illomilo

[illomilo]

hellu hellu im back from my hiatus n am eager to get some new threads goin!! if u wanna plot for some day 8 threads pls LIKE this post n i'll come runnin ❤️

[illomilo]

charles bukowski, raw with love

[illomilo]

a do-over button or find-out-your-ending button?

here’s a paradox. since she was fifteen, she’d been telling all her friends that she’d die before she was thirty so she’d stay pretty forever, and yet, the idea of finding out her ending sounds so… unappealing for a girl who speaks so nonchalantly of death. and maybe it’s less to do with death or the fear of, and more to do with the fact that she’d know exactly how she’d go in the former because she’d be the one delivering the bullet—a quick, painless death. and yet, the latter in the context of this mission journey… mayhap the flesh of her shoulder bitten clean off by a clicker, or being at the mercy of a sadistic cultist— maybe it’s not about death after all, but more about control. about having her death be delivered at the hands of someone other than herself, even if she knows how it’ll go. feels a lot like home, like knowing father would come banging on her door come 6am, or mother would drive her to the shooting range everyday after school, and not being able to do anything about it. “a do-over,” she says, almost too quickly, as though chased by a ghost. “then maybe grandma and grandpa would’ve lived.”

[illomilo]

[AMMO CHECK]

they may have got off to a horrendous start, but hanna argues that their second meeting was equally as bad. there’s no guns blazing this time, and maybe in a military context, it seemed friendly, but there’s no shaking the sight of wontaek’s widened eyes as he pointed his gun at her. yes, she was pointing her gun back too, and yes, she in fact pointed her gun at him first and shot at him twice, but she’s, like, a kid kinda. and hanna’s one to double down, not double back, so she sticks her nose up at him and answers all of haneul’s attempts to get them talking with the verbal equivalent of the infamous k.

it's not all bad, though. if there’s one thing hanna loves more than herself, it’s haneul. and there was that one time when haneul had a little too much to drink after celebrating the fact that he had his first girlfriend—yes, he’s that lame but in his defence, their parents had stolen everything from him including all semblance of a love life—and wontaek was the one who carried him home. hanna was the one who opened the door. she’s so protective of her older brother that seeing him in that state kicked her into the rare mother hen mode, like how she holsters her brother up as if wontaek needed any help, orders the soldier to put her brother there on the couch, forgets to be mean. then, as she’s rubbing a warm towel across haneul’s cheeks, a soft, “so… where did you get the alcohol?” to betray her youth, like how the apocalypse started before she turned legal so she never really got a chance to taste it.

…and then he ruins it again when he pressures haneul to join division four. her brother had been beside himself that day, tossing and turning except he’s standing up, wondering if he should risk his life at the expense of being a good soon-to-be husband to his current girlfriend and father to his unborn child. hanna was there on the couch, debating this moral obligation that seemed so nonsensical to a girl like her. they need me, haneul insists. then i’ll go, hanna retorts, and when haneul tries to argue back, she leverages her raw, unhealing wound— ( what? you don’t think i’m as good as you? ) now, staring at division four’s illustrious leader giving his rallying speech on the day of dispatch, hanna strokes the gun in her holster, thinks about how much better he’d look with a hole between the eyes.

[illomilo]

wontaek:

( ... ) the entrance of another pilfers the rest of his sentence from his lips, a familiar face changing the scene. he’s yelling stop and it takes wontaek a minute to disengage fight mode, his finger ever so close to squeezing. ‘shit, haneul?’

there’s only a handful of times that kang hanna feels true, genuine fear. like that one time she’d been flagged for cheating in an important exam—all allegations true—and her school had threatened her expulsion. the news comes after a period of hard work, from building up her reputation from the ground up to finally and rightfully being crowned queen of the school, and there was no greater fear than having to have to start all over again. she remembers the beads of cold sweat gathering in her enclosed palms, the gnawing in her stomach that comes after a skipped meal or two— that sickening urge to get on her knees and beg.

( or the slowed down seconds before she makes the call to blow her grandfather’s head clean off. )

this— well… this is one of them.

finger on the trigger now, and for once, her hand shakes. the soldier moves at a pace that’s quick, sure, but not quicker than her pistol. and yet, hanna falters, all talk but choking before the kill. and in this way she grants him this newfound, bastardised courage, spewing past the nauseating smirk.

father would be so disappointed.

but see, hanna is of the belief that nothing is ever too late. there is always a way out of things. just like how she managed to finesse a lighter sentence in the form of a two-week suspension, or how she talked her way out of her parents’ chokehold on her right to live. and here it is now, mind visualising the pull of her trigger just short of that neuronal command for her finger to pull, until haneul’s yell shocks her off-balance and so she fires instead away from her brother and to the right of the soldier, narrowly missing his head.

“what the fuck—”

“he’s a friend,” haneul clarifies, both hands splayed out in a gesture for his sister to stop, “he’s with the fireflies.” hanna’s features pull into one of revulsion, a quick, “what? he killed doyun—”

but haneul cuts her off, turns to wontaek with the same gesture and declares, “that’s my sister.”

[illomilo]

LIA ‘CHESHIRE’ CONCEPT FILM

[illomilo]

there is no crowd more unforgiving than high school teenagers. hanna knows this best, has pointed a derisive finger at a fugly bracelet or a botched haircut once or twice. and likewise, the crowd gave back as good as they got, sneering at the one time she dyed her hair a colour she’d mistakenly thought would match her undertone. like all high schoolers, hanna learns that she needs to be perfect, that social survival was a tall order with no scheduled breaks, and the apocalypse happened right there, about a year prior to when she’d be old enough to learn that adults didn’t really give a shit about all that.

see here: in division four’s assembly at the town hall, hanna is running her fingers through the knots in her hair and picking at split ends, the way one would a boring, but probably important class. in comes a huge mutt, placing its paws on hanna’s freshly washed pants. the combatant jolts back and assesses the damage, eyebrows furrowed in irritation. and it’s here when she catches the dog’s seeming smile and drooping tongue, and from it, the streaming drool coating her right boot. hanna shuffles her foot back and looks furiously up at its owner. “hey,” she calls out, tone lacking the formality typically afforded to strangers, “you just walked your damn dog into the middle of a really important meeting, genius.” again, not that she cared about anything the meeting was actually about, only that her clothes were ruined and it wasn’t even day one. hanna crosses her arms and sneers, “can you, like, control your dog?”

CATS AND DOGS / @eunjiisms

[illomilo]

sunhwa:

( ... ) "what are you doing here, hanna?" her tone was caustic, something she hadn't realized she picked up from her mother until this very moment. she disliked the similarity and straightened her shoulders as she tried again. "this is dangerous. it isn't a joke." so many words were unsaid. 'you're going to get someone killed with your selfishness' or 'you don't work well with others' being the main thoughts that raced through her mind.

there is no antagonist greater than her parents. hanna comes to this conclusion when she’s nursing the wicked bruise on her shoulder from yesterday’s shotgun recoil and mother tells her to pick up her weapon. and her childhood was a lot like this: eight years old and father is waking her up at the crack of dawn claiming it to be an athlete’s sacrifice to live a regimented lifestyle, twelve and mother is driving her to the shooting range after a long day of tests. yes, hanna learns what it means to have parents. for her, it meant a complete loss of control.

so it’s no shock, really, when sunhwa’s mothering tendencies give her the biggest ick. they’d started off as friends—closer than—with sunhwa always looking out for hanna in ways her brother couldn’t, like shielding her from the injustices of the kdrt. but things end the way they always do with hanna: sunhwa gets a little too close, does things she doesn’t quite like, and hanna is quick to drop the dead weight. in this instance, it’s telling her what she should and shouldn’t do that is all too reminiscent of mommy and daddy dearest.

it's been awhile since their falling out and they haven’t spoken since, back when hanna had uttered some choice words to the scout. she’d almost felt sorry for the girl as soon as she said it, felt her heart drop like the nail she’d hammered into the coffin that was their close friendship, but she’s not the sort to double back. besides, she thought it necessary to get her point across. evidently not. because here is sunhwa, in her face after what felt like years only to berate her with another mothering lecture that feels a little too comfortable on her tongue. hanna rolls her eyes. “if it’s a joke, i’d be laughing,” she deadpans as she crosses her arms, and once again, she’s back to the fateful day that their friendship dissolved, in that very room. “i’d ask what you’re doing here, but this is so right up your alley,” her reference to what she perceives as sunhwa’s holier-than-thou complex falls as a derisive snort, “try not to get in my way, yeah? they gave me a gun this time, and they said i could use it.”

[illomilo]

eunji:

eunji stiffens the second she feels hanna's hand wrap around her arm. she jerks it away and shines her own light directly in her partner's eyes to get her to back off. "we're on night watch duty. that means protecting the group. how can we protect the group if we don't check suspicious noises? that's the most fundamental task." eunji's tone doesn't reflect irritation, but she slows down her words like if she was talking to a young child. "if you're too afraid then you're welcome to stay. i'll even tell saja to stay with you. but i'm going to do my job, with or without you." and with that, she turns back and continues on her way towards the noises. she mutters under her breath, just loud enough for hanna to hear, "disappointing."

what a bitch. eunji’s tone is filled with condescension and for a moment, hanna thinks to shoot her. it plays out in her head like a satisfying dream, an impulsive thought that comes when one assesses a burning stove. but who will protect her then? saja seems to be fond of her, but she probably wouldn’t take it lying down if hanna went ahead and offed her owner. the corners of her lips tug downwards and she mockingly mouths eunji’s ‘that’s the most fundamental task’ before uttering a hushed “fine.” takes the safety off the gun and ushers a hypocritical, “but don’t expect me to save you if it’s a fucking stalker.” she follows quickly behind eunji, takes measured steps as she points her torch towards the direction of the noise, and the sudden movement from the boundaries of her light causes her to jump back in a yell. hanna shuts her eyes and places a hand to her heart in relief. all that for fucking rats.

[illomilo]

her first word was her brother’s name. her mother had thought her like other children, implicated the age-old question of which parent she preferred and mistaken her reply as her partiality to her father because in a child’s babbles, ap- ap- appa sounded too close to brother. but it was always haneul’s hand that hanna was reaching out to hold, an endless game of hide and seek and hanna was always the one counting.

quite like now. hand on rubble, she’s ducking past gaps in walls from explosions past, gripping onto rusted ladders that creaked with old age, all because she was searching for him. her effort brings her to the surface, a sigh of relief falling past her lips when she comes face to face with the sun in days. a little to the left and hanna grins, places the sides of her palms against her cheeks to amplify her loud, “oppa!”

and it didn’t matter if it wasn’t haneul who turned to meet her. just like how it didn’t matter that the sun was already setting. in the event of an apocalypse, you learn to make do with half a glass, half a man, half a dream. so it didn’t matter that it was just byungho, because at the end of the world, you learn that just becomes enough. just becomes more than you could ever ask for.

so she hops from the manhole, runs off the road, and into the forest where byungho’s situated. eyebrows knitted in faux annoyance, and she channels her best wontaek voice into her pout when she says, “you know you really shouldn’t be out here. you could, like, die.” as though her screaming from before wasn’t taken straight out of the post-apocalyptic rendition of dumb ways to die. “thanks for the invite, by the way,” she grumbles, tone devoid of indignation as confirmed by the mischievous grin pulling at the corners of her lips, “anything cool to show me?”

THE REPLACEMENTS / @decolere

[illomilo]

eunji:

taking the night shift was something eunji never really minded; it normally meant silence and complete control of her situation. it was just her luck that hanna had been assigned to join her and saja - she was almost positive the universe was keeled over laughing at all the cards she'd been dealt recently. despite that, she'd been able to ignore hanna for the most part. everything was quiet, dark, and still... until it wasn't. eunji heard scuttling to her left and saja's ears perked up, both of them shifting into a crouch so they could silently investigate. she barely spared her partner a glance, merely nodding her head in the direction of the noise, before moving forward.

hanna thinks herself an ace shooter, and for the most part, she’s right. but like all things, some god up above has made it a law—a stupid one, if you ask the combatant—that you can’t have it all, and it’s in this way that she thinks herself nerfed down with her fear of the dark. like right now, how she’s got her handgun nestled in her palm expertly, casually, like a child with a dog-shaped balloon, and yet she’s practically shaking in her boots. then comes a weird, definitely threatening sound that’s got her jumping towards eunji—ugh!—except when she reaches out for the latter’s arm, all she gets in return is air. hanna shines her torch towards eunji, notes the other walking away, and tries again. “hey!” it’s half a whisper, half a yell, all parts a reprimand, “where are you going?” hanna yanks on her partner’s arm, “didn’t you hear what wontaek oppa said?” a rhetoric pause, then, “we’re supposed to stay here?” said in the tone of a duh. two beats, and a desperate, “…you sure the sound’s not coming from your dog?”

[illomilo]

🔫 ammo check! 💥

the first time she met him, she thought he looked a lot like that one obnoxious high school senior who thought he was god’s greatest gift, except a lot older. she even asked around to see if they were at all related, and was relieved when she found out they weren’t. ( could you imagine if he saw her in this state, cleaning dishes and plating pancakes? he’d never let her live it down. ) still, she couldn’t shake the resemblance, and it’s probably why she was a bit of a bitch to him when she was first paired with him as his fireflies mentee.

don’t get her wrong: she’d never trade haneul for the world. but sometimes, when it’s just her and byungho, she feels the same way she would around haneul; how she’d just talk on and on for ages without worrying about— well… much of anything, really. whether it be being judged or having a near death experience, because like haneul, byungho was always watching out for her. and she’d never say this out loud, but sometimes—rarely (!)—she almost wants to hang out with byungho more on the odd day that she’s had enough of haneul. it’s probably only because haneul is just so perfect and good all the time, and byungho… well, he’s kinda just like her. but like, in a good, relatable kind of way.

she keeps all the caps he gives her. it’s the apocalypse, for crying out loud. there’s not exactly a lot of cap designers going around to provide an infinite amount of caps, water rations are bad enough as it is, and hair combs seem to be a thing of the past so she needs something to hide the bad hair weeks, and well… she’ll admit byungho has good taste! not in clothes, though. caps are also kind of hard to get wrong. anyway. once, byungho asked her if the cap she was wearing was his, and she said it was haneul’s then tried to make him feel bad for thinking every cap in the whole qz was his. she was lying.

[illomilo]

Pablo Neruda, Selected Poems

[illomilo]

if everyone knew the real you, your real motives, would you be worried?

odd. as in, strange. as in, unfamiliar. as in, what were her real motives? the last time hanna ever had some elaborate, long-winded motive was when she was bored—and offended!—to death of the kitchen detail the kdrt had put her through. before that, when her high school senior reminded her that her brother’s success as an olympian wasn’t also hers to claim simply due to her blood association with him. her senior’s social death was her best work to date, and the most work she’d put into anything. and that’s the thing about hanna: she’s pretty sure she’s destined to never lift a finger. “what— that i don’t wanna work?” the rhetoric leaves as a ridicule, and the snicker falls all the same, “isn’t that for, like, the worker ants? it’s literally their name.”

[illomilo]

it is said that the hardest part about losing a limb isn’t the initial shock of it, but the phantom pains that come after. it’s losing the ability to walk, to have to depend on people and things and coming to learn of the importance of the limb you once took for granted. it’s the shooting pain with no remedy, the incessant itch with nowhere to scratch. hanna’s still got all her limbs and digits intact, but she argues that she knows this best.

and perhaps she’s right. after all, there’s this way in which her hand reaches out in the dark for haneul that’s reminiscent of an amputee’s plight. if there were ever a piece of her that was his—that was him—she’d think it her heart. the memory is bittersweet on her tongue, how her older brother would shine a torch to the ceiling whenever the lights blew out from the storm. she’d always known he’d been her leg to stand on, but she’d only come to terms with it fully now, in this abandoned subway. she’d been afraid of the monsters back then, too.

but haneul’s not here, and the torch in her hand is flickering from overuse. hanna reaches out for her brother but her fingers clasp around sunhwa’s arm instead, and she chooses to forget that sunhwa might just as well throw her into the horde if she was given the option to. “wait— did you… did you see that?” because what’s important right now isn’t the clashing of hanna’s defiant nature and sunhwa’s unsolicited mothering tendencies to sour their relationship. what’s important right now is the fact that hanna swears she saw the shadow of something moving right before her torch blew out.

BEDSIDE MONSTERS / @sangvislunae

[illomilo]

uiseong:

( ... ) this would be much easier if someone just told him what to do, but hanna's fast disappearing into muted greens. "i'll help her," he mumbles to the air, grabs the empty bag that used to hold the tent poles and makes after the younger girl. uiseong's got a handful of dry twigs in his hand by the time he catches up to her, though they're getting soggy around the middle where he's gripping them as tight as he can. "hanna?" stuck on honorifics, he waves the bundle of sticks towards her. "would you... do you want help with the firewood? i thought i could help?"

picture this: you’re walking down the school hallway past the gawking eyes of once-was has-beens, their too-pink cheeks and too-short bangs a telltale sign of their failed claim to the high school throne. enclosed corridor aside, there’s that dramatic wind in your hair, and it reminds you of the paradox of the ball and the hill, how it inexplicably makes its way to the other side because some things are just meant to be. like the way the crowd parts for you, sheer curtains fluttering aside to make way for the trickling sun. in this way, kang hanna is a blazing star—a full spectrum of light to wash away the isolated others.

and here is the other. in this hallway is a boy with a bouquet. the flowers are last-season tacky, and he pairs them with a love confession that is more embarrassing than it is flattering. it’s a memory from yesterday or a lifetime ago, but it flashes past her eyes when uiseong presents her with a bundle of sticks. hanna crinkles her nose in annoyance, eyes flickering briefly between the twigs, the bag, him.

you know those kids who can never seem to catch a hint?

“don’t you have, like, better things to do?”

and what it means, from the way her hands are empty save the army knives, is that she wasn’t actually planning on getting any fucking wood. all she wanted was to slip away from the team, to find rest under some big tree until they were finally done setting up camp. it’s what haneul would have bargained for, anyway. but kang hanna is the sun—as in, the sun that seeps through her window, gets into her eyes, and stirs her from her sleep. that sun. the one that doesn’t ever go unnoticed. in all honesty, she’d found it a little obnoxious then, too. “do you have a knife? a gun?” she asks hopefully, faux innocence laced in her tone, “it would, like, totally suck if we ran into one of those things, you know.” a tight smile, “’cause then i’d have to protect you and that would really slow me down.”

[illomilo]

❝ alright team, excellent work today. it’s time to wrap up and get some rest for the night. over and out. ❞

welcome to fireflieshq’s first ask meme! to participate, please REBLOG THIS POST and make sure to send comms to everyone who’s participating too! as per the guidelines, answering TWO ASK MEMES will also get you through the next activity check.

[EYES ON TARGET] HONESTY HOUR  send questions on or off anon for an honest answer! [AMMO CHECK] HEADCANONS  write 3 headcanons about your muse and theirs – this can be about anything from what’s happening in the present, what they might have been like pre-apocalypse together, or even what-ifs of a world without the infected!