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stemmmm · 10 months ago

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My second entry into this series...

Stem's Thoughts on the Game Design of Harvest Moon 1 for GameBoy

What is a farming game if you take everything away other than the farming? If you whittle the whole thing down to its very core without any distractions? In this case it turns into a paradoxical kind of game that wants nothing more than for you NOT to play it.

Intro – Memories of the Past

To understand what I mean by that, let’s take a step back to explain exactly what this game is. While I wasn’t overly familiar with this game before I played it for my research purposes, there were certain aspects of it seared into my brain as a child because it was the first Harvest Moon game I’d ever played (and one of the first games I’d played period). I remembered you could farm, and there was some kind of weird cave. I remembered you could have a cat or a dog and that you could play as a boy or a girl. I remembered that the town was just a menu where you could see the girls who run the shops. Most importantly, I remembered that the game autosaved. I remembered all of this because I had borrowed my friend’s copy of the game before going on a family trip where my mom made me share my games with my toddler cousin. He promptly destroyed my friend’s save file and I spent that trip in a 6-year-old panic trying to cover up that anything happened by making the file look the same as I remembered it being, in a desperate hope my new friend would still talk to me after I returned her game. (Everything was fine but she was mad.)

Returning to the game over 20 years later, I discovered that it’s pretty much a port of the SNES game, though not a good one, but I felt forgiving because it was on the dinky GameBoy. Instead of leaving home to take on a random farm, the game opens on the ghost of your grandpa pleading to you to become a MASTER RANCHER! He tells you that he’ll come back at the end of winter to see how you’ve been doing before he floats back up to heaven and leaves you with a video tutorial of how to farm, which existed in the SNES version but as an option on the title screen, so it was a bit less intrusive.

So, similarities with SNES: the farm layout is generally the same, with all the same buildings like house, barn, coop, and shed, and the fence is still there too. Details like the well and the stumps that you’d originally find Harvest Sprites in are gone, and the flowerbox that keeps track of your power berry progress has been moved inside your house, which means that your fields have a lot less random stuff blocking off spaces, and that there’s actual room for crops inside your starting fence! The tool shed is the same, holding all of your working equipment, plus one of each kind of spring seed to help you get started. The shed is a more mandatory part of your daily routine than it was previously, because the lack of buttons on the GameBoy means there’s nothing you can press to swap out your tools, so swapping just isn’t an option. This doesn’t end up being as painful as it sounds because you’ll want to go to the shed every day anyway to see the Harvest Sprites who live in the cave in the back. The cave has four rooms, a main room where you can harvest mushrooms that grow every day, which makes up for the lack of forest to forage in, then there are three side rooms with a hot spring, a river which starts blocked off by a giant rock, and a room full of impassable stone pillars. The last two rooms don’t come into play until much later in the game.

Inside your house, there’s a note on the dining table that lists your animals, money, and also how much food and drink you have stocked. This is, in my opinion, part of the most interesting mechanic this game introduces, which is having to buy food to eat. There’s no cooking mechanic, so you’re forced to spend your money to buy meals and beverages at the restaurant and bar in town. Every morning, noon, and night, your character will automatically eat something, which restores a little bit of energy and indicates to you what time it is in the day. This mechanic existed in the SNES version too, but you never had to buy food. Having food in this game helps keep your happiness score up which is required for good endings, and it gives you something to spend your money on, though food and drink don’t really cost enough for it to be noticeable.

The town is, of course, a menu. You get to choose between the flower shop, bar, carpenter, church, tool shop, restaurant, and animal shop. Each place is manned by one character from the SNES version, mostly the marriageable girls, with the carpenter and animal shop manned by the two men who owned them in the other version since they ran out of girls. You have the ability to buy things, but that’s it. I won’t keep you waiting to know if there’s anything more to their stuff in this game because I already knew it going in. There’s no relationship mechanics with any of them, no marriage (after all, you can play as a girl and this game is old). You can't even talk to them. There’s a couple random events with the girls but they trigger based on the day more than anything else.

And that’s it! That’s the whole game! Get farming!

I won’t lie, I was actually kind of excited at this point. From any reasonable angle, a farming game where the only thing to do is farm and farm and farm with no other real goal or progression outside of that is very obviously a red flag for what is at best an extremely boring game, but I was in something of a mood I guess. I was riding the high of SNES and at the time, I was interested in playing farming sims in the worst possible way– spending every last cent I ever made on crops, whether I could sustain all of them or not. It was my way of inserting a challenge into games that were otherwise extremely easy, because I found that once I stopped struggling, the game stopped being fun. By some kind of miracle, I had stumbled into a game that seemed to be designed for me to do exactly that, so I ran with it!

Immediately, I spent every last cent I could scrounge together on seeds, and while I waited for them to grow, I made friends with the Harvest Sprites. They told me that if we became better friends, they would help me on the farm, which was an interesting proposition! They didn’t do much of anything for me in the last game, so I was curious what they could do here. I gave them the mushrooms growing in the cave rather than sell them, to get the sprites’ friendships even higher. My efforts very quickly came to fruition when one offered to take my sickle to upgrade it. It would only take twelve hours, how exciting! One in-game day later and I learned that they meant twelve REAL LIFE HOURS.

This is where things became concerning. I was trying to avoid wikis at this point because I wanted a genuine-feeling blind playthrough, so I didn’t know if this meant twelve hours of gameplay or twelve hours in general. I also wasn’t even sure if any of it would work right because I wasn’t playing on original hardware, though I expected whoever put it on the 3DS eShop wouldn’t make such a poor oversight that would cause the game to straight up not function… right?

A day of real life later and I noticed a distinct lack of sickle in my toolshed. It was about to become a problem. I managed to finally plant enough grass to buy a chicken, but I wasn’t able to actually cut the grass and the game wouldn’t let me take the chicken outside, so rather than earn money on eggs, I had to spend it all on more feed for it at the animal store. I was also using whatever time I had left in my short days to clear out my field of tree stumps, stones, and weeds to make room for my ever expanding crop empire. While this was happening, I started purposefully leaving the game on and idle whenever I wasn’t playing to make time pass more in hopes that I’d get over the twelve hour mark. By the end of spring, the sprites started to tell me that we were good enough friends that they would help on the farm, but I never noticed them do anything. My greatest saving grace was that when summer came, my unharvested crops didn’t wilt. Rather, they just vanished completely and left their tilled spaces in their wake ready for more planting– a blessing because without a scythe, I would have been completely screwed by having a massive amount of unfarmable land around my house.

On the 2nd of summer there was a typhoon, and that’s when I really started to realize something was wrong. My chickens weren’t fed and grass wasn’t cut after a day of forcibly not being able to do anything, which proved to me that the sprites didn’t help at all. On the flip side, my crops seemed untouched, no tilled land was untilled, no new weeds or debris had shown up in my field. To top it off, after a full season of weather happening, none of my fences had rotted. Could it be the case that these things were also tied to real life hours? If so, why would nothing ever happen? Neither passing time in real life nor manually changing the time of my 3DS clock made any difference.

The Sprite Timer

I couldn’t take it anymore at this point. I gave in and tried to figure out what the hell was wrong with this game, or with the emulation of it at least, if that was the source of my problems. Spoilers didn’t matter if I couldn’t just play the game, and besides, why was I so worried about spoilers? There was barely anything TO be spoiled!

It turns out this game has a nifty feature where if you press “select” twice, not once but twice in a row without backing out of the first menu with the B button, you can find a hidden menu with a setting called “timer”. If you press that, you’re asked if you want to turn on Harvest Sprite Help and can set the speed to fast or slow. This whole time I’d been worried that I’d miss out on parts of the game by not having the little manual that came with every GameBoy game, and my god, I was feeling it now. How on earth is anyone supposed to find this otherwise? This is never indicated anywhere in the game that I could find. Meanwhile in SNES, I was constantly running into signs every two feet explaining the most basic mechanics to me inside the game!

After recovering from that heavy blow, I turned on the timer set to fast and put my game down to do a little more research. In short, time passes inside the game while help is turned on. I tried looking more into some old forums to see if people had anything to say about this, but none of them got even close to bringing it up. I did however find a thread on reddit where someone mentioned having to not just close out, but reset the game to make things work. That actually made sense to me because the virtual console really only seems to do save states. So I reset the game, set my 3ds clock 4 more hours forward, and then got back in. The game was two full days later, my grass was cut, and the sickle was done. I felt sick.

I almost dropped the game then and there because this deranged mechanic freaked me out so much. If I forgot I set the timer and left the game, I could lose entire seasons to this hellish mechanic. Why even have it? Why take the experience of playing the game away from me? The only things that kept me in were the fact that technically, I would never need to use the help mechanic again because it’s only opt-in, and the game honestly felt very good to play. I made sure the timer was turned off, and went back to the daily grind. I harvested my crops, cleared my field, bought some cows, realized that my cows couldn’t be let outside at all (but they could be taken out for walks which triggered a VERY cute animation) so the fence was truly a meaningless entity here… Then things just kind of stopped happening and I started to get bored.

I finally went and looked up the ending requirements. Ship 4,500 items and have found six power berries. 4,500 items is steep, but I’d been planting a crazy amount and didn’t keep good track so maybe I could surprise myself. Six power berries though? That was literally impossible. Almost all power berries are dug up from your field, and only 5 in total are available until your grandpa magically expands your field at the start of year two. To top it off, if I didn’t find all of the existing ones before that happened, they would be erased. That doesn’t seem like too much of a problem since I still would only need six, but that’s only for the first ending! There are THREE! And each time the requirements increase. So with little time to spare as I was already getting into fall, I started plowing.

And plowing. And plowing. And plowing.

I was pretty over the game now. The shock of the timer mechanic was a pretty big blow, and learning the requirements for the endings, mixed with the fact that it would take years of in-game time before I’d get to use any of the rewards associated with them, had worn my enthusiasm down pretty completely. My only hope was that just maybe, if I got everything but the power berries, the game would decide that my efforts were good enough and would give me a good ending anyways. Unlike SNES, this game at least has crops for fall and winter so I wasn’t completely out of things to do when those seasons came around, but still, by the end of the first winter, I was broken. I knew I had only gotten half the crops I'd needed and was short by at least 50 happiness. My options were either to throw the game in the garbage or push through another year trying to make up for it and get the genuine experience myself. I wasn’t on a hard deadline like in the previous game anyways, so I had infinite time. The years were going to keep rolling. I should have stopped playing. Instead, I learned why the sprite timer exists.

Winning Through Inaction

Come spring of year 2, Grandpa upgraded my fields to be twice as big for absolutely no reason, since it was already a pretty unusable size to start with. I got to work spending all the money I could on all the crops I could, and covered my field in them. I did my best to manage them myself, but I was exhausted by the game at this point. One day when I was done playing, I set the timer to slow and turned the game off. When I returned and reset the virtual console, the game presented me with a screen telling me the day, time, and how much the sprites had done to help me while I was gone. The numbers were pretty meager but this made time pass faster in a game that I was truly beginning to hate, so I started doing it more. I started being more purposeful in my actions and would try to make sure my fields were freshly sown before I left so there was less chance of days where the sprites would have nothing to do, and I would get more crops out of the deal, but even that didn’t seem like enough.

So in fall and winter, I stepped it up a notch. I bought 100 seed bags at the start of each season and then went into my system settings to change the date by a few days while the sprite timer was on. It wasn’t an exact science, something didn’t go to plan pretty much every single time I did it, but the result was that by the end of winter, I’d actually shipped twice as many things as I needed to somehow, despite having only shipped half of what was needed before and working my ass off for it. But we take what we get!

I thought I was short 20 happiness by the end of year 2, but grandpa was forgiving and he gave me a fishing rod that almost exclusively pulls garbage. This item is the exclusive purpose of that one room in the cave that has a river in it. It’s useless and adds absolutely nothing to the game at a point where it’s already boring as sin to get through.

To get to the next winter, knowing I didn’t need anything else, I switched the help to fast and skipped days that way, which felt very pathetic and like a waste of time and effort, but I finally got my pickax and went to town on the last room in the cave, the one filled with pillars. There’s actually two of those rooms, and they're just wall to wall pillars that I could smash for nothing but a couple of power berries to get myself to full completion.

By the way, the last completion item you can get is an umbrella that makes it rain the next day. I don’t remember accurately, I don't think I made it to the end of the next year to pick that one up, because why would I. I didn’t actually farm anything in that last year I played because the requirements to reach the level of “Master Rancher” were already attained when I got the first special item. There was truly absolutely nothing else to do. There were no more house upgrades to get, no more fields left to clear or plow, no more money I needed– good god no, I couldn't get rid of all the money I’d made by this point if I tried. Therefore there was no reason to fish either when I’d gotten that rod; I can’t cook it, there’s not a compendium of collectable fish (foreshadowing), all I can do is sell it, so why bother? The pickax gets you power berries which are useless at this point beyond giving you a completion percentage because all they give you otherwise is more energy, and since you aren’t farming, you aren’t burning that anyways. The only unique things that can come up at this point in the game are single, random events with each of the girls that I couldn’t even get to trigger for half of them. I don’t know if they got missed because I was sleeping away entire years or if I just needed to keep playing random days until they hit, but for a couple seconds of content, is it really worth it when I’m already this sick of the game?

Don’t Play This Game

It was really, really disappointing coming from the exhilaration I felt after finishing SNES to be met with… this travesty. The game has nothing in it and gives you nothing for your time, in fact it’s so baffled at the thought that you would spend time playing it that it encourages you not to. The one good thing about this game is the fact that since the 3DS eShop closed down, there’s no legal means of easily obtaining it anymore (as far as I’m aware).

#hm posting #harvest moon #story of seasons #harvest moon gb #hm gb1 #m.txt #game review #i dont have as many pics for this game because i wasn't recording footage #however theres also. a lot less to take pictures of if im being honest

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sharffffff · 9 months ago

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Taren Velas

I have finally gathered together enough attention span to be able to talk about my favorite child, my scion of Mephala, my Vestige - Taren.

Art by https://x.com/madnessdemon

Name: Taren Velas

Race: born Dunmer, got Soul Shriven, now is in a weird state of being thought of as mortal by some while keeping a lot of daedric traits

Age: 35 at 2e582

Gender: Agender, they/them

Backstory

Their story wasn't known to them as well until much later in their life, so the very fact of discovering their roots was almost overwhelming for Taren. But what are those roots?

Taren's mother, Feldsii Dres, was a House Cousin of House Dres and was stuck in that rank, while having ambitions to climb as high as she could until, to quote her, "one of those s'wits gets scared and sends Morag Tong after me!" This ambition, however, wasn't enough, and as she focused her attention on attempts to claw her way through House hierarchy, her saltrice farms weren't performing as well as before, and that stopped her from progressing even more.

Feldsii, however, saw only conspiracies against her, not her own faults, and decided to use raw power against them. Who were these "they"? I doubt even Feldsii knew an answer to that.

So, when 13th of Frostfall came around, Feldsii gathered everything needed for the ritual and prepared for her trade - her soul in exchange for a child from Mephala.

Now here's a thing - while demiprinces are not very well known, mostly only heard of from the mention of Fa-Nuit-Hen in 36 lessons of Vivec, the fact that majority of offspring of Princes don't gain any of their parents' properties is known even less. Feldsii knew of the first fact, but hasn't even considered the second.

Mephala, of course, knew why Feldsii wanted that child - to intimidate the neighbors with the threat of a demiprince - and found it very amusing that Feldsii was ready to seal the deal without even understanding the finer details of it.

But as much as Mephala found amusement in the future strife of these mortals, Webspinner also cared for dunmer, and blessed the child with heightened agility and stealth, knowing that the secrets this child gathers would make their way to her, in the end. After all, it would be just a mortal, and their lives are deceptively short.

Feldsii, however, now had a lot of time to spend hoping that her plan wasn't for nothing, all while her saltrice farms produced less and less, and talks around House leadership to actually derank her to Kinsman or even Lawman. Feldsii was ignorant to these talks, all of her plans hinging on this child, who she hoped would be a demiprince with enough power to instill fear into competition. She hadn't considered that an infant would have to grow, or that it could be not a demiprince at all.

So when the child was born a normal dunmer, not sporting any features that would relate it to Mephala, and had nothing special going on at all, Feldsii got mad. Very mad. She felt as if she was betrayed, and ordered the servants to get rid of the child - she didn't care how, she didn't care what was going to happen to it, she just wanted it gone.

Feldsii was found dead less than a month later. Morag Tong writ said that she has become a liability for the honour of the House and had to be removed.

The child, meanwhile, was given to one of the branch families under House Dres - Velas, to be exact. Ilen Velas was the only representative of this family in this part of Morrowind, and while always wishing for a child has been childless so far. So he took this as a sign from the ancestors, gave Taren their name and took them under his wing. He didn't know where Taren came from, and raised them as his own child.

Taren was raised well and their skills were recognized early on, with affinity to both magic and stealth they were taught the art of the nightblade, of how to become one with the shadows and how to gather information. Ilen Velas was one of the few members of House Dres who were not focused on agriculture and instead on espionage, and decided to teach everything about his trade to his adoptive child. Ilen was also strongly against slavery, although for all the wrong reasons, but this aversion rubbed off on Taren as well, and grew into abolitionist ideas later on.

After completing the base part of their training, Taren was sent to test out their skills, as gathering information is always important, and any missed conversation could spell catastrophe and ruin for the entire House. And the bustling port city of Davon's Watch was one of the best places to overhear any conversation.

What Taren didn't expect, however, were cultists of the Worm. They were captured while listening to the heated argument between two dunmeri nobles, got sacrificed to Molag Bal, and died.

But it's never that easy with the Worm Cult, is it? They imprint your Anuic Soul onto a Daedric Vestige and send you out into Coldharbour, no longer mortal. This was the first time Taren found themselves feeling... different, but they put it off as a side effect of becoming a daedra - which, you know, fair.

But each time they were exposed to Spiral Skein they felt more and more weird, as if the Chaotic Creatia within them wanted to sink into that fragment of Mephala's domain and emerge anew.

So, when the opportunity came, when they found themselves deep into Spiral Skein, they let go - and discovered a new piece of themselves. They felt a lot more... arachnid, with ability to sprout eight spider legs from their back - or, if they concentrated enough, to fully change form into a Spider Daedra. That, however, took way too much out of them, and that was here, in Spiral Skein - so they didn't risk using it in other places unless it was really necessary.

But now Taren knew something more about themselves, all while being left with more questions than answers.

And now time for a couple screenshots!

Taren and their nice Nix Ox Foyada

Taren in their armor, they are dressed like this most of the time to hide their identity, it is embroidered with runes that help Taren blend with shadows

#elder scrolls #elder scrolls oc #elder scrolls art #dunmer oc #eso #elder scrolls online #mephala #<- ?#just my lovely vestige who is very tired of their situation #and slightly immortal #cw spiders #spider #cw arachnophobia

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knickynoo · 2 years ago

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Back to the Future: The Animated Series, s01ep01 "Brothers" Review & Commentary

Well, I let you people vote on it, and you (overwhelmingly) urged me to do this. Not gonna lie; I'm excited. The animated series is. It's a thing that was made. It's kind of like that cousin or uncle that no one in the family really talks about or acknowledges. But, as far as a children's show goes, it is pretty fun. It's also ridiculous, and I can't wait to dive in, tear it apart, analyze it too much, and just generally have a good time talking about this weird little cartoon. These posts will be long, but I'm going to really try to make them enjoyable to read.

Before we begin! Some background info just to orient you: The series takes place in 1991. The Brown family has moved to a farm in Hill Valley and are continuing to go on adventures through the space time continuum because why not? Doc has thrown all caution to the wind, evidently. Marty is in college. I guess 1991 would put him in his senior year, so, maybe he's 20? I dunno. I'm going to have a LOT of fun discussing him, because--as you may have seen me mention briefly in the past--they really did a number on him character-wise.

The series makes use of live-action segments at the beginning and end of each episode, with Christopher Lloyd as Doc. He's often assisted by Bill Nye, The Science Guy. Most of the live action beginnings are framed as Doc telling a story about a specific memory or adventure, which then leads into the cartoon portion, which is the "bulk" of the story. Please keep this in mind. These are supposed to be actual life stories that Doc is sharing about the goings-on in his life post-trilogy. Okay, let's get to it.

We open in Doc's lab, where he's setting up a camera. I don't think it's ever addressed or explained, but he's got some sort of science show that he now runs for children? Honestly, these segments are delightful. Christopher Lloyd clearly enthusiastically jumped right back into the role of Doc, and it's great to see more of him.

There's our guy. Look at him. He's wearing his train shirt again, so he must have gotten a new one after the events of Part III. I don't blame him; that is a nice shirt. He's talking about the electromagnet that he and Jules have made, and it leads him into a story of another time the two of them built one, which was in 1864. Cue the cartoon portion!

The first cartoonified (?) character we get to see is Marty! He's supposed to be paying attention to a history lesson on the Civil War (using Doc's futuristic tech that includes a holographic teacher) but he's not listening at all. He's got his headphones on and is jamming on his guitar. Very Marty behavior. At least they kept that trait of his. Anyway, look at him. Look what they did to him. He's wearing a letterman jacket like some sort of jock, and I do not approve of it. Why did they not have him wear a denim jacket?? Denim was huge in the 90s. Who made this decision? Where are the strings on his guitar? I have so many questions and no answers.

Oh! I should probably mention that Marty is voiced by David Kaufman. Many of you will know him as the voice of Danny Phantom. Doc is voiced by Dan Castellaneta, who is also the voice of Homer Simpson.

When Doc enters the scene, he shows Marty the new feature he's added to the DeLorean. (Oh, yeah, the DeLorean is back, btw. He built another one) As a precaution against anyone trying to steal the car, Doc has modified it to be able to fold down into a suitcase?

It will only open up at the sound of Doc's voice or Einstein's bark, and it weighs over 2,000 pounds. Doc also has a fancy robot crane thing to help lift it and carry it around, but it malfunctions when he tries to demonstrate, and it catapults the DeLorean-turned-suitcase that weighs a literal ton RIGHT ON TOP OF HIM.

photos taken seconds before disaster. rip Doc, cartoon over.

He then shows Marty how the time circuits are now voice activated, and we also learn that the car can travel to locations throughout the world now. It is no longer confined to just traveling through time. Marty's thinks this is all very interesting (no he doesn't) and hurries off because he's late for his classes and Dean Strickland will be angry at him if he fails his Civil War exam. Doc goes into a mini soliloquy, saying, "Ah, the Civil War; a tragic moment from America's past. The powers of oppression and slavery versus the forces of freedom. The south pitted against the north—brother against brother. Thank goodness those days are far behind us."

Naturally, this brings us immediately to a very loud fight between Jules and Verne. Now, I actually like the way Jules and Verne are included and their personalities are established in the cartoon. And if anyone here has read my fanfic "Harborage", you know that I love writing Jules and Verne and take their characterization straight from this cartoon (though I do water them down, obviously. these cartoons are so over the top). Generally, though, I do like their dynamic. Jules is essentially a mini-Doc but even more so in a way? He's extremely smart, very logical, and speaks formally at all times. Verne, on the other hand, is all about having fun. He's loud, hyper, and thinks Jules is a huge geek. Verne and Marty are super close, and they're very much a "big brother, little brother" type dynamic duo of chaos through the series. Doc breaks up his sons' fighting, but Verne is upset that he always seems to take Jules's side.

Then, we go back to Marty (later in the day, I guess?). He's doing another virtual Civil War lesson but is still wearing his headphones and playing guitar during it. His virtual teacher gets annoyed and yells an important date from the war—February 11th, 1864 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Remember how Doc said the time circuits are now voice activated? Yeah, this date gets programmed into the DeLorean.

Verne, feeling neglected and looked down on by his family, decides to take a joy ride in the DeLorean. Marty witnesses Verne take off, and we actually get a good bit of Marty characterization! He sighs and says, "Perfect", which--as many of you know—is one of Marty's favorite words.

Meanwhile, outside, Verne nearly runs over his own father with the car, and Doc has the most hilariously cartoony reaction to seeing the car barreling at him.

Then, uh oh, Verne is sent right into the middle of the Civil War. He meets Beauregard Tannen, a Confederate General. (This is a good place to mention that Thomas Wilson actually voices all Tannen relatives in the cartoon!)

Back at the house, Doc, Jules, and Marty are all sick with worry and have no clue where Verne has ventured off to. I will point out that we haven't seen or even heard about Clara yet. Where is my girl Clara? *sigh* Anyway, it's Einstein who figures it out. He—he has mechanical gloves that he wears that basically give him human hands, so he finds a photo of Verne in a history book and...yeah.

Turns out Verne has been forced to join the Confederate Army as a little drummer boy. The book states that the group in the picture is "wiped out" a day after the photo was taken. The gang all race to the Time Train, which is hidden in an underground tunnel on the Brown's property. That's a pretty neat detail, ngl. I've wondered where Doc would store that massive train if he ever moved back to Hill Valley.

Once arriving in Chattenooga, Doc puts Marty in charge of guarding the train, and he is immediately captured and tied up. And, ya know what? Even though I feel like Marty is generally out of character a lot in this show, I'll admit it's pretty spot on so far. Doc and Jules are also captured and forced into the Union Army. They learn of General Ulysses S. Clayton, who is Clara's uncle, and Jules goes to try to convince him to put a stop to the upcoming battle. It doesn't work, but they do notice some sort of electromagnetic machine a doctor is using on Ulysses (to treat rheumatism), so Doc and Jules steal it.

On the battlefield the next day, as the armies are charging at each other, Jules gets thrown right into the middle of it all. Verne then runs to him, and they huddle together as they await their doom. (I must say that, as a first episode of a series, this is quite the story to open with. Very interesting choice.) As they soldiers prepare to destroy each other, they notice the brothers cowering together and stop in their tracks—struck by how sweet the scene is. Realizing that the war has pitted many family members and friends against each other, the men begin to hug each other and put aside their differences. On their way back home, Marty's history book changes to show that the particular regiment Verne was forced into never fought any battles. All those men apparently took the little lesson they'd been taught to heart. And I gotta point out that, originally, all those men died in battle, so Verne's actions led to a whole group of people continuing to go on, live their lives, and probably have children. But, seeing as this is a kid's show, the potential repercussions of this on the timeline aren't addressed. And that's the end of the cartoon portion.

We go back to Real Doc then. Yayyy! He shares this news with us.

The delivery of these lines is great. They're said with all the weary exasperation of a parent whose warnings have been ignored over and over. Doc does not feel bad for Marty.

I think Doc does an experiment then? But guess what. As I'm typing this, I'm realizing that I got distracted making the gifs and never actually finished the episode. I don't feel like pulling it back up and watching those last 2 minutes. Oh well.

I think that, overall, this is a weird episode to start a series on. It's not very fun or wacky. Mostly just feels like a history lesson with a "fighting doesn't solve anything" moral slapped onto it. This was fun to write up, though.

Tune in next week to see if we find out where my girl Clara is.

#back to the future #bttf #bttf: the animated series #doc brown #marty mcfly

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cruciferous-spatula · 1 year ago

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Let's talk class! It's about sims I swear, please don't leave. Or get too excited.

At this point in the challenge, our sims are inventing class structures. In this upcoming "Roman" era, we'll have 4 classes: emperor, patrician, plebeian and slaves, and in accordance to challenge rules, we assign class according to household funds.

here are all the households as of the end of round 13. 11 households doesn't seem like much to sort into 4 classes, especially keeping in mind that we want more slaves than plebeians and more plebeians than patricians, but the rules are the rules

My solve is to have 1 emperor's family, 2 patrician families, and 3 plebeian families, which leaves 5 slave class households, keeping in mind these 5 will be split up as enslaved sims go to live with higher class households.

Assigning each household a number between 1 and 11 where 1 is richest and 11 is poorest, the designation will be as follows

1 - Tuatahi - Emperor's family

2 - Lehenik - Patrician

3 - Keji - Patrician

4 - Keta - Plebeian

5 - Vuosttamus - Plebeian

6 - Akoko - Plebeian

7 - Tuarua - Slave class

8 - Qallariq - Slave class

9 - Bigarrena - Slave class

10 - Tuawha - Slave class

11 - Nubbe - Slave class

Now there's this rule that emperor sims may only marry patricians (or blood relatives if they're far enough apart that the game allows it, which is not applicable yet as the most distant familial relationship here is first cousins) and we only have one Patrician household not closely related to the Tuatahis, so expect some not totally organic attempts to ship Tuatahis with Leheniks whether they like it or not :/

which would leave no patricians or emperors left for the other patrician family heir - Awosanma Keji that is - to marry. According to the rules she must marry a patrician OR emperor, IF she is to inherit.

As it is she is courting a strapping lad from a plebeian household and I would much rather go that route than have to wait until her as-of-yet unborn unconceived and barely thought of Tuatahi-Lehenik second cousins come of age, by which time she'll probs be too old to have kids anyway. Ditto for her younger sisters.

She has a brother though, who of course could stand to wait until then. So do we just make him the heir? Is this how patriarchy happens? OR, seeing as I've already allowed myself to defy the patrilineal thing, do I keep Sanma as the heir and bend the rules? Maybe add a caveat like "a plebeian sim may only marry a patrician heir if they (the plebeian) has maxed the charisma skill and has a gift worth at least 500§ in their inventory"

I'm also noticing that 5 slave households is a lot.. especially considering that the emperors will hire 2 slaves, patrician families will hire 1 each, and the rest will just have to be criminals. I'm going to allow my plebeian families farms / small home businesses, and I'm considering whether they should be able to hire slaves for grunt work (i mean in actual Rome slaves were transcriptionists and accountants, not just latrine scrubbers but whatever it's sims right) because otherwise the island's working population will be like 55% professional criminals with barely anyone to work in the mines and such. which is weird

Also I have to move two entire slaves in with the Tuatahis.. there's so many of them already 😫

#sims 2 #test of time challenge #moon islands #roman stage #just setting things up #i aint tagging all those names

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doodling-dipshit · 2 years ago

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La Squadra hcs part 2.

After Idk how long I finally finished everyone elses backstories

this post includes Pesci, Prosciutto, Illuso, and Formaggio.

Sorbet and Gelato will get their own post because I have to make up more stuff for them.

Pesci

-Born Cabbrieli Capasso in the year 1980, April 21st.

-He is a Taurus

During the events of part 5 he was 20 years old.

-Pesci was born in the Sicillian countryside to his Italian mother and Polish father.

-Both of them at the time were both fairly young at the time and unmarried.

- Pesci doesn’t know much about his father other than where he’s from, little does he know his father was killed not too long after his mother had gotten pregnant with him.

-His father was killed by Pesci’s uncle, a prolific mobster at the time, for knocking up his sister out of wedlock.

-Pesci was treated as the black sheep of the entire family the second he was born, except for his loving mother.

- When Pesci was 6 his mother remarried to a new man her mob family approved of and had another child.

-He was and still is an absolute and total mamma’s boy but he is far from weak even in his younger years. Pesci worked hard helping his mother take care of the family farm.

-He is a born stand user but when he was younger only the line and hook would appear, dangling from his finger tip.

-He only ever used it to either fish or impress/weird out any cousins visiting.

-When Pesci was 17 his mother had developed a deadly disease, him, his step-father, and younger brother worked as hard as they could to afford treatment but they still didn’t have nearly enough

-A year later Pesci was given a job opportunity from his older cousin, the son of the man who killed his father.

-There was an opening in La Squadra Exclusion and according to the cousin Pesci would be a “perfect fit”.

-This cousin was Prosciutto

-Pesci got in fairly easily with him already having a good grasp on his stand + his cousins insistence on Pesci joining them

- Gelato and Sorbet were in charge of training Pesci much like they were everyone else but once they died that duty was given up to Prosciutto

Extra stuff:

-Pesci smokes weed, everyone in La Squadra probably does (except Ghiaccio) but idc Pesci smoked weed in a dream i had so it’s canon

-Pesci wanted to attend college and get a biology degree but had to can his dream so he could help his mom

-Pesci has photographic memory

-His uniform was actually picked by Prosciutto so if you tell him looks ugly he will give you a nasty glare (he doesn’t like the outfit much either but he’s not just going to just throw away a gift)

-He’s unaware of his fathers fate

-You know when I said in my LGBT headcanons the Pesci discovered he was Bisexual when he got a crush on another member of the team when he joined? Yeah that member was probably Formaggio because I mean he’s Formaggio.

Prosciutto

-Born Giuseppe Capanno in the year 1965, June 14th.

-He’s a Gemini

-He was 35 at the time of part 5

-He was the first son of his mom and dad and was born and raised in the city of Reggio Calabria.

-His father was a notable figure of the mafia gang that had a strong hold on Italy before the rise of Passione, Lealtà.

-Prosciutto is the eldest of 6, being the only boy.

-He lived a rough childhood as he had to spend a lot of his time helping to raise his sisters with his mom as his father was rarely home and when he was he demanded to be served hand and foot by Prosciutto’s mother

-Needless to say he wasn’t fond of his father but he was his only son, he was next in line to become a mobster and follow his footsteps

-When Prosciutto graduated middle school he was forced to drop school and join the same mob as his father.

-He was assigned to work in a small section of the gang up in Venezia working to help silence any people who looked to harm the gang. Not exactly a hitman like he’d become later in life but close.

-He was assigned to work with a younger Sorbet and Gelato, going by their regular names Tito and Claudio

-They were both the closest things Prosciutto had to a father, especially Gelato who he looked up to the most wanting to be just like him when he grew up, composed, strong willed, and most of all caring to his fellow teammates.

-When Lealtà was eventually absorbed by Passione once it finally fell in the early 1990s

-Him, Gelato, and Sorbet had zero resilience in joining Passione, much to Prosciutto’s fathers anger.

-Prosciutto was labeled a traitor to his entire family for joining Passione without a fight, not standing up for the gang his family belonged to.

-His father was killed due to him refusing to leave his gang.

-Not that Prosciutto cared that much as far as he knew he didn’t have a father.

-In 1994 La Squadra was officially formed with Risotto as their leader, much to Prosciutto’s displeasure, thinking either Sorbet or Gelato deserved to be the leader much more than someone with family connections high up in the mob.

-He was very slow to accept Risotto as their leader for the first two years until Risotto was able to prove that he was a respectable leader.

- When a previous member of the gang had died in 1998 Prosciutto immediately suggested letting his little cousin (Pesci) join the gang knowing that he was a natural born stand user.

-Once Sorbet and Gelato had died the duty of training Pesci had been given to him. As much as he likes to pretend that he was unaffected by the deaths of the closest things he had to a father he was an absolute mess when training Pesci for the longest time. Pesci was learning much slower than he was under Sorbet and Gelato, and he couldn’t help but feel an extreme guilt for his inability to teach Pesci the way the ones before him did.

-Whenever he’s on a hit with Pesci he’ll often just say whatever he’d think Gelato would say to encourage not only Pesci but also himself.

Extra:

-Prosciutto is the spitting image of his father, from his dark blue eyes, neat blond hair, even his tooth gap. To try and diverge from his father he grew out his hair a bit but still puts it in buns because he can’t stand his long hair sticking to his neck with sweat during a hit.

-He had a Fiance at some point in his life in his late twenties but completely ghosted her when he got cold feet. Since then he hasn’t been in a committed relationship.

-He actually did meet Ghiaccio a few times before either of them joined Passione. He first met him when Ghia was 6 and Prosci was 15. They met because Gelato and Sorbet invited him to dinner and Ghia was playing Atari on the couch.

-He knows the fate of Pesci’s father and feels guilty of what his father did.

-If he wasn’t forced into becoming a gangster he’d probably have become a writer.

Illuso

-I will be referring to Illuso with she/her pronouns since I headcanon her as transfem so umm yep :)

-She goes by Iris Kontos and was born 1976, October 28th.

-Was 24 during the events of part 5.

-She's a Scorpio

-Was born in Ioannina, Greece to her single mother.

- Her father was absent from her life but she does know he was from Pakistan and has about 6 half siblings

- Had about as normal of a childhood one could have in her situation at the time though had a hard time growing any true interests or hobbies as a child.

-Not to mention how lonely and isolated she felt, not having many friends not because she was disliked by the other children but Illuso had no real interest in making friends.

-It was an uneventful childhood for better or for worse.

-When Illuso was 13 her and her mother moved to Polignano a Mare, Italy.

–Even with the change in scenery Illuso never really socialized with other people her age, she just didn’t want to preferring to instead isolate herself in her room

-Eventually Illuso had dropped out of high school and moved out

-Her life felt bland and in an attempt joined Passione with the hopes of fame and money.

-After the stand arrow had awoken Man in the Mirror she was quickly assigned to La Squadra by Polpo due to how valuable it would be in not only info broking but in terms of stealth as well as how easy it’d be to torcher the squads victims.

-Illuso for the longest time during her training avoided being involved in the direct killing of any of the teams targets so when she actually had to she was a little shaken up to say the least.

-Illuso eventually ended up sharing an apartment with fellow La Squadra member Formaggio

-Illuso spends most of the time in the Mirror world though so Formaggio doesn’t usually see her in the apartment much

-Also y’know that cat that Formaggio stuffed in that bottle? That’s Illuso’s cat Annie.

-Illuso minutes after that scene forced Formaggio to get her out of the bottle.

Extra stuff:

-Illuso is probably the most introverted member of La Squadra especially before moving in with Formaggio who forces her to go hang out at bars and concerts with him.

-Man in the Mirror is a sentient stand it just can’t talk or make much noise outside of creaking noises

-MitM also practices it choreographing with Illuso when doing poses

-It’s also a very affectionate stand in general usually clinging to it’s user

-Oh btw her dad is Steely Dan (Because I love headcanoning random unrelated characters being related)

Formaggio

-Born Nico Columbo in New York City, United States on August 9th, 1976, making him a Leo

-He was 24 during the events of part 5

-I should prob make a separate height hc post because I hate their canon heights (Illuso isn’t allowed to be taller than Risotto) but Formaggio is the shortest member at 5’3

-He’s the oldest of 3

-Most of Formaggio’s childhood was spent traveling as his mother worked as a traveling nurse

-He didn’t have much stability in his life

-When he was in school he’d be charismatic as possible to make some quick friends

-He definitely was the popular kid

-He was also kinda a bully to other kids so he would be able to get on top of the social ladder

-Once he graduated High School he attended and graduated trade school.

-Eventually when his family moved to Naples when he was 19 he decided to stay

-He worked at a job at a retail store but he simply didn’t get enough money for anything other than rent

-After only a few months he joined Passione in 1995 working as a low ranking thug but he impressed higher members of the gang with the unique usage of his stand Little Feat against enemy gangs.

-He was transferred to La Squadra after only a month of working for Passione.

-He quickly befriended all of the other members and tends to befriend any new members easily

Bonus HCs

-He owns an ant farm and sometimes shrinks down to intimidate his ants

-Jack of all trades

-He loves Ska and Nu Metal (Prosciutto fucking hates Ska music and Nu metal)

-Like to play the middle man in arguments no matter what

-He has zero sense of personal space

-He collects vinyls

-Has a cat allergy

-Ignores the fact that he has a cat allergy

#La Squadra #JJBA #Prosciutto #Pesci #Illuso #Formaggio #Hcs #Golden Wind #jojos bizzare adventure vento aureo

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alumort · 2 years ago

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Ao3

Hii i decided to combine my hyperfixations because i can <3 hope you enjoy!!

(Background kakagai as usual, and implied sex at one point)

And then he woke up in his own bed, in his own clothes, but things were… different.

He was taller, and the red hues of fall decorated the plants he could see through his window when just the day before everything had been filled with many shades of deep green. The boy got up and observed the small home, and there were no signs that showed anybody had been living there for a long, long time.

"Ne… Neji? Is that you?" a soft voice asked, and the brunet looked up just to find his younger cousin staring at him from the kitchen– she was older now, an adult with long hair and even her kind eyes had changed, for there was nothing but rage in her gaze. "Where have you been all this time? You– you… the farm is all yours now. Don't even try to find me."

"Hinata, what happened? I can't remember–" Neji started to say, but Hinata didn't let him continue.

"You left me here! With your father, the weird Vale folk, and… and… you abandoned me," the girl said, holding back tears as she talked. "Hizashi died, you know? I've– um, I've been alone ever since, exploring the world… I don't know why I even came back here. Goodbye, big brother."

He couldn't do anything to make his cousin wait, to ask for explanations– she left as soon as she could, not even looking back to see if Neji tried to reach out for her. It was as if she had never been there in the first place.

A little voice in the back of his mind reminded him of the mystical item that fae had given him in his dreams; was it actually real? His pocket seemed to be heavier than usual, and when he grabbed whatever was inside of it, a huge seed was what he found.

Green with golden details, warm to the touch– the Kynseed, which would give him the ability to pass down his soul to his children, if he ever had any. Fairweather said there was a special place for it on Willowdown Farm, and he would probably get help when it was time to plant it.

Before Neji could even react, an annoying sound invaded his ears, and his gaze fell to the doorstep where a small… a miniature gnome thing was waiting, waving its arms at the boy.

"Hey, you! Human! Fill my bowl, I'm staaarving!" it said out loud, touching its stomach to dramatize the situation. "Why are you looking at me like that? Feed me!"

"Who do you think you are? I don't have to feed anyone," the brunet argued, crossing his arms against his chest as he talked. He felt himself shiver once his unwanted visitor looked at him in the eyes, his presence suddenly turning terrorific without effort.

"I'm Pott, the Brounie of this house, and if you don't give me food… bad things will happen on your farm, buddy. You don't wanna see them."

Anyone in the world knew better than to challenge a fae creature, and so Neji left a single egg on the wooden bowl Pott had mentioned, eyes widening at seeing its interior turn blue for some reason.

Magic was complicated, and he didn't feel like investigating it too much. And so the boy planted the magic seed with the help of the small gnome, observing everything with awe as a small sprout appeared mere seconds after the Kynseed was buried on the ground– he decided to leave it alone and explore the Vale, looking for fish to sell and herbs to gather in order to get some easy brass, riding the pig that used to belong to his father.

Everything was his now. The farm, the animals… and it probably would remain that way until the end of the time.

He would live forever– rather, his soul would be passed down to his offspring for a thousand years, making the Kynseed grow and grow for a long time. Neji didn't have time or energy to waste with other people, talking to them or trying to become their friend.

They would all die anyways, and he would be on his own once again, so what was the point? Any and all attempts of conversation from the Vale inhabitants were ignored, and they gave up trying after a couple of weeks, knowing that the brunet said nothing unless there were requests to be fulfilled.

… Most of them ignored him, except for a boy his age with pitch black hair, cut in an intricate form that reminded Neji of a bowl cut. He had spoken with him a couple of times in the past, before his fate had changed and he made a deal with that Fae rabbit. Or was Fairweather a hare? It didn't matter.

"Hello, Neji! Do you have everything you need for Winter?" his neighbor asked with a soft smile decorating his face, and Neji did nothing but nod in complete silence. Hearing no response, Lee went on. "Papa baked many things to save, and dad fished a lot. We are trying to start selling food for others… Tenten, however, is practicing with the smith. She is getting very good at forging!"

Uninteresting. Yet the shorter boy didn't have the heart to stop his companion from speaking, even though it was mostly a monologue apart from a casual hum– surely that would bore him, and soon Lee would stop pestering him anytime that their paths crossed.

Or that's what he believed. Instead, his annoying follower walked by his side, keeping him company even if he was met by nothing but silence and the occasional scoff; Lee just chuckled at his reaction and went on with his chattering, and Neji could do nothing but roll his eyes as he picked up requests from the bulletin board.

At one point, their conversations stopped being monologues, and the brunet began giving one-worded answers, silently not wanting his companion to leave by his side even if he would never admit it out loud. Having someone by his side soothed his heart, even if he wasn't the most chatty person in the world. Whatever plan Lee had in mind, it was working– Neji stopped getting annoyed by him as time passed, and he even allowed the other boy to be his right hand man in the dark forests.

There was one thing nobody could deny; Lee was a strong fighter and had ability with swords, even if he couldn't realize it on his own. Their movements synchronized with ease, as if they had fought back to back in a previous life, acting as one even without much training. No monster could escape from their blades.

They watched over the other when a more or less safe place was found, lighting a campfire and talking as if they weren't in the middle of a dangerous place, knowing that everything would be okay for as long as they remained together. The icy coldness of Winter forced them to be close to the blazing flames, focusing on not dying due to the low temperatures– Lee was talking about one of the books he was reading back at his house, flapping his hands excitedly as he spoke, doing those small gestures he always did when he got carried away.

Cute was the first word to appear in his mind, and Neji tried to focus on something else once he noticed that thought. It didn't last long, though–

Without him even realizing it, his fingers ended up entwined with Lee's, whose cheeks turned dark in a blush while the familiar chattering faded away in the air. The black haired boy let out a nervous chuckle, never separating himself from his companion, with a warm hue illuminating his face. Neji couldn't say anything, not even knowing how to react– who had grabbed the other's hand first? The details were fuzzy, but he also didn't want to let go.

He could feel his heart beating on his chest, on his throat, as Lee smiled at him and slowly leaned in closer to the other boy; their lips were mere millimeters apart, and it would be so easy to just…

From a moment to another, his companion pushed him to the side, and Neji would have groaned if he hadn't seen the ax passing right in front of his face. An angry hob had appeared and it didn't take long for Lee to finish it off, killing it with a single slash of his sword and grinning at seeing his small victory.

"Wasn't this a safe zone?" the brunet complained, crossing his arms against his chest as he talked, traces of a blush finally disappearing from his cheeks.

"I thought so, I am so sorry!" his companion (Friend? Something?) said, scratching the back of his neck before picking up his things, ready to go on as if nothing had happened between the two. "We are almost there! Dad will be so happy to have Pakkun back, let us continue."

As if they hadn't almost kissed mere heartbeats ago. Neji huffed, deciding to keep quiet and soothe his anger with his blade and whatever unfortunate monster that he found on the way. They managed to see how Pakkun wagged his tail excitedly right at the edges of Simplewood, for once being energetic and running to Lee's arms as if he knew things were going to be alright from that point onwards– the brunet rolled his eyes, deciding to ignore them and go back to the North Gate of his kingdom just to return the small dog to his owner.

There wasn't much distance to cover to go to the Maito-Hatake house, yet it felt like countless kilometers for his tired and confused soul. Any and all attempts of conversation made by the other boy were ignored, and soon an uncomfortable silence fell between the two until they got to their destination.

What was he supposed to do? Neji had never been close to anybody to almost feel their lips against his own, and now he was questioning everything– was that why Lee liked to hang out with him? It was a mystery that he couldn't decipher, for it wasn't like they had been

For a couple of days, the brunet decided to avoid his adventuring companion, not even knowing what was going on in his heart. Farming and fishing on his farm were the only things he focused on, using a Fae key to easily transport himself to different villages if it was necessary to get some easy Brass. It was better than accidentally meeting Lee, at least until he figured out anything about his feelings.

He wanted to avoid the North Gate at all costs, just in case he would meet the boy by accident even though his trips usually took place during the darkest hour of the night– it had been the only time that someone had tried to make a move on him, and Neji didn't even know if that would have been something to enjoy.

Instead, he opted for ignoring every gift and letter left on his mailbox, the carefully picked sunflowers left on his doorstep. He didn't know what else to do; Lee would die as time went by, so there was no reason to get attached to him more than he was. Neji didn't need anybody else in his life, for they would soon disappear before he even realized it.

Seasons passed with every single blink, after all. Discovering Fae mysteries was fun and time-consuming, although his lifespan got reduced whenever a huge mistake was made– Neji had gotten so comfortable with having Lee behind him that Simplewoods soon became a deadly challenge.

It was yet another way of keeping himself busy, to ignore someone who liked to be by his side in complete silence. His soul ached at his absence, but being on his own was for the best; his heart would be hurt even more once it was time to say goodbye, if something even happened between the two. They were better on their own, definitely.

… although Lee didn't seem to think the same way, for he was sitting in front of the dark woods with a shining sword and shield in hand. He grinned once he could see Neji, and went to receive him with a warm embrace.

"I can finally see you again! I have been waiting for you," his companion exclaimed, and once again the brunet decided to remain in complete silence, keeping to himself without pronouncing a single letter. Lee gulped. "Um… you have not replied to my letters. I am so sorry about everything– I will stop if it would make you more comfortable. How does that sound?"

"No."

Judging by his gaze, it was crystal clear that the taller boy wasn't expecting that response – who knows how long he had been yearning for him, and now… Neji never realized when both had grown so much, not caring about senseless things like years or months anymore, and he had to look up to see his companion's eyes or even try to steal a kiss from his lips. Lee's eyes brightened up and he leaned in, closing the distance between the two without wasting any time at all.

Although, neither of them had kissed anybody before, and they were technically adults now; the contact didn't last for long, and both of them were blushing deeply as silence fell between the two, enough so they could distinguish the distant groans of monsters from inside Simplewood. But that was the last thought on their minds; instead, Neji grabbed Lee's shirt and supported himself on it to give him another kiss, enjoying the taste of his lips against his own and how his companion carefully wrapped his waist with his arms. The brunet could feel his heart beating so quickly that he was afraid that it would explode at any moment…

Until Lee pulled away, with a goofy smile decorating his face at all times.

"Neji, do you want to go on?" he asked, more as a plea than as a question, with a soft tone so nobody but his companion would be able to hear his words.

It didn't take much to give an answer to that. Neji guided Lee back to his farm to finish what they had started, where he paid no mind as his clothes were removed with haste– they kept exchanging more and more kisses through the night, and something more, until both of them ended up laying side by side on the brunet's bed without exchanging many words.

It was getting a bit cold, so he got comfortable closer to his lover, his ear placed carefully on Lee's chest so as to not make him uncomfortable. Only then did the brunet talk again, in a barely audible voice.

"Why do you like talking with me so much? Even when I ignore you, you… keep coming back, Lee," Neji whispered, relaxing with the soothing rhythm of Lee's heartbeats. "I don't get it. Why do you love me so much?"

Silence. His companion caressed his back in small soothing circles, stealing a kiss or two from him before saying anything, chuckling at the brunet's confused expression as if it was a joke of sorts.

"You really do not remember, do you? Before you disappeared, you, um– Neji, you defended me from someone," Lee whispered, his gaze falling on his companion's eyes for a couple of moments before he went on. "From the Poppyhill boy, remember? Gaara, was it?"

Neji had vague memories of it all, yet he never thought it would be a big deal– the stranger had visited the Vale with his siblings, and he picked on Lee to get strawberries off his hands. Nobody was doing anything but stare, so the brunet jumped in and–

Hizashi didn't let him get out of the farm for a whole week, but it was worth it to give justice to the little black haired boy who just wanted to make a friend or two. Neji hadn't even noticed that it was Lee himself due to the many changes his hair had suffered in the couple of years that he had been missing.

Goddesses, had he really not only remembered that, but tried to befriend him once Neji had returned to the farm? His insistence made sense now, although his companion fell asleep before they could talk further.

And just like that, Neji realized that his heart had been won after so much time of Lee trying to become his friend, yet there was something he couldn't deny; Lee would die before his soul faded, and the pain… seeing how cute his companion was while being asleep was like a weight taken off his chest, somehow.

Thirty years– that was all the time that they would have together, until Neji turned fifty and his soul immediately left his body. Every time that he got defeated in Simplewood or when he messed up with Fae creatures his lifespan got reduced, and soon an idea formed in his mind:

To not waste his life anymore. The few years he had together with Lee must be worth it, for his heart had never loved anyone else except his cousin and his father, and both were gone from his life now; it would be better to stay there with the other boy, forgetting about the rest of the world and his tasks and just… enjoy himself for once.

For now, Neji would rest on his arms, allowing exhaustion to take place and make him forget about the troubles he would soon ignore.

That wasn't their last meeting– quite the opposite. For countless days both boys met, and in a couple of years they decided to finally settle down together; they spent more time with the other than alone, anyways, so it wouldn't be a drastic change.

And so the wedding ritual began; a white flower that Lee gave Neji on the first day of the week, and then the gathering of three charmweed, an egg and then some flour– the brunet helped his fiancée prepare the Pie of You and I, needed to exchange for the wedding rings that the priest would give them so they could get wed with the Goddesses' approval.

And with the blooming colors of Spring, Neji and Lee were made husbands, with only four people assisting to the ceremony– Kakashi, Gai, Tenten and Hinata, who had decided to give her cousin another chance. A couple of gifts and congratulations were given, and then the newly made husbands were left alone for the rest of the day.

Lee was more than familiar with the farm's structure, and it didn't take him long to make himself home in a spare wardrobe that Neji had laying around; he actually managed to repair it, and even put some extra shelves for the things he used to workout and get stronger. The brunet was interested in his training equipment, and Lee was more than happy to teach him how to use every single item correctly.

Days went by without much happening– they cooked together, took care of crops and the few animals Hizashi had left behind, and the black haired man sometimes even helped his spouse fish in the most remote places one could imagine.

They talked to the other, even if there was nothing that they didn't know of their partner at that point; Lee told him of how he had been adopted by his dads from a young age alongside Tenten, and Neji admitted that his uncle had stolen him from his parents' watch just to drop him at the shoe with his cousin, Hiashi's own daughter.

By disappearing, he had left Hinata all alone, and that was why she was so angry at him. The brunet had never said it out loud, but he tried to make up an excuse for his absence– kidnapping by some fae, he told Lee, which wasn't technically the truth but also not a complete lie.

His husband had believed him without any kind of doubt, and gave him a gentle kiss on the forehead to try and show his support. Neji hugged him in response and they stayed like that, keeping each other company until they saw a chicken enter the house when she should be outside. They laughed and chased her around, making sure the bird left and didn't invade again.

Life was calm, and somehow Neji always managed to find stuff to do in the farm or on the bulletin boards, still ignoring the dark woods and other dangerous places like Woemarsh. He managed to save a good amount of brass, so there would always be warm food on their table– and maybe, just maybe, he could buy and run a shop… he would need to discuss it with his partner.

Either way, they would still need to figure out who to hire as staff. A better plan was needed if they did decide to do something with their brass– for now, they would keep saving for their future, perhaps to later have a child or two if the rabbit corndoll gave them any luck.

Before he even realized, the last day of Winter had arrived once again, and Fairweather decided to pay him a visit after a long period of silence.

He had entered his dreams, just like it was usual of the hare to do, and offered him countless goods– a necklace to get more brass by selling items, a clock… but there was a catch; every item bought implied spending years of life on it, and he already had few of those.

"I don't want your things. I want to let time pass by naturally," Neji exclaimed, crossing his arms against his chest, not looking at the magic items even once.

Fairweather stared at him, moving his ears to the sides before making up a response, his voice sending shivers to the brunet's back.

"You really love that man, don't you, human? But he'll die, just like everyone else in Quill– you won't die anytime soon, however," the hare exclaimed, eyes fixed on Neji's for a moment before he saved everything under his cape. "Remember your immortality, Neji. Don't get too attached to mortals!"

And just like that, he woke up in the middle of the night, hiding in his husband's arms without saying anything just to try and fall asleep once again.

Neji kept ignoring any attempt made by the hare of forcing him to waste his life, and instead he decided to spend his days with Lee, farming or foraging stuff to cook and later sell at goods market or stores. His husband and him ended up deciding to later buy one of the stores in their village, but they couldn't leave their house for now– they were waiting for something.

The stork would pay them a visit soon, for the rabbit corndoll had worked after many months of trying. In Quill, couples of any gender could get children with the help of the Goddesses, but they didn't carry them on their bellies like it used to happen in the distant past; that's why a literal bird would visit them with a small bundle, where a kid slept peacefully until they arrived to their destination.

There was no need for both of them to be present when their child arrived, but both men were excited– it was like a miracle, for they were going to stop trying until they got lucky with their last attempt. And now, someone had to be present by the time the stork arrived, because… they didn't really trust the farm's Brounie with such responsibility. It was better to take care of things on their own.

"Neji, look! It is there!" Lee announced, running outside as he saw the stork flying down, landing with elegance in front of their doorstep with the small bundle on its beak.

Neji carefully took the baby, and his eyes brightened up– it was a little boy, almost identical to Lee but with his eye shape. An almost perfect copy of one of his parents, who was already crying and couldn't hold his son in fear of accidentally falling. The brunet didn't even realize when he had started to talk to the baby, but he noticed that his son chuckled at his words, not even understanding but liking his voice anyways.

"How shall we name him, Lee?" Neji asked, his gaze never leaving the boy, who he had now placed near his chest to let him rest on him without problem.

"Well… we will get the blacksmith, right? What if we call him Metal? I know it is silly, but it could work!" Lee replied with a grin and excitement in his voice, hugging his husband before talking again. "But I am just suggesting! You can choose, too."

"Metal. I like how it sounds… our son will have a special name," the brunet replied, leaning into the embrace while making sure Metal wasn't hurt at any moment.

And so they began trying to buy a store, in order to give their son a good life and anything he would ever need.

A deal was made with Zabuza and Haku after a while, and they decided to sell their blacksmith for a good amount of brass to Neji, who was later reminded of someone who had been learning the art of smiting for many years– Tenten, who gladly accepted the position at the forge with a huge grin on her face.

She was a good worker and liked talking with the brunet, who was in charge of selling whatever she crafted and organizing the finances of their shop. It didn't take long for 'The Misty Sword Smith' (name given by the previous owners) rose in popularity among all Quill residents, and even some fae visited from different realms, always leaving a good tip to the workers.

Lee was in charge of finding good ores whenever Neji and Tenten were too busy with work, and he liked to bring little Metal to see his family when it was time to give the different minerals to the blacksmith. He was a curious baby, always looking at everything with wide eyes and chuckling whenever Neji made funny faces or carried him in his arms while dealing with annoying people.

"Do you like it here? Do you?" he asked his son with a soft voice even though Metal was too young to say anything, instead receiving giggles in response. It was almost closing time, so there was nobody around at that hour. "You're so happy."

"He loves being with his dad! And I feel the same way," Lee commented, wrapping his husband with his arm and giving him a kiss, grinning at the feeling that Neji returned the gesture.

Then, the brunet felt something tugging on his shirt, and turned to see that his child was trying to get his attention. He carried him again and hugged him, smiling at seeing Metal slowly fall asleep between his arms– his chest felt warm by how happy he was, and Neji didn't want anything else in the world that the peace that his family brought him just by being there for him.

And just like every year, the trees became bare and the wind became colder with snow, and yet another Winter took place in Quill. Neji didn't think much of it, going on with his life as usual, waking up his husband and son with the smell of fresh food and a warm hug to both Metal and Lee, who both chuckled and grinned in the same way no matter how much time passed.

The Kynseed had grown older with the years, and so did the family of three– Metal wasn't a little toddler anymore, in fact, he was a young man now. But he would always be their little boy, no matter how much he complained.

Soon their day had to begin, and the younger man went to take care of the crops as he usually did, as Neji got ready for work and Lee kept him company for a while before he had to leave. It was then that his husband leaned to the brunet to tell him something in a soft tone, as a whisper.

"I have something nice planned for tomorrow, love. Metal will go visit Houki and Mitsuki after our lunch, and then we will have the rest of the day for ourselves," Lee whispered in his ear, and the brunet couldn't help but chuckle, not needing more words to understand what would happen on the following day.

"But why tomorrow? You could surprise me today," Neji argued, although there was a playful smile on his face, increased only by his husband's confused expression. "What?"

"Neji, tomorrow is your birthday! You turn fifty– that is why we must celebrate!"

For a moment, the brunet grinned, kissing his partner without saying anything else– it would be just another birthday, and things would go on as normal, so why bother worrying about anything else?

… at least, that's what Neji believed at first. Until a memory appeared on his mind, of a fae hare covered in leaves smiling at him in an odd way, of ignoring anything dangerous just to spend more time with his loved ones without thinking of strange things such as immortality.

He couldn't ignore it for longer– it was too late for him.

"... I'll die tomorrow, my dear," Neji whispered to Lee, his gaze falling on the ground as he talked. His husband tilted his head to the side and chuckled, thinking it was some kind of joke, but the brunet wasn't even smiling in the slightest. "I'm serious, Lee. It's… complicated fae stuff, and– my soul will leave my body. I'll be here, but I won't be me."

The other man seemed more confused than anything else, and he decided to hug the brunet before talking once again.

"But how? And why?" Lee asked, his gaze showing both sadness and confusion, hugging his husband with his eyes fixed on the shorter man.

"That's why I disappeared for a while after we met– a fae said it was my destiny, and he gave me a contract to sign," Neji replied, letting out a soft sigh afterwards. He went on. "I never expected to fall in love with anyone. I… I regret it now, but it can't be changed. I'm so sorry."

There was silence between the two, and neither man wanted to speak first– and so it soon was time for Neji to go to the blacksmith, work until late in the day and probably not see his partner until he got back.

He could do nothing to change his fate, albeit he wished there was something, anything– but life wasn't fair to anyone, let alone him. Fairweather was probably laughing on his realm, knowing how hurt the husbands were without any way of staying together.

Technical, they could. But Neji would be on his child's body; neither Lee or him would be comfortable continuing their relationship that way. But how could he know what the other man would do afterwards? They probably would come up with a plan the following day.

It was time to go home, with night falling behind him– Neji knew how his fate would change once the clock hit midnight, and he almost dreaded coming back to the farm.

His family received him with open arms, with herring soba and other delicious food on the table, ready to be eaten easily. Metal had wondered why they were going to celebrate early, but didn't mind too much. Lee hugged the brunet as if he would leave the place forever– in a way, that was true, yet neither man wanted to say it out loud.

A way to avoid destiny, perhaps. They acted as if nothing would happen, having fun and talking late into the night, stomachs full with different dishes by the time they went to bed.

Neji leaned towards his partner, who hugged him without saying much, gently caressing his long hair and stealing kisses from him every now and then.

Neji finally closed his eyes after countless minutes, becoming small on his husband's arms in complete silence– everything would be okay for as long as he could be with Lee, no matter how long or short their time together would be. He wouldn't leave once his soul possessed Metal, and they would take care of the farm and the blacksmith just like they had done for many years.

It would be okay, or so he wanted to believe as the pain of his joints disappeared once he woke up in a bed that wasn't his own, in a body that wasn't his. Neji looked around the house in hopes of seeing his husband, but all he saw was his own corpse where he had fallen asleep in the previous night– something in his heart ached at seeing himself like that, skin cold to the touch even if the Summer warmth wouldn't have allowed it in a normal occasion.

He really had died, and his soul was now on his son's body no matter how strange that seemed in his eyes. It would be confusing for a while, and surely in no time Neji would get used to his new appearance and to his only child's absence; where was the true Metal? Pinehaven? He would need to ask Fairweather about him, but the hare would probably make him pay with part of his lifespan for information.

Anyways. He had to look for his husband now, wherever he had decided to hide… but first, a full mailbox caught his attention, and usually the townspeople gave him free stuff so Neji decided to check what was going on first.

A letter from Tenten, one from Naruto and, on the farthest part of the box… was an envelope that only said 'Lee' on the front.

Fuck, was all that the brunet could think of, ignoring everything else to check what had been written by his husband– it could be anything, and for him to feel the need to give it like that… something bad was going to happen soon. He had to know what Lee had written in the paper, who knew what he was willing to do?

It said:

'Dear Neji,

I love you with all of my heart, and I hope you keep in mind as you read this. You told me that you were going to change bodies, or something, but… Neji, it will be better if I am not here to watch it happen.

I will die, anyways. I do not want you to go through that pain– it will happen. And if I am not with you, I am afraid being alive makes no sense. Please forgive me, love.'

And then nothing but emptiness, for Lee didn't need to be explicit with what he was going to do– there was only one place that the man would go, for suicide would guarantee a chaotic afterlife, and nobody in Quill wanted that to happen. Being killed by a monster would be the best option.

No matter how fast his legs moved, he would never catch up to Lee– he was faster, stronger and knew the intricate paths of Simplewood better than Neji himself did. He dodged every single creature that got in his way, avoiding fights just to get to his husband without problem; nothing else mattered to him in those moments apart from seeing him safe and sound, wherever he was.

At one point, he managed to distinguish a familiar black hair from between the bushes and he couldn't help it but smile– it faded away in mere seconds, seeing how bloody his husband was, for he hadn't even bothered to bring a shield or a sword to fight and was instead sitting down without moving at all.

"Lee! Stop it!" Neji exclaimed, and he could hear his son's voice coming out from his lips in the first words he said out loud in that new body. He bit his lower lip at seeing Lee turn around and just… smile at him in an apologetic way, eyes closed and ready to allow beasts to destroy his body with no effort.

It didn't take long for the brunet (no, he had black hair just like Lee now) to slash every living creature that tried to attack his partner, but soon he realized it was too late to save him.

No matter what he tried to do, Lee's bleeding didn't stop, not even with the help of healing cream and countless bandages– Neji could feel tears falling from his eyes, desperation taking over his soul as he saw that his husband was going to die in his arms.

And nothing could be done to change his fate.

"Neji, leave me," Lee ordered in mere whispers, barely audible in the middle of the forest and even then Neji refused to obey. "I… I will die anyway. I do not want you to suffer later on."

"No, Lee! Please, stay with me…" Neji mumbled, but his words went unheard– the shine of his husband's eyes had faded right after he had said that, and there was no pulse on his neck anymore, almost as if he had waited to say that before finally dying without waiting to get help.

It was as if the world had turned gray, and not only because of an approaching storm– Neji felt some kind of blockage on his chest as he managed to carry Lee out of Simplewood and into a fae gateway, not knowing what else to do.

Rain fell on his shoulders as he carried his lover back to his farm, falling instead of all the tears repressed on his eyes, knowing that he would never wake up again. Tenten saw him and ran towards him, calling him by a name that wasn't his and a worried expression on her face– Neji couldn't comprehend what she said, what Kakashi and Gai said with only sadness showing through their eyes.

"Metal, I'm so sorry… you– you need to go inside, you might get sick," the black haired man exclaimed, placing a hand on his shoulder in an attempt to bring him some kind of comfort.

He said nothing as his family guided him to his home and helped him carry Lee, and it was then that they discovered a second dead body on the same day. Everyone tried to soothe his pain, but Neji had a never-ending hole in his chest that nothing would ever fill back up again, numb towards the world in the middle of his grief as the entire Vale walked to the graveyard to start the funeral.

There wasn't much else to say or do. Death had taken his husband, and now it was time to say goodbye, go on with his immortal life as if nothing had ever happened. As if nothing had ever happened, and his home had been vacant apart from himself–

"I love you, Lee. I hope the Goddesses treat you right," Neji muttered to himself, his heart feeling heavy with his new voice. His eyes cried for both Metal and Lee as his husband's (and his own) body submerged under the funeral pool of the graveyard, only to never be seen ever again.

His heart became as gelid as ice itself, and Neji never allowed anyone to warm it up, barely even talking to Lee's family even though they didn't know it was him and not his son. Only to Tenten due to their shared job at the blacksmith, yet in the end she ended up passing away as time went by.

He couldn't recognize anyone from the Vale anymore– everyone who had originally inhabited it had died, including his old body. It was hard to find someone to cover her spot, and he had to close his shop no matter how hard he tried to save it.

The shop he had bought in his previous life, where he had spent countless hours with his family– the memories of the past haunted his soul and Neji found himself avoiding the entire place, focusing on battling and fishing as if nothing else was important in life. Ignoring the dusty collection of books that his soulmate had gathered with the passing of the years, only sparing a quick glance to clean the yellowing pages before they crumbled to dust.

Neji didn't have the heart to bother about anything at all, and he barely spoke with anyone that wasn't the old lady of The Shoe and his adopted offspring– nothing was worth his attention in his eyes, and it remained that way for hundreds of years until his contract with Fairweather came to an end.

#nejilee #leeneji #neji hyuga #rock lee #naruto #kynseed

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theforumcat · 2 years ago

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Hello! In your post with the macaroni and cheese recipe, your second tag read “if you ever wanna get mad about a recipe ask me about the sweet rolls.” My dad said “Yes! Dozens of hundreds of recipes please, if they’re anything like the mac & cheese. 😊” and then sent nine thumbs up emojis over three texts! We are both fans of the macaroni and cheese! Could I have the recipe for the beef stroganoff, the cherry tomato dip, and the funeral potatoes? Also, do you have any vegan recipes? Moving on, Pushkin has been described as a badger and a rabbit and a cat! Sometimes my mom mispronounces his name as “Punchkin.”

Ohhhhhh

Okay so my patriarchal family has a matriarch. She’s dead - died in the very young childhoods or before birth of my parent generation. My dad is the oldest of that generation and he was like five ish when she died. My grandparent and great-grandparent generation sold the family farm in Iowa after she died, and had been holding on to it pretty much exclusively so she could continue to live there and they could continue to visit her there for a very long time. And she… she’s a bit of a folklore figure? Almost like a Midwestern matriarchal sort of folk hero? Like, all the ladies with that last name may eventually become grandmas, but if someone refers to Grandma Forumcat it means folklore grandma, even if it’s said to someone who does indeed have a different grandmother of the family. Hell, it even refers to her in branches of the family that did not come from her! To be clear, she is actually either my great great grandmother or my great great great grandmother - I do not belong to a shoot of the family that’s that great at ancestry and the only person left alive now who knew her was a kindergartener when she died and there were already several generations calling her grandma at that point. And we have a tendency to just call all aunt/uncle variants and older distant cousins aunt or uncle and all younger relatives cousin and there has been a surprising amount of intra-family and regular adoption (and we’re pretty sure a couple of teen pregnancies that were obfuscated in this manner) so without sitting down as a huge team and writing it up and/or actually sorting out records, frankly a family tree will just not happen. So, that’s folklore grandma.

And she left behind hundreds and hundreds of recipes. They were scattered amongst my family members and many are now lost - she did, after all, die over half a century ago. The favourites were copied out and distributed among many members, though, including her sweet roll recipe, which is haunted. It cannot be fractioned, no matter what ethos of fractioning you use. The rolls just won’t turn out. They’ll burn before they should be done or won’t rise or get a weird residue… anything you can imagine going wrong with a baked good, that’s the roulette wheel you spin if you try to fraction this recipe, plus several you wouldn’t. There are plenty of her other recipes that just won’t turn out good if you fuck around with them (particularly if the fuckery is trying to make them healthier) but this is the one with the most dramatic and obvious effects. It will outright just defy physics to fuck your day and oven up if you try to make fewer sweet rolls than enough for the kids, everyone working on the farm plus take some home to their families, all visiting relatives, and the neighbours for when you’ll go past there on Sunday. My patriarchal family is, by and large, all very good cooks. Huge food culture, mostly sparked by folklore grandma. So, this isn’t a matter of people not knowing how to make them. It even happens to people she directly taught to make them, and reportedly her advice on how to make fewer rolls at a time was pretty much “don’t do that.”

So. Haunted. I’m not a particularly superstitious person, but I have watched these rolls turn out wrong in a dozen completely insensible ways for no reason at all (the recipe at full size is extremely labour intensive but far from fussy) and heard stories about dozens more, so every time I make them I just make all, like, four dozen cinnamon rolls and find homes for the extras. I can (and somewhat regularly have) set pots of water on fire; I’m not gonna fuck around on the haunted breakfast rolls.

#recipe not available for non family members sorry

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haveyoureadthistoo · 17 days ago

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November to remember, a booklist

The month is November. Too late for ghost stories, too early for Christmas tales. It’s sweater weather, but it rains unexpectedly. You grab your umbrella for a quick stroll and walk past that weird mix of rotting pumpkins on the streets and the first signs of fairy lights on the façades. What should you read in such liminal times?

Here’s a small list of recommendations, ranging from cute and cosy to the right amount of obnoxious. Think Franklin the turtle playing with his friends in the countryside, but also Emma Thompson in “Love Actually” listening to Joni Mitchell after finding out she’s been cheated on - because November can be messy and all over the place like that.

1. ANNE OF AVONLEA, by Lucy Maud Montgomery

I know, I know. Anne’s most notable quote is in praise of October, not its cousin November. But this is actually the sequel to “Anne of Green Gables”. Anne is now a proper teenager, full of manners and anxious about the future, but still very much a storyteller at heart, ready to fall head over heels over the first sign of a beautiful blooming garden or an enchanting starry sky. It’s heartwarming, funny and a bit sad, just like the month in question.

2. COLD COMFORT FARM, by Stella Gibbons

For the Amy Sherman-Palladino fans out there, think Mrs Maisel living in 1930’s Stars Hollow. The setting is funnily suffocating, the characters are whimsical and the dialogue is clever. It feels like eating apple pie on a big wooden kitchen table and washing it down with proper ale.

3. THE FORGOTTEN GARDEN, by Kate Morton

I would argue that all Kate Morton’s novels I’ve read so far have a November mood. Beautiful, abandoned landscapes, filled with melancholy and the promise of a fresh start. In this book, we follow three different timelines, representing three different generations of women. There’s a family secret to unfold and we can only put it together by accessing the memories and feelings of all three characters. It’s like a grown-up fairy tale, with old letters, antiques, a vast garden and a hidden maze. Victorian England, ladies and gentlemen.

4. ROOFTOPPERS, by Katherine Rundell

If Neil Gaiman and Philip Pullman wrote a novel together, this would probably be it. It has Gaiman’s magical writing style, but none of its innocence, borrowing instead from Pullman’s more cynical plot constructions - reckless guardians, children getting hurt and mysterious artifacts. Cold and transient like the season.

5. THE QUEEN'S FOOL, by Philippa Gregory

Are you a Tudor aficionado like myself? Then you will enjoy this book. Especially with a cup of tea and a plate of biscuits, sitting by the window and watching it get dark at 5pm. There’s not enough historical fiction written about the Tudor queens. Unlike other Gregory novels, though, Mary and Elizabeth are not the narrators here. Our conductor is Hannah, a young woman under their employment, first Mary, then Elizabeth, and who’s a little bit of a psychic with a complicated history herself. Pick this up and you're in for dangerous politics, some mysticism and lots of love.

6. THE DIARY OF A NOBODY, by George and Weedon Grossmith

Reading somebody’s diary has its share of pleasure, but it can feel very overwhelming if it gets too deep and personal, like you were invading their privacy. That is not the case here. Charles Pooter is an absurdly sensible man, boring in every sense of the word to all who know him, but that’s what makes his diary so amusing. His self-awareness is hilarious. Lots of middle child energy, just like November.

7. PIRANESI, by Susanna Clarke

Weird and wonderful. A well-executed attempt at discussing second life and simulation without the embarrassing tech, replacing that with art instead. Taking a synesthetic licence here, in my head this book is the same as the National Monument of Scotland, in Edinburgh. A Parthenon-like construction on top of a hill, dating from the early 19th century, which was left unfinished due to lack of funds and became its own thing - on one side, an urban view of the city; on the other side, the lushy greens of Holyrood Park and Arthur’s Seat. Beautiful and liminal.

8. THE READERS OF BROKEN WHEEL RECOMMEND, by Katarina Bivald

You know how every bookworm dreams of setting up their own bookshop in a cosy small town filled with quirky people? This is it. Nothing happens, but people happen. And books, lots of them. If spoilers make you upset, know that there are many conversations about well-known novels, but it adds to the charm. Maybe I’m cheating and this is an October book. Then again, it could be a Christmas book just as well, so there you go.

9. CONVERSATIONS WITH FRIENDS, by Sally Rooney

Frances is going through this very November-ish phase that comes to all university students, particularly those from the arts & humanities. The excitement of those first years is over, but the presumptuousness lingers. You think you’re very mature and at the same time cling to out-of-the-ordinary opinions and experiences so you don’t turn up boring and sad like the older people you know. The perfect prey for somebody going through another November-ish stage of life - the early 30s. Trust me, I know. I’ve been through both. Before you ask, I think the pretentious writing goes hand in hand with the rawness of the character’s first person narration, very obnoxious and sentimental. Like youth.

10. THE RAINY MOON AND OTHER STORIES, by Colette

Now, if you’re looking for a collection of short stories instead, look no further. Reading Colette is like listening to an observant, artistic friend telling you stories about interesting people she crossed paths with. Refreshing, progressive and good-hearted. Perfect to add a little bit of personality to the month.

Enjoy!

#books and libraries #writers #book blog #booklr #bookworm #bookish #books and reading #november #book recommendations #book reviews #have you read this too #HYRTT writing

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survey--s · 2 years ago

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460.

Have you ever thought of a relationship as more of a job than love? Yes, it's definitely felt like that at times - but I think all relationships can be like that at times - they're never going to be plain sailing.

Have you ever been caught right in the middle of a rain storm outside? Sure, loads of times. I work outdoors and live in one of the rainiest areas of the country lol.

Have you got any cousins with interesting or embarrassing names? Some of them have some unusual names but none of them are especially embarrassing or anything like that.

What is one food you could eat for a month, straight, and not get sick of? I don't think there is one - there are loads of foods I love but none of them are things I could eat constantly.

When was the last time you watched a complete hour of the news? Probably right at the beginning of COVID. I get all my news online these days.

Have you ever spray painted something about your love somewhere? Nope.

When was the last time you visited the park? Who did you go with? It was just on a dog walk - I think it was with Copper before Christmas.

Are you one of those people who like to eat at restaurants a lot? I do enjoy it but it's SO expensive now so it's not really something we can justify these days.

Have you ever been out on the ocean in a rather small boat? Not right out into the ocean, but I've done pedaloe rides and stuff.

When was the last time you went swimming? Who did you go with, if anyone? It was back when we went to Lanzarote but that was five years ago.

Do you like going to the beach, or do you not really care to go? We live about two minutes from the beach lol. I love it but it doesn't hold the same appeal it did when I was younger.

What are your parents’ names? Are you named after either of them? I'm not naming them, but the answer to your second question is no.

What was the last thing you bought at a store? When did you buy this? I got some brown tape from Tesco yesterday.

What is one odd thing about the opposite sex you find to be attractive? I can't really think of anything particularly odd.

What noises in the room you’re in, do you hear at the moment? Just the TV show I'm watching and the cat snoring next to me. I think the other two cats are in the kitchen and everyone else is out.

Do you know a lot of things about the opposite sex’s body parts? I mean, I know what I need to know.

What color is the kitchen in the house you’re in, painted? The walls are cream, the units are duck egg blue and the surfaces are white.

Do you live in a town where basically everyone knows everyone else? Hahah, yep, pretty much. Everyone knows everyone around here - you honestly can't do anything without everyone knowing about it.

When was the last time you or someone else in your family bought a vehicle? Uh, I got a new car two years ago when my old car got totalled.

Are your grandparents the kind who are very protective of you? No, that's not how I'd describe them. They lived nowhere near me so we were never very close.

Have you ever, or do you live on a farm at this moment in time? I haven't but I would absolutely love to own a small farm.

Are you one of those people who can’t help but download everything they find? No.

How many things in the past have you bought off Ebay? What things? Quite a few things - stuff for the dog, ID tags, wellies, clothes, wax melts and plenty of other bits.

Are you or the people you live with pack rats? Or are they tidy? Mike is definitely a pack rat. It's probably the one thing about him that truly drives me absolutely mad. He is SO messy.

What are three things to you that are really worth the wait in life? Uh, I don't know really.

Is there any sound everyone else finds weird, yet you find nice? ASMR stuff. I just find it infuriating lol.

Were you always one of those kids who got in trouble with everyone around? No, I was the total opposite. I hated getting in trouble.

When was the last time you took a nap? Did it relax you any? I honestly don't remember, I pretty much never take naps.

Honestly, do you see yourself as a slut? Nope.

Is there a secret you’ve never told your parents? Sure. I mean, I love my parents but they're not my best friends.

What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever been through? I can't think of anything specific right now.

Have you ever had your heartbroken? Yes.

Do you think Enrique Iglesias is sexy? He's not unattractive but he's also not my type.

Can you text quickly? Yeah. A fast-paced job helps you with that.

Do you like fast food or does it disgust you? I like McDonald's but I'm not a fan of KFC or Burger King.

Which singer’s vocals would you love to steal? Tracy Chapman.

What’s your favourite shop? It depends what I'm buying - but clothes-wise probably Fat Face.

Have you got a hairdresser that you can trust? Yeah, my sister-in-law does my hair for me.

Are you a deep or light sleeper? Both, ha. I struggle to get to sleep if there's noise or stuff going on around me, but once I'm asleep I'm out.

Do you wear a lot of make up? No, I pretty much never wear any make-up.

Do you get nervous before exams? I used to, but I haven't done exams for years now.

Does the weather influence your mood? Hmm, yes - I find windy weather really overwhelming and stressful for some reason lol. I think it's a sensory thing.

Who was the last person you kissed? My husband.

What’s your favourite alcoholic drink? Disaronno and coke for mixers, or raspberry daquiris for cocktails. I also like raspberry vodka and lemonade.

Do you watch Big Brother? No. I was never allowed to watch it when it first came out, and by the time I was allowed, I never saw the appeal.

#survey #surveys

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regallibellbright · 2 years ago

Text

I’m doing this in parts just for ease of length. Part Two:

They get here and Josh’s cousin is apparently turning into a cow because she was given a magic cowbell. Everyone rapidly adjusts their standards. Even for Joshua, who’s used to this bullshit, it’s kind of weird.

Nanami: Oh, Yoshiya! So good of you to visit us. Joshua: Nanami. That's a very... unique neck piece you have there. Nanami: I kno-o-o-ow! Isn’t this cowbell just divine? It’s a real Sebastian Dior! Obviously you're hopelessly unfashionable, but they're the moo-o-ost luxurious brand in the world, worn by the British Royal Family, and - *Joshua tries not to giggle as this continues. Nanami is of course oblivious.* Shiki: Sebastian Dior, huh? I wasn't aware they made cowbells.

Obligatory stock shot of a farm full of silhouetted cows, complete with yodeling. Once again, the Ohtori newbies readjust their standards of weird fucked-uppedness, because they actually saw that.

Nanami: Well, obviously that's because it's an original piece! But I wouldn't expect someone of such plebeian tastes to understand someone as fashionable as I have. Oh-ho-ho-ho-ho! Beat: *Ready to FIGHT on Shiki’s behalf. Neku and Rhyme also look pretty damn furious but will probably try to destroy her verbally first.* Shiki, stopping him: She's clearly brought this *gestures to Nanami in her cowbell and matching cow-print gym uniform and her mooing* on herself. Let's just leave her.

Joshua: Well, Nanami, you’ve been entertaining as always. Is your brother around? Nanami: No, for weeks now he's been holed up in his room. But I guess you can try. You always amuse him so-o-o. Joshua: Right. You still live in the same house?... Great. Time to go.

Beat: Yo, ain't that cowbell for –

Second obligatory stock shot showing a silhouetted cow with an identical cowbell around its neck. This is only marginally less weird the second time it happens.

Rhyme: Yes.

Meeting Touga goes well, which is to say: He doesn't leave his room, he is sullen and pathetic the entire time, and if he doesn't call Joshua a slur, he certainly implies one. Joshua asks Touga to give Saionji his regards in a tone that says "I have imagined your death MANY times and am doing so right now to get through this conversation." Touga does not react to this.

Touga says Saionji is expelled, and Joshua's actually mildly surprised Touga remembers him, before realizing this just means "he's living in the forest being pathetic."

They've finished things with the other Kiryuus in about fifteen minutes each.

Neku: Why did you even bother checking in on these people? Joshua: Because if they get themselves erased, I don't have to do this again. Neku: Or if they win and get to leave. Joshua: Oh, Neku. NO ONE wins the Game in Ohtori except maybe the Composers.

And even then, really only one of them.

This obligation completed, Joshua's heading to see said Composers.

Beat decides that whatever's about to happen will probably be eight layers of mind games and will give him a headache. He's out. Rhyme follows him. This is the smartest decision anyone will make all day.

Unfortunately for them, they run into Miki and Kozue, fresh off the Black Rose duel last episode.

Rhyme, in the face of Incredibly Dysfunctional, Vaguely Incestuous Sibling Relationships Courtesy of Ohtori: I'm starting to see why Joshua invited us. Misery loves company.

All right, the initial draft was too long to be postable, but here we go

TWEWY/Utena crossover, taking place circa Cowbell of Happiness on Utena’s end and sometime post-OG on TWEWY's, not necessarily Neo-compliant. (Don’t question the timeline too hard, it won’t hold up at all even with Ohtori Time Weirdness, but half the reason this exists is to put Neku Sakuraba in the Bad Therapy Elevator.)

The thing about Ohtori is that it simultaneously is and is not part of the existing UG structure. It functions, in many ways, like a UG under the control of an extremely powerful Composer who's exerting a LOT of control over the environment. (Which extends beyond the school proper into the nearby town and forest. The city from Episode 33 may have been another illusion or may have been Akio getting permission to enter someone else's territory, but the highway he drives down during the radio segments is still part of Ohtori's sphere of influence.) There is no RG in Ohtori, but somehow time has not frozen the way it would in an Inversion. It seems, on the surface, like a pleasant place. Imagination is refined and Soul is (eventually) recycled through the Duel structure. It has a relatively low erasure rate, an oddly high intake rate, and functionally ZERO people who leave except through erasure (the last graduate was a decade ago,) but Imagination rates are stable and sustainable, somehow. No one's entirely sure how exactly its Game operates - the line between "Player" and "Reaper" doesn't meaningfully exist, the closest thing to Officers are the duelists of the Student Council who are allegedly Players, the time frame per cycle is inconsistent, it's not actually clear if everyone taking part in the Game is actually dead or if everyone in the Ohtori UG is actually part of the Game and either way they're all interacting with each other, and the results are, again, completely inexplicable. The records are terrible, too. But at the same time, no one wants to know what's going on there.

Because then there's the part where its governors are arguably a step beyond 'deity' and more like loose personifications of narrative concepts. No one's sure exactly how old they are, or if they were human in origin once or have always been what they are. No one's sure which one is actually the Composer - siblings Anthy Himemiya and Akio Ohtori have shared, stolen, counter-stolen, freely ceded, “freely ceded,” and combined abilities so thoroughly over the eons that even THEY probably no longer remember how things started, or know who holds the power now. If you separated them, odds are they’d both lose their powers entirely. Policy is to treat them both as Composers of the same UG. Akio is definitely the one who exerts stronger control over the Duelists, but Anthy's the one responsible for Ohtori being a surreal timeless bubble of symbolism, dreamlike architecture, and bizarre animal-related shenanigans.

(The rest of the Higher Planes probably know, or at least suspect, how dysfunctional THAT relationship is. The abuse, the incest, the ways Anthy gets mistreated in her role as the Rose Bride, the million swords of hate. Using Duelists as sacrificial pawns as part of their whole game isn't strictly speaking a problem. The fact that any given Proxy only really belongs to one of them, but they work together with each other to manipulate those Proxies is much more questionable. But anyone who's interested in helping realized a long time ago that doing that would require either of them to accept help. That's not happening any time soon. It's easier and less frustrating to just keep your distance.)

No one likes Ohtori. It's allowed to keep existing mainly because the alternative means dealing with Akio and Anthy way more often, firsthand, and also because no one is entirely sure they COULD get rid of it. Doing that would probably mean somehow managing to erase one or both of the Composers, and again, they're more concepts than anything else. The Prince, however much he's fallen (or claims to have fallen,) and the Witch and Rose Bride and Eternal Bearer of the Swords of Hate and whatever much she might have been, once. But they all have a vested interest in making sure that it isn't, like. Expanding or anything. So occasionally you have to send someone in there to check on it, because the outer barriers are so strong you CAN'T keep tabs on it without going in there. For an Angel, it's safe to go in and come out.

Somewhere in the realm of twentyish years ago, Touga and Nanami Kiryuu got sucked into the hell nexus that is Ohtori Academy. Some time after that, their cousin Yoshiya Kiryuu became Composer of Shibuya. (Their names are written with the same kanji but officially localized differently, at 2-1 Joshua was outnumbered so I'm using the Utena romanization here.)

They're probably still in there! Time isn't real inside Ohtori! They won't remember how long they've been there or how old he's supposed to be in relationship to them! They may not actually remember he exists when he's not there in front of him!

... No, this wasn't something you get to refuse, Kiryuu. Someone has to check in on the hell school every few years. Go visit your cousins. Consider how lucky you are that you can still see some of your nominally-human family.

At no point in this did anyone ask Joshua what his cousins are like, or if he actually liked them. He's been on Ohtori Duty every 3-5 years since he took over and has been hoping for their erasure ever since.

And so eventually, some time after the events of the original game, Joshua shows up at Hachiko with a PARTICULARLY insincere smile asking if anyone wants to come meet his cousins who are studying at a school they've never heard of, because it's actually inside its own exclusive little nightmare dimension!

The Gang, understandably, Has Some Questions about this. Starting with "Why would ANYONE agree to that?"

On the other hand, they're also kind of morbidly curious how terrible something has to be for JOSHUA to call it a nightmare dimension. And the fact that he apparently has cousins who he's in something resembling contact with.

... Once Neku and Rhyme were curious enough to say yes, Shiki and Beat pretty much had to agree too, just to make sure the others get back safely (or everyone gets stuck in the hell dimension together.)

And so, armed with no information whatsoever and the Angelic equivalent of "Property Of Joshua Kiryuu, Do Not Put In Duels" tags, it's time for a semi-metaphorical interdimensional bus ride to Ohtori!

This will be a terrible time for all involved.

#writing with Regalli #my fic #bullet fic #revolutionary girl utena #twewy #twewtena #homophobia mention #incest mention #manipulation #nanami kiryuu #shiki misaki #touga kiryuu #joshua kiryu #rhyme bito #beat bito #neku sakuraba #reasons why this is a bullet fic 1: Kozue is fascinating but I don't really have a good read on her #and yeah I'd probably have to inflict at least ONE set of Fucked Up Utena Siblings in Full Dysfunctional Sibling Mode on Beat and Rhyme #who are looking at each other and then back at all of this in horror. Touga being out of commission and NOT running into Akio #means that at least they're only seeing one set; albeit at Peak Awkward #I rewatched Cowbell for this and decided to add the obligatory stock inserts because it just makes EVERYTHING better.#also it just gives such a good idea of what the fuck is wrong with Ohtori. Someone's turning into a cow because she's wearing a cowbell #and when they try to bring it up they all get suddenly hit by stock inserts #it is the funniest possible episode to drop a bunch of characters in contextless for #Nanami is more open to the concept that people don't lay eggs at first than she is that cowbells are for cows

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findingjoynweirdstuff · 3 years ago

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Dream SMP Recap (March 17/2022) - Seapeekay and the Lag Demon Egg Alien Invasion Investigation

Oh hi! Hello! Are you new here?

---

VOD LINKS:

Seapeekay

Foolish

BoomerNA

ErynStreams

BadBoyHalo

Michaelmcchill

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- Seapeekay logs on. Ponk logs on to tour him around. Per Ponk’s instructions, Seapeekay dies and respawns at Spawn to be “born anew”

- CPK gets a chest with items for him including clothes, rotten flesh, maps, a fish and a book. Bad, the tour supervisor, arrives

- The two realize they don’t actually know who CPK is. Ponk whispers to Bad that he must be Fundy’s second cousin or something. They’ve hidden 10 golden coins around the tour and CPK has to find them for a surprise.

- They lead him around on a llama. CPK spots a coin on the side of the road. Bad suddenly runs off, telling Ponk it’s an emergency and to keep him occupied. Bad soon comes back

- They lead him around, telling him about the Community House, tree farm and “World Hub.” As night falls, CPK has to take his shoes off, as is the rules. They tell him to read the rule book, but have accidentally given him part of the “Lore Script” instead

- Ponk whispers and asks Bad why the path looks evil. Bad says he’s in the middle of a conflict. Turning back to CPK, Ponk explains that the path was created by Dream and later named the “Prime Path” by Tommy

- Punz logs on. He notes that CPK smells weird. He gives him a cookie, shoots him and leaves. Bad disconnects and CPK notices that everyone has axes

Ponk: “Once upon a time, there was a land free of conflict, Seapeekay! Everyone lived normal lives! Including me! I had friends, I had...family, Seapeekay! I cultivated a great Lemon Tree in my name for my ancestors to be seen for generations to come. But one night, Seapeekay! George. George of the Notfound Clan, came and burned my tree down! It burned for three days and three nights, Seapeekay. It burned to ash. Nothingness was the only thing left...”

- He points out the replacement tree that Foolish built. He takes CPK down into Karl’s nightclub, telling him ghost stories. Bad logs back on

- Next, they tell him the story of L’manburg and the hot dog van/drug empire. As it starts raining, they put their fish in holes and declare that the dawgs are in the water. Bad disconnects again on the way to L’manburg

- Ponk shows CPK to Pogtopia and Bad comes back. They warn him not to push any buttons. Bad keeps lagging out. While Bad is occupied, Ponk brings CPK aside and whispers to him to not trust anyone, not even Ponk and Bad

- Bad makes it back to them and tells Ponk to leave the room. He then turns to CPK and whispers to not trust anyone, including Bad and especially not Ponk. He hands CPK an important piece of chicken

- As they walk back, CPK asks why there’s so much death in all these stories

- Bad lags out again for another “coffee break” and Ponk suggests they visit the prison. First, Ponk shows him the Oogway Shrine along the way. He also shows off the railway where Tommy ran Dream over

- They reach the prison

Ponk: “This prison held the worst of the worst, Seapeekay...we barely utter his name, but for those wondering...Dream. Because in there, it was not a Dream, but a NIGHTMARE!”

- Bad uses his magic to get them inside. They lead him through, Ponk telling CPK of Dream’s life in prison. As they make it to the final wall, Bad pauses

Bad: “Ponk, did you – did you hear that? Ponk, we need to get out of here.”

Ponk: “It’s not happening again, is it?”

- They run back, Ponk telling Seapeekay not to “listen to them.” Bad could sense something around the cell, something tainted. CPK closes his eyes and when he opens them, Bad has teleported them out. He hands CPK steak

- Next, they take CPK to Eret’s castle, claiming it’s Ponk’s. Ponk sits on the throne and places before CPK a cake. They demand CPK eat it. CPK takes a bite and Ponk pulls Bad aside

Ponk: “We haven’t even fuckin’ tested it. What the fuck’s gonna happen to him?”

Bad: “Oh fudge you’re right...(language) I don’t know!”

Ponk: “Two days and we’ll see.”

- They return to CPK and declare the end of the tour! They tell him that CPK has seven days to pay the price of the tour. Ponk disconnects and CPK walks off

- As CPK walks down the path, thinking it’s over, Bad comes up to him

Bad: “Hi! Who are you?”

- Bad doesn’t remember the tour. He hands CPK more steak. CPK asks if Bad was a supervisor of anything, but Bad says his job was just being a prison guard. Bad lags out again and rejoins

Bad: “Oh hello! Hi!”

- He shows CPK to Punz’s house, remarking that CPK looks familiar. He gives CPK more steak. Bad lags out again. Eryn joins the call sounding very low-quality. He claims that he is Dream. Bad lags out again while they’re talking and rejoins

Bad: “Hi! Have we met yet?”

- Bad lags out another time and takes a while to come back

Bad: “Hello! Hi, we haven’t met before!”

- He does this several times as he lags out. Punz logs on and asks if anyone wants to play Valorant

- Bad lags out several more times, each time rejoining and offering CPK a tour. He takes a moment to remember Ponk. He shows CPK Schlatt’s grave and warns him about Tommy

- Bad tells him about Dream, saying to avoid him as well, and mentions the revive book but doesn’t explain it. What he does explain is the ongoing Prime Path war. They pay tribute to the tunnel with the chicken. Bad lags out, comes back and returns the chicken to CPK

- Bad lags out and comes back, asking if CPK has a chicken. Then he lags out again several times. He tells CPK about how Punz got enchanted by an entity called “Val-Or-Ant,” who they call Val for short

- Bad shows CPK his vandalized mansion. He has some soul fire around the place in case he needs it. He points out the prison, which he hasn’t been inside for a couple weeks. He keeps hearing noises coming from inside it. He used to hear a lot of screaming when he worked there

- Bad starts taking him somewhere, but lags out. When he comes back, he welcomes CPK to Ponk’s tour. Foolish logs on. They continue walking. Bad says that time is running short...

- Bad asks what his favorite color is. CPK says blue. Bad was hoping he would say red. Bad shows him the mob grinder and leads him down the hall. When they get to the entrance, Bad stops. He realizes where they are and tells CPK to get out of there

- When CPK is about to step into the elevator up, Bad stops again

Bad: “Hi! Woah, why are you leaving? Come on!”

- He leads CPK back to the entrance. He was supposed to take CPK down here, that’s what they said – the one voice. They enter and start down to the Egg Room. Bad stops

Bad: “Hi! Are you new here? Wh– what are you doing down here?!”

- He tells CPK to run. They need to disinfect. He pauses again, asking why CPK is leaving. He starts leading CPK back towards the entrance when Foolish steps in front of them

- Foolish questions where Bad was taking the new guy and patches up the barrier to the Egg Room. They go back up and Bad explains to Foolish that he and Ponk took CPK on a tour, but they may have had a bit too much lemonade to drink

- They go to the summer home and Foolish is enraged by Bad’s prank on the DreamXD statue, which now has a mustache too. They bicker furiously and Bad says that he may have brought Techno over here and told him Foolish built it for him

- Bad admits that he has been stealing steak that may have been infected from an area down below that he’s not supposed to go. He and CPK have been eating it. Foolish demands they hand it over and burn it. He puts down soul fire and CPK burns himself with it

- Bad turns into TommyInnit and starts asking if CPK wants to play Among Us

- Foolish shows CPK around the summer home. CPK sees the first DreamXD statue and asks what DreamXD is. Bad hands CPK some more food, but Foolish demands CPK doesn’t eat it

- As they walk to the pyramid, Bad leaves and rejoins

Bad: “Oh hi!”

- Bad catches up to them and asks if CPK is new here. Foolish asks if he’s done this before, and CPK tells him Bad’s done this 16 times now. Foolish assures him that Bad is just really stupid

- Bad says he feels better now. He felt like a door was closed

- Foolish asks what CPK is good at. CPK doesn’t know yet, as he’s just been led around so far, but he’ll find out eventually. He isn’t sure about this whole “seven days to pay up” thing though

- Foolish questions Bad about whether he’s possessed. Bad insists he hasn’t been down to the Egg room in several weeks – months... Foolish says he’ll deal with Bad later

- CPK asks about the prison. Bad tells him not to go, but CPK points out Bad has already taken him there

- Bad and Foolish step aside and Bad whispers to Foolish that he feels like he’s seen CPK before, but he’s sure he wasn’t there before. He thinks they should keep an eye on him

- Bad accuses Foolish of seeing the Egg. He asks if Foolish has seen any more vines around. Foolish hasn’t

- Bad has an idea of where to take CPK next. He tells Foolish to stay here. As a parting gift, Foolish gives him a block of iron and tells CPK to trust no one

- Bad asks what his favorite color is. CPK loves the color red, which Bad approves of. He asks how CPK feels about eggs. CPK likes them, they’re a good shape

- He leads CPK back to the spider spawner, looking around for something first. He asks if CPK likes joining organizations, and CPK is interested. Bad starts destroying the blocks in front of the Egg room

Bad: “You see...he almost did it. But he left one little hole. That’s all it takes, Seapeekay. You leave one little opening...and that’s all it takes.”

- After breaking the entrance, Bad whips around and shouts at CPK, asking what he’s doing down here. He asks for obsidian but CPK doesn’t have any

- They frantically mine obsidian until Bad suddenly stops and looks at CPK

Bad: “Oh hi!”

- They go near the entrance again until Bad remembers again and tells CPK he needs to get out of here. They manage to block the entrance off with obsidian and Bad puts down soul fire to purify them

- As they run away, Bad tells CPK to never, under any circumstances, open that door. He doesn’t know who opened it

- They go to Tommy’s house. Eryn logs on. He’s 35,000 blocks away, so Bad uses magic to bring him here. Eryn gives CPK a block of diamond as a gift. Bad gives him some emerald blocks and Eryn gives CPK gold blocks as they try to one up each other

- Eryn and Bad show CPK the museum. CPK notices the Egg replica. Eryn asks if he’s seen the actual thing and suggests they go down there, but Bad and CPK don’t think it’s a good idea. Bad asks if Eryn went down there, and Eryn has

- It’s time for Bad to leave the two of them. Before he goes, he looks CPK in the eyes and warns him not to go down there at any cost

- Eryn leads CPK to his base to get a steed. He gives CPK a horse of his own. He also gives CPK Sapnap’s trident. From there, they part ways

- Foolish works on the Doozer HQ, removes the Technoblade face from the DreamXD statue and burns down Bad’s jungle creations at the summer home

- Later, Bad logs on and discovers that his builds have been burnt, determined to seek revenge. He also builds a Callahan face on the statue

- Antfrost logs on. He believes that aliens are invading, and they’re near the WOMENX3 sign

- Bad follows Ant to the Doozer HQ. He starts believing Ant’s theory that Foolish might be an alien

- Foolish is working at the HQ. They go up top and speak with him, asking what the build is. Foolish doesn’t answer, but what he does say is that he’s recently been attempting to communicate with someone with little success

- They ask if there’s anything they can do to help, and Foolish suggests Bad cease existing, as the person he’s trying to contact really hates Bad

- Bad wonders if the things Foolish are building are alien communication devices, and if Foolish has been mad at Bad because building on his builds nullifies the signal

- As Bad and Ant go to leave, Foolish tells them not to say a word of this to Sapnap. The two return to the summer home with the idea to plant loads of trees – only for Foolish to be standing right in front of them

- Ant tries to explain that he’s here because he recruited Bad for the catmaid services. Bad isn’t sure about this excuse

Ant: (whispering aggressively) “Put the cat ears on! Put the cat ears on!”

- They offer to help clean up the blocks left over from the jungle. When they finish cleaning, Foolish leaves to continue working. While Foolish is gone, Bad and Ant plant new trees

- Michaelmcchill logs on. He arrives at the summer home and they wonder if he’s one of the aliens. To test, they ask if he’s ever been to Ohio. Michael considers the state a natural enemy

- Ant and Bad discuss Michael’s thoughts on aliens and wonder if he’s a good alien. They tell him that they think there are aliens among us, and Foolish might be one of them

Foolish: Hey michael did you still want to borrow a copy of the book “How to Alien”

- Bad and Michael discuss alien conspiracy theories as they plant trees. They realize the Among Us bunker that Foolish built looks like a spaceship

- They head to the bunker. Michael doesn’t know what the Egg is when they discuss possible brainwashing, so they explain it

- The three enter the Among Us bunker and sneak around. They spot Foolish in one of the rooms at a computer and hide

- Foolish is attempting to call someone, frustrated that it’s not working. He tries listening to the radio and sings a bit of Heatwaves, but still no luck. He talks into the radio and Michael is indignant that he’s stealing his bit

- The three sneak away and vent. Foolish leaves the bunker. Michael has the idea to try and intercept the radio frequencies Foolish was using and listen in. He’s baffled that Ant and Bad know what Twitter is but not radio

- They run around the bunker examining the equipment. Michael notices that Foolish has violated the Geneva Conventions by using a red cross. They freak out as Foolish returns to the bunker, quickly venting. Foolish is now attempting to use email instead

- Foolish has the idea to use destructive weapons to get XD’s attention and the three panic. They need to destroy the weapons room

- They keep sneaking around as Foolish walks through the bunker to try and blow things up, randomly saying he hates BadBoyHalo. The three escape the bunker to the surface

- They hear a concerning sound and go back to confront him. Foolish is confused at them thinking he’s an alien trying to destroy Earth and says that he’s friends with a god. Bad and the others run out of the bunker in a panic

- Foolish settles them down for a talk near Spawn. They ask who he was trying to contact, why he has a space shuttle. Foolish explains that it was meant to be a bunker and he’s not an alien

- Bad starts running for the HQ with stacks of TNT

Foolish: “If you don’t drop that TNT right now, I won’t tell you where Skeppy is!”

- Bad immediately stops. The aliens took Skeppy captive! Foolish and the others start suspecting that Bad is an alien. They all start suspecting that everyone is an alien and can’t figure out who is the alien

- Finally, Foolish says that he was trying to contact DreamXD. Antfrost doesn’t know who that is, and Bad explains that XD is an old friend of his. The misunderstanding has been cleared up!

- Bad and Ant apologize to Foolish, and Foolish admits he doesn’t actually have Skeppy. Maybe all of these long lasting conflicts could be easily resolved if they just spoke to each other!

Foolish: “Do any of you know about the Death Book?”

Bad: “The Death Book? We’re not supposed to talk about that–”

Foolish: “What do you mean?”

Bad: “Uh – nothing, I-I was told not to say anything!”

Foolish: “Oh, you’re gonna tell me. You’re gonna tell me everything you know. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow...”

Bad: “I don’t want to – oh, look at the time!”

- Bad backs away slowly. Foolish decides to let him go and call it a night

---

#dream smp #dream smp recaps #long post #long posts

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gyusfavlibra · 3 years ago

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THIS IS MY WORK! PLEASE DO NOT COPY OR REPOST ON OTHER SITES/APPS!!!!

Warnings: +18, smut, fingering, hand job, sex in bathroom, language, jealousy, fighting, arguing.

Y/n and Sarah sat quietly on Kie's bed as they waited for Kiara to stop degrading the lavender dress she wore while standing in her large mirror. Mrs. Carrera coming through the door to make sure the girls were all dressed. "This is disgusting."

"I know it's just horrible."

"I'm asking you guys to just relax and go to a fun party."

"I look like a bourgeoisie pig."

"I think you look beautiful," y/n said while shrugging at Kie. She just gave a smile back to her, still hating the look no matter what compliments were given.

"Will you please not worry about socioeconomic injustice for one night?"

"Mom, people not three miles from her have no power, no running water, and we're going to Midsummers."

"That's so tone deaf."

"Y/n," the mother scolded at her niece. "Do you know how hard we had to work to get into the Island club?"

"Yeah, mom. How could I forget? You had to grovel for, like, ten years--"

"Twelve years, and we also had to cough up a huge chunk of dough-"

"To keep up with the Joneses-"

"No, so you had the same experiences that I had as a child."

"But weren't parents as teens out, like partying, getting drunk, making out in the backseats of their cars at drive in movies," the cousin listed while putting her things in its bag. "Getting pregnant."

"That doesn't sound fun," Sarah added.

"Do you girls even know what the Island club is?"

"A factory farm."

"For debutantes," Y/n raised her eyebrows.

"It's a nice place, with nice people where you can do fun stuff."

"With out-of-touch rich people, while the island sinks slowly into the ocean."

"Water filling the poor's destructive lungs while the wealthy ones get away on million dollar boats."

Sarah sat quietly laughing on the comfy blanketed mattress. Mr. Cerrera sighed, saying one last thing before walking out. "Okay, I want you to put on your party face, girls, if you want to live."

"Did your mom just threaten to kill us?"

"Maybe. I think so," she nods as she turned around to the duo, fixing the flower crown that sat on her cousin's head. "You nervous to see Rafe."

"Why did you have to bring that up?"

"I was curious. I know it's only been two days, but-"

"Hey, he broke up with me. So if he wants to talk, that's in his duty. Not mine. I did nothing wrong."

Sarah got off the bed, swinging on it's pole. "Except flirt with JJ, or so he says."

"I was not...flirting with JJ. He has a crush on Kiara. I'd never."

"But Rafe doesn't know that."

°°°°

*flashback*

"What if she doesn't like it?"

"She'll love it. She's hippie."

Y/n and JJ sat on John B's porch, smoking a blunt. The girl was trying to help him do something nice for Kiara so JJ could ask her out without feeling weird. He's liked her for the longest and he was finally ready to tell her how she feels.

"Alright, now practice what you're gonna say."

Just as Y/n finished saying the statement, her own boyfriend, Rafe Cameron showed up. Standing behind them listening in.

"Okay, uh, hey I have to tell you something...uh important," the blonde began speaking, using hand gestures because of his nerves. "I really really like you. Like not like friends like, but I have feelings, uhm, strong feelings for you. Because you're like super hot, andnyou're like a really cool chick. So I was wondering if maybe you'd wanna...go out with me."

"Yes, t-"

"What the hell!"

The manly unknown voice shocked them both, their figures jumping at the sound because they thought they were alone.

"Rafe, what're you doing here?"

Y/n asked confusedly as she stood from the steps. The Kook just scoffed and walked back out. Ignoring her question. She shared a glance with JJ before going to follow after him.

"Hey! Where you going? What's wrong?"

"A pogue!? Y/n, seriously?!"

"What're you talking about?"

"You're cheating on me with a pogue?" He shouted. Y/n scrunched her eyebrows, looking at the unnecessary upset individual.

"What do you mean cheating? I'm not cheating on you. We were just talking."

"Bullshit. That's bullshit! I heard it all."

"Rafe, it's not like that. Jj was just-"

"I should've known better. I should've known," he fumed. His right foot swung to kick the dirt near his truck that he was so very close to getting into.

"Known what?"

"I should've never trusted a pogue. I knew something like this was gonna happen. You were just gonna throw me away like Sarah did, Topper. Right? Huh?"

"You sound ridiculous. I was never throwing you away. I was helping him out."

"Yeah, while you're at it. Might as well help sleep with him too."

Y/n scoffed, taking a step back from the angered boy who's brain had just functioned what he said. Part of him regretted it very much. But the other part thought you deserved it because of his cheating accusation.

He opened his vehicle door. Stepping one foot inside. "We're done."

The girl just laughed with held tears reaching for the openess. She turned around to head back inside as Rafe just drove off.

°°°°

"Hey, no tearing up today. Go to this stupid thing and show him that his little cheating accusation act didn't hurt you at all. You're stronger than that."

"Thanks, Kie."

The girls finished up their last minute touches. That includes sweeping their dresses with roller for no hair, any makeup redos, or hair finishes. The ride to the country club was quiet. Well, y/n was quiet.

This would be her first time seeing Rafe since their break up a three days ago. They've been doing everything in their mighty to avoid each other. And it definitely worked. But like her friend told her, she wasn't gonna get worked up. Letting Rafe see her weak was like telling him he was right about everything. But he wasn't.

"Jesus, Kook land."

"I forgot how packed this thing is every year."

"Well, let's go. I gotta walk out with my family."

The Cameron family walked out with their heads high and the Kook crowd cheered for each one. Y/n kept her eyes gazed to Kiara since they were in the middle of a conversation. Not caring if that family came in or not. That excludes Sarah.

Rafe watched from his spot by his dad, as they exited to outside. Breath hitched when he saw Y/n and her dress. It was a dark toned red, had tulle, and a revealing chest opening.

A red flower crown on her head, complimenting her beautiful down hair. She looked amazing and hot to Rafe. He had to clear his throat before excusing himself.

"Hey," the red dresses girl heard from beside her as a hand landed on her lower back. She removed it before her eyes retracted to theirs. Kie just pursed her lips before leaving to hangout with Sarah. Y/n internally screaming that she left her there.

"What do you want?"

"Uh, you look nice."

"Okay. Thanks. You don't too. What do you want?"

"Nothing. Just saying hi."

"Bye."

"Wait, wait, wait. Why are you mad at me? Shouldn't I be the mad one here?"

"Why?"

"Because of what you did," he said with furrowed eyebrows. Y/n shrugged.

"I didn't do anything."

"Do- do you not remember what happened on the cut three days ago? The fight."

"You slut shaming me and accusing me of cheating with JJ. That? Yeah, I remember that."

"Accused? I heard you."

"Heard what exactly?"

"JJ, was telling you he liked you and thought you were a cool hippie chick, which you are not. You're not hippie. And then he asked you out and you said yes. As soon as I walked in."

Y/n stared at him blankly. Before bursting out laughing. A few guests behind them staring with a look that showed they weren't used to loud talkers or laugher. "Oh my god. You thought? Jesus that's absolutely hilarious."

"What is?"

"That you think- you think that JJ was confessing feelings to me. Whew that's rich."

"I heard it, Y/n."

"He wasn't confessing anything to me you shit head. He was practicing for when he asked out Kiara."

Rafe was confused. Majorly. Inside and out. "But she-"

"He likes Kiara. And she's my cousin. You think I'd really hurt anyone like that? How low of me do you think? Have fun at this party."

Y/n walked off to go look for her disappeared friends. Not wanting to spend another second in a spot with someone who was so rude over something he knew nothing about. Just assumed. Never asked.

As she walked down the corridors of the porch that many people stood on drinking, a hand grabbed her shoulder, turning her around. Her eyes fixated on the blonde in a black tux and a bow tie.

"Holy shit, JJ. You scared me. What're you doing here?" She asked as she hugged him.

"Well, Sarah somehow convinced her dad to let me in tonight to hangout with Kie."

"Have you seen her?"

"I was just looking for her myself. C'mon. She's probably inside."

She grabbed his hand. Pulling him inside. They found Kie just minutes later with Pope. He was working the grill with his dad. Sarah was getting raided by Topper about their own stupid shit. Y/n decided to go get herself a drink and maybe find someone to dance with.

The straw rested on her lips as she stood against the porch railing. Gazing over all the people who say around laughing, probably bragging about their money, summer vacations, their older kids getting into a good college. Typical kook things.

Her eyes focused on a specific couple talking off to the side. Her eyes burning a whole in the back of Rafe's head as he tried to flirt up a storm with some Kook she didn't know whatsoever.

Her body was fuming. Was Rafe really gonna sit in front of her and flirt with a whole other girl that isn't her. Just a few days after their breakup. It's like he's trying to play victim. And she's had it.

"Hey, Sancho. Lassie."

The brunette Rafe was talking up a storm to laughed. "I'm sorry who are you?"

"Oh, you gonna introduce me to your side piece here?"

"Would you stop? We're just talking."

"Talking? Yeah, okay," Y/n laughed. The girl just looked at her dazed. "Hi, I'm his girlfriend. Y/n. And you, yeah you're excused."

Rafe was truly enjoying this scene. Internally rooting for Y/n. He wasn't gonna object to that fact that she called herself his girlfriend. Because now that he knew the truth, it changed his perspective.

"Who do you think you are?"

"I already told you. Wh- can you not hear correctly?"

"He said he was single so, why-"

"He lied. So, you can go away now- Rafe. Let's go. We need to talk."

"What're you his mother now?" The rando questioned. Y/n turned to her and gripped her face.

"If you wanna keep these teeth, then I suggest you stop talking. Go find somebody else's boyfriend to mack on."

She dragged Rafe by his hand into the upstairs private bathroom. Locking the door behind her. "What're you doing?"

"Just having a friendly conversation. There a problem?"

"You were flirting, Rafe. That was flirting," she paced. Hand against her for head.

"Like you're any better. You lied to me."

"I've never lied about anything."

"You said JJ liked Kiara."

"Yeah. He does."

"Then why is he holding your hand, hugging you, and leaving inside with you instead of the girl he supposedly likes," Rafe argued. Gripping onto the large counter.

"Rafe, I grabbed his hand and brought him inside to find Kiara. And I hugged him because I was happy for my friend. God, Rafe how many times do I have to tell you that I am not cheating on you."

"It's kind of hard to believe that shit when I keep seeing things with my own eyes."

"Then stop assuming and come ask me. Jesus, do you not trust me or something. Because I trust you. Anytime I hear that you're at a party doing lines with hot blonde's next to you, I brush it off because I know you'd never. Why can't you just do that for me."

Rafe stood from his seat. Pinching the bridge of nose. The guilty conscience grazed through his mind as he listened to her words. He had issues with trust and with others, but he knew it wasn't a reason to take it out on the only person who's loved him for him.

"I'm sorry. Okay? I'm sorry. You're right. I should trust you. Just like you trust me. I'll work on it. I promise."

"Don't promise me that. Just show me that you love me just as much."

The words clicked. He did love her. And he cared about her. More than anyone in this world. And he wanted to show her. In the most physical way possible.

"C'mere."

"Why?"

"Just c'mere," he repeated as he grabbed her by her waist, pulling her closer to him. She stumbled, but Rafe's grip kept her in place. He moved his face closer to hers, lips almost touching as they grazed against each other.

He used the hand placed on her waist to grip the fabric of her dress. Pulling it upwards. Her breath hitched as he hand snaked under the red tulle and right onto her now soaking core. His pointy finger swept across the waistband of her panties.

Y/n wasn't expecting this as the outcome from their miniature argument but she wasn't complaining. And neither was Rafe.

He pushed her underwear down as much as he could from their position, before going back to her walls and making circular motions. Rafe finally closer the space, kissing her lips practically roughly as he continued rubbing her.

He kept a firm hand on her waist to make sure she had a gripping support if he legs gave out, which they indeed will. The motions stopped as Y/n pulled her lips away from his. Rafe stared at her daring eyes, questioning if she wanted his to continue.

"Put them inside me," she whispered. The Cameron smirked before obliging to her demand. He stuck to fingers into her wet cunt. A soft moan escaped her lips as he did so. Pumping them in and out of her. Y/n rubbed her hand against the erection in his dress pants.

"You like that, yeah?"

She nodded as the locked her lips. Not being able to speak because knowing if she did, she let out a loud moan and even at this club would hear.

She unbuckled his pants, putting her handninside to grip his penis and pump it as he slipped his tongue into her mouth. The hand he held to her waist was now gripped on her neck, gently. Y/n clenched around his fingers. Feeling her high come close. "Dont stop."

Rafe began pumping faster just as Y/n did so. The teens were so horny that they were both already reaching their extent. Rafe's shaft twitched in her hand. "I'm cumming."

"Do it for me."

That's all it took for Y/n to finish. And Rafe too. His liquids filling her hands as they both let out moans due to their intense actions. In one swift motion, Rafe snaked a hand around Y/n's waist turning then so she was against the counter. Her pulled the straps of her dress of her shoulders, leaving kisses as he did so before connecting his lips to hers.

Her pulled his tuxedo jacket off him. Snapping the bowtie off as well. Y/n moaned at the tluchnof his hands on her breast. Massaging them in his hands over the fabric of her strapless bra.

Y/n unbuttoned the spots on his shirt before pulling it off his shoulders and onto the floor. Rafe stop his gripping motions and pulled down his pants and boxers. He sat her up on the counter. Her bare ass connecting to the coldness of the marble designed setting.

Rafe rubbed his tip against her fold once or twice before pushing himself into her. Not giving a warning, but Y/n loved the suddeness. Y/n let a moan into his next as he began thrusting his hips. The girl gripping her black painted nails into his back.

Rafe's eyes rolled to the back of his head. Enjoying the feelings of Y/n's cunt wrapped around him.

"You like that?"

"Yes, god yes."

Y/n sat up, wrapping her arms around his neck. Each moan and huff she exposed in his earn make his whole body shiver. Rafe let out a grunt before answering. She clenched her walls around his dick. The dirty blonde groaned slamming into her body. "Do it again."

She did so. Clenching around around the boy as he slammed into her again. This time, hitting the spot that made her whole body go insane. "Tell me I'm yours."

"You're mine."

A moan escaped her lips after he said what she had wanted. Her hand smacked down onto the edge of the sinks counter. Grilling onto it for dear life. "Tell me it again."

The feeling of her finishing was fastly approaching. As well as for Rafe. The moans she let out made his go over the edge as he fucked her hard. "Tell me, Rafe."

"You're fucking mine, ah-"

Each of them let out a loud moan as they finished. Covering each others mouths. There shouldn't be anyone upstairs but for precautions they covered either way.

Rafe's head fell forward onto her chest. Taking large breaths as y/n did too. "Shit, y/n."

The Cameron pulled out of her. Helping her get redressed and cleaned just after he did himself.

"You're still on the pill right?" He asked as he zipped his pants.

"Yeah. It's fine," she smiled up at his 6'4 figure. Rafe reached down to kiss her passionately.

"I love you, Y/n."

"I love you, too."

311 notes · View notes

kpop---scenarios · 3 years ago

Text

Life After Death

Pairing: Kyungsoo x Reader

Genre: Zombie! Au, Enemies to Lovers

Warning: Death, Blood, Smut, Swearing

Word Count: 9k

Summary: The morning you woke up, everything seemed normal, until it wasn't. The world is turned upside down the government and the World Health Organization have shut down, zombies around every corner and only the strong survive. You meet a few friends along the way, and lose even more as you continue to fight for your life. You never thought you'd meet someone under these circumstances but here you were, happy while surviving life after death. Though you should have known, there's never a happy ending in an apocalypse.

A/N: This is part of the collab started by @biaswreckingfics! Go to her page to see the other stories written by terrific creators!

"I'll see you later." You whisper to your sleeping boyfriend before you place a light kiss on his cheek. You open the front door to your apartment, looking back and around at everything, making sure you weren't forgetting anything before you left. As you close the door, you realize you forgot to turn off the radio when you hear one of your favorite songs playing. With a sigh, you glance at your watch and you see you're going to be late, so you leave it, just missing the important message that interrupted everything.

"Breaking News: The World Health Organization has announced extremely serious side effects from the recent vaccinations of batch number 0506361. If the numbers 0506361 are on your vaccination cards please report to your nearest hospital to seek medical treatment."

You don't notice anything different or weird as you walk down the pathway from your apartment building to your parked car. The sun is shining, the air smells crisp, today was going to be a good day, you could feel it. You slide into the driver's seat of your car, turning it on and immediately syncing your phone to play your favorite playlist to amp you up for the day of work you had ahead of you. As you continue to drive to work you notice the streets seem a lot busier than they usually were, especially for 7:45am, some people in their suits running down the sidewalk screaming. Your stomach twisted as you continued down the street, your eyebrows furrowing as you tried to watch the people and the road, slowing your speed. You look out your window and see a man laying on the ground, with another man on top of him. You rolled down your window to yell at them, but when the man turned to look at you, panic ensued. His eyes were white, his face was covered in blood, veins pulsating in his face. Nothing about him seemed human. He looked directly at you, and stood up. Your hands shook as you rolled up your window as fast as it would go. The man suddenly now bolted towards you, snarling. With your window up and both hands now on the steering wheel, you try to breathe through the lump that had appeared in your throat. As you keep driving, you see more and more of people being attacked, tackled and ripped into, people running away crying and screaming, vehicles crashing, buildings and cars up in flames. You could hear the blood curdling screams from inside your car. With shaky hands you switch the station of your radio to see if anyone was reporting on what the fuck was happening.

"..If the numbers 0506361 are on your vaccination cards please report to your nearest hospital to seek medical treatment.. there's a virus.. It's zombies. Zombies are attacking the city.. everyone seek shelter.. oh god.. please no."

You quickly turn your car around, speeding back to your apartment as you try to swerve off the undead as you rush back to your boyfriend. You may not know much, but you've seen enough zombie movies to know that you need to get supplies. You drive your car up and over the curb, parking directly on the lawn in front of your building and run inside. You were lucky you lived right on the ground floor of one of the first apartments in. You struggle to slide your key into the lock, the cries of residents pleading filling the hallway. Your key finally slides into the lock, quickly you turn it and shove your door open before slamming it behind you.

"Jaebum?" You whisper as you scrounge through the front closet looking for the duffle bag that you knew was in there. "Jaebum." You hiss again, running to the kitchen. You pack all the perishable food items and then begin filling up every jug you could find that had a lid with water. You tore through your junk drawer grabbing the flashlights and batteries, and any candles you could find as well as your butcher block.

"I'm serious, Jaebum. You need to answer me now." You hiss, bringing the bag into the living room. You guys needed to leave quickly, which meant you needed to pack even quicker. It wasn't like him not to answer you, it made you worry. You glance to the front door and his shoes were still exactly where he had left them the night before. You crept up to your closed bedroom door, with your hand hovering over the door knob. Your heart felt like it was beating out of your chest as you grabbed the knob, slowly turning it. You push the door open, expecting to see him, but he wasn't there. You quickly changed out of your work clothes, and grabbed everything from all of your drawers and shoved it into the bag. It wasn't until you had finished grabbing what you needed and you had a second to listen that you heard the shower running from down the hall, but for whatever reason, something didn't feel right. You tiptoed quietly down the hallway, standing in front of the door, you pressed your ear against it but heard nothing other than the sound of the shower running.

"Jaebum?" You whispered, gently knocking on the door, but there was no answer. You turned the knob, and opened the door. You saw your boyfriend standing there with his back turned to you. "Oh my god, Jae, we have to go! There are fucking zombies outside!" You gasp, still having a hard time believing those words that were coming from your mouth. In a split second he turned around, his face was beginning to contort, one eye was pure white.

"Y/N.. somethings wrong." He chokes out, spitting out blood before he falls to the ground, his body spasming while he froths at the mouth.

You let out a loud scream as you slam the door shut, running down the hallway to grab the duffle bag before heading out. You swing your door open to run out and crash into a man who falls into another group. You turn to apologize but already there were zombies staggering down the hallway at a quick pace. You whisper an apology before you run out the front door, his cries and pleas for help making your heart sink. You release a big breath seeing your car is still there. You climb in your front seat, closing the door as fast as you can and locking all the doors before turning your car on. Just before you were able to put your car in reverse and speed away, a man began banging on your window.

"Please miss, please open your door." He asks. You look at his face, he's sweating, blood splattered all over his face. His fists and arms remain pressed against your window, smearing blood across it. Your eyes drift down and you see a fresh wound - a bite mark and a chunk taken from his arm.

"You were bitten.." You say to him through the window.

"I'm fine. It's fine.. it's not a bite.. please." He begs. He turns to look behind him and looks back at you, panic written all over his face.

"Please miss, they're coming.. please." He cries.

"I can't." You yell, turning your head away from them. You put the car in reverse, stepping on the gas you pull away from him, knocking him to the ground. As your car stops so you can switch it into drive, you watch as the man gets mauled by a herd of the undead. You felt bad, but you couldn't have helped him, even if you wanted to.

You drove towards the freeway, thinking your best bet is to get out of the city. Your eyes were glued to the road and watching the mirrors, you watched as people panicked while driving, crashing into other cars trying to merge first, crashing into medians, and going in all directions. You could feel a panic attack coming along as you finally realized you were all alone. You had no one to talk to, no one to help you and that was terrifying. You glance down at your gas gage, seeing you had almost a full tank, you knew you would be able to make it to the one place that was probably the safest, your cousin Ray's.

You're stuck in traffic with your doors locked as you see a few people running to cars, trying to get in. There's a man, crying and panicking. No one would let him in, a herd of zombies following behind him. You needed to make a quick decision, so you rolled down your window motioning them over to you. "Here, get in." You yell, unlocking your doors. A man climbs into the backseat of your car, and you quickly lock the doors as soon as the door closes.

"Thank you." The man cries

"Have you been bitten?" You ask, turning to look him over.

"No.. no I haven't. Some men.. they pulled me out of my car, and took off, leaving me out there to die." The man explains. "You're the first person who offered me any help."

"I'm glad I could help." You smile through your rear view. "My cousin has a farm just an hour or so up from here. My family is heading there now. He's been preparing for an apocalypse for a long time. We should be safe there." You explain.

Earlier you had gotten a frantic call from your mother, her asking if you had seen what was going on. You couldn't understand why she thought you lived under a rock and didn't know anything. You did leave your house and listen to the news, contrary to popular belief.

"Thank you, thank you." He cries. You just smile as you continue to drive to Ray's farm.

An hour later you take a left turn, driving down the gravel road that leads you to the farm house. You drive slowly, seeing your mom's car, your aunt's car and a few other relatives. You sighed a sigh of relief, knowing that your family was safe. The two of you get out of the car and quietly make your way to the door. You softly knock but there's no answer. You turn the door knob, pushing the door open and it's empty. You walk down the small hallway and hear nothing. Your mom isn't talking, Ray wasn't yelling, no one was making a sound and that was very unusual for your family.

"Hello?" You call out.

You hear footsteps coming from down the hall as the two of you stand around the kitchen. "Hurry up." You laugh and cry.

As the footsteps got closer, you could hear snarling. Your laughter stopped as your cousin Ray came out of the back room. "Zombies." You whisper, backing away.

Not far behind him was your mom, dad, and aunt all coming out, rushing towards you all. "Run!" You scream, heading towards the door. You pull it open, the man behind you trying to get out the door, but he falls, crying as the undead come closer. He's doing his best to fight the zombies off but more stagger out from the back room, there are too many for him. "Run! Save yourself! If you meet my wife, her name is H/N, tell her I love her and our daughter." He yells. "I was trying to get home to them." He yells.

He's trying so hard to fight them, but he's bitten, he screams in agony as he's being ripped to shreds, his body being mauled by the undead.

His screams are now silent, the only sound filling the room is the sound of flesh being torn through.

You close the door, running back to your car. You see a gas can on the side of the house. You rummage through your car, knowing that you have a lighter somewhere in there. You remembered the argument you and Jaebum had gotten into about smoking and he tossed his lighter in your car.

Found it, under the passenger seat. As you went to get out of the car, you noticed something in the backseat.

A wallet.

You grabbed it, opening it up to see the license. It was the man's.

"Kim Jongdae." You whisper. You felt sorry for him, but you couldn't take long to mourn. You needed to be alert and get back on the road. You take your lighter and run to the gasoline. You pour it all over the front of the house, seeing your undead family banging against your windows broke your heart but you needed to do this. You flick the lighter, igniting the flame and throw it onto the ground. The house lights up, the flames quickly engulfing the house. You walk back to your car, slide into the driver's seat and sit there, tears pouring down your cheeks. You have no family, no friends, you have no one.

No one is coming to save you. You watch as your family and the house burn to the ground, exploding in the process.

That made you laugh a little bit, thinking of all the illegal shit your cousin Ray had in his basement.

A while later you get yourself together and drive over to the barn. If you knew anything about your cousin, it is that he always stored something in his barn, besides his pride and joy of a car, his old bronco, Monty. You pull the doors open, and take the tarp off the car, revealing its shine. Just as you remembered it. You peaked in the driver's side and sure enough, the keys were dangling from the ignition.

You began walking slowly to the back of the barn, opening another door, and here you found the jackpot.

Guns.

From a machine gun, to a pistol, to a shotgun. You gathered them all, putting the guns and the ammo in the backseat of Monty. You grab your bags from your car, tossing them in as well before looking around to see if there was anything else you could take. You notice a radio, but don't think much of it at the moment.

You climb into the driver's seat, and pull out of the barn, feeling safer than you have all day. You keep driving down the deserted highway. Abandoned cars everywhere, a few bodies laying around but most of all, no zombies but also no humans either. You're barely paying attention to the road, when you hit something, causing you to swerve, and the car to make a funny noise. You get out to check and see your front tire, flat as fuck.

You didn't have a spare. It was getting dark and you were exhausted. You moved most of the guns to the floor of the back seat, grabbing a blanket and some food and water. You change your clothes, wiping yourself down before having a snack. Laying down in the backseat you try to plan out your next move, but your eyelids get too heavy, and you can't fight it anymore. You doze off completely, and for a little while, forget about the disaster you're in.

You stayed in your car for weeks, never coming across anyone human. You missed talking to someone, talking to yourself wasn't the same. At times you almost forgot what your own voice sounded like. When it was safe, you'd get out of the car and wander around the forest, collecting sticks and branches to make fires with, so you could heat up some of your food. You have some, but you were starting to run low and you didn't know what you were going to do when it ran out. You were limiting yourself to one meal a day but even that didn't seem to help.

You learned when zombies came near the car, in a few or a herd, you needed to hide yourself very well. No moving, light breathing and packed under a lot of things. You were sure if they couldn't see you then they would continue on their way and leave. It almost always worked.

Life in the apocalypse was lonely and exhausting. That night you went to sleep, hoping for a miracle.

You're woken up later, by a frantic tapping on your window. Your eyes adjust to the sun as you look directly out your back window. A group of men stand there, all looking terrified as one of them taps on your window harder. You crawl up to the front driver's seat. You know you can't go anywhere, not with your busted tire. You turn the car on, rolling down your window just a crack.

"What?" You ask, side eyeing all of them.

"Please, we won't hurt you.. we just need a ride. There.. there's a military base a few miles up, but we just can't walk anymore. We haven't come across anyone, human in a while." He stutters.

"My tire is flat." You explain. "I don't have a spare."

"I can change it for you, just gotta take one off another car." A man pipes up.

You didn't feel uneasy from these guys and you were one to always trust your instincts.

"You change the tire, I'll give you a ride." You say. A military base? Maybe it would finally be somewhere safe for you to be.

The man nods and gets to work. By the time he's done the sun is beginning to set, and then you're on your journey to hopefully find somewhere safe.

You're driving down the highway, doing your best to follow the men's map that has every military base mapped out in the 100 miles surrounding the area. "What are your names?" You ask.

"I'm Changbin." The one in the front seat answers. "I'm Chan, and this is Felix." One in the back answers.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Y/N." You say with a smile. As you continue to drive, it quickly becomes night time, everything is black, except for the dim lights coming from your headlights. The two men in the back continue to loudly talk and argue over something, making it hard for you to concentrate. You hated driving at night, especially near wooded areas, you never knew what was out there.

"Can you guys stop?" You ask, glancing to the back.

They continued and got louder. Changbin was asleep in the front seat as they continued their bickering, making you get even more flustered. You turn your head to look back at them, telling them again to stop. They look at each other as you look back at the road and see something standing there. You get startled, yanking the wheel to try and avoid it, heading directly into the woods. The car heads straight on towards a tree and crashes. You hit your head hard on the steering wheel, knocking you out.

What feels like hours, but only seconds later you gain consciousness, just in time to hear Changbin and Chan crying. "She killed him." Changbin cried. "I'm gonna kill her." He yells.

You're struggling to open your eyes, your head is pounding.

You can hear some rustling between the two. "Don't." Chan says. "Leave her. She's in no condition to go anywhere. The undead will get her. She'll get her suffering, ``he says. "Let's take what we can and leave."

"No." You whisper. "Don't."

They can't hear you.

You can hear them rummaging through your car, collecting your guns, your food, your water, everything you had.

"Let's go." Changbin says, they both take off, leaving you there to die as you lose consciousness once again.

You're startled awake, surrounded by darkness. You unbuckle your seatbelt, getting out of the car with your head pounding. Your headlights are still on, and you see Felix's body laying on the ground. He had flown through the windshield from the impact of the crash. He wasn't wearing a seatbelt. You begin to cry, this was too much for you.

And then you remember. You look up and see a herd of zombies staggering towards you. They were quicker than you thought. You turned towards the road, running as fast as you could, your leg was throbbing. You run across the road to the other side of the woods. You can hear the snarling behind you as you do your best to navigate through the trees, branches breaking beneath your feet.

You stop, hiding behind a tree, trying to control your breathing. You listen, you can hear the sounds of them walking through the forest, searching for you. You take a second before you take off again, trying to zigzag through the woods in your best attempt to lose them.

You look up, seeing a fire. You run towards it, the flames becoming closer, you can hear the sound of faint words.

Then everything goes quiet. Suddenly the fire is put out and you can hear the sounds of guns clicking.

"Don't shoot." You yell out. "Please."

"What do you want?" A woman yells back.

"I'm.. there's a herd following me. I need help. I was in an accident, I was robbed. I haven't been bitten." You stutter.

"We don't need anyone else." A man yells. "Keep moving."

"Please.. I just need some help. I'm all alone." You cry.

"Move along, before I put a bullet in your head." He yells.

You let out a sob as you turn, beginning to run a different way. You hope you can find a safe place and a group of people but for tonight, you just hope you can survive the night.

It had been months.

Months since the outbreak, months of being on your own, months of fighting, scavenging, and hiding. You had come across a few groups, but they wanted nothing more than to take what you had and leave you defenseless. You had learned to hide from most people, giving yourself the advantage of a surprise attack. Most of the time you were successful and they just took off but sometimes they also fought back.

A week ago you had come across a small town, and had found some food and water and a place to stay, but you knew better than to stay in one place for too long. You quickly packed up your belongings into your backpack and grabbed your large spear. You learned awfully quick how to take down a zombie with it, finding it to be much more efficient than a gun, especially with having spears on both sides.

As you walk through the forest, your eyes and ears are open, listening for any signs of the undead. You stop in your tracks, hearing the sound of grunting and yelling, sounding close to you. You walk towards the sound, and come into view of four men trying to fight off a herd. They looked to be struggling, and although you don't usually like to insert yourself into others' fights, you felt like being nice and lending a hand. You run towards them, spearing a few in the head on your way.

You quickly join the fight, taking down a few zombies, as they get a little distracted, seeing another person helping.

"Focus." A man yells, bringing them out of the confusion.

A few minutes later, the last one is stabbed in the head, his decaying body dropping to the ground. The four men turn to look at you, two of them with a smile on their faces, one looking a little confused and the other one looking right angry.

"Hi." One with brown hair and a large smile says.

"Thank you." The blonde one grins.

"No problem." You laugh.

"I'm Baekhyun, this is Chanyeol." He introduces. "And that's Suho." He says, pointing to the confused one. "And that's Kyungsoo." He finishes, pointing to the angry one.

"Nice to meet you all." You say. "I'm Y/N."

"Are you all alone?" Chanyeol asks.

You nod your head.

"What's your story, Y/N?" Suho asks.

You smile awkwardly as you look at the four men who surround you. "My boyfriend turned into one of them when this whole thing started, so I was on my own from the beginning, in a sense. I met a man on my way to my cousin's farm, where my family was gathering, and when we got there they all had already turned. He..he tripped and he fell while trying to escape and he was bitten." You shudder. "I gathered supplies and I took off, and ended up with a flat tire a few hours away. I stayed in my car for weeks, managing pretty well on my own. I met three guys who offered to change my tire for a ride to a military base but when we finally got going.. it was dark and they were arguing in the back." You explain. "I turned around to tell them to stop, but they wouldn't listen and when I looked back at the road, there was something there and I swerved." You sigh. "We hit a tree, and one of them flew through the window. The other two robbed me of everything I had and I've been alone ever since."

"Well not anymore you're not." Baekhyun smiles. "You can join our group."

"Yeah!" Chanyeol exclaims.

"No." Kyungsoo grunts, walking past you, glaring at you. "We didn't need your help. And you're not joining us." He spits. "You're not going to let her join, right?" He asks Suho.

"I don't know." Suho sighs.

"Suho, everyone around her dies. She's bad fucking luck and if you bring her with us, we're all as good as dead." He spits.

"Meeting." Suho announces.

The four men huddle around, whispering to each other. You can make out Baekhyun and Chanyeol saying yes, and Kyungsoo saying no.

Seconds later they all stand up, Kyungsoo looking pissed with the other two looking happier than a pig in shit.

"If you would like to, we would like to invite you to join us. We know it's tough out here, and I can't imagine what it's been like to be alone." Suho says.

You look between all the men, even if one hated you for no reason, you were tired of being alone, and being scared alone.

"Yes." You announce. "Thank you."

"Come on, our camp is this way." Chanyeol smiles, waving you along. Three men begin walking away, but Kyungsoo walks towards you.

"I don't trust you." He murmurs, moving in close. "If anyone from this group so much as gets a splinter, I'm coming for you." He growls into your ear, his tone is low and very threatening. Goosebumps cover your skin as you feel his hot breath on your ear.

You nod your head.

He turns away from you, running towards the rest of his group.

Maybe this wasn't such a good idea?

You felt like your legs were going to collapse as you continued to walk behind the group. Baekhyun turns around, smiling as he announces you have arrived. You look around and see a bunch of trees, but no camp, except for the small campfire pit that sat on the ground.

"It's.. nice." You smile.

Chanyeol, Suho and Baekhyun start laughing.

"Look up." Chanyeol says.

You tilt your head to the sky, and see a decent sized tree house sitting between a few trees. Your jaw drops, this was one thing you had never expected to see. "Come, we'll give you a tour." Baekhyun says, beginning to climb up the swinging ladder. You follow behind Baekhyun, the rest coming up behind you. When you get inside, you're honestly still amazed. It wasn't much but it was safe and it was out of the way and off the ground.

"We pull up the ladder when we're here, and when we all leave we just hide it." Suho explains. "We have food, water and sleeping bags. The most important things. We all pitch in around here, whether or not it's repairs, runs, or fights, everyone helps." He says, looking at you.

"Of course. Whatever I can do to help, I will." You assure them.

"Or don't, I'm not ready to die." Kyungsoo mutters, setting his stuff down.

Your eyes darted over to Kyungsoo, giving him an offended look. He looks back at you, not caring if he's hurt your feelings. You can sort of understand why he's weary of you, but it's not like you killed these people for the hell of it. You were determined to prove that it wasn't you, that you weren't bad luck. How you were going to do that, you had no idea.

That night you sat around a campfire, your belly fuller than it's been in a while, while you listened to stories Baekhyun and Chanyeol shared about their friend group. As it turned out, there were a total of twelve of them when this first started. Some of them were unfortunate to be ones who had gotten the batch of vaccines, a few they had lost while traveling, some died in fights, or took off to find their loved ones.

"Have you come across any of them?" You ask.

"We've looked, but no luck so far. There are two we're still looking for. Oh Sehun and Kim Jongdae." Suho says.

Your heart stops. Your head darts up, looking at him with wide eyes.

"What?" Chanyeol asks.

"What was that last name?" You whisper.

"Kim Jongdae? He was one of our best friends." Suho tells you.

You gulp, there's a ball forming in your throat. "What?" Kyungsoo yells. "What do you know?"

"I.. He said he was trying to get back to his wife and kid.. h-he told me to run and save myself. I wanted to help him b-but I didn't know how." You choke out.

"The man that was bitten at your farm. That was Jongdae?" Kyungsoo asks.

"I saw his license in his wallet.. he had dropped it in my car when we got out. I'm so sorry." You cry.

Kyungsoo rushes towards you, tackling you to the ground, straddling you.

"You fucking bitch, I knew you shouldn't have joined us. It should have fucking been you. You should have died, not him." He screams in your face, spit flying from his mouth as he hands pin your shoulders to the ground.

You're bawling as Suho and Chanyeol pull Kyungsoo off of you, he's still crying and yelling. "It should have been you!" He yells.

Baekhyun helps you off the ground, guiding you to go up into the tree house. He sets out a sleeping bag for you, tucking you in as you cry into the built in pillow. 'I'm so sorry." You whimper.

"I know. And we know it's not your fault. Jongdae was a clumsy motherfucker so I'm not surprised he tripped. Don't take what Kyungsoo says to heart. He's been through alot and he's not warm to new people. Just give him a bit." Baekhyun tells you. He gives you a half smile before climbing down the ladder and sitting back around the fire, helping to calm things down. That night you fell asleep with tears staining your face.

Days bled into weeks, and then into months, until this new life and these men were all that were at the top of your mind. Chanyeol had finally been able to make contact with the ham radio that had been found on one of many expeditions. There seemingly were whole groups of people like yourselves out there, sticking together and trying to survive. You reflected on the wonder of it all as you cleaned the rabbit you had caught, the best you could.

Kyungsoo had become different with you, he didnt give off a hatred towards you anymore. His words didn't cut quite as deep. Slowly you were becoming closer, and you enjoyed it.

Suddenly, you feel a presence behind you, waves of hot breath covering the nape of your neck, sending chills down your spine. He didn't even need to speak, you already knew who it was. "You're doing it wrong." Kyungsoo breathed, his body close to yours.

"I'm not." You retort, continuing to skin the dead animal. You tried to ignore his presence, and that fact that he made you feel so many mixed emotions whenever he was around.

You both hear a crunch of leaves behind you, making Kyungsoo step away from you and turn around.

"What are you guys doing?" Baekhyun asks, raising his eyebrow.

"She's skinning the rabbit wrong. She's going to take off all the meat with the fur." Kyungsoo announces.

"I am not.. shit." You spit, looking on the ground, seeing hunks of meat still attached to the fur.

"Told you." He mumbles, walking away and into the forest to try and find more food.

You stick up your middle finger at the man who drove you crazy day in and day out.

"Y/N." Suho calls out to you, a few hours later. "If you want to take a bath, go to the stream now. It's going to be dark soon."

You nod your head, climbing up the ladder to grab your things. You slide back down, just in time for Kyungsoo to be protesting something.

"We've all got other things to do, you're the only one free." Suho tells him. "Y/N, Kyungsoo will be keeping watch for you."

"I really don't ne.." you start.

"Yes you do." He says, looking at you. "And you will go. That's it."

With an aggravated groan, Kyungsoo stomps off towards the stream, with your speed walking to keep up with him.

As you finish up your wash, you dry yourself off with your towel, pulling your jeans on over your damp legs. You bend down to grab your shirt, when you hear a rustling from behind you. You stand up straight, your heart pounding in your chest.

You hear it again, the sound now closer to you. "Fuck." You scream, running towards Kyungsoo. Your body collides with his, your breasts pressing against his hard chest. "There's something out there." You whisper.

You both hear the sound, Kyungsoo holding onto you as his eyes dart around, taking in the surroundings. Seconds later a deer walks out of the bushes, grazing and you can feel your heart slow down.

"It's a deer." He announces, looking at you. You look back at him, your eyes trailing to his heart shaped lips. Your own set of lips parting slightly as you look back at him, his eyes haven't moved from your face. Without thinking you inch yourself forward, which causes Kyungsoo to inch back. Your stomach sinks. You cannot believe you just did that. Why did you think that he would return a kiss?

"We should head back." He says, avoiding eye contact and clearing his throat.

You feel so embarrassed. You quickly whisper an apology before grabbing your things and taking off, hearing a faint "wait." From behind you. You're running through the words, desperately trying not to cry as you can hear Kyungsoo running behind you.

You finally slow down, trying to catch your breath as your lips quiver. You hear a stick break behind you. You turn around with a sigh, and come face to face with a zombie, snarling as he reaches out for you. You scream loudly as you try to fight it off, tripping in the process. You fall back with him on top of you as he tries to go in for a bite. Black bile is seeping from his mouth, his breath is rancid.

"Help!" You scream out, one hand trying to reach for something, anything that would help you take him out.

Suddenly his body goes limp and you hear the sound of a sword coming out of his head. You roll the body off of you, and see Chanyeol smiling above you.

"Thank you." You sigh in relief. Chanyeol puts out his hand to help you up, when he's attacked. Another zombie staggers up to him, latching his teeth to Chanyeol's neck. He screams out in agony as the monster devours him before your eyes.

"No!" You cry. You take Chanyeol's sword, putting the blade right through the zombie's skull. Chanyeol sinks to the ground, sobbing while he holds his neck. "I'm sorry." You cry. "I'm so so sorry."

"It's.. not.. your...fault." He breathes. "Tell them.. I love them.." he stutters.

Kyungsoo, Baekhyun and Suho rush to Chanyeol's side. Baekhyun is sobbing while Kyungsoo and Suho hold back their tears.

"I didn't.. I didn't know there was a second one." You sob.

Kyungsoo walks over to you, his face stone cold. He wraps one arm around you, pulling you in close to him. "It's not your fault." He murmurs. The two of you stand there, watching the life drain from Chanyeol's eyes.

Baekhyun announces he will be the one to put Chanyeol down, but would like to do it in private. Three of you walk away from the sobbing man, your heart full of guilt.

The next day, the camp is quiet. You were busy making wood spears, like Chanyeol had taught you a few weeks ago. You couldn't even look at Baekhyun. You knew the two of them were best friends and your heart hurt so badly that Chanyeol died while trying to save you.

Had you not been so stupid and tried to kiss Kyungsoo, then this would never have happened. You knew this was your fault and there was nothing you could do to make it better. You can't bring Chanyeol back and you really wish you could.

"Careful." You hear from behind you. You turn your head and see Kyungsoo leaning against a tree. "If you keep sharpening it like that you're going to end up slicing your finger off." He tells you.

"This is how.. Chanyeol showed me how to do it." You say. You could barely speak his name.

Kyungsoo chuckles. "Yeah, he wasn't the best at doing it either." He crouches behind you, wrapping his arms around you to show you the proper way of doing it. Your heart still flutters as he touches you.

"Thank you." You whisper.

"Anytime." He says, standing up and walking away from you.

Fuck. You were so fucked.

That night you couldn't sleep. You stared at the empty spot beside you, where Chanyeol used to sleep. You could hear the small whimpers coming from Baekhyun and you just couldn't take it. You slowly slid out of your sleeping bag, slid on some shoes and climbed down the ladder. As you stand in the forest, you take a deep breath of fresh air. You need to gather your thoughts and heal yourself. You begin walking through the woods. It's quiet, and you didn't plan on going very far. As you're walking, you stop to listen. You hear a noise coming from in front of you but you didn't know what it was. You tried your best to hide behind the tree, limiting your breathing as you continue to listen. You can heat twigs breaking and leaves crunching. Your heart begins to race in your chest, you squeeze your eyes shut.This was a bad idea, you should not have left the tree house.

"What are you doing?" You hear from in front of you. You open your eyes and see Kyungsoo standing in front of you.

"I thought.. oh my god." You sigh. "I thought I was going to die."

Before he can say anything you both hear groans and snarls but you're not sure where from. You unintentionally let out a squeak. Kyungsoo covers your mouth with his hand, pushing you up against the tree. His body presses hard against yours, you can feel his hot breath against your neck.

The two of you stay like this for what feels like hours. When the sound is finally gone he pulls away from you.

"What are you doing out here?" He growls.

"I needed some air, and to think." You explain.

"You could die out here. This has to be your stupidest decision." Kyungsoo scoffs.

"No." You begin. Before your brain can tell you not to say anything, your mouth begins to move. "My stupidest decision was trying to kiss you." You say, turning away from him to walk away.

"I was surprised." He announces. "I didn't think you'd try and kiss me. I didn't think you'd even like me. I treated you terribly." He tells you.

"That's probably why I like you unfortunately." You sigh, making him laugh.

As the two of you are walking back towards the house, you hear whispers coming towards you. You both stop, hearing the sound of a gun loading, making you stop in your tracks. Kyungsoo pulls you behind him, moving both of you towards a bigger tree to hide behind.

"Show yourself walker." A man screams. "I know you're out there."

Neither of you say anything. Kyungsoo is against pressed up against your body, shielding you from any danger.

A while later you see a light flashing. It flashes towards your tree, making Kyungsoo push into you more, trying to keep the two of you hidden. The light passes the tree you're behind and continues to walk away. Neither of you move until the light is completely gone and out if sight. Both of you let out a sigh of relief but Kyungsoo doesn't move away from you. His face hovers close to yours, you can feel his breath on your face.

You wait. You wait for what you hope will happen but you don't think that it will come.

Until it does. Kyungsoo presses his lips to yours. You're shocked at first, until he begins moving his lips against yours and you get into it. You wrap your arms around his neck as he slips his tongue into your mouth. You moan into the kiss, making him groan.

"I want to fuck you." He says, his lips still just barely touching yours.

"I want you to fuck me." You breathe.

Kyungsoo turns you around, pushing you up against the tree. He kneels down, pulling down your sweat pants and underwear.

"Spread your legs." He demands.

You spread them as far as you can. You can hear the sound of his belt unbuckling behind you. Your pussy throbs in anticipation. You don't know how big or small he is, but you hope he destroys you. You couldn't even remember the last time you had been fucked at all.

Kyungsoo steps up behind you, taking two fingers and searching between your lips for your hole. He chuckles when he finds it, he can feel your juices dripping from inside of you. "So fucking wet." He groans, slowly pushing his two fingers inside you. Immediately you clench around them, it feels so good. "I needed to make sure you were wet enough, and fuck are you ever." He whispers in your ear.

He pulls his fingers out of you, and lines his cock up with your hold. You're bracing yourself on the tree as he pushes himself inside you. Your eyes practically roll back into your head as he stretches you out.

"Oh god." You cry, your fingernails digging into the tree bark.

"Shit." He cries, slowly pulling out of you before snapping his hips and harshly pushing his cock back inside. "It's gonna be quick." He groans.

That was fine with you, you knew you could rub your clit twice and cum, it had been too long.

Kyungsoo has his hands holding onto your hips as he snaps his, grunting and groaning from behind you. You reach between your legs, touching your clit. You begin to slowly rub it and you can already feel your intense orgasm already building up. You feel like you're going to cum already. His cock feels so nice sliding in and out of your pussy, the sound of his grunts and moans, with the feeling of his hot breath covering you and giving you shivers.

"Cum." He grunts. Your tighten your pussy around him as you orgasm washes over you, leaving your body feeling weak.

Kyungsoo moans loudly as he pulls out of you, jerking his cock to cum all over your ass. He lets out a string of swear words as he releases his load, breathing heavily as he works through it.

You both pull up your pants, and get situated. "We better get back." He says, walking back towarsa camp. You follow closely behind him, confused about your feelings for him, but more so his feelings for you, if there were any.

The next day you wake up with the thoughts of what happened last night over flowing through your head. You didn't know how to process this, or what was going to happen now. You decided to see how the day was going to play out and just go about your normal routine.

When you got downstairs you said hi to Suho, Baekhyun and Kyungsoo. Two of them said goodmorning back to you, and one did not. You tried to stop thinking about it but it was hard and you knew he wasn't the type of man to tell you his feelings.

However, all day he ignored you. Anytime you tried to say anything to him, he walked away, he refused to answer you and honestly you felt extremely disrespected. Your eyes burn as you fight off the tears, watching him talk and laugh with Baekhyun while you just get ignored.

Suho on the other hand most definitely noticed something was going on because a little while later you see Suho quietly yelling at Kyungsoo.

"I don't care what you did." Suho spits. "Fix it. I refuse to have a hole in our team because one of us is being a dick. Fucking fix it." He murmurs again before walking away.

That night you laid in your sleeping bag, wondering if this is what it was going to be like. You having feelings for Kyungsoo, and him taking advantage of it. Fucking you when it's convenient for him and ignoring you the rest of the time. Even after death, life was still so fucked.

You feel something pressing against you from behind. You slowly roll over and see Kyungsoo laying beside you in his sleeping bag.

"Can we talk?" He asks.

You nod your head.

"I." He begins. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for the way I treated you, I'm sorry for the things I said and for the way I acted when I found out about Jongdae. Its been hard to lose people, and it's even harder to accept new people into the group. You're doing a great job here and we're lucky to have you." He whispers.

"Thank you." You smile. But you really want to know why he ignored you all day. "What was going on today?" You ask.

"I enjoyed last night. I, um, had a girlfriend when this whole thing started. We got out together, we met up with Suho and Baekhyun and Chanyeol and she really helped build alot of this. I lost her a while ago, and it's been hard. I didn't think I would meet anyone, or fall for anyone else and then you came along. I feel guilty for liking you so much, like I'm cheating." He explains. "I was convincing myself it wasn't cheating."

"I get that. I was in a relationship when this thing started. Unfortunately for me, he ended up being one of the ones who received that does of vaccine. I had to leave him in our apartment and take off." You whisper. "You'll always have her memory with you and it's something you'll treasure. I didn't know her, but I'm sure she wouldn't want you to be sad and mourning her."

"You're right." He sighs. "It's hard to let go, but I do like you, Y/N. I want you to know that."

"I like you too." You smile.

The two of you lay there, whispering to eachother, laughing and enjoying the night. You couldn't have asked for anything better.

Over the next few weeks, the others had changed. With Chanyeol being gone, it took a toll on Baekhyun. He often sobbed at night, crawling next to you so you could rub his head while he cried. Your heart went out to him.

This life wasn't easy.

Suho had become much more grimmer and sullen. He barks orders at people, never engaging in coversations anymore. He's tired, everyone is tired with very little of hope for the future. Fighting for your lives everyday, scrounging for food and water is a struggle, however none of this stopped you and Kyungsoo from sneaking off when you could to be together.

Neither of you really talked when you weren't fucking and that was okay with you, you knew he still had feelings for you. It was the little things he did for you when no one was looking that reassured you. You both knew that announcing your relationship to Suho and Baekhyun would not end well, so keeping it between the two of you would be the best.

You announced to Baekhyun and Suho that you were going to the river, they both just nodded while Kyungsoo offered to be your watch.

It didn't take long for him to be pulling off your shirt and for you to slide off your pants and panties. Both of you walked into the cool water, soaking yourselves before Kyungsoo pulled you towards him. He lifts you up, letting you put your legs around him as he leans in for a kiss. You can feel his cock sliding against your pussy, waiting to be pushed in. He breaks the kiss, leaning down to pepper kisses along your neck as he thrusts, pushing himself inside of you.

You throw your head back as he holds you, fucking you harshly. There was never time to fuck slow, you always needed to be quick and get it done, just in case.

He pumps himself into you, his hand reaching between you and him, touching your sensitive bud and rubbing while he pounds his cock into you.

"Fuck baby." He groans. "You feel so fucking good."

You hold him close as your orgasm builds, biting your bottom lip and your hands gripping his hair. "Just like that." You breathe. "Don't stop." You grind yourself on him as you begin to cum, intensifying your orgasm. "Oh god yes." You moan, breathing heavily.

"I'm gunna cum." He moans, thrusting harder. Seconds later he releases himself, shooting his cum inside of you, his head resting on you as he catches his own breath.

"Fuck." He breathes pulling out of you. "I love you." He whispers.

You stare at him with wide eyes. This wasn't something you had been expecting at all, considering you did your best to hide the relationship at all costs. "I know it might be too soon, but I do and I need you to know that."

"I love you too." You smile.

You're brought out of your sweet moment when you hear screaming from Baekhyun and Suho. You both rush out of the water and get dressed as quick as you can before running back to camp.

"What?" You breathe. "What happened?"

Baekhyun and Suho grin as they stare at the radio. "Listen!" Baekhyun yells.

“Our dear citizens, to those who have survived. The WHO has created what promises to be a vaccine. We are asking all our citizens to make their way to the nearest hospital facility. Troops are being deployed along with helicopters and planes to transport as needed. Today … we have hope in the world again”

You all burst into tears. You did it, you survived and met some wonderful people. You have a love you had never thought you'd get again.

Kyungsoo embraces you tightly, crying into your shoulder as you do his. Quickly Suho and Baekhyun join your hug, all of you feeling such relief and happiness, for the first time in a long time.

As quick as you all can, you gather what you need to make the trek to find a hospital. You say a quick goodbye to your site that has kept you safe for so long, before taking off, hand in hand with Kyungsoo, and Baekhyun and Suho on either side of you.

It wasn't long into your journey, when you hear the familiar sounds of zombies wandering through the forest. The four of you prepare yourselves for a fight but as they come out, you realize there are more than you all had anticipated. You try to fight your way through the crowd, but somehow you're separated from the group, trying to take on more than you can. The others are distracted, they aren't paying attention to your calls for help. A zombie lunges at you, knocking you back. You're crying loudly but no one is coming to help. The other zombies kneel beside you as you keep trying to fight them off, but one takes a chunk out of your shoulder. You scream in agony as you lose your strength to fight. They're devouring you as you're fading into the darkness. You can hear Kyungsoo yell no and all the pain stops. You see him standing over you as you spit up blood. He's crying over your body, asking you to stay with him but you can't. You're tired of fighting, you want to let go now.

So you do.

You open your eyes and see a film over everything. Your body is sore, the scent of meat makes your mouth water and your stomach cramp. Everything feels stiff but something smells so good. Your hearing is better than ever, picking up the sound of a rapid beating heart and the sound of crying. Wait…Where’s my heart beat? You look with horror at the meat...

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, “I love you.” You reach out to stop the knife but your body is stiff and I responsive as you watch the knife plunging towards you. It’s me you scream in your head as it all goes dark

There is no happiness in life after death.

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