#HELP I SCHEDULED THIS IN EARLY APRIL BUT FOR SOME REASON IT WAS PLANNED TO POST IN 100 YEARS?!

[porrigens]

do you look like the devil, Brian?

[rebeccathenaturalist]

Well, it's been a whirlwind few days! Thursday I went on the weekly phenology walk at Audubon Trails Nature Center in Rolla, MO. It's the last one of the year, and we were seeing if there were still any wildflowers in bloom in spite of the freeze a few nights before. We did find a scant few Asteraceae with open flowers, but for the most part everything was done for the year. It was a really good experience getting to wander the trails with someone who knows the local flora really well; I'm still playing catch-up on learning (and remembering) native prairie plants in this area, and since they happen every Thursday morning during the growing season, I'm going to make sure and attend whenever I'm in town.

Thursday afternoon I officially taught my first in-person class in Rolla with my basic mushroom foraging intro at the Rolla Public Library. I checked out SO MANY BOOKS from that library as a kid, and so it was basically coming full circle to be able to teach there. I had an awesome audience that packed the room, got some great questions, and really appreciated the support that library staff gave me throughout the entire process. I'm already brainstorming what I want to teach when I head back to this area next spring.

Friday I got to spend immersed in planty goodness at the Missouri Botanical Symposium. I had actually registered last year but ended up not feeling good at the last moment so I had to miss out. Totally worth the entire trip this year, though! There were some really great talks (I especially enjoyed the one on the interplay of geology and plant life in Missouri karst fens), and I even made some good connections and new friends! I am SUCH an introvert that it can be tough for me to go around introducing myself in a room where I don't know anyone, but luckily a friendly extrovert latched onto me and helped me meet some really cool people. (Also, pro tip: having art supplies out and in use makes for a great conversation starter, and if you bring enough for others to use you can have a little science illustration party at your table!)

Saturday I peeled myself out of bed early yet again for a very good reason--I got to lead a lichen hike at Audubon Trails! It sort of felt like cramming for a test because while the basic biology of lichens is the same everywhere, I'm not as familiar with local species here as I am back home in the PNW. So I visited the site a few times on this visit to look for cool lichens and try to get them down to at least a genus level, if not species. Again, really great turnout for the hike--people were having a great time, lots of excellent questions and discoveries along the way. And there were two kids from the Rolla Outdoor Collaborative School on site who were not only THE best guides to the trails there, but they found and showed off some cool stuff (including lichens, AND fuzzy oak galls!) The next generation of naturalists is already well on their way to helping others connect with the great outdoors, which does my heart good.

I gotta start driving back west tomorrow; I have classes in Portland next weekend. So today is being lazy, doing laundry, and helping my folks with a few more things around the house. It's been another great visit here, though, and I'm already making plans for next year. I'm going to try to schedule a couple of classes along the way for my spring trip; since I'll likely be taking I-70 since 80 is sketchy even in April, I'm probably looking at Salt Lake City and Denver for venues. I'm open to suggestions if anyone knows of a bookstore, library, nature center, or similar who might like to host a wandering naturalist infodumping about ecology for a couple of hours!

[sp-newlifestyle]

New journey

03-31-24

Today I did my workout, made sure to cycle at high intensity intervals for a longer time than usual to really push myself. For breakfast I ate my usual yogurt but since i ran out of cinnamon powder i decided to use pumpkin. It added a really nice flavor and made me think of fall! Now for lunch I ate a fruit salad. For dinner i ate some chicken with rice and a beet salad. Now today officially marks my last day of spring break. Now the reason im more upset is that since im starting school again, it means that i will need to wake up much more earlier than before to complete my workout. I will be setting my alarm for 4:30 which seems insane to me because i just can't even compjrend waking up at such an early time. I will also need to make sure that I fall asleep early or else I know i won't be able to wake up in the morning and i will fail my streak. Especially since yesterday marks a week since i've started this journey and blog! I would hate to break my streak. So at an early time i will be taking melatonin so i can be sure i rest well and get all the hours necessary. The only issue with this is that when i babysit i normally arrive home around 10pm and i want to go to sleep around 8-8:30 so im not 100% what to do in that situation. Maybe i'll just leave it like that and recover the next day. Not too sure, i do know that eventually i will get used to it. Now thankfully for lunch my school has a salad bar so that's what ill be eating since i can control what i want to get on my salad and i've eaten it before. It's really good and filling, much more filling than some of the hot lunches. 

04-01-24

Today was my first day back to school after spring break and i will say that it was hard. The hardest part was waking up and forcing myself to do the workout. Thankfully I managed to do it. I fought the biggest urge to just go back to sleep so I ate some breakfast, my usual yogurt. For lunch I went to my schools salad bar and got rice with chicken, diced tomatoes, a little bit of onion and lettuce. I drizzled both sauces they offered, ginger sesame and ranch. I also ate a pear. For dinner I ate some watermelon since I wasn't that hungry. I mediated and journaled. I felt really tired throughout the day and just wanted to take a nap. It's really early, 7pm, as i type this and all i want to do is go to sleep so i will. This will be a much more shorter entry but hopefully in a week i've grown accustomed to waking up so early that it won't bother me as much. maybe tomorrow will be a much better day!! Thank you!!

04-02-24

Today was more easier than yesterday. I slept a good amount and woke up feeling good. I completed my workout and pushed myself to do more. I feel like that signals that i was feeling quite good. For breakfast I ate my usual. For lunch I basically ate the same thing as yesterday. In my school the salad bar stays the same for a week for changing, so expect my lunches to stay the same. For dinner I had gotten out with friend and I got a chipotle chicken pasta. Now the pasta honestly made me sad because it wasn't as good. So i did feel like as if i wasted my money. But overall it was a pretty good day. Once I was back home I mediated and journaled. I would say today was a pretty good day. I truly do believe that waking up earlier is going to be hard getting used to but I am happy that my sleep schedule has fixed itself. i'm not entirely sure how i will feel about it in the summer since i will be spending atleast 2 weeks being lazy but still definitely will help in the long run. Especially since i plan on going to the gym and i will most likely be going in the early morning. I also can't believe it's april! i feel like yesterday we were still in february now april? insane. however i do hope this month is too crazy hot and is actually bareable because i do not like super hot weather like that. 

04-03-24

Just like yesterday I truly felt tjat today was much easier than yesterday. amazing compared to monday. I woke up early and completed my workout. For breakfast I ate my yogurt again. For lunch I ate the exact same thing. For dinner I ate chicken with rice and a salad. Now an issue I have is that my school lunch. Well the salad to be exact, is extremely dry without the dressing. I wish to go less and less of the dressing but when I eat it without dressing i feel like i'm going to choke on every bite. The chicken is extremely dry and with the rice, an even worse combination. But besides that it was a pretty good day. I was a bit upset because I do babysit today and will be arriving home a bit late. Past my new bedtime and i know i will struggle with waking up the next morning. If some of you struggle with this, what do you do to combat it? Is there some sort of secret or way to trick your brain into thinking you got enough sleep? Do let me know because I do not play about my sleep. Hahah, either way hope you're all having a good day just like i am! 

04-04-24

Today felt much smoother compared to yesterday. I managed to get a good night’s sleep and woke up feeling refreshed and energized. As I tackled my workout, I pushed myself to go the extra mile, a clear sign that I was in good spirits. Breakfast followed my usual routine, providing a reliable start to the day. Lunch mirrored yesterday’s fare, a consequence of the static menu at my school’s salad bar. While predictable, it ensures consistency in my meals throughout the week. For dinner I ate salmon with rice! While it wasn't much the salmon flavor was absolutely delicious that made it extremely enjoyable. Upon returning home, I indulged in my customary ritual of meditation and journaling, finding solace and reflection in these practices. Overall, it was a satisfying day. I’ve also begun to notice the benefits of waking up earlier, although I anticipate challenges as I transition into the lazy days of summer. Nevertheless, I’m confident that maintaining a consistent sleep schedule will pay dividends, particularly as I plan to incorporate early morning gym sessions into my routine.

04-05-24

Today I didn't go to school since it was my dad’s birthday. I woke up at the usual time though and finished my workout. After I had finished it I ate a light breakfast since I took my dad out to eat and knew it would be heavy and calorie loaded. I ate some cereal for breakfast and ended up falling back asleep. When i woke up again, i was a bit hungry but decided on eating some fruit to avoid getting too full before going out to eat. Later in the evening my dad wanted to go to olive garden so that's where i took him. Now even though i am eating much more healthier than before, i was really craving olive gardens signature chicken alfredo so that's what i got. I never have been able to finish it and this time it was no different. I ate about half of it and decided that i could the other half tomorrow or another day. I also ate some dessert since my dad got a little birthday song sanged to him. I did forget how carb loaded olive garden is but i do know one time won't hurt you. I do know that in the future i will try to look for more healthier options since the calories are insane. But it was still a lovely day and i'm glad i was able to take my dad out to eat in a restaurant. Once i got home i did my meditation and journaling. Now quick question for you guys! Do you guys eat out? and if so do you go to fast food restaurants? if you do what do you order? is it different from your past orders and how often do you get it? Thanks!

04-06-24

I woke up today and completed my workout. I really increased the high intensity intervals to the point i had to take a small break. Now this was just a  moment of wanting to see how much I can do. I won't be doing this often i just felt the urge to do so today. For breakfast i went out to eat with my family and i got a veggie omelette with fruit on the side. While seeing my dads breakfast that consisted of fatty goods. I couldn't help but want some. Thankfully i was able to hold back and eat what i ordered so it was healthy! For lunch I ate i ate some chicken with rice and potato salad. For dinner i ate salmon with rice, pasta salad, and refried beans. I felt quite full today considering i ate quite some filling foods. After all of that i mediated and journaled. I felt pretty good today. I do believe that i worked out a bit harder today due the fact that i ate a lot yesterday, but it was a once every while. Either way today was a good day and i do hope more are to come. I can't believe its time to upload my weekly blog again. I felt like it was going to take forever but here I am, going to make sure everything looks good before uploading it on tumblr. 

[ambitiousblackfeminist]

Day 2 Extended Post, 3amblackpoetry in July

It’s day 2 of #3amblackpoetry in July, and I want to take some time to pontificate around the theme of “adaptive” - the week one prompt - and how it helped me launch this month’s activities. 

As a writer who is constantly trying to find community and connect with peers, I regularly hear people describe  how they maintain a daily writing practice. Some talk of engaging their craft in the morning, while others describe pre-bedtime rituals. I wish I could say I shared a similar system, but I do not. I also would not describe myself as someone who only writes when inspired. I think a better way to characterize my writing practice is to call it adaptive.  Sometimes, sure, there is an emotion or observation compelling me to write, but my process is more often about finding, using, and/or creating time, and writing what makes sense in that moment. That is why I also use the term “spurts” to describe my “practice.” For instance, there may be something that inspired me days, weeks, months or even years ago, but it might not come to fruition as a piece of writing or art until I have a moment or fixed time period to sit and create. I am also the type of writer that finds herself forced to work full time - with writing happening in my “free” time. This is what my freelance and blogging work looked like when l began writing and disseminating work in the early 2000’s, and it’s one reason I like participating in National Poetry Month in April.  I may not be able to commit to writing every day, but limit it to a month, and there is tons I can do daily.  And trust me - there is lots to do. Take today, for example. 

Scrolling through the 3 AM IS THE NEW BLACK IG page, I came across some poems I hardly remember writing. Memory lapses like those happen all the time, in part because I have been a writer since seven years old and my production rate is high - even without a daily practice. In fact, I have been trying to add an “originally written on [insert date]” note at the bottom of my poems to help build recall around my work. Another part of my process, ideally, is transferring poems from my paper journals or notes app to my poetry blog. Well I don’t always accomplish both post-composition goals. However, rather than flogging or flagellating myself, or creating a schedule that will surely unravel, I use occasions like #3amblackpoetry in July to catch up! Sure, it would be great to write a fresh poem or chapter everyday, but what I need is a fixed time to be productive and adaptive, instead. 

So yes, I do plan to produce new work, but this month I will also use this interval - or spurt - to update my poetry and arts blogs, add content to my Soundcloud and YouTube pages, launch some new products and initiatives, and highlight work from other writers and artists who’ve inspired me immensely. 

What does your process or ritual look like? Is it fixed or is it adaptive? Let us know! 

Sunshine and laughter, Reza Rites, Creator/Publisher/Editor, 3 AM IS THE NEW BLACK.

[marctheshark9]

Rain showers bring flowers. January, February, March and April, were tough. May and June were filled with highs and lows, but growth isn’t all smiles and rainbows. There’s pain and suffering. They’re accompanied by loneliness and constant worry. You are not alone, God is with you. Seek him and he will guide you through the showers and to your flowers. 

I started writing this on May 10th. I thought I was going to be done by June 1st, but my laptop charger broke. I couldn’t work like I wanted to. My deadline is July 1st. Yesterday was hella busy so I’m dropping right now on July 2nd.

Plans change, but my goals remain the same. I want wealth, health, and security in all aspects. Freedom is what I’m after. I will have complete control of my schedule. I will go on vacation when I want. I will be able to go to all my son’s events and everywhere else I’m invited. I’ve missed out on so many weddings, birthday trips and other things cause my pockets were tight. I will have complete financial freedom in the next few years. I’ll be able to afford everything I want and need. 

People grow together and grow apart. Last year at this time my relationship was about to start. We had no idea what was about to happen. It almost came to an end, but we’re working and growing together. Also, we’re growing separately to become the best versions of ourselves.

 Things were rough at the top of the year. Now things are looking swell. I got a new job and a new car. On top of all that my son lives with me full-time. These are the flowers I was speaking of and they’re beautiful. I prayed for all these things for over a year. I spent countless nights with negative emotions. Dark thoughts crossed my mind, but God’s timing is perfect. Every time I thought I couldn’t make it God came through in the clutch.

In early January I got my cyst removed. This isn’t the first time I’ve had the procedure done. It was the first time I got it done like this. They numbed my head, but it was still painful. It wasn’t unbearable, but I felt the pressure of the doctor pushing and pulling inside of my head. It was gruesome. Blood dripped down my forehead and on to my California fishing shirt. I remember looking to the left and seeing a large pile of bloody napkins. I had to wear the head bandage for a couple days and I was out of work for 2 weeks. 

I bounced back strong, but I wasn’t prepared for this next hurdle. In late January my Uncle Leroy died. My maternal grandfather died in late October. I’m still recovering from that. People who really know me know how much they meant to meant to me. I’m holding tears back and I have chills as I type. Those were my guys. My two multiple sclerosis warriors are gone. Losing them back to back has been indescribable. I have both of their obituaries in my car. I take them with me everywhere I go. 

These two are the main reason that I’m such a health nut. My maternal grandfather and my paternal uncle both had multiple sclerosis. I watched them suffer for most of my life. I was 9 years old when I started to help take care of my grandpa. I’ve fed him, changed his diaper, taken him to the doctor and everything in between. It was gross as fuck at times, but If I could have one more chance to do anything with him, I would take full advantage of it.

 On the other side Uncle Leroy was only 48 years old when he passed. He’s been sick since he was in his mid 20s. He was the cool uncle that lived out of town. My family oozed a contagious joy when Big L came down from New York.

My mom always spoke highly of Leroy. She said he was always nice and respectful. She and a lot of my relatives say I reminded them of Leroy because he wasn’t in the streets or a tough guy. The Betancourt boys we’re always involved in some foolishness, but Leroy was never that type of guy. 

Leroy was a twin. On the night he passed his twin brother Leon screamed at the top of his lungs, “Why God? He was the good one you should’ve taken me. “He fell to his knees right in front of me. I was sitting on the couch and I couldn’t do anything but cry. My dad has four brothers and two sisters. The family tree lost a branch. Things will never be the same. 

Burying my uncle was one of the hardest things I had to do. I had to pull myself together and help lead the family. That night I walked up to dad and said “You’re the captain now. Grandma and Grandpa are down bad and they have to process this. You have to steer the ship. These next few days are going to be tough, but I got your back.” 

The next week was spent planning a funeral. I didn’t think I would be adding this to my resume so soon but it happened. I knew in my early 20s that I would have to step up and be one of the patriarchs of my family. I didn’t know exactly how it would happen, but I knew I would step up when the time was right. 

The next few weeks we’re tough but I made it through. I had to stay strong for my son. He’s seen so much death for an 8-year-old. In late May I was taking him to school and he broke down crying. He told me that he was thinking about all the relatives he lost over the past few years. 

I fought depression daily, but things we’re moving in the right direction. Then some more wild ass shit happened. In early March, I was playing kickball with my high school students. As I rounded second base I fell. My ankle was little stiff, but I got up and walked it off. An hour later I was in Walmart with one shoe on because my ankle swelled up. It looked like I had a grapefruit in my sock. I couldn’t put any weight on my ankle and I was on crutches for a week. The pain was throbbing and it felt like my ankle weighed 1,000 pounds. I was thinking take my whole ankle away. I don’t even want it anymore. I was in so much pain. I would’ve let somebody cut it off.

I tried to go to work at Nike the next day, but they sent me home. I’ve never broken a bone or had any serious injuries. I had neck surgery before, but never any injuries that limited my mobility. I was down bad. I didn’t do any fitness related activities for two weeks. I didn’t do any weighted exercises with my legs for like a month.  The injury sucked but it made me realize that I’m getting older.

Once I healed, I had a great opportunity to show my bounce back. I started coaching track in January. Life was throwing hurdles at me. I jumped each one and still made time for the kids. Sometimes at the track meets they have coaches’ races. I competed in a few and did very well. Now the team expects me to run at every meet. At a track meet in March I smoked the competition. Our head coach told me that he was going to enter me in the open 100m with some real competition.

 I started practicing with the team to prepare for the race. I saw the qualifying times. Dudes we’re running under 11 seconds. I think I could break 11 seconds with proper training. I was doing pretty well with my training until I pulled my hamstring. When I pulled it, I thought I was going to collapse. My legs were trembling and my head started spinning.

I thought to myself damn Marc you’re old.  I just recovered from sprained ankle, now I pulled a hamstring. Everyone told me I needed to slow down a little bit. I don’t think so. I just have so stretch more and train smarter if I’m going to compete. I turn 30 in late July. I figure I have 5 more years of prime Marc if I train hard and stay fit. That way when I start declining, I will be in peak physical form. Then I can just maintain it from there. 

After a couple weeks I began to work on legs again. I was doing pushups and upper body work because of the injury. I’ve already missed a month of fitness because of my cyst and my ankle. I couldn’t afford to miss any more time. The gym is one of my happy places. I find so much peace in there and when I’m playing competitive sports. Once I have a better grip on my schedule I’ll began playing again. I’ll start by hooping and see what else my schedule permits.

 Speaking on scheduling my son moving here completely changed my schedule. Plus, I got a new job and I quit working at the school. Also, I quit working at Nike in late June. I was planning on staying for 5 years and getting my lifetime discount, but it wasn’t in the cards. I might be able to go back and finish out but we will see what happens.

 Anyways on to the new job. I applied for this job in January. I interviewed in late February and was offered the job three days later. They told me the process would take a couple weeks. They just had to get some contracts finalized and they would bring me on. I waited patiently, but weeks began to pass. Eventually a month passed. I was uneasy and I had no idea what to do.  I called and emailed to the point where one of the owners got spicy with me via email. I felt some kind of way, but I didn’t care I needed this job. One month turned into two months and still no start date in sight. I finally got the green light in late April.

My start date was May 2nd. I was ecstatic, but I had other things on my mind. Before I started my new job my mom Lil Marc and I traveled to Boston for Carlos’s heart transplant anniversary party. In 2020 my 6-year-old nephew Sean died in a car accident. After he passed his parents decided to donate his organs. Seanie was able to save six lives. One of those lives was a little boy named Carlos. Carlos’s family got in touch with my family via Facebook.

 A year after Carlos got his new heart, he and his family came down to Orlando to hang out with us for the day. We had a BBQ/pool party. It was a grand time. This year Carlos’s family wanted us to come up and hang out in Boston for a celebration. We went but my emotions were heavy. My nephew’s death is a messy situation that still hasn’t been resolved, but that’s a different story. My brother and his baby mama are at odds and he wasn’t able to go. I didn’t want to go for various reasons, but I couldn’t let my mom and son navigate that terrain alone. 

I was in Boston with my favorite people, but I was surrounded by fake people and strangers. I kept thinking to myself, why am I here? How did I get here? None of my direct decisions bought me to this point, but I had to bare the weight. Like I said earlier I knew I would have to be the patriarch of my family and here’s a concrete example.  I was angry when I was in Boston, but I was excited to travel and see a new city. I did make the most of it. I didn’t want to be there under those circumstances. Being around people who I didn’t like made it even worse, but I saw the bigger picture. Lil Marc really loves Carlos and even though Sean is gone it felt good to see Carlos’s family happy. 

The trip was cool, but things got interesting right before I left Boston. I got to the airport at 4:15 a.m. to check in for my 6 a.m. flight. I was at the kiosk entering my information and it said my flight was canceled. I put my info in like 3 more times to see if I was tripping, I was not! I tried to switch flights but I was unable to because I fly on standby. I had to call my dad and have him put me on another flight. After about 30 minutes he was able to get me on a 7:15 flight to Washington D.C. I would have to wait there till about 4 and catch another flight to Orlando.

When I finally boarded the plane, I was exhausted. I put on my seat belt and fell asleep. When I woke up then plane was completely empty. The flight attendants had to wake me up. I thought it was all a dream, until I looked at my boarding pass and it said Ronald Regan Airport not Orlando International.     

As I walked down the aisle, I wondered what the hell am I going to do in DC for 5 hours. I pondered on this as I walked to baggage claim. I don’t know how long I was asleep, but when I got to baggage claim everyone was gone. My bag sat all alone, waiting to roll off with me. I called my dad and let him know I made it. It was 9 a.m. and my flight didn’t leave until 4:30. I had a lot of time to kill.

After I got out my feelings I went through my Rolodex and looked for my D.C. contacts.  The first person that came to mind was my guy Nolan. If you don’t know Nolan, he’s low key famous. My boy covers congress for the Los Angeles Times. The night before he scooped me, he attended a White House Gala with some important people. He said he saw Kim Kardashian and was able to get pictures with Emmitt Smith and Adam Silver. I shot him a DM on Instagram and he messaged me back and said he would be at the airport in 20 minutes.

We went back to his spot caught up and played the PS5 a for a little bit. We made reservations for brunch. The only down side was that all the lit brunch spots were booked. We went to a Mexican restaurant and had some breakfast tacos. They were pretty fire. The whole situation was ass, but I’m glad I have good friends. Nolan said he was just returning the favor. He did come hang with me in Orlando earlier this year. 

When I finally got on the plane, it was just like the morning plane ride. I fell asleep before the plane took off. I did wake up right before we landed this time.  When I touched down, I had moves to make. I had to get ready for my first day of work and little Marc had school. Marc flew back with my mom, so I had to go get him when I got back. 

Once I got back home, I began preparation for the big day. I picked out my clothes, packed a lunch and went to bed early. My lady took Marc to school for my first day. I was able to get there 15 minutes early. The new job is pretty cool.

The company I work for is called Global-5 Communications. We do public relations for the Florida Department of Transportation.  My two months of work have been awesome according to my supervisor Gabe. My title is Public Relations  Community Outreach Specialist.

My duties include finding events for us to spread information about what the Department of Transportation is doing in community. Also, we maintain their website and handle most of the interactions with the public.  It’s your standard office jobs with major perks. I get out of the office at least two days a week to network or do outreach. Our main goal is to let the public know about what’s going on with the roadways. I am on the Interstate 4 (I4) express team. We do business with most of the major roadways in Florida. 

This job is going to be my stepping stone into another major gig. My goal is to start doing PR for a musician or for a major sports team.  I am a sponge at my job. I take advantage of every opportunity to network and grow as person and as a professional.  Also, I started doing PR for a local artist stay tuned.

Remember when my hammy gave out? My car died that same week. The transmission on the Pontiac went out sometime in late March. I been having car issues since 2016. I think I’ve had 5 cars since 2017. I drove my grandpa’s van until I got a new car in early May.   

It’s a 2014 Chevy Cruz nothing crazy, but it’s pretty reliable. Except for when the battery started acting stupid. I bought the car on a Monday and I was having issues with it on Saturday, five days later. I was livid! On that Saturday I had my first event for my new job. I set us up at a car show. On top of all this my son and I had a track meet to attend. His mom came to the meet as well. 

I had a mini panic attack, but I had no time to sulk. I had to come up with solutions. Coach Richie came and scooped Marc. I had Triple A come and give me a jump so I could get where I needed to be. The event was cool. We just posted up at the table and informed the public about what’s going on with the major roadways in Central Florida.

After the event I was able to get a jump start and get back home. The next day Triple A came to my house and I bought a new battery from the tow truck driver. He installed it in the driveway. I was tight, but I was able to get the situation handled. I didn’t want to spend that money, but I had it so it had to be done. My grandpa’s van had broken down the weekend before and I spent $400 fixing that.  The worse part about that was I was at a car dealership looking at cars.

Again, I was tight about spending that money, but at least I had a few dollars saved up for emergencies.    Other than that, I been getting ready for football season. I’m going into my second year of coaching for the Orlando Outlaws.

This is our REPO season. We lost last year in the state championship game and we’re coming back with a vengeance. We bringing the smoke next year to. The team we lost to lost a lot of their kids because of age. We lost a few kids as well.  

Tough times don’t last tough people do. Last year at this time I was depressed broke and I hated almost everything going on around me. The only positives I had was my son living with at the time, but I was stressful cause I didn’t have a car and I was broke.

My girl and I were getting closer but we didn’t know that casual sex would turn into a full-blown relationship. Also, it was my first-year coaching youth football. Look at how much things can change in a year. I didn’t know how it was going to happen, but I knew great things were coming. It all happened so fast.

 My life went through some major wholesale changes in sense March. I’m now a full-time dad, I got a new job, new car, I quit two jobs. So much change mostly good, a little bad, but I’m here for the growth. I’m completely out of my comfort zone, but that’s where the growth is.  I only have one source of income right now. It’s cool cause I’m going to turn it into three by September. 

[webscene-remade]

Do you have a link to the What Pumpkin statement? I need the details.

i'll just paste the text because theres too much for me to get in 10 screenshots, it was in an email to hiveswap backers

For backers only

Over the years, a lot of misinformation as well as deliberate disinformation has spread around about the history of Hiveswap. The purpose of this post is to clarify these matters for backers who've been wondering what the truth is.

The Kickstarter was planned by the What Pumpkin business development team in mid 2012. One member of the team was a crowdfunding specialist who led the planning process and managed the contracts with the developer. Prior to the Kickstarter opening for pledges, What Pumpkin worked out a plan for a flexible game concept that could be refined according to how much the campaign ultimately brought in. As Hussie was still working on Homestuck full time at this point, the plan was to hand over his game concept and story outline to a development company that could deliver the project.

The crowdfunding campaign finished out at a gross total of $2,485,506, as well as a gross total of $207,930 from PayPal pledges. But because of platform fees, as well as the costs of producing and shipping merchandise to backers of the campaign, the effective budget was significantly lower than the gross pledged total:

The above deductions from the gross total do not include taxes.

After determining the final budget for the game, What Pumpkin signed an agreement with the contracted game company (hereafter “GC”) to develop Hussie’s game concept. WP and GC entered into a development contract on November 30, 2012, shortly after the conclusion of the Homestuck Kickstarter. WP paid $788,000 to GC in late 2012 for development.

Because there was an understanding that delivering the complete game development documents would take some time, during which it would be difficult for GC to make meaningful progress on the Hiveswap game build, GC inquired about getting involved with other Homestuck-adjacent projects to do immediate work. WP let GC know about the Act 7 animation plans. With an assurance that this work could be done in parallel with a flexible timeline and would not impact the development cycle of Hiveswap itself, Hussie and What Pumpkin saw this as a good opportunity to establish a working relationship with this organization prior to the start of development and agreed to contract GC to do animation work for the Act 7 project. WP and GC agreed that this project would have a separate budget from the Hiveswap Kickstarter money, paid for from WP’s regular operating funds. As the existence of this animation itself would not be revealed until its release in 2016, this was not publicly announced at the time. GC and the lead animator on the project specifically requested not to be credited upon release of the animation.

Hussie initiated the “Megapause” on April 14, 2013 in order to devote his full attention to finalizing the Hiveswap development documents. What Pumpkin soon provided its story documents so that GC could formally begin core systems development. In July of 2013 WP and GC mutually agreed to push back GC’s deliverable dates without penalty. Hussie would share an update in 2013 detailing the state of predevelopment: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/14293468/homestuck-adventure-game/posts/708686

In 2013 following receipt of WP’s deliverables, GC enthusiastically assured WP that it was positioned to begin development. GC would deliver its first prototype in early 2014.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qSXwWKD5Km1yL-3Cj_W5IevW-IA978zJ/view?usp=sharing

This prototype, linked above, was sent to WP on 2/18/14. At this point, it was becoming a significant concern among backers that WP had yet to show proof that the game was being made, so WP was looking for any sort of tangible progress update from GC that was suitable to share with the public. But Hussie and WP found the quality of the prototype somewhat alarming, and decided that sharing any shots from the game would only cause embarrassment for GC. Nevertheless, WP was still willing to assume that this was a very early draft of something that would develop into a more promising product soon, and gave GC some more time to improve on it.

But the improvements didn’t come. No other advancements on the prototype were ever made. After waiting weeks with no update other than assurances that progress was carrying on smoothly, Hussie initiated the “Gigapause” both to take care of personal matters and later to get directly involved in the development of the game himself. He decided to move to southern California from the east coast in hopes that working directly with the GC could help them overcome whatever obstacles they were facing with Hiveswap’s development. GC responded positively to the prospect of Hussie’s involvement, but when he made the move and tried to coordinate a time to visit the GC offices and meet, GC insisted it was a bad time due to office renovations and a busy schedule. Here is a timeline with quotes from emails exchanged between Hussie and GC:

May 12, 2014 - from Hussie to GC

“Just letting you know I actually moved to the west coast recently. I'm only an hour or so away from LA now.

I could drive down and check out the office, see how things are going with the game and animation in person some time soon. Is there a time that would work for you guys? In a week or two maybe?”

May 15, 2014 - from GC to Hussie

“That's awesome about being on the west coast. It'd be great to have you come to the studio.

Dev has slowed a bit on our end, as we wanted to take a step back and really evaluate what was needed and the best way to achieve the features that have been coming online in the docs. We're continuing to break that all down so we can build and plan most effectively moving forward. We also wanted to find some simple formats for input from your writing team for dialogue content and are getting that squared away.

The best time to come by would actually be right after E3. Things are a bit nuts until then.”

May 18, 2014 - from Hussie to GC

“[Name redacted], sounds good. I'll set aside some time after E3 to make the drive down. As we approach the date, just let me know what works for you.”

E3 was June 10-12, 2014. GC did not invite Hussie to visit at this time.

Hussie and WP representatives were in LA over July 4th weekend, 2014. When they inquired about visiting the offices again they were still not welcome. A GC representative insisted that they meet at a restaurant instead. Yet GC continued to telegraph that they were receptive to the idea of inviting Hussie to the office well into the summer:

Aug 18, 2014 - from GC to Hussie

“We'd love to set up a new time for Andrew to come to the studio as well as a skype chat to meet the other team members.”

Despite apparent enthusiasm about meeting with Andrew in their email correspondence, GC continued the pattern of refusing to meet at the office or supply any signs of progress on the prototype.

Over that summer, GC delivered several pieces of concept art that WP had been requesting since January. Hussie did his best to present this publicly as a positive development as WP felt it would be counterproductive to the project and harmful to GC to publicly detail the development troubles at the time.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/14293468/homestuck-adventure-game/posts/883860

There was no indication from GC that the Act 7 animation project was in any way in conflict with Hiveswap development. GC was enthusiastic about taking on this project, and bidded against other animators for the contract. They saw it as a useful tie-in to concept art work on Hiveswap, as GC leadership conveyed in an email to WP in early 2013:

WP also does not have any reason to believe that the Act 7 project in practice created a conflict that was not disclosed by GC to WP. Act 7 was a 2D animation project, and Hiveswap at the time was a 3D game, so it did not pull GC’s programmers or 3D artists away from work on Hiveswap. GC never mentioned the development needs of a separate project at all to WP, or cited any such reason as distracting from work on Hiveswap; GC instead repeatedly provided WP with various assurances that everything was still fine with Hiveswap.

Had GC communicated that they had scheduling conflicts or some other impediment preventing them from developing Hiveswap, WP would have terminated the contract even sooner.

WP moved to terminate the agreement with GC late summer of 2014, and Hussie pivoted towards establishing a new independent game studio while consulting with a designer who had stepped up into a leadership position during the GC development period. That individual lived in NYC, which is why that location was chosen to establish the new studio rapidly. They helped build the studio through a local network of professional contacts. While this “What Pumpkin NYC” studio shared a name with What Pumpkin, it’s important to note that all of WP NYC’s studio staff save for the aforementioned individual were hired without any prior affiliation with WP and thus had no association with the GC contract. WP documented this development on Kickstarter on October 30th, 2014. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/14293468/homestuck-adventure-game/posts/1035099

At this point, negotiations were very amicable; both parties agreed the project simply wasn’t turning out to be a good fit for GC, and were both ready to move on. There were no signs given at all that WP was about to have trouble recovering the remaining funds.

WP is legally permitted to discuss details of the resolution of the dispute only under very specific circumstances. WP may make additional disclosures outside of this post to individual backers in accordance with legal obligations.

Following resolution of the GC contract, in Spring 2015 the WP NYC studio was running at full capacity on Hiveswap. The main problem was the fact that WP management was blindsided by the revelation that much less money would be coming back than expected. The WP NYC project manager had designed the schedule based on the good faith presumption that most of the development funds would be recouped. When it was finally revealed the return was far short of what was expected, and the repayment plan could in no way keep up with the schedule as currently drafted, it threw the project into a period of chaos as plans were quickly redrawn. The length of Act 1 was slashed, and other modifications were made to try to fit the rest of Act 1 into the newly shortened runway. But in the end, the revisions still weren't enough to save the game as it existed, and the studio needed to be closed in order to reserve what funds remained to finish the project in some form.

This may have come across as a sudden or spontaneous decision. Part of this is because the WP NYC senior staff and WP ownership were doing everything in their power to save the project, including injecting WP regular operating funds into the project, until it was determined that going any further would be disastrous for the future of Hiveswap. Another is that WP was legally unable to give any detailed disclosures about the financial troubles, even to many of the WP NYC staff.

It should also be noted that originally the NYC studio was not going to be permanently closed, but only frozen for a reassessment of the project. But during this freeze period, there were some dramatic events. One staff member behaved in a destructive and threatening manner. For the protection of those involved, details shouldn't be disclosed. But these events made navigating the post-freeze issues impossible. Communication between ownership, management and staff broke down because of these events, and the freeze turned into full closure. This version of the project was then abandoned for many reasons, including these events.

Some misinformation claims that at the time the WP NYC studio was shuttered, its iterations of Act 1 and 2 were complete. This is wrong. Act 1 was very far from a shippable state and absolutely no work on Act 2 had been completed besides some concept and 3D art. Here you can see a video documenting one of many major bugs with critical path progression in the final build produced by WP NYC, where it becomes impossible to re-focus on the Simon Says toy if Joey fails and then exits out of the puzzle:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1M2mmkMx8Wkwp1VU_5IpMKDvngmUFS0IG/view?usp=sharing

At the point the WP NYC studio was frozen it was still difficult to finish a full run of the critical path without the debug tool, and the UI was far from complete. With that build, Act 1 ended the moment Joey passed through the portal on Earth. The current version of Act 1, where Joey makes it to Alternia and meets Xefros, is more indicative of the original length of the NYC version of Act 1. Not only did it need to be slashed from what the original script proposed, the NYC version of Act 1 still wasn't that close to resembling a shippable product after those changes were made.

Because of the amount of time and resources already devoted to this project, WP was initially very reluctant to lay anyone off or scrap the work being done. It was for this reason that the studio stayed open for months after the contract with GC was resolved; WP made every effort to deliver a game with that team, but at the time WP NYC was shuttered, the funds just weren't there to keep the studio running at its current burn rate and schedule slips. The game was never going to reach delivery with the funds available. The studio urgently needed to be frozen for a full reassessment, and then it was closed after the freeze due to the reasons stated above. This was the only course of action that could have saved the project.

To WP's knowledge every artist whose work was used in the final release of Act 1 was included in the credits. The final version of Act 1 was in large part built off concept art and storyboards drawn during the WP NYC era, and many of the artists who made them continued to work on the team that produced the final version of Act 1; the roadmap for the completion of Act 1 was specifically planned because WP had determined that the existing 2D concepts could easily be refined into a final product that would both be visually appealing and more economic to produce. Unfortunately due to the transition to 2D WP no longer had a place for the 3D artists or the original 3D engine, and all of those assets were dropped. They were not used as a basis for the finished assets in Act 1, and visual similarities to WP NYC 3D assets are due to the fact that final Act 1 assets are in large part refinements of the original concept art. Any artist whose work was used incidentally was included in Additional Contributions.

Both the GC and NYC phases of Hiveswap were setbacks to the overall fulfillment of the project, but not insurmountable. WP reorganized the budget to establish a new version of the studio, and Act 1 was released two years after the closure of NYC.

As an addendum, WP has identified the primary source of a disclosure to a well-circulated document of the Hiveswap development process. WP has been aware of a pattern of false claims this former employee has made since the end of their employment at the beginning of 2014. As this individual was not present during the end of the development contract with GC, nor the WP NYC development period, all of the information they have shared is based on speculation and conjecture.

At this time, WP does not wish to invite more controversy into the lives of anyone previously involved with this project, and considers these matters to have been resolved long ago. The goal for years has been to turn the page on flawed attempts by earlier studios, and simply move forward and bring Hiveswap to completion without sparking the chaos, disruption, and threats to personal safety that would have resulted from disclosing many of the details stated above. Doing so would only make it more difficult for the staff to rebuild the project during these periods immediately following the termination of the GC agreement and closure of the NYC studio. Since preservation of the project was the primary responsibility to the backers, making destructive disclosures that put the project at risk along the way would have been at odds with that responsibility. This policy also served to protect individuals from personal or professional harm, including those who were responsible for serious setbacks with the project. Please respect the privacy of any persons affiliated with GC and WP NYC.

[jedidragonwarriorqueen]

There’s a bit of a theme to most of my goals for this month. Now that my weekly schedule is consistent and my work day has a predictable flow, I really want to buckle down and get into good routines and habits. I don’t know if I currently have the self-discipline to pull these off, but I’m gonna try. I even bought a calendar last month (I know, I know, who buys a calendar in March? Me, apparently) and still have some fun Star Wars stickers that I’m going to use as a DIY sticker chart.  

Eat something within an hour of waking up. I’m really bad at this on work days, because I don’t feel like eating that early, but by the time I actually feel like I could eat breakfast I’m up and running at work. I bought some bland breakfast bars that should do the trick.

Eat lunch every day. By which I mean “between the hours of 1100 and 1400 eat something with protein in it.” Even if it’s just a handful of nuts or some peanut butter crackers.

Cook dinner twice a week. Now that my weekly schedule is consistent, I’ve designated Sunday as food prep day, and I think that will really help.

Phone away by 2100 every work night, and in bed by 2130. Getting sucked into the internet is a lot of what keeps me wound up and from going to bed, and I think I need to just develop the self-discipline to put my damn phone away at a reasonable hour. If you see me online after 2100 EDT Sunday to Wednesday, feel free to yell at me 😉

Spring clean 1 room/area of my apartment each weekend that I’m home. I’m actually looking forward to this, because I’m weird like that.

Write for at least an hour a week, on any project. I do really want to get back into my Robin Hood AU, but that is not where the muse is right now, and until I build up some steam and get into some good writing habits, I think I need to give myself permission to work on other projects instead. Otherwise I won’t write at all, and that’s definitely not what I want.

Make social plans at least once a week. A phone call, a coffee date, facetime, maybe I’ll finally join that bookclub at the neighborhood bookshop or something. 

I’ve tried implementing a lot of these goals sporadically within the last year, without much success. But now that the weather is slowly getting better, I’m no longer at a job that is sucking out all my energy, and I actually know what to expect on a given day and how to mentally/emotionally prepare for it, I have high hopes in myself that I can pull them off more often than not. I hope April gets off to a great start for everyone, and have a lovely weekend!!

[popcorn-kitten]

new hiveswap info and development timelines just dropped on the Kickstarter ✌️

Over the years, a lot of misinformation, as well as deliberate disinformation, has spread around about the history of Hiveswap. The purpose of this post is to clarify these matters for backers who've been wondering what the truth is.

The Kickstarter was planned by the What Pumpkin business development team in mid-2012. One member of the team was a crowdfunding specialist who led the planning process and managed the contracts with the developer. Prior to the Kickstarter opening for pledges, What Pumpkin worked out a plan for a flexible game concept that could be refined according to how much the campaign ultimately brought in. As Hussie was still working on Homestuck full time at this point, the plan was to hand over his game concept and story outline to a development company that could deliver the project.

The crowdfunding campaign finished out at a gross total of $2,485,506, as well as a gross total of $207,930 from PayPal pledges. But because of platform fees, as well as the costs of producing and shipping merchandise to backers of the campaign, the effective budget was significantly lower than the gross pledged total:

The above deductions from the gross total do not include taxes.

After determining the final budget for the game, What Pumpkin signed an agreement with the contracted game company (hereafter “GC”) to develop Hussie’s game concept. WP and GC entered into a development contract on November 30, 2012, shortly after the conclusion of the Homestuck Kickstarter. WP paid $788,000 to GC in late 2012 for development.

Because there was an understanding that delivering the complete game development documents would take some time, during which it would be difficult for GC to make meaningful progress on the Hiveswap game build, GC inquired about getting involved with other Homestuck-adjacent projects to do immediate work. WP let GC know about the Act 7 animation plans. With an assurance that this work could be done in parallel with a flexible timeline and would not impact the development cycle of Hiveswap itself, Hussie and What Pumpkin saw this as a good opportunity to establish a working relationship with this organization prior to the start of development and agreed to contract GC to do animation work for the Act 7 project. WP and GC agreed that this project would have a separate budget from the Hiveswap Kickstarter money, paid for from WP’s regular operating funds. As the existence of this animation itself would not be revealed until its release in 2016, this was not publicly announced at the time. GC and the lead animator on the project specifically requested not to be credited upon release of the animation.

Hussie initiated the “Megapause” on April 14, 2013 in order to devote his full attention to finalizing the Hiveswap development documents. What Pumpkin soon provided its story documents so that GC could formally begin core systems development. In July of 2013 WP and GC mutually agreed to push back GC’s deliverable dates without penalty. Hussie would share an update in 2013 detailing the state of predevelopment:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/14293468/homestuck-adventure-game/posts/708686

In 2013 following receipt of WP’s deliverables, GC enthusiastically assured WP that it was positioned to begin development. GC would deliver its first prototype in early 2014.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qSXwWKD5Km1yL-3Cj_W5IevW-IA978zJ/view?usp=sharing

This prototype, linked above, was sent to WP on 2/18/14. At this point, it was becoming a significant concern among backers that WP had yet to show proof that the game was being made, so WP was looking for any sort of tangible progress update from GC that was suitable to share with the public. But Hussie and WP found the quality of the prototype somewhat alarming, and decided that sharing any shots from the game would only cause embarrassment for GC. Nevertheless, WP was still willing to assume that this was a very early draft of something that would develop into a more promising product soon, and gave GC some more time to improve on it.

But the improvements didn’t come. No other advancements on the prototype were ever made. After waiting weeks with no update other than assurances that progress was carrying on smoothly, Hussie initiated the “Gigapause” both to take care of personal matters and later to get directly involved in the development of the game himself. He decided to move to southern California from the east coast in hopes that working directly with the GC could help them overcome whatever obstacles they were facing with Hiveswap’s development. GC responded positively to the prospect of Hussie’s involvement, but when he made the move and tried to coordinate a time to visit the GC offices and meet, GC insisted it was a bad time due to office renovations and a busy schedule. Here is a timeline with quotes from emails exchanged between Hussie and GC:

May 12, 2014 - from Hussie to GC

“Just letting you know I actually moved to the west coast recently. I'm only an hour or so away from LA now.

I could drive down and check out the office, see how things are going with the game and animation in person some time soon. Is there a time that would work for you guys? In a week or two maybe?”

May 15, 2014 - from GC to Hussie

“That's awesome about being on the west coast. It'd be great to have you come to the studio.

Dev has slowed a bit on our end, as we wanted to take a step back and really evaluate what was needed and the best way to achieve the features that have been coming online in the docs. We're continuing to break that all down so we can build and plan most effectively moving forward. We also wanted to find some simple formats for input from your writing team for dialogue content and are getting that squared away.

The best time to come by would actually be right after E3. Things are a bit nuts until then.”

May 18, 2014 - from Hussie to GC

“[Name redacted], sounds good. I'll set aside some time after E3 to make the drive down. As we approach the date, just let me know what works for you.”

E3 was June 10-12, 2014. GC did not invite Hussie to visit at this time.

Hussie and WP representatives were in LA over July 4th weekend, 2014. When they inquired about visiting the offices again they were still not welcome. A GC representative insisted that they meet at a restaurant instead. Yet GC continued to telegraph that they were receptive to the idea of inviting Hussie to the office well into the summer:

Aug 18, 2014 - from GC to Hussie

“We'd love to set up a new time for Andrew to come to the studio as well as a skype chat to meet the other team members.”

Despite apparent enthusiasm about meeting with Andrew in their email correspondence, GC continued the pattern of refusing to meet at the office or supply any signs of progress on the prototype.

Over that summer, GC delivered several pieces of concept art that WP had been requesting since January. Hussie did his best to present this publicly as a positive development as WP felt it would be counterproductive to the project and harmful to GC to publicly detail the development troubles at the time.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/14293468/homestuck-adventure-game/posts/883860

There was no indication from GC that the Act 7 animation project was in any way in conflict with Hiveswap development. GC was enthusiastic about taking on this project, and bidded against other animators for the contract. They saw it as a useful tie-in to concept art work on Hiveswap, as GC leadership conveyed in an email to WP in early 2013:

WP also does not have any reason to believe that the Act 7 project in practice created a conflict that was not disclosed by GC to WP. Act 7 was a 2D animation project, and Hiveswap at the time was a 3D game, so it did not pull GC’s programmers or 3D artists away from work on Hiveswap. GC never mentioned the development needs of a separate project at all to WP, or cited any such reason as distracting from work on Hiveswap; GC instead repeatedly provided WP with various assurances that everything was still fine with Hiveswap.

Had GC communicated that they had scheduling conflicts or some other impediment preventing them from developing Hiveswap, WP would have terminated the contract even sooner.

WP moved to terminate the agreement with GC late summer of 2014, and Hussie pivoted towards establishing a new independent game studio while consulting with a designer who had stepped up into a leadership position during the GC development period. That individual lived in NYC, which is why that location was chosen to establish the new studio rapidly. They helped build the studio through a local network of professional contacts. While this “What Pumpkin NYC” studio shared a name with What Pumpkin, it’s important to note that all of WP NYC’s studio staff save for the aforementioned individual were hired without any prior affiliation with WP and thus had no association with the GC contract. WP documented this development on Kickstarter on October 30th, 2014. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/14293468/homestuck-adventure-game/posts/1035099

At this point, negotiations were very amicable; both parties agreed the project simply wasn’t turning out to be a good fit for GC, and were both ready to move on. There were no signs given at all that WP was about to have trouble recovering the remaining funds.

WP is legally permitted to discuss details of the resolution of the dispute only under very specific circumstances. WP may make additional disclosures outside of this post to individual backers in accordance with legal obligations.

Following resolution of the GC contract, in Spring 2015 the WP NYC studio was running at full capacity on Hiveswap. The main problem was the fact that WP management was blindsided by the revelation that much less money would be coming back than expected. The WP NYC project manager had designed the schedule based on the good faith presumption that most of the development funds would be recouped. When it was finally revealed the return was far short of what was expected, and the repayment plan could in no way keep up with the schedule as currently drafted, it threw the project into a period of chaos as plans were quickly redrawn. The length of Act 1 was slashed, and other modifications were made to try to fit the rest of Act 1 into the newly shortened runway. But in the end, the revisions still weren't enough to save the game as it existed, and the studio needed to be closed in order to reserve what funds remained to finish the project in some form.

This may have come across as a sudden or spontaneous decision. Part of this is because the WP NYC senior staff and WP ownership were doing everything in their power to save the project, including injecting WP regular operating funds into the project, until it was determined that going any further would be disastrous for the future of Hiveswap. Another is that WP was legally unable to give any detailed disclosures about the financial troubles, even to many of the WP NYC staff.

It should also be noted that originally the NYC studio was not going to be permanently closed, but only frozen for a reassessment of the project. But during this freeze period, there were some dramatic events. One staff member behaved in a destructive and threatening manner. For the protection of those involved, details shouldn't be disclosed. But these events made navigating the post-freeze issues impossible. Communication between ownership, management and staff broke down because of these events, and the freeze turned into full closure. This version of the project was then abandoned for many reasons, including these events.

Some misinformation claims that at the time the WP NYC studio was shuttered, its iterations of Act 1 and 2 were complete. This is wrong. Act 1 was very far from a shippable state and absolutely no work on Act 2 had been completed besides some concept and 3D art. Here you can see a video documenting one of many major bugs with critical path progression in the final build produced by WP NYC, where it becomes impossible to re-focus on the Simon Says toy if Joey fails and then exits out of the puzzle:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1M2mmkMx8Wkwp1VU_5IpMKDvngmUFS0IG/view?usp=sharing

At the point the WP NYC studio was frozen it was still difficult to finish a full run of the critical path without the debug tool, and the UI was far from complete. With that build, Act 1 ended the moment Joey passed through the portal on Earth. The current version of Act 1, where Joey makes it to Alternia and meets Xefros, is more indicative of the original length of the NYC version of Act 1. Not only did it need to be slashed from what the original script proposed, the NYC version of Act 1 still wasn't that close to resembling a shippable product after those changes were made.

Because of the amount of time and resources already devoted to this project, WP was initially very reluctant to lay anyone off or scrap the work being done. It was for this reason that the studio stayed open for months after the contract with GC was resolved; WP made every effort to deliver a game with that team, but at the time WP NYC was shuttered, the funds just weren't there to keep the studio running at its current burn rate and schedule slips. The game was never going to reach delivery with the funds available. The studio urgently needed to be frozen for a full reassessment, and then it was closed after the freeze due to the reasons stated above. This was the only course of action that could have saved the project.

To WP's knowledge every artist whose work was used in the final release of Act 1 was included in the credits. The final version of Act 1 was in large part built off concept art and storyboards drawn during the WP NYC era, and many of the artists who made them continued to work on the team that produced the final version of Act 1; the roadmap for the completion of Act 1 was specifically planned because WP had determined that the existing 2D concepts could easily be refined into a final product that would both be visually appealing and more economic to produce. Unfortunately due to the transition to 2D WP no longer had a place for the 3D artists or the original 3D engine, and all of those assets were dropped. They were not used as a basis for the finished assets in Act 1, and visual similarities to WP NYC 3D assets are due to the fact that final Act 1 assets are in large part refinements of the original concept art. Any artist whose work was used incidentally was included in Additional Contributions.

Both the GC and NYC phases of Hiveswap were setbacks to the overall fulfillment of the project, but not insurmountable. WP reorganized the budget to establish a new version of the studio, and Act 1 was released two years after the closure of NYC.

As an addendum, WP has identified the primary source of a disclosure to a well-circulated document of the Hiveswap development process. WP has been aware of a pattern of false claims this former employee has made since the end of their employment at the beginning of 2014. As this individual was not present during the end of the development contract with GC, nor the WP NYC development period, all of the information they have shared is based on speculation and conjecture.

At this time, WP does not wish to invite more controversy into the lives of anyone previously involved with this project, and considers these matters to have been resolved long ago. The goal for years has been to turn the page on flawed attempts by earlier studios, and simply move forward and bring Hiveswap to completion without sparking the chaos, disruption, and threats to personal safety that would have resulted from disclosing many of the details stated above. Doing so would only make it more difficult for the staff to rebuild the project during these periods immediately following the termination of the GC agreement and closure of the NYC studio. Since preservation of the project was the primary responsibility to the backers, making destructive disclosures that put the project at risk along the way would have been at odds with that responsibility. This policy also served to protect individuals from personal or professional harm, including those who were responsible for serious setbacks with the project. Please respect the privacy of any persons affiliated with GC and WP NYC.

[moldisgoodforyou]

march madness

this is dedicated to @sunnypogue​ and @oopmyheartwent-obx​ because they’re the homies and I said so 

wordcount: 2.2k

warnings: cursing, I didn’t edit this for shit, mentions of sexual situations

____

Every year, the Delt house held a March Madness bracket competition. There were cash prizes involved and it was taken extremely seriously, only significant others were also invited to participate (no hookups allowed, unless the hookup was consistent enough to stick around through the end of the tournament in April). James was in charge this year as brotherhood chair and was taking it to the next level, upping the buy-in and scheduling several watch parties throughout the month. 

When Rafe casually let it slip that he was participating, Sophie’s interest was piqued right away. They were all hanging out in his room, Sophie’s legs draped across his lap while Rafe kept a constant touch on her ankle, her calf, anything.

“Can I do it with you guys?”

“Well...” Rafe trailed off, trying to think of any excuse possible. He knew Sophie’s competitive nature to a tee and was already predicting the fight that’d come of it.

Unfortunately for him, James loved nothing more than seeing Rafe lose in the tournament every year. “Yeah, of course you can. Why not?”

Rafe winced and Sophie caught it immediately, furrowing her brow. “Yeah, Rafe, why not?”

“No reason.” He squeezed her ankle and gave her a little smile. She merely raised her eyebrows back, skeptical, and started googling on her phone, pulling up a few sites.

“What are you looking for?” Rafe asked, leaning over to see.

She quickly moved her phone out of his reach. “None of your business.”

“Sophie, c’mon.”

“Jeez, Sophie, is he always this whiny?” Colin teased and Sophie laughed, clicking her phone off. “You should know, you live with him.”

“Nah. He’s different around you. Softer.” James reached over and ruffled Rafe’s hair, causing a mini scuffle between them.

“Yeah, see, he’s always aggressive with us.” Colin pointed out.

“He could stand to be a tiny bit more aggressive with me.” Sophie mumbled under her breath with a smirk, just loud enough so only Rafe could barely make out what she said. He whipped around, eyes wide. “What did you say?”

She grinned and batted her eyelashes innocently. “Nothing. When can we fill out our brackets?”

“They’re due in three days.” James told her, handing her an extra blank bracket from his desk. Sophie accepted it with a thank you and stood, not before kissing Rafe on the cheek. “Looks like I have some work to do then.”

“It’s not that complicated, Soph, you can just pick it on, like, jersey colors or mascots or whatever.” Rafe told her carelessly. She kept up with Ohio State sports and knew the rules of the game, but didn’t really seem to care otherwise. She’d prioritize alone time in the architecture studio for big games sometimes, or study through a tailgate instead of watching the other games on air that day. What Rafe failed to remember is that she was also extraordinarily stubborn, and always determined to win.

“I’m not just going to throw my money away. I need to research.”

He laughed. “When have you ever researched before a game in your life?”

With that she flicked him in the head, scowling. “I’ve never needed to before. Have you filled yours out yet?”

Rafe went to bat her hand away a moment too late, letting out a little yelp. “Hey! No, I’m just going to fill out the day before. Let the experts help me out.” He gestured to the TV, where ESPN hosts droned on in the background. 

“Hm.” She gathered her things and Rafe leaned over, tugging at the sleeve of her jacket. “No, wait, stay. We can do it together, if you want?” 

“And let you cheat off me? Absolutely not.” She fixed him with a scrutinizing look. “Why, need someone to tell you whether the green or red team is better?”  

He laughed. “No, baby, I’m not just gonna wing it.” 

Even James could feel the annoyance radiating from Sophie in the moment and he face-palmed behind her back, anticipating her response. She frowned at Rafe, arms crossed. “So why would I just wing it?” 

“Well that’s - that’s not what I meant -” He hastily backtracked. 

“Smooth.” Colin muttered under his breath, shaking his head. She rolled her eyes. “I’m sure. Now if you’ll excuse me, darling, I have some work to do.” The pet name held absolutely no affection to it, hurled like an insult instead. 

“Darling? Huh? Sophie, I didn’t mean it like that -” Rafe started again and she leaned over, kissing him shortly to cut him off. “Sure you didn’t. When do we hand them in, James?” 

“6pm, Friday. Hard deadline.” He responded cheerfully. 

“I’ll have it to you tomorrow.” She grinned and gave them all a little wave before leaving, ignoring Rafe’s small noise of protest. It wasn’t til she had hardly stepped out of the house to walk home when she had three texts from James with individual links to stats from prior tournaments and comparisons of each team’s performances throughout the season. 

James: If Colin and I can’t knock his ass out, I’d want you to do it 

Sophie: :) I’ll accept the honor 

The next day, Rafe was entirely unbothered by Sophie’s participation in the bracket challenge, after she had reassured him that she was mainly teasing about his comments. She also knew the exact time the Bracketology show aired on ESPN, as well as the shows on other networks, and made it her mission to distract him at every opportunity possible. 

She was over again the next day while James and Colin were busy, so they had the room to themselves. Sophie had brought over her homework, like usual, and the two were just enjoying each other’s company for a while - until she noticed Rafe pull out his bracket, completely blank. “You’re not done yet?” 

“Huh? No, the ESPN show’s about to be on. Do you mind if I keep the volume low?” He reached for the remote. “That’s fine, I just have a few questions left on this.” She purposely made a show of stretching her arms high, the hem of her cropped sweater lifting just enough to show a flash of her lacy bralette. 

He stopped in his tracks, clearly eyeing her over. “Your sweater’s short.” 

She hid a smirk, giving him a confused look instead as she tugged the hem back down. “Is it?” 

“You said you have how many questions left?” Rafe tried curling his hand around her hip and pulling her close, but she swatted his hand away. “Just five, but they’re long answer.”  

“Just five.” He nodded to himself and turned the TV, remembering why he had gotten his bracket out in the first place. She kept her head down, working as she listened to the hosts’ banter for a few minutes. When they started actually getting into the bracket predictions, Sophie rolled her shoulders, then tilted her head to crack her neck. “Rafe?” 

“Mm?” He replied, half paying attention to her as he scribbled out some of the early game decisions. 

“Do you mind rubbing my shoulders? They’re killing me.”  

“Course not, c’mere.” He turned on the couch to face her, keeping the bracket and pen in his lap. 

She didn’t waste any time pulling the sweater over her head, letting it drop to the floor as she moved to sit closer to him. He laughed, loud. “What was that for?” 

Sophie glanced at him over her shoulder, moving her hair to expose her back fully. “Figured it’s easier to massage on bare skin than through a bulky knit sweater.” 

She had fully captured his attention now, and he ran a finger down her spine, grinning. “Just a shoulder rub?” She was glad to be facing away from him, unable to hide her eye roll. “Mind out of the gutter. Just a shoulder rub.” 

Rafe nodded but couldn’t resist placing a few kisses along her bare shoulder before massaging her shoulders, pressing hard. When she noticed his massage got weaker as he got more distracted by the TV, Sophie let out a breathy moan. It sounded horribly fake even to her ears, but got his attention right away. 

“Soph.” He warned. 

“Hm?” She questioned, wincing as she faced away from him, hoping she sounded innocent enough. 

Lucky for her, Rafe was pretty clueless to the motives of her game. “You can’t say just a shoulder rub then make sounds like that.” 

“Sorry, sorry.” She grinned. “I’ll be good for you.” 

“Sophie.” 

“Rafe.” She mimicked, turning back around and finally giving him an eyeful of her chest. He groaned and pulled her onto his lap immediately, hands going straight to her waist. “Sure you need to finish your homework?” 

She grinned. “How long are James and Colin gone for?” 

“Uh...” He glanced toward the door, at the TV, then at his watch. “We have an hour.” 

Sophie stood, blocking the TV, and held both her hands out. “Let’s take advantage of it then.”  

_ 

Her plan worked perfectly over the next three days, right up until the deadline for turning in the bracket. It laid forgotten on his desk while they made out on his bed, lazy kisses shared as their hands wandered. James barged in with only a single, split-second knock. “Hope you have your clothes on!” 

(They both did - they had almost been caught once and Sophie always triple checked the lock before taking her shirt off after that.) 

Rafe groaned and threw his pillow at James. “Give us a fucking warning, dude!” 

“Bracket’s due in five. You finished yet?” 

“Oh shit.” Rafe sat up immediately, glancing around for it. “No, I’ve been busy.” 

Sophie held back a smirk. “I think it’s on your desk.” 

“Did you ever finish yours, Soph?” Rafe asked as he got up to scramble for a pen. Unfortunately for him, she had taken all of them over the last few days - not a hard task, because he only owned four. 

“She turned hers in two days ago. It’s like, annotated and shit. You have four minutes now.” James tapped his watch, then decided to take pity on him and toss him a pen from his own desk. 

Rafe frowned, frantically filling out the bracket. “Annotated? With what?”  

She shrugged. “Stats to help me out.” Sophie leaned over, watching him fill out his choices. “Texas Tech is red and Purdue is gold, I think you should pick Purdue there. Gold is a fun color.” 

James snorted. “Two minutes, Cameron.” 

“Fuck, okay.” Rafe finished it quickly and handed it over, but Sophie grabbed it out of his hands first. 

“Wait, you picked Michigan to win? God, Rafe, do you have no loyalty?” She was violently offended, disbelieving of her eyes. 

“They’re a solid pick!” 

“They’re our fucking rivals!” 

He laughed and grinned, smug, as he remembered the nickname she had tried to use against him days earlier. “I’m playing to win here, darling. You didn’t seriously pick Ohio State to win, did you?” 

“I picked Villanova, thank you very little.” She narrowed her eyes at him.

“Oh.” He was surprised at her logical pick, which irked her even more. “Well, I don’t have the emotional attachment like you do here.” 

“You’d think two and a half years of school would be enough. Don’t need your parents as alumni to do that.” 

“She makes a point.” James chimed in, thoroughly entertained by the arguing, but made his way toward the door to collect other brackets. “Dude, you’ve had weeks to work on this, what happened?” 

“I don’t know, every time I’ve turned on ESPN to watch I...” He trailed off, thinking.

James shook his head and made his exit, making a point to securely shut the door behind him. 

Rafe finally put two and two together and pointed an accusing finger at Sophie. “You sabotaged me!” 

She grinned, giving herself up right away. “Yeah, what of it?” 

“That’s so low.” Rafe shook his head, scowling. 

Sophie laughed, sitting up on her knees and leaning forward to smirk at him. “Yeah? What are you gonna do about it?” 

He stood at the edge of the bed and placed both palms on her knees and slid them up her legs, leaning over her. “You don’t really think you’ll win, do you?”

“Might not, darling, but at least I’ll beat you. You screwed up on several brackets, by the way.” She met him with a kiss, nipping teasingly at his lower lip.

“Huh?” He mumbled against her lips. 

“Wichita State plays Marshall, not West Virginia, and Auburn plays Charleston. Not Clemson. So that’s already two games you’ve lost.” She grinned as he curled his fingers into her thighs and stood up on her knees to kiss him harder, locking her hands to rest behind his neck.  

“And you didn’t correct me once. I can’t believe you.” He slid one hand up to squeeze her ass, laughing when she let out a small squeak of surprise.  

“Cameron.” She tried pulling him down to the bed.

“What.” He didn’t budge, keeping a firm grip on her butt.

“Shut up and finish what you started.” 

“Yes ma’am.”

[the28thofseptemberr]

over the past couple of days i’ve seen some more theories concerning the h+o stunt, so i thought i would compile some of the information people have found and add some more detail, as well some of my own thoughts!

olivia + stunts

@/purplehazelwt on twitter found that olivia has a history doing pr stunts, especially where she is romantically linked to someone she’s doing a movie with.

exhibit a: olivia and her first husband announced their separation in early february 2011. on march 1st, 2011, she and ryan gosling were filmed on a “secret date” and numerous articles came out about them being a couple (link to some of these articles: here and here). they weren’t co-stars or working together on a movie, but ryan had an upcoming film called “crazy, stupid, love” that was released later in july 2011. olivia was also going to be in another upcoming film - more details in the next example.

exhibit b: olivia was in a movie called “in time” that was released in october 2011. justin timberlake was the male lead in the movie, and in april 2011 several articles came out about justin and olivia getting cozy in a nightclub, and of course speculation that they were a couple (link to some of these articles: here and here).

exhibit c: in june 2011, it was announced that olivia would be joining the cast of a movie called “the words”, in which bradley cooper is the male lead. in may 2011 (the month before), they were seen getting close and quite a few articles were released about them possibly being in a relationship (link to one of these articles: here).

olivia began dating her ex-fiancé, jason sudeikis, in november 2011, so she didn’t really get romantically linked to anyone for years, up until now. however, from the above examples, it shows that olivia has a history of doing pr stunts for projects she’s involved in, and that’s likely what’s happening right now with harry.

did olivia + jason really break up?

@/whosheisss on twitter raised the theory that olivia and jason sudeikis (her  ex-fiancé) didn’t break up. a quick history of their relationship: as i said before, they began dating in november 2011, then they got engaged in january 2013. they have two children together, and in november 2020 they announced that they had broken up earlier that year. here’s why their break up might not have been real:

olivia and jason’s split was announced in a people exclusive article (link: here) on november 13, 2020, where a source close to them told people magazine that olivia and jason had split earlier in 2020, but they were on good terms and were co-parenting well.

the source said they split in early 2020, so maybe around january to march. but in august, jason did an interview with access hollywood and said this (link: here):

and in august he also did an interview with et where he said olivia helped inspire his new show (link: here):

on september 9 and 16, jason and olivia were papped at a beach in malibu, where they were laughing, hugging, playing and looking like they were having a lot of fun (link to september 9 pictures: here)

in october, jason went on the drew barrymore show (link: here) and said this:

on november 16, olivia and jason were seen embracing and getting pretty close, 3 days after their split was announced. in the pictures, she was also still wearing her engagement ring (link to article: here):

on december 20, olivia and jason were seen sharing a “long and loving embrace” (as just jared puts it). olivia was also holding jason’s face into her hands and “staring deep into jason’s eyes” (again, just jared’s words and not mine) and essentially looking like they were still very close (link to article & more pictures: here):

and of course, olivia was seen still wearing her engagement ring in the recent pap pics with harry:

olivia was also seen going to jason’s house on january 4th (link: here).

obviously, pictures of olivia and jason meeting up and hugging don’t necessarily mean they’re still together, as the breakup article stated they were still on good terms. however, the way jason was talking about olivia in interviews and the fact that olivia still wears her engagement ring suggests they might not have broken up at all and their breakup is a publicity stunt.

recently, there have been articles about jason being heartbroken about harry and olivia and him being willing to repair things with olivia (link: here). and of course there was this anon:

it does seem very plausible that olivia and jason never broke up, but they announced that they did and coordinated this stunt with harry. if jason is going to start “fighting for the love of his life and his family” and he and olivia get back together, it would bring a lot of publicity to all parties involved (jason, olivia and harry), so it would be a win-win situation for everyone - theoretically, anyway.

the timing

as mentioned before, olivia and jason’s split was announced in november 2020, even though they had apparently split in early 2020 and were still acting like a couple before and after the announcement. the pap pics of harry and olivia are theorized to have been taken in november, as the wedding venue and the restaurants in santa barbara where they were seen have been closed for a while because of the pandemic. so, if the pap pictures were taken in november then released in january, and olivia and jason’s split was announced in november as well, it definitely looks like this is a planned publicity stunt and olivia and jason might not have broken up at all.

why they want publicity

so if all of this is an elaborate stunt to get harry, jason and olivia publicity, what is it for? olivia and harry have dwd of course, and since olivia is directing and acting in it, plus it’s got well-known celebrities like harry, florence pugh, chris pine, etc. in the cast, it makes sense her team would want to hype up this movie. besides just promoting dwd, harry is also nominated for 3 grammys this year. the ceremony was originally scheduled for january 31st but was pushed to march 14th recently. but since this stunt was likely thought of in november 2020, they wouldn’t have known that and assumed the ceremony would be in january. as for jason, he co-writes and stars in an apple tv+ show called “ted lasso”. the first season was released in august 2020 and apparently the production of the second season could be starting this month, so he’d want to promote his show too, especially since he’s the star.

this could also help distract people from the babygate situation, a theory that @/ONLYGOLDENN on twitter raised. basically, recently louis flew to la and people are speculating it might be because of briana’s court case, which supposedly will be happening on january 20th. people have also been theorizing that louis may get involved in the case and take a paternity test and babygate could be ending - in any case, things may be happening soon and this stunt with harry and olivia might be trying to distract people.

conclusion

sorry for another unnecessarily long post, but essentially this is the possible reason for the stunt and the direction the stunt could be going in (jason and olivia getting back together). credit to @/purplehazelwt, @/ONLYGOLDENN and @/whosheisss on twitter for finding some of this information!!

[duelistkingdom]

you felt enough

Summary: Yugi's had a very hard day at work and what he needs is some alone time with Kazuko. (post canon)

Rating: T

Ships: the ot4 with a focus on Yugi/Kazuko

Quick lil author’s note: I wrote this while I was still working at the Bell, so I’ve been sitting on this one for a while now! I think I wrote it back in March or April, but I’m not sure when.  Anyway, enjoy.

[read on ao3]

consider supporting me on kofi / battle city tiers & above get first access!

Yugi’s shift at the shop today was a brutal one. He’d started the day early, agreeing to help his grandfather open the shop. From there, it only got worse. He’d managed to knock a box onto his head trying to get it off one of the higher shelves in the back. Yugi cursed under his breath about how both his grandfather and him were short so why did they even have high shelves to begin with. The other person his grandfather had hired to help since the shop got busy due to Yugi’s minor celebrity status had called out, leaving Yugi with no choice but to pick up their shift. 

“The good news is that you can go on break soon,” his grandfather remarked as he exited the small room they’d designated an office. “One of the new hires is showing up soon.”

Normally, Yugi would be concerned about leaving a new hire alone in the shop, but considering how much Yugi’s feet ached, he didn’t particularly care. A chance to get away from the shop, even if it was only for thirty minutes, sounded ideal. 

“Great,” Yugi said, before noting that a customer needed his attention. “Let me know when they clock in.”

He had never been more relieved to see another person than when the new hire walked in through the employee entrance. It had been a full hour since his grandfather had mentioned the new hire would be coming in, and he was irked. The new hire did a double take as she looked over Yugi. “You’re -”

“Your shift manager,” Yugi said, cutting her off as he checked his watch. From the clipboard, he’d known Hikari was supposed to show up two hours ago. He glanced at her and noted that she seemed nervous. “You were supposed to be here two hours ago for training and another clerk was supposed to be here to help you. I can show you the ropes for a few minutes, and then my grandfather will take over while I go on break.”

She nodded and Yugi didn’t really place too much care into if he seemed like a jackass. Well, no that wasn’t true. He did care a little bit. After all, Hikari probably felt bad enough about being late on her first day. Not only that, it wasn’t her fault that Atem wasn’t scheduled in anticipation of the other cashier being here, leaving Yugi alone for five hours. It wasn’t her fault that neither Yugi nor Sugoroku could get a hold of Atem. Perhaps that’s why instead of taking his break as planned, he stayed for another hour making sure Bella truly had a handle on what to do for the next thirty minutes.

He was near exhausted when he’d finally managed to head back into the living quarters part of the shop, grinning when he saw Kazuko leaning against the door frame. “You know,” Kazuko remarked as she held up a to go bag from Burger World, “I’ve been waiting for you for two hours now. This? Is a cold burger.”

The gap was closed between them within seconds, pulling her into his arms to press light kisses along her cheeks, her nose, and finally reaching her lips. Kazuko giggled as her arms wrapped around his neck, pulling him in closer. “Sorry to have kept you waiting,” he said softly as he kissed her again. “Especially when you brought me such a nice meal.”

“Good thing you have a microwave,” she teased. “Though you’ll have to eat on your own. I already ate mine.”

“Couldn’t even wait to have lunch with me,” Yugi pouted. Kazuko responded in kind by giving him a peck on the lips with a cheshire cat grin across her face. Her eyebrow raised, as if to tell him that he already knew the answer to that. “Alright, alright. Fair enough.”

Kazuko’s hand intertwined with his as they headed towards the kitchen, her head resting upon his shoulder and he caught the scent of the conditioner she used for her thick curls. “So what took you so long to come back to me anyway?”

“Well, we scheduled someone who wound up calling out and Tem wasn’t scheduled cause we assumed we’d have someone to help out so I could take my break,” Yugi said as he put the burger in the microwave, setting the time for about a minute. He leaned against the counter, grinning at Kazuko having her chin in her hands and her elbows on the table. “We haven’t been able to get ahold of Tem all day, though, so I wasn’t able to get a break until the new hire showed up for her first day of training.”

“I’m sure she was thrilled to see that she was late to help out the King of Games,” Kazuko remarked as she leaned back in her chair, leaning back with a smirk on her face and a twinkle in her violet eyes. “Did this one freak out too? I hope she asked for your autograph.”

“So you haven’t been able to get ahold of Tem either, huh,” Yugi remarked drily in response to Kazuko’s questioning. He was regretting telling her the last experience he had training a new hire, where they did indeed ask for his autograph. “What about Ket? Maybe he’d be with her?”

Kazuko rolled her eyes. “If I was able to get ahold of Ket, do you think I would’ve waited around for two hours?”

Yugi made a mock gasp of hurt, placing his hands over his heart. “You would abandon me for Ket?”

“You say that as if you would not abandon me for Tem,” Kazuko countered, rolling her eyes yet again. He had to admit that she had a fair point. “So Tem isn’t in your bed upstairs?”

Yugi shook his head. Kazuko raised a brow, a smirk on her face and Yugi knew right away what Kazuko was getting at. “Kaz, I’ve only got twenty-five minutes left on break,” he pointed out as he took his burger out of the microwave, hissing at the heat on his old burn scars across his palms. He wound up quickly dropping it on the table, grinning at the disappointed look on Kazuko’s face. “I’ll be all yours at the end of my shift. Might happen sooner if we knew where Tem was, though.”

“Are you trying to bribe me into hunting down your boyfriend?”

“Isn’t he our boyfriend,” Yugi remarked casually as he dug into his burger, arching a brow up at Kazuko.

“He’s your boyfriend whenever he’s missing,” Kazuko remarked casually, leaning forward across the table. “So you want me to find Tem and get him to come in and in exchange.. I get you in bed with me. Is that correct?”

Yugi nodded as he swallowed the bite of burger he’d taken early if only because he knew Kazuko didn’t like it when he talked with his mouth full of food. “That’s exactly the trade offer I’m offering, yes,” he stated. “Can’t leave the new hire alone, you know.”

“Really mean of you to lock the goods behind a paywall.”

“Oh,” Yugi remarked, a light smirk across his face as he leaned forward. “The goods, huh?”

Kazuko flushed slightly, looking away with a huff. “Don’t tease me,” she said as she crossed her arms across her chest, her brow furrowing slightly. Her candy pink curls bounced slightly and Yugi grinned as he brushed a curl out of her face and cupped her cheek, redirecting her attention back towards him. “Seriously, don’t tease me.”

“Not teasing you,” he remarked as he leaned forward, noting the light hitch in her breath before his lips connected with hers. He smiled against her lips as she reached forwards to lightly thread her fingers through his hair and she made a soft happy noise. Her lips parted, granting him access. However, he was soon distracted when he heard a loud thump and then Kazuko broke the kiss with a sharp gasp of pain. He was about to ask what happened when he realized she must have bumped her leg against the table. “Are you okay?”

She nodded, glaring at him when he started to grin. “It’s not funny!”

“What exactly did you expect to happen anyway,” he asked in response, trying to muffle his laughter. As much as he didn’t want to laugh at her pain, he did find it a little funny that Kazuko had gotten a little overeager. “The table didn’t go away.” She huffed, getting up from her chair and Yugi grabbed her wrist. “I’m sorry, I’ll stop laughing at you.”

“You better,” she remarked, glaring at him. “Or you’re going to be spending the rest of these fifteen minutes alone, mister.”

He turned her palm towards him, pressing a gentle kiss to her palm. “Don’t leave me,” he said softly, pulling her into his lap with a grin as she giggled, tossing her arms around his neck. “How will I be able to eat my lunch without you around?”

She rolled her eyes as she pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I’m sure you’d manage.”

“Nope,” he joked, nuzzling against her. “Absolutely couldn’t survive without you around. Just look at my day today.”

“Are you saying that if I had come by the shop earlier, your day wouldn’t have involved being short staffed,” she asked, sounding chagrin. “You do know that I am absolutely not working retail, right?”

For that, Yugi could not blame her.

 Atem’s eyes opened slowly, the warmth of the sun having disappeared at some point. He blinked slowly, realizing the reason was that the sun had moved in the sky and now a nearby tree was covering his face with shade while the rest of his body remained in the sun. He noted the weight on his chest and sat up slightly, gently as to not wake Keket from her sound slumber. Her wedding ring glinted in the sun as her fingers curled into the shirt he was wearing. Atem would have preferred sleeping in a bed, however Yui did not seem too keen on the idea of Atem and Keket sharing a bed. Yui also did not seem to approve of Kazuko sharing a bed with Yugi nor of Kazuko sharing a bed with Atem but strangely seemed fine with Yugi and Atem sharing a bed. Atem did not understand this.

Either way, out in the park, Atem and Keket had managed to find a decent ray of sun to lay down in front of. Keket had not yet been fully deprived of the sun and the sun accented the orange highlights that streaked through her hot pink hair nicely with each curl clearly defined. Atem grinned as he noted Keket’s mouth was slightly ajar and she was mumbling her sleep. The clearest thing she said was “that’s a rice ball” and the rest was utter nonsense to him. As much as he would prefer to let her sleep, he wanted to move back into the direct sun. He leaned down to brush gentle kisses along her cheeks and jaw, causing her to stir slightly. Finally, she groaned and mumbled, “Five more minutes, my love.”

A familiar sound and he grinned. “My love, the sun has moved,” he remarked. “We should move to the other side of the tree so we can stay in the sun.”

“Sounds like a ‘you’ problem,” she said, snuggling in closer with a soft hum. “I can sleep just fine like this.”

Before he could retort, Kazuko came into sharp view and she looked relieved to see them both. “There you two are,” Kazuko said as she moved in closer, looking at the two of them with a stunned expression on her face. “You were napping in the park this whole time?”

“Not this whole time,” Atem replied simply as he rubbed Keket’s back. “We had breakfast before we came to lay down.”

“Tem, that was over six hours ago,” Kazuko replied as she sat down next to them. “Aren’t you two hungry?”

Now that Kazuko mentioned it, Atem supposed he could eat. He lightly shook Keket. “My love, are you hungry? Kazuko’s here. Perhaps we could go to Burger World and use my coupon.”

“You’re always trying to use a coupon,” Keket remarked, squeezing her eyes shut as if to keep from waking up. A small smile was starting to form across her face. “I’m certain that it has to be expired by now.”

“Well, I’ve actually already ate,” Kazuko said, a grin on her face. “I went to eat with Yugi. Or well, tried to. You know he’s been on his own at the shop, right?”

This alarmed Atem. “I thought my partner was scheduled to have someone working with him,” Atem said. He never would’ve taken the day off he thought he might be abandoning Yugi. In fact, a thousand possible apologies were already floating through his head and how he could best make this up to Yugi. “I take it you are here to tell me he needs my help?”

Kazuko nodded. “Though, if princess would rather sleep and leave Yugi to sink…”

Keket sighed as she sat up, shaking her head. “No, no,” she said, looking fairly put out despite herself. Her face smoothed out, trying her best to hide the fact that she would prefer to continue to nap in the sun. “If my darling light needs help then my sweet husband better go help him.”

Atem nodded as he got up off the ground in a fluid motion, not noticing both girls examining him over with a gleeful exchange. Kazuko leaned over to whisper something in Keket’s ear, giggling as she got up off the ground. “I’ll see you at home, princess,” Kazuko said as she helped pull Keket up and brushed a soft kiss against Keket’s cheek. “I gotta get something at the shop.”

 When Atem arrived at the shop and clocked in, Yugi looked exhausted. “Thank god you’re here,” Yugi said as he pulled his apron off, shoving it into Atem’s hands. “I was supposed to be let off my shift,” Yugi trailed off as he checked his watch, “Around three hours ago. The new hire is here and she’s now officially your problem.”

Kazuko had a smug smile across her face as she leaned on the door frame to the living space. “I never said that he was going to be staying on the clock,” Kazuko said as Atem glared at her. “You can check the transcripts! I merely pointed out he’s been at the shop on his own for a while!”

Yugi glanced at Kazuko, a disapproving look on his face. “You lied by omission?”

“No, I set a trap card,” she joked as she wrapped an arm around Yugi, leaning in with a wink at Atem. “Not my fault Tem’s always taking bait.”

Atem supposed he couldn’t argue with that. He also couldn’t be mad when both Yugi and Kazuko bounded up the staircase to Yugi’s room, well aware of what they most likely were going to do now that he was here to deal with the shop. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d been tricked into taking over a shift for Yugi and well, he’d find a way to get them both back. For now, however? He let them pull one over on him. Yugi probably earned it.

Probably.

[365days365movies]

April 5, 2021: Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) (Recap: Part One)

Yeah, so...Spectrum exploded last night.

So, I'm unfortunately a little behind. BUT NEVER FEAR! I'll get back on time before you know it! So, uh...where were we last time? OH RIGHT! Let's talk about black comedy. And I don't mean black-and-white comedies, or comedies prominently featuring African-American culture and demographic. No, I mean dark comedies.

The "black comedy" functions off of macabre or taboo humor and jokes, and is often closely associated with biting satire and commentary in film. That definition is loose as hell, I know, but it's all about the subject matter. The most common subject matter for dark humor is death, of course, and related subjects to death. War, murder, strife, madness, and violence are also common topics here.

Some of the best comedies are black comedies, though. For example, Brazil (1985; dir. Terry Gilliam) focuses on themes of depression, dreams, terrorism, totalitarian governments, and madness. And it's GREAT. How about The Death of Stalin (2018; dir. Armando Iannucci)? The title ALONE should tell you everything you need to know about the tone and topic, AND YET...

It's HILARIOUS. And also informative! If you haven't seen it, I definitely recommend it. And again, that film is about, well...the death of Stalin, and the fallout of his disastrous and murderous regime. Dark, DARK topic, but very funny movie.

Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is about war; Fargo is about murder in North Dakota; Heathers is about a toxic relationship and the death and murder of teenagers; Birdman, or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance is about an actor's existential crisis and complete mental breakdown; and Trainspotting is about the devastating effects of drug addiction and features a DEAD BABY FOR CHRIST'S SAKE...and yet they're all full of laughs! Except for the baby scene. Fuck me, the baby scene in Trainspotting.

So, yeah, these are a diverse group of films, that's for sure. But where does it all start? There's 1942's To Be or Not to Be (dir. Ernst Lubitsch), which is about a Polish theatre company who need to escape in the midst of...well, 1942 Poland. If you don't get why that's dark, you should probably look up some history, bud. Charlie Chaplin would dip into the role in 1947's Monsieur Verdoux, which I mentioned last time. And there's the seldom-talked-about Kind Hearts and Coronets (dir. Robert Hamer), a 1949 film about murder for status, essentially.

But it's hard to argue that the most prominent early black comedy is 1944's Cary Grant vehicle, Arsenic and Old Lace.

Directed by Frank Capra, this film was based on a 1941 stage play, and is about...well, we'll get to it. While its prominence as a black comedy is one reason I'm watching this movie, the other is...well, to be honest, this is a movie I heard about CONSTANTLY from my Mom, as this is one of her favorites. And yet, like Dirty Dancing, I've somehow never seen it! Let's remedy that.

So, without further ado, let's get into it! SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap (1/2)

The film starts off with a BANG, as a man calls me a “big simp” to my face! Actually, he’s screaming at a Brooklyn Dodgers game, where a massive fight breaks out. This fight quickly transitions to a city hall, where a line of people are waiting to file marriage licenses. Amongst the line is Mortimer Brewster (Cary Grant) and Elaine Harper (Priscilla Lane).

Brewster is hiding from the press, as he’s a famous reviewer, and author of the Bachelor’s Bible, and it would be quite the scandal for him to get married. And yet, he’s head over heels in love with Elaine. After going through an existential crisis about the whole thing, he gives into Elaine’s sweet demeanor, and the two file their marriage license officially.

It’s Halloween day, and we move from the city to the suburbs of Brooklyn, where two policemen, O’Hara (Jack Carson) and Sanders (John RIdgely) are on patrol. Sanders tells O’Hara of the kindly Brewster Sisters, the sweetest women on Earth, both of whom live in the neighborhood. Currently, they are being visited by Reverend Harper (Grant Mitchell), Elaine’s father. He’s speaking with Abby (Josephine Hull) and Martha Brewster (Jean Adair), the kindly aunts of Mortimer. 

Also living there is Mortimer’s brother Teddy Brewster (John Alexander), who apparently believes that he’s Teddy Roosevelt, which is...hilarious. Dude is hilarious, seriously. The cops come over to visit the two, and collect some clothes and toys for local charity. Also, Teddy only leaves a room by screaming “CHAAAAARGE!!!”, and running up the stairs, and I love Teddy a lot.

Reverend Harper and the cops leave for the night, and the sisters settle down for the evening. Abby and Martha state that their plans for Elaine and Mortimer should go as scheduled, which is probably talking about their marriage. Abby also mentions that she’s done something while she was away, to Martha’s delight and surprise. They tell Teddy that he’ll soon be digging a new lock for the Panama Canal...whatever that means.

Martha’s about to go to the basement to see what Abby’s done, but she states that because she was all by herself, the surprise is in the window seat. As she’s about to look at the surprise, Elaine shows up in the window, and the two arrive to give the happy news that they’re married. Elaine goes to tell her father of the news, while Mortimer goes to tell his sweet aunts. Afterwards, the two will be on their honeymoon, going to Niagara Falls. And I should say, they’re quite a sweet couple.

After telling the news to his aunts, he asks them where his notes are for his new controversial book, Mind Over Matrimony. They go to look for it around the house, and Teddy comes downstairs, dressed up in attire to “go to Panama.” Aunt Abby comes across a childhood picture of Jonathan, Mortimer’s brother and apparently a violent sociopath or some sort. She goes to burn the picture (geez), and Mortimer continues to look for the notes. He goes to the window seat.

Yup! It’s a body! Looks like Abby and Martha’s sweet old lady act is a guise for some myurder! Which I know, just because it’s the most famous thing about the movie. However, Mortimer thinks the murderer is Teddy, and tells his sweet old aunts about the body, asking that he gets put into an asylum. But Abby notes that Teddy didn’t kill the man, and they already know about the body!

Which, yeah, surprises Mortimer, obviously.

Abby cheerfully admits that the man, Mr. Hoskins, was poisoned by a tainted glass of elderberry wine, and that they did so on purpose, hiding the body before the Reverend came for a visit. The whole thing isn’t a big deal; it’s just Abby and Martha’s little secret!

After they leave, and brush off the whole thing as easy as needlepoint or macramé as a hobby, Mortimer, is completely broken by the whole affair, and is partially convinced that he’s dreaming. All the while, Elaine’s trying to get Mortimer to come over and speak with her father. But Mortimer can’t exactly forget about this whole silly murder thing, and goes to confront his aunts about it. He learns that Teddy’s digging not a lock, but a grave in the cellar. As he’s done with 10 other bodies. Or maybe it’s 11 others?

After picking up a phone call from Elaine, then hanging up abruptly (and understandably), Mortimer finds out how this whole thing started. See, the two have a “Renters Wanted” sign in their front lawn, and the neighborhood thinks that it’s there so the two sweet old ladies can offer help to anyone in need, even though they aren’t actually renting to anyone. In reality...well, they do it for another reason.

See, an older gentleman stopped by a bit ago, and he had a heart attack right there in the living room. After seeing how peaceful he looked, the two decided to bring in other lonely old men and bring in the same kind of peace. And from there...well, yeah, you get the general idea. They’ve been poisoning them with arsenic, strychnine, and cyanide mixed in with elderberry wine. Apparently, Martha’s got the mixture just right so that it tastes delicious. With all this explained, they offer Mortimer a sip of wine. Which he’s understandably nervous about.

But with all of that done, Elaine comes over to check in on him. But he’s not able to tell her anything, which greatly (and understandably) confuses her. He basically kicks her out (which enrages her, once again understandably), and calls a judge with the intent to frame the whole affair on Teddy, who’s always been.unstable. Which, for the record, is not even SLIGHTLY going to solve the problem.

But as he’s on the phone, a man named Gibbs (Edward McWade) comes in to rent an apartment. He’s all alone in the world, with nobody to care for him. And of course, this leads to the women trying to poison him with the wine. It’s a funny yet tense moment as he stops just short of drinking the wine, distracted by Mortimer’s freakout over the phone. But Mortimer gets off the phone JUST in time to scare Gibbs away and stop him from drinking the wine. And it is...VERY funny, goddamn.

As Mortimer tries to tell the aunts exactly what’s wrong with what they’re doing, the phone rings. It’s a call from Witherspoon (Edward Everett Horton), who runs an asylum that Mortimer wants Teddy committed into. However, they don’t quite have room for him, as they have too many Theodore Roosevelts at present. However, they do need more Napoleon Bonapartes. I love this goddamn movie.

Still, Witherspoon agrees to take him in despite that, and Mortimer head out to get the paperwork done. However, he asks his aunts to not do anything until he gets back, and he also proises that he’ll attend the “services” for their latest victim. He leaves, and kinda steals a cabbie’s car in the process (I love this movie, I’m telling you), and Abby and Martha start shutting things down for the night. However, as they do, they get a mysterious knock on the door. They pretend not to be home...only for a man with an ominous scar to enter the room regardless.

Let’s pause here, shall we? See you in Part 2!

[famedroleplayarchive]

As promised, here’s an admin update post. This addresses several topics you all probably knew were coming and might have been waiting for the answers on, as well as some other topics, additions, and changes! Please take your time to read this thoroughly, and thanks again for four years of Famed! There’s a lot here, so take your time reading it.

URL change

The main blog’s URL has changed to famedroleplay. Some links are still being updated, but if you notice anything still links back incorrectly after a week or so, please do let me know!

Faceclaims

After hearing out the opinion of everyone who shared theirs regarding banning faceclaims involved in bullying scandals and taking that into consideration, face claims will be banned if they are linked to outside crimes or severe such as sexual assault, molka, or bullying in connection to suicide / suicide attempts. This means the initial ban on actor Kim Jisoo and April members Kim Chaewon, Lee Naeun, Yang Yena, Lee Jinsol, and and ex-member Jeon Somin remain in tact.

Bullying allegations not linked to these outside factors will still be grounds for someone to be allowed to ask to change a faceclaim before their faceclaim change waiting period is up, though, if they are uncomfortable continuing to use a faceclaim because of bullying allegations. If a faceclaim leaves the industry and/or removes themselves from the public eye for the foreseeable future for any reason, they are also still unusable, but this rule was already in place.

As for how this will affect parts of the roleplay other than faceclaims, please see the section further down about Element. Two April songs (”Oh My Mistake!” and “Love Clock”) were previously used for the first season of base’s COLLA3ORATE. These will be retroactively replaced with Elris’s “Jackpot” and “Like I Do” respectively, but if you had a muse involved in “Oh My Mistake” and would prefer to remove them from COLLA3ORATE season one entirely, just message me and they will be removed. I assigned the lines trying to match the positions and line distributions up similarly, but if your muse was involved and you’d like to keep them in “Jackpot” but want to switch to an untaken position, you’re welcome to request that as well. Otherwise, any references to that can simply use those songs instead now.

Element update

Due to the recent allegations involving Somin, a major revamp of Element has had to be conducted. After discussing the situation with the current muns of the group, the past model discography of Element has been replaced using Checkmate, K-Tigers Zero, and Lucky J, and they will be making their final comeback on April 12. After those promotions end, Element will be disbanded and the members will re-debut later in the year in a boy group, Quicksilver, with model groups of Ateez and Treasure and a girl group, Marigold, with model groups of BVNDIT and Melody Day with two new members each. The Element spots have been reopened, but the new positions in the new groups won’t be opened until after Element have finished promoting. This will be a major plotline for the roleplay and Gold Star in particular so expect to see it brought up in schedules and in some articles on the Exclusive blog as the storyline unfolds.

The new debuts in Quicksilver and Marigold will be available on May 13.

Fuse’s model discography update

Thanks to everyone’s suggestions, I was able to find two groups to add to Fuse’s model discography that I felt could align with their sound, direction, storyline, and positions enough to be happy with for now. These groups are Cherry Bullet and Weki Meki. The updated line distribution can be found on Fuse’s page.

There are other groups I’m looking into adding onto the model discographies of, but Fuse was the most urgent, so they’re the only official update I have today!

Canon soloists

Ultimately, after the poll, more people voted to remove canon soloists than to keep them, and they are officially being removed from the roleplay.

Those discographies previously used for the soloists will begin to be open for points claims at midnight/12AM EDT on April 12.

With the removal of canon soloists, the plan is to allow a solo music career to become a more prominent claiming option, and there are plans for some additional claim options to become available in relation to such a career, but those will be added and addressed at a later time.

As for storylines linked to some of the soloists, this is how those will be retconned:

BC Soloist 1: Instead of BC signing and debuting a known Gold Star trainee, BC hired a high profile creative director from Gold Star known from working with Gold Star since their inception and had worked on some of their most defining comebacks and announced she would be taking over as one of the company’s main creative directors. She has since worked on conceptualizing several group’s comeback as well as most heavily on Chroma’s pre-debut project.

Dimensions Soloist 3: Instead of Dimensions buying out a small and brand new company created by a crew of popular music producers with one soloist who they transferred to their label, in early 2020, Dimensions bought out a music production company that was created by a top music production team with several rising producers signed with them and made the producers in-house producers for Dimensions. Since then, the new producers have helped to produce several hit Dimensions songs since.

While Gold Star Soloist 1 no longer exists as an IU stand-in, Gold Star still had an incredibly popular and loved NPC soloist as one of their first artists that helped give their name prominence. At the beginning of 2021, she announced her departure from the agency to create her own label, citing her reasoning as feeling she needed a more focused environment than Gold Star’s growth could provide. There are rumors she was alluding to dissatisfaction with Gold Star’s recent management and gossip that Gold Star was pushing for her to pursue activities in overseas markets she wasn’t interested in.

Anyone who had a feature or MV appearance claim on a soloist can contact me and let me know whether they’d like to just drop the claim (and, if a points claim, recollect those points), keep it as a claim in an unspecified work, or try to replace it with something else. The following muses had claims this applies to:

Features:

Cha Kyonghwa (Kami) (app claim) Kang Sunghee (app claim) Park Jaewon (points claim, 10 points) dropped! Choi Joosung (Sun) (points claim, 10 points) Moon Chaeyeon (Dita) (app claim) Park Duri (points claim, 10 points) kept as unspecified!

MV appearances:

Kim Kyongmin (Alice) (app claim) Ryu Jaein (points claim, 5 points) dropped! Seo Minjung (points claim, 10 points) points reclaimed! Moon Chaeyeon (Dita) (app claim)

Points shop updates

There have been a few updates to the points shop!

Firstly, the nation’s title claim checklist now requires a headcanon on the muse’s image and how it relates to their claims and career to be completed. This is just so I can see a mun’s own intentions for how everything ties in with their image. This headcanon shouldn’t focus on the title itself since that isn’t ever guaranteed for approval, but the muse’s general image as the mun has shaped it. The viral moment requirement for a nation’s title is now also specified to need to relate to the image involved in the desired title.

In the wake of canon soloists being removed, I’m planning on being a little more strict regarding music claims aligning well with positions.This applies to both individual songs and whole discographies. Still, the intent is to be reasonable. Chungha having a rap-like verse in “Bicycle” won’t require someone to have a rap position to claim it since it’s not a lot of the song and she’s not known as a rapper, but I also wouldn’t approve a muse whose most prominent position is main rapper or a main dancer making their entire discography IU releases since IU is primarily a singing-focused artist.

There used to be a rule requiring that muns seek admin approval before claiming songs written by deceased artists, but that rule has now been removed. Keep it respectful, though, please. If any issue arises with muns breaking the fourth wall in relation to these songs to be disrespectful about a real person’s passing, that claim may be revoked and the rule may be reinstated. Songs performed by deceased artists still cannot be claimed.

There’s also a new claim available — a YouTube variety show or talk show. Please see the variety page for examples and more information, but note that this is separate from both a reality show claim. I’ve tried to specify the difference, but if you’re ever unsure which one what you want to claim would fit into, feel free to ask! Both will now be uploaded in-’verse to base’s Youtube Channel. Likewise, there has been a small change so that future radio show claims are now through base Radio, a radio streaming application (think Naver Now). 

Company building pages + Pinterest

I’m currently working on pages that give more detail on the layout of the company headquarters. They aren’t quite finished yet, but I have created a Famed Pinterest account for those of you who find more muse visually or who are into visual worldbuilding! One of the sections on the boards there gives a rough idea of company building visuals. There are group concept boards as well, so if you’re struggling to decide where your muse might fit, looking at those might help you if you’re more of a visual person. No one is required to follow it and I won’t be answering messages or anything of the sort there, but I thought it might be a helpful way to visually convey locations and concepts! I’ll make a small post to let everyone know when the pages with in-depth information on the company buildings is available.

Activity rules updates

I mentioned there’d be a few more touch-ups to the activity rules to fill in loopholes that have been around a while, so here they are.

- There is now a formal hiatus request form that must be submitted to request a hiatus. Simply sending the main an IM that you want a hiatus will no longer qualify as a valid request and it will not be processed.

- There will no longer be a week-long grace period after a hiatus ends. You are responsible for being active for the next activity check after your hiatus ends.

- The maximum length of a hiatus is now three weeks (and the minimum one week). The initial hiatus request maximum is still two weeks with one week extensions, but extensions may not be stacked to exceed three weeks total without a passed activity check in between. If you can’t be around for a longer period of time, it might be best to rejoin at a later time when you’re more available! In total, a mun is allotted a maximum of four weeks of hiatus over any twelve week period.

- If a muse reaches three activity warnings in a month, they will be automatically moved to the unfollow list on their third warning instead. If a muse is removed and refollowed three times over the course of six months, they will not be able to be re-followed again and will have to re-apply.

New points opportunity

As of this post going up, muses may now collect one point for every first closed thread with a new muse after it has reached ten posts. This will no longer only apply during events and the ten post requirement is new. Members should be interacting with new muses all the time, not just during events, so it felt right to adjust this accordingly. This applies only to threads started after this post goes up.

Chroma

As schedules have been made quarterly, all remaining Chroma roles will be made available for reserves and applications in at midnight/12AM EDT on April 12.

Suggestions + Feedback

I want to end off this post by reminding everyone that I’m always taking suggestions for events, tasks, etc! I plan on opening an official suggestion submission blog at some point down the line, but I’m happy to take suggestions through the ask box or submit if you have any. I’m also open to feedback as well. If you do send in either of these things, please specify if you’d like a reply from me, since sometimes I might be naturally inclined to keep a message simply giving a suggestion or idea without any questions instead of responding to it.

Thanks for reading this very long update! There are more additions to the roleplay in the works, some I’ve hinted at here and some I’ve not, but I hope Famed’s fifth year is able to be its best one yet!

[yoonieper]

Secrets of the Sea— Part 1 | MYG

❂ Pairing: Yoongi x Reader

❂ Genre: Mermaid AU, slight enemies to lovers, slight fluff, future smut 

❂ Rated: SF for Something’s Fishy... [X]

❂ Warnings: Nothing bad at all really 😌; Sciency stuff is discussed, cursing, trauma, Yoongi and Y/N are cute as frick (eventually), long, rocky start but I promise it’ll get better 😔…. 

❂ Word Count: 15.9k 

❂ Summary: A summer vacation you had planned with you and your friends turns into the unexpected when you happen to discover an otherworldly creature in your own backyard. Is that… is that a merman? What starts off as a clash between species, turns into an unforeseen research project when you both become curious about your two completely different cultures. Land and water, two different worlds on the same planet. Maybe they can come together…?

❂ Author’s Note: This was supposed to be released in April but editing this has been the worst (in the end I just gave up lol) 😭 Please enjoy! I’m writing Part 2 atm so it might be some time before it comes out! In the meantime I have a bunch of oneshot ideas I’ll be writing~  

❂ Betas: Thank you to these people for reading through this mess and helping me make it better @lunarlxve , @sweetnspicy93 ! And @sahmfanficbts​ for doing a read through! 

Prologue | Part 1 | Part 2 | To be continued~ 

No reposting, modifying. Translating not allowed unless given explicit permission. Thank you so much : D 

Today was exactly what you wanted. The sun was full as it beamed high in the cloudless sky, the cool ocean breeze blowing through your hair, the seagulls were loud and obnoxious as they soared over the water. You smiled happily as you drove past the crashing waves, memories coming back all too quickly. 

This was Jeju alright. 

After conquering your 3rd year in college, you and your childhood friends decided it was time to meet up again and take advantage of this glorious summer break. An idea that eventually became the vacation to make up for all the lost time…

While you had stayed in Busan for your secondary education, the rest of your friend group had moved to Seoul for various reasons. Amongst the busy schedules all three of you had, plans were made and a date was set. 

You had all carefully worked out the details: Your school got out a week earlier, along with the additional fact that your parents were busy with work back in your hometown. After discussing it, you ultimately decided to just head out early and enjoy these few weeks of peace and quiet. Your friends would head home to spend some time with families, and around the beginning of next month, they’d finally meet you here at your parents’ summer home! 

As much as you’d like to visit your own parents, them being away or too busy wasn’t anything new...

Your parents were world-renowned marine biologists. You had grown up distant, but that didn’t stop you from caring deeply for one another. Their work had often just got in the way of a lot of family time. Despite the time spent apart, you still found yourself connected with their passion. 

Growing up near the beach, you had easily become fond of the ocean, loving the life and mystery it brought along with it. It was only natural for you to pursue that passion, and here you are now, ever closer to earning your doctorate in the field. 

The water had always been a comforting place for you to go in times of stress or turmoil. After the year you’ve had, you were extremely excited to be here. 

Your 3rd year had seemed like hell. You had barely managed to fight through the constant attack of deadlines. 

Deadline this, deadline that, you were a mess. 

You would often have to call your friends from back home, Seokjin and Jungkook, to rant about troubles or in some cases, have a full-blown breakdown.

The year was overwhelming. 

You needed this~

You finally pulled up in the driveway of the summer home. This is the place where they grew up before moving to Busan, often bringing you here as a child. 

When you were planning out your vacation and you all collectively decided not to go far, this became the destination you really advocated for. 

You stretched as you got out of your rental car. The flight was only an hour, and then another 40 minutes of driving to get from the airport to the other side of the island, here at Jungmun Beach. That may seem short, but after the morning you had, you couldn’t wait to lay your head down and try out the luxury silk sheets your parents couldn’t stop gushing about when they bought them in France. 

A bad storm the night before had caused the power to go out in the middle of the night on your entire block. This was how your alarm ended up failing you, throwing your whole schedule out of order. It was absolute chaos. You had to rush out to catch your flight on an empty stomach since you had burnt your breakfast toast. With your whole morning routine thrown off, you ended up forgetting your phone that was still charging on your nightstand, meaning you had to go back. Somehow you didn’t miss your flight, but it was extremely close and had your anxiety going haywire. You were exhausted by the time you sat down in your seat. 

Choosing to forgo grabbing your luggage until later, you walked inside the beach house and smiled.

How nice it felt to be back here again~ It was just like it had been years ago.

The house was a comfortable size. Two stories, four bedrooms, and a pool outside, but what really attracted you was the little private beach on the property’s land. Any free time your parents had, they’d take you to this house and you’d have beach days, spending the entire day together. You’ve had some of your best memories here. 

You smiled and took out your phone. 

BEACH BOIS

[You: 3:36] What up losers, I made it 🤪🤙

[Jinnie: 3:37] Did you just 🙄

[My son 🥺: 3:37] Noona glad you made it safely 🥳!!!

[Jinnie: 3:37] 😑

[You: 3:38] KOOOOO

[My son 🥺: 3:38] Hi noona ☺️

[You: 3:39] Why don’t you ever pick up the phone?! I always call you, but you never pick up 😢 I always have to talk to the other one...

[Jinnie: 3:39] The other one 🙄

[My son 🥺: 3:39] Sorry noona, finals have been kicking my ass 😪

[You: 3:40] Aw I see, can’t wait to see you again

[Jinnie: 3:40] Hello?!!

[My son 🥺: 3:40] Me too

[Jinnie: 3:41] So do I just not exist or…

[You: 3:41] OOOOPPPPPAAAAAAAAAAA

[Jinnie: 3:41] Oh so now you wanna include me in this conversation 

[You: 3:41] I talk to you all the time, I wanted to catch up with Koo

[Jinnie: 3:41] 😑

[You: 3:42] I’m excited to see you both again!! I missed you guys, it’s been so long since we’ve all been together 😔

[My son 🥺: 3:42] I really missed you too noona

[You: 3:42] Koo 🥺

[Jinnie: 3:42] STOP FLIRTING OML 🤢

[My son 🥺: 3:42] 🙄

[You: 3:43] It’s just been awhile 

[You: 3:43] Little koo’s in college now, he was still in his awkward prepubescent teen phase when I last saw him 

[My son 🥺: 3:44] I-

[Jinnie: 3:44] 🤣

[My son 🥺: 3:44] Was I really that awkward 🥺

[You: 3:44] No, you were just getting used to the world is all 

[Jinnie: 3:45] That’s code for awkward, Jungkook 😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣

[My son 🥺: 3:45] 😔

[Jinnie: 3:45] HOwever, I will say the transformation that has happened since he’s been up here with me in Seoul….

[You: 3:46] 👀

[Jinnie: 3:46] He’s all muscle now 

[You: 3:46] wait WAT???

[Jinnie: 3:46]

[Jinnie: 3:47] Took this of him at the pool

[You: 3:47] IM sORRY wAT

[Jinnie: 3:47] Yep, he started to go to the gym with me, but now I think I’ve created a monster

[Jinnie: 3:47] You don’t know how many people have come up to him, thinking he was some idol 🤣

[You: 3:48] I feel like I’ve missed so much

[Jinnie: 3:48] That’s why we’re spending almost the whole summer together 

[You: 3:48] True 

[You: 3:48] Too bad Hani couldn’t make it 

[Jinnie: 3:48] That internship was important to her, so it’s ok

[You: 3:49] We just have an excuse to do this again 

[Jinnie: 3:49] Maybe next year we can go somewhere like Hawaii instead

[You: 3:49] You heard it everyone!! Start saving up for Hawaii just in case~

[You: 3:50] Anyway I came to say I’ma be annoying for a sec and spam your messages with beautiful pictures to make you all jealous and excited to join me~

[Jinnie: 3:50] Aren’t you like that all the time?

[You: 3:51] And this is why you’re the other one

[Jinnie: 3:51] …

[You: 3:51] What happened to Koo? Did he disappear again?

[Jinnie: 3:51] Idk he ran out the apartment 👀

[Jinnie: 3:51] Maybe he had something to do?

[You: 3:52] You don’t know your own roommate’s schedule?

[Jinnie: 3:52] You do?

[You: 3:52] I make sure Hani tells me everything she has to do, just in case 

[Jinnie: 3:53] Ooookkkk

[You: 3:53] You make her do the same thing

[You: 3:53] You can’t judge me

[Jinnie: 3:53] She’s my girlfriend who lives on the other side of the country

[Jinnie: 3:53] I think that gives me some reason to know

[You: 3:54] Whatever, don’t mute the chat, I’ma go take some pretty pictures 

Excitedly you walked around the place, snapping as many pics as you could.

Photography had become a hobby that you picked up from Jungkook when he started showing you some of the work he was doing. After he taught you the ropes and gave you a few tips, you started taking things seriously, even going as far as to buy a professional camera. But it was all still indeed a hobby; you definitely wouldn’t say you were good enough to go professional like Jungkook.  

You sighed, realizing how quiet it was here. 

While you did enjoy the peace and quiet, you were excited to reunite with them after spending so much time apart. The last time you all saw each other was when both you and Jungkook were still in high school. You were in your last year, Jungkook in his first. Seokjin had come back from his 1st year of college during a break to visit his family and see some of his closest friends. That was the last time you had all been in each other’s company. 

However, you had made plans to meet much sooner than this. 

Back in your second year, you had all made plans to travel somewhere together, ultimately deciding on Alaska to see the northern lights. All plans were set and ready when suddenly you got a call from Jungkook saying he couldn’t make it. 

His father had called and told him he was coming to visit during that same time you’d all be gone. As much as you wanted him to be there, you knew how important visits like this were to him. 

As long as you had known him, his father had been absent from his life. His parents had divorced long ago when he was still a baby after an alcohol addiction took a toll on their marriage. Even after his father attended rehab and got clean, his mother was insistent on not letting him back into their lives. That’s why you knew this opportunity was something he couldn’t miss. 

Since the date was too close to cancel, you, Seokjin, and a close friend of yours/roommate, Hani, still went on the trip together. 

The experience was fun overall~ Seokjin and Hani even saw the first sparks of romance during the trip, which eventually led to the relationship that’s still going strong to this day. 

That still didn’t stop you from missing Jungkook. 

You had realized quite quickly that you had just turned into the 3rd wheel. You felt it terribly when you guys made it to the northern lights. While Hani and Seokjin could hardly keep their hands off each other, you were trying your best to admire the beautiful sight in front of you. In a moment like that you couldn’t help but think about him. 

It had originally been his idea of coming to Alaska, thinking he’d be able to get some amazing shots for a project he was working on. 

Unlike you and Seokjin, who see each other a couple of times each month, when he comes to visit Hani, you haven't seen Jungkook since he and his family moved to Seoul after your 1st year in college. 

The trip was fun and all, but there were definitely a lot of regrets you had when you got back. 

After spamming their messages, you headed outside to the back to your favorite place on the property. There was the infamous pool, with the comfortable lounging room along the sides that your parents always liked to show off whenever you all had guests. What got you really excited, though, was the path that led down to the beach. 

As fast as you could (while still maintaining true to your aesthetic), you got shots of the patio area, even putting down some ideas you all could do when they got here. After checking that you were happy with them, you made a beeline straight toward the gate that led you down to the beach.

Skipping along the way, your eyes widened, and you quickly pulled out your phone when you came across the perfect angle. The gentle waves and the sun shining prettily through the thickness of the trees, perfectly captured the little beach’s cozy, tropical aesthetic. 

“Perfect for making them jealous~” you giggled to yourself.

Just as you were about to take the candid shot, something on the bottom of your screen caught your eye. “What the…” you said aloud. You lowered your phone to see the questionable object.  

Your eyes must be deceiving you. You tried many times at rubbing your eyes, hoping that it’d just go away, but each time you were horrified to see it was still there. 

Maybe the traveling has finally got to you, or you must be going crazy. 

Every bone in your body was telling you to just run back inside and hope it disappears, but your marine biologist curiosity was sparked, and that seemed to override any sense you had because you started walking closer.

The closer you got, the more your i-forgot-my-glasses-in-the-car-and-I’m-not-wearing-my-contacts ass was finally able to make out what had appeared to be a weird blob. 

In all honesty, maybe the blob would make more sense than what you saw before you. 

Hair? Arms? A FUCKING TAIL???!!

Mermaid….?

Hold up.

Now you know you lost it, there is no way this is real.

You kept moving closer despite your skepticism, and the more your hope that it was just some really weird big fish started dissipating. Nope, that was clearly a person at the top and… and a fish at the bottom. 

One thing you noticed immediately was the amount of blood that polluted the sand; It. Was. Everywhere. You looked closer and saw the array of cuts and slashes that seemed to paint the creature’s skin. Every surface seemed to have some sort of damage, and you feared the worst. The chances of this creature still being alive were dwindling with each step. 

You squatted down to its level. 

This was certainly a moment for the history books. 

It dawned a magnificent tail, despite the plethora of cuts and bruises, you could only imagine what it looked like in its full glory. It was (very!) long and had a subtle gradient to it, going from a pale blue leading to the dark grey of the tip. Markings (tattoos?) ran up its arms and around its neck. You had yet to deduce whether they were natural or purposeful. You couldn’t get a better look at its face which was half buried in the sand, but you could conclude that this was definitely a self-aware and intelligent creature. The jewelry on the arms and tail, the braids that filled its hair, the satchel, all were things that proved your theory.

What a beautiful creature, and to be put through all this pain….

You reached out your hand, placing all your bets on the creature not being dangerous given it's wounded condition. However, all sense of your self-protection was thrown out of the window when you heard a pained groan… 

It was alive? 

The mission of wanting to save the creature suddenly took full force, overriding any type of rational thinking. 

“Please wake up, please wake up” you kept repeating as you gently started shaking the creature. 

“Hello…?” You asked, wary of the potential danger you’re in. Were you scared? Yes, of course, you were, but even more, you were intrigued (and a bit relieved) more than anything. 

“Hello-“ you asked again as the creature started lifting itself up, but almost as quickly as the hope came, disaster seemed to strike again. 

At first, it was only coughing up water, but that coughing soon turned into vomiting, vomiting up a substance that reminded you of tar. Was it tar? You didn’t know, but your heart sank at this. To think your kind could have something to do with this creature's suffering…

It was everywhere.

The black substance spread throughout the ocean as the tides washed in and out, you were worried, it seemed as if it’d never stop. 

But then it did. 

And so did the creature. 

It collapsed into the water, panicked, you quickly checked for breathing, but when that failed, you checked for a pulse on the neck. 

Nothing again, shit.

You finally took the liberty of flipping him over so he’d face you. Despite the mixed smearing of blood and whatever the fuck that was he threw up, you were shocked at how human he looked. 

You didn’t know what to expect… 

We are always told fairy tales about mermaids being beautiful creatures with many human-like features. But that image distorts into something “realistic” - scary creatures who lurk in the dark depths of the ocean. 

Turns out, the original assumptions were more correct. 

His whitish-grey skin glistened in the sunlight, if you looked close enough, you could make out the tiny sparkles that seemed to cover his entire body. His hair was a little long and looked surprisingly soft. He looked so human. It was so interesting…

The marine biologist in you wanted to research this creature and get to know more about it and it’s origins, but that would definitely require you to save it. 

You hastily checked for a pulse where you (think?) his heart would be. You were a bit shocked to feel the signs of a faint pulse. 

There was still a chance! 

Quickly you run back into the beach house, searching every cabinet for the first aid kit. You knew there was some around here, after hurting yourself on plenty of different occasions, your parents would always run in here like this and come back with one. 

Now, where was it? 

As the search continued, you began to worry… 

“What if they threw it out?” plagued your mind. 

You began contemplating your other options, when you accidentally found it at the back of the master bathroom’s cabinet underneath some of the things your parents left from previous visits. 

Quickly you ran back, knowing every second counts in situations like these. It had taken a good 15 minutes for you to find the first aid kit and then an extra 5 for you to gather all the extra materials you might need. You began to worry it might be too late. 

Running back as fast as you could, your anxious feet tripping you a few times along the way, you made it back to the poor injured creature on the beach. 

Part of you was surprised he was still there… 

Now that you were here though, you had no idea where to start. There was something to be done everywhere, and without a proper examination, you had no idea what should take priority. 

You sighed and looked at his face. You just hoped you were doing the right thing. 

———————

Things were hazy. Yoongi felt himself dip in and out of conscience.

He felt a sudden, sharp pain in his tail. 

Matter of a fact, he hurt all over….

‘What the-’ His eyes fluttered open. Where was he? 

The blinding light of the sun caused him to wince, and he could hear the faint squawking of seagulls. 

This was definitely the surface….

Then he heard it.

“Please, please be ok…”

A human.

Quickly he forced his eyes closed once again.

What the fuck happened to him? The arms, that… that thing that chased him, that thing? He thought he was dead… It’s presence… fuck, was the tribe ok? 

Yoongi needed to get back.

He checked for the presence of his knife, and luckily for him somehow it managed to get back in his satchel, which to his relief was still with him. It only made him wonder even more how he ended up here…

As discreetly as he could, he mouthed the secrets that lead the knife directly to his hand. 

The clueless human didn’t even notice. 

He had to take out the first and most pressing problem. 

You.

He waited till he was sure you were distracted, or at least not looking in his direction. Yoongi could tell from your presence that you were a relatively small human, letting him know this should be a piece of cake. 

He’s killed sharks, giant squids. The human should be nothing. 

That’s when the moment came. He sat up quickly and went straight for your throat, or at least that’s what would have happened if he didn’t crumble back down in pain. 

Shit. It was a lot worse than what he thought it was. 

“YOU’RE ALIVE??!!!” He heard your voice pierce through the ringing in his head. Oh, how much he hurt all over. Yoongi looked over and saw all the blood that covered the sand, being washed in and out by the ocean. 

That explains a lot. 

He watches as you quickly move up over closer to his face. Through his hazy gaze, he notices how wet your face looked. Were you crying?

———————

“Please don’t move, I’m only trying to…” you realized he probably didn’t understand, by the odd look he was giving you. Fuck, this was going to be difficult.

You turned to the only other option you knew of; miming it out...

“I am,” you pointed to yourself “Trying to help you,” you made sure you enunciated each word and even pointed to your first aid kit. Hopefully, that was enough. “Don’t move, ok...” You sighed and got back to work, wiping the tears that you didn’t realize had spilled. You were worried that he was gone, or even worse, you were the problem. 

You had some basic knowledge in the medical field due to the occasional lectures you would get from Jungkook’s mom on one of your many trips to the hospital. She was a doctor overthere, and you were extremely curious and accident-prone. You weren’t qualified at all to do anything major, but you did know how to properly dress wounds and give stitches, which really came in handy today. 

A lot of the wounds on his tail were so deep, they required stitches, the others you could get away with putting on bandages. 

You were more worried, however, about what was going on inside. 

If this is how he looks on the outside then you couldn’t imagine what was happening inside the creature. Internal bleeding was extremely likely, and you certainly didn’t have the knowledge or the resources to check. 

It was a great sign he was awake, but you just hoped your hypothesis wasn’t correct; if so, no matter what you did now, it was over….

Breaking your train of thought was suddenly a long object appearing in front of your face. 

Your eyes widened, realizing what it was.

 A sword? 

Where did that come from?

The creature moved the sword from your neck and pointed to the wounds, which you assumed was a sign to continue your actions. 

Great, now you have to work under pressure. 

Where’d he even get the sword anyway? You may not be the brightest bulb in the world, but you’re sure you would have noticed a sWOrD. Right?

As you continued to stitch up the last of the wounds, you would notice the little whimpers of pain he was obviously trying to cover up. It broke your heart every time you’d need to poke the skin with your needle. It was a bit tougher too, you noticed almost as soon as you started that his skin was that similar to dolphins, which was way thicker than that of a human. It always required you to put in a lot more effort in puncturing the skin with your flimsy needle. 

After you successfully managed to finish the last of the wounds that needed stitches, you made sure to be extra careful around the little wounds that needed a bit more care. Making sure to clean them thoroughly before putting on waterproof band-aids or bandages for bigger wounds. 

Finishing the majority on his body, you moved to the last one, which was a small cut on his face. You took a minute to take in his appearance. He was surprisingly handsome. His eyes had an almost cat-like shape, but the dark irises added a sense of mystery. He also had little fangs that poked out of his mouth slightly, which made you giggle a bit at how much he really did look like a cat. 

You found it oddly ironic. 

He looked up at you with almost pleading eyes, you hadn’t even noticed that he’d dropped the sword long ago. You felt so bad, to think he was already probably in an immense amount of pain, and what if you’re making things worse?!

“I’m so sorry,” you sobbed, gently wiping the sand off his face. 

Your touch was so soft, Yoongi couldn’t help but lean into the warmth of your hand. You were so warm. Maybe it was the pain, or simply he was losing his mind to delusion, but you were certainly not what the textbooks on humans said you were supposed to be. 

His culture has had wars, some still going on to this day, but no matter what tribe you were a part of, everyone could come together and talk about their hatred for humans. They were considered backward creatures who only cared about hurting each other. They were violent, stupid, and were always considered below their kind. Keepers had always, since the days of the Oown, been 10 steps ahead of human progression. While humans were learning how to write, Keepers had already developed technology for global communication, while humans were traveling to the moon, the Keepers just figured out teleportation technology. Humans were backward and slow. The Keepers were superior. 

As soon as he woke up and discovered you were here, he’d figured he’d have to kill you, as you would try and do something worse. When he realized he could hardly move, he was scared it was over. But no, here you were helping him. 

His guard was still up, knowing not to trust you so easily, but in a time like this, when he really couldn’t do much, he just prayed for the best and hoped you’d show some mercy.

You cleaned the wound and placed a little cat band-aid over the cut. 

“Okay, that was the last one,” you reassured. You felt him try and sit up, to which he struggled, and you assisted. “Please don’t move around too much. I don’t want you pulling out your stitches,” you sighed, realizing he probably didn’t understand.

He pointed toward the ocean. 

You had moved the both of you closer to the shore in order to perform the brief medical procedure. You hadn’t even thought about if he couldn’t breathe. 

You did the best you could, moving him closer to the water; you tried to go slowly, as you didn’t wanna hurt him even more than he was. When the water came up to his shoulders, you figured he could manage the rest of the way. You saw him relax a bit. You had noticed earlier that his gills had run along his sides rather than his neck. “Please don’t go,” you said, now realizing he might try to leave. How were you supposed to tell him? You were about to try miming again, but suddenly you heard the voice of another. 

“Human.” You looked down and saw him looking at you “I can understand your simple language. You don’t need to do… whatever you were trying to do earlier,” you stared at him, eyes widened. 

What the…

You were suddenly so tempted to scream.

“You— You know Korean?” You asked a lot shakier than you would have liked. 

He nodded, “Did you not hear me earlier?” 

“I did, but…” you were stunned to say the least. “Um, well then, like I was saying, you might want to stay here for a little while, so I can help all your wounds” the creature rolled his eyes. “Human, if I could leave, you wouldn’t be here right now.” The threat went right over your head. 

You were still caught up on him being able to talk, let alone understand you.

You sat down at his level, not bothering at this point on keeping your clothes dry. “Since you can understand, can I ask what happened to you? The number of injuries you had felt never-ending..” you chuckled sadly.

You saw his expression fall. “I just wanna know, so I can properly care for your wounds,” you said with as much sympathy as you could muster. “I have no idea. I was coming up and then-“ he stopped himself, realizing he already said too much. 

“Then what? Coming up from where?” he stared at you. “You ask a lot of questions, human.” You scoffed, “I’m just curious is all, it’s not everyday you see a mermai- I mean merman.” 

There was a bit of silence, but then the corners of his lips started turning up more and more, eventually leading into full blown laughter, a sound you did not expect, but liked a lot more than you liked to admit. 

You also took a moment to notice the sharpness of his teeth, the front ones were a lot sharper than a human’s but you could see the tiny ones poking out at the back were oddly identical to that of a human’s. You made the quick hypothesis that they were omnivores- likely eating creatures a lot tougher than what humans typically do, which would explain the sharpened front teeth, and also a plant-based diet with the fact their back teeth were similar. 

His smile was adorable. Gummy, you felt was the best word to describe it. 

“Human, what- what did you just call me?” He said, still trying to recover from the laughing fit. You thought about it for a moment, but realized what he was talking about. “A merman?” Is that not right?” He laughed once again, but then suddenly, the sword was back in your face. “Don’t ever call me that again unless you want to want to die, alright?” He said with a tone that had you wanting to run away. You nodded, realizing this creature is not to be messed with. You had no idea what he was capable of…

“I won’t answer your countless inane questions, human, but we aren’t mermaids, mermen, or anything related to that derogatory term invented by humans. Please refer to my people as the Keepers. I will accept nothing else. Got it?” You nodded quickly, terrified. 

His statement did spark some questions. “Keepers?.. Keepers of what?” The sword was thrust in your direction once again. “One more question human and I’ll-“ “Ok, ok, I’ll stop, no need for the threats.” You got up from the water, shivering from the cold winds. 

You were about to make your way out when you realized something. 

“Ok, I know you said no more questions, but-“ a sword in your face “But, I just wanted to know your name…” the sword was lowered. “I’m Y/N~” you chimed as happily as you could. 

“Oh, um,” suddenly, he looked flustered. You couldn’t help but smile. 

Cute~ 

“I’m positive you would butcher my name. I would like to be addressed as the closest translation, which would be the Korean name Yoongi.” He looked at you, confused as your smile grew with every word.

You were smiling like an idiot. 

What did he even say?

Humans, he knew, would be something he’d never understand. 

“Why are you smiling like that?” He asked a bit of concern laced in his voice. “I don’t know just… never mind.” Too embarrassed that he noticed, you started going back to the beach. 

“Hey, did you want anything?” He looked at you, nonplussed by your question. 

“Food. When was the last time you ate anything?” He looked a bit taken aback. Even he didn’t know the answer to that. 

“Do you eat fish, or is that another stereotype?” He shook his head “Um no…” you chuckled slightly at the sudden loss of the tough-guy attitude. 

“I’ll be back then, ok?” you said, turning away. 

“Wait!” You stopped hearing his voice. 

“What’s today’s date according to your calendar?”

You looked at him at a loss. 

“May 2nd?”

He felt his blood turn cold as soon as the words left your mouth. May? But it was barely the 4th cycle last time he checked…

“Um, thank you, carry on human.” You smiled and left for the grocery store. 

You were gonna go anyway, stocking up on some food and snacks before your friends got here, but it seems you’ll be needing some extra seafood~ You laughed aloud at the joke. Seokjin would be proud of you for that one~

———————

As soon as you were up the stairs and back in your beach house, Yoongi hurriedly pulled out his system (which he was surprised was still in there). He opened up the hologram menu and saw... ‘5th cycle of the year’? 

So the human was right…

He started to panic. Here he was thinking it was merely the next day, but a whole month has passed?!          

What the fuck happened to him. Why was he covered in cuts? Why doesn’t he remember anything?  

He can only imagine the chaos this has caused. 

Choosing someone at random, he hoped they’d pick up. 

“Yoongi?” He heard the confused voice of Jimin after only one ring. Upon hearing his voice, he couldn’t help the tears that filled his eyes. 

That was such a relief.  

“Yoongi…. Yoongi, is that you?” Jimin sobbed. “Yes, it’s me” he tried to laugh through the tears that started falling. “Where— Where did you go, I mean, we looked and looked and looked, but you—“ Jimin stopped when emotions became too much. 

“We thought… Where the fuck did you go? You just disappeared without saying anything, not even to us?” Yoongi sighed; he regretted not telling them about his trip to the surface.                                             

“I didn’t mean to leave, at least, not for as long as I did…” Jimin sensed he was about to continue. 

“Wait, you’re gonna explain yourself in front of all of us. We- Yoongi, you have no idea how hard it’s been.” 

Yoongi sulked as Jimin moved into the other room. This has been a disaster. 

He saw his group of friends sitting at the table they’d often use for discussion. It made him feel even worse. Jimin set the system in the middle of the table, and Yoongi was able to see all their reactions. Some were confused, others angry, Tae started crying…

“Jimin is this some sick joke,” Namjoon asked, worried this was just some recording. “Ask him,” Jimin said, crossing his arms. “Hi everyone,” Yoongi said, sensing the que. With that one line, all skepticism was thrown out the window. 

“This makes no sense- where did you go?... we, we, we-“ 

“That’s what he’s here to explain,” everyone turned their attention to Yoongi after Jimin’s words. 

“I have no clue... It was still 4th cycle last time I checked,” everyone looked at him confused. “You lost your memory?” Hoseok questioned. Yoongi shrugged, “Maybe? I don’t know- “

“Wait, wait, wait, just start from the beginning, please,” Namjoon said, the information already too much. 

Yoongi sighed before continuing “I had left on purpose. I was only gonna go up to the surface for a bit and come back. Things were becoming overwhelming and suffocating down there, I just wanted to go and clear my head.” 

“And you didn’t tell us because?” Hoseok asked.

“I just didn’t want you guys to stop me, or offer to come. I thought I’d be back before anyone really noticed in the morning, but, but, but-“ “But…?” Hoseok jumped back in, “I was fine until…” his mind thought back to the terrifying experience. It made his head hurt and ears start ringing again for some odd reason. 

“Until I was attacked by this thing… I have no idea.” 

“Attacked?” Taehyung questioned, finally getting the tears to stop.

Yoongi thought about it for a second, and his eyes widened, “You guys are ok, right?”

The group looked at him, confused, “What do you mean?” 

“When I felt its presence, I don’t know, it just felt like the world was coming after me… I wanted to make sure the tribe was ok.” 

“No, everything’s still good over here.” 

“Where are you by the way?” The group looked determined, “We’ll come and get you ourselves.” 

Yoongi’s blood turned cold “About that umm-“ 

“Yoongi!” You yelled from the top of the steps at the worst time.

Shit. 

You ran down and noticed the holographic people.

What the—

“Yoongi what…?” 

Suddenly yelling came from the screen in a language unrecognizable. 

Some of it was typical of a foreign language, unfamiliar, but recognizable of its purpose. Sometimes those words were combined with a series of clicks and whistles, similar to those of… dolphins? 

You were fascinated but extremely confused.  

Meanwhile, Yoongi was getting yelled at for getting involved with a human. 

“Yoongi, do you realize how dangerous this is?!”

“Yoongi, what will your parents think?”

“What happens when Tae’s parents find out?” 

All of the nonsense was becoming irritating quite quickly.

“Stop!” The group listened but still looked at him angrily.

“I know, I know, ok? I’m hurt.” Their expression changed to fill with concern. 

“What?” 

Yoongi lowered the system into the water to show off his bandages. The group looked shaken when he raised it back up again.

“I had no choice, but to let the human help, I couldn’t even move when I first woke up.” the group’s expression softened. 

“I will leave as soon as I can. Let everyone know that I’m ok, but don’t tell them where I am. I’ll handle it ok~” 

“You sure about this?” Yoongi nodded. 

“It’ll be fine, I’ll stay here until I recover and when the time comes, I’ll simply wipe her memory and leave. The human will never know I was here,” His friends looked at him concerned.

This was a necessary procedure in their culture. Yoongi is not the first one to encounter a human, but they are known as the Keepers for a reason. They’ll do anything to keep what lies deep in the ocean a secret from the vile humans, even in this case, wiping any of the encounters you will have from your memory.

“If you say so, we’ll trust you… but if the human does anything to you, we won’t hesitate to annihilate the entire human population.” Hoseok said, sending a menacing glare to you in the background, to which you paid no notice.

Yoongi turned around to look at you and back at his friends with a smirk on his face “I don’t think we’ll have to worry. This human wouldn’t stand a chance against me.” He chuckled, and the boys joined in. “That is true, that human looks small and fragile, I should be more worried about what you’d do to her.”

Yoongi had power unimaginable to a lot of human minds. Following early into his apprenticeship with his father, they had noticed immediately something was different about him. Whenever they’d go out to practice, Yoongi always had struggled to keep his powers subdued, always taking things way too far. His father and the Zaleon figured out pretty quickly that his connection was stronger than the typical advisor. In an effort to tame this power, they gave him the pocket knife he carries around. It was meant to be an alternative to using his abilities, but also a way for him to conduct his power into a singular point, the knife. It proved to be effective, and he’s used it ever since.

Yoongi feared his own power sometimes, but in this strange environment, he found his stronger connection useful in case things ever went south. He wouldn’t hesitate to let you be the first one to experience his true potential. 

“Anyway, I’ll call you back as soon as I can.” 

“Wait, Yoongi!” Hoseok called out, making Yoongi look at him, confused. 

“We weren’t exaggerating about what's been going on around here since your disappearance. I’ll explain it later when we’re alone.” He glared behind Yoongi and looked at you.

The seriousness in his tone frightened him slightly. “Ok…” everyone said their goodbyes before they hung up.

Oh, he was scared now. 

Yoongi turned around and faced you.

“What now human?” he sighed, seeing your mouth hanging open wide.

“I have so many questions! Like what the frick, was that a hologram? And your language?! Wow!!” You exclaimed, excitement bursting out, but you noticed the opposite attitude on your fishy friend in front of you.

“Um, I just came back to ask if there was anything in particular.” You suddenly felt very small. It was a bit scary the way he was looking at you.

“Go,” Yoongi said very nonchalantly. You were a bit taken aback by his sudden change in mood. “Oh ok, um I’ll be back… sorry for interrupting you,” you say before quickly running back to the house. You had no idea what was said, but you had a slight feeling that you should be a little worried. 

Your run to the store was relatively uneventful. You had run into a few people you recognized from your childhood, friends of your parents and friends you had before your family moved to Busan. It was a nice reunion, but at this point, you just wanted to head back. Besides, Yoongi was waiting for you.  

Excusing yourself from the group of people who had gathered around you, you carried on with the rest of your shopping. You had managed to get most of the things you needed, and put in a few extras for when your friends got here. 

The last thing on your list was getting the fish. 

As you scanned over the different types, you wished Yoongi had given you a specific type. This store seemed to carry everything. If you weren’t such a broke college student you would say fuck it and get him everything, but everything here was way too expensive. So you just forced yourself to pick something. 

If he doesn’t like it, he could have given you better directions. 

Heading back to the beach house, you quickly prepared your own meal (instant noodles cuz you were way too lazy after your long day), grabbed the beach chair and fish you had bought, then headed back down to the beach. 

“Yoongi, I’m back~” you say cheerily. 

You saw him on that same holographic screen, reading something in a language you didn’t understand. 

You called his name once more, realizing he must be too consumed by the words that he didn’t hear you. He turned around this time.

“Oh, human, you’re back,” he said, moving some things around the screen, before completely turning to you.

“Is technology really that advanced from where you come from?” You asked, placing your beach chair down. 

“Even more than this. Technology like this,” he held up the little box the hologram was projecting from, “Is a common commodity. Your brain probably couldn’t comprehend some of the things you’d find in the tribe.” Yoongi mentioned arrogantly. 

Oh, did that peak your curiosity. 

“You can't keep saying things like that and expect me not to ask questions.” You laughed, and Yoongi rolled his eyes. 

“You know you could be a little more appreciative. I kinda saved your life you know,” you scoffed, getting tired of his attitude. “Human, you did nothing. The wounds were nothing to the degree that couldn’t be healed on its own. The only thing you did was help speed up the process.” He said plainly. 

Yoongi stared at the tray and realized how hungry he was. Did he really not eat for a month? 

Suddenly you were angry. “Ok then,” you turned away, ready to march right back into your beach house when you suddenly heard a “Wait” come from behind you. 

How nice you were to turn back around. 

“I thought you didn’t need me?” You said and crossed your arms. “I never said that human, I simply corrected you on the fact my life was never in the danger you thought it was. Thread and whatever these are” he pointed to the bandages “Isn’t enough to save a life. However, I do require assistance with some processes, as it is a bit difficult for me to move at the moment.” His gaze flickered down to the tray of fish you were holding. You rolled your eyes at the explanation. You can tell that he’s probably going to push your buttons like this often. 

“You’re lucky I’m nice. Here you go,” you handed him the tray full of the different array of fish you bought. “I got as much as my wallet would let me since I didn’t know exactly what you liked…” 

His instincts were telling him to absolutely tear through the fish, he didn’t want you seeing that uncivilized side of him. 

He had an image to upkeep. 

“Why aren’t you eating?” You asked, a little panicked; you moved back to your beach chair, staring at your instant noodles. “Did I get the wrong kind?” 

“No… Could have at least taken the scales off first” He mumbled, making your eyes widen, “You take off the scales?” He looked up at you, confused, “You humans don’t?” “It’s not that, I just, I don’t know what I expected, but—“ your words were cut off by the sight in front of you.

“What the…” you said, getting up from your chair. You watched closely as somehow the scales seemed to fall right off. “How are you doing that?” You asked, baffled. 

He didn’t answer and started eating the fish. You stared wide-eyed whenever he’d pick up another fish, the same weird process of the scales coming off so easily seemed to happen each time. 

“Why do you keep staring, don’t you have your own human food to eat?” He said, still nibbling on the fish. Your face flushed, realizing that you were indeed staring at the poor creature. “Sorry, you’re just so interesting” you sighed fiddling with your noodles. 

“I have so many questions, but with so little answers,” you threw out there and continued eating. 

“Human, if you were meant to know the answers, you would already,” Yoongi said, laughing a bit.

“What does that mean?” 

Yoongi looked at you “My point exactly.” 

Silence followed for a while until you noticed Yoongi had already finished the tray of fish. You hadn’t gotten him this huge amount, but it was enough to make sure he was properly fed to help his wounds heal. 

“You must have been hungry” you laughed a bit, making him shy away, embarrassed. 

“Especially after throwing up like that, you probably had nothing in you left.” Yoongi suddenly looked up at you, confused and concerned. His look made you realize he had no idea what you were talking about. 

Yoongi had been logging his symptoms and injuries he could feel or observe. This apparently was crucial information he had missed. 

“You don’t remember?” His expression gave you the answer. 

“When I first got down here and saw you lying on the beach, I shook you a bit to try and wake you up, and you did, but then you started throwing up this black stuff before passing back out again. The water ended up washing it away. I had thought it was tar or something, but the fact you don’t remember what happened makes me a little worried… Do you know what it may have been?” Yoongi shook his head slowly, and his mood turned somber. You felt he knew a little more than what he was telling you. No matter how much you wanted to know, you respect his wishes of not telling you, if there is ever a time that he wants to share, you want it to be genuine and not because you forced it out of him. 

The secrets will be revealed when the time is right.

By now, the sun had set, and only the twinkling stars shined through the dark skies of the night. It was pretty over here, way less light pollution here than back at Busan. A favorite memory of yours is when you and your family stayed out here long enough to stargaze and enjoy the beauty of nature. 

It gave you nostalgia but also became so relaxing, just hearing the sounds of the waves along with the natural, earthy sounds started to make you a bit drowsy. Glancing over at Yoongi, you could tell he was feeling it too. 

“Hey Yoongi, it’s getting late, I think I'm going to head inside alright~” you said getting up and grabbing your now finished instant noodles and your beach chair. 

“Farewell human,” Yoongi said, yawning a bit, 

“Good night to you too~ I’ll be back in the morning to change your bandages,” You say, to which he nodded, and you made your way back up the steps to the house. 

As you finally settled into bed after completing your nightly routine, you came to the sudden realization that you hadn’t yet told your friends of the interesting tales of your day. You were about to start typing when you started to think.

They would obviously find out when they eventually make their way over, but is now really the best time to be springing up that kind of information onto them? You thought it over. They certainly wouldn’t even believe you if you just talked about it, even if Yoongi let you send a picture, would they even believe that? There’s a high probability they’d just call it photoshop or something and continue like it never happened. 

After weighing the possibilities, you knew it was best to save it. They’ll enjoy the start of their summer break, and when they fly over here to Jeju in a little less than a month, they can see Yoongi for their own eyes. 

You put your phone down on the nightstand and finally let the sleep take you over. 

———————

Despite how tired you were the night before you woke up surprisingly early. You were quick to get up and ready for another day at the beach. Deciding to forgo typical clothes after yesterday, you decide to put on an old souvenir shirt you got when your family visited the states, along with some swim shorts. 

The sun had barely risen when you woke up, and even after you were grabbing some of your stuff and heading back down to the beach, the sun was still sitting low on the horizon. You were never an early bird, so this view was rare and you made sure to take your time to relish in the beauty. 

As you came down the steps to the beach, your heart instantly sank when you saw no one there. 

You began to panic. 

Had he left anyway despite your warnings?!

Had you imagined the whole thing last night?!

You hurried down the stairs, dropped your stuff, and ran into the water. 

You were about ready to flip when you noticed the vague silhouette illuminated in the water a little ways away. You walked in, and when the light blue liquid came up to your shoulders, you started to make out some of the features of your new fishy friend. 

You felt stupid, but a much bigger thought going through your mind was what you were seeing exactly…

Yoongi had curled himself into what you like to think as ‘the ultimate fetal position.’ Despite how long he appeared, the ball he had managed to manipulate himself into was only slightly bigger than a truck tire. He entwined himself up almost like a snake would, his tail looping around his entire body multiple times, with him sleeping peacefully right in the middle. He kinda reminded you of a cinnamon bun for some reason… 

Something else you just had to point out was the questionable glow he was emitting. You watched closely as the light would fade and grow brighter sometimes when he stirred. 

‘And you weren’t supposed to ask questions’ You laughed. How were you not supposed to question this?!

You ran back to shore to grab your iPad, quickly making your way back, and began to take notes of all your observations. You were so thankful that the water here was relatively clear so you could see all the little details. 

Even if he didn’t tell you it himself, the marine biologist side of you wouldn’t forgive yourself for not attempting to figure out more about this baffling creature. 

You had been peacefully taking notes until he lifted his head quite suddenly, scaring the both of you. 

You clutched your heart “Jeez, are you trying to give me a heart attack” you chuckled.

He seemed startled. Scared even. 

His head turned toward you, a worried expression plastered on his face. You looked at him, concerned, “You alright?” 

Yoongi seemed a bit dazed “Yea, sorry… I’m alright,” or at least that’s what he was telling himself. The whole night it seemed his sleep was plagued with awful nightmares, which he couldn’t really explain. 

It was dark, but a type of dark that made your skin crawl, feelings of pain he couldn’t describe, filled his head. 

You watched in amazement as his skin continued to glow and made a note to yourself that his bioluminescence happens above water as well as when he was awake. 

Yoongi noticed you furiously typing on your iPad, “What are you doing human?” 

You smiled a bit “Just taking some notes~” 

“Notes?”

“Mhmm, even if you won’t tell me anything yourself, I’m putting my major to use to get a little information by some good old fashion analysis. You can learn a lot by just watching, you know.” 

He smirked slightly at the coincidence. “Really?” 

“Mhmm, one thing I’ve learned just from this morning is that you glow~” 

Yoongi’s eyes widened at the comment.

“I have a few guesses as to why that may be, but my strongest hypothesis is that, like many other creatures that live in darker waters, your kind must live down there too. Now I’m not exactly sure the direct cause, as you don’t seem to glow all the time, but I’m working toward that theory~” You exclaim, proud of your work this morning. 

Yoongi was a bit shocked, to say the least. You were definitely an interesting human. 

“Am I close to being right?” You asked hoping he’d throw you a bone 

He figured he’d be nice and give you something. “Yes, actually, you are human.”

“You wanna tell me why then?” He gave you a look that told that was going to be all you’ll hear from him. “Well, at least I know that I’m on the right track…” you sighed.

“Human.” You looked up upon hearing his voice. 

“I do some research as well,” your eyes widened. “Really?” Yoongi nodded. 

“What do you research? Marine biology happens to be my specialty, but I’m quite curious about what you would research.” 

Yoongi switched the way he was sitting. “Some of it is done with my friend, but I mostly conduct independent studies and research topics I find interesting.”

 “Which is…?“ you edged, “Which is something you won’t know,” you groaned at the roadblock 

The longer you guys talk, the more questions you seem to have. 

Yoongi watched as you typed something down again. “What now?” 

“You said friend, meaning you are a social species, or rather, you don’t live alone but in a group, right? Those people you were talking to the other day, I’m assuming you guys are close…” 

Yoongi smiled. “Right you are again.” 

You did a little fist pump at the win. “These little pieces will give me the full picture one day” 

Silence followed after as you continued on your notes.

“Human, I also have questions about your kind,” You looked up from your iPad wide-eyed “Really? I’m surprised you don’t know everything already.” 

“We are taught-“

“EDUCATION!!!” you practically scream. “Sorry…” you apologize, realizing how rude that was. 

Yoongi took a deep breath before continuing, “We are taught at a very young age, about the ways of humans. Why we should despise your kind,” your eyes widen at the comment.

That would explain his attitude. 

“You, human, haven’t been as bad as I’ve been taught to think of your kind. So to take advantage of your competence, as well as the current situation I’m in, I see it beneficial in my future to have a more personal, first-hand account of what your kind is like.” 

You smiled at the little compliments he threw in there, “Well if you put it like that, I’m happy to help you with any questions you have.” 

He smiled and got out his system “The first question I wanna ask you is something that’s been on my mind the whole night. Is all of your kind just like you?” You looked at him puzzled by the question.

“In what way?” 

“Well, I was taught that if I ever came in contact with a human, the first thing they’d try and do was kill me, yet you haven’t… Would all of your kind have this same response.” You sighed at the question “I wish I could say yes, but my kind have a tendency to hurt or destroy things they don’t understand” 

You saw Yoongi write some stuff on the screen. “Would you say your kind are hateful creatures.” You laughed a bit “There’s a lot of bad people up here I would definitely say, people who have done terrible, unspeakable acts, but there’s a lot of good here as well. I really don’t know if I can give a definitive answer, but I guess we have some good and bad here,” you pointed out, and Yoongi wrote down your words.

And so this went on for the next two weeks. Yoongi asked questions, to which you’d happily answer, while you continued to observe and try to pick up on as much information as you could without any direct information given. 

Yoongi’s wounds slowly started to heal as well, you were amazed at the pace some of the bigger wounds seemed to heal, but Yoongi would frown every time you brought it up. You’d figured out early on that they must have a faster healing process by the way every time you’d change his bandages, and he’d complain and question why it was taking so long. Despite this, there was progress, and Yoongi managed to heal to a point where he could leave the little shallow water near the beach and swim into the open ocean. Part of you was surprised each time he came back. With how sour his attitude was when you first met, you were a bit shocked when he started warming up to you. He wouldn’t let you into too much of his personal life, but you can say that he doesn’t hate you as much. 

You are happy to call that progress. 

After he would leave to catch fish on his own, you’d then meet up so you both (mainly him) could conduct your research into delving deeper into understanding each other’s species. 

Your notes lacked any crucial information besides any basic observations, or the few times he’d slip and let you know tiny details that lead to a strong conclusion. So far your list consists of: 

Observations:

Yoongi hadn’t told you much, but surprisingly when you asked for his measurements, he let you measure him without putting up too much of an effort; Length from head to the tip of his tail was 238 cm (7’10 ft) 😳  

Tail: A light pale blue that gradients into darker and darker shades (he made sure to correct you from your first assumption that it was gray- but rather a dull dark blue at the tip)

Tattoos: You still don’t know the exact meaning, but he did tell you there was one. The designs were simple bands that wrapped around the expense of his arm, combined with small, descending circles in between these bands. The tats ran up along his arms, with one band around his neck. 

Hair: Long and slightly wavy- hangs over his eyes, often has to move it out of the way; Color- black with gray highlights running through it.

Eye color: Typical white sclera, with a black iris (the iris was so black in fact, you could never make out and examine the pupil, even when you brought a flashlight to check)

Skin color: A very very very light gray (you assumed him to white at first, but when you brought out a comparison, a piece of printer paper, you could tell he was a little darker than that)

Despite your worries on the 1st day you both had met, Yoongi could indeed breathe in and out of water. You’d figured this out when you asked him to come up to shore so you could change his bandages. He stayed with you on the beach for the rest of the day, with no issues or difficulties breathing observed. However, he still didn’t wanna tell you how that’s possible, so that’s about all you know :(

Cooking? Random as it may seem, you had heard him mention that he prefers his fish cooked, rather than raw, like he’s been eating. Now, how was that possible? 

Magic. Yoongi definitely had some incomprehensible abilities that he didn’t speak about. Starting from the fish incident you had witnessed on the first day of Yoongi’s appearance, you noted some other (possible) interesting abilities:

Water manipulation???? You’re really curious to know more about this. You’re not sure you’d even consider this possible if you hadn’t observed it with your own eyes. You had walked out to the beach to meet Yoongi for your daily research questions. However, you were shocked to see various balls of water hanging in the air around him as he appeared to be looking for something. You stayed up on the stairs as you watched him. You watched in amazement as he effortlessly created and lifted the balls higher into the sky. You stayed like this until he finally found what he was looking for. You never told him about what you saw that day. 

In all honesty, you were a little scared about this finding. He’s threatened you seriously on multiple occasions, but you thought you were just up against a sword. He’s in the water, you could just run away. How were you supposed to compete with magical powers?!  

Can he disappear? You have no evidence of this hypothesis other than a hunch??? He just seems to vanish sometimes oddly enough. You only came to this theory because when you were looking for Yoongi to change his bandages, but he seemed to still be out too far for you to hear. You had been about to turn back, when suddenly you heard the voice of the one you were looking for. He was right behind you, RIGHT BEHIND YOU?!! You ended up so scared you fell over trying to run back to the beach (._.) that aside, you knew there was a possibility you could have just not seen him, but… After learning about his water manipulation capabilities, nothing’s impossible at this point. 

You are definitely scared of him

Mental health concerns. You weren’t 100% on this one, and you aren’t a psychologist to be able to properly diagnose. However, you were wondering if he may be suffering from a degree of PTSD. You came to this idea because of his noticeable paranoia of the ocean. Yoongi never went out into open water for very long, always preferring to stay closer to the shore of the beach even after he was healed enough to go farther. That’s perfectly reasonable for the average human, but for someone who’s lived in the water his whole life :/…  

Yoongi, however, had learned a lot over the past weeks. You had let him into a lot of your own personal life since many of his questions were geared more toward your own experiences rather than humans as a whole. You told him about your childhood, as he was curious as to how human children are raised- You told him how your experience isn’t typical of most- and that you wouldn’t really be able to answer his questions as well as someone else might. You had also taken time to show him some places around the world. You showed him some of the “wonders of the world.”  Beautiful places, both natural and manmade that make you proud to be here on Earth. 

These same discussions went on like this as normal until one day, when things took a turn.

You were talking about your high school experience, and Yoongi was taking notes on the education system here in Korea and some of the social experiences that occurred during that time of your life when suddenly he just… stopped? 

You both had been laughing talking about a party Seokjin and Jungkook had dragged you to, but you watched as his face slowly fell and seemed stuck in place. 

You hurriedly got up from your beach chair and rushed over to his side. You were surprised to see his dark eyes suddenly had a purple undertone to them. 

Something wasn’t right. 

You gently shook him slightly, and that did nothing, you tried again but a little harder and still that didn’t snap him out of it. You didn’t wanna panic, but as time seemed to continue without any change, you couldn’t help but start to get worried.  

What felt like an eternity turned out to be only a full minute before him, and his eyes returned to normal. 

“Yoongi…?” You asked cautiously, but his attention seemed to be anywhere but you. He kept turning back to the ocean that was just behind the two of you. His breathing was hard, and he seemed paranoid.

“Yoongi, what happened?” You asked a bit more firmly. 

He shook his head “I don’t.. I don’t know.”

“That’s never happened before?” Yoongi nodded 

Your expression softened. As much as you enjoyed having Yoongi here, he was obviously dealing with issues you didn’t know how to help. You only want what’s best for his health, even if that means him going back already. 

———————

Yoongi had been asleep when he heard the familiar sound of his system blaring the sounds of the traditional drums. 

Someone was calling him.

He rubbed his sleepy eyes and answered. As the hologram appeared, so did the concerned face of Hoseok. Suddenly the words of the last time they spoke echoed in his head. “We weren’t exaggerating about what's been going on around here since your disappearance. I’ll explain it later when we’re alone” 

Oh no. 

“Yoongi, sorry this is so sudden, but I just got back from a meeting with my dad and the rest of the royal court, and we really need to talk…” 

Hoseok carefully explained the events that preceded his disappearance. He spoke about the panic his parents faced when they found their son missing, and no one knew where he had gone. They had been quick to check the footage from the drones that flew across the city that had captured him sneaking out of their estate and leaving through the gate willingly. 

His friends were the first ones to suggest a search party, merely a day after his disappearance. They led the team, who searched far and wide through the dark waters of the ocean, but no luck ever came from it. The only confirmation that he was still alive was that every morning they’d check to see if Yoongi’s power hadn’t transferred over to Geum Jae. Everyone held their breath every time they needed to check and were blessed every day to see that there had been no changes. What had sparked everything to turn as bad as it did was that it started sticking. Every morning they would hold a mini ceremony of the one they had performed many years ago. They would check to see if The Truth would cling to his skin (which would mean Yoongi’s power had transferred). About a week after Yoongi disappeared, Geum Jae had started feeling resistance, and soon after, it started leaving a slight residue. The Truth was affecting him, meaning Yoongi was dying. 

After their searches proved nothing, attention soon turned to the possible interference of another tribe- all hell broke loose after. Fingers were being pointed, trust was being questioned, alliances were being strained for the first time in centuries. Hoseok had explained that the meeting he just came from was the discussion of whether they wanted to declare war. 

Advisors were the most valued people in each tribe; if something happens to them, it puts the whole tribe in danger. The fact no one was providing any information made the Moonborn tribe weary and felt they needed to take action soon before the worst happens. Hoseok told Yoongi that his parents were the main ones pushing for the war, and before his sudden appearance, his friends had as well. The decision wasn’t final yet, but the king was feeling the pressure of the other court members and seriously considering preparing the tribe for war. 

Yoongi listened to all this new information in horror. What has he done??!

“Hoseok, I told you all to tell my parents that I was ok!!” Yoongi exclaimed, “We tried to, but they didn’t believe us, you’re gonna have to tell them yourself.” Hoseok put plainly, “And fast too, you don’t have much time left.”

———————

“I’m back!!” You exclaimed, running down the stairs. You had just come back from the pharmacy after you had run out of bandages. Yoongi’s wounds were healing, but there was still some progress that needed to happen before you could completely remove all the bandages.

You found that he had moved closer to shore as you had instructed him to do before you had left. 

He looked up at you upon hearing your voice. You tell by his expression something was on his mind. “What’s up Yoonie, you seem down,” you had somehow gotten into the habit of having a new nickname for him in every other sentence you say. It’s something he noticed and scolded you for, but you still kept going because, well, it was you~ 

He laughed a bit at the nickname “I’m not down just…” he looked up to the rising moon over the horizon. “Just thinking,” he sighed.

“About what?” 

“You and your questions, human..” 

You laughed at the mention, “The more I ask, the better the chance I might get answers.” He couldn’t deny your logic. 

“Also, you know I told you my name the first day we met~” 

Yoongi shrugged, “I remember, ‘human’ just suited you better.” 

“What would you do if you met another human?” 

He thought about it for a sec, “Human 2” Yoongi simply put, making the both of you laugh. 

You turned towards him “Say it with me now, Y/N” you made sure to enunciate each syllable. “Hu-man” Yoongi repeated, making you lightly hit him on the shoulder. 

“Come on, let me hear you say it at least once” you looked at him with pleading eyes. “Pleeeaaasseeee,” you begged. Yoongi didn’t want to give in, but you made it hard not too. 

“Fine, Y/N. Better now?” you practically squealed, hearing your name come out of his mouth. Why you liked it so much was a mystery to you as well… 

“Was that so hard?” Yoongi had a pouty expression, “Yes.” “Well, I enjoyed it, maybe you’ll call me Y/N more often now?” Yoongi smiled and turned his attention back toward the moon. 

“Anyway, I still wanna know what you are thinking about. You seem kinda sad…” you looked at him worried. “I don’t know, I guess I’m just thinking about what I have to go back to after all this is over…” he sighed. Yoongi wasn’t one for talking about his personal issues, even back at home he kept those details to himself most of the time, but tonight, things felt different. 

“Ooo is Yoongi about to spill his heart out~” You laughed “Or is this where the story ends?” 

Yoongi was about to speak when you suddenly got up. “Hold up, I have something for this exact moment,” you said before dashing off back up into the beach house. You came out soon after with a few bottles and glasses in your hands. 

“SOJUUUUU” You exclaimed happily as you sat back down next to him. Yoongi eyed the bottles suspiciously, to which you noticed. “You never heard about soju?” sarcasm filling your voice. Yoongi shook his head and picked up one of the bottles. “What is it?” He asked as you began pouring some in your glass “Alcohol~” you giggled, and that’s when he started getting it. 

“Where I come from, only the most elite members of our society get to have this stuff.” You took your first shot, “Why?” “Our people observed the effects it had on the human population and concluded that it did more harm than good to your society.” Another shot, “Why does the elite get to have it then?” “Even if it was allowed everywhere, fermentation is difficult to accomplish down there, it would be too difficult to manufacture successfully. The elite often uses their wealth to organize people up to the surface, to get the substance.” “Really?” Yoongi nodded.

You opened the second bottle and poured it into the other glass. “While you’re here then~” you smiled, handing him the glass. Yoongi observed the liquid, swishing it around in the glass, smelling it- it was definitely something he was interested in. 

“You know, my father would always tell me of the time, his dad, my grandfather, bought some, and they shared it as a family. He would always rant about how much he hated it, saying it was too bitter for him,” Yoongi laughed, taking his first sip of the clear liquid. He took notice of the initial sweet taste with a slightly bitter undertone. 

He liked it~ 

You were too busy, however, hung up on the newly allotted information. “I thought you said only the elite could—“ You turned toward a Yoongi, who was taking another shot. Suddenly all the pieces connected, his silence only confirming your suspicion. 

“Yoongi, please don’t tell me you're some runaway prince or something,” you joked, but you were worried it might be true. 

Yoongi laughed “No, that’s not me… I just come from a long line of important people.” Yoongi took another shot. “Isn’t this stuff supposed to do something…” he questioned, realizing he still felt the same. 

“Yoongi, you’ve opened a box that can’t be closed, I need some details.” You said plainly. 

“Calm down hu- Y/N, it’s kinda what’s been on my mind lately,” he sighed, and you looked at him to continue.

“I’m next in line for a really important position that I kinda feel like I don’t deserve.” You both took another shot, “Why?” “Everyone, my whole life, has always thought it’d go to my older brother, and when they found out it was me… There’s a lot of people who think I’m not cut out for the job.” 

“Why do you listen to them? If you know you’ve got what it takes, then just block out the haters~” Yoongi chuckled at your comment, “If only it was that easy…” 

“Why can’t it be?” 

“Some of the closest people are those included who don’t really think I can do it. My brother was one of them. We used to be super close, but after the-... um, after I was appointed, he stopped talking to me. Anything after that was him critiquing and saying he could do the job so much better.” Yoongi took another shot, “It's hard to believe in yourself if those closest to you aren’t even rooting for you.” 

“Your brother sounds…” you chuckled darkly. “When I was younger, I always wanted a younger brother or sister. I would get jealous of my friends who all had older brothers, but hearing your account makes me rethink that idea haha” 

Yoongi chuckled “It was nice in the beginning, but then you see their true colors…” 

“Perks of being an only child,” you laughed, and he joined in.

“But seriously, things were getting pretty bad before I left…” you looked at him confused “You had left? Is that how you ended up with all these injuries?” 

“I don’t know… I was fine, then,” he looked down at all his bandages “This…” 

Silence followed afterward. You both were just enjoying each other’s company. It was a peaceful and serene scene that gave you both time alone to really explore your own thoughts. 

Yoongi turned his way toward you, you being busy staring at the peaceful scene in front of you that you didn’t even notice his gaze. He sighed, as much as he didn’t want to admit it, but he couldn’t deny you were actually quite pretty, at least the top half of you was. Maybe it was simply because of the fact he had not attended a moonrut in the longest time, or maybe the alcohol was making his eyes go funny, but he would happily have you as a moonrut partner if your lives were a bit different. 

Yep, he was definitely losing it. 

He grabbed the bottle and chugged the rest of it down. “Huh, I still don’t feel anything…” he wondered. “Human, what about you?” 

 “Mmm, definitely tipsy~” you chuckled. You grabbed your iPad that was sitting on your chair and wrote down:

THEORY; Faster metabolism? Alcohol consumed, yet shows no signs of effects… Possibly just a heavyweight? More evidence needed. 

“Anyway, I’ma head up for the night” you started getting up but ended up falling right back down. “Or maybe not…” you giggled. “Maybe, I’m a little more than tipsy,” you laughed and just continued to lay there. Yoongi took some notes on the effects the alcohol was having on you. You were definitely different than before the bottle was opened. 

As he finished, he turned towards you to find you lying face flat in the sand. “Um human…” he reached up and shook you gently “Y/N?” You didn’t move. 

He started to panic a bit until suddenly he noticed the light snores coming from you. You had fallen asleep, that quick. 

He chuckled “Ahhh what am I gonna do, you can’t sleep like that…” Yoongi took a minute to admire your sleeping form. Even if you are the only human he’s met in person, in the few weeks he’s been here in your presence, he can definitely confirm the teachings on the subject on humans are wrong. They say all humans are bad, but in the short time he’s been here, he hasn’t found one bad bone in your body. Maybe you’re just deceiving him into thinking this, but for some reason, he could never see that happening… 

Yoongi sighed and grabbed his knife, he wetted it for a second, making sure there was enough water on it for this to work. He took a deep breath before getting to work. 

———————

It hurts… He can feel it all over. Every night he’s taken to this prison that consumes his dreams and turns them into his worst nightmares. He can feel what it did to him, never can see, all he feels is pain. Why? What happened?.... 

As this nightmare plays out every night, he has tried to escape its constraints and break free from this prison, no matter his efforts, pain is always what he gets in return. 

It only stops when he opens his eyes the next day. 

Slowly Yoongi lifts his head from the water, he’s gotten so used to the nightmares now, it doesn’t faze him as much as he knows they should. Something was clearly wrong with him. But what scared him more was actually dealing with the issue at hand, ignoring it felt easier, so that’s what he’s been doing the past two weeks. 

‘It doesn’t become a problem until you make it into a problem’ He remembers his father would always tell him. 

Looking around him, Yoongi noticed that the moon was still up and the sky was still dark. Weird? Usually the nightmares lasted all night…

Yoongi looked up at the moon. Whenever the tribe would go up for moonruts, the times that Yoongi was able to attend, he’d lay like he is now and just watch the beautiful rock in the sky. 

This peace was interrupted when he felt it coming. Same as what happened a few days ago, he felt it, it was dark, but he could feel it right behind him. 

Coming closer and closer and closer. 

Its presence was just like what happened before he was attacked, like the whole world was after him. 

Yoongi’s breathing picked up, waiting for this nightmare to end. 

He wanted to scream, he wanted to cry, but he couldn’t. 

When he was able to finally snap out of it once again, Yoongi panicked and looked around him. 

Suddenly the darkness that surrounded him made him petrified.  

Quickly swimming back to the shore, the dark liquid that he’s spent his whole life in, felt like the end. When he had this lock-up last time, the sun was out, and you were here, now, now he was left alone in this darkness. 

Something was out there, and it was coming for him, he could feel it.

Yoongi gripped his knife tightly as he watched the waves roll in and out. Sleep was definitely off the table, how could he sleep after that? The water scared him too, it’s kinda funny when you think about it, a keeper scared of the water, no way! It sounded like a joke, it did to him too. 

Whatever this thing was made him feel like the smallest thing in the universe, and with it coming closer, the last place he wanted to be right now was in the ocean. 

He knew what he needed to do, and now it’s just the point of staying awake. 

———————

You groaned upon waking up, your head was killing you. Looking out of your balcony window, you saw the sun had barely risen, the sky was cloudy, and a gray aura seemed to fill your room. It was definitely early, and you were very much hungover.

You had never been the best at holding your alcohol, you weren’t necessarily a lightweight, but you definitely couldn’t go on forever. Walking into the bathroom, you were determined to wash the events of the previous night away. 

After your cleansing shower, you took your time getting ready since you were up early. You even managed to have breakfast, unlike most days.

After your refreshing morning routine, you decided to head up to your balcony. You were gonna send the view to the friends who will be joining you very soon. Even if the mood was a little gloomy, it still offered a view you wouldn’t see anywhere else. 

Hold up. Now that you’re thinking about it… how did you get up here? 

The last thing you remember was sitting with Yoongi and… and? You definitely don’t remember walking up to your room…

That was definitely something you were gonna ask him..

When you got up there, you were surprised to see Yoongi sitting up there onshore. 

That was odd.

You were typically up before him. You were tempted to call out to him, but you decided to just head down there yourself.

“Yoongi!!” You called out from the steps down to the beach. 

You became instantly concerned when he turned around and you could see how exhausted he looked. You took a seat right next to him “Hey, you looked like you stayed up all night,” you joked, but his expression worried you. 

“Human- Y/N” he finally said. You could already tell this was serious. He usually spoke with such a calm and relaxed voice, now he seemed tired and pleading almost. 

“Human, I have a favor to ask,” he said after some time. You turned more toward him. “Whatever you need,” you said quite quickly. This conversation was seriously worrying you.

“Human, can I come with you?” 

The question seemed to linger in the air as only your widened eyes were any sign you heard what he said at all. “What do you mean?” Yoongi sighed, knowing how much explaining he’ll have to do. 

He simply signaled back up to the beach house. You looked at him, confused, “Ummm, I’m not sure if I could carry you up all those steps,” you laughed nervously. Yoongi gave you a look that told you that’s not what he meant. Silence filled the air as your brain worked toward understanding his statement, it took you a minute, but with the way he was looking at you, you knew this was probably it. 

“Wait, are you telling me you can…” you asked skeptically, and he nodded, “You can turn human,” he nodded again. He knew you were about to bombard him with questions. 

“Look, I’ll explain it later, but-“ 

“Can I ask you just one thing?” Yoongi sighed but signaled for you to continue, “Why?” It was simple, but something that was really on your mind. 

He decided quickly that he wouldn’t tell you the whole truth. How could he tell you he was feeling things, seeing things that made him terrified of the ocean, something he’s lived in his whole life. 

“I decided that before I leave, maybe a more direct field study might be best instead of relying on the personal outlooks and stories that you provide” No, it wasn’t a lie. He was honest in that it was one of the benefits of the situation. From the stories you have been telling over the weeks he’s been here, he was curious about seeing things for himself. This just gave him a better reason to leave.

You thought about it for a second “Makes sense as a researcher…” 

Yoongi took a deep breath, “I can trust you, right?” You looked at him a little confused. “Of course,” you said, a little taken aback. He nodded but was still a bit weary “This transformation leaves me a bit vulnerable, a lot of my abilities aren’t as enhanced on land, and this process is very draining so…” he looked you up and down. “You haven’t done anything yet, but, please don’t make me need to” you gulped at the threat.

You got up. “So um, how exactly does this happen or” “Oh, don’t worry, I got this, just um sit over there” Yoongi pointed to your beach chair. You did as he said, “So how long does this take?” You asked. “Typically, about half a day, but last night I managed to reduce that time to at most 2 hours.” You watched in amazement as the water that surrounded Yoongi’s tail started to bubble, “How’d you do that?” The question was directed both to his last statement and what you were seeing before you now. 

Yoongi realized this might be a little hard to understand all at once. “Um, I’ll tell you later… I feel that when I explain it, your mind might not be able to process the information” you hardly paid attention to his words as your focus shifted to the ink on his skin…. or you’re not sure that’s what it was anymore. 

The ink seemed to dance just like the bubbling water, little cracks of light shined through the endless black of his tattoos. They seemed interesting before, like if you stared at them for too long you might get lost in what seemed like a never-ending darkness. Now a whole new can of worms was opened. 

“Yoongi, your tattoos,” you pointed out to which he shied away. You looked up at him. “Also, something you’ll explain later,” he nodded. 

The hours seemed to quickly fly by. You had run back into the house to grab your iPad, so you should take notes on the astounding transformation. You recorded each change in stage, you could just barely see through the bubbling to see the slow transformation. 

You watched closely to see the splitting of his tail into two appendages. The tube-like legs started becoming more recognizable, forming knees and feet. You often asked during the process if it hurt, and he answered, “It should hurt a lot more than it does, but I also took time to fix that last night,” which would leave you confused. In the last stages, there was a complete transformation. The webbing between hands and newly formed toes dissolved, his complexion changed from light-gray into something more natural, the sharp teeth, you also noticed seemed to soften. 

Before your eyes, he was human. 

When the bubbling stopped, you rushed over to catch him when he started falling over. “Yoongi?! Are you ok?” You panicked, but his eyes opened up again. “Yeah, sorry, just tired,” he said sleepily. 

When you looked down, you realized just how human he was. You shielded your eyes quickly “Um, I’ll be back, let me grab you some towels” You head back with your face flushed as you tried to get the image out of your head. 

Running back quickly, you come back to see Yoongi attempting to stand, but falling back over. You rushed over to help him, “How do you make this look so easy?” He questioned as you came to his side and wrapped him up in the towel. 

“You mean you can’t walk?” Yoongi gave you a look, “As someone who hasn’t even seen the shore until a few weeks ago, no human, I can’t walk.” You cringed realizing how insensitive that was “Sorry… um, let me help you get up” As you helped him to his feet, since he wasn’t holding onto the towel, the flimsy fabric fell right back onto the sand. Your quickness to pick it back up confused him, “What’s wrong human?” He noticed the peculiar way your face started blushing. “Your face is all red…” he questioned, making it worse. 

You made a mental note on the lack of shame this man has. You sighed. “Um, just hold onto this tightly ok” he laughed a bit, but you did thankfully notice he listened and held the towel with a tighter grip. 

Another quick glance down and you realized something peculiar. His legs were covered in stitches. Even after the transformation the stitches still remain on his legs…. That’s very weird. 

You wondered if he had an answer, but you decided to dismiss it and save the observation for another day. 

When you both took your first step, you finally started feeling the effects of Yoongi leaning on you. You wouldn’t say he was exactly heavy, but the fact he was putting his whole weight on you made things really difficult. 

It was a task to get up your steps, each step was like rolling a die and waiting for the outcome. Luckily the both of you never fell on the steps, but there were many times where you both came close. When you reached the top, however, you were faced with a whole new set of obstacles. 

From the view on the beach, the house was hard to see besides your little balcony that led to your room, when you made it to the top of the stairs, Yoongi was finally able to see everything in its full glory. He wanted to stop and analyze everything in sight (leading to many more slips and falls), but you tried to steer you both to the doors that led inside the house. When that happened, it was even worse, as he was baffled by every other thing you came in contact with. You were about ready to rip your head off when you realized you had to go up another flight of stairs to reach the bedrooms. 

You happily sat him down on the bed in one of the spare bedrooms. Your arms were worn and tired, but the innocent expression he held as he scanned the room made everything feel worth it. Let's be real, if you were in opposite positions, you’d be doing the exact same thing. 

“I’ll be back, we’re going to have to buy you some clothes, at least until Seokjin and Jungkook get here, and you can borrow some of theirs, but for now, let me see what I can come up with,” you said happily. You rushed around the house trying to come up with an outfit, luckily for you, Yoongi wasn’t very big (you were a bit surprised actually when he stood next to you and you noticed only a few inches difference. That leads to the possible hypothesis that Yoongi may not be as big as they come...) so some of the baggier clothes you brought should work ok. 

You ran back to him, outfit in hand, only to come back to him conked out on the bed. You thought back to when he first transformed and realized he had almost passed out back on the beach. You moved a little closer. You had never seen him asleep in the two weeks you’ve known each other. Yoongi always slept underwater, and after he started to heal, he chose to sleep in deeper waters, way too far for you to see.

The towel had somehow managed to stay in a position where it didn’t show anything explicit, but the top half of him now lay exposed. You left and came back with a light blanket and draped it over his sleeping figure. You smiled before turning off the lights and leaving. 

You sighed as your weary figure slid down the door. You were scared. It never was a thought that you wanted floating around in your head, especially when you were around each other, but today just made those suppressed thoughts even louder. 

You had taken some comfort in the fact that you had land over Yoongi, especially after you found out about his other-worldly capabilities. Before this, you always had the comforting thought of just running up to your beach house if things ever went south. Now knowing he can turn human has taken that place from you. 

You really didn’t wanna be scared. You hated these thoughts so much. You could definitely tell he’s a sweet guy, no matter the tough guy exterior he likes to put up. You’re just worried you might do something wrong, or he decides to act on those threats. What then… when there is nowhere to hide anymore. 

[tamakeey]

there are children present (pt. 2)

doctor! ushijima wakatoshi x doctor! reader

a/n: yeah, there’s probably gonna need to be a part three because I have a lot of ideas and it’s too much to put all into part two sorry :(( but lmk if you’re interested in part three :))

so it's been a little over a year since y/n has been working at the clinic

still as popular as ever with the children due to her caring and gentle nature

ushijima is still ushijima (the same tall, stoic face doctor that scares the children until they realize he’s nothing but a softie)

their feelings for each other: yeah they’re still growing bigger than atsumu’s ego (or at least cutting it close)

the two doctors: still as oblivious as ever, never noticing the subtle hints they throw at each other (it’s mainly y/n throwing the hints though, ushijima never catches them causing his red headed counterpart to slam his head against the wall

the nurse trio continue to pick on their assigned doctors for not making any big moves

and when their doctor refuse to reveal their feelings, what do they do?

of course they rant to one another about their struggles in bringing to two doctors, who were smart enough to graduate medical school and pass residency but cannot confess for the life of them, together

“I swear waiting for them to confess is like watching paint dry” -semi

“SEMI SEMI USHIJIMA REFUSES TO CONFESS AND I SWEAR IM GOING BALD FROM THE STRESS”-tendou

kawanishi truly believes that he may graduate with his nursing degree, pass his board exams, and get his license and a permanent position at the clinic before they can even mutter the words “I like you” to one another

their feelings are so obvious the receptionists, reon and yamagata has caught on and take every second they see two walk into work together to make comments on how cute of a couple they would be 

it flusters y/n but ushijima keeps his stoic face and replies with “we’re just friends” (even though he’s blushing internally) 

moral of the story is, their feelings are painfully obvious to everyone except the two doctors

so it’s another typical day in the pediatrics center

y/n typing away at her cubicle while semi and kawanishi complains about her lack of courage 

“just confess to him please, it’s getting painful for all of us” kawanishi says bluntly while hitting his head against the cubicle wall, already knowing what the doctor was going to say

“no, he doesn’t like me that way, I don't know why you all keep insisting that he does” y/n replies with a semi mouthing the exact words she says after hearing everyday for the past six months

“do you not hear tendou screaming in distress everyday and screeching about how ushijima is as dumb as a brick” kawanishi asks 

“I thought he was inferring to ushijima’s lack of social awareness, which is adorable but also very dangerous in this field” y/n replies

“how are you a doctor but you’re so dumb?” semi asks rhetorically

“do you tune out the half where tendou is complaining ushijima’s love life and how he has the chance for it but isn’t taking it. he even shouts your name in there most of the time, what’s not clicking?” kawanishi rants

“look I'm too nervous to make the first move with ushijima and I cannot read his emotional 100% of the time, so confessing is out of the question. now there’s a patient coming in five minutes and you two have to do your typical nurse routine before I go in so hop to it” y/n spews out

typical nurse routine in case it was unclear: take height and weight, check patients blood pressure and ears, and record their temperature and reason for being in the office and such

semi and kawanishi grumble as they sanitize their hands and walk out of the office area

y/n takes a deep breath and slouches down in her chair as she begins to think of the conversation she just had with her troublesome nurses

after a few minutes of contemplating their words, the two nurses return with the file report of the patient, signaling the female doctor’s need in the examination room

as y/n makes her way to the examination room, she runs into ushijima who came rushing into the pediatrics center

“what has you rushing?” y/n asks an exasperated ushijima

“I was almost late since I was coaching shirabu today but it went a little more overtime than how I originally planned the session. also, we spent a good time waiting for his friend to show up only to find out they had to take a raincheck because the kid has a doctor’s appointment today” ushijima replied

“oh I see, well I need to get to a patient right now but I'll catch up with you after” y/n says 

ushijima gives her a nod and a pat on the head before rushing to the office to hopefully clock in on time

as y/n knocks on the door, she opens it to find a little boy with a bowl cut sitting on the examination table fiddling with his fingers

if bowl cut did not give it away, it’s our favorite rock lee look alike and if that didn’t help any it’s goshiki :) 

the toddler look up upon hearing the door open up and begins visibly shaking because doctor visits are scary

“hello goshiki, my name is dr. y/l/n and I heard you’re not feeling the greatest today, wanna tell me what’s wrong” y/n asked the boy gently, crouching to his height

goshiki hesitates on answer and sits silently while mumbling too quietly for y/n to hear

“I'm sorry sweetie, I couldn’t hear you? could you speak up, I promise I won't hurt you. I’m here to help you feel healthy and strong again!” y/n explains, trying to get the poor frightened boy to open up

“my friend and I were playing volleyball the other day and when he served the ball, it hit my head really hard and everything went black” goshiki says 

“I'm just worried if it he may have a concussion so I took him in” goshiki’s mother continues causing the doctor to nod and examine goshiki’s head

I see, so we are going to have to run a couple cognitive tests but from the looks of it, I think it may just be a bruise” y/n asserts causing the poor boy to shake at the word tests

“don’t worry, we do not need to do any shots or blood test. it’s just little memory things, unless you want an MRI scan to be 100% sure. but from what I see, I don’t believe it is a concussion” y/n continues

goshiki looks at his mom silently begging her not to make him take the scary test to which she replies that an MRI would not be necessary to goshiki’s relief

“well then goshiki, you ready to play some brain games. do your best!” y/n encourages the boy causing him to get fired up 

because she had him at games

‘OKAY!” goshiki exclaims bouncing on the examination table

y/n begins to grab cards with little picture on them and handed them to goshiki to begin memorizing 

she would test him after giving him 5 minutes to study the cards

little did she know, tendou decided that April fools would come early this year and decided to put a picture of ushijima within the cards 

just for shits and giggles you know 

tendou’s line of thinking you ask why not fluster y/n while she's caring for a patient, that would be hilarious 

after five minutes of goshiki studying the cards, he hands them back to y/n

“okay goshiki, can you name at least five of the cards out of the ten that I gave you?” y/n asks, still unaware of the picture of the giant doctor

“blanket, bed, apple, chair, and penguin” goshiki recites

y/n looks at the first five cards to see goshiki had named them in order

“perfect, do you think you can do all ten?” y/n encourages

goshiki nods excitedly and continues

“bear, flower, water, ball, and ushijima” goshiki says, eyes sparkling at the last word

y/n visibly jumps, her cheeks turning red

“wait a minute, dr. ushijima is not one of the card options” y/n questions

“yes he was, his picture was the tenth card I studied” goshiki says innocently

y/n begins vigorously going through the cards she handed goshiki only to see the little bowl cut boy was correct

 the tenth card was in fact a photo of the tall, stoic doctor

goddammit tendou y/n thinks in her head, knowing it was for sure his doing

“I'm impressed that you got all ten but how did you know that was dr. ushijima?” y/n asks curiously

need I remind you, y/n’s face is as red as tendou’s hair 

“he's my favorite volleyball player in the whole entire world, I wanna be an ace just like him. I was going to play volleyball with him today but mommy said I have to go to the doctors” goshiki explains, his face visibly deflating when mentioning his missed opportunity

“I see, goshiki do you mind waiting in here for like 5 minutes for me. I need to print your papers to take home but my printer isn’t working in here?” y/n asks politely while goshiki nods

y/n takes her leave and makes her way to the office room where she sees ushijima looking at paperwork, sitting in his cubicle

“ushijima-san, can I borrow you for a few minutes?” y/n pops her head in his cubicle and politely asks him 

ushijima nods while throwing his paperwork on his desk

“it’s a small world I swear. my current patient was the child you were supposed to coach today. he apparently is a huge fan of you and was super sad that he missed an opportunity to meet his idol” y/n explains 

ushijima catching where y/n was going with his nodded and opened the office door for y/n, signaling her to lead the way to the patient’s room

“you don’t have a patient coming in soon do you?” y/n asks, concerned that she’s putting him off schedule

“I don't have a patient coming in for another hour, so it’s fine” ushijima replies

soon they make it in front of the examination room

of course the three troublemaking nurses are staring at them behind a wall thinking what’s going on for them to be going into a room together

I tried finding a reference picture but scary pictures popped up and now I'm scared but basically it’s like one head on top of another, if you can find it lmk I think I'm searching up the wrong thing

y/n knocks on the door to goshiki’s room and then walks in with ushijima following behind her, but he’s hidden by the curtain

“hi goshiki, there’s someone I would like you to meet” y/n says which ushijima took as a cue to come out from behind the curtain

when I tell you goshiki squealed, he screamed so loud, washijou could hear it from his office which was on the opposite side of the pediatrics center

receptionists yamagata and reon can hear him from their little windows 

everyone in the waiting area heard it loud and clear, concerned for the child who they believed were screaming bloody murder

anyways after goshiki had his internal fanboy moment, he climbed off the examination table and ran up to ushijima, hugging his legs

“OMG ITS USHIJIMA, HE’S REALLY HERE. I LUB YOU” goshiki screaming, jumping up and down while holding onto ushijima’s khaki colored slacks

“pleasure to meet you goshiki, I heard you also love playing volleyball” ushijima answered 

“YES I LOVE VOLLEYBALL, I HOPE TO BE AN ACE JUST LIKE YOU” goshiki exclaims waving his little arms all over the place 

ushijima chuckles and y/n swears she’s never heard anything more melodic in her life

“I’m glad I inspire you to be a better volleyball player. I hope you will be able to make it to shirabu’s next volleyball lesson, I look forward to working with you” ushijima replies

“YES SIR” goshiki said bowing repeatedly 

ushijima approaches goshiki’s mother to begin working out a schedule fit for goshiki

all while y/n continues to stare at his face with a fond look

suddenly, she feels a tug on her scrub bottoms and looks down to find goshiki looking up at her with a questioning look on his face

“Dr. y/l/n, do you love ushijima-kun?” goshiki asked innocently while tilting his head to the side

this caused the female doctor to turn a bright shade of red and attempt to deny it to the best of her capabilities

waving hands

repeatedly saying no

what you think of, she probably tried it to convince baby goshiki that she had no feelings for the volleyball-playing doctor

“why are you so red dr. y/ln?” goshiki asks causing ushijima to turn around and look at her worriedly

he begins walking over to y/n and places his hand on her forehead to check for her temperature

“are you alright? are you sick perhaps? maybe you should take the rest of the day off and rest” ushijima speaks to the poor doctor who turns even redder by the minute

“no no I am perfectly fine, it’s just that I’m overheating in my white coat, nothing else” y/n responds waving her hands in fast motion

ushijima chose not to question it but goshiki could tell she was lying

I mean who gets hot in a hospital, when it’s the middle of winter

“c’mon goshiki, we have to go. we don’t want to miss your playdate with shirabu now do we?” goshiki’s mother breaks the tense air

hearing his best friend’s name, he shook out of his thoughts and nodded quickly 

“dr. ushijima, is it too much to ask for your autograph?” goshiki asks

ushijima turns to the kid and nods as if saying “I don’t mind”

ushijima takes a piece of paper out of the functioning printer and grabs a pen from the cup placed near the computer

he signs the paper, writing a little note for the baby mushroom boy

he hands it to goshiki and as he reads it, he squeals 

to my number 1 fan, thank you for your support :)

goshiki grabs his mother’s hand leaving the examination room, waving to the two doctors

not missing ushijima staring at y/n’s smile as she waves happily back to goshiki

“are you sure you’re feeling well y/l/n?” ushijima asks

“I am perfectly fine, thank you for checking up on me” y/n responds

they stare fondly at each other and begin leaning towards one another before a certain red head barges in to tell ushijima that his patient is here

“USHI YOUR 2:30 IS HERE, OH SHOOT! TAKE YOUR TIME :)” tendou screams causing the two to break apart

just a side but semi and kawanishi definitely watched the whole thing, banging their head against the wall while cursing at the stupid red head

before anyone comes for me I love tendou but they’re mad he cockblocked

“I should go see my patient” ushijima says curtly, bowing at the female doctor and making his way to the examination room his patient is currently waiting in

y/n is fanning herself while thinking about the moment she had with the handsome doctor while her two nurses are cursing out the red head

“YOU COULD’VE WAITED LIKE FIVE MINUTES, WE WERE SO CLOSE TO ENDING OUR MISERY” -kawanishi

“TENDOU YOU IDIOT I HATE YOU” -semi

I don't usually do POV changes but THIS IS NO LONGER TAKING PLACE AT THE DOCTOR’S OFFICE BUT IT’S GOSHIKI AND SHIRABU’S PLAYDATE

goshiki makes his way into shirabu’s house

he bows at shirabu’s mother before making his way to his best friend’s room

“SHIRABU, I MET USHIJIMA TODAY!!” goshiki screams

“asahi (god), can you please keep it down” shirabu responds

goshiki then explains what went down in the doctor’s office while shirabu listens intently, ears perking up at the mentions of goshiki’s female physician

“wait, what did your doctor look like” shirabu asks poking goshiki’s tummy with one of his taped fingers

goshiki goes on to explain her appearance and shirabu can suddenly picture her due to...

“oh my asahi, ushijima has her picture as his phone wallpaper and he’s always staring at it during our volleyball lessons” shirabu says to goshiki

“that’s funny because when he walked into the examination room, dr. y/l/n kept staring at him and always turned red whenever he was mentioned. do you think they’re like best friends?” goshiki asks

“no you idiot, they like each other” shirabu says, hitting his forehead at his best friend’s stupidity

“but dr. y/l/n said she doesn’t like him like that” goshiki responds

“but why would she tell her secrets, especially to some kid she just met goshiki” shirabu says, internally questioning his friendship with his fellow bowl cut mate

after arguing about it back and forth, shirabu ended their verbal dispute by throwing a volleyball nearby and effectively hitting goshiki in the forehead

pls stop the goshiki abuse, just praise the poor boy :((

“okay, forget about this arguing. but goshiki I think you know what we have to do” shirabu said smiling deviously, gears turning in his small mind

thus the children begin plotting operation: you should have come to volleyball lessons

  a/n 2: hello!! ik it’s been awhile but I’m currently having to deal with getting ready for college so there’s a lot of meetings, stress, and getting all my paper work in. the updates will be kind of slow because I want to make sure all the updates are decent in length but also has a good story line and written well (it’s probably still pretty bad but I'm trying my best) but thank you for your continuous support and I hope you're enjoying the series so far :)) <33

[knitcrate]

Letter from our CEO

I would like to begin by saying thank you to the many people who have written in via email, through our DMs, or on social media expressing their support, understanding, and compassion as KnitCrate navigates this situation. Whenever we receive one of those messages, we share it internally with the rest of the team, and it helps boost morale and remind us why we enjoy being a part of this community. So again, THANK YOU.

The situation over the past year has been, well…to say it has been messy would be an understatement. The lack of inventory being in stock (particularly in the last 3 months), delayed shipments, and customers understandably being more budget-conscious with the uncertainties of the pandemic have all strongly impacted our sales as a company. We have been doing whatever we can to overcome it. One of the biggest challenges we’ve dealt with as a company during COVID-19 has been our supply chain, both with getting the yarn to our warehouse for kit assembly and for production of the yarn in the first place.

Issue 1: Logistics of receiving the yarn

There are two main problems affecting companies who rely on importing/exporting goods these days.

The first is that, due to COVID, there are less commercial flights. Almost all commercial flights carry the passengers up top and cargo down below. With less commercial flights, there is less opportunity to transport cargo. This causes a backlog of cargo sitting at the airports. For example, we paid our mill in mid-March to try to get what should have been the April yarn now in March (paying it a month ahead of what was planned in our budget), at which point they sent the cargo to the airport in Lima.  The cargo sat there for over a week because of the backlog of other cargo waiting to be put on a plane.  The airline finally delivered 3 pallets to the US on March 30th.  The remaining 9 pallets arrived today on March 31st.  Customs wouldn’t let us pick up the first 3 pallets until the other 9 arrived, because they wanted us to pick up the order in its entirety. We finally got clearance to pick it up earlier today.

The second issue companies are facing are capacity constraints at the ports, whether airports or ocean. All ports worldwide are working with far less employees than they were before the pandemic, which causes massive delays in being able to process shipments. This affects us with our large inbound orders but also with shipments to our international customers, as packages sometimes sit at customs in your countries for what may seem to be an eternity.  

Issue 2: Production of yarn at the mills

Because of the volume of yarn we are now ordering monthly, we have to contract with our mills 12+ months in advance. For example, as of today, all yarn orders through March 2022 are already contracted. Why the long 12-month lead time? The mills need this amount of lead time to plan their own raw materials purchases and production schedules, not just for our orders, but the orders of all their clients. Every month, we pay our mill at the time of shipment, they proceed to ship the yarn to us. Under normal circumstances, it takes a shipment by air only 1-3 business days to arrive, clear customs, and be delivered to our warehouse.  Outside of a worldwide pandemic, this is not usually an issue. The mills have plenty of time to produce yarn and deliver it the first week of each month when we need to assemble your kits and ship to you.

However, the COVID pandemic has complicated things. Both of our main mills in Peru and Italy have had periods of time where they outright closed due to government restrictions on non-essential businesses to help combat the spread of COVID in their respective countries. For example, in April/May of 2020, our Peruvian mill was closed for two months and that left us without yarn to send out in May. Due to the lead times required and the fact that most mills worldwide were (and still are) facing similar issues, looking for alternate yarn was nearly impossible. Thankfully, our team was quick on their feet and we put together a fun dye-it-yourself project using undyed yarn from our Dyer Supplier business.

During this first quarter of 2021, our Italian mill, who was originally supplying yarn from December through February, has been facing stringent lockdowns and closures in response to the recent increase in COVID cases in Italy. This disrupted their ability to produce yarn and has resulted in part of the January yarn and all of the planned February yarn not being delivered. We were horribly disappointed about this, but despite our best efforts as well as the mill’s, the production needs could not be met. Thankfully, our Peruvian mill has been able to come back online with a more regular schedule in the past few months, and we have been working with them to get yarn delivered now that was originally meant for a later month.

While this is a solution to the inventory needed for crate shipment, it presented the company with a new problem. We had to fund the purchase for this yarn outside of our budget and available funding, which has been difficult during a challenging and financially straining year. This is why we have been forced to issue a credit, as opposed to an outright refund, on those purchases. It would be impossible for the company to do both - issue a refund for all those orders at one time while allocating funds to pay for yarn ahead of time.

***

Does this situation absolutely suck? Yes. It absolutely sucks. Am I sorry that this is happening? Of course. Business owners who give a damn about their business, customers, and employees do not set out on a mission to disappoint customers or give a less-than-exceptional experience. It is more heartbreaking to me than I can explain. But we aren’t dealing with normal times. We are doing what we need to do to get the company through this temporary situation to keep delivering yarn each month, keep our team members employed, and continue to be the business so many of you have grown to love.

Unfortunately, this also means streamlining how we offer products to you as well as increasing prices. When we took over KnitCrate in mid-2016, the kits ranged in price between $45 to $65 USD. We lowered those prices significantly to $24.99, including shipping & handling, that same year. We have kept prices there since then, even though shipping costs and wool prices have skyrocketed over the past 4-5 year period.  Keeping our prices that low could not continue indefinitely. We had plans to introduce these price increases later in the year, but this situation has forced us to accelerate those changes. However, even at the new prices, we still feel there is superb value for the yarn you are receiving. Moreover, you still have access to the member discounts in the shop which gives you even more value.

I am hoping that most customers know us well enough to understand that we aren’t trying to pull a fast one or go Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde on you. We would never turn into a completely different company who is out to take advantage of you. However, we recognize that these sudden changes and issues have understandably raised concerns. Among them, there have been concerns raised about the products and website that we would like to clarify:

Our Terms and Conditions have not changed since 2019 and our Privacy Policy hasn’t changed since 2017.

We will continue to include 2 skeins per crate for the traditional membership and 1 for the sock membership. The “1+ skeins” wording previously seen on the website was updated back in 2019 when we tested featuring 1 skein of ultra-luxury base in the months we featured Citrus Squeeze and Titmouse. We subsequently sent a survey to our customers asking how they would like us to approach this in the future. The answer was that the majority preferred two skeins, and so we have featured at least two skeins ever since and will continue to do so.

We had seen some comments regarding extras no longer being included in kits. Please rest assured that extras will continue being a part of your kits.

Member Central discounts, Double Down discounts, etc. will continue. These are some of the key benefits of being a member and will continue to be so.

I have come across some hard-to-read comments about how KnitCrate is going out of business or won’t be around in 2 months. Are we going through a tough situation? Yes. That is no secret. Are we disappearing in 2 months? No. Like I said above, the yarn is contracted out through March 2022 with our Peruvian mill. This mill has already come back online and is working with us to push every month contract up by 30 days. We are working overtime and making the necessary changes to get things back on track and get the shipping schedule normalized again.  

Ultimately, whether KnitCrate, or any company for that matter, stays in business or not is always in the hands of the customers. Companies can die for many reasons, but there are two overarching reasons.  

The company cannot deliver a product the customer wants. The company created a product the customer wants and is willing to pay for, but the company cannot access or deliver it to the customer.

The company cannot get customers. The company developed a product a customer doesn’t care for and isn’t willing to pay for and they go out of business.

As a company, we have predominantly been battling Reason #1 during the pandemic and are actively working on solutions within our team and with our partner mills to address the supply chain issues.  Given that our Peruvian mill was able to finish the April yarn by mid-March and ship to us early, we are looking forward to working with them on the future orders already contracted as we bump up each of those months.  Going forward, we will not be pre-selling yarn on the shop.  Yarn will only be listed for sale once it has been received into our warehouse, quality controlled, and counted. We understand that this may upset some customers who liked the ability to reserve the yarn by pre-buying it, but it is a necessary action.

That leaves us with Reason #2, and this is entirely in your hands as a customer. We offer great products, great value, and fair prices not available in most places.  In fact, I encourage anyone who has been a member with us for a long time to look at the yarn they have purchased through us over their lifetime as a customer, either through the kits or in Member Central, and tally up the savings they have earned. I don’t know many other places that can enable you to save on quality yarn as much as KnitCrate.

When it comes to business, the customer is always in charge. You vote with your dollars whether any company you buy from, including KnitCrate, stays in business or not. This is not new, though. This has always been the case, ever since we took over the company in 2016, and will always be the case. We have had to make some tough decisions during a temporarily very sh!tty situation. We made those decisions in order to stay alive and keep delivering yarn to you at affordable prices long into the future. If you will have us, we will be here working to bring you yarn with great projects at great prices.  

Thank you for your support. We hope you stay well and keep stitchin’!

- Rob and the KnitCrate Team