#I don’t know how they go about giving old characters Cookie Trials

[quibbs126]

*sigh* I wish Pink Choco Cookie had a Cookie Trial

[imnotwolverine]

Wolfie’s Fic Recs | Dad!Fics

DAD!FICS - Henry and his characters with kids, wanting kids, making kids. That’s it. That’s this list. 

Author’s note: My sincere apologies for how crazy long this list has gotten 😂 It’s like the whole fandom is agreeing on one thing: this man needs a baby ASAP. Also, thank you dear @littlefreya for your ever wonderful suggestions! 

--

With Henry

Single dad Henry is trying to figure out a hair tutorial to please his 4-year old, and it’s the most adorable thing ever. With Flowers In Her Hair by @wanna-do-bad-things 

Single dad Henry kinda hittin’ on da nanny? Picture Perfect by @fun-with-jane is a short fic series that’ll get you kinda hot, and kinda bothered (the slow burn..ARGH) 

Getting you pregnant is, apparently, a very VERY exact science including honey-wine-&-cookies.. baby. Freyja Dag by @geek-eat-repeat

And don’t forget about timing! THE TIMING! Let’s Make One Of Our Own is the sweaty hot smut you might just crave (am I the only one ovulating right now?), fic by @littlefreya. 

Sometimes it’s also just a situation of super sperm, followed by an “oopsie baby”. And when two bullheaded fuckbuddies-to-be-parents are involved, things can get pretty ..engaging: The Rules Of Engagement by @ladyreapermc (multi-chapter). 

Or perhaps it’s a situation of Henry and his untameable Hunger, by @littlefreya (yes, it’s breeeeding smut my lassies -- again, forgive me for I am thirsty) 

Pregnancy ain’t always sunshine and rainbows. There’s also a lot of change and self-doubt. But that’s nothing some coconut oil and love can’t fix, in Two Months by @littlefreya

There’s a lotttt of first times with having children, which in turn will probably give quite a few heart Flutters for poor protective dad Henry. By @littlefreya

And he’s not just protective, he’s also pretty observant. This Cute Little Drabble makes you wonder when you last bought tampons... by @toomanystoriessolittletime​

Newborns? They can be a little fussy. But again, daddy bear is here to fix it! Everything I Ever Wanted by @fuckoffbard

With the brood expanding, it’s getting a little difficult to garner the ever-craved attention of momma bear in This Is War by @cruelfvkingsummer

And when mom isn’t home? Well..the question arises what happened to all the cookies.. Daddy’s day by @angrythingstarlight

Okay, one more by @angrythingstarlight because I couldn’t choose: Baby Talk

And Henry’ll learn soon enough that changing your facial hair should go with a disclaimer. Especially when toddlers are involved. Daddy Who? by @viking-raider

And facial hair also reminds me of this fic; Domestic Life by @writernerd23 (-> “Your face is scratchy, Daddy.” <- CUTE)

The Accidental Family by me. A domestic sad-fluffy short series about memory loss -- After a motorcycle accident, Henry suddenly finds himself living the life he always dreamed of. There’s only one small hitch; he can’t remember how he got here.

And to carry on with the more sad fluff-stuff. How would Henry deal with the less rosy parts of trying to have children - like miscarriage? Negative is a beautiful fic that got me balling my eyes out and you should definitely read it if you’re in the need for some sad, sad fluff. By @oddduckthatgirl​

Perhaps things didn’t quite go as planned - whatever the plan was. This sad-to-fluff fic brings you on the rollercoaster of extremely sad to fuzzy warm and happy. Better Off by @toomanystoriessolittletime​

More tear-jerkers? 😭Falling Again by @deathonyourtongue follows struggling AU dad!Henry as bills keep piling and the loss of his wife haunts his every waking moment. 

Back to the fun stuff - *chants* Rugby dad! Rugby dad! I couldn’t pick just one from the extensive list of rugby dad Henry fics by @hlkwrites and @achaoticaugust - let’s be honest; this should be a genre on its own, so here’s a few: 

Henry Cavill, The Rugby Dad Part 2 (smut, daddy kink) I laughed perhaps a tad too loud at the drunk make-out session on the front lawn - here’s some short sexy rugby dad Henry drabbles. 

 A Rugby Dad’s Guide To Injury Time  (smut) I just love smut when it slow, sensual and JUST a tiny bit awkward because you’re on the couch and someone’s leg is in a cast 😜

A Rugby Dad’s Guide To The Off Season (smut) And after the hard toil of keeping a family up and running, it might just be time for a hot (tub) little break 

With Sy

A few short, golden moments in becoming first-time parents with Sy - including skin-to-skin daddy cuddles - what else do you want? Evermore by @hauntedelation is a fluffy fic that gets me all kinds of fuzzy inside.

Talking “short” golden moments..this one includes one short reader, a coffee mug and one teasing oaf-of-a-bear Syverson. (smut) Of Short Girls And High Shelves by my fellow Lisa, also known as @killjoy-assbutt-1112 (hi girl!) 

Cankles, have never been so hot a subject to talk about as they are in this lovely fic by @crimsonrae: Cigarettes and Morning Breath 

And before you know it, you have a whole brood. Will that stop Sy? Meh..probably not. Fourth Time’s The Charm by @cruelfvkingsummer

And once he HAS a daughter? Woof! Dad Syverson is probably just a LITTLE bit too overprotective. But that’s nothing a daughter-dad weekend can’t fix. Daddy Syverson by @connieisland​

Imagine this: one big chunky Captain Syverson and one tiny, tiny babygirl cradled in his arms. Are you melting yet? Siobhán is just the cutest little fic, by @littlefreya

We really want Sy to get a daughter huh? And that’ll be particularly funny when daughter sweet becomes old enough for Prom Night -- we’ll be back with overprotective daddy Sy who is ever stubborn, but also ever sweet. By @littlefreya

Onto the holidays: Santa brings back home a 5-year old’s one true wish in Santa Letter Wish by @lovelycavills 

And sometimes? You wish the babe would wait JUST a few days before getting born. Christmas, Baby by @its--fandom--darling

Now. To finish off the Sy vibes; are you perhaps in the need of one heck of a good series? Willow Run is one of the first series I read here on Tumblr and it is SO GOOD. I won’t blab and just let you read ❤️ you won’t regret it. By @deathonyourtongue

With Geralt

Geralt, Destiny, one stubborn girl and the Law of Surprise - it’s a recipe for great adventures and funny grumpy dad!Geralt moments. This wonderful multichap fic A Soldier’s Daughter is written by @viking-raider​ 

I know it’s canonically impossible for a Witcher to get anyone pregnant (due to the Trial of the Grasses). But you know..if ..and when..and maybe..then: A Gentle Soul by @killjoy-assbutt-1112

With Marshall

Some mild roleplaying, rough smutiness and unexpected news make this love-making sesh a wild-wild ride. Heart Of Darkness by @littlefreya

Sleepless is a wonderful multichap fic with Marshall x single!mom reader. @feralrunaway gives you awkward barbecue chat and protective Marshall being ever protective. There’s no masterlist, so here’s (I think) all the chapters: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6

Can you imagine big hunky chunk Marshall being worried when you get all teared up with emotion? Baby Blues gives you allll the cute caring dad!Marshall you need. By @the-soot-sprite

With August

A child born out of love and chaos, is all August craves when he comes back home. Mother Of Murder by @littlefreya​ (smut) 

Bad guys, accidental babies and *BOOM* suddenly it’s not just you who calls August “daddy” ((pun intended here, please don’t hate me 😂)) Surprise, surprise.. by @maya-the-cute-ass-bee

And once such that surprise happens, August knows one thing for sure: he’d burn the whole world to a crisp if anything was to happen to you and his unborn child. In this Imagine by @littlefreya

With Napoleon

Sobs, cries and accidentally getting pregnant by spies ((the puns are getting worse, I swear I’ll show myself out in a bit)). On a serious note though: this multi-chapter is an angsty rollercoaster with a tinge of fluff by @coloraturadiva - A Mistake 

With Sherlock

Dad!Sherlock fics are surprisingly hard to find, but here’s one: Promises by @zodiyack is a bit of a modern interpretation of a Victorian household, and it sure as hell is delightful!  

--

WEW! That was a LONG list - wonderful work dear fic writers! And, as ever; if you have any good recommendations that fit in this list, please add in the comments or reblog! ❤️

( Fan art by me 😊)

[gra-sonas]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Michael Guerin/Alex Manes Characters: Alex Manes, Michael Guerin Additional Tags: Canon Disabled Character, Dogs

Summary:

Alex's face softens. "I know you're careful. Sorry, it's just hard not to worry. But back again to my initial question. Do you know what today is?”

"I don't know, Alex. It's February 13th, so I didn't forget Valentine's Day or something. We ruled out the thing at Isobel's, and it's still Saturday. No matter how much I'm wrecking my brain, I can't think of anything else. Please tell me I didn't forget anything important." 

"No, you didn't, no worries. I'll put you out of your misery. What do you think about taking a short trip across town?"

This is my contribution for day 3 of @malex-cupid. 3.3K of fluffy Malex.

Dialogue prompt: “Do you know what today is?”

-------------

 “Do you know what today is?”

Michael pretends to think about the answer before he says "Saturday."

Alex rolls his eyes. "Smartass."

Michael smirks. "Takes one to know one."

Alex smirks back. "I'm badass," he says.

Michael laughs. "True."

"Come on, Michael, try again. What day is today?"

Michael groans. "It's that stupid thing Isobel roped us into attending, isn't it? I thought it was next weekend."

"That one is next weekend. Which reminds me, we have to get our suits from the cleaners." Alex pulls a face. He hates wearing formal attire, especially ties. But Isobel would have their heads if they didn't dress up for her fancy party.

"We'll get through it together, and any chance we get, we'll hide in one of Isobel's guest rooms, and I'll suck you off." Michael waggles his eyebrows suggestively. He looks ridiculous, but it makes Alex laugh.

"If she catches us, we won't live to see another day," he points out.

"Well, I'll have to be fast then. It's unfortunate that she also can pick locks with her brain these days."

"You're not going to suck me off in two minutes, if anything I'll claim that my stump's hurting and we can go home early, where we'll take our sweet time sucking each other off."

Michael looks worried. "Has your stump given you any trouble lately? Should I take a look at the prothesis?"

Alex smiles. "No, Michael. It fits perfectly, and for some reason it even adjusts to the occasional swelling? I have no idea how you engineered it, but it almost feels as if the prosthetic becomes a part of me when I put it on. It's incredible, and it has given me that much more quality of life." He leans closer and kisses Michael, soft and sweet. Michael beams.

"I'm so glad. The material is so cool, I'm glad that I decided to give it a try, and now that I no longer need to rebuild a working console, I want to find out what other useful things I can build using it."

"As long as you are careful and—," Alex starts.

"Yes, I know," Michael interrupts him. "No worries, I've been paranoid about hiding who and what I am my entire conscious life on this planet. I won't risk it now just to brag about an invention that includes alien tech."

Alex's face softens. "I know you're careful. Sorry, it's just hard not to worry. But back again to my initial question. Do you know what today is?”

"I don't know, Alex. It's February 13th, so I didn't forget Valentine's Day or something. We ruled out the thing at Isobel's, and it's still Saturday. No matter how much I'm wrecking my brain, I can't think of anything else. Please tell me I didn't forget anything important." 

"No, you didn't, no worries. I'll put you out of your misery. What do you think about taking a short trip across town?"

Michael nods. "Sure, I have no other plans for today. Can we drive past the Crashdown to pick up some coffee?"

Alex looks at his watch. "If we call from the car and ask whether Javier could bring our order to the curb, we can do that. But we have to leave now. We have an appointment at eleven."

Michael pulls Alex up from the couch. "Okay, let's go. I'm really curious what you're up to!"

They call the Crashdown from the car and Arturo himself stands at the curb to hand them coffee and a box with heart shaped cookies through the window. Michael tips him generously, and then they're on their way again.

When they pull up outside of a red building fifteen minutes later, Michael's eyes widen.

"Alex, this is the animal shelter. What are we doing here?"

Alex turns around in his seat to face Michael. "Well, I thought we could go inside and look at all the rescue dogs in there, and if we like one, and the dog likes us, that we should take them home for a trial run. What do you think?"

Michael's eyes are wet. "Alex. This is—perfect. So much better than some kitschy Valentine's gift. Don't get me wrong, any gift from you would be amazing, but a dog, Alex. A dog! We've talked about this so often. Why now?"

Alex's smile softens. "Because we talked about it so often. It's pretty obvious how much you want a dog, and honestly, I want one, too. My therapist has talked about a therapy dog in the past, but I think a dog that's ours is even better. It can either stay with me while you're working, or come with you to the junkyard when I'm meeting clients. And if push comes to shove, we have a large yard where the dog can stay on its own for a couple of hours."

Michael flings himself across the car's middle console and pulls Alex into a fierce hug. "Thank you, Alex. Best pre-Valentine's gift ever."

Alex smiles into Michael's shoulder. "Come, let's go inside, I have a feeling we'll meet a very special someone in there today."

They enter the shelter, and a young woman shows them the way to the large backyard behind the building. Three different agility courses are set up, and there's a pool where three dogs are playing with an old football, splashing in and out of the water.

"This is what heaven must look like," Michael says, and the awe in his voice tells Alex that coming here was an excellent decision. He's counting at least twenty different dogs of various sizes, and they all seem happy and excited. He turns to the young woman.

"So, how are we going to do this, Janet. Are we supposed to sit down and wait until a dog approaches, or should we throw a ball or something?"

Janet points at a bench that's set up under a large tree. "If you want to take a seat, I'll get a basket with some toys for you to use and play with the dogs." She leaves, and Michael leads Alex over to the bench where they sit down.

Most of the dogs have stopped playing and running around, they are looking at Alex and Michael instead. Michael takes Alex's hand. "I'm nervous."

Alex squeezes his hand. "I don't think they are dangerous, relax, Michael," he soothes.

Michael laughs. "Not what I mean. I'm nervous because I know one of them's going to be ours, and I want to make a good impression."

Five dogs are brave enough to come closer, their tails wagging. Michael holds his hand out for them, and once the brave dogs are close enough, they start sniffing and licking Michael's fingers. After that it's just one large furry puppy pile with Alex and Michael in the middle, and more dogs joining. They pet as many dogs as they can reach, always careful to read the body language of each of them. But they are all very friendly and excited to meet them.

Janet returns, a large basket filled with various toys in her arms. Some of the dogs start barking happily, apparently, they know what the basket means. Janet sets it down in front of the two men. "Many of our dogs love to play fetch, you can also go over to the agility courses and see what each of the dogs can do."

Michael picks up the basket. "Thanks, Janet, I think I'll go over and play with the dogs. Do you want to come with me, Alex?"

"I'm actually good right here for another moment, thanks. Maybe I'll come over to you later."

Michael smiles at Alex and gives him a kiss. "Okay, love you."

Michael squeezes Michael's arm. "Love you, too. Have fun!"

Michael walks over to one of the agility courses, basket in hand. And like he's the Pied Piper, most of the dogs follow him, yipping excitedly.

Janet turns to Alex. "I'll leave you to it. If you have any questions, I'll be inside."

"Thank you, Janet, I appreciate it." She turns around and walks back to the house, and Alex focuses his full attention on Michael. He's started to throw balls in different directions (no doubt giving some of them a little extra spin with his telekinesis, but there's no one around, so Alex relaxes and enjoys watching Michael having the time of his life).

There's one dog in particular, that seems to have the largest heart eyes around Michael. It doesn't run after any balls Michael's throwing, instead he picks up a plushie from the basked and carefully places it in Michael's outstretched hand. Michael pats the dog's head and tells him what a good boy he is. Alex smiles. 

The dog is gorgeous, a little taller than a German Shepard, dark fur and a tail that's wagging a million miles a minute. Alex can picture himself and Michael with the dog in front of the fire. Not a lapdog exactly, but he doesn't mind.

A minute later, the dog leaves Michael's side and while Michael's busy getting acquainted with some of the other dogs, Alex's eyes follow the black dog. He walks over to a sunny spot near the pool, where smaller dog's curled up in the grass, seemingly uninterested in playing with Michael.

Going by the fur marking's, Alex thinks it could be a beagle. He smiles, remembering Mimi's "prophecy". The black dog noses at the beagle's ears and licks them, then he nudges the dog as if to say, "come with me".

It takes another few nudges before the dog gets up (and yes, it's definitely a beagle, an older one by the looks of it), and follows its black brother over to Michael.

When Michael notices the duo, he stops throwing balls and kneels down. "Oh, do you want me to meet your friend? Hello sweetheart." He scratches the beagle behind the ears and the dog almost goes cross-eyed with pleasure. The black dog wiggles closer and buries his nose in Michael's half-open shirt.

Michael looks over to Alex, and Alex smiles. "Guess we're not just picking up one dog, huh?"

"Would that be okay? They seem to be friends, and I couldn't stand to leave one behind, especially since this little lady seems to be a bit older. Do you think we can handle two dogs?"

Alex gets up from the bench and walks over, and the moment he reaches Michael, they look up at him and start nosing at his feet and legs. When they are finished sniffing at him, they look at him with huge puppy eyes. 

"Oh, you two, this isn't fair." He kneels down carefully, holding on to Michael's shoulder for balance. The moment he feels stable, he has his arm full of two dogs, one large black one, and a smaller beagle. 

They lick his face and almost barrel him over in their excitement, if it wasn't for Michael's steadying hand (and a smidge of telekinesis) at his back. "Thanks," he manages to get out between increasingly wet and enthusiastic doggy kisses.

Michael chuckles. "Guess these two have made their decision. Now it's up to us. Can we, and do we want to adopt two dogs? I know we've talked about a dog, and this morning I didn't even know we'd get one. And now there are these two. What do you think?"

Alex smiles. "You know, we have a big house, an even bigger garden, I don't see why we shouldn't adopt both. They insist on a two week trial anyway, so why don't we take these two sweethearts home with us and see how it goes?"

Michael manages to place a smacking kiss on Alex's cheek without them tumbling over, then he helps Alex stand up. The two dogs stay close to them and follow them back to the house.

They find Janet at the reception desk. She looks up when she hears them approach.

"Oh, that went quick. Did you meet a dog you like?"

Alex realizes that she can't see the two dogs at their feet from her position. "Actually, we met two dogs."

"Two?" Janet stands up and looks down. "Oh, I see. These are Buffy and Lando. They met here and it was love at first sight. They are pretty much inseparable, and since she's basically a senior dog, we'd rather not separate them, I'm sorry."

Alex shakes his head. "There's no need to separate them, we'd like to take both home with us for the trial period. You know, they picked us, and now it's our turn to pick them, and see whether we're a good match."

Janet's smile gets excited. "That's wonderful to hear. They've been here for a while, and the fact that we don't want to separate them has prevented their adoption so far. If you'd like to take them for a short walk, I need about twenty minutes to get all the papers ready. Leashes are over there by the door."

They return from their walk half an hour later, relaxed and smiling. Neither dog's wearing a leash anymore. When Michael notices Janet's look, he says, "She wouldn't leave our side, and he wouldn't leave hers, there really was no point in keeping the leashes on."

Janet nods and hands them a clipboard with several sheets of paper, yellow post-its marking the spaces where they need to sign. Alex grabs the clipboard and takes a seat at a nearby table, while Michael looks at the wall opposite of the reception, where several dozens of photos are pinned to a large cork board. Happy new pet owners with their adopted pets. He can't wait to add their photo to the wall.

Once all the papers are signed, Janet gets two large bags from a nearby storage room and hands them to Michael. "The bags contain bowls, leashes, and dog beds. We don't expect you to buy everything before it isn't clear that you'll adopt the dogs."

Michael nods. "Do they have favorite toys or blankets we should take with us?"

"No, they usually play with the toys we provide. I can put a few tennis balls into one of the bags if you want," Janet offers.

Alex shakes his head. "That won't be necessary. I—uhm, I actually may have bought some toys. And a box of tennis balls." His smile is a little sheepish, but Michael isn't having any of it. "You are brilliant, and I love you." He smacks a kiss on Alex's cheek.

"Alright, you've got my number, in case there are any issues, please don't hesitate to call. If everything goes according to plan, I'll see you in three days for the first mandatory visit."

They smile at her, bid their goodbyes, and when leave, their two new canine family members follow them unprompted.

"I have a really good feeling about this," Alex says once they are back in the car, both dogs comfortably snuggled up on the back seat.

"Me too," Michael admits. "You've made me a very happy man today, Alex. Truly the best pre-Valentine's gift ever." Alex laughs. "It's not just a gift for you, Michael, I'm also a very happy man today. I'm very excited that we're taking this next step." He looks back at the two sleeping dogs. "It already feels like they're part of the family."

On their way home, they stop at the pet store, and pay an obscene amount of money for dog food, bowls, leashes, harnesses, the most comfortable supersized dog bed (suspecting the dogs would rather share then sleep in two separate beds), and way too many toys. They don't care that this is only a trial, they know that Buffy and Lando are meant to stay with them.

When they get home and set everything up, the dogs immediately curl up in the large dog bed together, completely ignoring the two separate beds they put up to give them a choice. 

"We already know them so well," Michael says proudly, clinking his glass with Alex's. There's a fire burning in the fireplace, and they're sharing a bottle of red wine that goes well with the pizza they've ordered.

The dogs are snoring, and Alex's and Michael's hearts are full.

Michael goes on a quick walk with the dogs while Alex gets ready for bed. They're trying to keep the dogs out of their bedroom, but it's not happening. Lando drags in the dog bed in before they can close the door, and while they'll have to set boundaries eventually (because there are things they'd like to do in their bedroom without an audience), they won't start tonight.

They place the dog bed at the foot of their bed, and the dogs curl up together. "Uhm, we'll get to that eventually, I guess," Michael says, but then he lets himself being pulled into Alex's arms and they fall asleep within minutes.

It's a quiet night, and when they wake up in the morning, the dogs are already up to drink water in the kitchen. Alex and Michael exchange lazy kisses, until Michael wiggles out of Alex's embrace. "I'll take them out for a couple of minutes, that should do until we can go for a real walk after breakfast."

Alex gets up to pee, then makes a beeline for the kitchen to make coffee before he returns to their bedroom. He snuggles up under the covers, when he hears the front door open and shut, which means that Michael's back.

The dogs enter the bedroom first, and Lando walks up to Alex's side of the bed. He gets up on his hind legs and puts his front paws on the bedframe, like he's extra careful not to step on the mattress.

"Good morning, handsome. You are such a good boy, Lando," Alex croons and pats Lando's head. When he sees something gleam in the sunlight filtering through the blinds, he reaches for Lando's collar. There's a ring attached to it. A ring with an iridescent piece of an alien spaceship console embedded. 

Alex blinks back tears and tries to remove the ring from Lando's collar, when Michael drops on one knee next to the bed. His eyes look a bit wet, too.

"Alex Manes. You're not only the man of my dreams, you're the man of my life. We've been through so much, and I love you more than should be humanly – or alien-ly – possible. Would you do me the honor of marrying me?"

Alex can't stop the tears from falling now, but he nods and reaches for Michael. They kiss and hug, and Michael helps Alex to remove the ring from Lando's collar. When Michael puts the ring on Alex's finger, it fits like a glove.

"Michael, the ring is extraordinary, thank you so much. I can't wait to marry you." They kiss again, but before Michael can get up from the floor, Alex pulls a thin silver chain out from under his pajama top he only put on a few minutes ago when he was in the bathroom. There's a ring attached to it. He opens the clasp and lets the ring fall into his open hand. Then he shows it to Michael. 

"Adopting a dog with you was only meant to be a first step, I'd been meaning to propose to you on Valentine's Day, though. I just love you so much, more than anything or anyone, and I want to share my life with you. Forever. Marry me?"

"Yes!" Michael's reply is short, but he barely waits for Alex to put the ring on his finger (it also fits perfectly), before he gets up and lets himself being pulled into Alex's outstretched arms. They laugh and kiss and tumble all over the bed, and Buffy and Lando start barking. Soon enough they manage to jump on the bed and join the celebration.

When Alex and Michael adopt Buffy and Lando officially two weeks later, they do so as Mr. and Mr. Guerin-Manes, their wedding rings clearly visible in their we've-adopted-a-dog celebratory photo.

[anomov]

Other than being excited for Lilac, here are some of my thoughts about what's coming for the update:

-For starters, I'm happy they're changing the maps. I have nothing against the current breakout maps, but I personally just.... Really dislike them. Maybe call it nostalgia from missing the old maps after playing for 3-4 years, I don't know, I just don't like them.

-The story mode seems interesting, and the fact they're tying things into it and it'll be ongoing is more interesting. I get really invested in lore of series - Especially Cookie Run, because I love it so much - So I'm excited for that.

-Giving cookies who have a cool down on their skill the bar at the beginning and not starting with their skill gives me... Mixed feelings. Though I understand why, it worries me a bit. Timekeeper is my main in Trophy Race; will that affect how she or Sea Fairy work in the race? Will it lower my points gotten significantly? Also, a lot of the trials for cookies like that begin in a setting where the skill starting immediately is important - Pitiya comes to mind. Are they going to change all of their trials? Or are we going to be rigged to get less points from the beginning? This is really bothering me.

-Making every cookies max level 15 also feels... Wrong. Though they did say you'd be getting legendary points more frequently - How? Are they going to get thrown in the chests normally, will you be able to use options on them? I understand making all of the normal cookies (Common-Epic) have one max level, but with the legendaries? That bothers me. I'm worried about how that will play out, especially because a lot of the characters I use frequently ARE legendaries. (Like I said, TK and Sea Fairy are my trophy race mains, TK is basically my go-to for everything. But I also use other legendaries frequently in breakout, so if this update goes wrong with the legendaries it will directly effect me and the points I get.)

-I do like the idea of giving less points to skills and more to jellies to even newer and older characters out. It you compare Gingerbrave to say, Almond, their skills points have a HUGE difference, so giving the jellies more points is a good idea. Though, again, the skill thing still puts me off. (I'm just really worried about how this'll affect my points in Trophy Race since a lot of the points COME from their skills.)

-I like the card system. I think it's cool we can have an extra skill that we can activate when we please.

Other than that there's nothing else I really have to voice. If you read over this you can see my main concern is with the changes in their skills, so we'll see how that goes. Overall, I'm excited for the update.

[cto10121]

The bad Shakespeare takes keep coming, I see. This one had the cleverness to couch itself as a personal narrative (makes it much more interesting, tbh). But as bad Shakespeare takes are my bread and butter, my boon and bane, mamma mia here we go again, with Merchant of Venice.

“But those who thought the play was irredeemably antisemitic were, the consensus went, vulgar and whiny—​and, completely coincidentally, they were also Jewish, which somehow magically invalidated their opinions on this subject.”

I’m glad (is that even the right word?) this author found scholars that don’t think this play is anti-Semitic, but my experience with scholarship has been way more mixed than that. Suffice to say, this is literally all the play is known for these days, and views of the play as anti-Semitic are everywhere (Rosenbaum even had a hot take that since the Nazis liked it, it must be anti-Semitic). Didn’t know Harold Bloom thinks this play is anti-Semitic, though. That in itself is a bit of a red flag, as Bloom is a notoriously poor reader of Shakespeare.

“[I]n Merchant, Portia unhappily fulfills her father’s requirements of her suitors, while in Il Pecorone, the lady enjoys drugging her suitors and robbing them blind. By removing this detail, Shakespeare removed the suggestion that malicious schemers come from all walks of life.”

Or, by removing this detail, Shakespeare removed the clear and abhorrent sexism of his original source that turned a woman robbed of her autonomy by her father’s will into a criminal. It’s almost as if you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

“Dr. Lopez, one of the most respected physicians of the 16th century, had indiscreetly revealed that he once treated the Earl of Essex for venereal disease. The earl took revenge by framing Dr. Lopez for treason and arranging for his torture; while on the rack, Dr. Lopez “confessed”—​though “like a Jew,” as the court record states, he denied all charges at trial, while the attorney for the Crown referred to him matter-​of-​factly as “a perjuring murdering traitor and Jewish doctor.”

This is a very twisted account of the Lopez affair and Essex’s motives in going against him, at least to my understanding. For context, Lopez was accused of receiving loads of money from the King of Spain to poison Queen Elizabeth.

According to Stephen Greenblatt, in Will of the World: “Essex had tried some years before to recruit Lopez as a secret agent. Lopez’s refusal—he chose instead directly to inform the queen—may have been prudent, but it created in the powerful earl a very dangerous enemy. After his arrest, he was initially imprisoned at Essex House and interrogated by the earl himself. But Lopez had powerful allies in the rival faction of the queen’s senior adviser William Cecil, Lord Burghley, and his son, Robert Cecil, who also participated in the interrogation and reported to the queen that the charges against her physician were baseless.” Lopez apparently had been taken bribes from various sources, and confessed (freely? under torture?) “that he had indeed entered into a treasonous-sounding negotiation with the king of Spain, but he insisted that he had done so only in order to cozen the king out of his money.” Weird.

Greenblatt isn’t a historian, though, and Essex was indeed an asshole to Lopez, (and for what is worth, I feel Lopez was innocent; I just get those vibes) but so far I can find no other source that Essex actively framed Lopez. Most likely he did some sleuthing, dug up some questionable, compromising stuff, and tried to blow a hearth flame into a firestorm.

“After all, the historical record gives Queen Elizabeth a cookie for dawdling on signing Dr. Lopez’s death warrant; her doubts about his guilt even led her to mercifully allow his family to keep his property, not unlike the equally merciful Duke of Venice in Shakespeare’s play.”

Again, Lopez had powerful allies (doesn’t get much higher than Burghley), and again, re: Greenblatt: “According to court observers, Elizabeth gave Essex a tongue-lashing, ‘calling him rash and temerarious youth, to enter into a matter against the poor man, which he could not prove, and whose innocence she knew well enough.’” A cupcake, then?

“And it is of course entirely unclear whether this trial and public humiliation of an allegedly greed-​driven Jew attempting to murder an upstanding Christian, rapturously reported in the press with myriad antisemitic embellishments, had anything at all to do with Shakespeare’s play about the trial and public humiliation of a greed-​driven Jew attempting to murder an upstanding Christian—​which Shakespeare composed shortly after Dr. Lopez decomposed. Most likely these things were completely unrelated.”

Nearly all the major Shakespeare biographies and articles I’ve read literally and explicitly talks about the possible influence of Lopez’s execution on Merchant of Venice and names it as an inspiration: Greenblatt, (he even headcanons that Shakespeare watched the execution!) Bate, Ackroyd. That’s how Horn managed to ping my BS radar something awful—because I had read about it, many times, even if it was mentioned in passing. It’s solid, legit Shakespearean academic fanon. The sarcasm is really unwarranted, and childish besides.

“It was damned hard to hear the nuance while parsing lines like “Certainly the Jew is the very devil incarnal,” or “My master’s a very Jew; give him a present, give him a halter,” or explaining what Shylock meant when he planned to “go in hate, to feed upon / The prodigal Christian.”

The first two are the fool’s, Lancelot’s, lines, I think. As for Shylock’s hatred toward Christians, while ugly, it’s entirely understandable given the Christian characters’ treatment of him pre-play and during it (Antonio spitting on Shylock’s gaberdine and then asking him to borrow money from him is called out by Shylock himself for its sheer hypocrisy). It also fits Shylock’s character as an unassimilated Jew, resenting Christian hypocrisy and racism.

“The actor began the brief soliloquy that every English-​speaking Jew is apparently meant to take as a compliment: ‘I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? . . . ​If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?’

“Wait, that’s the part where he’s more human?”

[…]“Sure,” I told my son, game-​facing him back in the rearview. “He’s reminding us how he’s like everyone else. He’s a normal person with normal feelings.”

My son laughed. “You seriously fell for that?”

[…] “What do you mean?”

“Shylock’s just saying he wants revenge! Like, ‘Oh, yeah? If I’m a regular human, then I get to be eee-​vil like a regular human!’ This is the evil monologue thing that every supervillain does! ‘I’ve had a rough life, and if you were me you would do the same thing, so that’s why I’m going to KILL BATMAN, mu-​hahaha!’ He’s just manipulating the other guy even more!”

And then the crowd applauded, Harold Bloom cried, and the mayor gave the author’s six-year-old son a gold medal for his Brave Hot Take. Honestly, this was the most unbelievable part of the essay I’ve read. Unless this kid has been reading academic essays on MoV that posit this exact same interpretation (“Shylock was just using humanistic rhetoric to justify his ~bloodthirsty revenge!”), this one’s for a fake Internet stories anthology. Shylock may be a dour, miserable pain in the ass, but he is no Barabas, an actual anti-Semitic caricature—he has a character, and a recognizably human one, and the play bears it out that he is right in his anger.

“I reviewed the other moments scholars cite to prove Shylock’s “humanity.” There were two lines of Shylock treasuring his dead wife’s ring, unlike the play’s Christian men who give their wives’ rings away. But unlike the other men, Shylock never gets his ring back—​because his daughter steals it, and becomes a Christian, and inherits what remains of his estate at the play’s triumphant end.”

Er, this is a non sequitur—that last has nothing to do with the first. The point is, Shylock doesn’t give away his ring; the fact that his daughter stole it means nothing to his treasuring it. It may be proof of the play’s marginalization of Shylock (which accurately if sadly reflects real-life systematic marginalization), but not his humanity. Shakespeare just doesn’t do backstories, even for major characters, so it is significant that he gave Shylock a wife/beloved in the first place.

“Finally, scholars point to the many times Shylock explains why he is so revolting: Christians treat him poorly, so he returns the favor. But for this to satisfy, one must accept that Jews are revolting to begin with, and that their repulsiveness simply needs to be explained.”

This makes absolutely no sense at all. If one accepts Jews are inherently revolting, then no explanation need be given for when a Jewish character acts revolting! The racist accepts the revolting Jewish characterization without qualm. The fact that the play insists on his grievance is significant.

“We listened together as Shylock went to court to extract his pound of flesh; as the heroine, chirping about the quality of mercy, forbade him to spill the Christian’s blood as he so desperately desired; as the court confiscated his property, along with his soul through forced conversion; as the play’s most cherished characters used his own words to taunt and demean him, relishing their vanquishing of the bloodthirsty Jew.”

YMMV, but to me there are no cherished characters in this play. That’s the whole point! Everyone is so mired in this dreary capitalist materialism that denigrates genuine human connection into mere transaction. Everything to these characters is money, money, money (and class), or at least tainted by it. Shylock is simply the most overt (and honest) of the lot. Love relationships, religion are impoverished; Portia and Bassanio are scarcely more suited than Portia and her other suitors. Shylock and Antonio are Jews and Christians in-name-only: They are capitalists first and foremost. Portia is a smarter, more likable Karen. Lancelot isn’t funny. Jessica is okay, but her leaving her father is framed as a asshole moment at least in one instance. Portia is probably the most lovable, but she has her asshole moments too. There are no truly awful characters, but you don’t need to demonize and dehumanize your whole cast into two-dimensional racists just to make a point.

Merchant of Venice is not the best of plays. It is one of Shakespeare’s experiments, a proto-problem play before his Jacobean era, using dark comedy and a slight bent of farce to explore and elucidate social issues, racism and discrimination, chiefly. At least it tries, anyway. Taming of the Shrew is the first proto-problem play done completely farcical, which at least makes it compelling in a slapstick-satire way; Merchant is much more sociologically astute, but also more dull and coolly distant even from its own concerns. I don’t blame anyone, much less Jewish people, for not liking the play or thinking it a masterpiece. I myself don’t, though for reasons that have nothing to do with the usual ones. I like what Shakespeare was trying to do and I think he did some things very well. It has ambition and thought. But I feel like for most of it Shakespeare was on writing autopilot while mentally looking around for something a bit meatier to adapt and develop. It’s a jogging-in-one-place play; he has a couple of those.

In sum: Author argues for complicated play’s anti-Semitism, ends up just saying the racist slurs by the flawed/asshole Christian characters made her and her son uncomfortable (feat. A distorted and even misleading account of the Lopez affair). Plus some internalized anti-Semitism to sort through, methinks.

[yoonia]

Mistakes and Retakes (M)

↳ Characters / Pairings | Kim Seokjin x reader

↳ Genre | Enemy to Lovers!au, smut, fluff, a bit of angst if you squint a little

↳ Word count | 18,5k words

↳ Summary | You hate to admit it, but making bad decisions and being reckless seems to be your forte. From saying yes to a last-minute meeting to ignoring your father’s warning about driving late at night on a slippery road. As if you haven’t gotten enough bad luck already, your high school nemesis decides to be a hero and comes to the rescue. Santa must have placed you in his naughty list for a dire punishment before Christmas.

↳ Author’s Note | A slight rom-com fic for Christmas, if you will. I had fun writing this but I do hope everyone would love it just the same.

↳ Warning | explicit sex scene, unprotected sex, a slightly unhygienic outdoor sex (please be safe, kids), portrayal of childhood bullying, mentions of/implied characters’ nude pictures.

↳  Part of the Stranded For Christmas Collab

↳ Music Companion | Not There - Zoey Lily, Indigo Svn

↳ Cross-posted | Inkitt | AO3 

Under any normal circumstances, you probably wouldn’t be here. You wouldn’t be driving through the long winding country road cutting through the forest so late at night just the night before Christmas Eve.

You would have gotten yourself an early morning ticket on a domestic flight or probably take a train instead. And you would have probably already been lounging in your family’s cabin, eating some homemade chocolate chip cookies that your Mom usually makes on holidays, instead of sitting behind the steering wheels, fighting off drowsiness and boredom from the long drive.

Travelling back home on your new car was not so much of your initial plan at all. But neither was agreeing to an urgent last-minute meeting at the office which had led you to miss a chance on getting a ticket ride home. You dub yourself more as a people pleaser, which was the only reason why you were unable to say no. Though as you are looking back to it now, as you are driving your car through the dark path still miles away from home, you are starting to question yourself whether or not it had been truly worth it.

Your hands grip the steering wheel tightly as you look up ahead on the empty road, focusing on the icy parts that are sparkling under the car’s headlights. You are not as familiar with this road as you do with the routes you go through daily back in the city. It has been a rare occasion for you to drive home this way and the darkness around you is making it harder to see and be sure that you are indeed going in the right direction.

“It’s just you and me, Buddy,” you mutter softly as you look down on your navigation system, giving it a few taps as if it would help nudge the thing back alive from being stuck on one point. “Just as long as you can come back online again, then we’re good.”

Getting further down the road, your GPS system has been losing transmission that it is starting to lag. All you have been seeing on the map is a long, straight road, and the dot that marks your location is still blinking at the part of the route you have left behind had an hour ago. With only thick lines of trees on both sides of the track, no streets signs, shops, or intersections appearing to you yet, you could only hope that you have yet to stray out of the route heading home or miss out on any turns that you are supposed to take.

Getting impatient, you press your foot down on the gas pedal and let the car accelerates forward to get you out of the dark woods. You are hoping that you can get some working internet transmission somewhere around the next intersection heading into town.

For a split second, while you are trying to ignore the eerie feeling growing in your chest from being surrounded by the dark woods, your mind wanders off to remind you of your father’s words about your reckless driving and what he had said to you when you told him about your plans to drive home.

"Drive carefully."

"Don't drive so carelessly! Pay attention to the road."

"Are you sure you want to drive in that tiny city car of yours? Can't you just ride a bus home? It’s not safe to drive so late, go in the morning.“

"Change your tires before winter comes.”

As if fate has it, just as you turn the car to follow the path as the road curves to the right, the tires slide against the frozen asphalt, sending your car tumbling out of control and skirting off of its path. You slam on the breaks to make it stop, yet it only throws the car into a spin as the road goes downhill, before landing itself in the ditch on the side of the road.

You can only sit there in silence as everything stops spinning, feeling your heart hammering in your chest from the shock. Trying to calm yourself down, you take a deep breath before clambering out of the car and walk around, checking to see if you can find any visible damage and how bad you are stuck.

After studying the awkward angle your car is in as it is lying on the ditch, you step back inside and crank the engine back to life. Once again keeping your father’s image in mind, you try to remember his lessons about how to get yourself out of this kind of trouble. You start trying to maneuver the car slowly up the embankment, moving it inches at a time until you get the car into position to push it off of the ledge and back up on the road.

Applying the gas slowly, you start leading the car to climb up the bank while increasing the pressure on the gas pedal as you go. You keep following the steps calmly, until you hear a sound that makes your heart sink down to your stomach—the sound of the tires spinning. Taking your foot off the gas, you switch the gear to reverse the car, hit on the gas again, only to have nothing happening. Unwilling to give up, you switch on the gear forward and hit the gas again. And nothing. Switching the gear backwards, you hit the gas again, repeating them a few more times, yet the only thing you keep getting is the sound of the tires spinning and the car not even moving an inch.

“Fuck it!” you cry out while beating your hands against the steering wheel. Grabbing your purse, you search for your phone, hoping to be able to call for help. Yet just like the deadbeat blinking you were getting on your GPS, there is no reception on your phone to make any call.

Falling back in your seat, you can only cry out helplessly when you realise the situation you have gotten yourself in. You are indeed, completely stuck.

“Why me?”

Either you have been struck with a string of bad luck or if you are simply being punished for being such a terrible decision maker, the unfortunate event does not stop there.

As if getting your car stuck in a ditch is yet to be enough of a trial, you slipped down the slope when you were climbing your way to the main road. One missed step was met with an icy ground as you scrambled up the side of the ditch and you were sent falling back down, leaving you with a coat and a pair of jeans that are now completely soaked with snow, a sore hip, and a possible sprained ankle.

You dread the fact that you are nowhere closer to the nearest town and that you have not seen any other car passing by so far that you could flag down for help. Standing at the side of the road, you lean down to check on your ankle first before whipping out your phone from your pocket. There is no visible injury or swelling on your throbbing ankle—not yet, at least—a fact that you are relieved to see, yet it means nothing when there is still no reception on your phone for you to call for help or send any news home.

Looking both ways down the road, you find the road completely void of cars. It is already extremely late in the night and your hope of getting any help is slowly waning thin.

You still have miles away to reach the family cabin, a journey which would have taken you another hour or two with your car. The next town is much closer, yet even if you bother to try to walk the distance, whether it is down the long empty road or looking for a shortcut through the trees, you know for sure that you wouldn't make it all the way there by foot until past midnight.

Especially not with this ankle.

You are not completely sure if it would be safe to leave your car and your luggage out in this place either.

“Damn it.”

You choose to walk anyway, figuring that you may still have a chance to either get a reception somewhere along the way or find a ride on the nearest intersection ahead. Moving carefully on the side of the road, you pay close attention on your cellphone while trying to make sure that you wouldn't slip on frozen ground or strain your ankle further.

You have managed to walk a few meters away from your car, hobbling on your way until you nearly give up and turn back around when there is no building or lights on sight. Suddenly, the thought of just staying inside your car to keep yourself warm sounds a lot nicer than having to walk through the cold and into the dark woods.

It is at that moment when you hear it, the sound of a car engine, or a truck, coming from behind you. Turning around, you see a pair of headlights coming towards you, steadily moving on the ice-covered road in the distance.

“Oh my God, thank you,” you mutter with a sigh. You are both relieved and in despair as you lift your hand, hoping that the driver would care enough to stop for you.

Maybe you could ask for a ride, or borrow their tools to pull your car out of the ditch so you can carry on with your journey home.

As the vehicle slows down the more it gets closer to you, it is finally becoming clear that it is indeed an old pick-up truck which you would normally see in the farms around town, letting you know that it is probably a local. Whoever it is, you can feel your heartbeat settling down with relief when the truck comes to a stop right in front of you. Maybe you could finally be saved.

The driver lowers the window on their passenger seat and you lean closer to speak, only to have chill running down your spine when the driver leans towards you, letting you see his face up close through the dark interiors of his truck.

"Well, now. If it isn't the beautiful city girl, miss _____. What are you doing out here so late, woman?” he says so cheerfully, his eyes carry a glint of recognition and mischief while his lips—still the plum and sexy pair that you had once adored and hated—are grinning wide for you.

Fuck. Maybe the whole holiday season is cursed, after all.

You have stopped believing that angels and good fortune existed since many years ago. And if there is anyone in this world to blame for it, then you would point your finger on one person only.

Kim Seokjin.

The pride of the town, now farming business extraordinaire ever since the day he took over his family’s farmlands, the model student at school, the golden boy of the track club, parents’—and apparently, starting some time since his puberty, also women’s—favourite, and your childhood bully.

He was a total jerk to you back in school.

For some reason, he had found the pleasure of rubbing you off the wrong way since you were kids and had made your life miserable for your entire teen life.

From throwing worms, bugs, and small frogs at you when you were kids, to tugging your hair when you started growing them out and putting them up into ponytails and french braids every summer in mid-school. What took the cake was what he did to you back in high school. There is a reason why you had cut all contacts to nearly everyone from school since the day you graduated and he was the one who gave you just the perfect reason for it. You have even dreaded going to school reunions to the fear that people would bring up all the past events. Or even worse, call you by the very same nickname he had given you that had spread like haywire within less than a day and lasted until the very last week before graduation.

Just thinking about everything has your stomach churning and your blood boiling hot. It is just unfortunate that the latter is still not enough to give you warmth as you continue the slow walk down the road while fighting off the cold.

And the stubbornly handsome lad? Oh, he is still there, following you close with his truck while shouting through the window with all the snarky comments he could think of as if it would get you to hop into his truck and spend the rest of the journey sitting next to him until you reach town.

“I can understand if you were homesick for being in the city so long, but I didn’t expect to see you walking your way back home,” he says, snickering to himself as if he had just said the funniest thing ever while you keep the permanent scowl on your face as you stay silent. “Feeling adventurous, are we?”

You snap a look at him and instantly regret it.

Sure, the man is gorgeous and good to look at, but does it matter when he is the devil himself? You are half ready to run back to your car, opting to hoist it out of the ditch yourself if only you could or just sleep inside it until it would be possible for you to get any kind of help in the morning. Grunting, you hate the fact that neither is possible to do and it would be ridiculous to just walk back and sleep on the side of the road.

Speaking of your car, your heart lurches to your throat as you remember that you still have your belongings left behind and you would certainly need to get them one way or another if you are going to leave this area. Eyeing the truck beside you, you wonder if it would be strong enough to pull the car out of the ditch.

But that only means you would be asking this jerk a favour. And it will require you to actually talk to him. Not to mention that you have no doubt he would use this sometime later against you. You just know that he would.

He keeps rambling on while the wheels in your head keep turning, and before you can think better of it, you start talking to him, only to make him stop blabbering about some stupid things. Something about the woods, wild animals, and being frozen in the woods.

"Why are you even around here, anyway?" you ask him without looking as you keep on walking, holding back from asking him the real question hanging on your tongue—’Why does it have to be you?’

"Umm, for starters, I do live around the area. Not everyone had the big dreams of leaving the small town to be a big hotshot working behind desk jobs, you know?” He comments so lightly without noticing how much his words feel more like a jab to you. Pursing your lips, you glance sideways to see his eyes softening, as if he regrets saying something that may resemble a call out for your wish to leave the town as soon as possible the moment you graduated years ago. Clearing his throat, Seokjin continues to speak, “I was just coming back from a neighbouring town to drop some goods and buy some supplies before the road would be closed off for the thick ice and snow. The shops will be closed until after the New Year. I'd hate to be stranded on the farm all through the holidays without supplies to help me get through the cold."

You listen to him without saying a word or responding to him. Not only because you couldn’t care less about his daily activities or to his survival needs, but because you also need to focus on your legs more. You have been trying to walk normally to hide and ignore the pain on your ankle, and it is getting even harder now as the cold is starting to seep deeper into your skin through the wet patches on your jeans.

“Are you back to ignoring me again?” Seokjin asks you when he is not getting any reaction from you.

A little annoyed for having to hear his voice again, you only reply him with, “I’m trying to convince myself that you are merely a figment of my imagination just to keep me company. You are not really here and I’m just listening to some wind trying to be you.”

“______, Come on. This road is highly deserted. I don’t know if you have been paying close attention, but nobody passes here once it gets dark. I can’t promise you that you will have another chance of getting help once I drive off,” he says after groaning in despair, no doubt already losing his patience for your attitude. ”Now, will you please get on the truck? Let me help you. Fuck, I can drive you to town, at least.”

You are tired, stressed, and in pain, and the answer is hanging right at the tip of your tongue. Yes, absolutely. Take me away from this dreadful place, please.

But as you remember how much you hate him and that he is the enemy, your mouth betrays you by saying, “No."

All of a sudden, Seokjin hits the breaks and the truck comes to a sudden halt. The sound made by the tires against the icy road and the jolt of movement causes you to stop walking, and you end up looking at him with wide eyes.

"Please, ____. You are completely soaked and I know that at least one of your legs is hurting."

Furrowing your brows, you begin to question why he seems so adamant to help you. Maybe he does care, or maybe you just look so desperate and he is doing this out of pity. You already hate the fact that he had caught on to how you have been basically dragging your ankle as you walk no matter how much you have tried to hide it from his eyes.

You always hate to appear weak in other people’s eyes, and it is even worse to show this side of you to Seokjin.

A flash of memory comes to your mind, of him standing in the school hallway, grinning wide as he called out to you. The kids around him started laughing and pointing at you after hearing what he said, and how you rushed to hide in the bathroom, hiding your reddened face while crying until the last period of the day.

And school was never the same again ever since.  

“Look, I know you hate me,” he says, nearly pleading at this point and you have to do everything in you to hold back from saying ‘You think?’ and make things even worse when it is obvious that he is trying. “And though I know I totally deserve the silent treatment, probably until hell freezes over, can’t we call it a truce for now so I can help you? At least until I can get you somewhere safe or to your family’s cabin in one piece. You also need to get your legs treated because there is no way you are getting through this cold with that leg of yours.”

Exhaling a deep sigh, you have to admit that he is right. There is no way you can keep on walking further in this state, and you hate to be too far away from your car without making sure that all of your belongings would be safe while you figure out how to get your car free. Right at this moment, you see no other possibility of getting help aside from the man that you have hated most for years.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but—” you release another sigh to push your anger away and let things go. For now. “Fine. I do need help, but remember that I’m only agreeing to do this because I have no other choice.” And you are also desperate, but he doesn’t need to know that. “Let’s call it a truce and I promise I won’t maul you if you can either get my car out of the hole it was stuck in or help me get my things first.”

Seokjin’s eyes light up instantly and you can see him releasing a relieved sigh as he smiles at you.

“So, truce?” he asks again, offering his hand through the window for a shake, and you give your gloved one to grab onto him to shake his hand.

“Truce.”

Once you had gotten into his truck, you made Seokjin agree to turn his truck around and drive back to where your car had been stuck in. Seokjin had helped you step down the bank, carefully this time and without slipping down the slippery slope, then joined you as you examined your car.

You had asked him if he could pull the car out of the ditch, only to have him shaking his head, regretfully telling you that he wasn’t all prepared with the proper tools to do it when he was only planning to make a quick drive out of town and back and was not expecting to find you stranded in the area. The only option is to get your things out of the vehicle and get to town before midnight to decide how to go about it.

While Seokjin goes to the trunk to retrieve your bags and suitcase, you look down on the small car and wince at the sight of it. A huge dent is visible on its side where you felt it hit against the edge of the ditch and the way its tires are slanted sideways in awkward positions is not entirely a beautiful picture to look at.

You had relied too much on your new car when you decided to go on this trip, believing that it would never fail you. As a matter of fact, it didn't. It was more that you had failed your car more than it did to you when you were being reckless about the road.

Seokjin follows your gaze just as he hoists a suitcase out of your baggage trunk, looking down on the tires and mutters, “You weren’t using the right tires.”

You can only sigh when you know that he is right and you are too tired to defend yourself. “I have been too busy right before the holidays, and I couldn’t find the time to take it to the auto shop,” you tell him, furrowing your brows a little. “I wasn’t planning to drive home on it either until I had no other choice but to do it at the very last minute.”

He only stares at you and you bite your tongue. Squaring your shoulders, you wait for him to make a sarcastic comment to taunt you. Unexpectedly, Seokjin only nods. Maybe he had caught the distress in your eyes or see it on your face, because he only smiles knowingly and says, “It’ll be alright. We’ll just cover it up with something for now and lock up the doors. I’ll have my friend pull it out first thing in the morning. He has a tow truck which would be better to do the job than my truck and some old rusty chains would.”

Surprised to have his response, you can only return his gaze and absentmindedly murmur, “Okay.”

Both of you work systematically as you move your things from the car into his truck. Then you watch Seokjin placing some fallen branches and street markers to keep your car out of sight before hopping back on the truck to continue the journey. As you are soon back on the road, you slowly feel the cold coming back and tug at your coat to tighten it around you. You look down on the heater and notice it running, but say nothing even though you doubt that the thing is working properly in this old truck of his.

"You shouldn't have worn something so thin in this cold." Seokjin’s voice suddenly comes to steal your attention away from his dashboard and you find him glancing down on your body when you look at him.

"I wasn't exactly planning to be away from the wonderful heater that my car has,” you murmur with a sigh. “I also didn't plan to fall into the snow either."

“You fell?” he asks while glancing back and forth between you and the road ahead.

Nodding your head, you answer him with a light scoff. “I slipped on that ditch when I tried to get up on the road earlier.”

You hear him cursing under his breath. “Damn it. That explains your leg,” he mutters softly, once again surprising you when he looks even more concerned instead of laughing at you for it. The latter was something which he would have normally done on times like this. At least, in the past, there was no doubt that he would.

Looking out the window, you focus on the sight around you to ignore the weird feeling growing in your gut. For this one night alone, he has surprised you more than once with the way he acts. Once he was done being a smartass, he began to act really—nice. He even calls you with your name instead of that name. The mockery he gave you in senior high school which was the final straw for everything he ever did to you.

There is another reason why you are silent with your thoughts. Since the moment he brought up about your leg, you start feeling your ankle pulsing with pain when you could barely feel it earlier in the cold outside.

"You're shivering,” Seokjin suddenly speaks after a while, breaking the awkward silence that had been rising between you.  

“Um—what?”

You meet Seokjin’s knowing gaze with your confused one, until you finally notice that while you have been lost in trance, your body has started shivering again. As you watch the way your hands and your body tremble, Seokjin drops a small blanket on your lap.

“I don’t have a spare jacket, but you can use this lap blanket for now. You probably should lose the wet coat too, but I’m not sure that this thing will be enough to warm you if you’re only wearing that sweater of yours,” he says, tapping on his heater as if he is trying to wake the thing up.

“This is fine,” you tell him while covering yourself with his blanket, though the size only covers your chest and lap. His masculine scented cologne fills the air around you as you take a deep breath. Leaning back in your seat, you accidentally knock your sprained ankle against the floor and wince in pain. “Oh, shit. Ow!”

“What, what’s wrong?” he turns to you as he hears your voice. You are in too much pain that you only whimper and bend down slightly to hold your leg to stop it from hitting anything else. “Fuck, I almost forgot about your leg,” he says when he looks down to watch you massage your calf to ease the throbbing pain a little. “Are you okay?”

Whimpering, you can only shake your head and blink back the tears. “I don’t know. It’s hurting.”

You hear him cursing under his breath while he looks around through the woods, as if searching for something. Then suddenly, he changes gear and turns the wheel before you feel the truck leaving the main road, entering a gravelly pathway appearing between the line of trees. “Alright, hang on tight.”  

Reaching up to the handle on your door, you hold on tightly on it just as he had told you so while the truck shakes roughly down the pathway. You look around in shock, while Seokjin appears eerily calm as he drives the truck with rapt attention.

“What are you doing? Where are we going?” you finally ask him once you find your voice again, knowing that the main intersection leading to the town was not supposed to be around until another couple of kilometres and this is certainly not the turn you were hoping to see.

“It’s a shortcut. We’ll get there faster if we go through here. Trust me,” he says with a tiny grin on his stupidly handsome face which instantly melts your heart to a puddle. Sighing away, you have no choice but to actually trust him. Even if he is the last person on earth you would ever plan to give your trust to.

“Give it to me.”

He was just walking out of the changing room after practicing with the track team when you ambushed him. Like the true bully that he was, Seokjin was walking with confidence oozing all over him and was barely noticing you trudging over his way. As he looked at you, his eyes grew wide for a moment before his face turned cold.

“What are you talking about?”

“Give. It. To. Me.”

“Give what to you?”

“The goddamn picture! Do I really have to spell it out for you?” You screamed right at his face when he kept acting dumb about it, and you instantly looked around, afraid if anyone would hear you talking. Though it was more due to what you were talking about that you feared for people to find out, not for being caught talking to him in public.

“Ah, the picture!” He suddenly said, the expression on his face brightened as if he had a ‘eureka’ moment and you prayed to all the mighty above that you could hold back from scratching that smile off of his face. Literally. “I’m afraid I can’t.”

“What?”

Seokjin grinned wickedly as he leaned closer, whispering to you. “Why would I give such a nice picture to you after all the trouble I had gone through to get it? It’s my prized possession and I’d rather not lose it,” he said, his eyes glinting with pure mischief that had your body shivering in fear.

“What do you want with it anyway?” he asked, then his grin started to grow. “Do you find it thrilling to have a bare photo of you out there somewhere?”

“You—” you suddenly felt the urge to slap him on the face but you managed to hold back by clenching your hands right before you could swing it. Yet you still felt a small pride growing in your chest when he noticed your anger and flinched back in shock. “How the hell did you get it anyway?”

Seokjin only shrugged his shoulders. “Took it myself back in summer camp. You should be more careful when you go changing your clothes.”

“So, you—” you gasped. Clearly not believing your own two ears. “You really do have it.”

You tried to deny that it was true when there were people whispering rumours about how Seokjin had his hands on a certain picture of you. A polaroid picture that was said to be taken while you had your breasts revealed when you were about to go swimming in summer camp. You had waved it off when your best friend came to tell you about it and said that it was probably a lie, something he would ramble about with his friends just to put a shame on you. That the picture did not exist.

But this. This confirmed it.

You looked away when you felt your tears coming. Your chest had grown tight but you refused to let him see how weak he was making you feel. “How many people have seen it?”

“Just a couple of the guys who saw it in my room the first place. I don’t go around showing indecent pics to everyone I see. You should give me more credit than that.”

Forcing yourself to look at him, you practically started begging for his mercy. “Please, Jin. You can’t show it to anyone else or let it spread. Ever. If you really don’t want to give it to me or destroy it, at least promise me that you won’t show it to anyone.”

He was silent for a moment. “I promise,” he finally said. “And I’ll destroy it if anyone ever finds it.”

You didn’t truly expect that he would promise you that much, but you had to admit it gave you a good feeling when you heard it. “You do?”

“Scout’s honour.”

You were about to say something else when the other boys from the track team started walking out of the changing room. So all you did was give him your final threat before moving on. “I’m holding your words for it, Seokjin. And if I ever find out that you are spreading it around, I’m going to make you pay for it.”

You didn’t bother to wait for his response and quickly scrambled away from the spot, leaving the dumb pervert behind. If only you didn’t put so much hope and trust into him, you probably wouldn’t have regretted it later on.

Trees.

You look around and the giant trees are all you see aside from the dark void among them as the truck keeps driving through the woods. Seokjin has his eyes set forward as he drives the truck through the gravel-covered road.

Looking back and forth between the sight around you and him, you start to grow wary of the situation. Not only for the fact that you have no idea where you are going and that you cannot see anything outside the window, but also for the way his jaw is tight and his knuckles are turning white against the steering wheel.  

“Are we lost?”

Seokjin gives you no response at first, but then his jaw ticks for a brief moment and he forces himself to relax a little as he answers, “Uhm—no.”

“Oh, that sounds convincing,” you sarcastically comment on him while rolling your eyes. “Why don’t I believe you? I thought you knew the area.”

He glares at you for a second before turning back on the road. “I do. It’s just—I might have taken the turn a bit too early.”

Gasping, you look around you once again before turning to him with wide eyes. “You’re kidding me. Please tell me you’re kidding.”

“Look, I got this, alright? Fuck, I know these roads. It’s not my fault I kept getting distracted by you,” he suddenly snaps. “You know, I think you just succeeded in giving me your bad luck or something. It’s starting to feel like helping you is turning into bad karma.”

You let out a groan. Just when you are starting to think that you can start liking the guy and he just ruins it in seconds. “Bad karma? Now you’re saying I’m a bad karma? That bad luck started when I agreed on taking this damn ride with you.”

Shaking your head, you look away while cursing and calling him with every vile word you could think of. Then you ramble about how things have only been getting worse and you regret trusting him, starting from how you should have stayed back in your car and waited down the road instead of hitching a ride with him. You even add by telling him that it would have been better if you had camped out at the side of the road, to saying how you are starting to believe he is doing this on purpose to scare you or possibly kidnap you instead of taking you home. Then how you would rather risk being abducted by aliens than having to be taken by him.

All of a sudden, he starts to laugh, which stops you from calling him more names and have you turning to him, finding him looking amused while giving you his cocky smile for no reason at all.

“Sweetheart, you better stop blabbering shit and let a guy focus on driving before I kiss you.”

Huffing at him, you cross your arms and look away. You say nothing to him as he continues to drive. At least, not directly. Because you keep on muttering all the curses and threats you could think of to let him know that you would not be sitting down nicely if he fails to bring you home tonight.

“What if we get ambushed by wild animals? What if there’s a cliff on the end of this pathway? There is no possible way that this road is safe enough to drive on. I swear to God, if we don’t make it back safely, I’m going to—”

While you kept rambling on, Seokjin had only been silent. You could see his grin slowly fading away the more your voice got higher by the minute, words broken between each other as you were tossed and turned at every rough shake the truck had to endure the deeper it got into the woods.

Then, like a bad karma, your suspicion and doubt are both proven as the truck suddenly jolts, hitting a pothole in the middle of the road until you feel it tilting sideways before it falls to the other side as Seokjin presses the pedal, only to send it to another hole instead of releasing it free. When you hear him cursing while pressing the gas pedal, and all you could hear is the tire spinning instead of feeling it move, you know that you are both in trouble.

“Don’t tell me that we’re stuck.”

Seokjin snaps his eyes on you with his lips pursed tight to a thin line. He says nothing before he opens his door and steps outside, checking on the situation and any probable damage. Deep down, without having to hear him confirm it for you, you already know that you are completely stuck.

“Fucking great.”

Deciding not to be the bad guy, you carefully climb out of the truck to see what the problem is and maybe offer some help. Though you find it that you are probably useless when you could barely stand straight thanks to the numbing pain on one of your legs. You finally find a way to move around, however, but only by holding onto the side of the truck as you hop your way over to the other side.

You find Seokjin just standing up from looking into the tires, using his cellphone’s flashlight to be able to see better in the dark. You walk closer—or, in this case, hopping on your uninjured leg to keep yourself from walking on your hurting ankle—as he walks towards the truck’s compartment, and it is then when you finally see how the truck is angled awkwardly with its front tire buried in the snow. The snow had probably covered the deep pothole which he had missed earlier, and yes, now you are both stuck in the middle of nowhere. Right in the middle of the woods and the darkness around you is not helping to make you feel better at all.  

Turning to the back of the truck, you see Seokjin rummaging through the stuff he has back there and you call out to him. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

Seokjin nearly jumps, your voice has completely startled him as he didn’t even notice that you have gone out of the truck.

“Fuck, _____,” he gasps, pressing his free to his chest. “ No, I think I can handle it. What are you doing? You shouldn’t be walking, you’re going to make it worse,” he adds with a frown. He even turns his phone to light up your leg as if to make a point.

“I’m not standing on it,” you say to him while pointing at your leg that is slightly lifted off from the ground. “I just wanted to see what’s wrong. You can’t expect me to just sit in there and do nothing.”

Shaking his head, Seokjin reaches into the back of the truck once again and pulls out a car jack and a shovel. “Don’t worry, I got this,” he says while showing you his tools with a wink.

You look over to the tools he has in his hands and cannot help but ask, “You’re going to use those to do what, exactly?”

He looks down for a brief moment and starts explaining, “I’m gonna lift the truck up a little so I can see the hole and dig around it to make a path so the truck can climb up. It’s too dark and the snow is too thick, I need to do something before digging up to make sure I won’t be hitting the tire with the shovel.”

He may seem confident, but the way his eyes are shaking only lets you know that he is not truly sure about it either. He can probably see the dubious look on your face because he later adds, “Look, I don’t exactly know if it’ll work, but at least I can try to do something to get us out. Now move over and let me do the work.”

You do as he says and slide out of his way as he walks over, then he hands you his phone to help brighten things up for him. He calmly states that since there is still no reception showing on both your phones, they are completely useless at the moment except for their flashlights, and it would be the only thing you are allowed to do without adding injuries.

Seokjin kneels down next to his truck, getting the jack into place. Tossing his coat jacket away, he bends down and tries to nudge the tires out of the pothole using his tools. You point the lights from his phone towards him and lean against the side of the truck as you watch him work. Your eyes trail down as his muscles stretch and bulge underneath the tight long sleeves of his sweater, his shoulders looking strong and built as he pulls and pushes, groaning as he uses his strength to pull his truck out of the trap. His lips form into a pout and the frown on his face deepens as he concentrates.

You realise that even the darkness of the woods is not enough to mask his beauty. If only he had not opened his mouth to ruin things with his snarky comments and teases, you might have been swooning all over him like many of those students back in your high school, both girls and boys, would.

Noticing your silence, he glances over his shoulder and his cocky smirk grows when he notices where exactly you are currently looking at. “See something you like, sweetheart?” he teases.

Scoffing, you look away to hide the way your cheeks are warming up from being caught ogling him. I fact, you cannot believe you actually were seeing something that you like. Yet another thing he doesn’t need to know.

He continues to work once he is pleased to have you flustering. The space between you falls silent except for the sound of him working on the jack and his heavy breathing. And you cannot help but suddenly feel slightly nervous around him. Maybe it’s the cold, you wonder. Deciding that it must be messing your brain up.

You start wishing that you could be somewhere warm, with blankets around you instead of wet clothes and hot drinks. And hugs. Lots of hugs. Even Seokjin looks warm enough to snuggle with, with his strong arms and shoulders to lean on.

“Damn it,” he curses, snapping you out of your trance and have you looking at him again. He has moved from using the jack to digging into the ground with his shovel, and he looks annoyed when the couple of diggings he did had made no difference. “The ground is solid ice, the shovel can’t get through. I guess we’re going to be stuck here, after all.”

He tosses away the shovel and lets it land on the nearest pile of snow while he catches his breath. His face and neck are glowing with sweat, while you can feel your own skin blanch. Dread instantly takes over when you realise that you are going to be held up right here in the dark. And that is when you finally snap.

“Fine, you’re right. It’s probably me. I’m cursed. I must have done something wrong and whatever holy entity exists up there hates me.”

Of course, it had to be. You have been followed by one bad luck to another on this one night only and not even Seokjin’s presence could steer it away. Or maybe he is just a part of that bad luck? He isn’t really helping you, after all, so it could be it. At this point, you are starting to believe that the universe truly hates you.

“Have you gone insane?” Seokjin asks you with his eyes wide and a nervous chuckle coming out of his lips. He walks over to you and places both hands on your shoulders, lightly shaking you up as he calms you down. “Look, I was only joking when I said you were some sort of bad luck, okay? You seemed so into it when you were wallowing about how you got stranded, I thought it would be fun to tease you.”

Your heartbeat is still racing as if you are about to have a panic attack, but he forces you to keep looking into his eyes and you find both his words and his assuring gaze are distracting you just enough to have you slowly calm down.

“It’s nobody’s fault, things like this could happen to anyone, anytime. It could be worse, you know. I mean, we could have been stuck at different places on our own instead of together,” he adds with a playful shrug while throwing you a smile as he could tell that whatever he is saying to you is starting to get into your head.

“God, whatever,” you mutter while rolling your eyes. You cannot help the grin that comes from hearing his words. Looking away from his ridiculous happy face, you look out through the line of trees, into the darkness and the void that had scared you off earlier. Your eyes slowly adjust themselves to the dark, and just then, your sight clears out to show you something appearing from beyond the trees. “Hey, what’s that? Is that a—a house?”

Seokjin follows your gaze and he immediately laughs. “Well, what do you know? We were on the right track, after all,” he says, sounding relieved while you are left completely confused. Thankfully, he explains to you shortly, “That’s the Choi family’s old farm. We might be able to get us some help.”

You look over towards the old building, noticing the broken fences surrounding it and the way the main house looks more like a ran down shack and the old barn next to it is not looking so grand either. With no lights in the surrounding building, they look like nothing but a pair of haunted cabins. “But it’s dark and it seems—deserted.”

“Uh—yeah, old grandpa Choi lived here alone after his wife died. He only had a couple of horses, two cows, and a few chickens to take care of. I think I heard about him moving to be with his kids on the other side of the town after he got sick last year.”

You snap your eyes back to him, astounded. Even more so when he had spoken so lightly like it is no big of a deal.

“So—it basically is deserted.”

“I—technically, yes. But there has to be some electricity running or perhaps some tools left behind. Maybe a working house phone, or a first aid kit for your legs, who knows?” If he is completely unsure about his own ideas, he is clearly trying to hide it from you by turning around and quickly making his way towards the old farmland.

“And how exactly are we going to know that?” you ask while moving in small hops to follow him. “I’m not about to add breaking and entering to my naughty list.”

He stops dead in his track, turning around instantly when he heard what you just said. “A what—list?”

Waving both your arms, you voice out one of the most ridiculous things you could think of. “There has to be some kind of list of the bad things I did to deserve this much bad luck in one night.”

“Oh, you’ve got some bad luck, alright. But at least you got me, right?” he teases while chuckling. Though he stops when he sees that you are being serious. “Well, fine—do you have any better idea?”

Clearly, you have none. You are completely flabbergasted to the entire thing that you have nothing to offer at the moment, and he seems to be too impatient to wait until you can make up your mind. Obviously, there is no other choice but do exactly what he is planning to, which is why he turns around again and starts making his way through the trees.

“And we are not breaking into the property. I am,” he says to you while looking over his shoulders, not minding where he is heading as he trudges forward to the edge of the pathway.  

“Jin—” you call out to stop him just as he walks past the line of trees. But when he suddenly cries out and disappears as if the ground had just swallowed him, you know that you are too late.

“Oh, my God! Jin!”

It takes a lot of effort for you to hop off towards where Seokjin had fallen into. Once you reach the edge of the woods, you finally notice that the ground slightly descends from the pathway, going downhill towards the farmland beyond.

You can hear him laughing before you find him, lying down on his back and practically buried in the pile of snow. The broken patches of the snow around you shows you just where he had his misstep earlier before he came tumbling down.

“Jin, are you okay?” you shout out to him while taking another step forward while he is still chuckling like an ass down there.

As he notices you moving, he suddenly yells out, “No, ______. Stop!”

His warning is left unheard, however, when it is far too late. You have taken a step into the snowy hill and the ‘ground’ beneath you breaks, sending you slipping down the slope until you fall on your back, landing right beside him.

“Shit, _____,” you hear him calling as he crawls to you. “Are you okay?”

Seeing his face hovering above you snaps you right out of the shock, and then you start laughing.

“Oh, God,” you scream. “We are such a mess.”

“Shit, you scared me,” he says, slowly grinning when relief washes over him. “Yeah, we are quite the mess. And we are both soaking wet now.”

“Oh damn, you’re right,” you murmur as you look down on your clothes, and his own, all completely covered in snow. “No thanks to the snow, I guess.”

Lying back down against the slope beneath you, you look over to the farmhouse before you and wonder loudly, “Do you think we could just rest and shelter here?”

You feel cold and tired, and in more pain after the fall. The night is not getting any younger. And with this much stress, you know that you cannot force Seokjin to try and break his truck free in the dark and in this cold. You know that your family would be worried about you if you don’t reach home by tonight, but you also know that at least your father would still be logical enough not to unleash a whole search party for you only because you are late for half a day.

As long as you can go back on the road the moment the sun rises, that is.

As if reading your thoughts, Seokjin follows your gaze and nods. “Maybe. It might be better to rest than risk it in the dark. I can try again when the sun is up. Hopefully, the ground will break more easily once it has warmed up,” he says, before pushing himself off the ground. “Stay here for a moment and let me lock up the truck before leaving it.”

“Oh, don’t worry. It’s not like I can go anywhere,” you wave him off as he turns to run back up towards his truck, leaving you there to feel the throbbing pain on your ankle while wondering how terribly sore you are going to feel in the morning around the hips.

You were never one to go to high school parties.

But when your best friend became a host for one during her birthday on one Friday night, there was no way you were going to refuse. Especially when she had let you know that your crush was invited.

He was one of the boys from the track team, one of the few decent ones who had never been rude to you. Dongjun was always so nice and so full of smiles that you fell for him instantly. His personality intrigued you solely because he was different compared to the other boys, more mature, more gentle, and had always been so caring.

Through a scheme brought upon by your close friends, you had ended up inside the closet during a Seven Minutes in Heaven-ish game with the gorgeous boy himself. The seven minutes felt like a lifetime when you spent the first two talking shyly with him before spending the next five minute of it kissing.

Your very first kiss. With your very first crush.

Your heart was racing and there was no doubt your face would have a change of colour when you finally parted, and you had let him know about it being your first. “That was my first kiss.”

He smiled against your lips with his forehead on yours. “Then it was my honour to have been given a chance to give it to you,” he said then, and you felt so close to melting into a puddle. “How about I repay it by joining you at lunch next Monday?”

“S-sure.”

He was the one who left the closet first, after kissing you one last time with a brief, chaste kiss. And you were still smiling and flushing in bliss when you stepped out half a minute later.

The bliss you felt then was cut short, however, when you were met with the last person on earth you would ever wish to see.

“Someone looks happy,” Seokjin greeted you with a sing-a-long tone as he watched you stepping out of the closet.

“Who invited you?” you asked him with a frown. You were sure that your best friend had insisted not to invite the devil, yet here he was, looking bitter and evil as he always did when he saw you.

With his hands in his pockets, Seokjin grinned. “The boys from the club were invited and they needed a ride. So I had to be a good samaritan and offer my service.”

“Quite the samaritan, you are,” you scoffed, then tried to walk past him.

“I wonder if he would be even happier if he had seen your picture.”

Stopping in your tracks, you turned to him and glared. “Don’t. You. Dare.”

Seokjin backed away from you, chuckling. “We’ll see, little one. We’ll see.”

Seokjin trudges down the small snowy hill with you on his back. With every step he makes, your body bounces against his strong back a little. The warmth coming from his body and the strong grip he has on your thighs are enough to make your heart pounding and your insides tingling. You have your arms around his neck and it is quite surprising that you have no urge to strangle him while he makes the trip down to the deserted farmhouse.

He had tried to help you walk earlier, only to fail when the pain on your leg felt too unbearable. If it wasn’t so bad when you fell on it the first time, it certainly looks like the second fall had officially made it worse. Added with having it buried in the snow, though only briefly, there was no way you could walk on it on your own.

Between his show of clumsiness and your sprained ankle, it has been proven that the possibility of you falling again on your hurting leg would be much bigger if you had been hopping all the way down from the slopes to the old farmhouse, so he had offered to give you a lift on his back.

You say nothing as he finished the descent walk until he reaches the main house’s front porch. Just as you had suspected, the door and windows are locked and sealed tight and the electricity seems to have been cut off. After trying all the locks and fails at it, he then moves towards the barn on the other side of the property, instantly relieved to find that the front lock had been broken off.

“I guess this is where we’re staying the night,” he says while pulling the door open.

Seokjin hobbles into the barn while flashing his phone around. Finding a few wooden crates at the front side of the room, he walks over to them and carefully deposits you on top of one of them.

“Stay here, let me look around to see if there’s anything we could use.”

After settling down on one of the strongest crates, you watch as Seokjin stumbles further into the barn with the help of his phone to light the way. Within a minute, he reaches all the way back and shouts, “Hey, there’s a door here.”

“Is it leading somewhere?” you shout back, curious to know what he had found. You only have silence as your response and you use your own phone to light up your surroundings. All you could see with it are a couple of wooden crates like the one you are sitting on, a few piles of dry hay, and some dirty sacks which you may not want to know what they contain inside.

While you are marvelling on the interior of the barn and wonder how on earth you are going to stay here for the night, you can hear his muffled voice coming from the other side of the barn. Having no idea what he is saying, only able to hear random muffled words, you yell out to ask him, "Who has a nice rack?"

Seokjin returns from the other room, standing in the doorway with an amused look on his face as he laughs. "I was saying that there is a fireplace on the back,” he tells you as he makes his way back to you.  

"Oh."

"Come on,” he says as he turns, giving you his back while kneeling on the floor. It takes you seconds to climb onto his back, and he is careful enough as he lifts you up to not have you bumping your ankle as he takes you to the room out back.

You are surprised to find that the other room is a lot more descent than the front side of the barn. It looks more like a tiny lounge or a seating room, except with only a few broken chairs set aside and a large wooden chest placed across the fireplace. There is even a long cable hanging from the ceiling, as if there used to be a hanging lamp or a chandelier being set up there.

He points at the small fireplace in the smaller room as he slowly deposits you on the floor. “It may not seem much, but it would be enough to warm us for the night and keep us from freezing to death.” You look at the small furnace and the few blocks of wood left on its side, silently relieved to have it there and hope that he could make them work somehow.

“I also found this,” he says, pointing his lights towards the huge chest which has its lid left open. He helps you walk over to it before showing you the fuzzy blankets being kept inside.

“Blankets?”

He chuckles. “Yeah, they might be a bit damp but I think they’re usable. Let’s get you warmed up while I set up the fire.”

You didn’t even realise that you have been shivering until you try to speak and the words are caught on your numbing lips. As Seokjin moves to stand next to you, you finally notice that his lips had taken a bluish tint. The fall he had earlier in the snow had made his clothes all soaked and there is no doubt the cold temperature has gone through the thick clothes he is wearing, just the same way it has been for you.

Seokjin looks away from the pile of blankets, meeting your eyes with a determined look in them. ”You need to take those soaked clothes off. It won't help much if you keep them on."

"Are you trying to trick me into getting naked for you?"

"No, I'm just helping you out. I know that I’m a jerk but I know when to be nice, so stop thinking the worse about me, will you?" he suddenly snaps and you flinch at the tone. You were trying to make things light but perhaps the stress and the dire situation had pushed his emotions to the edge. You hear him sigh as he bends down, pulling a thick blanket and hands it to you gently. “Here, take everything off and wear this. We can hang them all dry by the fire later."

He pulls out another blanket for himself, and takes the extra one he finds inside and lays it down on the floor as a cover. Taking your hand in his, Seokjin helps you to sit down on it carefully. “I’ll help you take your boots off. I know it can be a pain in the ass,” he says while forcing a smile, as if he is trying to lighten things up again after his previous outburst.

A part of you wants to shut him off, still feeling the sting of his reaction earlier. But you figure that he is right, the hardest part of it would be pulling your foot out of the boots. The pain could be a bitch and there is no way you would be able to handle it on your own, much less brave enough to actually do it without someone else’s help.

“Okay,” you say to him, angling your leg towards him and let him hold it up gently in his hands. “I’m so going to hate this part.”

He chuckles. “Try not to kick my face,” he says, smiling as bends down.

“I’ll do my best,” you tell him while gritting your teeth.  

Pulling one boot off from your uninjured foot first, Seokjin places it gently beside the wooden chest, then he reaches for the hurting ankle. You clench your jaw as he holds tightly on the back of your knee, then pulls the boot off with the other hand. The pain is too much that it has you screaming and cursing as he tugs the boot off in one swift move, but you hold back just enough not to kick him right on his head.

“Great job, no more injuries for the night,” he teases as he puts the boot away. He looks down, studying your ankle for a moment before lowering your leg so you could rest it on the blanket. “It’s definitely a sprain. Be careful with it when you change. I’ll give you some privacy.”

He walks away to the other side of the room with his blanket folded on his arm and you wobble slowly on the blanket to turn around.

Keeping your back on him, you strip down to your underthings after making sure that the wetness has yet to soak that deep into them, then wrap the fading burgundy coloured blanket around your body. You could hear the crackling sound of fire behind you as Seokjin lights the fireplace up while you were taking your time with the thick layers of your clothes, and now warmth is starting to rise in the room.

You still hear him shuffling around behind you so you keep your back on him and take your time, inspecting your ankle using the lights from your phone. You hear the sound of his wet clothes falling on the ground before he whispers, “Are you decent?”

“Yeah, I am,” you tell him before turning around, finding him wrapped in a red blanket. He walks over to you with a white box in his hands.

“Is your leg still hurting?” he asks you, holding the box up to you. “Saw this by the fireplace. I think the bandages are still good enough to wrap that ankle of yours for a while until we can get something better to heal it.”

“Um, okay,” you answer him hesitantly as he kneels down in front of you with a bandage in his hands. “Do you know how to put that on me?”

His eyes twinkle in the dark. “I’m no doctor, but I used to fix up some of the boys from the track club whenever someone hurt their ankles during practice or at a competition back in school. Trust me, I know what to do.”

Sighing, you realise there is no point in denying his help by now. “Fine, as long as you can make sure I can still walk. I might sue you if I never walk again,” you joke with him, and you are relieved when he only laughs.  

Seokjin reaches up to hold up your leg, and you flinch back as he touches your skin. “Oh, sorry. Did I hurt you?” Seokjin asks you with a sheepish smile.

“No, you didn’t,” you answer while looking down, hiding the heat rising in your cheeks while wondering exactly why you are reacting this way. You keep your eyes looking down as he expertly wraps the bandage around your sprained ankle. His hands move gently as he treats you and his voice is soft when he says how he wishes he has some painkillers in hand to help you deal with the pain whenever you wince.

“There,” he says once he is done, and you mumble a soft, “Thank you,” while he slowly crawls next to you so he could lie down on the blanket by your side. “Are you comfortable?”

You try to smile at him and nod to respond, but even as you tug the blanket tighter around you, you are still shaking. He must have noticed it no matter how hard you try to hide it from him, because he looks over and gently tugs your blanket towards him. “You’re still freezing. Come here.”  

Looking up, you see him smiling as he shifts closer. “I know something that’ll warm you up,” he says as he moves his arms around you, pulling you to his side. It doesn’t take long for you to finally warm up. His body is doing much more to give you warmth than the blanket and fire do, just the way you had expected it would.  

You were still full of bliss from the Friday night party when you came to the school on Monday.

Pretty sure you were humming a song throughout the day, even through Math class that you had dreaded so much. You have yet to meet up with Dongjun since you arrived at school. The only time you did see him was during PE class, when he waved at you from the distance before the teacher tortured you on the tracks.

Your heart was racing rapidly right before lunchtime, and you had to stop yourself from running off to the cafeteria with the excitement of seeing your crush. You did rush out of the classroom the minute the bell rang and found him there, but the reaction he gave you when you came to him was completely unexpected.

“What’s wrong?”

You forced him to explain the reason why he was suddenly acting cold. He couldn’t even look at your face when you asked him if he still wanted to have lunch with you.

“I—I changed my mind. I also have practice right after this, so I have to go. Sorry,” Dongjun avoided you like a plague and you chased him out of the cafeteria for answers. Except that when the answer came, it arrived to you through the one person you dreaded to see most.

Just as you managed to stop Dongjun on the hallway, the devil came and wrapped his arm around Dongjun’s shoulder.

“What’s going on here? A lover’s quarrel?”

“This is none of your business,” you hissed at Seokjin, wishing he would just go away so you could finish talking to Dongjun again.

Instead of turning away and leave, he spoke with a wicked grin on his face, “I don’t know, I thought maybe Dongjun can share what is on his mind with me. We both received something special from you, after all.”

He winked, while you felt like you have been thrown to a burning flame.

“No,” you muttered, shaking your head while you looked between him and your crush; one who was looking at you with disgust while the other looked gleeful, and you carefully backed away from them.

Just as you turned around to leave the place, you heard Seokjin called out to you, “You know that you could just give him an extra copy to keep so I won’t have to show him mine, right—”

You were already dashing out of the hallway when he called you with a certain name, not using your name or the nickname he would usually use whenever he was taunting you. But another hurtful nickname which you could still hear even when you were putting distance between you. You could still hear the laughter coming from the students who were nearby and heard the name. And you could still hear his voice even until days, weeks, months passed, and people were still calling you with it.

It was the start of the war, right before hell was unleashed through your very own two hands.

Kim Seokjin was going to pay.

If only the one revenge that finally stopped him was enough to make the other kids stop all the same time.

Under the flickering light from the burning fireplace, you huddle close to each other with your backs against the wall. Groaning against his chest, you talk about the possibility of your parents making a missing person report for you while he promises that he will get things moving again by the break of dawn.

Bumping his blanket-covered shoulder against yours when you suddenly grow quiet right after, Seokjin asks you, “What are you thinking about now?”

“The apocalypse.”

“The—what, now?”

“You know those zombie movies?” You ask him while tilting your head to look up to his face, seeing him nod. ”In those movies, you’d see those characters that would meet up during trial times, then they end up teaming up to get to safety or fight to find a way out. Then just as you are starting to root for them to succeed, they’d get lost in the middle of nowhere, stumble into a group of zombies while running out of supplies and with no weapons to protect them, and you’ll either end up with a heartbreak from seeing them perish right at the end of the movie or ugly crying when they and up surviving and falsely think they are in love with each other from all the adrenaline they got from escaping death.”

Seokjin falls silent for a brief moment, appearing like he is in complete awe, before he starts laughing. “Are you saying that all of this reminds you of that?”

“Yep,” you say while emphasising the P. “Getting your car stuck in a ditch, followed by getting lost in the woods, find a deserted barn and choosing it as a shelter. Those are all in the checklist of doom in those movies I’ve seen.”  

Seokjin laughs. “You always did, and still do, have such a vivid imagination, ______.”

Smiling at him, you only shrug. “Can’t help it. It’s better than always thinking the worse of things, right? It always works to help you escape from the real world sometimes.”

“Oh, it does,” he agrees, still chuckling as he imagines the scene in his head and compares it with the current situation you are both in.  

When the last chuckle runs through him, he turns to you with a somber smile. “Hey, I wanted to say sorry—I know I was such an ass to you when we were younger. I was a total jerk and I had no excuse for all that I’ve done. And also for—” he swallows hard and stops himself, but you know exactly where he is getting at when you see the painful remorse in his eyes. “But, I want you to know that I am sorry, for everything.”

“Oh.”

You are caught by surprise to his sudden confession that you have absolutely no words to say at first. Especially not the right ones. But then you look up into his eyes to see the sincerity in them that finally brings your mind back to life. “I, uh—I don’t really know what to say. I had never thought you would apologise, ever. Least of all care enough to think about it.”

His gaze softens, but you could still see the sadness in his eyes growing while you nervously keep rambling on. “But I appreciate you for apologising. It really means a lot to me that you do.”

Seokjin cuts you off before you can finish talking, as his lips come pressing gently against yours.

You are caught completely off guard that your body freezes for a moment. Seokjin pulls back briefly, hesitant to continue at first, but little does he know that your nerves had just gotten awakened since the second his lips collided against yours. With a gasp, you lean forward against him to press your lips to his. You can feel him relaxing and breathing deeply as he moves his lips in tune with yours.

The kiss feels gentle and featherlight, but it is still enough to send your body buzzing with light sparks of warmth. Your eyes slowly flutter to close as he slowly deepens the kiss. Slowly melting into his touch, you feel his hands moving down your hips and you are suddenly lifted up as he is carefully pulling you onto his lap without harming your leg.

His fingers find their way to slip beneath the blanket and trail along your bare back, making shivers run down your spine with his delicate touch. One of his hands makes its way up to the back of your head where he cradles you, angling you so he can deepen the kiss. As his tongue laps along the seam of your lips, asking to slip in, his fingers tighten in your hair, pulling on the strands as he eagerly devours your lips.

Yet the moment your scalp stings from the pull, it triggers a memory from the past that instantly stops your brain from functioning. You are suddenly reminded to how he used to pull your hair as he sat behind you in class, before mocking how ugly you were with your hair all tied up. Then the other bad things he did, as little as they may be then, all start coming back to you.

As if there is a bucket of ice being poured over your head, you instantly snap out of your daze and push against his shoulders. Shoving him away, you push yourself off of his lap and try to sit up, though you can only shuffle back from him slightly when Seokjin still has his hands holding up your waist.

“What’s wrong?” he asks. His voice is deep and sounds like honey that it makes something inside you drip. It sounds like a sin, and you quickly remind yourself that this means nothing. That he means nothing.

Your chest tightens when your emotion is running wild and your mind is spinning like crazy. You look away as you climb down from his lap once he lets you go, and lie down next to him again.

What has gotten into you? You ask yourself, completely not believing that you had just kissed Kim Seokjin.

“_____, what is it? Is something wrong?” Seokjin reaches for your hand and entwines his fingers with yours, and only then do you realise that your hands have been shaking.

Looking up, you take in the sight of him. His lips plumped and swollen, pink and wet after the kiss. His eyes are hazy, and when they were showing you his dark desire only moments ago, they are now staring at you with a pained gaze in them.

“Did I really hurt you that bad, _____?” he murmurs softly, as if questioning himself rather than doing it to you. The worrying line appears thick on his face, enough to have you choking on your words.  

“Jin, I—”

“I’m sorry. I really mean it. I don’t know how many times I need to apologise, I will,” he cuts you off before you could say anything, not only with his pleas but with the touch of his lips. You have been so deep in your terrible memories that you didn’t notice it when he leans close. While you are distracted with his lips and his soft voice, he wraps his arms around you as if he wants to stop you from breaking apart.

“Just—” you clear your throat when you still cannot find your voice. “Just tell me why? Why did you have to torment me so much when we were kids?”

Remorse and sadness start to fill his eyes and you suddenly regret bringing things up. You probably should have said anything because his smile vanishes and a somber expression takes over his feature. The sight of him fractures something deep inside your heart that you start chewing the inside your cheeks, indecision weighing heavily in your gut. You still cannot believe that you had kissed him, even more so to think that you actually liked it. But you cannot deny that it still hurts every time the memory of the past comes back to you.

Seokjin’s eyes burn into yours when he slowly starts to speak. “I never hated you, if that’s what you are thinking. Even if I can truly understand if you do hate me for everything I did,” he says, sighing deeply while he runs his fingers through his hair. “Honestly, I don’t really have a great excuse. I kind of always liked you.”

That has you raising your brows. He liked you? But that makes no sense.

“Well, you sure have a terrible way of showing it. You kinda had then and still kind of do,” you murmur softly, confused, while his cheeks flush under your gaze.

With a small grin on his face, he responds to you slowly, “I know I do. Back then, I was just a stupid kid who wanted you to pay attention to me. Then, when I got older and we were in high school, I realised how stupid it was but you already hated me. So it was like, what the hell is the point on changing it now?”

That does sound stupid. Frowning at him, you can only ask, “And how did that lead to you embarrassing me in high school with the boob pic rumours and the name you gave me then?”

Seokjin blinks slowly and then his face pales. Turning his gaze on the floor, his hands clench tight on his side and he looks angry. Though it is clear that he seems to be angry at himself more than he does to you, or to the situation he created then.

Rubbing a hand on his face, Seokjin sighs. “There was never a boob pic,” he mutters while covering his lips with a palm.

“What?”

He looks over to you, the remorse in his eyes seems to grow deeper. “It was a lie, okay? It was true that the polaroid picture everyone found was of you, but it was a picture of you in that summer dress you loved so much. I took a candid photo of you because I had no idea if I could still see you that way again after that day. I hid it from everyone because it was my prized possession and people just assumed that it was—” he stops to clear his throat, “—something indecent, and started spreading that I was keeping a picture of your boobs since I fought real hard to keep people from seeing it. I couldn’t explain my friends that I kept it because I loved looking at you when I couldn’t do it openly when we met, and things just blew up into a big mess that whatever I tried to do to stop it didn’t matter anymore.”

“So, it wasn’t—” you choke out both from relief and astonishment that you cannot even say it out loud. It was never a photo of your private parts, he was never the pervert you thought he was, but it doesn’t stop the heat from rising on your cheeks that comes from knowing the truth behind those rumours.

“I still have it, you know. I can show it if you don’t believe me. It’s starting to fade a bit, but the image is still there.”

Your eyes turn wide, clearly not expecting that. But you find yourself believing him somehow without seeing it. “There’s no need. I—” you clear your throat before speaking again, suddenly feeling the way your heart flutters in your chest when you imagine him keeping a picture of you in his room and wonder the reason why. It has been years, after all. “That’s why you refused to give it to me.”

“Yeah, well—” he rubs the back of his neck while looking away sheepishly. “It would be embarrassing to let you know about my stupid crush then when you hated me so much,” he says with a chuckle.

You voluntarily join him, chuckling softly when the weight in your chest slowly fades. But there is one more thing you need to clear away to be able to move on. “And the nickname? You embarrassed me with that and mocked me right at my face with it. What was that all about?”

Seokjin flinches the moment he remembers about it and begins shaking his head. “That one, I can’t even defend myself. I was bitter and jealous. Dongjun came up to me that weekend and told me about you giving your first kiss to him, and he was planning to ask you out that day. I—” he groans as he pulls at his hair out of anger.

“Fuck, I feel like such a total ass,” he chuckles bitterly, shaking his head. “It’s not that I never truly realised that I was acting like one back then, but—God, I can’t believe I let that got into my head. I just—he kept bragging about the kiss and out of jealousy, I just told him that he could be happy with stealing your kiss all he wanted, but at least I was the one who got the boob pic. And I made that comment to make my point clear.”

You blink. “So, instead of clearing things up, you ended up using it to your advantage to stop him from making advances at me.”

“I’m such an ass,” he groans, once again rubbing his hand over his face.

“Yeah, you were,” you mutter, frowning. “The least you could have done was made a better rhyme for it. Betty Boob? Days after you called me that right at the school hall, people started calling me Betty with the Boobies or Boob Girl, before they got lazy and just cut it short with Boobies or changed it entirely to Grand Tits or something.” You ramble on, though what had made your stomach coil in anger and disgust back then now only gives you small trembles of laughter when you think about it. But you admit that perhaps you only feel that way because he had told you how sorry he was for being an ass to you. You have already started forgiving him, in a way, you just want to tease him a bit while asking for some explanation. Even if you were expecting to hear any other excuse than about him having a stupid crush on you.

Seokjin chuckles bitterly, noticing how much the tension between you has grown lighter, then his grin turns somber again when he speaks, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for any of that to happen. I swear. It was stupid of me for not keeping my mouth closed, and I’d no anything to make up for it.”

Exhaling a sigh, you let his words sink in for a moment. You have no idea why you are taking this a lot better than you had thought you would. But then again, this is still better than what you have been thinking about him all these years. Everything was still pretty messed up, but you had started hating him less since he admitted the truth about the polaroid picture and when he said that it was his prized possession. You may bring it up later in the future for him to prove it, though that has you thinking—does that mean you want to see him again?

Then the name-calling. You still hate it, but it seems funny now when you think about it, after you found out that it was merely a slip up caused by his ridiculous jealousy. It did ruin a chance for you with Dongjun, but was it really such a big deal at all? You only shared one kiss and it was an innocent crush that didn’t lead you to a huge heartbreak. So maybe it wasn’t so much of a big loss, after all.

But still—

“If it weren’t for you giving a permanent title on my name and the unrealistic boob pic, I would have probably hated you less.”

His face falls, then he nods weakly. “Yeah, I hated myself for letting things happen and I still kind of do. If I could go back in time and change everything, I would. I swear. I’m really sorry, _____.”

It sounds unbelievable, but you can see the truth in his words when you look at him. “Okay,” you whisper to him. You can still feel the hurt for bringing all of them up but it has grown much lesser now that you have talked about it. The only thing you are feeling now is the way your heart is clenching at the sight of his fallen expression, how his eyes are covered in hurt and how you want so bad to console him just as much as you need him to do the same to you.

“Thank you,” he says, sighing in relief. “Just—tell me what to do to make it up. I’d do anything.”

“Anything?” you ask him, while he nods. Your eyes fall to his lips, and you start feeling tingles on your own lips the moment you remember the kiss you shared. “Then—maybe you can make it up right now.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“This—” you whisper before lunging forward to him. Wrapping your arms around his neck, you tug him forward until he falls over your body. He could barely catch himself as he lands on top of you but still manages to hold his weight up as he plants his hands on either side of you.

He places a soft kiss on your lips, neck, on the bend of your shoulders, taking your mind away from the crumbling pain inside your chest while replacing it with heat that brings up a desirable shiver through your body.

The thought of him being the enemy is starting to get tucked away to the back of your mind. Your conscience keeps telling you to push him away, but your eyes look down on his body as you try to avoid his gaze, forgetting that just like you are, he is basically bare underneath the blanket he has wrapped around him, aside from his briefs. And you had pushed the thick fabric away when you were kissing him, giving you the perfect few of his muscular shoulders, his bulging pecs, his delectable abs that are calling you to run your fingers on and follow the trail leading down beneath his boxers.

Perhaps people were right about the advantage of kissing and making up, because your mind suddenly drifts. The anger and hate you have had on him for years suddenly start heating up into something else as they are slowly burning into something more feral between your legs.

Instead of pushing him away and ignoring it, you give in and pull him to you. Without any hesitation, his lips find yours once again, as if being apart from you was already too much and he needs to taste you again, breathing in your soft moans as he deepens the kiss. Your legs move apart as your body grows lax beneath him and he crawls between them. His crotch lands right at your covered center and you buck your hips up, grinding against his bulge to relief the itch growing at your core.

“Fuck, ______,” he groans as he pulls slightly away, keeping his lips hovering against yours. “You’re going to be the death of me.”

His complaints fall short because he already catches your lips with another kiss. It grows deeper and hotter by the second, getting even more desperate and needy as you suck his tongue inside your mouth and he bites and nibbles on your lips between each kiss. His hands roam down your body, touching every curve, every inch of your skin, before they make a quick work to relief you out of your underthings. Your own hands find their way down his bare chest, feeling his hot skin and tracing down the lines of his abs before you slip your fingers through the waistband of his briefs and push it down. Seokjin’s hand leaves your skin only to help you on it, and he is soon out of the last fabric covering his skin.

Once you are both completely bare, your blanket has fallen to your side while his own is still hanging desperately around his waist, he pulls back slightly and looks down at you.

“Are you sure that you want to keep on going? I don’t want you to regret this,” he murmurs against your lips, tracing them with his own. Breathless as he speaks, the pure desire in his eyes is clear.

“Please,” you start pleading, already too far gone to think clearly at this point. It feels as if the moment he had laid the truth and his own self bare before you, every wall you have put up crumbled to the ground and your true desire wins. “Get over here and fuck me,” you impatiently scold him when you notice that he has yet to make a move.

“Damn, you’re bossy,” he says as he grins at you.

“Yeah, well—you should’ve known that by now,” you tell him off while acting blasé, though the tremble that is slightly present in your voice betrays you and you just have to snug your bottom lip between your teeth to hold back a groan.

You watch him fisting himself, giving himself a couple of strokes as he slowly bends down. Moving over your body, Seokjin’s lips land on the column of your throat, tracing hot kisses all the way down until he finds your nipples. They have slightly turned hard from the cold air and incredibly sensitive that your whole body jolts with pleasure the moment he takes one into his lips, earning a loud cry coming from you.

He swirls his tongue around the bud, making you arch your back as you moan and sigh, pressing your breasts into his face to have him suck it harder into his mouth.

Releasing the pebbled nipple with a pop, he kneads the other breast, pinching the tip between two fingers. His eyes grow dark with lust as he watches the way the tip turns instantly hard as a pebble, how your chest heaves heavily for air while whimper after whimper keeps slipping through your parted lips.

Still stroking on his length, he moves the other hand from your breast to grip tight on your leg and spread it open for him, only to suddenly stop. As he blinks, the desire in his eyes is soon replaced with confusion, as if he had just realised that something is wrong.

“Ah, shit—I don’t have any condom. I wasn’t exactly expecting to have sex with anyone when I left this morning,” he says, chuckling nervously. He tries to make things light but you can definitely see the panic in his eyes and it squeezes your heart a little. “I—I can try and pull out though. I mean, I’ll do it, or we could—”

Chuckling softly, you reach up and place a finger on his lips to stop him from rambling. “It’s fine. I get checked regularly to know that I have nothing in me. I’m safe and I’m also on birth control,” you calmly explain to him while deep down cheering at yourself to have made the decision to do so even if you haven’t been with anyone else for months. But yeah, he doesn’t need to know that last one. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to, unless you have something—”

“I’m clean,” he quickly adds, appearing relieved for a moment before the dark gaze in his eyes returns. Leaning back down on you, he presses his lips against yours, while he lets a hand roam down your body, tracing down your skin from your waist to your belly, then down to your mound. At the touch of his fingers against your folds, you spread your legs wider, beckoning him closer as the need to have him inside you gets even stronger. You can feel yourself leaking down below, your arousal building and pooling around his fingers when he whispers, “And I also want to come inside you. Fill you up until you are all hot and full inside with my cum.”

“Jin,” you whine softly, your eyelids are fluttering when you feel like your whole body is burning with need. You barely catch on to his smile as it grows, when your eyes are filled with haze and tears as he slowly slides his fingers up and down your wet slit, gathering your arousal before he pushes two fingers inside, stretching your tight entrance with a slow thrust.

“Have patience, pretty girl. You know that I need to make sure you’ll be ready for me,” he says with a chuckle. Kissing your lips to tame your light whimpers, Seokjin pumps his fingers in and out of you a couple more times. You can feel the pleasure rising, edging you to the point that you are close to explode, but still not enough to reach it yet.

“Please—please, Jin. I need you,” you keep pleading while he only licks his lips, hiding the sly grin he is sporting as he watches your reaction to his touches. You give your all to keep your hands away from pulling his hand to reach deeper, clutching tightly on his upper arms to keep your hands out of the way. But then the need inside you wins and your body moves on its own, as you start moving your hips, humping yourself against his fingers to have them fucking you deeper.

Just as you are losing control of your body and desire, his own resolve seems to snap at the same time. With a whisper of a curse, he withdraws his fingers from the depth of your heat then slowly climbs his way on top of your body. Using one hand to hold himself up, he brings the other, the one which has been coated by your release, into his lips. You watch in awe as he licks his fingers, drinking in your sweet nectar with pure hunger in his eyes.

“I wanted to taste you the moment I saw how drenched you are,” he groans, then he moves his hand back to his shaft, covering his wide girth with his palm. He spreads your legs for him while he strokes himself, then aligns the tip of his length at your entrance.

“Relax for me, baby,” he whispers. Staring into your eyes, he enters you slowly, really slow, letting you feel it as he stretches you apart and fills you up with his thick girth. You feel it as his cock enters you inch by glorious inch, how each ridge and vein rub against your pulsing walls, and you clench your jaw while praying to the fucking universe that you wouldn’t come right this very second.

“Jin—” you gasp as he reaches deeper, pushing through the depth of your tight walls as if he wants to mark every nook and every cranny of your hot canal, torturing you once again by sending you to the edge before he could fill you up to the brim. “Oh God, you feel so good.”

You feel his chest rumbling against your breasts as he chuckles. “Really, now? Well, I’m nowhere done with you yet, pretty girl,” he says. His cock is already deep within you and he suddenly pushes forward, thrusting the last few inches of his length in one swift move until you feel the hard tip of his cock nudging at the brim. And your body erupts, the first spasm of your incoming climax runs through you, pulsing around his cock as your walls grow tight for him.

Gasping for breath, you don’t even notice it when your eyes are shut closed to how good you are feeling until he tells you to open them.

“Open up your pretty eyes for me, baby. I want to look into your eyes and see how good I’m making you feel,” he coaxes you while pressing his lips on yours to snap you back to focus on him. The moment you open your eyes for him, his smile grows and you find yourself wanting to see it even more. “Deep breath, baby. Are you ready?”

Exhaling a deep sigh, you nod your head. “Yes, give it to me.” And he does just that.

He pulls back slowly and starts moving immediately, as if he has been holding back for too long and it is time for him to get what he needs from you. Pistoning his hips, thrusting deep, he fills your tight channel over and over again with hard strokes. You can hear his curses each time his cock hits your depth and your walls clench tight around him, while your own curses come as he latches his lips around your nipple, nibbling and sucking the hard tip as his thrusts grow faster.

Your hands make their way from his pecs to his waist, before they land on his hips so you could hold him close to you and feel the way he swivels his body on each thrust he makes.

“Jin, more—more, please,” you beg him, pressing him by the hips and urging him to move faster, to fuck you harder, keeping him there even with your eyes closed from feeling too much and not having enough.

“You want more, baby?” he asks you once he releases your nipple from his hot mouth. You look up and see him moving to the other breast, licking the hard tip and blowing his warm breath on it.

“Yes, Jin. Faster. Harder. I want to—”

He gives you no chance to finish that very sentence when he suddenly gives you a hard thrust, and you instantly cry out his name when he hits you right at the very spot you needed him to be. He keeps repeating the motion, keeping up the steady pace as he hits the spot again, and again. One stroke, two strokes, three—

“Jin…I’m—shit!” you whimper as he nips at your throat, muffling his deep groans as he feels your walls clamping down on his cock as your pleasure starts building, tugging you close to the cliff’s edge.

“Come, baby. Come on, come for me,” he coaxes you with deep grunts as he continues to thrust, making your whole body shake and your thighs quiver harder around him. You start feeling his cock flutter inside you the more your body tightens around him, your stomach coils with your rising climax while he grows harder, his cock twitches against your walls to let you know that his own release is just on the horizon.

And then, you feel it, your whole body erupting in shocks of pleasure as your climax comes in massive waves. You feel like you are burning hot while your release coats his cock, your cries drown the slick noises of your cum against his thrusts, before you feel like your heart is about to burst out of your chest.

“Fuck, I’m coming—” he hisses, and like a huge eruption, he explodes with his own release. His entire body vibrates against yours as he fills your tight channel with every single drop of his cum and it sends your body into another climax. It feels smaller, but almost as intense as the previous one as you feel every drop of anger and frustration, every single want and need, all that have been accumulated for years to be relieved at this very moment.

Seokjin still moves in and out of you as he slowly comes down from his orgasm, while yours settles down into short spasms of pleasure until your body calms beneath him. You open your eyes slowly, blinking away the haze as you take in the sight of him, while his eyes are slowly opening as he finally comes to halt.

At that very moment, when you look into his eyes, you feel content for the very first time and you are starting to see him in a different light. His cheeks are flushed and his eyes are just as glossy as yours, his chest is rising and falling rapidly as he takes in deep breaths. His hair is a complete mess, both from your hands when you were kissing him and from his rapid movements when he was fucking you into oblivion. His lips are plumped and slightly parted, and you find yourself wanting to pull him back to you so you could kiss him again. And when you look at him, you no longer feel the same anger that you used to have for him whenever you saw him in the past. Instead, you are starting to feel like you want to see him like this and feel this exact moment with him again.  

To feel the same peacefulness and content that he brings after that wild, intense sex.

Staring into his eyes, you can see every emotion running through him. Everything that seems to mirror your own. His confusion, excitement, his want and need. Everything blurs together into one. For a moment, it feels too overwhelming that you look away from him, only to find yourself wondering why you are not having a hard time dealing with all of this.

The moment you snap out of your thoughts, you notice his eyes trailing up and down, giving you his perusal gaze before his cocky grin returns.

“You know, if only I had known that all I had to do was to fuck you senseless in order to stop us from fighting so much, I would have done it years ago,” he suddenly says, chuckling breathlessly. Meanwhile, you don’t stop yourself from rolling your eyes.

“Oh, shut the hell up and just kiss me before you ruin the whole moment, you jackass,” you snap at him, but let your lips spread to a grin when you cannot resist the bubbling laughter slipping out of your mouth right before he does what you asked him to do.

You are both smiling when he kisses you, his lips feel soft and his hands are gentle when he caresses your skin, before slowly taking you into his embrace. The moment a soft groan vibrates from deep inside his chest and his tongue slips through the seam of your lips, you realise that he is probably thinking the same thing you have in mind. That he wants to feel all of it and do everything all over again just as much as you do. And that makes you feel much better about wanting him instead of hating him like you were supposed to.

You wake up to the sound of birds chirping and loud shovelling in the distance.

The room is still quite dark when you finally open your eyes. The fire has died out, but you have some light faintly coming in through the opened small window close by. The sky is still dark outside but the sparks of light from the rising sun are slowly appearing, letting you see everything around you without the help of your flashlights.

The space beside you is empty but the continuous sound of a shovel hitting the ground lets you know where Seokjin is. The air is cold, but not as cold as it was last night. Your body feels sore, for numerous reasons, but at least the pain on your leg has become numb.

Pushing yourself to sit up, you finally realise that you have both your blanket and the one Seokjin was using last night wrapped around your body. No wonder it feels so warm, you wonder with a smile on your face—one that grows wider as you look over to find your clothes all folded so neatly on top of the wooden chest next to you.

You have just finished putting on every piece of clothing on your body—sans the boots—when Seokjin walks into the room.

“It worked!” he says. His whole face and hair are drenched with sweat but he has a huge smile on his face as he lifts up the shovel in his hand. You notice that it is a different one than the one he used last night, with a much bigger size and more dirt on it compared to the one he owns, and he is proud to show it off while explaining, “I went into the toolshed right out front and found this. The ice on the ground has melted a bit and this bad boy did the work in no time.”

“So we can go now?”

“Absolutely,” he says, nodding his head while throwing the shovel away so he could lift you in his arms.

An hour later, Seokjin pulls his truck into the driveway of your family’s cabin.

Your entire family welcomes you at the front door, both with relief for having you finally back home safely and the look of surprise on their faces of seeing you wrapped in Seokjin’s arms as he helps you walk inside. It is not until a few minutes later, after everyone is sitting in the dining room with hot drinks and some light meal for breakfast, when you tell them everything that had happened. Starting from how your car had skidded off the road to how Seokjin found you, only to end up getting stuck together in the Choi family’s old farm—skipping the part of your make up sex by the fireplace—and ensure your father that Seokjin’s friend is on his way to retrieve your car as you are having this conversation.

“We called him on the way here and he told us not to worry about it,” Seokjin tells your father while your mother is busy searching for some medicine in the kitchen. “He’ll call either one of us later to let us know once the car is safe in the auto shop.”

“That’s good,” your father says before he leaves the room to let the younger ones talk in the living room, which basically only includes Seokjin, your brothers, and yourself.

Your oldest brother keeps shaking his head as he listens to the details on how you decided to stay in the old barn and use it as a shelter and how Seokjin managed to get his truck free. “That’s unbelievable,” he wonders loudly while sipping on his coffee. “I wouldn’t have believed it happening if you had told me this any other day.”

“I’m just surprised to see the both of you getting here in one piece without killing each other,” your second brother speaks. Being the one who is closer to you by age and who is also basically your best friend, he is the only other person in the room who knew about your feud with Seokjin since he had been going to the same school as you did. As he looks over between you and Seokjin with a scrutinising gaze in his eyes, you know that you will have some explaining to do with him later. 

A lot of explaining.

Seokjin chuckles as he looks at your brothers. “You know what people used to say about Christmas. What better time to bury some old hatchet than on the most glorious time of the year, am I right?”

Rolling your eyes at him, you only respond to him with, “I have never once heard of that saying, but do go on.” Everyone laughs at your comment, but you quickly adds, “But in all honesty, I think being stranded and meeting each other on the way was an early Christmas blessing.”

“Yeah, it helped us made up,” Seokjin agrees while looking deeply in your eyes.

“That’s good to hear,” your brother speaks with a chuckle, earning all attention to turn to him just as he continues, “For everyone who witnessed the vendetta going on between you two, it was quite intense. I don’t think any one of us love remembering how _____ got suspended from school after she stole your car and left it by the lake with flat tires and scratches all over your new paint. That was a rough one.”  

While your brothers laugh at the memory of your eventful revenge, Seokjin looks at you with his brows raised, demanding some answers.

Oh, that’s right, you wince as you send him a sheepish smile. You knew there was something that you forgot to talk about last night. Judging by the way he grins as your gazes meet each other, you know exactly how to make up and make things right.

Hopefully, you can do it soon.

All Rights Reserved © 2016-2019 Yoonia

Disclaimer: All works are written by myself. Any copyright infringement, reposting on any other social media or website, and any act of plagiarism will be dealt with legal action

[thoughtsofanexcitedspacechild]

50 things I’ve learned this year during a global pandemic/general life advice from your local teenage train wreck :) (Pt. 1)

1. It’s okay to let go. Of things, people, old interests, even your past self. It doesn’t matter. If it isn’t benefiting you anymore, it’s okay to let things go.  

2. No relationship is worth pursuing that doesn’t match your energy. If someone’s not matching the love you give them, pull back to match their energy. That way, you save your energy for the people in your life that do. Most times, the people who do match your love and energy are the one’s that are in it for the long run and will be there for you. 

3. Stop caring what other people think about your interest. Often times we have so much shame for liking what we like. Why is that? If it isn’t hurting anyone, then why does it matter that you have an obscure taste in music, books, movies, etc.? Stop apologizing for what you like!

4. It’s okay to not want to grow up, even if that’s all you wanted to do as a kid. You don’t have to grow up. 

5. Going off of that, if you’re a “gifted” or “mature” kid, it’s okay to mourn your childhood you never had. Watch that show that you never did as a kid and fall in love with it. Finger paint with no exterior motive. Read way below your reading level. Reread Harry Potter or the Percy Jackson series. Play outside. You deserve it. 

6. “Kids” shows, including atla, lok, etc. often have more complex and interesting plots and characters than most “adult” shows these days. Don’t dismiss something just because it’s geared for a younger audience. Watch and learn from them. 

7. The changes you want to happen don’t suddenly happen. They’ll happen after many months of trial, error, and consistency. Take baby steps and celebrate small victories. 

8. You’re body will always be imperfect, and it’s okay. You’ll eventually learn to accept it once it doesn’t change so fast during adolescence, but don’t feel pressured to. It’s okay to not like how you look, just don’t let it keep you from enjoying life and your body from serving it’s purpose. 

9. Most high school guys don’t want a serious, long term relationship yet. They all have to mature a little bit for that, and it’s normal to feel frustrated about it, but don’t blame them too hard for it. You matured at a faster rate then them, and they still need a little more time. The best thing to do it wait for it. 

10. Questioning your sexuality is a normal part of life. You like guys? Good! You into girls? Great! It literally doesn’t matter, and God doesn’t really care either. There’s nothing in the Bible against it, and he made you that way right? Why not embrace it! Asami was your first gai crush? WONDERFUL! me too! Want to label yourself? I’ll respect and support whatever your decision is! Don’t know or don’t want to? Also perfect!

11. God (or whatever you believe in, or don’t!) made you imperfect for a reason: to embrace those imperfections and grow through them, to improve. Why would God put you on this earth if He didn't think that you had a reason to grow closer to Him through your imperfections? Make sure you use and acknowledge your imperfections, because they’re your lifeline to Him in prayer. It’s what you need to improve on, and ask help for, and that’s okay! (Spoiler alert, even when you do this stuff and work super hard, you’re human, and you’re still gonna mess up and make mistakes! Perfection wasn’t intended for humans, and I don’t believe it ever will be!)

12. When summer rolls around, get a summer job. Go down to the local ice cream place and ask if they’re hiring. Get an application and fill it out nicely with good handwriting. Then, take it back and wait. If they say yes, great! If not, that’s good too! Keep looking! Once you’ve found a place, settle in. Learn how things work. Learn how to do your job good and effectively. Immerse yourself in it. Then, have fun. Name the machines. (Big Bertha the waffle iron, or Fernanda the flurry machine, etc.) Name the ice cream flavors after your favorite fictional characters based on what they’d order (Aang is cookie dough, Obi Wan is mint chocolate chip, etc). Make new friends there and schedule your shifts with them. Get them in on your games too! It makes it more fun. Take time to show them your names for the ice cream flavors and machines, and maybe start using the names as abbreviations to make orders more efficient. Make sure you work only how much you can handle, even if that’s once a week or seven days for nine hours each. Whatever makes you happy! If you work in customer service, make them smile. Give the little kid extra sprinkles for wearing a fun mask or stickers if you have them. If there’s a tired mom, help her out by prioritizing her order to get out fast if possible. Whatever helps them. Thank the customers that tip! Then, get your paycheck in the mail and save all your tips. Put it in the bank and save it for college or when you need it. (Make sure to buy yourself something nice with the money sometimes too!)

13. When in school, don’t feel pressure to over achieve all the time. It’s okay to do the bare minimum sometimes. If you have an A, why are you worrying about if it’s a 95 and not a 98? It’s still an a, and that’s great! School is there to help you learn, so don’t force yourself to do extra busy work for a little extra credit (unless you absolutely need it!).

14. Take time to learn and do other things outside school that you may not be getting credit for. They’ll serve you in the long run! You like to write fan fiction? Keep writing! It’s helping! You love a sport? Good! It’s keeping you healthy while teaching you real life skills. Most of these things are gonna stick with you forever, so keep doing them and don’t let you passion fade away.

15. Write letters to your friends that live far away. Even if they don’t respond, they will appreciate having something that’s harder to lose or accidentally get deleted. Make the letter nice with pretty paper or colored pens or stickers, and spray your favorite scent on the envelope. Then seal it with a sticker and send it off. They really will appreciate it. 

16. Splurge on your own Spotify premium account and make a playlist for each mood. Make one for studying, working out, singing at the top of your lungs, one for when your happy, sad, etc. (You can also search my name, Hana Zainea, to listen to any of my playlists and see if we have the same music taste. If so follow me there and I’ll follow back to see your playlists!) Listen to your music and take time to enjoy it. Set aside ten to fifteen minutes just to do that. Let it flow through you and wake your soul up. 

17. Learn how to make handmade gifts. Wether that’s learning to make necklaces, earrings, bracelets, crochet, knit, or even make a nice card with hand lettering, learn how to make at least one solid handmade gift. It’ll give you a new skill as well as let the other people in your life that you love them. Handmade gifts are valuable and kept forever no matter how good they look. 

18. If your best friend lives far away like mine does, plan a monthly bsf subscription box. You can send each other a letter and a few little self care gifts once a month. It’s soooo fun and I can’t recommend this enough. 

19. Have photos that you like printed in physical form and hang them on your wall even if it’s just with tape. You’ll like being able to see and access happy thoughts and memories easily and have them hanging on your wall instead of sitting in your camera roll. 

20. You don’t have to keep up with social media. Delete it if you want, or limit your time on it if you want. Sometimes the “connection” we experience through social media isn’t always healthy, so monitor your use. 

21. Have a screen time widget on your phone and keep track of it. Try to cut your usage down by half an hour every week and eventually reduce it to the amount of time that you’d like to spend on your phone without being excessive, whatever that looks like for you. 

22. Meditate. This isn’t anything religious or spiritual, and it brings many benefits. It’s basically you setting a time aside to think for yourself. You can use one of the hundreds of guided meditations on youtube, or listen to theta waves/meditation music or just find a quiet place. Find a place where you know you won’t be disturbed, and then start to let your mind wander. What’s bothering you. When you turn off you mind, what’s the first thing that pops up? What keeps you from just being? What do you need to focus on in order to help yourself feel better? What are some things that you regret that are weighing on your heart? Now, what is your desired reality? Where do you want to live? Who do you want to meet/live with? What do you do? What do you act like? What do you have to do to make this happen? If you pray/are a christian, ask God for help with this desired life. (Remember, ask and you shall receive!)

23. Get yourself a hydro flask or any other durable water bottle, specifically a 16 or 32oz one. This way, it’s way easier to keep track of how much water you are drinking. A 16oz bottle is one pint and a 32oz one is a quart. Four of the 32 and eight of the 16oz are a gallon. Start by trying to drink a quarter of a gallon (2 16 oz or 1 32 oz) then a half, then three quarters, and eventually you’ll be drinking a gallon plus of water a day. (Put stickers on it to motivate yourself. Trust me it works wonders having fun stuff on there. Makes it enjoyable) 

24. If you’re able, make and give gifts often. It brings more joy than expected. 

25. Get rid of clothes. Toss all the old ones out. Reinvent yourself. Invest in pieces of clothing that are timeless (crewneck sweaters, cable knit sweaters, tan and brown colored dress pants, nice wool coats and sweaters, etc.) You’ll have these forever. 

26. Maintain your physical appearance. Make sure to change your clothes, follow proper hygiene, use lotion, etc. You’ll feel much better, trust me. You don’t have to use expensive products or put on a full face of makeup either, but putting some effort in will make you feel much better about yourself. 

27. Find a tea that tastes good to you. (Preferably without caffeine so you can drink it whenever.) Try everything! Then get yourself a nice mug and have some at a dedicated time each day. Relax and enjoy a constant in your life. 

28. If you’re into it, research and try reality shifting. I’m not going to go into depth in this post (that would take awhile) but if you’re really needing an escape but can’t go on vacation due to money, time crunches, etc, you can shift to any alternate reality that you’d like. Further in depth post about this to come. 

29. Read. Anything. A book, and article, the paper, the news, even the back of a cereal box. Think about it. What did you learn? Anything? 

30. Never accept criticism from someone you wouldn’t go to for advice. 

31. Call your parents if you live away from home. If not, spend more time with them. They love and miss you. 

32. Same with your siblings. 

33. And grandparents.

34. Find a way to remember your home town. Know it like the back of your hand. 

35. Read Shell Silverstien poems. They’re funny. 

36. Have a piece of jewelry that you never take off. Keep it to remind yourself of your sanity and to remember yourself. 

37. Cry of you need to. It’s bad to hold it in. 

38. Series you should read (even though some are nerdy): Harry Potter, Percy Jackson/Heros of Olympus, The Hunger Games, The Red Queen Series, The Giver Series, Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit. 

39. Standalone books you should read: The Book Thief, The Fault in our Stars, They Both Die in the End, Where the Crawdads Sing, The Scarlet Letter, Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, The DaVinci Code, The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye, Out of my Mind, Love that Dog, The Unfinished Angel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Romeo and Juliet

40. Shows you should watch: Avatar (Even if you’re a casual fan of the fandoms) : The Last Airbender, Legend of Korra, The Mandalorian, The Office, The Clone Wars, Parks and Rec., Stranger Things

41. Standalone Movies/Series you should watch: The Notebook, any of the Disney classics (specifically Lion King, Hercules, and others during that era), the Harry Potter movies, the Hunger Games movies, The Star Wars Movies, All of the Pixar movies (specifically Soul and Coco), Ten things I hate about you, the perks of being a wallflower, Clouds, If anything happens I love you

42. Artists to listen to: Norah Jones, James Taylor, John Denver, Anson Sebra, Ed Sheeran, The Paper Kites, The Artic Monkeys, Conan Grey, L. Dre (for Lofi) Song recs are on my Spotify haha (Hana Zainea) 

43. Invest in good supplies for art. It’ll make a difference.

44. When something feels off, clean your bathroom. Not your depression cave of a bedroom. Your bathroom. Trust me. It helps so so so much to have on clean space. 

45. Have a cohesive scent. Like lavender? Buy lavender everything. Use it in lotions, deodorant, shampoo, conditioner, candles, etc. You’ll have a scent that people will now associate with you and you only. 

46. Learn how to cook while your at home. Ask your parents if you can go to a nutritionist and learn what foods nourish your body the best. Eat them and let yourself feel good about what you put in your body. 

47. Learn how to do basic home improvements while still at home. Fix toilets, clogged drains, clean ovens, showers, sinks, etc. You’ll be grateful. 

48. Don’t do drugs/drink. It’s not worth dulling your senses to miss out on your wonderful life. 

49. Annotate your books. It makes you engage more and you’ll like looking back on them. 

50. If no one is looking, you should totally cart surf down the isle at the grocery store. It’s the little things that count. 

[stahlop]

Once Upon a Time 2x06 “Tallahassee” Review

Reviews 1x01 1x02 1x03 1x04 1x05 1x06 1x07 1x08 1x09 1x10 1x11 1x12 1x13 1x14 1x15 1x16 1x17 1x18 1x19 1x20 1x21 1x22 2x01 2x02 2x03 2x04 2x05

The mystery man from the season premiere is finally revealed and he is Henry’s father! And apparently a complete asshole. As is August. Ugh! I get that forces apparently had to converge together to get Emma pregnant so she could put Henry up for adoption and Regina could adopt him, but did she have to be betrayed by the man she loved to do that? No wonder Emma’s such a tough cookie and doesn’t let people in. Also, Emma in the past will be referred to as young Emma to distinguish the two.

Summary: Emma and Hook climb a beanstalk to find the magic compass that will get her and Mary Margaret back to Storybrooke. In Emma’s past, we meet Henry’s father and how she ended up in jail (and how she acquired the yellow bug).

Opening: Growing beanstalk

New Characters:

Neal: I know he was in new characters previously as Mystery Man, but since we actually know who he is now, I’m putting him in here again. Also, my initial reaction to him was correct, I hate him. We first meet Neal in Portland, OR as he pops up in the backseat of the yellow bug young Emma steals. She thinks he’s the owner, but it turns out he’s also a thief, so, of course, she feels a kinship with him. Now, I’m not sure why, but the costumers did nothing to make him look any younger in this flashback, so he just seems like a creepy, older pervert using a young girl to help him with his stealing exploits. I’m not sure how old he’s supposed to be, but he’s at least 21 since he repeatedly asks young Emma out for a drink and she’s only supposed to be 17. But, I’m guessing he’s more between 23-25, even though he looks his real age which is around 35. Anyway, he gets out of a cop pulling them over by being completely misogynistic with the cop, and they go on their way. We next see him and young Emma in a convenience store and she’s very pregnant, and he refers to her as his wife. Neal distracts the cashier from him and young Emma shoplifting by asking him directions to Eugene on a map. A customer comes in and notices them stealing so young Emma pretends to go into labor. This whole scene is hilarious. They leave and we find out that young Emma is not pregnant and that she was using the bag under her dress to collect the pilfered items. And then they’re kissing in the car. Ew! They go to a motel and grab a room that a family is leaving and happens to not close the door all the way. Well, that’s lucky. Young Emma notices a dreamcatcher and explains what it is to Neal. He calls it flypaper for nightmares. He thinks they should keep it. They’re still living in the bug so young Emma doesn’t find that feasible. Neal suggests getting a real place together. Young Emma is skeptical and even suggests Neverland, which angers Neal slightly. He finds a picture of a map and tells young Emma to point to a place with her eyes closed. She points to Tallahassee, so they decide that’s where they’ll go. Young Emma asks if this is what he really wants and he says what he really wants is her. I really want to believe him, but knowing what we know later, I find it hard to believe. Neal is in a mood the next time we see him. He’s apparently wanted by the FBI and he managed to snag his poster from the post office. He stole some expensive watches when he was in Phoenix. He came to Portland and stashed them in a train locker. He tells her Tallahassee is out, he needs to head to Canada. Young Emma assumes she’ll go with him. He needs to go alone. She doesn’t think so. They argue until she decides that she’ll get the watches out of the locker. They can fence them, use the money to change their identities, and go to Tallahassee. Honestly, I thought that Neal was doing this to set young Emma up even before August came on the scene. But, apparently he really does love her and didn’t plan on being a complete asshole. So young Emma goes and gets the bag out of the locker. I’m still not sure why Neal couldn’t do this. It’s not like anyone knows where he is. Why would security think it odd if he got a bag out of a train station locker? It doesn’t seem as if it’s being watched for any reason. Why did young Emma have to be involved with this whatsoever? It seems like the fencing of the watches would be the more dangerous part of this whole scheme. Anyway, young Emma brings them to Neal and he thinks he can fence them for around $20,000. He’s going to  fence the watches and reminds her to meet him at 9:00, and gives her one of the stolen watches so she has the time. Again, seems like this would be some sort of set up, except he hasn’t met with August yet. Neal is walking to meet his fence and feels someone following him. He runs off and the person runs after him. The guy tackles him and Neal thinks it’s a cop, but it turns out to be August!  He and Neal argue about who’s doing a better job taking care of young Emma. August realizes Neal actually loves young Emma. He thinks that will make leaving her easier, because he’ll want to do right by her. August asks Neal if he believes in magic. Neal considers this before telling August that he obviously does (you didn’t answer the question Neal). August says he’s going to show Neal something that will make him believe. It’s in his typewriter box. And Neal does believe the minute he sees what’s in the box. August tells him about the curse and that Emma needs to break it, and she can’t do that with Neal in the picture. August asks him if he’ll do the right thing. And the right thing is apparently setting young Emma up for stealing the watches. WTF, Neal?  We see Neal meeting with August two months later in Vancouver, Canada. He feels guilty about young Emma (GOOD!) and just wants to know if she’s okay. August informs he she got 11 months. He says it should be him in there. Well, it’s good to know he has feelings about this. Why didn’t he just get himself arrested and not let young Emma know? Why did he have to frame her? Ugh!! Neal wants August to promise he’ll be there for young Emma since he can’t. He does. He gives August the money from the watches and the car (with a clean VIN just like young Emma had suggested) to give to young Emma so she’ll have a fresh start when she gets out of jail. He also asks that August let him know when the curse ends. I’m sorry, I don’t know what could scare Neal so much that he would frame the woman he purports to love for his crime. That is not love.

Character Observations:

Young Emma/Emma: I’m just going to come out and say it. Young Emma is an idiot. She may know how to steal a car, but she clings to Neal because they’re both thieves, and they don’t have any family. We know she’s grown up in the foster system and she was moved around a lot, so she’s clinging to the little bit of stability that she can find. Even if it’s with a much older man that is a thief. So let’s just skip to the part where she’s set up, because this whole thing is absurd. Young Emma goes to meet Neal at the prearranged location after he fences the watches. She calls him up on her flip phone and finds his number has been disconnected. Then a cop comes and tells her that her boy set her up. He called in a tip and is probably off to Canada by now. Why does the cop know all this information? Neal called in a tip to check the surveillance footage at the train station. Ok. What does this prove? She took a bag out of a locker. Unless they have proof that there were watches in that bag, they have nothing. All they have is the one watch young Emma is wearing and there is no proof she stole it. Technically, it was a gift from Neal, so she’s done no wrong there. The cop tells her to give him the watch and then asks if she knows her rights. He doesn’t even say them to her. She just answers yes. Now, while this technically wouldn’t set her free, anything she would say after this would not be admissible in court, so most likely the judge would throw out the case unless there was other evidence that could be used. So when the cop asks where the rest of the watches were and she said ‘Gone, not coming back’ (and yes, she’s actually talking about Neal), that would not be admissible in court as her knowing about the stolen watches. And the wanted poster had Neal’s picture on it of him stealing the watches! Who was young Emma’s public defender? They did a real shit job for her to get 11 months for possession of stolen goods that she a) didn’t steal and b) they never recovered. I seriously cannot figure out how the hell this case even made it to trial, let alone a guilty verdict. The only thing I could even think they’d get her on was being Neal’s accomplice, but she didn’t even know him them, and they could see what foster home she was in and that it wasn’t in Phoenix.  But back to young Emma, who is feeling very betrayed, obviously. We next see her in jail. The prison guard has a package for her that she has to open in front of her. It’s car keys to the bug, with the swan keychain. The guard says at least she has a car when she gets out, and apparently a baby, as young Emma is holding a positive pregnancy test.

In the EF, Emma volunteers to climb the beanstalk with Hook, which makes him very happy. He has a magic cuff they need to use to climb the beanstalk as it’s enchanted so no one can climb it. Was this instituted before or after Jack? Mulan gives Emma poppy powder to knock out the giant. She also asks Mulan to cut down the beanstalk after 10 hours. Emma’s story is about trust. Hook asks her to trust him several times, but after the betrayal of Neal, it seems Emma can’t trust anyone. Or at least not flirty, innuendo dripping, hot pirates. They manage to knock the giant out and get to the treasure room (with a lot of flirting from Hook, and a lot of eye rolling from Emma), before the giant wakes up and comes after them. Hook gets trapped under some fallen pieces of the roof while Emma freezes when the giant comes after them. Emma manages to trap the giant in his own cage. The giant shares with her that he is alone and how the dried bean he wears around his neck is a reminder of how all humans are killers. This hits a bit too close to home with Emma and she walks away rather than kill him with Jack’s poisoned sword. The giant frees himself and shows her a way out as a favor for not killing him. Emma starts to leave but negotiates another favor since she could have killed him twice. Turns out she wants him to not let Hook go free for another 10 hours after Emma rescues him from the rubble and then conveniently handcuffs him to a chain that happens to be there. Emma says she can’t take a chance she’s wrong about him as Hook pleads with her not to leave him there. She tells him he’ll be okay, she just needs a head start. Emma manages to get down the beanstalk right after the original 10 hours is up. Mary Margaret is upset that Emma told Mulan to cut the beanstalk down. Emma tries to explain but Mary Margaret makes it clear that they go back to Storybrooke together.  Emma hugs her (awww!) and agrees.

Hook: He’s overly flirtatious with all the ladies, but especially Emma. He’s the master of innuendos, and he’s sexy and he knows it. Plus, he can read Emma like an open book. He guesses correctly that she’s an orphan due to the same look in her eyes that the Lost Boys have. He also realizes she’s had little love in her life and asks if she’s ever been in love. She lies and answers no. But after she sees Milah’s tattoo, and deduces that Rumplestiltskin most likely killed her as well as taking Hook’s hand, she confesses that she may have been in love once. This whole conversation is weird. What does having been in love have to do with her perception of Hook?  He continues to be flirtatious throughout their whole journey up the beanstalk and once they reach the giant’s lair. And he’s dead sexy when he has to tie Emma’s hand with his scarf. Yummy! Sorry, but that’s just hot!!! He asks Emma to trust him several times but she just can’t do it, which leads to him being handcuffed in the giant’s castle and pleading with Emma not to leave him there. She tells him she just needs a head start, and he screams for her. I think we have an angry pirate now.

August: Ok, I cut August some slack for leaving Emma when he was seven, because he couldn’t handle that kind of responsibility. I get that. But now he’s technically behind her going to jail because he somehow spooked Neal into leaving her? He calls himself young Emma’s guardian angel and he’s trying to make up for leaving her when she was young. Okay, I get that, but to help frame her so she goes to jail? What’s that all about? August admits to Neal that he can’t say no to temptation, that he’s not built that way. This is true, Pinocchio was never good at making the right choice, but it’s such a cop out. And then it gets worse. Neal gives August the car keys and $20,000 to give to Emma so she has a chance to start over once she’s out of jail. Emma gets the car keys, mailed to her from Phuket, where August apparently took the money meant for Emma. August is an even bigger ass than Neal is. Neal at least felt guilty. August only came back to help Emma break the curse because he started turning into wood. That money could have let her keep Henry.

The Giant: We don’t get a lot of backstory. Only that it seems the fairy tale and EF history got his story wrong. That Jack attacked him and killed his family and he’s the only giant left. He’s very angry toward humans because of this. But in the end, he finds an ally in Emma and gives her the compass and agrees to watch Hook for 10 hours so she can get a head start.

Mary Margaret/Aurora: They find some common ground due to both having been under a sleeping curse. Aurora is having nightmares about a burning red room and someone inside it watching her. Mary Margaret seems happy to have a princess to mother, since Emma won’t let Mary Margaret mother her. And Mary Margaret goes all mother bear on Mulan when she tries to cut the beanstalk down. Mary Margaret makes it quite clear to Emma that they are going home together, no matter what.

Henry: He’s apparently having dreams of the burning red room with someone else watching him as well.

Questions:

Was Cora really going to climb the beanstalk with Hook? She doesn’t seem the type to do that.

Has Mulan been to Oz? Poppies are what put Dorothy and her crew to sleep in the movie.

How long have young Emma and Neal been together by the pretend pregnancy scene?

Is Neal having nightmares? Is that why he wanted to keep the dreamcatcher?

The map that Neal has young Emma point to is a map of all the states the motel chain is located.

What does being in love have to do with being perceptive about why Hook wants revenge on Rumplestiltskin? If Emma had never been in love she wouldn’t understand that Rumplestiltskin killed Milah? That would make her a pretty bad bail bonds person if she couldn’t figure things out like that.

Why does young Emma say Neal got away clean with stealing the watches? The wanted poster has a picture of him stealing the watches! Why does Neal have to explain about the security cameras?

Why is Neal running to Canada? They have extradition laws there. He could still be arrested and sent back to the US. Better to go to Mexico instead.

Is Neal not wanted by the FBI anymore? How is he currently living in New York if he’s still wanted by the FBI? Did he change his identity? He would have to if he has an apartment and seems to working somewhere that requires a suit.

How long has Neal had this train station locker? I don’t know what lockers were like in 1999 or 2000, but according to Google, you can only store something in a train locker for a day.

What’s in the box, August?! What’s in the box?!

Neal doesn’t seem to find August talking about curses weird at all? Could he be from the EF?

Why didn’t Neal just leave? Why did he have to set Emma up to go to jail? Just ghost her and run. 

What does it matter if Hook steals other things from the giant? 

If Neal felt so guilty about what happened to Emma that he wanted to know when the curse broke, why hasn’t he come to Storybrooke to find her? Or is he currently on his way?

Why did the giant have the compass on him? Was he expecting someone to try and steal it? Was it special to him in some way?

Are Aurora and Henry seeing each other in the burning red room? Will they be able to communicate with each other?

Did Emma spend two years in Tallahassee waiting for Neal? Or did she just like the idea of Tallahassee enough to go there after she was free?

Observations:

It’s nice that Emma’s false eyelashes stay on so well throughout this entire journey without bugging her at all.

There are apparently no more magic beans to make portals with, as they were destroyed by the giants after a great war led by Jack the Giant Slayer. 

The swan pendant Emma wears around her neck is the keychain Neal stole for her.

Tallahassee is not near a beach. The closest beach is about 90 miles away.

According to the wanted poster, Neal’s birthday is March 23, 1977. That makes him 22-23 at this point.

Now we know why young Emma went to jail in Phoenix; that’s where Neal stole the watches.

The giant’s castle seems to be made pretty shoddily if just walking makes everything shake and pieces of the roof cave in.

Jack’s skeleton is still in the giant’s castle and his sword has his name on it.

Emma has a flower tattoo on her left wrist.

August says that Emma was sent to a minimum security prison in Phoenix. In Desperate Souls Emma says she was in juvie and her records were supposed to be sealed. A juvenile detention center and a minimum security prison are two separate places. Juvie means she’s under 18 and minimum security means she was tried as an adult.

August sent Neal the postcard in Broken.

That’s a pretty big cage considering the giant’s enemy seems to be humans.

Once Upon a Time Firsts:

We actually saw a dreamcatcher hanging in Neal’s apartment in Broken, but this time it’s shoved in our faces and we will be seeing them again throughout the series.

Hook asking Emma to trust him.

Emma’s tattoo.

Names:

Neal Cassidy: Neal Cassady is the name of a beat poet in the 60’s and hung out with Jack Kerouac. Not sure if this was intentional somehow by the writers or if Neal made up his name being that he’s a thief.

So, I’m extremely angry over young Emma’s shoddy frame job, and the fact that Neal and August got away scott free apparently. I love Hook’s flirtiness and his innuendos. All in all, Emma’s backstory was really important to understand why she doesn’t trust real easily, but I don’t see her trusting Hook any time soon, regardless of the circumstances. But she’s finally starting to trust Mary Margaret and hopefully see her as her mother.

Please leave comments and reblog! Let me know if you’d like to be tagged in future reviews.

@searchingwardrobes​ @thisonesatellite​ @justbecauseyoubelievesomething​ @laschatzi​ @profdanglaisstuff @mariakov81

[ofravensandgenesis]

The Investment of an Antagonist - Part One

Entry 04. [Trigger warning content: post contains discussion of Far Cry 5 details including cannibalism, graphic violence, brainwashing, torture, child abuse mention, neglect, mentioned fatalistic/suicidal character pov, dark backstories, etc. Spoilers naturally. Part 01 of 03.] [Link to part two here.] [Link to part three here.] I was cooking dinner and had the sudden EUREKA moment of trying to figure out what exactly I want with regards to an antagonist for an original fic setting. Originally I was going to have a general state of conflict between two nations/city-states/etc on a larger, more impersonal scale, but that didn’t do anything to really interest me in that level of conflict. So I was thinking on why Far Cry 5′s villains and the conflict interests me so, and the eureka moment was realizing that they as villains have a personal stake in all this, and go about it in ways that are reflective of their stories. Specifically for the Seeds, it has me realizing it’s more interesting to me when the villain is acting due to personal motivations of an emotional nature and/or relating to their belief system, and in ways that compliment those internal motivations that can build out into or off of their backstories and other areas of the tale.

Like, it’s more than just a universally formulaic method of brainwashing for all of the people they kidnap during the Reaping (and before it, since it’s a cult and that means there’s a process of indoctrination, ie brainwashing.) All of the Heralds have their specific manner of doing so, and said methods are tailored to the particulars of each Herald’s backstory as is revealed to us.

— Jacob —

Jacob starves the Deputy and other “recruits,” exposes them to the elements, doesn’t give them enough water, keeps them near hungry and dangerous animals (pre-Judge wolves and Judges it seems.) He then gives them a bowl of raw meat that one can read as implied to be human flesh, particularly if Pratt’s anecdote about going hunting in what ends up being not-a-dream from online sources is taken into consideration, as mentioned in a previous writing-about-writing post. Link here to the audio, (credit and thanks to hopecountyradio,) transcription below: “I had a dream once that Jacob took me on a hunt. We shot some deer and he asked me to skin 'em. As I was cuttin’ ‘em open they changed. It wasn’t deer. I...I don’t think it was a dream.”

Obviously one can make some assumptions of Whitetail Militia imagery being used here, particularly given that one of the slides on the projector screens during the Trials includes a picture of Eli with antlers iirc (that may be only during the later trials or the last one, I am uncertain.) Ties right into the whole “the weak must be culled,” and “you are meat,” slogans Jacob’s got all over the place. The “only you” slogans and graffiti could also serve to foster the loneliness and isolation aspect of making the choice “to make the sacrifice” ie, the symbolic choice of killing Miller, or his surrogate equivalent in the case of everyone else that Jacob puts through his trials. I haven’t seen a lot regarding Miller’s ties to Jacob from in-game content but I could have missed something easily. The wiki labels Miller as Jacob’s friend, though I wish we had more detail on that. Most certainly, Miller was a member of Jacob’s unit, which based off of some reading and browsing on the internet, should still be a pretty close tie whether or not they were friends. The following speculation is based on my own interpretations of the matter and I have no history of serving in the Armed Forces, so if I’m mistaken or such feel free to drop me a line to let me know. Continuing: even if they theoretically hated each other’s guts, they were still a part of the unit, a part of the Army. That means they and their other brothers-in-arms lived together and fought together. They ate as a group, slept as a group, watched each others’ backs while on watch or during a firefight, fought along side each other, and did their best to keep each other alive while fulfilling the mission objective, working together as individuals brought together in a cohesive unit that also was a part of the whole. They all knew they had each others’ backs and that the others did the same for them in turn. Shifting between life-or-death situations and more peaceful times, it creates a bond and social structure that is very unlike most common, modern civilian social structures. There certainly at least seems to be a bit of culture shock in the US between the two environs, and Jacob seems to have experienced that, based on what we hear of his backstory in The Book of Joseph of having little to no support once back in civilian life (ie: deeply traumatized and staying in veteran hospitals until he ran out of money and ended up in homeless shelters) after being discharged from the Army. In the Armed Forces it’s about the group, rather than the individual. Imagine having that, knowing that, after being through all that Jacob has potentially been through. To have brothers in arms if not by blood by his side who he protects, who also protect him against the hostility of the world they’re fighting against. This is not to ding Joseph or John as characters by the way, all three of them were children at that point and shouldn’t have had to deal with any of that. Jacob loses what ties of family he holds dear with his blood brothers once he’s put into Juvie, perhaps makes friends there but is likely on his own once he’s out again, with very poor prospects given his history, and then he enlists. He’s alone and without support before he joins the military, and then suddenly he’s in an environment where there IS a form of support, and it’s predictable and structured down to the last bootlace (note: that’s a very broad statement and does not include variance and personal experiences, nor possible issues with potential power abuse or other flaws that might arise in such group structures.) Imagine Jacob being in the Army long enough to get used to that, to enjoy that aspect of it all, to share the camaraderie of bitching about the heat of the sun, sand in their socks, and getting yet another package of their least favorite MRE while trying to wheedle a trade with someone else for something better. Imagine him doing that with Miller, knowing how the other man likes the sugar cookie desserts in one MRE package and hates how the chocolate bars melt from the desert heat in another. Knowing what each others’ tells and bluffs are from playing poker on their down time while on a tour. Swapping stories about home...and noticing who doesn’t want to talk about the life they had before enlisting. Talking about the things they miss, the people they miss. Knowing who snores, who’s a light sleeper, all those things you learn when you’re in close proximity to a person for perhaps up to two years or so depending on deployment length. It could also be they’ve been deployed together more than once, as Jacob certainly went out on multiple tours per The Book of Joseph once again. Imagine Jacob knowing all of that and more about Miller. Then, day after day after day of being lost in the desert, with starvation eating away at their rationality, that hollow pain in their guts as their bodies start burning through their own cells and reserves to try to stay alive, running out of water and having to take chances with any drinking source they can find in the environment and having to expend precious energy to try or die early from dehydration, probably not sleeping well from the hunger, exhaustion, stress, possible enemy presence, dangerous wildlife... The brain starts shutting down real quick once we don’t have the resources it needs to run optimally. Some faster than others, but in Jacob and Miller’s case, their ordeal is definitely long enough to put them into that mindset of feeling that primal fear of a slow death by famine, weakness, scarcity. The psychological toll would have been heavy without a doubt, and that might’ve been compounded by experiences in Jacob’s childhood if his parents were not dutiful in buying food more regularly, which easily could be the case. Old Mad Seed needs more whiskey this month to fuel his raging, drunken fits of spewing biblical verses in a tyrannical fashion? There goes the money for the last few days of food. Easily could be how Jacob got into stealing candy (and likely also food in that case) for himself and his brothers. So Jacob would have a good idea of some of what’s coming down the pipe in that case. He knows how long the trip is, can reckon how fast the two can travel. Maybe he starts out hopeful in a grim way to start... ...but over time as things get more and more desperate (and it could be a familiar desperation he’s felt before as a kid going hungry, only worse,) “And I looked at Miller and I could tell we were as good as dead. And I accepted that. And in that acceptance...came clarity.” That clarity could very well be that Jacob decided that morality was futile if it meant you didn’t survive, which could very well be a very world-breaking revelation for him, since he is mentioned in his backstory to have had a praiseworthy sense of honor among other things. Certainly is potentially spirit breaking to go from being the older brother, the brother-in-arms who relied on and was relied on, who was trusted, to being a betrayer of that trust. A Judas, one could say, as he calls Pratt in his video after Pratt has helped the Deputy escape. And what does Jacob make the Deputy become, in relation to Eli? Eli, the man the Deputy was rescued by, was aided by, has been working alongside this entire time. Eli, who trusts and relies on the Deputy. Eli, who it could be said betrayed Jacob’s friendship with him by choosing not to hand over the Whitetail Militia and join Eden’s Gate (from Jacob’s perspective, based on his final fight dialogue.) “Hey. Only you could have gotten this close. Only you could have earned his trust. It was always only ever you. Good work. You did it. You passed your test. You made your sacrifice. But now...you’re alone. And you’re weak. And we know what happens to the weak.” That might seem contradictory at first, since in theory making the sacrifice should make one “strong” by Jacob’s line of reasoning, one might think. But the Deputy is a “traitor” now—to the Whitetail Militia by brainwashing (temporarily as we the audience know, pending Jacob’s death,) and to Jacob by choice, if one takes the following lines from Jacob into consideration: “You’ve forgotten your purpose, Deputy. You were on the path of the Chosen but now you’ve strayed. Fear did this to you, but don’t worry, I can help with that. I can remove your fear and give you strength. It’s not too late. Come back to me. Remember your purpose.” ”Deputy, know that I still have hope for you, but if you continue to support Eli and his merry band of cowards, that hope will cease to exist. Your judgement is cloudy because your mind is weak, but I have confidence you’ll make the right choice in the end. If not—you’ll all pay in blood.” Link to the audio for the above two lines here (credit and appreciation to hopecountyradio once more.) As with the other Seeds, Jacob starts out trying to persuade the Deputy to “see the light” and join the Project, but as with all of them, as the resistance meter rises and we draw closer to the final confrontation with him, he and the others abandon that idea in favor of trying to end the Deputy instead. So in this possible interpretation, it could be that Jacob views both the Deputy and Eli as traitors both. However...the two situations while both likely quite weighty with the Deputy being “the chosen one” to kick off the Collapse (or a herald of the Collapse if one wants to be cute with wording,) and Eli being an ex-good-friend or perhaps even ex-best-friend of Jacob’s, are potentially vastly different in emotional weight to Jacob. The Deputy is all tied up with this Collapse business, and while Jacob isn’t sure if Joseph talks to God, he does support him, what with being a Herald in the cult and all that. It involves the fate of the family, and in particular, Jacob’s family—his brothers and sister. Eli, however, Jacob has known for a while, likely years, back during the construction of the bunkers which Eli helped with, possibly and likely before then. I personally lean towards interpreting that as they struck up the beginning of a friendship, and Jacob hired Eli and his crew to help with the construction of the cult’s bunkers. Where they had their falling out is less clear as far as I’m aware. It could be it was during or after construction that Eli got a bad feeling about all of this Eden’s Gate business, or perhaps even as late as the beginning of the Reaping if that’s when Jacob gave Eli the “chance” to hand over his Whitetail Militia members, as mentioned in his final boss battle red-bliss section. That could’ve been the breaking point for Jacob and Eli, and if Jacob was expecting Eli to side with him due to friendship and perhaps some shared beliefs...perhaps Jacob took that...poorly. And by poorly I mean went full out on revenge of having Eli killed by betrayal of someone he’d chosen to trust—someone that Jacob had already gotten his hooks into. Someone Eli needed, in this fight against Jacob. Someone like the Deputy. The Deputy, who’s been put through starvation, exposure, and ingrained through conditioning and likely a liberal use of Bliss to facilitate said conditioning, to hunt. To train. To kill. To sacrifice. “You take away a man’s basic needs, and he will revert to his primordial instinct in just ten days.” [Chuckles.] “Ah, that’s a difficult thing to understand unless you’ve lived it...” This is what Jacob is putting the “recruits” and the Deputy through—his revelation. His experience. His choice. In the end as Jacob succumbs to his injuries, he is weak, he is dying, and he knows it, looking at the Deputy in his final scene. This time, he is the one who is sacrificed, by the Deputy, and in Jacob’s eyes by Joseph, to either try to end the chaos spread across the county, or to break a seal respectively. Jacob’s death is a means to an end—as Miller’s was. And Jacob “accepts that,” as he puts it. Does he accept it because now he’s betrayed the trust and faith of potentially two people he might’ve been close to? Miller, and then Eli? Is Jacob conditioning the Deputy during that red-bliss sequence of his boss fight to kill Jacob, based on how there are bliss-hallucinations of Jacob to shoot while destroying the beacons? There’s the generic Whitetail fighter, Judges, and Jacob himself scattered across the landscape before ending that sequence as far as I’m aware. Both Jacob and the Whitetail fighter present could be interpreted in this line of thinking as echoing the supposed betrayal of both sides and being “alone” against the world in a nightmarish fashion while Jacob potentially tries to break the Deputy through talking and said nightmare. The way Jacob talks though...is he strictly speaking to us, or is the Deputy actually a mirror as it were, with the things Jacob says being applicable to himself? “Don’t you find it ironic that everyone you try to help ends up worse off? Eli...Pratt...Tragedy just follows you. If you really wanted to keep people safe, be a hero...you’d just off yourself. Safer for everyone that way.” Is Jacob REALLY talking to us, or to himself through a medium? Through a glass darkly, as it were. He “tried” to “help” Eli and Pratt, in his twisted fashion, by trying to get Eli previously to join the Project and to make Pratt strong enough via brainwashing to also join the Project, which in Jacob’s perspective if he’s following his and Joseph’s dogma, is the only way to survive the Collapse. But Jacob has failed, repeatedly, to protect the people he held dear—his family. His friends. He’s become the threat they need protecting from. He has irrevocably perhaps proven to himself that under the right circumstances? He’s willing to betray people he holds dear for his own survival. Would he betray his family? That is the question, isn’t it. Perhaps Jacob fears finding out. Maybe he fears, that under the right circumstances, he would. Maybe that’s why he goes so willingly to be Joseph’s sacrifice, in part. Maybe having orchestrated Eli’s death, the death of yet one more person whom he was once friends with, yet one more person Jacob himself has betrayed, maybe Jacob doesn’t want to continue either. Maybe that’s the last straw, the nail in the coffin of underlying beliefs that Jacob is inherently not someone who can be fully trusted. Maybe he genuinely thought Eli would join him if given the chance. Maybe Jacob was still hollow and brittle as hell from the first time he’d killed a friend, when he killed Miller. All the Seeds bear the weight of their pasts heavily, and Jacob’s no exception. Jacob survived the first time, barely. He survived the second time, but not by long. He starts talking about his potential death at the Deputy’s hands quite early on during the red-bliss segment. Neither John nor Faith nor Joseph to my knowledge do so. Maybe he was waiting for the Deputy to be strong enough to finish what no one else could. Maybe that was what he wanted. “There’s no “win” for you here. It all ends bloody. For everyone. You die now, or you die later. It’s up to you. But either way? You won’t die a hero.” Perhaps that line from Jacob also is one of the things he fears most—dying without purpose. Dying being not a hero, a person who’s done good for others, but rather the opposite. Ironically so, given that he and his family are all in the torture and brainwashing business, but Jacob in particular gave up on being a good person a long time ago, I think, even by the cult’s standards. [Link to part two here.] [Link to part three here.]

[ohayohimawari]

How do you think Kakashi dealt with learning how to use computers and the internet?

This is one of the best questions I could hope to receive, and of course, it would come from you. Thank you forever for asking this. Between you and I and everyone reading this, I’m so glad to have found a kindred spirit when it comes to headcanons, queries, and opinions about this character. This is yet another occasion where we find ourselves wondering the same thing about this dork because as it happens, I’ve actually written a fic about Kakashi interacting online haha! But I’ll get to that later, first things first.

While there are plenty of utility poles connected by multiple wires scattered around Konoha, I can’t think of an example in the original series where I see someone actively using modern technological devices. The Sandaime had his crystal ball in the first few episodes (what the heck was that anyway and where did it go?); the Leaf Village has electricity and running water, they use radios and television, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a character use even a landline telephone until Boruto. Then in the last opening theme of the Shippuden anime, we find the Rokudaime Hokage typing away on a laptop. Did that seem like a big jump to you? It seemed like a big jump to me. My job as a fanfiction writer is to pave over these potholes, and so, I like to think of Konoha as one of those out-of-reach places that suddenly found itself thrust into the established, exploding world of modern technology.

I’ve seen that meme that asks what Kakashi accomplished as Hokage, and besides blowing up the moon, I think he was the right man at the right time to begin Konoha’s modernization, complete with internet access.

Kakashi wouldn’t be suspicious of, or stubborn about using computers and the internet (for the most part, more on this later). I think he would see the benefits of using computers right from the get-go. He would be especially intrigued by the internet, as a ninja that understands the importance of information.

When it comes to learning how to use computers and the internet, I’m willing to bet that Kakashi is mostly self-taught. I would think that after one day of tentative typing with only his index fingers, he would make it a priority to familiarize himself with the keyboard layout, first. He was a fast learner before he acquired the sharingan, so I don’t think losing it would prevent him from quickly picking up on this skill. The next order of business would be learning basic computer functions. For this, he would definitely seek out a book to study from, and he would practice on his own. Not sure if this matters, but you know how I love the details-he wouldn’t have a computer for his home just yet. At this stage, this would be ‘work’ to the Rokudaime, so he keeps his laptop in his office. He would practice after hours, and definitely on the weekends, but at first, I think Kakashi prefers to be unplugged when he’s at home.

The first email account he’d set up would be for professional reasons too. Kakashi has never liked honorifics or titles, so I honestly think his first email address would be something like khatake@konoha.landoffire.ninjadorksverse. He would soon realize that he needed a personal email for private correspondence. Since I imagine he would use this address to keep in touch with old ANBU buddies staked out at Orochimaru’s pad, or former students while they’re on a journey of redemption, this (free) account might be t3amwork@leafmail.

It’s when Kakashi enters the www that things start to get away from him.

He’d definitely wait until he was alone in his office, but not for the reasons that most of the fans of this naughty ninja might think. Kakashi’s first internet search would be harmless and general, but what starts off as seemingly simple would quickly devolve into chaos as he clicks his way through hyperlinks that tempt him further and further from his original target. The Copy Nin is not immune to falling down the internet rabbit hole.

It would be after 1am, and he’d have 253 open tabs when he stops to wonder why he’s watching a video of a hamster eating a tiny burrito. I think Kakashi would be as surprised as the rest of us by the things he never knew he wanted to know as he saves and closes his way back out. Shikamaru would explain “cookies,” and show him how to delete his internet search history the following workday. It wouldn’t be long though before Kakashi gets a handle on this too, after experiencing the perils of exposure to too much information. He’d start employing the incognito feature when searching exactly what you’d expect him to search. He’d create a Hotmail account under the name of his favorite Icha-Icha character for the sole reason of signing up for free trials. He’d make good use of the WebMD site.

After Kakashi is more comfortable navigating the internet, he turns to it more often during his leisure time, and at home. I think he’d develop a healthy interest in gadgets. He’d totally get a smartphone, and he’d be smart enough to not give his number to many people. I imagine him investing in a tablet for the purpose of reading, which he winds up not using as much as he thought he would (he prefers the familiar feel of pages between his fingers). After that experience, he’d want to stay in the loop about tech toys without getting caught up in the craze surrounding them. Kakashi would watch and wait, carefully considering his options before upgrading his own devices.

What I think Kakashi would not embrace is social networking. Not that he doesn’t want to stay connected with friends and acquaintances, I just think he wouldn’t want to post about himself, haha. He’d be that Facebook friend that reacts but never comments. The rare posts you see from him would be photos of his ninken (never of himself), maybe some of his meals, and the automatically generated ones that announce he’s beaten a level on the games he plays.

I kinda, sorta touch upon this in the fic I mentioned at the beginning of my answer, so I’ll wrap this up with a link to it (if I can in the answer format-Tumblr keeps eating my ‘read more’ cuts so who knows what will happen). It’s about Shikamaru introducing Kakashi to instant messaging and Discord (and he stumbles upon a server that you and I are both familiar with, lol). Also, it’s the crackiest crack fic I’ve ever written. I hope you enjoy it!

Modern Mis(ter)communication

Rated: M

XOXO

[write-mywayout]

You asked for fic prompts and if you would, the Umbrella Academy kids picking names and Klaus getting his from the "A Series of Unfortunate Events" novels would be great. Or anything fluffy and Klaus related, honestly. (Have a nice trip)

here you go!! hope you enjoy it, please send me more prompts!!

~

The lives of the Hargreeves children were less than normal. Everyone circumstance beginning from their birth had left the seven siblings vulnerable to imaginable amounts of grief, pain, and danger. Each one of them had their way of escaping, if only for a time, from the grim reality that was their lives. Number One found that running drills and sprinting miles helped to clear his head, channeling the emotional exhaustion into a physical one. Number Two liked to sit and watch Grace cross-stitch, the threading of the needle in constant and precise movements serving almost as a type of hypnosis. Number Three enjoyed painting, everything from a canvas to her fingernails to the makeup on her face; she liked the feeling that she could create something out of nothing and had the power to change it whenever she pleased. Number Four loved to design clothes. He would never be able to make or wear any of them considering his forced profession and uniform (not to mention the fact that sewing was not an activity approved for boys), but that didn’t stop him from filling sketchpad after sketch pad with drawings that would rival the runways in Milan. Number Five found solace in cooking, whether this was convincing Grace to let him help with her preparation of meals when he wasn’t training, or simply standing beside her and watching (this happened more often than not since trainings left him generally fatigued). Number Six was an avid reader, he found a kinship in tales of sorrow and monsters, allowing himself to momentarily project into a world where these horrors were not his own but someone else’s. Number Seven drowned herself in music. Once she picked up her father’s old violin, her fingertips itched for new pieces to learn and songs to play.

It is no surprise that these great escape artists would cross paths in their endeavors. Number Seven would bake cookies with Grace while the others were on missions, getting tips from Number Five on how to make the edges crispy while keeping the inside gooey. On their rare days off, Number Four would dress up Number Three in daring outfits, playing music on Number One’s record player and having her strut down the hall to show the others the costumes he had put together for their little fashion show—at the end of which Number Four would come out and bow, giving a small wave with fingernails freshly painted by his runway model. Number Two liked the quiet serenity that followed Number Six when he was tucked away in the corner of the library, enthralled in his latest novel, and would often come and just sit and share the silent peace.

Most of the children eventually followed suit in regards to this specific activity. While Number Two and Number Six still shared their private, hushed reading time, the others gradually began to gravitate toward the calm presence that surrounded Number Six when he was reading. This led to a Sunday night tradition amongst the kids, in which they would all drag pillows from their rooms and curl up next to the fire place in the library after dinner to listen to Number Six read books aloud. It was unspoken that no one talked during this time, unless to ask for clarification or for a part to be repeated. It was a sanctuary away from competition and petty disputes, granting each child the escape that it was.

They tore through every genre. Number Three and Number Four thought Crime and Punishment was a little dense, Number One loved Catch 22 in all it’s confusing wartime glory, Number Five enjoyed the wit and sarcasm of Hamlet, and Number Seven reveled in anything written by Vonnegut (she used to say that “he writes the way music would sound if it were made of words”). The fan favorites, however, were the Series of Unfortunate Events books. To no one’s surprise, all the children felt a connection to the trials and tribulations faced by the Baudelaire orphans. They commiserated the loss of parents and a normal home life, the presence of overbearing and wicked adults who refused to listen, and the overall feeling that their life was indeed the result of a series of terribly lamentable factors.

They were gearing up to finish the third book in the series the night their father announced at dinner that they would be allowed to choose their own names, per approval from Grace. They were allotted twenty four hours to decide. While they all habitually gathered around Number Six near the fire that Sunday night, story time was recklessly abandoned with the excitement and approaching deadline regarding the choosing of their names.

“Should we try to do some sort of theme?” suggested Number Seven.

“Are you kidding? I have waited way too long for this to not make my own, very individual decision,” Number Three said, twisting her curls into a large bun that sat on top of her head.

“I don’t get why we have to be the ones to choose,” grumbled Number One. “I’m just gonna let Grace pick mine, she’ll know what Dad prefers anyway.”

“Sounds about right. Why think for yourself when you could have someone else do it for you?” Number Two mocked.

“Hey! No arguing during story time! You guys know the rules,” Number Four interjected with a disapproving wave of his hands in their direction, subtly scooting himself between the two to act as a physical barrier.

“Six isn’t even reading anything,” Number Five pointed out.

“Well it’s the principle.”

“Ben,” Number Six said softly.

“What?” Number Two asked.

“I think I like the name Ben.”

“That’s so boring,” Number Three laughed. Ben just shrugged.

“I think it suits you,” Number Seven offered with a small smile. Ben returned it with a shy grin of his own.

“Thanks.”

“Anyway, if we’re getting to choose our own names I’m gonna do something cool. Like Storm or Panther or Rocket,” Number Two said excitedly.

“You do realize that all those names just sound like the ones the magazines already give us?” Ben pointed out.

“So what? They give them to us because they think we’re cool.”

“They think I’m cool, but definitely not you,” Number Three teased. Number Two stuck his tongue out in her direction.

“Alright your majesty, so what’s your name gonna be?”

“Hmm, I was thinking something stylish but not too outlandish. Like classy, in an elegant kind of way.”

“Maybe Charlotte?” Number Seven suggested.

“Nah, I don’t want people calling me Charlie. I am so not a Charlie.”

“While you workshop that, I will be naming myself Klaus,” announced Number Four.

“Klaus?” Number One questioned with a subtle look of condemnation.

“Yeah! It’s different, it’s memorable, and it’s…” Number Four mumbled the last part.

“It’s what?” asked Number Five.

“It’s the name of my favorite book character ok?” Number Four said, eyes fixated on the fireplace as his cheeks burned red. Ben smiled next to him.

“Really? Klaus is your favorite character? I would’ve thought you resonated more with Count Olaf. I mean, you do have a similar taste in fashion and flare for the dramatic,” Number Three jabbed.

“Hey! I am not Count Olaf! And his outfits are way tacky, I am honestly offended that you would compare the two of us,” Number Four feigned hurt. “And I like Klaus he’s… smart. He uses knowledge to figure things out and create stuff. And he doesn’t get scared, because he knows he can always find a way to escape, and that he has his family to help him out if he can’t.”

Number Four didn’t want to say it out loud but Klaus was kind of his hero. He dreamt of being as smart as he was, desperate to offer some sort of offensive skill to their team. He knew what the others thought about him sometimes when they went on missions. Sure he was no Number Seven, he did have certified powers after all, but his abilities didn’t really serve in stopping bank robbers or rescuing civilians. And secretly, Number Four always admired Number Six, or Ben now it seemed, for his intelligence. Sometimes he would ask questions while he was reading just to hear him explain the intricacies of some military term or seventeenth century city he didn’t care about simply because he liked to hear someone who knew things talk about them. And, unbeknownst to the others, the two of them would sometimes sneak into each others rooms at night and go under the covers with flashlights to read ahead in their story time books. It never bothered Number Four to hear the chapters again on Sunday, and Ben didn’t seem to mind telling them for a second time.

The rest of the group sat silently for a moment taking in his words. It wasn’t often that Number Four seemed to think something through this thoroughly and then decide to share it. As loud and outgoing as he could be, he never really talked about things of substance. They all knew that he dealt with issues they didn’t—it’s hard not to hear him scream in his nightmares when it reverberates through a silent mansion in the dead of night—but that part of Number Four is always tucked very far away from the sunlight and from the others. Whether that was by choice or necessity, no one was really sure.

“I think it’s perfect… Klaus,” Number Seven encouraged, placing her hand lightly over his and giving it a squeeze.

“Thank you! You can be my Violet Seven,” Klaus smiled and squeezed her hand back. The gesture, both physical and metaphorical with the naming of her as his partner in crime, lit Number Seven’s face with joy.

“Maybe I will be Violet,” she agreed, almost in a whisper.

“Whatever. I’m going to be named Rocket,” Number Two boasted.

~

Number Two was not named Rocket.

Grace met with each of them the next day before dinner to discuss the choices they had come up with and to make sure that they would be Reginald approved, as they were to announce them at the close of the evening’s meal.

Because Number One arrived bearing no opinion on the matter, he picked a name at random from a pre-approved list that their father had drawn up. He felt smug, knowing that this would likely please his father since he was sure that none of his other siblings would dare give up the chance to not let their father decide something. His name, second row and third from the bottom, would be Luther.

Number Two was not happy when all of his name choices were shot down by Grace. He argued that she should be on his side and say screw it to what their father wanted, to which she replied that there were no sides and that he should not use “screw” in that context. He refused to pick from the pre-approved list, so the two of them workshopped a few choices before landing on something Number Two felt was cool enough and that Grace thought Reginald would sign off on. Number Two’s name would be Diego.

Number Three had spent all night going back and forth between names. She was flipping through a magazine when she landed on a photo of a smiling girl, teeth white and head thrown back in laughter, with a quote about how much fun she was having with her friends at this summer’s newest water park attraction. Her fingers stalled on the page, locking eyes with the girl in the photo and wishing that she could trade places with her. She couldn’t help herself from choosing the name scribbled across the model’s photo in bright pink, and so Number Three would be Allison.

To his surprise, Number Four’s name choice was approved without much debate. Grace felt the name was robust and reasonable, which would make Reginald happy, and that it was just as unique as Number Four himself. Without much fuss, Number Four was granted his request and would be Klaus.

Number Six faired similarly to Number Four. His choice in name didn’t spark much concern from Grace, other than the modification that his name must be officially documented in its full version. And so, Number Six would be Ben (officially Benjamin).

Although Number Seven proposed the name Violet to Grace, she was shot down as their father had apparently ruled against the use of colors as names. After seeing her disappoint, Grace compromised by agreeing to let her keep a V name. Number Seven had always loved languages, her favorite being Russian, so Grace decided to choose a name to match. Number Seven would be Vanya.

Number Five would disappear that night during the dinner at which they were all to announce their names. When he didn’t return by the meal’s end, Reginald decided to proceed without him. The children all presented their names, Vanya having to prompt Ben as he had left a customary place for Five to speak in between him and Klaus. When Number Five failed to return late into that night, the kids all snuck into the library one by one, each finding the others waiting for them in a mutual state of insomnia, feeling the need to return to a place of solace and escape. They lit a dim fire and huddled close together, leaning in to hear Ben as he read the book in a whispered tone. Their day of happiness had been overtaken by one of fear and loss, and as each child revelled in their new names they couldn’t help but feel guilty, knowing that somewhere out there, Number Five was still just a number.

[smilesthroughfandoms]

Every Single Star vs. the Forces of Evil episode in one sentence or less

I’ll probably post a more in depth-review later this week, as I have opinions literally no one wants to hear but I will proclaim anyway, and then I’ll probably also due a revision of my ‘Past Queens Connection to Star’ post from way back in season 2. Cause that needs an update.

Anyway, enjoy!

Star Comes to Earth: Princess Cinnamon Roll that Could Kill you comes to earth and meets Misunderstood Safe Kid.

Party With a Pony: Spoopy Wardens hunt for the glitter pony while Star gets ice for Marco’s sweaty back.

Matchmaker: In which we learn it was probably a bad idea to give Star the wand in the first place.

School Spirit: Star misunderstands football and Marco tries to get Ferguson to blow his whistle not in that way.

Monster Arm: “Not my bowels! I love my bowels!”

The Other Exchange Student: Star is jealous of the meatball man from Bakersfieldville.

Cheer Up Star: “It’s supposed to be ironic!”

Quest Buy: Very accurate depiction of what it is like to work in retail.

Diaz Family Vacation: Both Marco and Star see new sides of their dads but that’s not necessarily a good thing

Brittney’s Party: Star and Marco party on a bus that Ludo hijacks

Mewberty: Star gets horny and snares boys in her web but not in that way

Pixtopia: Marco messed up and Alfonso marries Ferguson’s rebound

Lobster Claws: “… You can’t eat children.” “Really? Not even the annoying ones?”

Sleep Spell: “Camera Phooone!”

Blood Moon Ball: We’re suppose to ship them now, right?

Fortune Cookies: Love is never the answer kids

Freeze Day: Father Time offers Star and Marco some mud before riding away on his wheel-mobile pulled by giant time-hamsters I am not making this up.

Royal Pain: King Santa Claus destroy mini-golf

St. Olga’s Reform School for Wayward Princesses: Princess Prison sure is a nightma–OH MY GOD ARE THOSE CLUBS?!

Mewnipendence Day: No wonder monsters hate Mewmans so much.

The Banagic Wand: Star still doesn’t get Earth and like all of us, Marco is always hungry.

Interdemensional Field Trip: Miss Skullnick fears the “Big Change” while Marco sends Jackie cat memes

Marco Grows a Beard: Ludo is out, Toffee is in, and Marco will probbaly be terrified of beards forever

Storm the Castle: “SURPRISE!”

My New Wand!: DIP DOOOWN

Ludo in the Wild: Wait, since when did Ludo become badass?

Mr. Candle Cares: “Star and I have recently become smooch buddies… On the lips.”

Red Belt: Marco searches for a meaning in life and Star searches for hammer.

Star on Wheels: *epic remix of Marco saying Star is in trouble*

Fetch: Marco can’t open juice and Star runs away from her problems and sending thank you cards

Star vs. Echo Creek: Star gets high and destroys a police car

Wand to Wand: Both Ludo and Star are terrible at magic also major ship tease

Starstruck: Star and her idol Sailor Super Saiyan destroy a park and Marco is 100002% done with this shit

Camping Trip: King Butterfly has a mid-life crisis and tries to control an eagle

Starsitting: They’re gonna be great parents some day.

On the Job: Buff Dad is best dad and buff babies are adorable

Goblin Dogs: “You might think this line is long, but listen to my goblin song!~”

By the Book: Ludo and Star still suck at magic and Glossaryck is a bigger troll than Alex Hirsch

Game of Flags: And I thought my family was dysfunctional...

Girls’ Day Out: Janna is back and is still awesome btw

Sleepover: “TRUTH! STAR HAS A CRUSH ON MA–” *cue fandom freakout*

Gift of the Card: R.I.P.  Rasticore Chaosus Disastorvayne… He couldn’ get his fucking chainsaw to work

Friendenemies: Star becomes one with Christmas tree while Tom and Marco go on a date and sing a romantic pop ballad.

Is Mystery: Meatfork is apparently a family name and Ludo is really starting to freak me out tbh

Hungry Larry: “He’s still hungry…”

Spider with a Top Hat: He tries and he is awesome and that’s all that matters

Into the Wand: SPAAAAADESS!!!

Pizza Thing: Marco is OCD about mushroom and Pony Head buys skinny jeans

Page Turner: Moon, how did you miss Toffee in the orb he was right there!

Naysaya: Marco is a mood in this episode

Bon Bon the Birthday Clown: Honestly my favorite episode overall

Raid the Cave: Glossaryck is the true neutral asshole.

Trickstar: Weird Al is a treasure and I’ll mes up anyone who makes Marco cry!

Baby: Aw, look at the little deadly baby, I love her!

Running With Scissors: Marco gets a new edition to his shipping harem and she is so cute!

Mathmagic: Why did the chicken cross the road?

The Bounce Lounge: Marco is definitely the mom friend.

Crystal Clear: The Chancellor guy is amazing and Rhombulus just needs a hug and wAS THAT ECLIPSA IN THE BACKGROUND?

The Hard Way: “SURPRISE!” 2.0

Heinous: Oh, so that’s how Marco got all that money.

All Belts Are Off: This is the negative side of “Pro-tag teen hangs out with older adult figure” trope done splendidly

Collateral Damage: Marco how do you not know what a possum is?

Just Friends: I’m fine! *blows up sign to prove just how fine I am*

Face the Music: This song is actually a banger

Star Crushed: Looking back, I’m starting to think the writing peaked at this episode....

BATTLE FOR MEWNI EDITION!!!!!

Return to Mewni: This is… just an exposition filler. Not much else to say….

Moon the Undaunted: B4! B4! B4 B4 B4 B4 B4 B4 B4 B4 B4 B4!

Book Be Gone: Seriously, did Glossy take trolling lessons from Alex Hirsch this is hilarious!

Marco and the King: This is the  “Pro-tag teen hangs out with older adult figure” done slightly better

Puddle Defender: Aw, look at the little buff babies, they’re getting so big!

King Ludo: The mime stole the show.

Toffee: Yeah, I think the writing peaked somewhere around here...

Scent of Hoodie: Huh, so Ponyhead can be written as likeable, who would’ve thought?

Rest in Pudding: The colors are not doing the censors any favor here, huh?

Club Snubbed: I literally yelled “Phrasing!” whenever they dropped the title

Stranger Danger: Is she the new antagonist of the series? I can’t tell

Demoncism: Tom is a wonderful baby boy and Ponyhead is written as likeable, part 2!

Sophmore Slump: *sobbing* Jackie deserved better, dang it!

Lint Catcher: I’m starting to wonder if there is any competant authority figure in Mewni

Trial by Squire: I think the writers were all like” You think these guys will ship anyone with Marco?” and decided to test that theory.

Princess Turdina: I got more lore out of this episode than I thought I would.

Starfari: Welp, she makes me uncomfortable.

Sweet Dreams: *Sailor Moon-ing intensifies*

Lava Lake Beack: Proof that this fandom will ship anyone with Marco at the slightest inclanation

Death Peck: Rich Pigeon is my new favorite birb and Ponyhead is written as likeable for the third time

Ponymonium: Well, it was nice while it lasted.

Night Life: The writers made so many new ships they had to get rid of an old one!

Deep Dive: “Chicken butt”

Monster Bash: Well, that explains the cheekmarks.

Stump Day: I think they just made an episode based around a picture from that bookcover.

Holiday Special: *insert every cheesy Christmas/Holiday episode trope here*

The Bog Beast of Boggabah: The title is fun to say and the episode is average at best.

Total Eclipsa the Moon: Seriously, I’m supposed to think she’s an ultimate villain.

Butterfly Trap: In which we are all Sean, don’t lie we were all him at the end

Ludo, Where Art Thou?: Dennis is best brother, hands down.

Is Another Mystery: *sniff* I got more emotional over this episode than anyone else did and I’m not sure how I feel about that

Marco Jr.: I… I just… Why? What’s the point?

Skooled!: Epic advertisment fakeout combined with wonderful character development and lore with a shock ending makes a 8/10 episode.

Booth Buddies: Old Man McGucket ships Starco, proceed to react accordingly

Bam Ui Pati!: Ponyhead is kinda likeable in this episod–nevermind she’s back.

Tough Love: Oh man, it’s happening! It’s happening guys here we go!

Divide: We are going to war everybody–And they’re all dead. That was quick.

Conquer: They should have paid Alex HIrsch to voice Glossaryck at this point, it’d be more in character for him.

Butterfly Follies: Proof that someone will always complain about politics no matter what.

Escape from the Pie Folk: Is anyone else disturbed by the fact that he kinda resembles Eclipsa more than Festivia?

Moon Remembers: I was expecting a freakout but was pleasantly surprised

Swim Suit: I’m starting to get a bad feeling about Rhombulus

Ransomgram: Why is everyone in this dimesnion hot?!

Lake House Fever: She’s a good mom

Yada Yada Berries: They missed an opportunity to have a Seinfeld actor guest-star, just saying

Down by the River: I’m glad that she can relax

The Ponyhead Show!: And Ponyhead is offically no longer likeable, can someone toss her into an abyss please?

Surviving the Spiderbites: SpiderSlime is canon proceed to react accordingly

Out of Buisness: How did this place go out of buisness???

Kelly's World: Man, they’re really setting these non-Starco ships up to fail, huh?

Curse of the Blood Moon: Pfft, yeah, sure, Starco won’t be canon at all!

Princess Quasar Caterpillar and the Magic Bell: I think Ludo has the most consistent character arc out of the entire show’s history.

Ghost of Butterfly Castle: Moon, Star is your daughter and Star supports Eclipsa, why would you not tell her?

Cornball: This episode has a heartwarming lesson that I hope more people come to realize

Meteora's Lesson: I’ll take any Toffee scenes I can get

The Knight Shift: I honestly don’t remember what happened n this episode

Queen-Napped: Seriously, can someone please dropkick Ponyhead into an abyss?

Junkin' Janna: The JanTom interaction I’ve been waiting for

A Spell with No Name: These types of episodes stopped being charming awhile ago

A Boy and His DC-700XE: I think Tomco has more ground to stand-on then Starco at this point

The Monster and The Queen: Don Panchito voices Globgor! There’s hope for this show yet!

Cornonation: They’re the best couple/parents/anything around!

Doop-Doop: I honestly think Rick just put Morty through some flux-capacitor or something

Britta's Tacos: Hey, remember these people that we suddenly brought back? No? Me neither!

Beach Day: This feels like a Season 1 episode and it’s nice

Gone Baby Gone: I want a TV show aout them now! Disney, please!

Sad Teen Hotline: Mr. Diaz is way to invested in Star’s love life.

Jannanigans: Hello last minute Janna character development!

Mama Star: So that’s how Mewni came to be--and I don’t care anymore

Ready, Aim, Fire!: Let’s get that finale ball rolling people!

The Right Way: Ok, that spell is actually pretty badass.

Here to Help: There, Starco’s finally canon will you guys just shut up now!

Pizza Party: Moon you idiot you ruined everything!

The Tavern at the End of the Multiverse: Toffee was right all along... I think we all knew that in some way

Cleaved: I expect nothing substanial and that’s what I got

[dukeofriven]

Re-Reading Good Omens After Fifteen-Plus Years: A Review

[I a so sorry I didn’t get a chance to finish it before the show dropped the way i wanted - I had to bow out of Tumblr for most of the last few weeks to focus on a project. Bugger bugger bugger. Here it is now, later that I would have liked. Apologies, gentle readers. Spoilers, obviously for the whole book] I last read Good Omens some fifteen to seventeen years ago for probably the tenth or even twentieth time. I read it a lot. In the heady days of... I want to say grade ten?... no book seemed smarter, wiser, made me laugh more, and me feel smarter for having read it. I think my order of operations was all the Discworld books (up to, or just before, Night Watch) -> Good Omens ->  Sandman, with the later changing how I understood the nature of story itself (but that’s for another day.) I suspect that Good Omens, along with The West Wing, Tolkien, and The Golden Compass, along with an enormous Colonial Chip on my shoulder (and a pretentious stick up the ass) eventually led me to becoming a Classicist after a brief and dreadful dalliance with the theatre. At the very least it certainly helped. So, what do I know think of Good Omens, a book I once read at least ten times (probably more) back when I re-read favourite books the way other people  breathed often? (i.e. with constant regularity) Well, it’s not bad. It is not a bad book. It’s just not a great book. It’s not a terribly… cohesive book. It reads exactly like the kind of book that might get written if you and a fellow writer swapped a floppy disc back and forth in the mail a bunch of times adding bits as you went. Which, of course, is exactly what it is. The things I remember about the book remain as good as I remember  them being - which is a shame because all the really good bits I remember about the book are, with a few exceptions, in the first half (Death still incorrectly says Revelations instead of Revelation in the second half like I remember. He’s still wrong, and it’s still weird given that the right name is in the book earlier more than once.) Everything goes rapidly downhill the moment Armageddon actually kicks off...  something of a problem in a book about Armageddon whose entire second half is Armageddon. I remember Aziraphale and Crowley being great together. What I didn’t remember is that they spend most of the book apart, a crime because they’re at their best bouncing off one-another and far weaker solo, especially Crowley who really only has Hastur to talk to and he’s not a great conversationalist. If I could ditch Crowley Drives Really Hard and swap it for A&C Do Shit Together  I would. I remember Newt and Anathema becoming a couple. What I didn’t remember is that they are entirely superfluous to the narrative, as are the prophecies of Agnes Nutter herself. I kept trying to remember why it is that Newt and Anathema needed to be at the military base - turns out they don’t. Newt doesn’t even stop the countdown, that’s all Adam willing it otherwise. N&A then wander over to the main group and just kind of stand around. The only purpose of the prophecies is to give Aziraphale an idea of where Adam is. That’s it. This is extremely frustrating because Anathema talks about how working-out prophecies has allowed her family to triumph down the ages, and it sets Agnes up as someone who was executed for being a truth teller - for being an other - even though one day her prophecies would be so important for the world. But they're not! Their one tangible impact on the plot is to have Aziraphale make a phone call that he immediately hangs up. the prophecies only document the end of the world, they are irrelevent to the aversion of the End Times, which feels like one of several moments where the book Is Making A Point About Human Nature And Reader Expectations but is undone by my old friend lousy framing. Toy cannot position someone as having “they know not what they do” importance and then just not follow-through on that. There is, I think, a sense in the book that What It’s All About is quiet humanism: that the story isn’t really about Armageddon, but the smaller human stories that happened around it: Newt and Anathema falling in... love, I guess?  Mindy Newt: Homer Anathema, What’s wrong? Homer Anathema: Like you don’t know! We’re going to have sex! Mindy Newt:: Oh … We don’t have to. Homer Anathema: Yes we do! The cookie Book told me so

Or Shadwell and Madame Tracey. And that’s great - that’s a great theme. But the book fails to pull it off - largely, I think because once Armageddon kicks off it loses the human dimension its trying to argue is important for keeping the planet grounded, not because its trying to make that point, but because the authors get so distracted by writing a bunch of crazy Armageddon stuff that the actual important work - like fleshing-out characters and their stories properly - goes away in the hurly-burly of Important Shit Going down.

Take Adam. Adam lacks any real sense of interiority and wears his heart on his sleeve, which makes the will-he, won’t-he nature of Armageddon on which the whole book rests have... well, zero weight. Will Adam give in to his more evil nature? No. Of course he won’t. It’s not even a case of “of course he won’t ‘cause I know how stories go don’t I ain’t I clever” - it’s that Adam has no evil nature. None at all. A bit of child-like self-absorption , but that’s it. The book climaxes with Aziraphale realizing that the AntiChrist won’t pick sides because he is neither entirely Good or Evil - he is Just A Human, and therefore kind of both. The book has done a great job showing that duality of humanity: Mr. young, for example, isn’t a bad man. Nor is he a good one. He’s an average man, with all sorts of awful little prejudices and thought patterns, but equally enough basic decency that nobody could call him a monster anymore than a saint. So often in the book people do Bad Things without being depraved lunatics - they just get caught up in the churning mediocrity of life, what Arendt dubbed the ‘banality of evil’ after the Eichmann trial. The telemarketers aren’t child killers, and they don’t deserve their (frankly sickening and brutal) deaths - but every day they hurt people in small, irritating, vexing ways, perpetuating some horrid not because they’re nightmares but because it’s just their job. Again, that’s great. That’s why the first part of the book is the strongest: it’s full of the kinds of humanity you don’t normally see in literature outside of the Golgafrinchan Ark Fleet Ship B. Desperately ordinary people - the real kind of ordinary, not the ordinary that tends to turn into anime heroes. But Adam isn’t ordinary. Not remotely. The book says this again and again, calling him a young Adonis, alluding to his unearthy Luciferian beauty, to his passions, to his commanding voice, to his leadership skills. His friends adore him, and for all that they might get argumentative with him the sheer god-like weight of his Presence cannot be ignored.  So when Aziraphale explains:

"He was left alone! He grew up human! He's not Evil Incarnate or Good Incarnate, he's just… a human incarnate.” 

My response is a rather limp “Um, well... no. No he’s not.”

“Aha!” I hear you cry. “The book’s not saying he’s ordinary, it’s saying he’s the embodiment of humanity: all their vices and virtues are amplified within him, and that’s why he has superhuman powers.” To which i reply that yeah, it’s certainly what the book is insisting in the case. But it’s not demonstrated within the text. I said above Adam lacks interiority: what you see is what you get. And what you get has zero amplification of evil. Adam seems like a genuinely good kid - in fact he is such a good kid that the book actually makes a point of commenting on how he is basically living in a parodic homage of a Boy’s Own Adventure novel. If Jack Trent, Frank Hardy, Tom Swift, and half the cast of Aladdin Paperbacks‘ first decade of publishing rolled up in a clown car and asked Adam if he wanted to hang, he’d fit right in. And they’re all painfully decent people. Adam status as a “troublemaker” - that is, even the vaguest implication that he is capable of “mischief” - is undermined by the book highlighting that the kind of people who complain about that sort of thing are Doddering Tory Blowhards like R. P. Taylor who wouldn’t know fun if it dressed like Margaret Thatcher and dry-humped their legs.  For Adam to be the incarnation of humanity there has to be a sense that he is more human than human - that his capacity for good and his capacity for evil are so great that with him him the form of gestalt of pure humanity. But that’s rubbish. Because Adam does nothing the book seems to think is worthy of meaningful censure, or at least nothing that literally any child might do as well (like ruining his sisters dress while dunking her in the water). If the best the book can do to balance out Adam’s Local Boy Heroically Saves Summer Camp And Solves The Mystery Of The Puzzle Riddle Enigma is that well he’s kind of inward facing like every other 12 year old then, well... that really takes the wind out of the book’s big summating point. The same kind of language that gets used about Adam feel like you could copy past it into a Discworld book to describe Carrot Ironfoundersson.

So when, as happens. the book shows Adam coming Into his power and talk about Remaking The World, we don’t have to think he will and that all is lost - we know how to read stories, we’re not idiots. But we should at least have a passing moment of worry that he could had the circumstances been slightly different - that he, poised on the edge of good and evil, could go either way were it not for the redemptive power of his ordinary human upbringing keeping him ground. Which, I think is safe to say, is the conclusion the book puts forward. But there is no ‘could.’ Of course he won’t - there’s no tension there at all. The book kills it stone dead, in fact, when it notes that:

Seems to me it ought to be rolled up and started all over again," said Adam. That hadn't sounded like Adam's voice.

and

Adam wasn't listening, at least to any voices outside his own head.

Adam is described as basically being possessed - at the most critical point of Armageddon, when the AntiChrist is placed to make a choice not even between Good and Evil but between The Harbinger Theological Inevitability and Sod All That Let’s Just Keep Living Because I’m A Human it is no choice at all because Theological inevitable is distinctly described as being separate from who Adam is. Which is dreadful! Adam is American Dennis the Menace - he sometimes get Into Mischief and Breaks A Vase or Ruins A Garden but he’ll still hang out being a friend to a lonely old coot - when he ought to be much closer to the British Dennis the Menace - an monster of a child who spent most of his seventy years of existence essentially bullying gay kids (”softies”) but also, now and again, when the moon’s aligned, showed a Heart of Gold under his menacing exterior. Adam didn’t need to be BritDennis, but he damn well needed some kind of edge to him - a REAL edge, not ‘well he can be bossy’ or ‘he had devilment in his eyes’ or ‘he could be thoughtless.’ Adam needed to have scenes of him being a little shithead: not killing pets, but at least being spiteful or snide or capable of sin. In To Kill A Mockingbird Jem destroys Mrs. Dubose's flowers in a fit of pique. That’s something. Adam? Nothing. So there’s nothing to hang the tension on, and any time to book has any anxiety about Adam’s moral character it rings hollow, because Adam is fundamentally decent and good and nothing so much as feints at the idea that any part of him might be otherwise.

Plus, to bring it back to the prophecies being useless, Adam gets upset about the state of the world because he borrows some of Anathema’s Save The Wales magazines, which he would never have been able to do had the Book not made her go to Tadfield in the first place. Now the book has a certain “Butterfly Flaps Its Wings” mindset - sometimes it’s the little things that put big things and motion.  

But it’s muddled, because it implies that Armageddon is nothing but a last-minute whim of a mercurial child: which is great for when the plot of your book is a deconstruction of the idea of Inevitability, but a bit rubbish when the OTHER major theme of your book is that human evil is in ordinary narrow-mindedness. The idea of a story where everything builds up to Armageddon - but Armageddon fails to arrive like an eschatological Godot, (leaving everyone standing around a bit puzzled) is a great theme for an ironic novel. But it clashes again and again with the theme of the book’s first half- that humanity is more creatively terrible and kindly virtuous than any devil and or angel could hope to be. The corollary of that ought to be that when Armageddon arrives it is precisely because of that human fallibility. Having all this build up and have it massively fizzle out can work, when written right - The Real Treasure Was The Friendships You Made is always funny when handled correctly. But Good omens builds up to things and drops them half a dozen times in the finale, which ends up not seemingly like comedic point but an inability by two authors to "bring the story home” and tie any of their threads together. I mean take the actual act of Armageddon itself: when Adam starts making the world go doo-lally, we keeping hearing reports of the world getting more agitated: we can see the shape of Armageddon begin to emerge, but because we’re still clever buggers and have read our Eliot we know that what’s likely to break the world isn’t going to be bang but a whimper: General John Amerioman gets off the phone agitated by a telemarketers, years at his secretary until she cries so she forgets to inform him that President McSmith called and because he didn’t call her back the President fails to get the advice she needs and makes a foolish error that pisses-over the Russian president who is then gets petty about something else and on down the line until a series of understandable but critical failures of empathy - don’t yell at your secretary, don’t cold-call people about duct cleaning - sets the table for the nuclear. That Adam stops it is because he shares that same fallibility and knows that punishing humanity for it as a requirement for Divine Inevitability would be unconscionable. But when Armageddon arrives, humanity has literal dick-all to do with it. We get this lovely buildup with the Four Horsemen the entire book - Revelation says they will be present at the Day of judgement so its time to get the band back together. The narrative of the book fixates of the Four Horseman’s ride to the airbase, with the understanding that once they arrive Armageddon will begin because everyone is congregating on that place at this time. So the Four Horseman arrive and... and the disguise themselves as some generals to get on the base, they break into a computer vault, and then... Jesus, War personally fucks with a computer and then Pollution personally corrodes the counter measure systems with Death and Famine stand around and watch (so much bloody standing around watching the plot happen in the part of the book) them do it, at which point all the nuke silos all over the world open up and countdown begins. What. THE FUCK? Humanity is irrelevant to the end of the world, exception in the broadest sense where they had these destructive weapons in the first place.  But they also had extensive security systems that the book notes are really good until Two Supernatural Beings Broke In And Destroyed Them. There is no human element in Armageddon: all that chatter on the radio about rising tensions and increased stress? Meaningless. The book’s whole point about evil lurking in the hearts of every ordinary person - that really anyone is capable of being good or evil on a given day, and that one angry secretary is as capable of starting the end times because of a telemarketer as any raving dictator with their finger on the button? Irrelevant. As much as War and Pollution are said to be mere embodiments of humanity’s failings, existing solely in ‘THE MINDS OF MAN” (baffling in and of itself had Pestilence not been swapped-out for Pollution, because lets be honest that would have meant waving a hand at everything from the Black Death to AIDS and calling its source moral failing which what the fuck, T&N?), they’re all actually characters with agency and personality and will. Which means within the context of what’s happening Armageddon is caused by two characters going out of their way to FORCE it to happen.

(It’s! Shit! The book right here? Shit. All the keen oft-comedic insight as to the nature of the human condition  is throw away in this moment. A book that seems so devoted to making a reader think seriously about complacency, about letting evil slip on by because its not wearing a big scary mask (and god how prescient that seems in times like these - how horrible correct it was that we were complacency in the 80s and the 90s and didn’t notice the evil rising all around us), drops the ball here and doesn’t require humanity for its climax.

"I don't see what's so triflic about creating people as people and then gettin' upset 'cos they act like people," said Adam severely. "Anyway, if you stopped tellin' people it's all sorted out after they're dead, they might try sorting it all out while they're alive.”

That’s a great sentiment, Adam. Only nobody is this moment is cross about people acting like people because nobody had - the world nearly ended because some Non-people willingly broke shit. Also, in the context of the novel - it being détente and glasnost and the Tear Down This Wall speech and Zhao Ziyang making reforms in China and on and on - as far as anyone could tell people WERE working it out. The book notes this explicitly, in fact:

“...reports available to us would seem to, uh, indicate an increase in international tensions that would have undoubtedly been viewed as impossible this time last week when, er, everyone seemed to be getting on so nicely.”

Again: Armageddon isn’t caused by people. So when Adam tells Heaven that if they just back off people might be able to sort things out for themselves, well... they seemed to have been doing just that, book.You yourself said so. And the end times were brought about by non-human actors.)

So Adam and his friends confront the Horseman and “defeat” them through some last minute cosplay. Why? No clue. The imagery is great but I don’t know why they do it - the Four Horseman are heralds of the end times, and perhaps its chorus, but now they’re villains that need to be defeated I guess (even though Adam fixes what they did with a wave of his hand anyway). Newt and Anathema arrive on the scene because Agnes Nutter told them to, and they get to the computer, and now maybe poor bumbling Newt is going to have to fix a computer when he’s only ever broken them while Anathema... stands there Jesus God... except... except Adam waves his hand and fixes the computer making Newt’s presence irrelevent. Well, still, more book to go, maybe they can pull something good out of this. Armageddon may have fizzled out, but it’s still The Day of Judgement and the Last Battle. Newt and Anathema might not have fixed the computer, but the are here at the airbase, and they make the most of it by doing nothing, providing nothing, and being needed for nothing. Shadwell and Madame Tracey are there - Shadwell is the vessel for Aziraphale, and once he’s out he stands at the sides with A&C and prepares to march with them on the combined hordes of hell and heaven. Except that that doesn’t matter because Adam makes a gesture and gives a nice speech that’s sadly unrelated to to the world as described by Good Omens up to this point, and the Hordes of Heaven and Hell shuffle their feet and decided to go home for a bit to have a good long think about some things ha ha ha how droll. And the Then, oh no, SUDDENLY Satan himself appears - I guess its time to take our issues to upper management, surely Godot- I mean God - will come to and - oh, nope, Adam waved his hand again and its just Mr. Young in his shitty car (that really should have been a Wasabi what the heck, T&N?). It’s anti-climatic. I don’t mean from a standpoint of dramatic irony, I mean everything falls apart in the book as the story comes to a screeching halt. Here you have a reasonable collection of painfully ordinary people (hella white and straight people, but its 1990 we’re not terribly woke yet) - not Generals, not Presidents or Prime Ministers, not Corporate Titans or Dictators or anyone “Important” - just ordinary people present at the End of the World. And what is it in the ineffable plan that requires all these people’s presence at the End Times? Nothing really. Just think about this for a moment. Think about what OUGHT to have happened here. Not a battle, not a fight, not a war - we know from Endgame how disappointing it is to have to sit through a big dumb set piece battle that nobody seems to want: boring slog. No, what OUGHT to have happened is the power of humanity: that these ordinary nobodies come together and halt the end times, make the Legions of Heaven & Hell see - if not reason - then at least reconsider what’s happening, or even confront Satan himself not with the virtue of Saints but simply because they have what made Aziraphale and Crowley fall in love with the Earth the way they did: the charm of humanity. If an angel and a demon can both be redeemed by the love of humanity’s virtues and vices, its deeps and faults, then why couldn’t Satan himself do the same? Well, because Adam fixed everything with a few hand waves and a pissy speech so that’s all that solved. nobody but him needed to be there - not even A&C, who just end up commenting on the action while standing around like everyone else. It’s barmy. No wonder my brain erased it, choosing to remember the book at its best when it was still scaled to humanity. The book ends up having failed to make any of its points stick - the ordinary evil men do has nothing to do with Armageddon so its probably not something we should be terrible concern about - that just us loveable old humans doing as humans do. We learn that if Heaven and hell just stepped back and let people talk things out maybe the world would get better - but that was the case at the start of the book (prologue notwithstanding), and nothing that happened in the book adjusted that in any way.It has a point to make about the unfairness of Moral duality in Theology - except that Adam is parodically virtuous and contains no real evil so.. yeah, Good is great, actually, what was the point you were making, book? The book has a point to make about the value of ordinary people: if you need someone to stand around and observe shit get ordinary people, they’re great last standing around and not meaningfully doing anything.

And don’t even get me started on things like Anathema’s passivity. Look at her character: she passively lives her life by the prophecies until the day after the End Times Newt says ‘hey do you want to be a descendent for the rest of your life’ and Anathema has an epiphany - Oh, No, I Don’t, I Want to Live my Own life On Its Own Terms - and then they burn the sequel Agatha wrote instead of following it. But that’s… aaargh, Jesus, so many problems with that. The moment of epiphany is meaningless because if Agnes-The-Prophet (who would presumably have known that her manuscript was to be burnt) hadn’t sent it, Anathema was free anyways and would have had to live her life as such regardless. You could argue ‘but this way it becomes an active choice rather than a passive acquiescence to something she can’t change’ but the problem is that her decision isn’t rooted in anything except a comment Newt makes. Nothing happened to Anathema that has in any way affected her relationship to Agnes Nutter or her life as a decedent: in the book Anathema talks a lot about prophecies, lends a kid some magazine, boinks a guy who crashed his car, takes him to a military base, does nothing while watching the world end, goes home and boinks the guy again, and then has her memories of a large portion of the last day or so erased by the Anti-Christ. So when Newt asks ‘do you want to be a professional decedent all your life” why would she say “no”? She’s spent her life devoted to the prophecies, even become a watch as some kind of career, and what sense do we have in the story that she is dissatisfied with that? The only disappointment we get is that she’s kind of let down by Newt being not terribly handsome - but that’s Newt’s issue, not Agnes’. The book wants Anathema to realize that she is now ‘free” of living by prophecy - but she doesn’t ever give the sense that she feels imprisoned by prophecy. She seems to feel like its a mark of distinction, and nothing over the last day - even the shit she can’t remember - has done anything to change that. There’s a version of this story where  Anathema repeatedly demonstrates that she feels powerless in life: that all her choices were chosen for her, even something as outré as becoming a witch, and so when Newt asks her that question she looks back over the events of the last few days - or even her life - and makes the decision to say ‘no’ as a natural extension of her recent experiences. In this version of the book she and Newt would have to have  actively made choices at the airbase of their own free will in contradiction of what Agnes said MUST and WILL happen, and because they did that things are better than Agnes said they would be. 

But that doesn’t happen, and instead we get the version where Anathema burns the sequel because Newt’s in her life now and having a man to point out the obvious is what all women need. That’s not what the book is trying to say but this-time-round that’s how it read to me. If Newt had had to run up to London for a couple days and she got the manuscript in the mail she would have kept it, because why wouldn’t she? 

(Gosh, Newt. One last point: I hated Newt. Maybe ‘schlubbly ordinary dope who gets the girl’ was revolutionary in 1990 but thirty years of pathetic nerd heroes getting the girl have left me only able to focus on the pathetic. He gets to be the the Jen to Anathema’s Kira - a completely useless dolt who gets lead around by a capable woman who knows everything and has all the skills  but he still gets to be The Hero because, well, he’s the dude. He gets to bumble around the missile computers at the climax at the book, framed as a hero while Agetha stands there and pleads with him to fix things. He spends his time getting horny for Anathema and thinking sadboy ‘maybe I’ll get to touch a girl for once’ crap  - which made my skin crawl oh sweet Jesus. Basically just fuck that guy and his whiny Pitiful Loser Nerd attitude.)

Look, when the book is good, it is SO GOOD. “Shadwell hated all Southerners and, by inference, was standing at the North Pole” is one of the great lines of literature. Famine and the dieting meals that kill you? Genius. The individual prophecies of Agnes? Wonderful. Shadwell seeing her in a vision (which, alas, comes to nothing because Shadwell having a change of heart about witches comes to nothing really)? Poignant. The Hell’s Angels? Wonderous. The incredible, perfect, oh god I adore is so much defence of the virtues of Rural English life at its best - full of foibles, yes, painfully human, yes, liable to contain shitty old Tories who put people into power who’ll plow it all under for suburbs, yes - but yet, at the same time, wonderful, too. Worth preserving. Worth fighting for. yes yes a thousand times yes let’s seeing a song about it:

Sure, some of the stuff hasn’t aged well (there’s a bit abut First Nations people that comes to mind), but most of it has - and some of it as bold for its time as it remains now. I frequently found myself thinking “this book is much too complicated for Tumblr” - the Tumblr world of Good or Bad doesn’t really have room for Shadwell, the indiscriminate racist with the heart of gold. Parts like that had me shaking with laughter - I can still recite whole scenes to you with manic glee. But the ending is a mess. It’s bad, actually - just outright bad. The book starts great. It ends terribly. It’s a crushing disappointment to go back too - and when I heard the story on the show was going to be super-faithful to the books I went “shit - but the book’s a bit rubbish on the story front. All the good bits are the characters interacting and the side stories and comedic asides - the actual story is a confusing mess.” That’s why I hope Neil Gaiman brought the writing chops that gave us The Doctor Wife and not, y’know, Nightmare in Silver.

In conclusion: man I remember Good Omens being a whole lot better. (Also, I remember more of Adam’s Gang having more to do, and they didn’t, and they’re all great and that’s a shame.) 

[eponymous-rose]

Best-Laid Plans...

We had a great arc-ending session last night, so I thought this might be a fun chance to share how I prep as a DM... and how things inevitably changed in the game itself!

(If you’re one of my players stumbling onto this, hi, and also thank you again for the amazing scotch. Please let me know you’ve found this account so I can be careful about what I give away in these posts in the future!)

Basically, the entire goofy premise of this arc was, “Hey, so bards have access to the spell Modify Memory. With carefully targeted concerts, a boy band could secretly be changing the fate of nations.”

This campaign’s set (mostly for my convenience in early-game worldbuilding) in CR’s Tal’Dorei campaign setting, during the year gap that happened toward the end of their first campaign. The party started in Kymal, since it was a good-sized city in the middle of everything that hadn’t really been explored too much in the show.

As the campaign begins, the monster-hunting guild from the show, the Slayers’ Take, are expanding their operation into Tal’Dorei’s Dividing Plains (in large part because Vanessa wanted to get Lyra out of Vasselheim for a while), and their first round of advertising for potential new recruits has pulled in a pretty good crowd. Under Lyra’s eccentric delegation, the players get grouped together for a job that involves checking out the mysterious disappearance of a bookish elf in town, under the assumption that some monstrous beastie has devoured him, and that beastie should probably be hunted. Instead, they find a lot of deep-dive research into the Feywild, along with a weird portal in his basement that takes them to a strange pocket plane where they fight some sentient plants and talk to an extremely creepy entity that offers them protection from scrying eyes in exchange for an ill-defined favor.

After getting jumped by a group of kobolds (one of whom they sort of accidentally befriend via cookie-related bribes and implications that they may be some sort of deity), the group decides that avoiding whatever’s trying to take them out is a good call. They head back to report a modified version of their findings to Lyra... and find her standing over the corpses of all the other Slayer's Take hopefuls, badly shaken and completely baffled as to why she'd do such a thing. They opt to hang out and wait for the authorities to take her into custody, which results in a bit of confusion and a night spent in jail with their kobold pal.

The city watch eventually opts to let them go, but offer the party a job joining their security detail for the city's charismatic but not-terribly-effectual margrave as he does a meet-and-greet tour of the local casinos. The group agrees to meet at the margrave's mansion that evening to help out... and they promptly spend the day smuggling illegal materials across the city wall for a friendly local tavern owner. As you do.

The meet-and-greet is fairly uneventful until the margrave enters one of the largest casinos in town (the two largest are, of course, fronts run by the Clasp and the Myriad crime organizations, respectively), at which point the party's recollection of events starts to diverge. The druid and the fighter see mysterious black-robed figures attacking from an upper balcony of the building, and are about to chase after them... when the other two members of their party suddenly collapse, unconscious and bleeding. The sorcerer and the ranger saw something very different. After succeeding at a wisdom saving throw that the others failed (the results of which were kept secret from the rest of the party), they managed to shake off the effects of a Modify Memory spell and see what really happened: a single black-robed figure stalking up to the margrave and shooting him in the head with a crossbow. They attempt to engage the attacker and are quickly cut down by the attacker's allies.

In the chaos, the party are joined by one surviving hopeful of that first night at the Slayer's Take, who'd disappeared before the carnage started: a human woman named Zo, who manages to smuggle them out through a passage underneath the casino. Once the injured party members are patched up, she reveals that she's a Spireling working for the Clasp. She's very careful to dance around most of the group's questions, and is very curious as to how they survived the attack on the Slayers' Take, which the group manages to avoid answering as well. It's all very tense, but eventually Zo strongly requests that they venture into the nearby mountains to find a powerful and ancient creature that once pledged its aid to the Clasp. When they hesitate, she casually threatens their families. Thieves' guilds, man. Often helpful, but definitely not nice. She smuggles them out of town through the Clasp's web of sewers and tunnels.

The group does a little meandering outside the city, makes some friends, has a good old-fashioned dungeon crawl, helps patch things up a bit between a devil and a deva (the most awkward of ex-girlfriends)... and everyone occasionally gets pulled into the Feywild for tests and trials, apparently being administered by an underling (a deeply sarcastic satyr woman who delights in her surreal brand of middle management) of the same entity that contacted them way back at the beginning. There's a lot of near-death experiences, an attempt at befriending a blink dog, and everyone winds up assigned a particular symbol. It's all very mysterious, but the party's getting stronger as a result.

Eventually, the group finds the Clasp's protector, a bronze dragon, killed with a dire warning written in its blood on the wall behind it.

They very nearly decide to make a run for it, but after some deliberation, they instead sneak back into Kymal to find that things are... pretty much normal, for the most part. According to the inhabitants of the city, the margrave's fine and dandy after the assassination "attempt". The party tries to head back to chat with their pal the tavern owner, but find his tavern abandoned and in the middle of being robbed... by a group including their old kobold buddy. The kobold cheerfully switches allegiances to their side (the fighter has a bag of infinite cookies), helps them chase off the robbers, and introduces them to a fastidious street-cleaner friend who witnessed a body being removed from the casino during the assassination "attempt".

The party finally decides to go poking around the margrave's mansion, where they run into their tavern-owner friend who seems to be doing the same thing. He admits that his relationship with the Clasp may be a little more friendly than he first implied, and says he's sniffing around on Zo's orders. He's startled when an ordinary-looking toolshed appears, covered in chains. The party realizes that the fighter's symbol from their Feywild excursion is a link of chains, and as soon as he touches the chains, they vanish.

The party, plus the tavern owner (a gold dragonborn monk from Marquet named Orshi), wind up in a strange sequence of puzzle rooms running under the margrave's mansion that generally require them to leverage the symbols they were given in the Feywild to solve - for instance, the solution to one puzzle can only be written in a book by the druid (whose symbol was a feather) using a feather quill, and the ranger (whose symbol was an eye) is the only one who can see the correct path through a maze.

And right in the middle of all those puzzles is where we left off!

So here's my preparation: 

I had a set of things that needed to happen in this session:

Finish up the puzzles with something that leveraged the symbol of a glowing star.

Reveal that the Fantasy Backstreet Boys (mentioned in passing at least once per session as passing through Kymal on tour) are an illusion created by a powerful group of magic-users to get them access to (and the ability to modify the memories of and/or get away with assassinating) important figures in towns across the Dividing Plains and beyond.

Answer some of the party's extant questions, because they'd been in the dark long enough and deserved some closure.

I set it up with seven brief (1-2--page) documents, laid out as follows:

Recap of the previous sessions (we hadn't played in a few months).

Puzzle rooms! The first puzzle was a play on a moving tile puzzle from an Uncharted game, where the hints leading to the correct path could only be found by having the sorcerer (with the symbol of a glowing star) be the one to light the room up. I decided at the last minute to be a jerk and also do the classic countdown puzzle room, where the doors lock behind the party and an extremely ominous countdown from 20 starts, which can be reset by pressing a button in the middle of the room (the idea being that the party's own paranoia will keep them mashing that button while they search every inch of the room... but it turns out that the countdown is just until the door opens and means nothing more; it's a great test to see how convinced your players are that character death is a possibility, because if they hesitate a lot you're probably pushing it too hard, but if they don't hesitate at all to let the countdown run out they're probably feeling a bit immortal). These puzzles are being manufactured by an entity with a vested interest in just plain annoying the group, so it seemed like a good call.

Description of the final cavern, where they see a single yuan-ti in a blue robe practicing his illusion of the Fantasy Backstreet Boys while on a conference call with his boss (whose voice is the only thing present, coming from the form of a floating silver orb). This one took some rehearsal, because I had the ominous dramatic background music slowly fading out to "Backstreet's Back" to time up with the reveal. That was a real “what is my life right now” moment.

Two documents with different dialogue possibilities based on whether the group is detected or manages to stay stealthy (if they stealth, they can potentially overhear a long conversation between this yuan-ti and his boss; if their approach is noted, they're likely to be attacked on sight).

Stat blocks for the yuan-ti (essentially a warlock) and two clockwork snakes he keeps under the stage, as well as a stat block for Orshi, who's likely to be fighting alongside the party to help make up for the extremely lopsided CR of these enemies. In addition, the room has some fairly poorly built security features in the form of statues scattered around the room - at initiative count 20, roll a d12 to pick the effect the statues have on everything in a 10-foot radius. Ideally, they're supposed to have negative effects (the yuan-ti is smart enough to do anything to avoid getting caught in those radii) like a stun, a brief application of the Confusion spell, sleep, etc., but they're malfunctioning and occasionally result in positive effects like a brief application of the Haste spell or a small pool of temporary hit points. Strategy-wise, Orshi will fight as long as the group does and will generally try to help them out where he can; the snakes are unintelligent and will often attack random enemies if surrounded instead of strategizing; and the yuan-ti is extremely smart and ruthless and will target one enemy until it's dead before moving on to the next.

The aftermath of the fight: in the middle of any looting (some fun potions and a store of trade bars of gold and silver that were being used to help bankroll this operation), Zo comes in through a hidden passageway with some of the Clasp's people. She reveals that she'd sent Orshi poking around the tool shed explicitly as a distraction so she could get her people into the margrave's mansion to poke around. They found some of the margrave's very confused staff, but no sign of the guy himself, and eventually stumbled across a secret passageway leading from his sleeping chambers down here. They'd come down ready for a fight (and if the party had delayed another day in starting this whole exploration, that fight would've happened without them), but they missed the excitement. Zo answers a lot of the party's questions (I have six or seven potential questions listed along with some point-form answers she'd give) and helps them piece together that it looks like this yuan-ti and his boss are part of a larger cult that's been pulling in mercenaries and ne'er-do-wells across the continent to quietly usurp the leadership of cities and towns for some unknown purpose possibly related to one of their snake gods. The Clasp sent Zo to the Slayer's Take to make sure they weren't trying to make a bid for power in the city (which, surprise, was Vanessa's alternative motivation), and she coincidentally got caught up in this mysterious cult's more permanent way of dealing with this upstart organization that could pose a threat to their plans. She apologizes for the earlier brute-force tactics in getting them to comply, arranges to meet Orshi at his tavern the next morning to figure out how to proceed, and invites the party to join that meeting as well. Orshi invites the party to stay at his tavern free of charge.

As they're leaving, the party are briefly pulled into the Feywild by their very excited middle-manager satyr friend, who explains that, given their performance, she's been authorized to answer some of their questions. I wrote up a series of potential questions and answers about their employer (some unknown but immensely powerful Fey creature seeking to extend their influence into the Prime Material plane - essentially, the entire party is getting a bit of a Pact of the Archfey warlock vibe), the satyr (a minor dignitary with the Seelie Court who got herself into potentially fatal trouble and had this mysterious employer to thank for pulling her out of that situation), and the place where they've been training (not actually the Feywild, but a pocket dimension made to look like it). If they ask about the elf whose disappearance started all this, she reveals that he was doing research into the Feywild, made contact with their employer, and they'd been working together to start bridging the planes, which resulted in the portal they'd stumbled into. The yuan-ti cult got wind of his research and had him killed, which accidentally drew the attention of the Slayer's Take, which got them killed (with Lyra - an extremely powerful wizard - framed via Modify Memory spell to wrap up the loose ends). Once the questioning's done, she congratulates them again, and we leave it there for the night.

I also write something up for the possibility that the party is defeated: they have a different Feywild encounter immediately, where a more subdued satyr tells them that they've been revived/healed and are currently prisoners of the yuan-ti. She assures them that their mutual employer will be looking out for them, answers some of their questions, then regretfully leaves them to their fate. Whereupon, as it turns out, Zo is about to spring her attack...

So that's the preparation I had for this week's session! Very linear, without a lot of branching paths, but I also had to be very sure about every faction's awareness, motivations, and willingness to share certain information, so it wound up being pretty involved. It also felt really contrived on paper to have these info-dumps, but I suspected it would feel more natural to the players given how badly they were looking for those answers.

And... here's what really went down!

The party solved both puzzles fairly quickly (which was a good indicator that they may be getting a bit complacent vis-a-vis potential character death, which is Good To Know for ominous reasons). The stealth check into the main chamber was only DC 13, with a group check (so all they needed was 3/5 members to succeed), but they failed hilariously with a couple of natural ones, so the yuan-ti was ready for them when they arrived. The Backstreet Boys reveal was very funny.

Before the yuan-ti could just straight-up attack them, though, the party started taunting him mercilessly. He had snakes for arms (as you do), so they started asking how he did a whole variety of everyday tasks, causing a bit of an existential crisis. They pointed out the statues and asked if he really felt like he had to build an audience for his pretend band. The druid started flirting with him aggressively, which he was kind of into? This whole back-and-forth was being yelled across a cavern, so there was a lot of "WHAT? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY? Seriously, I missed it, say that again." and at one point a couple people just got really amused by the echoes off the chamber walls and started yelling random words, adding to the chaos. The yuan-ti's employer was just listening to all this in confusion, and when the yuan-ti turned to explain what was happening, the ranger took the moment of confusion to attack.

The battle was really heated, with the fighter nearly dying a couple of times (the yuan-ti latched onto him with Vampiric Touch and kept leeching his life), Orshi taking an impromptu nap, and the sorcerer getting viciously downed by the yuan-ti after she managed to hit him with a Witch Bolt. Eventually, though, the clockwork snakes were dismantled, the yuan-ti was surrounded and out of spell slots, and he was down to 1 HP and extremely desperate. I was about to have him attempt an escape by transforming into a snake, but the party instead demanded that he surrender. I had the newly healed sorcerer roll a Persuasion check... natural 20. He compliantly went down on his knees and raised his snake hands in surrender; he's definitely smart enough to know it's best to live to fight another day.

The party tried to interrogate him, but he generally ignored what they were saying in favor of being a creep (quietly cutting in while the sorcerer was speaking to ask her what it had felt like to be so close to death, if she enjoyed the feeling, if she'd like to feel that again). The druid, in dire wolf form, responded by licking the side of his head until his hair was thoroughly messed up and he was coated in drool. They didn't get much information from him, and the group eventually decided to knock him out again.

A big debate followed: the sorcerer thought it would be best to help clear things up if they took him prisoner, but the druid argued (via replies to Message, since she was still a dire wolf) that nobody in this city would be competent enough to hold him prisoner and that it would be best to kill him. Lots of discussion followed while the group split up to do some looting, and eventually Zo's name was brought up, and it was decided that it might be best to bring him to the Clasp.

It felt like way too much of a coincidence to have Zo pop up at that moment, even thought that’s what I had planned, so I let them explore the cavern for a while, coming up with some great loot here and there, but also missing some very powerful items with slightly-too-low investigation checks. The conversation turned to the yuan-ti and the burning question that occupies everyone's minds if they think about it too much: if his arms are snakes... what other parts of him are snakes? The debate came to a head (sorry) when the druid, in dire wolf form, decided to try to pull off his pants and find out. I had her roll a general Dexterity check because she was, you know, a dire wolf.

Natural 20.

Biggest laugh of the night: the look on my face as I tried to mentally work out the logistics for a giant wolf pulling someone's trousers off Extremely Well, followed by "Okay. So. You know the tablecloth trick?" 

We all learned something about snake anatomy that day, and the new catch-phrase of our D&D group became "Sorry about your browser history, DM." After cry-laughing as a group for several minutes straight, I finally had Zo wade into this mess and start answering questions.

She was startled that they'd managed to keep the yuan-ti alive and contained (as was I, honestly, since that wasn't a possibility I'd planned for) and agreed to have the Clasp take him into custody. I am Extremely Delighted that this villain is alive. The group was very concerned about Lyra, and Zo agreed to pull some strings with the city's guard to get her released. The party brought up the death of the Clasp's protector dragon in the mountains, and Zo fell silent for half a minute, processing what that meant. Finally, they all agreed to meet up at Orshi's tavern the next day. Orshi offered to let them stay, whereupon they revealed that his place was kind of ransacked and they may have left a severed head on one of the shelves in his back room. As you do. 

They were on their way back, had their interaction with the satyr, and managed to hit nearly every answer I'd prepared for, and we called it a night from there.

Next session: wrapping up this plot, downtime, and a little fleshing out of backstories while everyone paints minis!

[gavinbowman]

September - Launched!

Ok, let’s get the big bit out of the way first... we launched a game. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like that long ago that I was popping games into the app store on a fairly regular basis... but this month’s Dungeon Drop launch was actually the first in over 2 years. And I think there was over a year prior to that one to find another. So those days are clearly long gone. And it’s been a trip.

But hey, Dungeon Drop is out, and we’re really happy with it. If you haven’t tried it yet, it’s a free download on the App Store now.

The launch experience was a fun one, we’d had September 19th lined up for a while as the release date, and then a couple of weeks earlier Apple announced that Apple Arcade would launch on the same day. Bringing 50-100 premium mobile games that players could play for free with a trial subscription, or enjoy completely for only $4.99 per month. All starting on the same day as our little game. What do we do? We had a lot of suggestions to move the date, and we were pretty split on it for a while there, but we ultimately decided to go with the original launch date.

And it worked out well I think, we got one of the best feature spots we’ve ever had for the game in the App Store, I think probably our first US feature since Slambots in 2013... I guess maybe a lot of developers avoided that date and left us some air to work with? Either way. It got featured. A few people told me they liked it, and few even told me they bought the premium upgrade. So that was a great feeling, mission accomplished for Dungeon Drop.

Our next iOS game launches mid-November. We’ll post it for pre-orders later this month and share details then.

We hadn’t really used the pre-order feature prior to Dungeon Drop, but it turned out to be really useful for sharing the game info before launch. We didn’t need a separate web page to direct people to, or even really a video, people could just see the screenshots and app preview on the App Store for themselves. We did post a trailer for Dungeon Drop on Youtube and a couple of twitter videos or gifs, and those worked out well too... so we’ll definitely do that again next time around.

Anyway, I’m less concerned about that launch now, having seen Dungeon Drop get some play and positive response I feel happy with where we’re at with what we’re putting out. Now we need to turn that around and apply it to Monsters & Monocles.

Oh god. What the hell have I agreed to. Finishing this up is going to be a big thing. Ryan is a smart cookie, so fortunately the code is clean and organized. It’s just that there’s a lot of it, and it’s all Ryan’s and not mine. It makes more sense than mine would have, but I don’t instinctively know where to find anything yet. I managed to poke at a few bits, they seem to do what I expected them to do, and I think I can massage all the things I don’t like into something we’ll be happy to launch. I just feel massively overwhelmed right now. There’s a lot of layers to everything, there’s 3 different platforms they launched the game on, there’s the single player, local coop, and online multiplayer cases to consider in everything. And then there’s the stuff that Ryan wasn’t really finished working on when he left... some of those things are hard for me to distinguish from things that either weren’t done at all or have been finished for years. For now I’m really just trying to build a big picture of it all in my head without running off to the mountains first.

I think what I’ll be looking at this month will be a long overdue UI overhaul, because I feel like that’s going to be relatively painless to address. I’ll just need new designs and artwork from Craig and I think I can shuffle everything around and give it a nice new lick of paint there... and hopefully that’ll start to make it feel more like my game. In game, there’s a fair amount of broken or less than great camera stuff that I’d like to get working, which should give me some exposure to the NPC systems and what state those are in, and then I’d like to get things like the player death sequences cleaned up. I’ll be having to touch a lot of systems but I feel like I’ll build a pretty good understanding of a lot of it that way.

I’m hoping a lot of the existing systems like the map generation, basic physics and controls, and the network play, are largely sound for most of what a finished version of this game needs to be. Some of the npc/meta stuff will need an overhaul to create a roadmap to 1.0, and some of the systems like the enemy behaviors, weapons, characters might just need expanded on as they are.

Hopefully. Since the game is out there anyway and there’s only a few people reading this I’ll try to talk about it in a more open inside baseball kinda way as we try to wrap it up. I’m always more open on emotional or general aspects of how things are going, so it’ll be fun to try to be more open in addressing specifics. No promises though, I’ve never really tried this before.

Speaking of generalities, this month wasn’t bad really. Launching Dungeon Drop was a huge distraction that I kind of allowed myself, and then I got horribly sick taking my kids to a soft play place and lost a bunch of work there too. But I’ve had much worse months, and after pushing through finishing two games in a row I probably should cut myself some slack. I’m spending some time working in the same room as Craig this week, which helped a bunch with Dungeon Drop, although it’s kind of difficult with Monsters & Monocles since there’s so much to do and I’m so far off the pace on mastering the ins and outs of the project. If nothing else, having someone next to me gives me a good push to try something anyway.

Aside from working, I’ve been having a blast playing the goose game with my kids, they just laugh hysterically while the goose is horrible, and it’s awesome. Probably one of the best games to play with kids. I finished up Mario Rabbids Kingdom Battle. That was great. My kids enjoyed watching some of the earlier battles and the story sections, but they got bored easily when the battles got longer and harder, and during the longer exploration bits. That’s actually kinda like me, tbh, although they did a great job of keeping the later battles challenging without becoming a huge grind or massively difficult. The difficulty probably spiked most in the second half of the second world and the first half of the third for me... There’s some extra challenges to play, I didn’t do those, and there’s more coop levels we didn’t play, those are fun too. Haven’t tried vs mode. 100% campaign and most of the collectables was about 30-40 hours, so a decent length, but my switch obviously can’t pull out kid aimless wandering or repeating time, so I don’t know exactly how that is. I could have shaved off probably 5-10 hours just by not wandering around looking for hidden chests, which mostly don’t add anything to the gameplay or give you any useful boosts, and involve a lot of back tracking and kind of boring wandering around (you’re wandering around beautiful worlds, but it’s mostly linear and you’ve seen it already). 

Other games, we’re still playing Mario 3D World, but the kids are definitely tapping out on it a little, but it had a very good run. They love watching Captain Toad, so I got to play through the first couple of hours of that, it’s adorable, I hope I get to play the rest. But they like to try to play and it’s too hard for them, so they get annoyed. We’ve played a bit of Mario Kart, but they don’t really try to stay on the tracks yet, but I feel like they’re going to love that when it clicks. And weirdly they watched me play Twilight Princess for about an hour last night and both seemed to love it, so I might actually get to make some more progress in that. Although it’s rough going after Breath of the Wild, the rigidity and the camera especially make it feel it’s age, even in the HD remake. Off on my own I’ve been picking away at an old copy of Link’s Awakening with the hope of finishing it again before I eventually play the remake. It’s such a great game, I think it may have been the first Zelda I actually played through, since I never had an NES of my own.

Okay, I’ve gone on long enough, back to work, I’d better get going on something so I have some good Monsters & Monocles progress to report next month.

[p-artsypants]

Nine Lives (15) - The Legacy

FF.net | Ao3

When Adrien Agreste is scheduled to go to a Military School in Germany, Chat Noir must make a critical decision. Does he give up his Miraculous? Or does he give up his life as Adrien? I'll save you the trouble of guessing, he gives up being Adrien.

I didn’t really know what I was doing with the chapter. It ended up different than what I set out to do. There’s still a few chapters left though. Hope you all enjoy!

—

Hand in hand, Adrien and Marinette travelled to Master Fu’s house after school. Though Adrien still had a spare key, they knocked on the door.

“Come in.”

Wordlessly, the couple entered. Master Fu appraised them, hiding something in his eyes. “So, here we are. I wondered when you two would come to see me. And whether it would be together or separate, or in the masks. But it seems like you two have revealed yourselves to each other. A greater truth has finally been reached.”

“Yeah…she knows who I am under the mask, and under this mask as well.” Adrien stated, placing a hand on his scarred cheek.

He beckoned them to sit at his table. “I’ll make tea.”

The afternoon was peaceful. Chimes sang outside the window, as warm sunlight trailed across the floor. Summer would be coming soon. He poured them each a cup.

Marinette took a sip and hummed. “This is nice. What kind of tea?”

“It’s rosebud and silver needle. Good for the kidneys.”

“It’s delicious.” Adrien agreed with a contented purr. Just for a moment, it was nice to pretend that everything was normal, despite the dark storm clouds that rumbled upon the horizon.

“Where are Duusu and Nooroo?” Adrien asked.

“Their Miraculous have been returned to the Miracle Box, and they are catching up with the other Kwamis.” He sipped his tea, “but I did have a long conversation with both of them on the night you brought them here. Perhaps you have a story to tell me as well?”

They took turns telling him about that day. How they had been in the courtyard at school and saw an akuma, followed it, and met with Hawkmoth in his own lair. Marinette described Gabriel revealing his identity and willfully surrendering. Adrien described his anger and how he had nearly killed Ladybug in the process. He had taken her to the hospital, and then gone back to the mansion to retrieve the Butterfly.

“I arrived at the mansion, and they let me in. They had bags packed and said they had prepared to call the police once I was given the Miraculous. Gabriel…opened the box, and I saw and spoke to Nooroo. Then, Nathalie fetched the Peacock as well.” His mouth hung open for a moment before clamping shut.

“Did he say anything then?” Master Fu raised an eyebrow. He wanted to know how much Adrien knew.

Adrien bit his lips, but forced the truth out. “Yes he…he told me why he had been trying to get our Miraculous.”

Marinette softly set down her cup and rested her hand on his thigh.

Master Fu said nothing, just gazed at him with wise eyes.

Adrien turned pale, as his mother’s sleeping face sprang up in his mind. It was an image that would haunt him. A image to go with that heart wrenching sound Marinette had made when she failed to catch him from the tower.

“My mother is still alive.”

Marinette tightened her grip.

“He knew...where she was too. She’s been...in a coma. He said her soul was stripped from her body...and now she’s...just an empty husk.” He swallowed heavily, his voice trembling with emotion.

Marinette took his teacup from his hands, seeing that he was shaking terribly.

“He wanted to use the Miraculous to wake her...” he covered his mouth, unwilling to say anymore.

“Well...that...had to be a relief, right? Knowing he was trying to bring back your mom instead of trying for wealth or power?”

“You don’t understand!” He shouted, standing suddenly. He wasn’t angry, just panicked. Panicked that she didn’t have the right idea. He ran a hand through his hair in an effort to calm down. “The Miraculous work in the power of equivalent exchange, right?”

“Yes…”

“I was the exchange!”

Marinette furrowed her brow in confusion. “What?”

“He said—“ he choked. “He said his plans to bring her back weren’t going to work, ‘now that Adrien is gone.’ And I said, ‘oh because it won’t be a family anymore?’ and no! It was because I was supposed to give my soul in exchange for hers!”

“Oh god…” Marinette breathed.

“He said that to you?” Fu asked, horror on his face.

“Yes! To Chat Noir—but still! And when I reacted poorly…he said, ‘oh but then Adrien will just be born again as our new infant. He won’t have any memories and he’ll look different, but he’ll be Adrien!” The boy covered his face and heaved. “How could he do this to me!? I thought he loved me! But he was fine to just—throw me away! I was just a tool! That’s all I’ve ever been!!”

Marinette hopped to her feet to pull him into a tight hug. He began to cry in her arms, and did nothing to try to stop it.

She whispered sweetly into his ear. “I love you, and I want you. Your friends love you too. It’s going to be alright, kitty.”

He nodded against her, holding onto her words, though he wondered if he’d ever be alright again.

Adrien’s curse was being unprepared. A life spent locked up in a cosy house did nothing to protect him from just how cruel life would be. How cruel humans to be to those that were ‘ugly’ or different. How unfair everything was when you had nothing. He was lucky though, he had Ladybug. She was the warm hand that held onto him in this vast abyss.

“Tikki, Plagg,” Master Fu called out.

The kwami came out of their hiding places.

“Perhaps you two can have a word with the others in the Miracle Box. Take some cookies to share.”

The kwami eagerly agreed and zoomed away to their little world.

Marinette urged Adrien to sit again, as he rubbed at his face. “Sorry…”

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Master Fu consoled. “This is a safe place, Adrien.”

Adrien nodded, still feeling guilty from his outburst. Old habits die hard, after all.

“Are you alright to talk about your mother for a moment?” Fu asked, delicately.

“What do you want to know?”

“Where was she? How did she look?”

“She was in this…other room in our house, underground. And he had her in a pod, sleeping. I could see her breathing. She looked…a little pale, thin.”

“That’s to be expected.”

“But now…I don’t know what to do.” Adrien sighed. “I can’t just leave her there.”

“No, and you won’t.” Master Fu fetched his tablet, and began to flip through some images. “Your father was in possession of a grimoire, a book containing all the knowledge of the Miraculous. I managed to scan the whole thing before Marinette took it back.”

“Wait what?”

Marinette smiled sheepishly. “You remember that book you had with Lila?”

“Oh, yeah! The one with all the Miraculous in it! How did you know about that?”

She blushed heavily, a twirled a lock of hair around her finger. “Well…I was jealous of Lila getting close to you, so I followed you guys. I saw her take the book from your bag, and then hide it in a trash can. I was going to return it to you right away, but Tikki recognized it.” She huffed, “you know, at that time, Master Fu said that the owner of the book would probably be Hawkmoth, that’s why when we fought Volpina, I told you I thought it was your dad.”

“Oh!” He snapped his fingers. “I remember! And then my father turned into The Collector, so we wouldn’t suspect him. I see.” He nodded. “So, what about this book?”

Fu answered, not looking up. “If the peacock Miraculous has the ability to steal someone’s soul, perhaps the key to saving your mother is within its pages.”

He instantly perked up. “You mean, you can save my mother?!”

“Don’t get your hopes up Adrien.” Fu chastised. “There is a possibility. But there is still much I don’t know, as soul Magic is tricky business.”

Adrien nodded sagely, staring at the tabletop. “I...understand.”

“No doubt, the kwami will discuss this and come to some sort of solution.”

“Since Hawkmoth is no longer a threat, we don’t need to worry about being without our kwami. But we, Ladybug and Chat Noir, meet with the mayor and the lawyer representing the city of Paris later this week.”

“When is the trial?”

“Next week, Tuesday.”

“They have made certain to move this sentence quickly. Not that Gabriel poses a threat anymore.”

“Bail is set at 500 million Euros. While he could potentially pay it, he would have to sell all of his assets. Company, stocks, all inventory, houses, everything. And after this, there would be no way to build himself back up.” Adrien sighed. “It’s a relief to know he can’t get to me.”

Marinette ran her hand down his arm. “Don’t forget, he thinks you’re dead.”

“Right…right…” Still, his gaze was unfocused and lost in thought.

“Hey,” she shook his shoulder. “Whatever you’re thinking, we can handle it. Together. Okay?”

His eyebrows creased. “You know, I love being Chat Noir. I always have. With the mask, I could be whoever I wanted to be. So I was the most over the top, ridiculous, goofy character I could create. One that I knew my father would hate…Chat is confident and impulsive, but he always has Ladybug. Two halves of a whole. Made to fight together and support each other. It was…the complete opposite from Adrien. Adrien had…a style guide to follow, not just in dress, but behavior, emotions. When Adrien was feeling lonely, he was…given therapy. When he had questions about love life, he had to actively seek out someone to confide in. Having support, having friendship, being allowed to show emotion and act like a normal human being…it’s still new to me. After how many months? I’m still trying to learn how to let people help me. Plagg has been…a godsend.” He wiped some tears from his eyes. “He’s always with me, and even though he’s a butt head, he’s there. Do you remember the Nightmare Akuma?”

Marinette shivered. “Oh yeah. That was the worst.”

“Well…that was the only akuma that made me cry. Of course, I was terrified when you jumped in Animan’s mouth, this akuma…my room filled with prison bars. Plagg had disappeared, and I was truly all alone. I cried out for help from my father, but he never came…I was so scared.” Finally, Adrien looked back up to the two watching him with sad eyes. “I’m so sorry, I just went on a rant there for a while…”

“Kitty, I’m so glad you did. You know what that means?”

“What?”

“You’re healing.”

His eyes widened as he stared at her in wonder.

“You were so used to holding your tongue, not talking about things, or getting cut off…that’s not behavior that goes away in a few months, but it’s exciting to see it fading. Also, Emile smiles really wide, and you have the most wonderful laugh…”

He beamed. “Thank you my lady.”

Master Fu cleared his throat. “Marinette is right. This is a good sign. Your tears are not a sign of weakness, but strength. Strength in your trust of us, strength in your knowledge of what is good and healthy, and strength in your courage to express yourself. The coming days will be hard, Adrien. I won’t sugar coat it, but you have lots of people to cry on. So let yourself cry.”

Adrien seemingly took his advice to heart as he started bawling. “B-b-b-but I don’t—like to cry~!”     

Marinette petted his hair and scratching his scalp just the way he liked it. He purred in between his hiccups. “Aw, kitty.”

“I’m such a mess!” He bemoaned.

“A cute mess.”

Master Fu smiled kindly and refilled his teacup. Then he urged the conversation onward. “So he called the police?”

Adrien cleared his throat and wiped his face with a sleeve. “Yes. Well, his secretary called them. Then, I went back to the hospital. It was around 2am at this point. While I was gone…Marinette suffered a series of heart attacks, and the doctor said it wouldn’t be long before her heart stopped all together.” He paused to sip his tea. Talking about this was still hard, but less so because Marinette was sitting beside him, still healing some ribs, but no longer in danger. “But instead of taking us back to see her, he took us to his office to show us…Tikki.”

Both teens winced, worried about Master Fu’s reaction.

“He found out?”

Marinette answered, “Apparently, Tikki revealed herself to him on her own, to save me.”

“Hmm. I suppose she would know. She is the oldest and wisest of the kwami. Though, I don’t think we have to worry, since Hawkmoth is no longer a threat. Why did she reveal herself?”

Adrien answered. “She wanted to make sure Chat Noir could see Marinette. Or, more importantly, get ahold of her earrings.”

Master Fu stood quickly, now in shock and outrage. “You put on both Miraculous!?”

Adrien could only nod.

“Do you know how dangerous that is!? It is forbidden! Balance has to be maintained! You could have killed yourself! Or someone else!”

Marinette pulled up the video Nino shot. “But he didn’t.” She handed her phone over to Master Fu, while Adrien continued.

“I don’t think Tikki would have suggested it if she wasn’t desperate. It was…strange. When I transformed, I couldn’t remember anything. But Alya was there to ground me, and she directed me towards Marinette. I wished to take half of her wounds.”

Master Fu watched the video with furrowed brows, saying nothing. When it was over, he rewound it and watched again. Then finally, he responded. “What you did was risky and foolish.”

Adrien sighed and hung his head.

“But you pulled it off flawlessly, and used it to save someone else. Therefore, you have proven yourself as a true miraculous user.”

Adrien sat up straight, “you mean it?”

“Yes, I only know of one other person that has used both the Black Cat and Ladybug miraculous…for selfish reasons that ended in catastrophe.”

“What happened?” Marinette asked.

“When I was younger, around my twenties, I began training with the other Miraculous Guardians in Tibet. I made a foolish decision and loaned the Peacock and Butterfly to a man for selfish reasons. When he refused to return them, and started to use them for his own will, I stole the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculous to try to fix my mistake. Instead…” he paused, pain rushing over his features. “I haven’t told anyone about this. But I didn’t know you lost your mind when you transformed. I thought it would be simple, just transform in secret and wish for the Miraculous back. But in those days, I was still…I was the youngest of the guardians. The lowest in pecking order. I got the grunt work and unfavorable jobs. So when I transformed, the only things I could recall were some ridicule I faced.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I wished for revenge.”

He could hear both teens gasp, but he couldn’t bare to look up.

“The only thing that survived was the Miracle Box and the Miraculous. The man that had the Butterfly and Peacock had fled the town in the aftermath. After I fled to Paris, I vowed to never put on the earrings or the ring, but I used the Turtle only in emergencies to protect the Miraculous.”

He looked up to the two shocked teens. “I took a huge risk by giving you two the Miraculous, but I am so glad I did. You have both exceeded my expectations.”

Marinette and Adrien looked at each other and smiled proudly.  

“So, you’re not going to take our Miraculous back?” Asked Marinette.

“No, with a few notable exceptions, Ladybugs and Chat Noirs are wielders until they die. Usually, they meet their end on the battlefield, but occasionally their Kwami get the joy of helping raise children and grandchildren. Which in this age of peace, is fairly likely. In any case, Adrien’s successful use of both of the Miraculous has further cemented my decision.”

“Decision?” Asked Adrien.

“Yes. I am the last Guardian of the Miraculous, and quickly approaching 190 years old. The Miraculous aids to longevity, so I may have another Century in me, but I still need to appoint a successor. Both of you are good choices. But because Adrien used both, and is fluent in Chinese, I have decided to train him to be a guardian. Hopefully, your family can become the new Order of The Guardians.”

Both Adrien and Marinette stared at him, wide eyed and slack jawed.

“Are you serious?”

“Deadly. There is much knowledge withheld from the Kwami, which would be lost with me. There is no one else I trust more than you two.”

Adrien breathed, “w-wow, it’s an honor!” But the look on his face said otherwise.

“If you are uncomfortable with the idea, you can decline.”

“No no! It’s fine! It’s just—I’m...”

“Overwhelmed?” Marinette asked simply.

“Yeah. There’s just been...a lot to digest.”

“Understandable. Please, we’ll revisit this another day, when you have less to think about.”

Adrien figured that was code for ‘once your father is in prison’. He nodded, “Okay. Thank you.”

“And in the meantime, I will continue to research the Peacock Miraculous and your mother’s state.”

“Do you have some paper and a pen?” Adrien asked.

“Ah, yes. But why?”

“There was one more thing that I need to mention.” Taking the paper, he wrote down a phone number and email address. “Nathalie Sancoeur was my father’s secretary and my…babysitter, for lack of a better word. She was there when he was arrested. She knows who I am. She knew I was Chat long before Emile was in the picture, but she chose not to say anything, stating that it wasn’t any of her business. If you need to see my mother, I’m sure Nathalie will let you in. Especially if you explain who you are.”

“If she had not told M. Agreste your identity in all this time, I suppose she’s trustworthy enough. This will help.”

Adrien sighed again, his shoulders sagging.

“You okay?” Marinette asked.

“I will be.” He offered his lady a smile.

“It has been quite the day. Why don’t you two head on home?”

“Sounds good. Homework waits for no man!”

“Uugghhh…”