath. She exhaled slowly and continued, this time forcing a softer tone. "I ask you one thing for this summer. Let it be an enjoyable time without unnecessary conflicts. We have come to the beautiful country as France. Let's make a good thing out of it."

Draco, who was already wide awake by the buzz of adrenaline, looked at her with a serious expression. Scanning her face made him suddenly realize how hard must it have been for her to bear everything, and seeing the bags of tiredness under her beautiful, hazel eyes stopped him from retorting. "Mother, no matter what happens, I'll always support you. Remember that."

Narcissa smiled. “Oh. I know, honey, I know.” This time she lowered her voice by two octaves, slowly sitting at the edge of the bed. “It’s just… people have been gossiping behind our backs lately, partly throwing the blame at us. All I’m trying to do is protect us from those tormentors. But your binge drinking is not making the deadlock any better, and it drives me mad.” She chortled a little bit and patted Draco’s palm. “So, until the rumors die down, all we can do is raise our chins high.” Narcissa ended, her voice encouraging yet plaintive.

The last thing Draco liked is seeing his mother on the verge of emotional exhaustion, like in this moment. He felt an instant surge of sympathy, so he quickly found himself locking Narcissa in the supportive embrace. She responded to the gesture by wrapping her arms around her son’s neck and stroking his cheek delicately with the back of her hand, just like in the old times. Both of them yearningly wished to come back to those years of frivolity.

"I promise I'll try to be better," Draco said with certainty. Seeing Narcissa’s eyes light up in gratefulness and the smiley dimples form on her features, he assured himself it was the right thing to say at that mother-son moment.

“How could I be so lucky to have such a wise boy,” she muttered proudly, kissing Draco at the top of his head. “But perhaps you should not restrain yourself too much during the holiday. I give you the partial alibi per se. Just keep it under control.”

Smiling, Narcissa got up, straightening up her impeccable posture as in the habit of the high-status woman. For the first time in that day, Draco noticed how elegantly she was dressed up: the black, partly lacy dress stopping at the level of her knees; the shiny-white pearl jewelry perfectly matching her entire outfit; dark yet not defiant high-heels; andhair fixed up in the tight bun. In Draco’s opinion, she looked too prim...even for herself.

"Mother, are you heading somewhere?" he asked curiously.

“Well…” she started, blushing. “I’m going to see my old friend in the coffee shop. I haven’t been there for ages, so it’s one of the chances to meet up with them. Hopefully, you are going to take care of yourself for a few days.” 

"Days?" he asked, shocked.

“You didn’t expect me to travel from town to town, did you?” she laughed lightly. “Bordeaux is quite a route to overcome. So I might be settling there for a few nights. Do you mind it, darling?”

Was he positive about the information? Did he mind? Partly yes. He didn’t imagine the prospect of wandering around the alleys of France on his own, especially on the first day of being there. But from the other side, seeing the joy painted on his mother’s face as she told him about the planned get-together made him feel less skeptical. Plus, getting rid of the extreme supervision for a few days wouldn’t be such a disaster as well.

As he calculated now, the ratio about the idea was 90% pro and 10% against.

"Of course not," he said simply, smiling at his mother.

"I knew you would understand." The crease of uncertainty on her forehead disappeared, and she let out a sigh of relief. "Meanwhile... I have already booked you the brunch downstairs but seeing as you are not in the wholesome state, I might order a delive-"

"Don't..." Draco opposed, rising from the bed and throwing the nearest shirt he could find over his head. "I'll come down. Some fresh air may be a cure for a hangover. Oh, and speaking of hangovers -- do you happen to have an anti-hangover potion?"

Narcissa let out a quiet chuckle and clapped her hands, seemingly satisfied with herself. Her tranquil gaze landed on the cupboard. "As a matter of self-preservation, yes, I do. Try searching inside the bedside cabinet."

He thanked her and then they talked with each other a little bit longer until Narcissa took the pocket watch out of her handy purse, noted the time ("Merlin's Beard, I am so tardy! I'm going to be alone on the platform if I stay here a minute longer!), and –a little startled with her inadvertency – hurriedly declared she should get going ("I really should get going Draco!”). Pecking her son twice on the cheeks as a farewell, she rushed towards the door and, for the last time, turned around to blow a brief motherly goodbye kiss. She left in such a hurry that the only sign indicating her presence in the room a few seconds ago was her familiar perfume lingering about in the air.

Draco gathered his clothes, and after half an hour of very difficult preparations while dealing with the consequences of yesterday's actions -- because the potion finally hits after two to three hours -- he found himself in front of the hotel's restaurant. As he walked in, he had to admit the room enchanted him with its lovely atmosphere, which brought back the memories of his first Hogwart's magical feast as an eleven-year-old boy.

With the large windows allowing plenty of light in, the entire space was in the classical style. The whole floor was clad with marble tiles in the white-like color; the walls were purely white and, apparently, someone must have put a lot of effort not to let a single dust spot appear in there; the ceiling was created in the concept of the sky resemblance making an impression of the real clouds hovering over heads. Three enormous chandeliers made a very good fit with carved wooden tables and similarly-looking chairs.

"Sir, would you like to make an order?" The decently looking waitress walked over to his table, with a white apron around her waist and green, deep eyes staring at him. "I'm Laura, by the way. I'll be serving you today."

He nodded, not really paying much attention to her primitive attempts of having a chit-chat. Cursorily glancing at the menu, he decided on having a french bagel with melted cheese and a coffee which was a specialty of the house as was written in the recommendations. The waitress scribbled something sloppily in her notes, smiled briefly, and then strode away.

The restaurant was almost fully emptied, and the only things heard in the background were a heated discussion of the couple beside the table and a composition of french, old songs prepared specifically for the guests.

Draco let out a small sigh of boredom, thinking yet again about the scenery of today. The only ideas that crossed his mind were either lounging in his stuffy hotel room or finding another hang-out spot to drown his sorrows.

After the War, he had found out it was pretty easier not to give in to any of the memories, blurring them out with the support of Scotch as a coping mechanism. Pansy and Daphne, his childhood friends, had tried to talk him out of it, kindly offering some tenderness and a chance for a conversation. But he had eventually stopped caring about any of that bullshit anymore.

That's why perhaps he'd just--

"Hi!" said a cheerful voice behind him, making him jump slightly at his seat with surprise. At first, he thought it was a mistake; that he must have been deemed as someone else considering he didn't know anyone around, so was in the opposite way. Turning around, however, made him realize it wasn't entirely the truth. "Do you remember me?"

"Hello." Of course, he remembered her. It was the receptionist from the previous day, whose name he didn't bother to memorize. Although he planned on avoiding potential candidates for a talk today, he said truthfully, "Yes, I do. You work here, right?"

"Yeah," she confirmed, smiling. "Can I join?"

For a moment, his sluggish brain did not process what she was asking about, and that made him frown. The girl probably comprehended what it was about because she explained, reading his confused expression. "...the table".

"Oh," he said, feeling more than embarrassed for his dumb reaction. "Yeah, help yourself."

"Thanks," she mumbled, pulling out the chair to make some room for herself. "Tough night, huh?"

The inquiry made him suddenly realize she must have witnessed the whole scene yesterday -- him asking her for a favor, Narcissa drilling her out for any clues about his disappearance, his arrogant attitude, and scurrility as he spoke to her. For sure, if she were smart enough, she would deduce what the situation was about.

He couldn't help it, but a wave of shame pierced through his body, and his stomach rolled slightly.

"A little," he answered minimizing a dimension of the spree, almost like a lie, and then he shook his head. "Listen, sorry about yesterday. I might have been...rude."

A small smile of courtesy formed on her lips. "I presumed you were a little off. Happens..." she said tentatively, gripping both of her hands together. "Oh, and about yesterday -- you lost this at the lobby." She took his wand out, and Draco's stomach made a second roll, the heartbeat hastening like a speed of light. He quickly tried to bring his face to the natural expression, but the girl had noticed that, and curiosity filled her eyes. "I thought I should give that back. In case it was valuable or something."

Fucking great... How was he supposed to elucidate that?

His throat felt so dry he couldn't let out a word of excuse. The moment was so mortifying to him he just reached for the familiar wand and nodded politely in gratefulness.

"Mhm..." Draco hummed, barely audible and momentarily deflated. "It's just... Something I've been training with..."

What the fuck is that supposed to mean, dolt?!

"Oh," the girl unconsciously flipped her hair off the shoulders, probably trying to make sense of the information. Furrowing her brows, she put her hand under the chin. "Are you a magician?"

"Kind of..." he agreed, not happy about the reputation he had just created for himself, but at the same time satisfied he didn't have to make up more explanations.

Luckily for Draco, the uncomfortable pause was rescued by the arrival of the food -- thank Merlin -- and even though he hadn't been hungry at all, now he felt an unexpected appetite to eat up the awkwardness. The girl probably caught a hint it was about time to end an encounter because she grunted.

"Listen," the girl started, clearing her throat yet again. "I better get going. But..."

The next thing Draco knew was that she was reaching to her pocket again, this time taking out something similar to a quill, only without ink. He assumed it must some kind of muggle invention, only a mechanical-like version. The girl uncorked it and suggestively drew out her hand, clearly signifying he should bring his hand closer as well. He obediently did.

"France is a big city," she said, glancing at him and sounding serious. "If you ever needed someone to show you around, let me know."

Without any preamble, her soft, delicate fingers grasped his forearm (he made sure to give her the right one), and with a few scrawls on his skin, she looked at him merrily, blushing slightly, and then left a table.

He stared after her for a while, looking at her curls bouncing behind her back as she walked away at a slow, monotonic pace. After a few seconds, she disappeared out of his sight, letting him finally peek at the note she had left:

'Call me, Y/N,' and a nine-digit number attached.

XOXOXO

A/N: I know this part might have contained too little Draco x Reader momento, but I promise it’ll get better as a plot develops. Also -- is it only my impression, or is Narcissa as changeable as the weather in Germany lol.

[dessarious]

Misconceptions, Miscommunication, and Misinformation Pt95

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Ladybug and Discorde showed up at the Agreste Mansion two days later. Chloe had insisted she not go alone and honestly Marinette was more than happy not being alone with Adrien. She did decide to tell Chloe that Adrien was Chat. Given his track record she was assuming he’d out himself while they were there and she didn’t want to be responsible for whatever Chloe would do if he was in front of her when she found out. Considering she’d had to transform to keep her girlfriend from commiting murder as it was, she was fairly certian Adrien would have been turned to dust before she could move if that had happened.

She rang the bell and waited. Discorde was bouncing from foot to foot and Ladybug just waited for the explosion.

“I don’t like this. You don’t owe him anything.” They’d had this argument already, a few times.

“We’re not here for him. We’re here for Mme. Agreste.” Discorde just scowled at the pavement. She really hoped she could figure this out quickly. The door jerked open to reveal Adrien with a besotted grin on his face. That turned into a sneer as soon as he caught sight of Discorde.

“I asked for you, not your sidekick.” She reached out to grab Discorde’s arm before she’d even moved and could feel the tenseness in her. This was going to be a disaster.

“We’re partners and it’s a packaged deal. It’s both of us or neither.” The glared he turned on her was almost hateful.

“Where was this loyalty when Chat lost his Miraculous?” Was he seriously trying to guilt trip her? Her mouth kicked into gear before she could even process the indignant rage coursing through her.

“The same place he was during Akuma attacks; absent.” Given the way he reeled back she was afraid for a moment that she’d physically struck him, but she was still holding onto Discorde so she couldn’t have. He started sputtering incoherently and she had to stop herself from rolling her eyes. “Either show us why we’re here or let us leave. The choice is yours.” The longer they were here the more likely things would go wrong. Well, more wrong. Adrien grumbled something under his breath but did move aside so they could enter.

“I moved her to one of the bedrooms. Father had her hidden away under the house.” He sounded mostly indignant but she could hear real concern underneath as well.

“I’ll do whatever I can to help her Adrien. If it really was just the Miraculous that caused the coma I should be able to reverse it.” It would be a fairly simple task and Tikki had told her exactly what to do. If Gabriel had just sent Nooroo to find the Guardian in the beginning, none of the rest would have been necessary. That more than anything made her hate Gabriel. He’d put Paris through hell for his own selfish desire to wish for his perfect life. Adrien visibly relaxed at her words.

“Thank you. Given who my father turned out to be I wasn’t expecting you to come at all.” The only thing that went through her head was that of all people, he should know her better than that. It was far more frustrating than she wanted to admit.

“I’m not going to punish you or your mother for Gabriel’s actions, that would make me petty and vindictive.” The words came out harsher than she meant them to but she couldn’t help it. Given how tense Discorde was she also hoped the snark would keep her partner from doing something stupid. Rather than taking offense, Adrien just seemed confused by the statement. She felt a twinge of sympathy when she realized that was most likely what his father had always done to him. Adrien opened one of the doors and they entered to find Mme. Agreste lying peacefully on the bed. It was a bit creepy if she was being honest.

Before walking over to the bed she looked to Discorde who gave her a nod. She didn’t think Adrien would lie about this being his mother but at this point it wasn’t a chance she wanted to take. Chloe had known the woman more or less since birth so it was nice to have it verified. As she studied the woman, and the magic surrounding her, Ladybug became more agitated. It was exactly as Tikki had explained to her which meant all of this was unnecessary. Had the man simply listened to Nooroo Master Fu could have revived her in the beginning. But no, Gabriel decided to use the opportunity to remake his entire life into what he wanted.

“I can revive her.” Adrien let out a relieved breath. “But you may want to think about what happens after before I do. She’s been in this coma for over three years. It's going to be very disconcerting to wake up now.” He just frowned in thought for a moment.

“I’ll go get Nathalie. She hasn’t changed, at least not nearly as much as I have, and mom always trusted her.” As soon as Adrien left the room Discorde grabbed her hand and squeezed. She’d told her no physical contact around Adrien because she really didn’t want to deal with his reaction. She just gave her partner a tired smile

“I’m okay, just frustrated. I’m starting to understand why Adrien doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with his behavior.” She really hoped having his mother back would help change him for the better. For his sake as much as anyone else's. Discord looked guilty.

“Given that his only real influences after his mother disappeared were Gabriel and me it’s not really surprising.” The words were soft but Ladybug felt the weight of them.

“You’ve changed and so can he if he wants to. None of this is your fault.” Discorde wouldn’t meet her eyes and Ladybug sighed. It seemed like every time they got past one guilt trip another popped up. It was times like this she wished they were a couple years older so they could just say screw it and go somewhere they weren’t constantly reminded of the past. At least for a little while.

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[ncvcmbcrflush]

It is 1am and i just finished s2, so this is gonna be long and rambling and misspelled and im sorry okay?

I am not thrilled with the writing of klaus this season, can I just say? They completely undid all of his substantial development in s1, while also removing a good chunk of his positive qualities.

There were scenes where s1!klaus shined through (any of the scenes with Allison and vanya, mainly, and i was really worried abt the scenes with bby!Dave but they were handled really well imo) but those scenes were vastly overshadowed by the unnecessary cruelty? Why did they make my boy so mean this season, I am asking this question for real. S1!klaus was wild and a disaster and heartbreaking, but he was also so kind, and willing to grow as a person in ways that his siblings actively avoided most of the time.

How do you go from beautifully empathetic s1!klaus crying in response to his abusive father's suicide, protesting luther locking up vanya and later being so adamant that they take vanya back in time with them that he literally clings to her feet, to s2!klaus who seems to not care much about anything or anyone at all?? The man is dead in heaven with his father telling him point blank what a let down he is, and he still has enough love in him to cry for him, but 3 years pass and suddenly he doesn't shed a tear for his brother who just died saving their sister?? They took away so much of his emotionality and I do not understand why.

S1!klaus also absolutely would have been open to trying possession with Ben imo, and we could have avoided the intensely uncomfortable possession sequence, which should not have been played off as a joke because it wasn't funny at all, and instead just highlights how little autonomy klaus actually has- but that is a rant that needs way more brain power and research lmao.

S1!klaus also would never have hid ben from his siblings, after spending literal years telling them that ben was there with them??? He would not have done that.

And the scene where they try to save vanya was intensely ooc in my opinion- even high off his ass klaus is quick to react and jump into action- helpful or otherwise (throwing the fire extinguisher, improvising at the prosthetics lab for 5, trying to save luther in the club, running into the theater when they hear gunshots despite having no idea how to use his powers offensively, even in s2 when he finds allison at the protest) and I refuse to believe he would need to be pushed into trying to save vanya, who he has put his life at risk to save before.

The cult thing will be getting a post of its own because I have so many feelings about that whole deal but I again, am too incoherent currently.

I loved him and allison so so much, and he and vanya just break my heart together bc they are such opposite sides of the same coin and the show doesn't seem interested in exploring that whatsoever? I was a bit bummed to not really see him interact with the boys at all though. He and Diego seemed pretty close in s1, 5 and klaus have some good scenes together, and he and luther had some good interactions at the end of s1 as well, and i wish they had kept going with that.

It just feels like they were so busy with the others, and klaus got lost along the way. We do nothing with his powers except for the possession thing, like literally besides ben and the two ghosts at the very end of the last episode klaus doesn't use his powers at all during the entire season! I loved watching everyone else kind of come into their own, but that just never happened for klaus this season- if anything, he devolved.

And I think as a side effect of fucking up klaus, they fucked up his relationship with ben, and the other boys to a lesser extent, as well.

S1 ben and klaus is what i would expect from a pair of siblings stuck together for 17 years- nagging and sarcastic and judgemental but also loving and close and they work well together. They are both dumbasses who do things like play patty cake to test ben's tangibility, and decide that tossing a bowling ball is a good way to prove that ben is present.

S2 ben and klaus are entirely antagonistic; more in line with luther and diego in s1. I have seen lots of comments saying that anyone upset with ben and klaus's dynamic in s2 doesn't have siblings, and to that i have to say- people who think their dynamic in s2 is normal don't have abusive parents. There are lines that you absolutely do not cross, and comparing a sibling to your abuser is one of them. And you don't need to have siblings to know that dismissing the death of a loved one like, isn't a good thing to do? This is especially jarring given their relationship in 2019 and as children- there is no set up for this kind of behavior from either of them.

And the others were just so overall dismissive of klaus in a way that goes beyond just sibling annoyance. During the family dinner no one bats an eye when ben jumps into him, causes his body to jerk around, and literally says that he's ben?? He lies on the floor of the elevator looking like death and we don't so much as ask what's wrong? Klaus pukes out the contents of 7 fully grown humans practically and no one offers a tums, or a ride to the damn hospital?? Like wasn't diego a fuckin cop, he should know that none of this is the result of an overdose??? As far as i can recall,, klaus doesn't even use drugs in this season? We see him drink but that's it unless I'm forgetting, which is entirely possible since it is now 2am lmao. And they just play it off as jokes, we are meant to find this funny?

And just like, he wasn't involved in the actual plot of this season much, if at all, besides being a largely unwilling catalyst for ben. Nothing would change in this season if they had cut him out completely, and i really hate that.

I'm not upset at all really- despite sounding upset and writing a long ass rant lmao- the let down of one character doesn't ruin the season for me, and honestly, given how other shows have failed me this year (looking at you, the politician) , i count this season as a win overall. Luther especially has changed so much for the better, and he was probably the highlight of this season. I'm just bummed because klaus was s u c h a good character in season one, easily one of the most interesting characters, and they did nothing with him this season.

[howlingmoonrise]

Thoughts on Petshop of Horrors: Wandering Ark volumes 1 & 2

(also on dreamwidth)

HOW did I manage to miss the translation of my long-awaited Papa D PSOH series?? I've been stalking it ever since I found the announcement and somehow the fact that @ruthlessnightsscans​ already put out the first two volumes completely went past my head.

Obviously I had to read it right away, sleep be damned.

this is the edited version of my brain thoughts after i managed to get two sleeps and calm down a bit or it would be a lot more incoherent

The art: the initial pages really remind me of the old art! Unfortunately it goes back to the roundness prevalent since the Shin series (which has only become even rounder with time) not long after. That art style is also a lot less dynamic than the original, I find. It's a bit of a problem on scenes that are supposed to have some tension caused by movement. This is nothing new since, like I said, Sensei has been using this art style since a good while ago. I really miss the original art though. It had a major nostalgia punch to it and a lot more feeling as well.

-- First chapter: "I am on a journey with no destination in mind" just say you're on vacation and go off I guess. 

Papa is... weirdly easy-going. I want to say it's because he's not yet mad with grief and his son being taken away and so on, but the glimpses we saw at his time in university definitely didn't paint him this soft. There's no edge to him, on this volume or the next. 

Regarding the story itself, I can't say I loved it but it’s not the worst out of all of them (there are four in total between these two volumes, and a third volume is on the way). I liked Koushun's character, but Seiyou annoyed me, especially when he presumed to know what she wanted (or perhaps he didn't presume, but decided for her what was better anyway) - something like I Shall Revive This Species So Breed In My Name Okay Bye. Note also that while Koushun was willing enough to marry (thinking she was marrying someone else but that's another point entirely), the groom himself came in chains. And then Seiyou... locks them in together? Great. Just great. Very conducive to a loving mood indeed, locking a woman with a potentially dangerous stranger who might cause her harm and telling them both to fuck (note. the. chains. you don’t put chains on someone you think is harmless; they never put any on Koushun even when she attacked Seiyou). I was afraid for her when it cut to another scene here, with the last we saw of her being pushed against a wall and being told by the groom that it seemed that he would have to make a child with her. "Rather than hate each other, I want to break that curse"? Seiyou, sweetie, that is NOT the way to make them not hate you. ((The reveal that Koushou is some sort of creature - very PSOH-y - does not help, since putting two wild animals together without them being used to each other is perhaps even more likely to them killing/harming one another.))

MAJOR little mermaid vibes on Koushun standing over a sleeping Seiyou with a knife. 

There are quite some parallels with the D species on this tale of bloodshed and revenge. The Ds could stand to learn from this, though historically they don't. "Even if you kill the third prince, the Kagetsu people are already gone. They won't return." Papa himself says that 'winning on the last available tile' is a waste of time, which really resonates with his research into reviving lost species and the issues of his own kind. A reference to the health of descendants when no new blood is introduced is also made here, which might or might not point to our D depending on where in time this Papa is from.

--

Second chapter: it's... frankly, super choppy. The story is all over the place. On the author's note, Akino herself says that it's a challenge to put the whole life of that empress in 57 pages, and I have to agree. Either it should have been cut to the REALLY relevant parts and worked on them some more, or be discarded in its entirety. It's too rushed. The whole first part was unnecessary: it could have started with her already working at the palace or being chosen as a concubine, and then made references to her previous life in her thoughts instead of wasting several pages on it when that backstory won't be going anywhere (except for some references to Hakubun whom she sees on that other actor - who dies like, two or three pages later, so that's that on that). I do like Ranji herself as a character: she's clever and quick to pick up on things. Her life is just a series of tragedies one after the other, unfortunately. 

Papa D is some sort of benevolent helper in this chapter for some reason - this pattern repeats somewhat on the next chapters, but on this one there isn't really anything to gain for him at all, other than perhaps his dubious acquaintance with one of the concubines/future empress, which wouldn't really hold much weight since he met her ?once? apart from near her death.

And then, somehow, the initial Papa D in this chapter was actually Sofu?

Sofu???? I'm calling bullshit. As far as we know - going back to Sofu's own series and flashbacks on the original PSOH, even - Sofu never had a hairstyle of that length, and out of our three known Ds (new!D excluded) he's the one least likely to help a human just because. The ark is also said to travel through space and time, so I'm saying that's Papa D and that's it. Fun aside: on this chapter, Papa says he's the "third generation", meaning that on this series he's probably the youngest existing D (and by inference our D does not exist yet).

Also, some issues with in-story continuity here: when the last emperor dies Ranji still looks fairly young and the emperor-to-be is three years old, a couple pages later she looks a lot more aged but the new emperor is still three years old. To be honest, I think the story would have been tied off much better if A-chan had some connection with Hakubun or the eunuch instead of each having their very brief, individual emotional connections to her - which, in turn, doesn't really make them memorable. The "wishes" thing was interesting, really called back to the old PSOH tradition with the mystical pets and bittersweet be-careful-what-you-wish-for endings.

--

Third chapter: I think, overall, this was probably the one I liked the best. Can't really bring myself to call it my favourite though, since none of them even begin to compare to the original PSOH chapters. I cackled at the "jawline is too sharp" dialogues and thoughts: with this art style EVERYONE has the same round jaw as every other character, and it's the furthest thing from "sharp" possible.

With this series it really seems like Sensei is giving more focus to trying to tell historically-accurate stories rather than focusing on the stories themselves, as there is a huge amount of superfluous historical information to be found in these volumes. 

The empress Elizabeth reminds me of Sofu, in truth. She won't "mind" affairs and the like (read: she will hate it but ignore them) as long as it works towards her ends. Her taking away the newly-born child is a huge parallel to Sofu regarding both Papa and D, and D and new!D. Child-snatching FTW! That being said, I actually kind of liked her, ruthless as she was: the whole reason why Sophie made it as far as crown princess was because Elizabeth valued her hard work. You don't get to hold an empire together without having a steel spine and a cunning mind (or people to do the work for you I guess, but here it doesn’t seem to be the case).

I hate that Sophie had to change even her name and religion to fit her new reality, accurate as it is to history. That sort of thing always messes me up (throwback to the Nazi/teddy bear chapter of the original PSOH series, where there was also a name/religion change for the sake of survival). Not a reflection on the author in any way, I just hate that this is something people had to go through. As something I hated that kinda does reflect on the author, though, was the ugly = terrible association with Pyotr and the maid. Sophie/Catherine is initially said to not be beautiful but she's not depicted in the same way those two are at all. 

Papa's benevolence is thankfully offset this chapter by the fact that he does have something to gain here. For some reason Ds doing things merely for the goodness of their hearts kind of rubs me the wrong way unless it's D during or post-Leon. 

Most PSOH victims clients: oh a pretty person! WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT'S AN ANIMAL Sophie/Catherine: a dog you say? sounds kinda hot ngl

Gotta respect how she just jumps straight into the dog affairs. The take-back of the empire was also nicely executed, and I'm always here for ladies in traditionally male clothing. 

--

Fourth chapter:

This is linked semi-directly to the third chapter by virtue of the amber room Papa D craved. Marks also the second time that Papa takes a human on board of the ark.

D, circa end of original PSOH, a single tear rolling down his cheek as he watches Leon plummet towards the earth: Humans have not earned the right to board this ark. Papa D: I'm gonna go for a joyride and take along this human and this human and this human and this human and--

Papa really gives Doctor Who vibes on the ark matter. Travelling through space and time, occasionally taking human companions? The one for this chapter - who I'm guessing might be a cameo from one of Sensei's other series, since I didn't recognize him and there was no backstory for him on the chapter - even has era-appropriate wardrobe changes (at least assuming it's the same person and not just someone who looks similar scratch that they have eyes of different colours so I guess Papa has been giving rides to delivery men now), the second of which leaving me very ??? as to WHEN he is from. 

That last Look(TM) reminds me a of Leon Orcot, between the long ponytail and the clothes resembling the ones Leon wore on the last chapter of Shin PSOH (in PSOH time, that would have happened approximately 15 years after the end of the original series, meaning that Papa was already long dead then. Unless Leon's style was just stuck in time, which is also very possible). 

It might or might not have endeared him to me for that exact reason. What can I say? I'm a sucker for Leon Orcot, and apparently also for characters that visually remind me of him. ANYWAY.

Why another Nazi-era chapter??? Sensei plz. One was already enough on the original PSOH - it wasn't anywhere near my favourites back then, either - and the fact that this one mostly followed a Nazi colonel didn't help either. Here we witness them tearing down the amber room, "reclaiming" art from all over the world, a father's heartbreaking sacrifice to “save” his daughter’s dog, and Papa D coming to meet the Nazi dude. One would expect the Ds to avoid genocidal racists given the fate of their own species, but apparently the Nazis were relevant enough for not one but TWO Ds to interact with them. Oh well. Either way, I really don't like how Papa appears to not care one way or another - when the D for the original series interacted with people he didn't like, his mask was really fairly obvious (at least for the reader). Perhaps Papa simply has a better mask. Perhaps those nuances were lost to time and round art styles. Perhaps Papa or Sensei just don't give two shits. Guess we'll never know.

EVERYONE seems to comment on the flavour of Papa's tea: it's 4 out of 4 so far for these two volumes, and in this chapter in particular it seems as if it's laced with some kind of truth serum - it seems to be Papa's version of D's (and possibly Sofu's?) incense from the original PSOH. A reference to the original PSOH's Nazi chapter is also made here, with Papa mentioning that Sofu was on friendly terms with Eva Braun: this implicates that in this time they were in closer contact (not surprising since Sofu probably hasn't stolen his still-non-existent kid yet).

The colonel seems to value art over human life - surprise surprise! - so he kills his own comrades to keep the art "safe". A stomach-turning moment comes where they find human golden teeth being kept as treasure, which Papa mentions remelting to turn into golden nuggets. Why, Papa/Sensei, why? It's in poor taste, even if you're testing the colonel the way D did with some of his clients on original PSOH.

At the very least an eerie moment comes next where Papa explains that dead creatures can be revived using DNA. "Even dead people?" Cue Papa's all-seeing stare directly into the reader's eyes (and presumably the colonel's as well) with a backdrop of an inverted black-and-white multitude of graves as he says that future is not very far. Colonel almost shits his pants, with reason when you consider the amount of people the Nazis killed off that would presumably come after them. This almost forgives the teeth comment, and it's probably the first moment in these two volumes when we see some genuine emotion on Papa's face (on this page and the next), creepy and maniac as it might be.

Colonel dude has spent the whole chapter justifying everything under "orders of the fuhrer" so far. Then comes the moment that Papa calls him out by saying that the orders were to burn his sweet dear art so that it wouldn't fall into enemy's hands, and it's here that we see how much of an hypocrite the colonel is when he doesn't want to follow those orders. Suddenly it's "treasures of mankind" (even though he's been stealing them left and right) and the fuhrer is "a fool" (even though he's been using his orders and his "greatness" as justification for everything). 

Suddenly, Papa's companion! Who the heck is that! Shoots him! This is someone whose family was killed by the colonel (directly or under his orders) or so he says; he's gripping a piece of art we don't get to see, which is presumably the reason for those deaths. Now in the future! A guy who looks a bit like that other man who shot the colonel, but who I'm not 100% sure if it is or is not the same person because the round art style makes everyone look alike Someone who is definitely not the same guy because his eye colour is different (and who's dressed in a sporty outfit with a long ponytail, which I've mentioned kinda reminds me of Leon) looks for the amber in the place the art was stored, alongside Papa. He flies on the ark (all these humans on the ark, Sofu would have a conniption!) and reminds me of Leon once more while being shouty and holding on to the main mast for dear life.

The sacrificial father mini-plot also gets resolved with the dog returning (but not the father himself) along with a picture with that family. Which is presumably the picture the other dude who shot the colonel was holding, which begs the question: how is he related to them? He doesn't look like any of them, but he did say the colonel killed his family while (presumably) holding that same picture, so hmmm. Maybe he's the dog, colour-scheme aside? But apart from the father, the rest of the family seems to have survived, so it's kind of a strange thing to say since that sort of wording usually means more than one person. Even if he is the dog (my money is on that option), it's not exactly obvious to a reader who's not looking very closely. Some loose ends there, or at least ends that don't really look like they're tied together at all.

"No matter how long winter is, spring will come." Fairly hopeful final words there, Papa D. These echo similar ones spoken by D at the end of Shin PSOH, after running from Leon once more ("someday, the season for returning will come"): perhaps both these Ds are not as pessimistic as to their future, at least at this point? Poor Papa definitely had a change of heart between his series and the ending of original PSOH, unfortunately.

--

General thoughts: Sensei hasn't quite managed to replicate the feeling of the original PSOH just yet. The storytelling feels a bit shallow and rushed, though the pacing improved from the first volume to the second. There's also very little focus on Papa himself for some reason: he's more of a background character on his own series except for the fourth chapter, which is a very strange narrative choice. In part this might also be because he doesn’t have a permanent companion to discuss/argue with like in previous iterations of the PSOH series. I wonder if the third volume will continue on this trend? I wish it’d delve a bit more into Papa, but either way it’s still nice to get some more PSOH content.

I've heard Vesca will make an appearance next volume, I'm so excited!! Out of Shin PSOH, my favourite chapters were Leon's (surprise surprise!) and the ones with Papa and Vesca on their university days. Papa definitely seemed a lot sharper there, which I miss here - I feel like Sensei has been smoothing out all their edges like with the art style lmao, and in turn it makes them feel a bit lacking since the Ds are not meant to be bland and forgiving and easy-going, at least as per their original portrayal. I've also seen sneak-peaks of Leon and D from author notes of the next volume so I can't wait at the chance to weep at the slightest panel of my son Leon.

A final shoutout to RNS for continuing the PSOH translations! I really can't thank them enough!!

[mysteriesgalplusdamianthings]

Dream Lovers

Finally!!! we're here, day one of #damimapsdecember!!!

All 31 prompts will be posted on Ao3, I'll just be posting a few that I really like here. The link is below, I wasn't sure how to make the link smaller... Oh well... Anyways I explained everything on my first chapter on Ao3 so let's just get right into the story.

A big shout out to @damimapsclub for making this happen I had a lot of fun writing these.

Day 1: Soulmate

https://archiveofourown.org/works/27815542

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was so cold, dark, and empty. She's sinking slowly into the endless void; as if she were drowning.

Was she drowning?

Or was she dying?

Is this what it felt like to die? Well, she didn't know, and she didn't care. Her body refuses to move, to see, to breathe, to swim. Her soul must have been at sea for far too long; as if it's forgotten the feeling of solid ground.

Yet, her heart aches for someone, anyone, to save her from plunging any deeper into the abyss. 

No... she can't just give up, no one was going to save her. She needs to save herself before it was too late. But how was she supposed to do that when her body refuses to budge?

Nevertheless, that wasn't going to stop her from trying. She began to peg away, starting small would be sensible, best to start with her hands then. She began stretching out her fingers one by one until she felt strong enough to arch one of them.

Luckily, she was able to wriggle her pinky, then her middle, then her thumb with a bit more effort she was able to move all ten fingers. Maybe if she tried hard enough she'd be able to sway more than just her digits, like her hands. 

With some effort, she began her attempt at driving her hands up and down, but it was to no avail, she was only able to move her fingers. She tried again and again, but unfortunately... she couldn't pull through.

It felt like ages until she finally gave in, she was paralyzed to do anything more than wiggle her small fingers. She didn't have the strength to go on anymore and stopped moving altogether.

A dull fear weighed heavy in her heart as she felt herself sink deeper and deeper into despair, her body felt frozen as ice. 

Her soul felt battered and drained.  

Was this it? Was this all she could offer? She didn't want to die, not like this. Tears flowed through her closed eye sockets, droplets drifting out around her like diamonds. Tearful and quivering like a leaf, she released her anguish through small whimpers and moans.

Her tears scattered ubiquitously like stars in her deep dark void, hopeless in her struggles to move once more, she finally gave in to her fate. Her soul throbbed painfully in her chest, painfully burning a hole through her. It was trying to escape.

Her soul fiercely quivered grueling and rapid, until it was fluttering over her lifeless body. 

Her lifeless eyes flew open, as she opened her mouth for a breath, but she could not gasp for air, her body was limp floating in a sea of her tears.

Her gaze fell onto what she could only assume was her soul; her life. It was abnormally bright, white as snow, and in the shape of a heart. 

It was a sort of brightness that ignited something beautiful within, it was quite breathtaking to look at truly, but sadly she could not reach for it.

The little figure began swishing around back and forth, up and down, side to side in a hurried manner. It seemed like it was looking for something?

The woman soon noticed her body was descending headlong down into her deep and inky black hole. Slipping farther away from her soul, despite how far she's sunk, she can still feel the warmth radiating from the small presence. 

Yet, her whole body still chilled to her very bones. 

This was it, it's over now she deemed. She slowly closed her eyes giving into the emptiness surrounding her, it was all she could do at this point.

There's no one here to save her, she felt absolutely nothing. No pain, no sorrow, no strength... just hollowed. This was fine. This was fine she repeated over and over again attempting to convince herself. This was- abruptly the woman felt warmth grip her entire body for dear life.

Immediately, she was engulfed in what felt like the sun itself, her eyes hazed and blurred from her tears when she suddenly caught a glimpse of a golden being.

His grip tightened like a vice, soon her whole world grew brighter and more brilliant by the second.

Her body didn't feel so cold anymore, she knew life was once again beating throughout her body. 

She wanted to test out her theory and started moving her fingers and surprisingly she was able to do so? Not only was she capable to move her finger but she was also able to double-clutch her hands, she then shook her arms, wiggle her feet, and legs, and twist her head.

She could even breathe again? What was going on? How was this happening?

Her body began floating upwards now and her tears now molded into clear crystals.

Her eyes opened wide in wonder and color.

The woman took a deep breath in what felt like forever. The golden being floated away from her giving her space as she hovered up-right, she began taking in larger gulps of air catching her breath.

The golden being stayed close, arms outstretched on either side of her as if it was afraid she'd fall again. Once she eventually caught her breath she glanced around twirling her body around as she goes, she was finally free.

Despite her overwhelming emotions flooding through her, she was still surrounded by shadows. Yet, the golden being who now rises before her is shining and illuminates in the dark, exquisitely. She felt... surprisingly safe.

The woman watched her soul circle around the golden being joyfully swishing back and forth, it lightly flutters towards it, nuzzling itself onto its face.

The golden being patted her soul gently and watched it glow livelier jumping around playfully.

The girl began to chuckle at the display, she reached out her hand towards her soul ushering it to come towards her, it happily did so plopped itself into her hand as its beat slowed down to a lull. 

The woman kissed it gently placing it atop her chest.

Putting her soul back where it belonged.

Her body glowed vividly covering her from head to toe in pure white, feeling her soul throb in her chest once again filled her with everlasting comfort. She smiled towards herself patting her chest comfortingly making sure what she felt was real.

Suddenly the light from the golden being dimed a bit giving him a very distinguished outlook. It formed into what looked like a boy? He was quite built and lean, tall as well. He eagerly placed his golden hands on her cheeks benevolently cupping her face.

He leaned in closer to her face rubbing its forehead upon hers whispering something she couldn't really understand. 

Its voice echoed all around them, she couldn't comprehend what he was saying but knew he was trying to communicate.

She rustled back asking him to repeat himself.

Only to get more incoherent whispering. She shook her head trying to indicate that she couldn't understand him.

He took the hint and stopped talking, the two hovered unsure on how to interact with one another.

Although the young maiden felt that was unnecessary, there was a sort of heartfelt bond between the two already. Something she's felt before, but unsure where?

His presence does seem familiar in an unusual unearthly way? She thought to herself. She gazed at the pure being for a moment more before she reached her hands out cupping his face as well, the golden being didn't seem to mind as he nestled rightfully so into her palms.

His hands that were still cupsful of her cheeks, began rubbing her cheekbones with his thumb brushing her radiant hair behind her ear lovingly. She was radiating with excitement and affection, yes this felt natural, correct even.

Where these things lovers would normally do? The woman wasn't sure what this being meant to her... but she knew it was something out of this world.

Her lover encircled his arms around her in a moment and she let her head rest upon his chest. All her thoughts stopped in that instant as if her heart took over from her head.

He clutches her close as if he needed to confirm that she was really there with him, and real... and she was, body, mind, and soul.

If she could, she would wrap herself up in his arms and dream soundly than a baby. He was the sweetest sight in her eyes.

She supposes that's what attraction felt like, but it couldn't be, this feels so deep... as if this were the start of a song that plays on and on, something so soothing; so comforting to her soul.

Oh, she begs on every spectrum, on every velvet of clouds and acres of blue, that this being right here, right now, is her better-half she's dreamed of for so very long.

Unaware of the two, their lights began to shine gloriously. 

Dispersing the dark from around them completely, the void was now swirling encompassing them exceedingly fast.

The two intertwined their hands as their bodies result into tearing apart piece by piece. Her vision became unclear as the void created a massive gap, she heard voices coming from it?

The golden being let loose of his hold on her and gradually slip his hand away from hers. The woman quickly snatched his ripped up arm hoping to hold onto him just a bit longer, she didn't want to lose him, she didn't even know his name.

The golden being placed a gentle kiss on her ear whispering his final message before releasing her completely. She let out a cry before she was sucked into the giant hole watching as what little was left of him vanish into the swirling void.

Then without warning, it was dark again, just like her void. But something was different this time she heard distant voices.

"It's a miracle she's alive." Someone shouted staggeringly.

Voices.

"Oh my god! honey come see this, Maps is breathing again." Shouted a woman cheerfully.

Maps? Oh right, that was her name. 

"Maps my baby... t-this is a miracle, Kyle looks at this, your sister is alive!" Maps heard a deeper voice call for another as rapid footsteps were approaching her.

Oh, how she wanted to open her eyes, so desperately.

"H-how is this possible she was..." Maps heard sobbing ensue and a collective amount of weeping, the softer voice wrapped his arms around her pulling her into a deep hug. He smelled like pin trees and musk, Maps wrinkled her nose at the scent. 

Why was everyone so sad?

"I'll go get the doctor, you two stay here in case anything changes." Maps heard a woman say as her heels clicked hurriedly away. Maps felt a heavy hand gently rouse her bangs to the side only for it to slip right back into place.

"Don't worry, mom is going to get some help you just rest up alright." Whispered the heavier voice, he must be her dad then? 

This must be her family?

Maps finally opened her eyes, raw and blinded by the intense light in the room, as a warmth weighed dens on her chest, her lungs buttery soft.

"Dad?" she was astounded at how soft and meaningless her voice seemed now. But now that she could see, she lazily took in her surrounding.

She was surrounded by four white walls and pale blue curtains, she looked towards her dad and brother and then down at herself.

She was dressed in thin white clothing, wrapped in a thick white blanket, this was a hospital. "Yes, I'm right here, oh my god, you really did come back." Her dad said still seeming unconvinced.

Come back? From what? Wait, I think I remember...

She somewhat recalls falling down something, and her body felt limp and cold. But to be absolutely sure that's what really happened she needed to ask.

"W-what happened?" Maps whispered coarsely and brokenly. Kyle lifted up his head and stared down at her, startled, he shared a look with his dad before sighing out loud.

"You tripped down a flight of stairs and had a pretty nasty head injury. We rushed you to the hospital but, you lost a lot of blood along the way." Kyle said pitifully but continued nonetheless. 

"You were in surgery for hours, after they were done operating on you they came back announcing that you were... dead." Kyle paused, frowning. When his dad placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"But then suddenly you started breathing again, out of nowhere." Maps saw tears run down her father's meek face as he picks up her hand, caressing it on his wet cheek.

"Thank goodness, we thought we lost you." He whispered exhaustingly. 

Maps were at a loss for words, so much was happening, she couldn't wrap her head around all of it. In her dream, she does remember vaguely dying... if she could even call that dying?

But you can't just come back from the dead, right? All she remembers was everything being very cold and dark, then she suddenly woke up. 

Well... there was something else there too but-

"Please step aside sir, let me see her." A tall old man dressed in a long white coat, with a name tag on his collar, swiftly walked in followed by her mom.

This must be the doctor that claimed she was dead? He gently placed his two fingers on her pauls and bore on a shocked but serious face.

"This can't be possible?" He checked her heart monitor to see stable vitals.

"Mr. and Mrs. Mizgouchi if you and your son would kindly exit the room, I'd like to run some tests on her."

The doctor reached to press the call button, "Nures Emily, please come help assist me in room 202." The doctor turned to the worried family ushering them out.

"Please this will only take a second." He said earnestly.

The family hesitantly walked through the doors but not without Maps declaring, "Don't worry I'll be fine." Maps smiled reassuring them, shutting the door behind him, the doctor stayed true to his word as the check-up was rather short.

Since there was nothing wrong with her. Although, the likelihood of her leaving anytime soon wasn't.

Maps didn't want to go into detail on the process of her discharge and what happened with her so-called "death", but in short, they let her go home seeing as there was nothing wrong with her, finding it a miracle that she was even alive.

No one knew exactly why or how this phenomenon transpired but everyone was just grateful that she was alive.

Once she was discharged, everything went back to... well she'd like to say normal. But that wasn't the case, a few weeks have passed and not only does she have this narely scar across her forehead.

Which in her opinion makes her look totally badass, but everything just seems so insignificant... like a part of her was missing, something super important.

Maps haven't noticed this before but... has the world always been this colorless? She honestly can't remember a time when there were colors, no it's just bland and empty.

And it's put her in such a dreary mode as of late, and everyone could tell. It's not like she was hiding it or anything, but she did try shaking off her irateness but found it futile in doing so.

Which lead her here, in Isla MacPherson's office sipping on hot tea, relaying her confusing existence.

"Oh dearie, it seems like you're in quite the pickle?" Isla said pouring Maps another cup of camomile tea, Maps slouched on the red leather couch cradling the tiny teacup, and sighed.   

"It just doesn't make any sense, when I think back to what happened that day all I remember are bits and pieces of it. I-I just can't seem to put the parts together to understand what happened.

Was it all just a dream? Was my life always this grey? Or was I saved by an angel?" Maps took a slow sip of her drink before setting it down on the coffee table in front of her.

"I was hoping to talk to someone about this, but no one has been helpful." Maps frowned, Isla hummed into consideration, placing her finger on her chin.

"You know, I think I've read something like this before in a story my father used to read to me." Isla stood up and walked towards her towering bookshelf, scanning a few books before her index finger landed on a thin red cover.

She pulled it out heading back to her seat, she opened the book with care not to tear the pages.

"I remember a line somewhere that sounds similar to how you described that angel of yours." Isla flipped a few pages until she landed on one, she scanned it for a quick second and then smiled.

"There it is, a being pure of light that only appears in your dreams also known as a Dream Lover." Isla passed the book to Maps for her to look over.

"I think what you experienced wasn't an angel, but your soulmate." Maps looked up at her teacher with confusion.

"What's a soulmate?" Maps asked curiously. Isla chuckled at her curiosity, "Well, a soulmate is... well someone who you carry with you forever. A person who's flaws and imperfections are visible to you and you alone. And no matter what happens you'll always love and cherish them, nothing could ever change that." Isla pointed towards the little book in Maps' hand and smiled.

"I'm sure you'll find what you need to know in that book. You can keep it if you want, I have an extra spare of my own." Isla winked at Maps before giving her a thumbs up.

Maps smiled and thanked her teacher for the gift, she quickly ran to her dorm flopping down on her bed kicking her feet in the air before opening the book to its first page. 

A Soulmate, the thing about a soul mate meeting, is that the cosmos has to bring it. And the universe must achieve many good things from the receivers, in doing so this action will bring good fortune all season long and will beat the dark forces.

"Dark forces?" Maps asked out loud, did it mean that dark void she felt trapped in?

And so, when you see your mate, you are as the greatest of lovers and the greatest of champions, for you must vow to fight for love for the rest of your days or until love has won. Your mate will love you, live and even die for you, their death will be yours too... for once the bond is made, it is eternal... and that is the greatest prize, the most this universe will ever offer... time with someone who loves you is either a paradise to live in or one where the right to fight for it is one's own choice. 

"Whoa! cool." Maps exclaimed, "So we're like partners in crime?" She asked excitedly, flipping to the next page.

Atlas this connection will only happen within one's dream through wishful thinking. Dream Lovers are a body-soul-brain connection, it is all three at once in quantities that overwhelm in the most beautiful of ways... thusly only a pure connection will be made... as sort of a test... for that is the only way the universe will deem you worthy of its gift.

Maps sat up from her bed and frowned. "What? That doesn't make any sense." 

To tell if one or the other has passed the test, they will be rewarded with identification of their one and only... the selfhood will bring light, love, and color as bright as the star. 

Maps quickly flipped the page to find it blank, she flipped it back and forth repeatedly hoping the information would appear like magic, but sadly found none. She reread that last sentence again and hummed.

"Does this mean I'll meet him soon if I passed my test? But what test?" Maps groaned and tossed the book to the side throwing her hands up in frustration, flopping back onto her bed sighing out her annoyance.  

"This is way too complicated to understand, but the only way I'll know if it's him or not is through a bond of love, light, and color? Will I feel it or-"

A knock echoed through her empty room stopping her mid-sentence, she sat up and walked towards the door begrudgingly and opened it. 

"Hey Maps," There stood her best friend Olive. Maps beamed as she leaned in to give her companion a hug pulling her through her door.

"Hey Olive, didn't you have a study date with Kyle or something?" Maps asked as Olive walked in closing the door behind her. 

Olive nodded, "Yeah but tennis practice is running long again so I decided to wait here until he's done." Olive hopped onto Maps bed lightly bouncing and smiled up at her best friend.

"What were you doing here by yourself?" Olive asked.

Maps picked up the little red book handing it to Olive, "Some light reading." Olive started reading the little book for the next three minutes then frowned. 

"You really believe in this crap?" Olive asked waving the book around, Maps snatched the book from her setting it down back on her nightstand.

"Of course I do, if you experienced what I did you'd believe it too." Maps huffed folding her arms across her chest.

Olive chuckled holding her hands up in surrender, "Sorry, to each their own. Well seeing as we both have nothing better to do why don't we go to the assembly then." Olive suggested getting up from the bed dusting her skirt down.

Maps tilted her head in puzzlement, "Assembly?" 

Olive scoffed and rolled her eyes playfully, "Of course you wouldn't know, they were announcing a new addition to our school today." She paused then shrugged her shoulders.

"Everyone says he's pretty important, so they're holding a gathering in his family's honor or something. He's probably just going to give us some boring speech on how proud he is to be apart of the school and random bullshit." Olive rolled her eyes, Maps giggled.

"Then why go at all if you think it's going to be boring?" Maps said as she began putting on her shoes. Olive shrugged her shoulders already walking out the door with Maps hopping on her trail.

"Beats just standing around," Olive stated walking rigorously down the empty hall.

The two girls chatted among themselves till they eventually made it to the gym, the second-largest building to the cafeteria of course, on campus.

They haven't even entered the building yet and Maps could already tell that the whole school was presumably stacked high in there. There was no chance of them getting a good seat or even one at all.

"By any chance did you get the name of the guy? He must be pretty popular to get the attention of the whole school." Maps said pushing through the twin doors to a roar of people. 

Olive pushed past a few people who were trying to get a peek at the new guy. "No, but this is ridiculous no one person can be this ah- popular."

Olive turned around shoving back a guy who grabbed her by her butt and glared daggers at him, he quickly backed off and scurried away out of sight.

Olive huffed and turned to find that her best friend had disappeared into the sea of adolescents.

"Just great," Olive said in dismay.

Maps she was currently finding it more difficult to maneuver her way past everyone by the second; getting shoved left and right by people.

"O-olive where did you go," Maps yelled in the sea of bodies getting no reply back, more shoving ensued finally shoving her down on her butt.

She whined rubbing her sore bottom, she looked around to find that nobody had even noticed her, how rude.

Maps stood up shoving her way further into the gymnasium ultimately stopping at the front of the stage, how'd she end up here?

"Ladies and gentlemen, we present you, Damian Wayne." The crowd roared with cheers and whistles as everyone attempted to get a closer look at the boy named Damian Wayne.

Pushing Maps further into the stage, practically climbing over her, she noticed to her right a few security guards but seemed unfazed by all of this.

Any more pushing and she'll end up face first on the platform. This Damian Wayne guy wasn't worth the discomfort, she needed to find a way to get out of here and quick before even more pushing occurs.  

"Hello, it is... so nice to be here today." Maps heard a clear small bell ringed inside her head, stilling her for a moment.

She unknowingly held her breath as her heart began beating uncontrollably quickly, filling her with delight and gleam? She clutched at her chest trying to calm her rapidly beating heart down, her body suddenly felt light as a feather. 

"I am here today to announce my late arrival to..." He uncaringly looked down at his note-cards, he wasn't even trying to hide them and took a deep sigh saying. "this prestigious school." Despite his monotone voice echoing throughout the gym, it sounded like the most exquisite music she's ever heard.

Maps eyes glossed over with white light staring up at the man before her, stars shined brilliantly through her eyes, feeling her body float. She wanted to get closer, she wanted to touch him, feel his skin against hers, feel his lips against her own.

She craved it so deeply it ached in her very bones... this was so surreal, she didn't even realize she had climbed up onto the stage.

"And I'd like to-" Damian stopped mid-speech to stare at the awe-struck girl that was walking slowly towards him.

He rolled his eyes raising his hand to wave over the pathetic excuse for security to escort the fangirl, but before he could call for security he felt a wave of... fullness? 

Damian slowly lowered his hand equally staring at the woman before him, it grew intensely silent.

The two walked closer towards each other standing only a few inches from one another, they stared at each other for a minute or two maybe three, they weren't sure.

Damian slowly, shakily, reached down for Maps hand intertwining it with his bringing it towards his lips, pressing a feather-like kiss on her digits.

His eyes never losing contact with hers, Maps breath hitched as her heart soared to new levels, his lips felt chapped but his breath was hot as the sun.

And just like magic, their whole world was painted in vibrant colors, bursting everywhere like a tide. 

Maps gasped eyes widen, possibly even wider now as she's now getting a first-hand look at her soulmate now standing before her just as awestruck as she is.

They both new they had finally found one another.

He leaned close tenderly pecking her lips, then her cheek, then her ear, and whispered. "I have never lived a moment of my life, before meeting you. My beloved; My everything." Maps suddenly felt the tears befalling and couldn't stop them, she's finally found him her soulmate.

Overjoyed, Maps jumped straight into his arms laughing merrily, he tightly wrapped his arms around her waist and smiled into her neck.

Maps slinked back gazing into his stunning emerald eyes bearing his soul for her and her alone, showing her that she had the key to his heart, not able to hold back anymore.

Maps excitedly jumped into him once more and kissed him. It was a full-on, open-mouthed, essentially passionate kiss.

It was sloppy but meant the world to her, Damian reproach picking her up by her hips, swinging her around placing his hand and behind her head deepening their kiss.

The crowd that was mostly silent through the whole interaction grew loud once again.

Most with cries of despair and others cheering them on. Maps honestly didn't care, she just couldn't get enough of him.

During their little make-out session, one of the security guards looked up from his phone to scan the crowd than to his employer and started coughing at the scene playing out in front of him, shocked at the public display.

He quickly shoved his phone into his pocket and marched towards the two, Damian and Maps separated to catch their breaths, smiling lovingly at each other. 

Only for Maps to be yanked brutally out of Damian's arms by her collar, she yelped as she was being dragged away from her other half.

"You're not supposed to be up here young lady, I'm going to have to write you up-" But before the guy could finish his threat he shortly discovered his face was planted hard on the ground.

He groaned, rubbing his head he looked up and to his horror lay his eyes upon an angry child displaying his teeth like an animal baring its fangs, a look of pure ferocity in his eyes.

He grabbed Maps by her waist crushing her into his side, Damian glared down at the wretched human below him and snarled. 

"Touch my woman again peasant, I will amputate your arms and legs." Damian spit at him in a low threatening growl, the security guard had got the message and scrambled to his feet laughing nervously and meekly apologized before returning back to his post.

Damian huffed in annoyance, plotting the man's execution; maybe he should be merciful and have merely a simple hanging, yes that will suffice. 

Maps giggled and poked Damian in the cheek, he turned his head and looked down at his mate and smiled. "Are you alright Habibi?" Maps nodded fixing her collar, then she whistled.

"Habibi? It means my love or beloved." He replied.

"What did you just call me?" Maps asked as Damian took her hand once more, and taking his other gingerly wrapping it around her neck, rubbing small circles on her delicate skin. 

"Ooh I like that, say it again." Maps swooned.

Damian chuckled and leaned in real close whispering, "Habibi," Maps blushed and smiled feeling her heart was literally beat a mile a minute.

She gazed up at him adoringly, he looked like the sun itself standing there... warm and real.

She had no doubt in her heart that this was her one true love, her best friend, her partner, her everything, her soulmate.

"My Dream Lover."

[trickstarbrave]

i get to make posts abt whatever i want and i like the long form ability tumblr has so im gonna make a post here abt it instead of a 29 tweets long thread abt it on twitter.com’s hellsite even if its a bigger thing there for ppl to yell at me: 

“how can you be NB and a woman? why even bother being aligned? why be more than one category? how do you know this isn’t a common experience with womanhood and it’s just misogyny?” 

there is no one experience of womanhood. this is true. i don’t know if this is a truly common or uncommon experience. i dont know how every woman feels. maybe a great deal binary women feel the same way, and maybe how i feel is entirely different from how women feel. but gender is not just an internal thing but an external thing. it’s, for me, both. no, wearing a dress or feminine clothes doesnt make you a woman and wearing masculine clothes make you a man, but how we live our lives and process our own thoughts is informed by the society and culture around us. all i can do is use that lens i have been given to interpret how i feel.

i dont think i am a binary woman. i use he/him and don’t like she/her or many feminine parts of language used to describe me, which isn’t something i see many binary women do. sure i can use pronouns i dont even like, much like how i can change my name to something i dont like, but im more so in the business of doing things that hurt no one for my own comfort and going from there. still though, not all of my behaviors are not unlike how i think womanhood is. i experience society primarily as someone interpreted as a woman. im okay to a degree with it too. i am subjected to misogyny and sexism. i am a primary target of those. i feel i have a vested interest in women’s rights not just because someone may mistake me for a woman but bc for all intense purposes i kind of am one. i love women and my attraction to women is based on that. i am attracted to other nb ppl with a relation to womanhood. 

for me it means i am partially out of the box. standing with one foot in and one foot out of it into something that isn’t manhood. for a while i assumed if i dont feel 100% like a woman the alternative was manhood. or gender fluidity. or that there is only a handful of experiences you’re allowed with being nonbinary like being entirely third gendered or agender. i relate to womanhood, and sometimes i dont at all. i feel it doesn’t quite fit, a label that applies only half the time and the other half manhood doesn’t apply to me at all either. for women’s issues and women’s spaces there are times i will be heavily involved and present bc they are issues that concern me and have resources i want and need. 

binary society, however, says you’re not allowed to have these varied experiences. you either feel like a woman and use she/her pronouns and look and act a certain way, or you feel like a man, use he/him pronouns, and look and act a different way. that if you don’t your existence is incoherent and irrelevant. it does not account for what each of these parts mean and serve (how pronouns can be very different from presentation or how people can be unable or unwilling to present a certain way), it just says “this is a list of things women do and this is a list of things men do”, and i say “well i do a lot of things on the woman’s list but don’t fill in the checklist entirely”. im on the fringe of womanhood, but orbit it enough that it’s still applicable as a category. 

not everyone will feel like me and reject being a woman and a man entirely, but i reject the idea that there is two distinct boxes that can only be solved by adding a third or fourth box. being nonbinary for me is existing in some level outside of strict boundaries or roles to any degree, and that means you dont have to reject womanhood or manhood to do so. you dont have to reject femininity or masculinity to do so. that some of us will be close enough to the box it might seem like it’s unnecessary to count us as outside it in any way but i say it does matter if we say it does. maybe most people exist outside of these boundaries to varying degrees and it doesn’t impact them, but it impacts me. being nonbinary means you may not be easily understood by other people. just like how bisexuals do not need to have an equal amount of partners who are men and women to be “real”, their bisexuality is important. if a bi woman dates 30 women and 1 man genuinely then she is still bi, not “basically a lesbian”. if a bi man dates 30 women and 1 man, he is not “basically straight”. i am not “basically a woman who should change my pronouns and language”, im woman aligned nb.

nb ppl can also be gay, or lesbian, or bi, or any other complicated sexuality bc they are unaligned and like women or men specifically, or only like nb ppl like them and we dont rly have good words for that ppl recognize. a binary gender system is like binary code, which means youre either a 0 or 1. theres no room for numbers between that, nor numbers outside it. all you can do is break the binary system that no longer servers a good purpose. and that also means we have to think in different ways about sexuality as we know, which was informed by a binary. 

nonbinary isn’t a clear cut thing. it isn’t as easy to understand as manhood and womanhood. our society wasn’t built to explain and understand it so i don’t fault people who dont. but trying to simplify nb identities into something easier to understand for you is wrong. being a woman or man isn’t smth as simplistic as people like to act like it is either. for now this is how i feel and communicate it. im a nb lesbian. i use he/him. pronouns dont determine my gender as unaligned nb ppl can use any pronouns like they as well, and manhood is more complex than simply using 1 set of pronouns. if you think im a man you look silly. if you think i share everything in common with women you look silly. it isnt entirely intuitive or straightforward but i am making due with what i have in a way that doesnt hurt others and isn’t based on bigotry. i dont reject womanhood because of bigotry, i know it exists and i fight against it. i love women and feel im close enough that women can love me too. i feel alienated partially because im a lesbian even, and other lesbians go through this to varying degrees too. 

[consumedkings-archive]

ancient names, pt. xi

A John Seed/Original Female Character Fanfic

Ancient Names, pt xi: what kind of man

Masterlink Post

Word Count: ~8.2k (I’M SORRY)

Rating: M for now, rating will change in later chapters as things develop.

Warnings: Gore/violence, Still Under The Influencer of drugs, uhhhh blood. There's a lot of mentions of blood and death and what have you. Elliot has a meltdown (surprise). Joseph is creepy (surprise pt. 2 electric boogaloo). People are confused about How To Feel. I don't understand how laws work and so I'm just literally out here trying my best, you know? Don't @ me.

Notes: I wanted to start off by saying THANK YOU everyone for your feedback! I was having a real hard time hitting my stride with the last chapter but all of your kind words has given me life. There's some still in these old bones yet and I really hope that you enjoy this one.

 Anyway I'm a clown and I'm sorry this chapter took so long. Joke's on you, it's always clown hour here! Thank you forever and always to @starcrier ​ for being the best proof-reader and somehow managing to make my incoherency readable?? Manageable??? You're an angel and ily! Also, @empirics ​, my writing aspiration forever, and @baeogorath ​ who makes me cry literally every time I read anything they have to say about my writing. Thank you thank you thank you!

John had never seen a person’s head blown in with a shotgun, and he wasn’t sure that he really needed to.

Ase’s blood had splattered when Jacob fired the shotgun at what he was sure could be considered point-blank range, the spray of it nearly catching them in the process. But no, it was mostly on Elliot, like she was some Carrie at her first prom, a real tried-and-true Scream Queen.

“I knew you’d find a way to fuck it up,” Jacob said, no absence of venom in his voice as he stepped away from Ase’s dead body like she was nothing—and sure, she was nothing, and John didn’t necessarily have any qualms with getting rid of her (he had blown a shell straight through her spine), but that wasn’t what was making him nauseated.

It was Elliot. Baby-blues eaten away by her pupils, blown wide with hallucinogens, drenched in blood, making a noise something close to a rabbit that thought it was going to die.

He didn’t have the energy to tell Jacob that the blow to her skull had been unnecessary, that there was no way someone could walk away from their entire stomach being blown through by a shotgun. That Jacob’s idea of “fucked up” was greatly, massively warped if he thought that Ase hadn’t been finished after shot number one. Even if he’d had the energy it wouldn’t have mattered, because the next words out of Jacob’s mouth were, “You put Faith at risk going back for her.”

The eldest Seed didn’t need to say what it was he meant; John knew. The words were “you put Faith at risk going back for her”, but what he meant was, Joseph’s going to be furious when he finds out.

“Get your pet,” Jacob bit out, “and let’s fucking move.”

John’s limbs moved of their own volition, kneeling down in front of Elliot and turning her face away from the grisly scene laid out next to her. If she recognized him, it didn’t show; she trembled, and her eyes never stayed fixed for very long, as though everything in the entire world was assaulting her senses at every second.

“Elliot,” he said, pulling her to her feet as the sound of voices rising in the distance peppered the air, “we have to move.”

Some kind of guttural sorrow welled up and out of her as he pulled her along and down the hill, her feet stumbling. Around them, the night hummed with gunfire and shouting. John was certain that he heard something like grief wracking the air at the hilltop above them, and he couldn’t bring himself to look back, afraid of what he’d see—that redheaded monster of Ase’s bent over her nearly-decapitated corpse, or worse: coming after them.

He kept one hand on Elliot’s arm and the other out in front of her case she tried to plummet headfirst down the hill—whether by chance or accident—and by the time they had reached the bottom, the strange agony sounds that had tried to burrow out of her had mostly ceased; her gaze was still glassy and dark, and there was an odd sway about her, but she looked only shell-shocked now.

Oh, John thought, absently, if that’s all.

Joey’s dark gaze darted between the two of them. He released Elliot to her without a word, his hand dropping from the blonde as Joey fussed over her. Faith swayed dreamily just a few steps away from Joey, humming a song mostly to herself; beyond her, Jacob stood, his arms crossed over his chest while he toted the shotgun in one of his hands, before he apparently got tired of waiting and grabbed Faith’s hand.

“If you want to stand around down here and chit chat, that’s fine,” he said, tugging Faith—clearly still drugged, clearly unaware of the carnage occurring around them—off to the trail that led away from the lake. “ We’re leaving.”

“Jacob—” John started. It was too late. The redhead had set for himself and for Faith a brutal and punishing pace to return them to wherever it was Joseph waited, and though he was loathe to admit it, Jacob was on the right track; pretty soon, the members of Eden’s Gate that had been sent up to wreak havoc on the Family would be dead, and he was certain that once Ase’s death was fully recognized, someone would want revenge.

“Are we going home?” Faith asked, giggling as she toddled after Jacob, barely able to keep herself upright. “That lady said John was going to come and rescue me.”

John’s chest tightened at the sound of her laughter. She was so completely unperturbed by everything—everything she had been through, had seen. He wondered how heavily they’d had to drug her, and if she would even remember half of it come the moment that she sobered up.

He exhaled, glancing at the top of the ridge above them where the lights of the cabins and flashlights and whatever-the-fuck-else those monsters had at their disposal glimmered.

“When,” Elliot said, the word grinding out of her mouth haltingly, “when... did Jacob-”

“Drink some water,” Joey murmured. She uncapped the half-drank water bottle and pushed it into Elliot’s hand and added, “And we’ll talk about it later, but right now we need to move, Elli.”

Elli, John thought, and felt a faint glimmer of amusement at the absurdity of such a soft, round nickname for a girl who was only sharp edges. Well, but she wasn’t so sharp now, was she? As he led them along the dark trail, her fingers brushing his on occasion, he would glance over at her and find her staring at him like he was a stranger, like she didn’t recognize him. Maybe she didn’t; he wasn’t familiar with the drugs they’d put her on, anyway.

“What the fuck happened up there?” Joey hissed, her hand firmly rooted in Elliot’s as she tugged her along—not unlike the way Jacob was pulling Faith. She had taken the water bottle back when it became apparent Elliot wasn’t interested in it. “Why is Elliot covered in blood —”

“She’s alive,” John snapped, “isn’t that what’s important?”

“I suppose you’ll be wanting a fucking award.”

“Stop it,” Elliot managed out. “Stop arguing. You both are so fucking loud.”

Joey’s lips pressed into a thin line. They ducked into the treeline far below Sacred Skies Camp, picking their way as quickly as they could through the underbrush, but the journey was slow and arduous; guiding Elliot through the trees had, in the last twenty minutes, become no easier than guiding a toddler. A blind, deaf toddler, who spared no interest in staying upright, and also had a metric fuck ton of psychotropic drugs in her system.

The walk there seemed to take much longer than it had going up, but John was sure that was his own adrenaline crash happening. He’d been stressed—about getting Faith out, about what he’d find, if he’d find anything at all or if they’d have done away with Elliot seconds after getting her.

Fuck . The thought filtered through his brain with dismay at the realization that he had been worried about her. Jacob was right; he’d really only needed to get Faith. But Elliot had been—she’d gone in there for them , and Joseph wanted her alive, and—

“Tired,” Elliot said, her voice hoarse and cracking with exhaustion as she took agonizing step after agonizing step. “I’m so tired, J—”

“I know,” John and Joey said, both cutting Elliot off and overlapping each other at the same time. Of course, John already knew what it was like to handle Elliot like this. They’d toddled through one field with Elliot clutching him like an anchor, drugged to the gills, once already; this was new territory for the other deputy.

Joey gave him a dark, turbulent look—the kind that implied murderous intent—and John turned his attention back to the task at hand: getting the fuck out of there.

As soon as the truck came into sight, running with the lights off, John let himself breathe a sigh of relief. He hadn’t thought Jacob would really up and leave them, but it also wasn’t impossible that he would have insisted and said fuck off if Joseph had protested. His eldest brother had been notorious for pushing back, for picking fights, and maybe—just maybe—he was pissed enough to follow through this time.

“About time,” Jacob said from the driver’s seat. Joseph did not give his input, which only served to further John’s personal unease as he opened the tailgate of the truck. Joey climbed in first, swaying just a little. He’d noticed that her pupils looked blown, too, though not quite as much as Elliot’s, so it must not have been fully out of her system yet.

John glanced up the hill absently. The sound of Eden’s Gate members still echoed. Not quite done yet, he thought absently, and then said, “Alright, Deputy, let’s get a move on.”

“Too high,” Elliot sighed, and he wasn’t sure if she meant the tailgate or herself. John turned her around from trying to clamber into the back and gripped her hips; her hands fluttered unsteadily before holding onto his arms.

“Don’t throw up on me,” he said.

She looked tired. Each second her eyes spent open seemed to demand more and more energy from her. “Expensive shirt, huh?”

“That’s right.”

He hoisted her into the back of the truck; she sat on the tailgate for a second only, and swayed forward like she was going to tumble right off; she steadied her hands on his shoulders, fingers gripping his shirt and bleeding warm against his skin.

“You did it too fast,” Elliot muttered, her voice verging on spoiled brat. Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, John climbed in after her as she scooted to the farthest spot away from the tailgate. Jacob didn’t wait for the tailgate to close before he pulled out of the brush; the truck hit the dirt road with a heavy thunk that had his teeth rattling around in his skull. Fucker, he thought, slamming the tailgate shut before the dust kicked up beneath them.

Elliot had her back pressed against the window into the truck. Blood covered her face and matted strands of her hair where they’d stuck to her cheeks; the vicious edge to her was dulled, whittled down to the bone until she was just a small girl folded up into the side of Joey Hudson.

When her eyes had fluttered shut and the night had settled a chill over them, Joey’s gaze flickered across John for a moment before landing on his face. She was silent, studying him—in a most infuriating way, wordlessly —before she finally said, “What happened?”

John glanced out at the Montana wilderness stretching out behind her, late into the night; he thought about the way Elliot had balked at the sight of the treeline, like there was something in there only she could see, something horrible.

“Well, the boys and I thought it’d be a nice night to go out,” he replied flatly, cocking his head before looking at Joey. “It’s been a while since we’ve done anything fun, you know, so it was nice to get the gang all together again for a little fun .”

The brunette’s expression flattened. “The devil rebuking sin.”

“I shot the psycho and I got Elliot out of there,” John bit out. “What did you expect?”

“You, to leave her,” Joey snapped. “That’s what I would have expected out of you.”

The words shouldn’t have stung. They were coming from Joey Hudson, after all, the only person that Elliot really cared about and so clearly the only person that John could use against her. But these facts were minor details to him now, carefully pinned out somewhere in the back of his mind—always accessible, but no longer important. Hudson had stopped being very important at all when she stopped being something to dangle in front of Elliot. Now they stung for a different reason, something that John couldn’t put his thumb on.

That’s not very true, something in him said, rattling against the bones of his rib cage. You know exactly why that bothers you.

“Well, that’s on you, isn’t it?” John replied, keeping his voice sickly sweet. “I’ll have you know I took very good care of your hellcat.”

“Yeah,” Joey ventured dryly, “having her shoved into a cult that shot her so full of poison it was coming out of her eyes really showed some TLC.”

“I’m sure she told you the plan was different,” John bit out.

“She tried. Which is why I’m wondering why you even fucking came back for us at all, Seed.”

Though Joey’s voice was soft so as not to rustle Elliot, it was pounding with venom. Hatred. That was to be expected, he thought; after all, in the short time that she’d been his ward, he’d done his very hardest to lure Elliot in with her fear and then passed her off almost immediately to Faith. But still, the wording struck him—it was the same sentiment that Jacob had flung in his face after blowing Ase’s brains out.

You put Faith at risk going back for her.

I’m wondering why you even fucking came back for us at all.

It was never the plan to save Elliot. It was always: get Faith, get out, and if you can get the deputy too—sure. Why not? She’d be indebted to them. Even more so if they got Joey out with her. But Faith should have been the absolute priority first, and he’d left her down at the lake to go back up into the middle of a firefight to get Elliot and Joey out.

If we’re partners, you have to trust me.

“I don’t know why it bothers you so much,” he managed out, trying to keep his voice as clipped as he could. “Normally, when people are rescued, they’re thankful. ”

“You did kidnap me,” Joey snapped, “so you’re closer to us being equal than my being grateful, and even that’s pushing it. I just don’t know if the rescuing still counts as a good deed if you only did it for yourself.”

John stared at her, eyes narrowing and jaw setting, tense and tight until pain radiated up into his skull. “I don’t know what you’re insinuating, Deputy Hudson —”

“Then you’re a bigger idiot than I thought.”

Elliot stirred, eyelashes fluttering. She coughed into Joey’s shoulder—the gesture not lost on the brunette, who grimaced a little—and when her eyes landed on John there was an eerieness about them, like she was trying to pull him open and peer inside, peel back the vibrating tension and hostility that Joey Hudson’s interrogation brought of him.

“What?” John asked, barely masking his irritation. It shouldn’t have bothered him so much, but it did because he couldn’t get the way she’d said, John? out of his head, small and wounded so very afraid, with Ase’s blood drenching her.

“Just trying to figure out which John you are,” Elliot replied, her voice slick with exhaustion and the words rolling out of her mouth in something close to a slur. They sent an uneasy jolt through him. It was the drugs, surely—she probably said all kinds of weird shit while she was high. He didn’t know what she was seeing, anyway.

(—fucking hate you, John Seed, John Duncan, whatever the fuck your name is, whoever the fuck you are—)

The blonde sighed again. The breath sounded like some kind of exertion for her; she squirmed and tried to get more comfortable against Joey’s shoulder, the blood on her face staining the forest-green of the deputy’s shirt. John’s head ached. The memory of Joseph, silent while Jacob debated the logistics of getting a killing shot through Elliot, flickered through his mind, venomous.

(—should see yourself whenever Joseph says anything. You practically fall over to kiss the ground he fucking walks on—)

“Well,” he replied, settling more comfortably in his spot across from the two women, “let me know when you find out, why don’t you, Rook?” He let his head loll back against the lip of the truck bed, a dark, cloudless night spreading out above him. He wanted to brush aside the way Elliot looked at him, but he had learned long ago that was the quickest way to underestimate her.

“I’m just dying to know.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The truck came to a halting stop. John hadn’t realized he’d fallen asleep until the strange inertia-pull of the truck stilling rustled him from his sleep. It was hard to say how long they had been on the road, but if he had to guess—and, taking into consideration how Jacob liked to drive—he’d wager it had been only thirty minutes.

Across from him, Elliot was awake, murmuring something to Joey that he couldn’t hear over the sound of the engine giving one last kick before Jacob turned it off. There was a higher clarity about the blonde, now, one that implied that sleep had done her well—though the pupils of her eyes stayed wide, there was now a sliver of baby blue that he could see, if he looked close enough.

He grimaced as exhaustion burned through his body, and for a brief second, their eyes met; like before, they pried at him, tried to see something that maybe he didn’t want her to. 

As he lowered the tailgate of the truck and slid out, John turned around and instinctively reached to steady Elliot as she tried to climb down.

“I’m fine,” she said, more biting than he anticipated. Just coming down, John thought absently, his hands only remaining in the air for a second after her assertion before dropping to his sides again.

“Oh, yeah,” John replied, “I forgot that you’d rather I let you eat shit than keep you from falling over.”

She’s always been willful, he mused. The thought occurred as though John had known Elliot for a long time. In a way, he supposed that he did; fuck, he’d tried every goddamn trick in the book to lure her in, and she’d still spit her venom into her walkie at every chance she’d gotten. There was nothing that John didn’t try and dig up, nothing that he hadn’t racked his brain for in the brief moment that they’d visited all those years ago. And still— and still, and still —she—

“Hudson,” John said, offering his hand to her because he was a gentleman and certainly not because he enjoyed the way the gesture made her squirm.

“Fuck off, John,” Joey replied tersely, sliding off the truck bed as well. John smiled dryly.

He said, the needling coming to him like second nature, “So nice to have both of you here at one time. It’s what I always wanted, you know.”

Elliot shot him a look, one that sucked the wind right out of his sails. It was a wounded look, like he had suddenly reminded her of the things he had done, and John felt an uncomfortable twist in his stomach. He didn’t know why the words came out—a force of habit, maybe, or the way that Joey Hudson’s animosity (and closeness ) to Elliot made his hackles raise. As though Joey’s presence made a choice immediately clear for her, and she chose Joey.

The clench of his jaw sent pain radiating up into his skull. He thought that things had been much simpler pre-Joey Hudson, and he was regretting having helped her.

“I knew you’d come and save me,” Faith said, her voice breaking him out of the turmoil of his thoughts. She smiled at him, and it would have almost been endearing if her pupils weren’t absolutely blown to hell, reminding him that they’d probably done more than just drug her with some weird hallucinogen—the way she’d been acting when he’d seen her on the road had been something more akin to the kinds of things Faith had partaken of before.

He reached up, pulling her into a one-armed hug. “Yeah?” he replied. “You listened to those crazies?”

“They’re not crazy,” Faith sighed. Her voice bloomed with something like affection, and when she looked at him, there was a startling clarity about her expression—keen, and a little sly. Not so innocent, our Faith, he thought absently. “Just different, John. And you came, didn’t you?”

A prickling sensation crawled up the back of his neck. John glanced away from Faith, his gaze meeting Joseph’s from where he stood in front of the car; per usual, his expression was unreadable, obscured behind a mask of tranquility that provided no insight on what his brother was thinking or feeling.

“Go on,” John said, patting Faith’s back, “get some sleep. You’re going to feel like hell in a few hours, you know.”

She laughed, like maybe she didn’t quite hear what he actually said, and slid out of his half-embrace to wander around to the front of the car where Joseph was waiting. He turned his gaze away, swallowing back the feeling that he’d somehow failed a test—something that only Joseph knew the meters and results of, that he’d have to sweat until he found out about.

Elliot had already started walking away with Joey, taking her back to the same bunkhouse that she’d been holding up in prior to their little excursion. They spoke in low voices to one another; Elliot’s expression was even soft, softer than it had been when he’d found her sobbing into the grass in the field, when she’d been terrified out of her skin. Softer than when she’d had Ase��s brains splattered all over her.

John sucked his teeth, pushing the tailgate of the truck up until it latched. The adrenaline crash was starting to hit him hard, now. Every muscle in his body ached with the effort of moving, as though they’d all tensed and held for hours at a time; maybe they had. Gunfire and screaming still echoed in his head, while corpse after corpse, and Ase’s shattered head, lingered just behind his eyelids. They didn’t bother him, these images of glory and gore—but he couldn’t shake the way that Elliot had looked at him from the ground, drenched in blood, terrified.

Terrified of him.

“It’s always going to be like that, you know.” It was Jacob’s hard, steely voice that pulled him now, like his siblings wanted to take turns interrupting his train of thought. “She’s always going to pick Hudson over us.” His brother leveled him with one swift, hard look. “Over you .”

“Funny,” John muttered, “I didn’t realize you were a psych professional, Jacob.”

“Faith could have died because you went back for that girl,” Jacob bit out, his voice low but vibrating with something more venomous. “I know you know that, you aren’t stupid. And you went back for her anyway. So—”

“So, what?” he interrupted, trying not to let the frustrated venom from watching Elliot take Joey’s hand and walk off bubble out of him. “Faith’s alive, that crazy bitch is dead. What else do you want?”

“For you to get your shit together,” Jacob snapped. “Like I said, I know you’re not stupid, but do yourself the favor and prove it to me anyway. That girl —”

That girl, Jacob said, like the words didn’t suddenly fill John with some kind of poison. The eldest Seed gestured toward the bunkhouse, where inevitably, Elliot and Joey were conspiring; to leave, to kill. At this point, John wasn’t sure, and he didn’t think that either would surprise him.

“—is nothing. Don’t let nothing fuck everything up for us.” Jacob’s words were hard and cold. He gripped John’s shoulder and added, “Don’t let nothing fuck everything up for Joseph.”

That’s what it really boiled down to at the end of it all: that Joseph had seen like he always did, because nothing went without Joseph’s seeing, and maybe he wasn’t sure that Elliot was really worth the trouble anymore. Before, Joseph had wanted her to add to their little collection of misfits, just like he’d added the sheriff’s receptionist, just like he’d picked up Faith when she was Rachel, just like when he let Jacob tap into the worst parts of him for use, just like just like just like . Joseph was hard-pressed to find a vicious misfit that he didn’t want for himself, and Elliot Honeysett had been no different.

But a hard-to-break will cost time, and resources, and maybe with these locusts in their garden, that just wasn’t going to cut it anymore. Not for Joseph. Not right now. Where was this, anyway, back at the start of it all? Back when John had wanted to do things his way?

“Whatever Joseph’s opinion on the usefulness of the deputy, Burke’s gone,” John said after a minute. Jacob’s hand still sat heavy on his shoulder; he passed a hand over his face and sighed. “That marshal, the one that was—”

“I remember.”

John grimaced. “He was with Faith, and Hudson, but he wasn’t at the camp that I could see.” He paused again. “Jacob, if he got out and he made it out of Hope County, he’ll be a problem.”

The red-headed nodded once, brisk. “A big fucking problem.” Another pause, and then: “Tell me you’ll get this whole issue with the deputy wrapped up.”

John’s jaw clenched. Tell me you can do this, Joseph had said. Tell me you’ll get this whole issue wrapped up. Hadn’t he proven he was capable of handling her? Hadn’t Joseph himself said that?

“There’s no issue,” he replied flatly, stepping around Jacob and heading to the church. “Never was.”

“Good.”

It was easy to say, and harder to believe. He knew—the rational part of his brain, somewhere inside of him—knew that he was jealous of Hudson. That he knew exactly what Hudson thought of him, and he hated that someone who hated him had Elliot immediately trailing after her like a puppy, as though the last three days—all of those moments hadn’t meant—

And what was he supposed to think, then, about the way that her lashes had fluttered when his fingers brushed her skin, the way the heat crawled under her freckles when he slid into her planetary pull? That it was just—passing? Nothing?

Does it matter?

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━  

Elliot was having a hard time.

That was to say, there were a lot of conflicting emotions that were welling up inside of her, crashing down like tidal waves. Normally, she’d be able to bottle those pesky things up and bury them deep inside her, to access later (which could be minutes, or days, or years—whenever); but with the drugs still wreaking havoc on her, she felt like all of her normal defenses were crashed and battered, maybe even beyond repair. Maybe even permanently decimated.

It was lucky that she had Joey, she supposed as she closed the bunkhouse door behind them, letting the noise of it soothe her over-worked senses; lucky, because Joey had always been her lighthouse in the times that she needed it the most.

“We have to get out of here,” Joey said, and the words immediately exhausted Elliot further. She took in a long, suffering breath and sat down on the edge of one of the bunk beds, rubbing her hands against her face. She was far from out of the woods; she thought maybe she was starting to come down, or even crash, because it felt like electrical pulses kept ricocheting through her body and they wouldn’t stop.

Elliot managed out, “I’m in no shape to go anywhere, Joey, you know that I—”

She saw the look on Joey’s face. Distress. John had kidnapped her, and terrorized her with whatever it was he had originally planned to do to her, and now they were here, in the compound, where it had all began. And yes; John had kidnapped Joey, and her, and yes, he was a fucking psycho, and—

And yes, he knew her well enough to shove a cigarette in her hands when she was stressed, and he didn’t complain when her nails dug into him when she thought the world was going to split in two around her, and yes, he did come back for her when he didn’t have to, and yes and yes —

‘And yes’ what? A nasty voice inside of her head said. A man so much as looks at you and all of a sudden you’re on the other side?

“I can try,” she offered weakly. “I can try, if you want to go now, but I don’t know where Boomer is and everyone from Hope County is—hopefully—already gone. I don’t have anything.”

When the words came out of her mouth, she felt the last thread holding herself together snap. I don’t have anything, the words echoing hollow inside of her, reminding her that everyone was gone, maybe they were dead, that she didn’t know where her dog or her mama were and maybe that meant that she didn’t have anything left inside of her, either, nothing left to give. That she had scraped and scraped to the bottom of the barrel and now she’d have to start breaking herself into pieces to have anything worthwhile to give anyone.

“I don’t have anything, Joey,” she said again, her voice wobbling and wet and fuck, she hated it so much, the burning of her eyes stinging against blood and viscera collecting in the tears. “I don’t, I’m sorry—I’m really sorry—”

Joey crossed the small space of the bunkhouse to crouch in front of her. She pressed her hands into Elliot’s shoulders, and she was saying something, but Elliot couldn’t hear it over the pounding of blood in her head.

She pressed the heels of her palms against her eye sockets, but the gesture brought no comfort; each time she closed her eyes, she kept seeing Ase, skull caved in. Surely, one shot had been enough? Surely, the second shot to her head was just—

Just John being himself.

“God, he fucking—he mutilated her, Joey,” Elliot managed out, her voice breaking on something like agony as the panic started to set in. Her hands trembled and she pushed the hair from her face, a movement that she was sure was just packing the dried blood in. She couldn’t get her eyes to focus on anything; everywhere she looked, she thought she could see the dark flicker of Ase’s clothing, the haunting corpse come to finish what she started. “She was dead—all of her, just falling—spilling out of her, like she’d been gutted, and I thought that he was done, and we’d go home, but then he shot her again—God, fuck, Joey, she’s all over me—”

“Hey,” Joey said firmly. “El. Take a breath and look at me.”

“I am.”

“A bigger breath,” Joey insisted, taking her hands away from her face and pulling her to a stand. “Just one.”

She did. I see, she thought and failed. I smell, I hear, I feel, but nothing came. She was drowning in it, whatever it was; Ase’s blood and guts on her, the memory of her glassy eyes as Ase reached for her, the feeling of Kian’s hands on her neck, the horrific monster lurking in the woods, and…

“Take another,” Joey reiterated. “Just one more.”

Elliot knew this trick. It was the oldest trick in Joey’s book. Just ask for one, and then just one more, and then just one more, until she was breathing like normal. She did as the brunette bid her anyway, and because her normal grounding methods had failed her, she instead thought, I’ll just count to ten. If I can make it for ten more seconds… And then another ten…

“You’re still sweating hallucinogen,” Joey murmured, squeezing her hands to help bring her back down. “You should take a shower. Come on.”

The journey between the main room of the bunkhouse and the felt both like it took years and happened without her knowing, as though she’d blinked and suddenly found herself standing in the bathroom, the fluorescent on the ceiling digging into her irises.

Her gaze flickered up to the mirror hanging over the sink. The person that looked back was a stranger to her; blood splattered every inch of her skin, matted in her hair, staining her in dark, carmine gore. Elliot thought about the strange voice in the woods, crackling and snapping and trying her on for size as it slid under her skin.

As the glass of the mirror seemed to pulse and stretch, the sound of running water snapped her attention elsewhere, hands limp at her sides. Joey pulled the knob that turned the water into a shower and said, “Okay, Elli, you call if you need me.”

“Okay,” Elliot murmured tiredly.

“Okay,” Joey repeated, watching her for a moment. And then she pulled her into a tight hug, and whispered, “For the record, I never doubted you’d be able to get me out. From John, or from the other place.”

The words didn’t offer her any comfort, but they were nice, nonetheless. She nodded her head and waited until the brunette had left the room before she started to undress, her movements methodical but unsteady; it wasn’t until water hit her skin and she saw the streams of thinned blood touching down on the floor of the bathtub that she finally felt some relief.

Even if it was only a little.

I don’t have anything, she thought tiredly, her eyes closing as she ducked her face under the stream of the shower. I don’t have anything left. What am I supposed to do now?

She had Joey. She didn’t have any idea of how to find Boomer. Hope County was gone, if they were lucky, and dead if they weren’t. She hadn’t heard from her own mother in--weeks? Or was it days? How long had this been going on?

It felt strange, to not be able to trust her own memory—to not know when the last time was that she got a full night’s sleep, or the last time that she curled up in her own bed, or the last time that she spent doing something that she enjoyed. As Elliot scrubbed the blood off of her face and out of her hair, staining her fingernails rusted-red, she thought that the idea of continuing on , of doing more, was so very exhausting.

They didn’t hurt you? John had asked, his fingers brushing the bruises on her throat where Kian’s fingers had gripped. It bothered her, when people touched her—grabbed her like they owned her, like she wasn’t in control of her own body—but when John did it, it was different. Even when he’d dragged his finger under her collarbone and said, I think it’ll fit nicely right here, don’t you? Just over your heart.

John was only doing what he was meant to do all along: draw her in, keep her there, and Ase’s gruesome death was just a reminder of the person that he really was. She had forgotten that.

But she wouldn’t again.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The night felt sticky, sitting like a second skin on him. When John stepped into the church to find Jacob and Joseph talking in low voices, he felt a strange sensation prickle down his spine. It was anticipation, he realized, nearly a moment too late; by the time he was bracing himself, Jacob had turned and walked out the side door, leaving himself and Joseph alone.

“How is our deputy?” Joseph asked, his voice light and mild. John tried to lessen the tension in his jaw.

“Which one?” he replied dryly. “She’s fine.”

Joseph said, “You were worried about her.”

“Well, I did work really fucking hard not to kill her,” he bit out, and then sighed at the way Joseph’s brow arched, a visible change in his expression even in the dim, intimate lighting of the chapel. “Look, Jacob already gave me the whole speech about—”

“I think you’re doing a great job with the deputy,” Joseph interrupted, firm but not unkind, “and I want you to continue.”

John stopped. Maybe it was the adrenaline crash, or the way that he’d come into the conversation at what appeared to be the end of it, but he couldn’t wrap his head around what Joseph was telling him; especially after what Jacob had said to him.

So he said, very intelligently, “What?”

“Our friend the marshal got out,” Joseph supplied. “Hope County has evacuated, if they’re lucky. But you know, John, even if they come for us—even if they arrest us—there are…”

A pause lingered between them, just long enough for something close to dread to knot and writhe between his ribs.

“... ways,” his brother continued, placing each word meticulously, “to make a legal case like this one fall apart.”

I don’t know what you mean, John wanted to say, but the words wouldn’t come out of him. If Hope County was on the run, they might not ever look back; if the U.S. Marshal brought his buddies back, that would make Elliot the key witness in their case, while the other members of Hope County and the Resistance were…

“It’ll be all of them testifying against us,” John said after a moment. “I appreciate your confidence in my abilities, but—”

“You can convince people not to talk,” Joseph replied. He paced away from the table at the center of the chapel’s front room, absently scratching at his jaw, as though he were only just coming up with this idea; John knew that wasn’t the case. It wasn’t ever the case with Joseph. Nothing went without careful deliberation. “There are particular brands of persuasion that work better than others. But we’ll need more than just silencing our neighbors. We’ll need…”

Positive testimony, John thought, when the words didn’t come out of Joseph’s mouth.

“Yeah,” John murmured tiredly. “I know.”

“Good.” Joseph gave him a small smile. He reached out, gripping John’s shoulder. “I’m proud of you, John.”

He stared at the wood paneling of the floor. Maybe he was tired; maybe it was the exhaustion from the last few hours, but Joseph’s words didn’t strike the same match in him that they had before. If Joseph noticed—and he almost certainly had—he didn’t let it show; rather, he let the distance between them grow, hand dropping from his shoulder as he walked for the door.

“You were going to let Jacob kill her.” The words came out of John’s mouth before he could think to stop them, before he could say to himself, it’s not worth the fight. He’s your brother, John. He gave you everything. Don’t you always say that you waited your whole life for something to say yes to?

He felt, more than he saw, Joseph pause in the doorway leading out of the chapel. A strange silence stretched between them; it was one where John thought he might have felt the scrutiny of his older brother’s gaze on him.

And then, in a voice casual and light, Joseph said, “You’re tired, John. You’ve had a long day. Get some rest, won’t you?”

John was tired. Tired enough to think that he might fall asleep standing up if he wasn’t careful. “You’re right,” he said after a moment, turning his head to look at Joseph over his shoulder with a small smile. “I will.”

“Goodnight, John.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Night passed more quickly than he would have liked. By the time morning had arrived, he thought maybe his conversation with Joseph was a dream; that he’d hallucinated the whole thing. Maybe some of the Family’s weird drugs had rubbed off on him while he was in there.

By the time early morning had rolled around, he’d dragged himself through a shower and into cleaner clothes. He half expected to find the bunkhouse completely vacated by Elliot and Hudson by the time he walked out with an armful of clothes, pleasantly surprised that Elliot was leaned against the door. Smoking, naturally.

“You look more like yourself,” John said as he approached. Her gaze flickered over him absently. She looked tired, but had since washed the blood and guts off of her face and out of her hair; as she took a drag of her cigarette and tapped the ash out of the end of it, her eyes turned away from him. Weird, he thought. He added, “I know you’ve got the whole blood-stained look, but I thought you might like to get into some clothes that are a bit cleaner.”

Elliot smoothed her boot over some ash on the ground, waiting for a heartbeat longer than normal before she said, “Thanks.” She sounded sour , like John’s mere existence was a chore for her, and not the way that it had been before—like she really meant it.

“You’re welcome,” he replied, watching her curiously. Despite the dark circles under her eyes, and the sickly rasp in her voice—it had probably felt nice to be high in that regard—she looked clear-headed. Normal. “How are you feeling?”

“John,” Elliot sighed, “let’s not.”

“Fine,” John snipped. “Where’s Hudson?”

“She went to walk the perimeter to try and call Boomer,” Elliot replied tiredly. “And then we’re leaving.”

Fuck, he thought, remembering his conversation with Joseph. Fuck fuck fuck. “Well, isn’t that lovely.” The biting venom welled up in his voice. There was a strange panic setting in now. She wouldn’t look at him, not for longer than a second, and her tone rang hollow and empty. He swallowed thickly, teeth clenching as he continued, “And how do you intend to leave, then? On foot? You sure seem like you’re in peak physical condition to be walking cross-country, Elliot. But I suppose if you have Hudson, then it won’t matter, because Hudson rescued you from those cultists and—”

“I don’t know, John ,” Elliot bit out, a real flex in her voice this time. It was comforting, to have her be anything—anything but ambivalent, anything but absent from their conversation. “I think I could get pretty far if I decide to start blowing people’s fucking skulls in with a shotgun, don’t you?”

John stared at her. “Pardon?”

“Oh, fuck off,” the blonde snipped, dropping what remained of the cigarette and stomping it out with her shoe. “Don’t give me your fucking clothes. If I change out of these I might forget that you splattered me with that woman’s brains.”

She turned and opened the door to the bunkhouse, going to close it, but John shoved his foot in the doorway to stop her, tossing the clothes onto the bed the second he got inside. 

“I didn’t ,” John seethed. “Maybe you were too fucking high out of your mind to tell—”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Elliot’s voice was flinty. “It completely slipped my mind that you’re incapable of taking responsibility for yourself. Remember, John, that time you rubbed it in my face that your fucking family made me into a murderer? Because I do, and the pure fucking irony —” She jabbed a finger into his chest, the anger seeping out of her now. “—of you trying to make me feel like shit for killing your idiotic little cultists and then obliterating a woman’s skull onto my face is palpable!”

“Are you deaf?” John snapped, snagging her wrist before she could turn and try to walk somewhere else again. “I didn’t shoot Ase in the head, Jacob did. I put both my fucking hands on you to get you off the ground. How am I going to do that holding a fucking shotgun, Elliot?”

“I don’t know!” she replied furiously. There was a reckless, high-color in her cheeks, her voice cracking and breaking on something that John couldn’t quite pin down, couldn’t quite get his hands on. Even now, he thought, even when she was spitting her venom she was so — 

“I don’t fucking know, John, you do—crazy fucking things all the time,” she insisted, and there was an uncomfortable wobble in her voice as her lashes fluttered. “Half the time I don’t know which John is going to open his fucking mouth—I don’t know if it’s—if it’s the John that kidnapped my best friend or if it’s the John that… That can be… With me, he’s...”

Her voice trailed off, weaker now, her fire spitting furiously as it tried to stay alight. John’s fingers loosened around her wrist, but didn’t let her go.

“There’s only one John,” he said, and his voice came out hoarse. “It’s just me.”

“I hate you,” the blonde managed out weakly, her lashes dark with unshed tears, soft and doe-like. “I’ve never—”

“Elliot,” John, tugging on her wrist, pulling her forward until she was in his space, until he could feel the warmth of her body and smell the wild on her—pine trees and ash and the mild shampoo she had used, “you’re going to have to come up with a new slogan that you actually believe.”

“John,” she tried again, and she was soft, soft and tired, “please, I’m—so tired of trying to figure you out—”

He closed what little space remained between them to kiss her; for a second, her entire body tensed like an animal ready for flight, stony and immovable against the affection, but he let her wrist slide from his hand, concerned that any moment he might spook her, that she was frozen because she was deciding when to run.

Her wrist slipped through his grip, catching at the base of her hand. She knotted her fingers into the front of his shirt and when his hand came up to the slope of her jaw, she leaned —like a flower to sunlight, blooming under his touch, just like that. Just that easy. John’s other arm slid around her waist to tug her up closer, and her mouth parted against his like instinct, like it had never not been this way between them.

The moment stretched; reality swung back in, the warmth of her mouth against his leaning back until a bit of space stretched between them. Not a lot, just enough for their noses to brush, and Elliot said, “I don’t know which—”

“I told you,” he replied, threading his fingers through her hair, “there’s just the one. This one, El, me. I want—”

“John,” she started, her voice overlapping his, "tell me that you're not lying when—"

He went to say, I want you to stay, I want to kiss you again, you hellcat, I’ve wanted to kiss you for days, but he didn’t get the chance because the sound of Joey’s voice outside the front door had broken the magic of the moment.

“Elliot,” Hudson called, “guess who I...”

The door opened, followed quickly by a scattering of dog nails as Boomer came racing inside. Without a second thought, Elliot had crouched down to wrap her arms around the dog John immediately took a step back and cleared his throat, feeling as though he’d been caught-out. Maybe, in a way, he had. He wouldn’t have cared, if he didn’t think that the idea of Hudson catching them would have made Elliot bolt instantly.

I should have kissed her again, he thought absently, watching Elliot fawn over Boomer with the kind of delight that she reserved only for him, her lips kiss-reddened. Before Hudson.

“He must have followed you here and waited,” Hudson said, looking at John with a narrowed, suspicious gaze. “Everything okay, Elliot?” she asked, even when she was looking at John. “I heard arguing.”

“Fine,” Elliot insisted, crouched on the floor to get as close to the Heeler as possible. “Everything’s fine. John was just—”

“Just dropping off some clean clothes for the deputy,” John interjected, despite the anxiety he felt sliding around inside of him when Elliot looked at him. The flush in her cheeks remained, and he knew that it wasn’t just anger there, anymore. Not really. 

Joey crossed her arms over her chest. “Great. So you can leave, then? We’re done with you.”

We’re, she said, like she spoke for the both of him, both herself and Elliot. We’re, like just seconds ago, John hadn’t been thinking about the way Elliot’s breath hitched when his fingers brushed her skin.

“Sure thing,” he drawled, taking a few steps toward the door. He almost walked right out the door, even with his hands itching for her again, but he stopped. I should just say it, he thought. I should just out it right now.

“What is it?” Joey prompted, her voice hard and flinty.

Elliot wouldn’t ever forgive him if he did.

“Nothing,” John replied after a moment. A little smile ticked the corners of his mouth upward, and for a second his gaze met Elliot’s. “Hope you get some well-deserved rest, you two.”

The brunette watched him with a dark, inscrutable gaze, and he stepped out of the bunkhouse, letting the door swing shut behind him. For just a moment, he paused outside the door; long enough to hear Joey go, “What was that about?”, and he started off across the yard.

Not done with me yet, deputy.

[supernowa-art]

i used to think that ppl who said acab and demanded to defund the police were like, radical anarchists who didn't understand the need for government and policing.

then i had a convo with my best buds (especially one of them, they make me a better person and i love them so much) and i expressed my reluctance to agree with the statement all cops are bad. my reasoning was that generalisation is always bad, and that yes, some cops are murderers and racist pieces of shit, but that all cops couldn't be like that.

then my lovely friend (again, love you buddy) explained that it's not about the cops personality or if they're a good person. "all cops are bad" because the entire system is built on prejudice and racism, and it is corrupt and dysfunctional. if a machine is broken, you don't say: but look, this part kinda works still! the machine is fine! no, it's not. even if a cop is a good person, even if they stand for blm and are activists, they are still "all bad", because the system they are employed in is again, built on racism and racially targeted policing.

then, i also watched blackkk klansman (great movie, go watch it!), and i started to kinda get it more.

what i want to say is this: you are not a bad person for not understanding an issue fully. i was so fucked up about the situation in the us for a while that i couldn't even check the news, because it just made me so incredibly sad and depressed

(and yes, i know it's a privilege to be able to NOT be able to be fully informed and be sad from a distance, and i know this is some people's daily reality they have to face. i don't want to fkn sit here and be like wow, poor me, a white person, i just want to explain that i knew all the shit that was and has been going on for decades upon decades, and that it really fucked me up to know how horrible people can be to eachother because of the color of their skin (i can't listen to the song strange fruit without feeling nauseated and scared and angry all at the same time)).

again, you are not a bad person for not knowing. you can have your heart in the right place, trying to be the best ally you can be, and you are not a shitty human for not knowing eveeything from the start.

what might make you a little shitty is not even wanting to learn about what millions of people are going through, and to not even try to understand the issues.

i know everyone is saying this lately, but it's so incredibly true: self-growth and changing your opinions because you've learned and listened is not a bad thing. it's great! people can change for the better! i felt both guilty for not realising or researching the issue earlier, and also guilty for abandoning what i had thought was right so easily. but that's unnecessary. if you improve yourself and your ideals, that is only a good thing!

sorry if this was a little "white-guilt-y", it's not helpful to the blm movement at all, i know. it's like, 7 am and i haven't slept all night, so i'll blame my rambling on that. just want ppl to know that changing your opinion bc you've learned and improved is not a bad thing, and we should normalise self-improvement.

i promise i'll go back to posting art sometime. for now, y'all get incoherent rants.

[jincherie]

intermission • iii | moonchild

• ☽ — pairing: bts x reader • ☽ — genre: crack, fluff, angst, college/uni au • ☽ — words: 4.6k • ☽ — rating: sfw • ☽ — warnings: rabid old ladies and tree-climbing shenanigans • ☽ — notes: another intermission! this is my last part for now, miss zee will be writing the next two and then we will see my return!!!! but until then, please indulge us n show miss zee some love!! she works hard for it :’< also because with zee’s next chapter... we see a bit of a twist arise!

— posted; 09.06.2019

When the love letter you wrote and submitted as an assignment is leaked to the entirety of your university, it becomes a race against time to dispel rumours and convince the seven suspected muses of the poem that they aren’t the subject before anyone realises that you are the author. Easy, right? Well… maybe not as easy as you think.

— • masterlist | prev | intermission iii | next • —

— some time in first year —

 The afternoon air is cool and the sun is a soft, comforting warmth against the exposed parts of Kim Namjoon’s skin, chasing away the slight bite of the cold that lingers in the breeze due the transitional season as he walks home. He’s just finished fulfilling his third ‘help wanted’ poster duty of the day, collecting the sheets, both handwritten and printed alike, from shopping mall billboards like Pokémon. He has a thick wad of them folded up and wedged in his back pocket (he’d forgotten his trusty messenger bag this morning that, despite being two snapped threads away from falling apart completely, has always managed to see him through the day) and a comparatively much smaller wad in his other back pocket, of the odd jobs his managed to complete through the week.

His rationale for being such an upstanding citizen and going out of his way to help anyone and everyone he can? Two things—experience, and references. He knows it’s a harsh world, and to succeed you have to prepare yourself as much as possible for everything to come. So when the time comes that he steps into the adult, working world after graduating… he doesn’t doubt he’s going to be one of the best prepared people they’ve ever seen.

Plus, sometimes the little old ladies and distraught pet owners he helped gave him a few dollars as a tip. Unnecessary and not something he asks for, but Namjoon isn’t one to turn away a gift when it could do wonders for his loose change jar. It satisfies him to see the little glass thing with a cork lid get fuller and fuller each weak. He blames the deep, primal part of his monkey brain that likes seeing a big collection of shiny objects like coins. It sparks joy, one could say.

The odd job he’s just completed was a little dryer than the rest, if he’s being honest. It was much simpler than the ad for it had made out— just helping some fellow uni student as clueless as him fix their broken toilet roll. All he had to do was find the screw that came out and the student gave him, like, a whole box of frozen chicken patties in return. Which… isn’t so bad but also, Namjoon considers himself an intellectual and while he may be bought by food he still longs for a mental challenge. So despite how usually he gets in about three a day, on a good day, but even thought this is his third one he’s still… hungry for more. He’s also hungry in the literal sense; the last job made him miss lunch and now his stomach is performing an acapella version of ‘feed me, feed me, you bastard’. A classic hit, one he is especially familiar with. He’ll have to rifle through the papers in his back pocket and suss out whether any of the posters seem the type to provide food for the help.

He’s still toying with the idea when he happens across an unexpected scenario that seems to have been dropped into his path by the fates themselves. Along one side of the footpath are suburban homes and their small front yards and cute little mailboxes, and to the other is the occasional tree and then the plain asphalt of the road. About a yard in front of him, just far enough that he can’t really see even with his glasses on, there seems to be a bit of a commotion occurring near one of the larger trees lining the street.

Excitement probably shouldn’t be his first reaction, but it is, and Namjoon hurries his long-legged gait so that he can reach the spectacle sooner. He doesn’t know what he looked like but walking like this, he feels a bit like those spiders with the tiny bodies and disproportionately long, spindly legs. And here he is, going to help out like the friendly neighbourhood spiderman. He slapped his thigh, eyes wide. He might be an iron man enthusiast at heart, but damn that’s a good line for his resume.

The closer Namjoon gets to the commotion he’d spotted from afar, the more he realises he might have hit jackpot. The source of the loud yelling and frantic movements seems to be a woman, a little on the elderly side, with her wild salt and pepper curls defying gravity in some places and clumping in others—it takes Namjoon a moment to realise that she’s actually attempted to tie her hair back and that’s why it looks a little bit deformed from the distance. As he draws closer, he notes that she looks a little unhinged. His reaction to such a thing should be caution, and he should feel wary, but all he can think is hell yes this woman clearly needs help and he is going to help her, damn it.

“Pudding, come down! Please! I’m sorry for calling you fat, Pudding! I didn’t mean it!”

As soon as he’s within earshot, he hears the woman sobbing hysterically as she claws at the thick trunk of the tree. She’s too small to reach the lowest hanging branch, and has taken to draping herself pitifully against the leaning trunk as she scrabbles against the bark with her nails. The woman wails, pitifully, voice piercing the air like a siren, or a banshee, “Pudding!”

Confused as he may be, he’s sure that as soon as he asks the lady what happened, he’ll be as clued in as possible. Namjoon clears his throat and composes himself, before stepping forward and speaking loud enough that the woman can hear him over her own loud weeping.

“Excuse me, ma’am, is everything alright? Do you require assistance of any kind?”

The lady spins around, a crazy glint in her eye, and belatedly, Namjoon begins to feel a little wary in addition to the wave of concern that seems to have caught up to him from where he left it in the dust.

“My pudding,” the woman wails, lurching and attaching herself to Namjoon like he is the tree she’d just been attempting to scale. Her nails dig into his arms, and the male is suddenly thankful for the long sleeves of his shirt and jacket protecting them from being punctured by her claws. “My pudding is stuck in the tree.”

A few beats of silence sound in Namjoon’s head, before finally a thought spawns into being. This woman…. Did she fling her dessert into the tree? God, it’s worse than he thought. He never expected to walk upon such a tragedy.

“I’m so sorry to hear that, ma’am,” Namjoon says, sincerely sympathetic. Being prone to trips and falls as he is, he has been victim many a times to accidentally flinging food all over the place. His heart goes out to her, his hands coming to pat her forearms with only a little hesitance (distantly, a part of him wonders if the crazed look in her eye is due to rabies, and the whiteness of what he assumes is snot all over her face and mouth makes him a little nervous). “Would you like help? I can get the pudding down from the tree, and then you can go on ea—”

“Oh, would you, dear?” the woman’s grip tightens like a vice as she cuts him off, wide, glassy eyes gleaming with hope. Is she starting to froth at the mouth a bit? Namjoon chooses to ignore that observation. “Please, please get him down. He’s the fat bastard on the second highest branch, and he -hic- must be so scared.”

Namjoon resists the instinct to make a face just barely— is she referring to her pudding as a he, and did she just call her pudding a fat bastard?— and instead follows the old woman’s shaking hand as it point to the top of the tree. Realisation slaps him in the face.

There, sitting right on the thickest part of the second highest branch near the trunk and somehow still managing to bow it, is both the fattest and the ugliest but most oddly endearing cat Namjoon has ever seen. At least, he thinks it’s a cat. It’s a cat until proven otherwise, he decides.

“Oh,” Namjoon says, staring at the cat. The cat stares back, and Namjoon gulps at the sudden goblin energy it seems to be radiating. “Pudding.”

The woman, still babbling incoherently while Namjoon creates a half-assed sort of mental plan for how to proceed and reach the top of the tree, starts shaking him slightly in her distress. Being a music major doesn’t prepare him for shit like this, he laments. This lady better have some food on the table for the trauma she’s currently inflicting.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get pudding.” He gingerly brushes her grip off him, surprised she let go with such little convincing, and makes his way to the trunk of the tree. The cat stares him down the entire time, lidded yellow eyes peering into the depths of his being and pulling out his innermost fears. Namjoon feels like this cat is the kind of thing you peer under your bed as a child and see balled up in the corner, hissing, with big fangs and ominous man-eating energy. This cat looks like the second Namjoon is within reach he’s going to claw his face off or eat his ears. A shiver rolls down his spine, but he pushes on. He’s going to climb this tree, make this cat his bitch, and bring it back down for the crazy old lady who has started breathing extra heavy the closer he gets to the tree. Distantly, one of his braincells knocks around and whispers that this feels like when Hansel and Gretel got tricked by a witch and her candy house— except in this situation the candy house is Namjoon’s incredible need for good references and experience. Annoyed at the errant brain cell, he flicks it away mentally and tries to think of a way up the tree when he reaches the base.

Well, he supposes he’s just gonna have to go up branch by branch and see which ones he can reach with his long noodle legs. He has to bring his foot up past his ear to clamber onto the first branch, and amongst the pain of essentially doing the splits he feels oddly proud of himself. Kim Namjoon; outstanding citizen, academic, genius music major, now gymnast. It has a nice ring to it. Perhaps he should consider broadening his horizons and extending his athleticism.

Scaling the tree is actually much easier than he anticipated. None of the branches are too far or too high to reach, and he’s satisfied with the effortlessness this job has taken so far. This will look fantastic on his record— he can’t forget to get a written statement from the rabies lady.

Before he knows it, he’s come face to face with the cat. Up close, it radiates even more demonic goblin energy, and Namjoon feels his knees quake slightly in response. It doesn’t meow, doesn’t even growl, merely bares its teeth in greeting, and the male gulps. Alright, time to make this cat his bitch for a moment and save that old lady’s day.

“Hey puss,” Namjoon greets, a little rusty on his cat conversation etiquette. “Come here puss, here, tch tch.”

The cat, fearing neither god nor man, merely sits and looks at Namjoon as he makes kissy noises in an attempt to lure it. ‘You think you can control me?’ It feels as though the cat says to him, with its apathetic, golden-eyed stare, ‘I belong to no one, fool. I will perish before I move at your will.’

Alright, seems like he’s just gonna have to scoop him up and go. Hopefully his nature is a docile as the name Pudding implies and his intimidating outside is just a farce.

Namjoon leans against the trunk of the tree as he reaches for the cat and takes it into his arms successfully— it’s too fat to put up much of a fight, and for that the male is thankful, even if it now feels like he’s holding a boulder in his arms and they’re going to fall off if he doesn’t deposit it soon. What does that lady feed this cat?! Cement?!

Having secured the old lady’s bag, Namjoon directs his gaze downwards and goes to embark on the next step in the plan to climb the tree for the cat and then climb down with the cat— as expected, it’s time for the latter. Wait, speaking of—

A ladder? God he wishes he had one of those right now, because he’s just realised that he has no idea how to get down. The cat’s belly gives an almighty rumble and, expectedly, it throws Namjoon a little off balance. The old lady is calling out hoarsely several many feet below them, and Namjoon feels a little overwhelmed as he considers possibilities and analyses paths down.

Gulping, he makes a calculated decision— unfortunately, he was never that great at maths.

x x

An afternoon stroll through the streets surrounding your dorm is just what you need, some fresh air to sooth your tired, university student soul and refresh your mind.

At least, that’s what you decided like ten minutes ago. Currently, you’re not sharing the same sentiments as past-you so much. This is mostly due to the abundance of unhinged elderly and zombified youth that seem to have had the same idea as you and that are now milling about unchecked. You accidentally stepped off the footpath before and stepped maybe ten centimetres onto someone’s lawn. That someone happened to be a short, stout middle-aged couple that had matching outdated hairdos, and they were not happy about you ‘messing up their lawn’. Before embarking on this walk, you could have proudly said you’d never been chased down the street by some screaming woman with a broom before. Now though, you’re no longer a virgin to that particular experience. You’re not going home as the same woman you were when you left.

The street that you’ve just turned onto, on your journey back to your dorms, is remarkably less chaotic than the rest and you feel yourself letting out a breath of relief. Finally, you thought you were going to combust from the stress alone. As relieved as you are though, you don’t let down your guard; you’ve been burnt before, thank you very much.

Not even three houses down the street, your reservations are proven right. There is an elderly woman, who appears afflicted with a sickness of some sort if the fluids all over her face are anything to go by, who is sobbing and moping at the base of a tree in what you hope is her front yard. Confronted with the strange situation, a part of you instinctively wants to help her— the other part tells you to turn tail and go down another street because this could be one of those traps where they trick you with a crying child or old lady and then mug you, taking all your money and any candy still surviving in your pockets.

Ultimately, the more empathetic side of you wins out and you hesitantly begin to walk closer to the woman clawing at the tree and screaming about desserts.

“Uh, excuse me ma’am, are you o—”

You don’t even get to finish before there is a sudden series of snaps and cracks from the tree above you and a mass comes hurtling down from the foliage. You scream, the sheer blood-curdling nature making your throat ache, and just about shit yourself as you launch away. Where you stood, a shape smacks into the ground with a hearty thunk that shakes the earth a little beneath your feet. You were right, you’re about to get mugged!

“AHH FUCK WHAT THE FUCK FUCK OFF I KNOW KATANA!”

The mass on the ground groans and you blink, watching with absolute dumbfoundedness as it shifts and suddenly the fattest cat you’ve ever seen is parting from it and running towards the woman in hysterics by the base of the tree. For such an absolute unit, it moves fast, and barely a moment passes before the massive load of a cat is wrapped firmly in the old lady’s arms.

“Pudding,” she weeps into his coat, the cat pinning you and the lump at your feet with an ominous, dead-eyed stare over her shoulder. “Oh my sweet, fat bastard— don’t you ever do that again, okay? Oh my sweet baby—”

She turns, mumbling into the fur of her cat as she begins to depart from the tree and make her way back to the house that you presume to be hers. For a moment you forget about the lump at your feet, until you hear it let out a pathetic whimper.

“My reference and commendation…”

You let out another scream, for some reason not at all expecting it to speak words. When you look down, however, you instantly feel guilty.

The thing that fell from the tree was a man and he landed right on his ass.

“Oh wait holy shit are you okay?!” Now that you’re over your fear of being mugged, you run over to the man and pop a concerned squat next to his curled up form. “What the hell were you doing up there? Did you steal that crazy lady’s cat?!”

The male at your feet groaned, bereft. “No, I was helping her get the cat down. Holy shit, my buns…”

You turn your gaze to his heinie, realising that with how hard he hit the ground he very likely has broken something. God, now that you think about it, he could have broken his tailbone. You have a friend that did that in highschool— it wasn’t fun, and it wasn’t pretty. And the thought that this poor man who fell from the tree and scared the absolute shit out of you might have done the same… oh, you felt for him. He attempted to roll and let out a pathetic groan. Oh yeah, he definitely broke it.

“Wait, don’t move! I think you broke your tailbone when you fell! Don’t move too much.” You hurry to halt him, and all he can muster in response is another sad groan.

“God, I- I can’t see…” he dropped his head against the earth, eyes shut. “The light… it’s growing closer.”

“H-hang on!” You panic, hands flying into the air. “We need to get you help! We need to get you to a hospital! Please don’t go into the light!”

The male groans again, and you flounder— you have to get him to the ER! It’s more serious than you thought. Panicked, you scramble for a way to get him up and mobile. Finally, an idea occurs to you, and you survey the man’s lanky form to try and assess how well it’s going to work out. A grimace finds its way to your face.

You’re going to be so sore later.

x     x

For forty minutes, you carried the long-limbed male on your back like nothing but a pack mule. Twenty minutes of that you spent walking, feeling like that Atlas bitch carrying the heaviest thing imaginable on your back and shoulders; and the other twenty was spent taking (read: waiting for) public transport. By the time you arrived to the hospital and got the man on your back checked in (you learned his name is actually Kim Namjoon and he’s a student, much like you), you felt as though at any second you were going to pass out. You still feel like that, actually, as you sit in the chair along the wall across from the male’s bed, which has the curtains drawn as the doctor inspects him, and attempt to recover. You’re sweaty, and gross, and desperately want a coffee. You even considered slipping some of the paper from the mysterious wad in his back pocket before you realised it isn’t money. You didn’t get to see what was on the papers, since you lost interest as soon as you realised it wasn’t cash.

You don’t get to lament too much about it before the curtains are being hauled back, a brightly smiling man greeting you; the doctor appears just as exuberant and overjoyed as when he first walked in.

“Well, good news and bad news!” he chirps, tucking his clipboard under his arm. His nametag reads Dr. Lee Minhyuk, and you can’t help but think that your new friend Sera would probably be frothing at the mouth at the mere sight of him. You catch sight of Namjoon adjusting himself on the bed behind the doctor, cheeks red.

You send the doctor a probing look, knowing he is waiting for a response. He beams, delighted at your acknowledgement.

“Good news first!” the Dr. Lee clicks his heels together before shifting his stance, gesturing his arm widely to Namjoon. “His tailbone is not broken! Thanks to the uneven distribution of his ass cheeks— ahem, sorry, his buttocks— all of the force of impact was absorbed by the, uh, dominant butt cheek, if you will. His tailbone is fine!”

Namjoon chokes behind him at the words that come out, and a part of you is mortified for him but the rest of you finds that too funny to even begin unpacking everything else yet. One of his ass cheeks really pulled a hard carry and did the lord’s work and absorbed all the impact. The power… A sigh of relief escapes you at the doctor’s words, though, and you go to speak up your relief when the doctor cuts you off.

“Whoops, actually I take that back! That’s the bad news— his tailbone isn’t broken, but it is bruised.” Dr Lee clicks his tongue, taking out his clipboard to scribble something short down. He then turns to Namjoon. “I kind of have to go— since you came in through the ER but this isn’t an actual emergency— but I’ll send a nurse in with directions for you on how to manage this, and after that you’ll be free to go. I recommend not climbing any more trees for a while! Also I hope you don’t sleep on your back, that might be a bit difficult like this.”

With that, he clicks his heels once more before saluting you both, and then he’s striding out of the room, off to tend to actual emergencies, you presume. You’d gotten an earful earlier for bringing him to the ER when it wasn’t a life-or-death emergency, but you stand by your decision.

There are a few long moments of silence in the time after the doctor leaves, and you decide to break it by standing and moving to the table beside his bed, where you’d left your phone like a fool. Avoiding his face (he’s still blushing so it’s a courtesy, but also because while sitting and waiting for the doctor you’d realised he really is quite good looking and your mind is having trouble associating that with the man who fell out of the tree earlier), you reach for the phone amongst the water cups and chocolate wrappers, from when he’d emptied his front pockets. He’s a nervous drinker and a hoarder, it seems.

“Wait,” His hand shoots out, long fingers wrapping around your wrist before you can grab your phone. Your heart jumps, perhaps in fright. You look to him with wide eyes. “I’m gonna need you to sign a non-disclosure about what you just heard.”

“I…” you give him a pained look. “Please, tell me you carry them with you at all times. Please. If you don’t tell me, I really might die.”

Namjoon lets out a great, big sigh, releasing your wrist somewhat petulantly. “I don’t… please hold your tongue until I can print some more.”

More? You’re having a field day with the implication that he has had instances where he’s needed to hand out non-disclosure agreements before, but he seems a little sombre. So instead of mocking him, as per your first instinct, you decide to try and make conversation. You know the nurse is coming soon, but you would feel bad leaving him alone until then. You feel like, having carried him on your back for miles and miles, almost an hour, you’ve really gotten closer and crossed the bridge from strangers to acquaintances.

“So…” you begin, tapping your fingers against your thighs. You search for another nearby chair before grabbing it and pulling it over, flopping down. “What do you study? Where?”

You feel like a new language learner asking questions using only the limited vocab you have, but Namjoon is unphased and answers as though you’d asked him something much more natural.

“CCU,” he says, fingers picking at the threads on his blanket, before he looks up to glance at you. “I’m a music major.”

Surprise filters through you at that, a noise of wonderment escaping before you can really stop it. “Oh! Hey, me too! I think you’re in one of the years above me, though, because I haven’t seen you in any of my classes before.”

Namjoon, who had been somewhat withdrawn and had put up a wall of sorts between you since entering the hospital and regaining control of himself (and a donut cushion to sit on), seems to do an absolute one-eighty at your words. “Oh, your major is music as well? Where are you specialising?”

You tell him with an eager smile, and he responds with one of his own. Just like that, the two of you fall into a conversation that comes much easier than anticipated, talking about your majors and music inside and outside of school. The nurse takes forever and you spend a good amount of time there, just talking to this upperclassmen who happened to fall out of a tree while you were walking past. Eventually, he confides in you about a rough draft of his, something he has really high hopes for. It’s a song called Moonchild, and it’s barely half done but he drums and beat boxes the rough rhythm out for you and you feel your cheeks heat in awe as you listen. That’s amazing, you can’t help but think, and it’s all him. You don’t think you’ve ever liked the demo of a song as much as you like that one.

The afternoon passes with the nurse eventually visiting, and all too soon you’re waiting with the long-legged noodle man at the drop-off and pick-up zone, watching with a note of sadness as a car pulls up and some mint-haired twink that looks vaguely familiar sticks his head out and calls for Namjoon. Namjoon thanks you for your help and bids you farewell, and then he’s climbing into the car with an abrupt wail of pain— he forgot to put his donut down first— before the doors shut and the car is pulling away, disappearing into the dusk and leaving you by your lonesome. You stand a few minutes, before letting out a huff and turning to leave yourself.

The whole way home, and throughout the rest of the week, you can’t help but think about the beautiful tune of moonchild and how it rings serenely through your mind when your thoughts quieten just enough. You hope you get to hear it again, someday; you hope you get to hear it when it’s finally completed and Namjoon’s name is on the credits.

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