#So I think 3/4 of a chapter done is pretty good progress

[ethereal-feline]

Alright I think that's enough stalling time to get to some fights in this chapter

[blacktabbygames]

shooting my shot with these questions - how far along was the development of demo fury and how much work was scrapped or reworked into adversary/tower for the release game? :0c i think it's genius vot broken got swapped over to tower's route and we got stubborn instead, but i'm also burning with curiosity wondering how broken was originally going to function with demo fury

Pretty much 0 "hard" work had been done on demo Fury before she got scrapped. We had loose concepts for how we wanted the overall progression of the game to go, but those concepts had yet to face the crucible of writing vs the pleasant air conditioned room of the imagination. As soon as we released the first demo for Slay the Princess, we spent 100% of our energy on finishing Episode 4 of Scarlet Hollow. It wasn't until January of 2023 that we started work on the rest of Slay the Princess. A lot of the earliest stages work was spent on looooong runs on the elliptical, listening to music + thinking things through. That ideation phase felt *really* stilted with the number of Princesses we had in the initial demo, especially for Princesses that had a lot of ways to unlock them, since the more ways you got to a Princess, the less it felt like her character had a real emotional core to latch onto. So, using the example of the Fury... what is she? She's someone way more powerful than you who mercilessly beats you to death. But she's ALSO someone who you fought to a fatal standstill that ended with mutual respect. And somehow at the same time she's also ALSO someone who hid a secret knife... somewhere... and killed you with it. Like, who is that? It's nobody. Not really. And while we *could* have tackled this with entirely too much variable dialogue, at that point each of those Princesses felt like entirely different people, so what if we just... made them different Princesses? That's what we did with demo 1 Fury, who became The Adversary, the Tower, AND the Razor. Likewise, Damsel -> Damsel + Prisoner and Beast -> Witch + Beast Since the original concept for "The Fury" was split into "The Adversary and "The Tower," we thought it would be fun to bring her back as the "fusion" Chapter 3 Princess that can be accessed for either of their routes. And since we got into PAX Rising shortly after making this decision, it felt like a good idea to do a full re-release of the demo. And outside of that... there's very little in the way of leftover first drafts or unused concepts, other than little figments that live in our heads. Slay the Princess had a *ridiculously fast* turnaround time (about 7 months of full time work from myself and Abby for the initial release, + ~3 months of extra full time work for the Pristine Cut.) This faster turnaround was intentional, both to minimize any drag on Scarlet Hollow's development, but also because the game itself is dreamlike by design, and free-running with ideas until they hit their logical ends felt like it worked extremely well with the story we were hoping to tell.

[shrewfern]

things about all the young dudes i really like (my atyd annotations)

note: part two!! here’s part one. if you don’t read part one, just know i’m reading atyd on a pdf file, and can’t see the chapters numerically. any chapters referred to will be done by name instead of number. also, fair warning, idk what’s gotten into me, but 3/4 of this is me simping for remus and sirius.

remus x lily? 👀👀

everyone but remus knows he’s gay and it’s KILLING ME.

^which isn’t actually true bc he is dating ME and is madly in love with ME.

‘At least Sirius blew up at you when you annoyed him, so that it could be quickly solved.’ (sigh…he’s perfect <3) ‘...and Remus would probably try to throw a punch.’ (sndvjkbfvk he’s also perfect <333333)

‘Lily sighed, heavily, “Why does it always have to be so black and white? No one’s good all over or bad all over, not even Slytherins.”’ W LILY!!!!

lily, my sun goddess, please be my friend.

sirius’ bag is an absolute mess.

i like it when sirius winks. he should wink at me SIRIUS PLEASE BE REALLDJKBFIWBJEFjn ebkjfwkjlefj.  sorry idk why i’m like this today.

‘Remus noticed that almost every girl in the crowd was giggling, or screaming Sirius’ name.’

‘limpy lupin’ 💀

REGULUS NOOOOOOOO!!! UGH i can’t finish drawing my regulus ‘heat abnormal’ fanart IF HE DIES IN THE QUIDDITCH PITCH; it won’t make any sense!

^oh, phew! he’s okay! shinda hensuu de kurikaesu kazoe koto ga haranda netsu

^also. i made the drawing. sorry for the shitty image quality, for some reason my dumbass decided to download it as a progressive jpeg. 💀

‘[Madame Hooch] managed to slow Regulus’s decent, so that his body appeared to be falling through water, not air’ OH MSKINGBEAN89 YOU BITCH.

remus wants to hit peter.

remus doing sirius’ homework to make him feel better.

peter thinks that the history music begins with david bowie (which is arguably true).

‘am i drunk yet?’ – peter pettigrew

remus is a nice drunk, sirius is a giggly drunk. oh, my boys, my perfect handsome boys <33

i can only imagine james and remus steering a drunken, grabby sirius and peter away from the honeyduke’s sweets.

‘yuh.’ – sirius black 435

sirius borderline sitting on remus’ lap in “fourth year: april”.

(sirius, to peter) ‘doesn’t the word “secret” mean anything to you?!’ OOOHHHH THE FORESHADOWING!

burnt out sirius save me…save me burnt out sirius…burnt out sirius…

^ALSO on the not of burnt out sirius, “pathological facade” by ghost and pals but it’s sirius?

remus having romantical dreams!

‘Sirius just raised an eyebrow at him. Remus poked his tongue out.’ I NEED TO DRAW THIS!!

remus slowly warming up to ‘girl stuff’. not warming up, per say, i feel that doesn’t have quite the right connotation; but just becoming more sympathetic and less bothered with it.

lily, mary, and marlene PLEASE be my friends!!

mary listening to dusty springfield while sobbing her eyes out.

remus making comical retching noises (which makes lily giggle!!) upon walking in on peter (boooo!! tomato tomato!) and desdemona giving their farewell snogs.

james and sirius, my little agents of chaos. <3

james potter inventing facetime.

i can’t read or think about anything train-related without inabakumore’s ‘lagtrain’ blaring in my head. 😭😭

oh, no, not remus’ ride back to london (fourth year) paralleling that of harry’s in the order of the phoenix!

why do trailer trash assholes get so offended when you use manners?? 😭

remus gayly side-eyeing grant’s hips.

‘Dear Moony, / I’m pretty sure I can get away with writing letters at least for now. I imagine they’re being read, but I DON’T GIVE A SHIT, DO YOU HEAR ME, REGULUS??’

‘Sirius, / Getting on with Reg, then?’

i LOVE how over the summer segments, remus slowly starts responding to his friends’ letters. i also love the letter-formatting chapters.

walburga is mad that sirius has a bunch of nude posters in his room bc the women on them are muggles, not bc they have their tits out.

GAY JUMPSCARE.

please let me be grant please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please pl

animagus foreshadowing got me going crazy.

NOW WE’RE GETTING INTO THE WOLFSTAR 💯💯

sirius eating a bowl of sugar to spite james.

i do NOT like how remus treated regulus in “year five: pain”. as someone who has been abused countless times for YEARS alongside my sister, i can confirm reg is not a coward.

IT JUST HIT ME. sirius saying, ‘anything for our moony,’ is the same as westly saying, ‘as you wish,’ in the princess bride.

end of “fifth year: moony & co.” got me GRINNING.

peter ‘cheese-muncher’ pettigrew

peter ‘squeaker’ pettigrew

peter ‘scabers’ pettigrew

peter ‘whiskers’ pettigrew

cheese-muncher >>>>>> wormtail

sirius ‘fido’ black

james 'rudolph’ potter

remus’ favorite soup is tomato.

i don’t like how sirius treats reg. i mean, he’s being abused, too. he doesn’t want to be abused, he doesn’t want to watch his brother get torn to shreds; he’s a boy, not a sociopath.

^i do get where sirius’ feelings are coming from, tho; i had a similar relationship with my little sister for a while under similar circumstances. i just wish he could see past that and get along with his brother! siblings are the coolest people when you can get along with them.

NOOOO REG WROTE THE LETTER. REG BOUTTA CRY NONOEUANUBADFibuairg SIRIUS PLEASE LOVE YOUR BROTHER

james ‘prancer’ potter

sirius ‘snuffles’ black

james ‘buckaroo’ potter

^’buckle up, buckaroos!’ – caitlyn jenner

remus and sirius howling together!

MAN i wish the marauders were real and i was friends with them, especially when i was younger

WHY WON’T PAGE 514 LOAD?!?!?!

oh, phew. there it is.

remus pierced sirius’ ear using his prefect pin and a potato.

i will never get tired of the ‘are you serious’ ‘no i’m sirius’ jokes.

sirius flicking his cigarette out the window immediately gave me ptsd flashbacks to bojack horseman flicking his cigarette off his balcony and starting a forest fire (i love metaphors for generational trauma!!).

‘“Ah, young love,” James chuckled, “Giving your girlfriend a goodnight kiss as your friends booby trap her exit points...”’

KISS KISS KISSKISS KISS KISSKISS KISS KISSKISS KISS KISSKISS KISS KISSKISS KISS KISSKISS KISS KISSKISS KISS KISSKISS KISS KISSKISS KISS KISS

waiter, waiter! more yaoi, please!

‘i can’t be gay! it’s illegal!’

dumbledore: 😈

i love the gay panic.

‘Bollocks. Shiting buggering bollocks.’

one-hundered pages in two hours let’s fuCKING GOOOOOOO 🔥🔥🔥💯💯💪💪👅🫄

mcgonagall is yay yay hooray

‘[sirius] would never do anything so reckless that Remus could not forgive him for it.’ 😬😬

NOOOO MARY WHO WAS RACIST TO YOU I’LL KICK THEIR ASS FOR YOUR maryiloveyoupleaselovemeback

feminist remus >>>>>>>>>>>

holy shit how is this already four pages?

‘What fresh hell?!’

‘“Coming up on your time of month?”’ 🏳️‍⚧️

remus’ first instinct is to disarm severus, and sirius’ is to set him on fire.

‘“We’re British. It’s always about class.”’

mrs potter wanted to make remus soup, but james knew remus would want something meatier. 

‘“If it took you that long to cotton on, then I’m very concerned about your OWL results...”’ if my mom said that to me i would actually shit a chicken.

‘“Yippee.” Remus said, sarcastically.’

oohhh is there gonna be a plot-twist where, like, greyback and remus are fighting or smth and greyback tells rem, ‘your dad didn’t khs, i killed him wahahaha’ or smth.

oh my GOODDDD i’m almost half-way through (625/1491) WHEN ARE THEY GONNA KISS AGAIN???

‘we’ll still see each other after school’s finished!! :D’ remus says to marlene, as if that was going to be true.

^i have a feeling it’s not.

redhead and the twink!!!!

mary charmed all the goblets at the gryffindor table to throw their contents in his face.

REMUS ASKING SIRIUS IF MARY BROKE UP WITH HIM (sirius) BC HE’S BAD AT SEX

remus and sirius were convinced david bowie was a wizard.

‘“Your ego is so big,” Remus continued, slyly, “When you were doing it with Mary you probably closed your eyes and imagined yourself!”’ DAUYYYMMMMNNN!!!!

oh my GOD this is GAY

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHH

BAH

AHUHAJSHIDH

ADBHBIBDIUSBIBFIDABUFAB

h

“‘...it’s Padfoot’s turn to puke...”’

^does drunkenly puking into the same toilet bowl count as an indirect kiss?

peter turning into a rat and running away and placing the blame on sirius (before the whole canon-story thing).

oh my.

WOOHOO!!!

okay this is getting kinda long now, so i’m gonna cut it off here at “sixth year: new normal” and make a part three at some point.

[cal-daisies-and-briars]

Next up are the stories where eddie does (or presumably will soon) yell at his parents! We love to see it (and are eagerly waiting and hoping for it to happen on screen soon)!

🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲 (diaz siblings reunited! All the buck, eddie, and adriana in the woods stuff had me on the edge of my seat and I can’t wait to read it all through when it’s published! Also eddie freaking out about his back nightmares coming true is really getting to me - poor guy!)

⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️ (oh boy an ominous warning from nemesis! I’m concerned! And seeing the accident that presumably killed eddie in the other timeline! I just want all three of my boys to get back home to LA so i can wrap them up in blankets together on their couch and feed them soup)

🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼 (how do i always forget about covid? It keeps sneaking up on me! But I’m loving the progression of buddieshannon - it seems like they’re getting close! And i really love the way you’ve created maddie and shannon’s friendship! It’s beautiful and it makes me laugh when i think about eddie and maddies completely no existent relationship in the show :p)

Also I’m curious (but obviously feel free to ignore if you want to keep the details to yourself), how far are these stories along in what you have planned for them? Cuz they’ve all come such a long way that I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re getting towards their ends, but you’re so talented at plot development that I know they could have so much more to come!

- PCA <3

Hey! Thank you - love this theme, too!

As to your last question - great question!

For Gentle on My Mind I am not sure. I planned it sort of like TWATYTK where I just sort of have things I want to reach and will write until I get there. But it won't be nearly as long.

For Firelight, I am well into chapter 7 out of 10.

For An An Angry Blade, I am almost done chapter 4 out of 6.

96 for 🌲 (Ahh thank you! Yes! Lots of angst!)

---

“Me believing it?” Eddie says. 

Buck nods. 

Eddie inhales. “Then why isn’t the rest of it gone, too?”

“Good question,” Buck says. “I guess it’s only one theory.”

“Worth… Worth keeping in mind,” Eddie mumbles, blushing. He feels embarrassed, all of a sudden. Like a princess in a tower.

Buck smiles a little lopsidedly. “Well, I love you.”

Eddie exhales and smiles back. 

“I know you do.”  

ii. 

They return Adriana’s rental car in the morning, and with Buck at the wheel of Eddie’s truck, they head towards El Paso. It’s going to be a long drive. With Eddie, anxious as hell about confronting his mother and seeing Chris. With Adriana and Sophia, who don’t seem to like him. All good stuff. 

Adriana is quiet. Buck has found her rather frustrating this entire time, but then he remembers what she’s been through, and it’s hard to hold it against her. Sophia, though? Buck’s not sure what her problem is. He hasn’t done anything to her. In fact, he’s kind of been important in helping both her siblings. No big deal. But she’s still pretty frosty to him today. 

It doesn’t really matter, he supposes. It doesn’t matter if Sophia likes him. It’s not like it’s going to impact Eddie’s opinion. He makes his own strong opinions, and he loves Buck. Besides, they aren’t super close. Physically or emotionally. Eddie once told him they were, before Chris. She was still a teenager, and while he was too, he didn’t really get to stay that way.  Makes sense.

“So, Sophia,” Buck says, a few hours into the drive. Because while it may not matter that she doesn’t like him, he still really wants her to anyway. 

“So, Buck,” she repeats.

“You’re a vet, right?” Buck asks. “Like, not the kind Eddie is?”

“No, I served in ‘Nam,” she says flatly.

“Oh my god, you’re such a dick sometimes,” Eddie huffs. “Can you please be nice?”

Sophia makes a frustrated noise. “Yes. I’m a veterinarian.”

“That’s uh… That’s super cool,” Buck says. 

“Yep,” she replies.

“Hey, uh, did I do something?” Buck asks. “Because I know why your sister and I maybe got off on the wrong foot, but you and I-”

“It’s not you. You’re fine,” she cuts him off. “I don’t care… I mean, happy for you and Eddie, or whatever.”

“This is really cool and chill,” Adriana mumbles. 

“What does that mean?” Eddie asks.

“It’s nothing, Eddie. Don’t worry about it.”

“No,” Eddie shifts his body to turn and look at her. “It obviously means something, Soph. So just say it.”

She rolls her eyes. Buck thinks her expression sort of reminds him of Christopher’s, when he’s fed up or annoyed. She’s so familiar, for someone who is more or less a stranger. 

“Fine, Eddie,” she snaps. “Fine. You want to know why I’m being pissy with your boyfriend?”

“We haven’t actually labeled it,” Buck whispers. “But I’m cool with that if you are.”

Eddie doesn’t seem to hear this.

“Obviously or I wouldn’t ask!” He fires back.

“How long did you know what was going on with our baby sister before you told me?” Sophia snaps. “After all I went through looking for her!”

“I didn’t even know,” Eddie defends himself. “It was a hunch.”

“Well, you told someone else before you told me! And I’m sure you’re great, Buck. You seem fine. But you shouldn’t have seen my sister before me. You shouldn’t have known what happened to her before me.”

“My god, Soph,” Adriana sighs. 

“No, my god!” She snaps. “You have no idea what it was like, not knowing! It drove me crazy!”

“I’m sorry,” Adriana says. “But that’s not Eddie’s fault. Or Buck’s.”

---

96 for ⚖️ (Buck especially needs blankets and soup!)

---

“The stories differ,” the officer says. 

“SHE STABBED ME WITH HER CAR KEYS,” the woman shrieks. 

“Ma’am, we’d like to take a look at your wounds,” Eddie says patiently. “Would you come to the ambulance with us so we can treat those?”

“Finally, someone who knows what the hell they’re doing,” the woman snaps. 

The officer refrains from rolling his eyes, but Buck can see it’s a struggle. He guides her over to the ambulance behind Buck and Eddie. She sits down on the open back and Eddie inspects her injuries while Buck hands him supplies from the med kit. 

“These don’t look too deep,” Eddie tells her, checking over the wounds on her arms and torso. “I’m just going to clean and bandage them before you head out, okay?” 

“Head out?” The woman asks. “Head out to where?”

“I’ll need to bring you back to the station to answer some questions,” the officer says. “File a proper report about what happened here today.”

At that moment, Bobby walks over from Chim and Hen, who seem to have their situation under control, to here, just as the woman is growing increasingly exasperated.

“No!” She screeches. “No, you can’t take me to the station, I don’t want to go!”

“Ma’am, it’s protocol,” the officer says. 

“I won’t go!” She throws up her arms, jolting Eddie’s hands as he tries to clean her wounds. 

“Hey, uh, it-it really helps my co-worker if you keep still while he works,” Buck tries. 

She completely ignores him.

“I will not go! You cannot make me!” She continues to protest, gesticulating wildly. Eddie has to move back to avoid getting accidentally smacked. 

“Everything okay here?” Bobby asks, frowning. Like he can see a situation unfolding.  

“I’m not going back to jail!” The woman cries. 

“Back?” Eddie echoes.

“No one said anything about jail, Ma’am,” the officer says. “We just need to take your statement and get some information-”

“No!” She yelps. She stands suddenly, darting out and away from Eddie.

“Wait!” The officer calls. “You can’t just-”

But the woman is trying to make a break for it. Buck and the officer start in her direction, but Bobby is closer. He manages to intercept her, stepping in her way and grabbing her arm. 

“LET GO OF ME!” She shrieks. 

Bobby keeps a firm hold on her. “Now you need to calm-”

He’s cut off by the woman reaching into the pocket of her jacket, pulling something out that Buck can’t quite see, and thrusting it into Bobby’s abdomen. Bobby’s breath catches. His eyes widen with a pained expression. 

“BOBBY!” Buck shouts, sprinting for him. 

He stops short, Eddie grabbing the back of his shirt, when the officer draws his gun and points it at the woman. 

⚖️

An hour later, the woman - Carol, it turns out, her name is - has been arrested, and Buck is waiting in the ER. 

She stabbed Bobby with a pen. Hard enough to cause damage, but not sharp enough to kill him. Still, there was a lot of blood. And Bobby paled so much he passed out briefly in the ambulance. It’s not a blade wound. It’s not like the time Buck found Chim bleeding on the cobblestones out front Maddie’s apartment. But it’s not good. Not at all. 

“He’s not going to die,” Hen says firmly in the waiting room. She still needs to wash Bobby’s blood from under her fingernails. “We’ve all survived way worse than this, right? He’s going to be just fine.”

And Buck knows she’s probably right. She usually is, for one thing. For another, Buck knows it’s not the worst injury anyone has ever sustained. Bobby will get it cleaned and patched up and he’ll be just fine. 

But Buck is still furious. He has anger curling in him, tight and hot. Ready to burst at a moment’s notice. 

When Athena shows up, worried and just as angry as Buck that this has happened, she fills them in on what happened. The pieces they missed.

“The two women who were initially attacked, Carol Brandt and her sister, Vanessa, were visiting on a trip from Utah. Apparently, they’re local leaders in some sort of multi-level marketing scheme. Have been arrested before for an altercation with a former member of their downline. A downline which includes today’s perp, who followed them and confronted them about shady practices.” 

“So Bobby got stabbed over some essential oils?” Buck asks, tone snappish. “That’s what you’re saying?”

“I believe this is protein drinks, but yeah,” Athena confirms, pursing her lips. 

And Buck… He just can’t handle it. 

He stands abruptly, eyes brimming with tears. He feels so tired and frustrated and�� And unable to cope. 

“Sorry, Athena,” he mumbles, then he makes a bee-line for the exit. He doesn’t give a reason or excuse. He just needs some air. 

---

63 for 🔼 (Haha yeah Eddie and Maddie need to interact, but for now, at least I've got imaginary Shannon & Maddie):

---

“You have to talk to her, Dad. Please, you do,” Chris begs. 

“Uh…” Eddie thinks. “What’s the name of the game, Chris?”

There’s a long pause. 

“Why?” 

Ah. He doesn’t want Eddie to know. Well, that’s not lending credibility to his story.

“Because your mom likes to make you happy,” Eddie says. “So if she said no, there’s probably a reason. And I’m wondering if that reason maybe has something to do with the game’s rating.”

Another long pause. His eyes are downturned. 

“Christopher,” Eddie presses. “What is the game rated?”

“M,” Chris admits finally. “But only because-”

“Yeah, see. No,” Eddie says. “Your mom is absolutely right, Chris. You are too young to be playing a game with that rating.”

“But, Dad-”

“No buts, Chris. It’s inappropriate. End of story.”

Christopher’s expression twists with fury. He’s mad mad. Well, tough. Shannon was right. Eddie isn’t going to undermine her or let his kid play some traumatizing, violent game at his age. 

“I’m sorry it’s disappointing,” Eddie says. “I know you miss your friends.”

“It’s not fair!” Chris protests. “I don’t get to do anything with anyone. Not even you!”

Eddie’s heart hurts for his son. Here he is frustrated by too much time with his friends, while Chris is over there lonely. Sure, he’s got his mom. And he’s got his sister. But what good company is a baby, really? He’s needing something he can’t get right now, and it’s no one’s fault. It’s just the world right now.

“Chris, I know this is really hard-”

“No! You don’t!” Chris interrupts. “You get to be with Buck and do things every day!” 

Eddie sighs. “I know. I know it isn’t fair.”

“No, you don’t,” Chris grumbles. And then, without even saying goodbye, Chris hangs up the phone. 

Shit. 

◀️

Shannon can hear Chris call Eddie. Despite saying she would talk to him. Whatever. He’s allowed to call his father. Just… It feels underhanded, right? Trying to convince Eddie to make the opposite decision to hers without talking to her. She’s mad. 

[ktdragonborn]

Another Spencer. (5)

Carlton Lassiter X Female Reader (Shawn's Sister)

Summary: You finally moved back to California after almost 15 years away. When your mom and dad separated, your dad got Shawn and your mom took you. (Don't ask me why it's just what they agreed on). But now you're back! And you never expected to meet such a dashing Detective that would sweep you off your feet.

Characters: You, Carlton, Shawn and Gus, Juilet, Henry Spencer (dad), Madeleine Spencer (mom), Chief Karan Vick, mention of many other characters.

Warnings: None as of now! There will be smut and other graphic scenes as the story progresses.

~This story follows the show Psych. Plots from episodes are mentioned and some chapters will have you added to them. I do not own any characters from the TV Psych, just a big fan of the show and a bigger fan of our boy Lassie. I couldn't ever find something that hit my craving for Lassiter so here I am. This will also be a very long story. Very long. I'm starting it towards the end of Season 2 and plan on writing it throughout the whole show, skipping some episodes but in the end, it'll be very long.~

Please let me know what you think in the comments! Let me know if you wanna be added to the tag list too!

Chapter 4.

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

You walked into the restaurant, looking quickly to your left and right, scanning the area. “How can I help you?” the stewardess asked you with a big smile on her face. 

“Hi, I’m meeting a friend here. He told me he was here already.” She smiled again and looked down at her seating chart before looking into a corner of the restaurant. 

“Is that him?” she pointed to a big booth in the corner. You looked over and saw the salt-and-pepper hair you’d grown so fond of. 

“Yes, that is,” you said with a smile. “Thank you,” you said, and walked over to Carlton. He was looking at the menu and was fairly engrossed with it. You noticed he was sitting so he could face the door- something your father had done your whole life. Your dad always explained that he sat there so he could see who was walking into the restaurant or wherever he was. Not like he’d be able to tell who had a warrant just by looking at him, but you never argued with him. You could only assume that was why Carlton was sitting in that same position. As you approached, Carlton never looked up from his menu. “You know,” you started and Carlton looked up quickly, alarmed at your sudden appearance, “sitting in that spot allows you to see everyone who enters the restaurant. But it doesn’t work very well if you’re not paying attention,” you smiled and Carlton smiled with a sigh and shuffled out of the booth. He looked down at you and wrapped his arms around you, pulling you into a tight hug. 

“I was having a hard time deciding what to eat. You know how it is when you have an empty stomach.” You laughed and embraced Carlton, enjoying the smell of his cologne mixing with his natural smell. 

“What’re your options?” You pulled away, and you both sat in the booth. You grabbed your menu and started looking over everything. 

“I can’t decide between the steak or the burger.”

“What haven’t you had recently?”

“I haven’t had a good steak in a while…” Carlton trailed off and looked at the menu again. You looked at what he was looking at and saw that it came with mashed potatoes as a side. 

“I say get the steak, it comes with mashed potatoes, and I’ll help you eat those,” you joked, and Carlton laughed too. 

“Okay, but only if you get something that comes with fries because the fries here are amazing.”

“Deal,” you said and smiled at him. “How has your morning been?” 

“Good! I’m just waiting on an autopsy report for the Wyles case. What about you?”

“Oh, you know,” you smiled and took a sip of your water, “This morning was a little busy, and then I’ve got another client at 3 pm, but after that, my day is over.”

“That is a pretty nice schedule, normal, easy to plan around,” Carlton commented, sounding both envious and sad at the same time. 

“It allows me extra forgiveness when it comes to you, Detective.” You winked, and Carlton let out a small laugh.

“My schedule is very unpredictable,” he trailed off a little bit and glanced at the menu, pretending to be interested in it. “I know you said you’re used to it with your dad, but times have changed, and Head Detective is more demanding than it was in the past.”

“You get weekends off regularly, right? Unless you’re called in?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Crime never sleeps,” you offered with a laugh. “Neither do the needs of mental health. However, many of my instances can wait a day or two for an emergency meeting with me.”

“Do your clients ever reach out on your weekends or after hours?”

“Not normally, but I also have a very clear understanding with most of my clients. If they’re in crisis, I always tell them to call 911, but I’ve expressed that in extreme circumstances, they can reach out to me first. Sometimes, you don’t need the emergency services; sometimes people just need to vent to a trusted source and cool off. I need my time to reset after my work weeks, so I don’t allow any contact outside of emergencies.”

“I wish I had that option,” Carlton commented and smiled at you. He looked slightly down, at least down compared to how you normally have seen him. 

“What’s on your mind?” you offered the question up, hoping he would take it and express whatever it was to you. 

“Do you want kids?”

“Whoa!” you said with a good laugh. “I’m not even sure if this is an official date! But yes, I do, do you?” you asked Carlton back, a big smile on your face. He held a smile too, seemingly relieved by your answer. 

“I do.”

“Any reason that’s on your mind?”

“My ex-wife and I…” Carlton kind of cringed at that statement; you observed it, but thought now wasn’t a good time to ask him about it, especially since the last time he mentioned, he and his wife were only separated. “We disagreed on kids to an extent. She thought I didn’t want any, which wasn’t true.”

“Covering your bases, I see,” you gave Carlton a small smile, and he could tell you were thinking about him and his ex-wife. 

“We are separated, and there are no signs of reconciliation from her side. And there’s no interest in reconciling from my side either,” Carlton offered a genuine smile to you, trying to comfort and reassure you. 

“That’s good to hear, I mean not so much for your ex, but it's great news for me,” you laughed. The waiter came over and took your orders, you made sure to get something with fries, like Carlton joked about. 

“Do you have concerns with our schedules not aligning?” Carlton inquired. You assumed this was another issue he and his ex-wife had been dealing with in the past. 

“I don’t. Like I’ve mentioned, I grew up with a schedule like yours. Besides, we’ve made it work out this far. There’s been a part of me that has been interested in trying to work for the Police Department, and that would solve some of our problems.”

“I just worry, if I’m called out-”

“Carlton,” you said, and placed your hand on the table, signaling for his hand. He gave you his hand in response and looked at you. “I think I might like you a little too much to let your work get in the way. Carlton smiled, his blue eyes bright. 

“I’m thankful every day that I ran into you at that bar.”

“The feeling is mutual.” You observed Carlton smile and look down at his lap for a second. “Carlton, what’s bothering you? I keep thinking you’ve told me, but then you continue to look anxious.”

“It’s nothing terrible,” he started, clearing his throat. “Sometimes I worry about the age gap that we have.”

“How old do you think I am?”

“I guessed around 24 or something, based on your schooling and job experience. I’m 39.” Carlton swallowed hard, obviously unsure about how you would react. Your reaction surprised even you. Your core heated up and twitched at the thought of him being so much older. Your face flushed red, and you cleared your throat before looking away to hide your face. You tried to act as normally as possible. Carlton looked at you, eyebrows raised and eyes growing with concern. 

“I’m 26!” you blurted out, trying to deflect from yourself. “So it’s nothing too crazy!”

“It’s 13 years…” Carlton kind of whispered. 

“That’s not bad!” Your voice was squeaky, and you were doing an awful job of hiding your quite dramatic reaction. Did you have daddy issues? You knew Shawn had daddy and mommy issues, but you? This is a new realization for you. Carlton looked at you, his eyebrows now furrowing. He took a breath to ask if you were okay, but the waiter came by with your food and refilled your drinks. You looked back and forth between the waiter and your food, and Carlton was studying you the whole time. He thought back on your reaction, and the realization hit him. He couldn’t stop his eyes from going wide. Were you…turned on? By such a simple thing as his age? He smiled. He thanked the waiter and looked at you. He had a knowing look in his eyes. He observed you, face red and eyes panicky, his mind jumping too quickly for his taste, and thought about how you would look under him, red-faced and moaning. 

You cleared your throat after drinking some water, and Carlton snapped out of his daydream. He felt himself flush with embarrassment, especially after he felt his dress slacks get a little too tight. You smiled and looked down at your food. “Feel free to have some of my fries,” you offered with a shy smile. You couldn’t believe what just happened. You were more than embarrassed but also stunned by Carlton’s reaction. He seemed not only okay with his realization but also seemed into it. 

“Thank you.” Carlton’s voice was strained, even though he seemed more than happy to be here with you. “Help yourself to my mashed potatoes, too.”

~I know, you know~

You and Carlton walked out of the restaurant, and you shielded your eyes from the sun. Carlton switched sides and used his tallness to protect you. You laughed at his gesture and took the opportunity to hold his hand in yours. His hand squeezed yours, and you smiled. “What’s on your agenda for the rest of the day?”

“Well, it's just a lot of paperwork to catch up on,” Carlton said blandly. “What about you?”

“Got another client and then I’m off! I’ll probably go see my dad, my mom is coming to town soon, and I wanna make sure he’s okay with it all.”

“How’s their relationship after the divorce?”

“It's as good as it can be. I mean, they’re very friendly. My dad still loves my mom, and I think my mom still loves him too, maybe not to the same extent, but the marriage didn’t end because they lost feelings. I think my mom primarily did it because of her job.”

“I can understand where your dad is coming from. It just takes finding the right person.” Carlton smiled and looked down at you as you two approached your car. 

“So where are we going on Saturday?” you asked, looking up at him as you leaned against your car door. 

“I’ve got the reservations all set up, I was hoping you’d allow me to pick you up?”

“I can’t say no to a free ride,” you joked and smiled at him. “How fancy do I need to be?”

“A dress, maybe? If you’re comfortable with that. It's an upscale restaurant.”

“Sounds like a plan. I’ll make sure I wow you. Gotta keep you around.”

“I was planning on sticking around no matter what you wear,” Carlton admitted honestly. He looked down at you, standing close. You were between him and your car. The feeling of Carlton so close to you and you not having an “escape” made you warm with excitement and anticipation.

“Well, that’s good, Detective,” you mumbled slightly. You brought your hands up to Carlton’s tie and started playing with it. “I think I would be pretty disappointed if you left. No, I know I would be disappointed.” You laughed and looked up at Carlton. He smiled, his blue eyes even brighter in the sunlight. Your breathing got heavy, and Carlton’s got heavy to match yours. His eyes darted down to your lips, and your eyes did the same. You nodded slightly and pulled down on Carlton’s tie, bringing him down to you. He didn’t resist much; in fact, he was eager, his tie becoming loose in your grip with how fast he moved his head down to you. One of his hands found its way to the back of your head. He angled your head upwards and pulled your body closer to his. Carlton’s lips met yours with a burning passion and a strong need. Your hands went flat against Carlton’s chest, and you ran your hands down his chest onto his sides. One of your hands bumped into his gun, and you smiled into the kiss. Carlton’s hands found their way to your hips and held you tightly. His lips moved against yours easily, sending sparks through your body. Carlton pulled away from you slowly, his breathing heavy and uneven. Your breathing matched his, and you had a big smile on your face while a blush crept up onto your cheeks. Carlton looked down at you, a small smile gracing his lips. “I think it’s about time we did that.” You laughed, and he laughed too, shaking his head at you. 

“You could have told me you wanted me to do that,” he responded and pulled you into a hug. He nestled his head into your neck, and you did the same to him. 

“I didn’t want to rush you. But now I wish I had. That was the best kiss I have ever had.” Carlton exhaled a laugh into the crook of your neck before he slowly started trailing small kisses up your neck. “Hey!” you exclaimed with a small laugh. Carlton pulled away with a big smile and a mischievous glint in his eyes. 

“Couldn’t help myself,” Carlton shrugged and leaned down to give you another kiss. You wrapped your arms around his neck again, holding him tight as the two of you started to make out slightly. You jumped and bumped your nose into Carlton’s when his phone started ringing loudly. 

“I thought I said we’d have to start muting our phones?” you joked, and Carlton smirked at you. 

“When I can, I will,” he said before he flipped his phone open. “Lassiter…yeah…yeah, I’ll start heading that way.” Carlton closed his phone and ended the call.

“I guess I knew our time together couldn’t last all day.”

“I’ll call you later.” Carlton offered as he stuffed his phone into his pocket. 

“I would hope so.” You smiled, and Carlton leaned down again and gave you one last kiss. 

“Bye, (Y/n).”

“Bye, Carlton. Be safe out there.” The detective smiled and slowly walked away to his car. 

~I know, you know~

When you got back to your office, you set up for your next client. You had another hour or two before they got to your office, so you started tidying up random things. You had some light music playing in the background when you heard the ding of your front door being opened. You frowned and turned from where you were, seeing your dad standing in the doorway. He gave you a big smile, walking over to you. “Hey, sweetheart.”

“Hi, Dad!” you said and gave him a big hug. “What brings you in today?” 

“Just thought I’d pop in, see how you were doing. I came by earlier to see if you wanted to get lunch, but you were out.”

“Oh! I’m sorry, Dad. I was out, I got lunch with a friend.”

“A friend, huh?” Your dad said, eyebrow raised as he sat down in the chair your clients sit in. 

“Yes, Dad, a friend. For now,” you kind of whispered, and he smirked. 

“Who is he?” You sat in your chair and looked at your dad. His eyes were inquisitive, and you wondered if you should tell him. 

“Okay, don’t tell Shawn or Gus-”

“Don’t tell Shawn or Gus? What about me?”

“You won’t give me as much crap for this, when I tell them, I know I’ll never hear the end of it”

“Fine,” your dad sighed and crossed his arms. 

“I’ve been seeing Carlton Lassiter, the Head Detective of the SBPD.”

“Him, huh?”

“Yeah, we’ve had impromptu dates here and there, our first real date is this Saturday.”

“But that’s-”

“I know, Dad. I already talked to Mom about it. I might be able to swing by after? She’s in town for a little while, so we’ll be able to get dinner.”

“I’ve been trying to tell Shawn…”

“How’s that been going?” you silently laughed at your now mini session with your father. 

“He’s been too busy with that stupid museum case. And he wouldn’t let me get anything out. He’s always making those stupid jokes.”

“It's how he deals with things,” you sighed and looked down at the floor for a second. “Dad… Shawn blames you for the divorce, I know you didn’t tell him that Mom was the one who left, why?”

“I didn’t need to cause any more problems with him. He was so distraught after you and your Mom left. He became rebellious and hardheaded.”

“He’s always been hardheaded,” you joked, and your dad laughed. 

“So have you. Not one of the better qualities you two inherited from me.”

“You love us for it, though. Listen, Dad. I think Mom needs to be the one to tell Shawn. If I were you, I would keep quiet about it. It’ll come out sooner than later.”

“You’re right.”

“Shawn just wouldn’t listen to you. And he wouldn’t believe you either. I’ve been telling Mom for years that she needs to tell Shawn what actually happened. I think when she sees how far you two have fallen, she’ll tell him.”

“When did you get so wise? Just last week, you were my little 13-year-old,” your Dad smiled a sad smile. 

“I’m back now, Dad. We have all the time in the world to make up for lost time,” you stood up and your Dad stood too, wrapping you in his arms and hugging you tightly. 

“I missed you. And I missed your Mom, too.”

“I know, Dad.” You rested your head on your dad’s chest, and you could hear his heartbeat going fast. He was never an overly emotional man, but you knew he was holding it all in. The door to your office rang again, signaling someone had walked in. You pulled away from your Dad and looked at the time. It was only 1:30 pm, so this shouldn’t be your next patient. You turned and looked into the lobby. Sure enough, it was. “Oh. That’s my patient.”

“I’ll get out of your hair, I’ll see you later, kid,” your Dad smiled and walked into the lobby, walking past your client. 

“Hey there! Come on in,” you invited, and they walked into the main office area. 

“Sorry, I’m early, am I intruding?”

“Today is your lucky day. You were the only person I had on my schedule for today. But I can’t promise that availability in the future,” you warned, and gestured to the couch. They sat down and thanked you for seeing them now. You dove right into your session, making the hour fly by.

~I know, you know~

You wrapped up your session and got your client rescheduled. You waved them goodbye and then let out a little sigh as you stretched your arms over your head, closing your eyes. Your door dinged again, and you opened your eyes. You smiled as Carlton stood in front of you. “What’re you doing here?” you asked as you walked around to greet him. 

“Well, I’m here for a couple of reasons.” Carlton pulled his arm out from behind him and had a bouquet. “One reason was to see you and give you these flowers. And the second reason was that I have something quite exciting to share with you.”

“And what would that be?” You took the flowers from Carlton and smelled them. You sat on your desk, and Carlton approached you. he caged you in on your desk and stood over you. 

“The department has a case involving a kid- I’m not sure if they’re within your scope, but I told the Chief that I might know someone who can help us with talking to the kid.” 

“And that person you know is me?” You asked, looking up at him.

“Indeed, you are. And, the Chief seemed interested in the thought of actually hiring someone for the SBPD. That’s only in the thought stages, though.”

“That would be an incredible opportunity!” You said excitedly. “I’ll do it! I mean, I’ll come in to see the kid, but if the Chief and the department are serious about the job, I’ll definitely take a stab at it.” Carlton smiled at your enthusiasm. He leaned down and placed a kiss on your lips. You put the flowers down next to you and slid your arms around his neck. Carlton leaned into you more, and you had to hold onto his neck so as not to fall onto your desk. He pulled away and took a deep breath.

“Doc,” Carlton started, making you raise your eyebrow. “I think I have an addiction.” You laughed and pushed up against Carlton and got him to step away so you could stand up. 

“You and me both, Detective,” you winked. “When does the department need me to meet with the kid?”

“Well, the sooner the better, but I know you have that later appointment.”

“That patient just left. They came in early. I’m all yours, Detective.” You joked. Carlton’s ears burned hot when you said that. He smiled and pulled you into a tight hug. 

“I’ll drive you to the precinct,” Carlton said, and picked up the flowers he got for you. 

“You’ll have to drive me back here, you okay with that?”

“Of course,” Carlton held the door open for you, and you walked out, waiting for him to follow you. You locked the door and put your keys in your bag, following the tall detective to his car. 

“Can I hit the siren button?” You asked as you sat in the passenger seat. Carlton laughed as he shut your car door and went over to his door. 

“Maybe, no promises though,” he joked. You smiled and looked around the car, looking at all the buttons and switches for the lights and sirens. 

“I remember sitting in with my dad sometimes and turning on the lights for him.”

“I’ll let you hit the siren once before we get onto the highway, once!” Carlton said, and you squeaked in excitement. 

“Yay!”

Chapter 6.

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

Taglist:

.@capitanostella

.@navs-bhat

.@juiceboxfullofslime

[deaddee-anime-brownfanlady]

TOP 10 personal Favorite Manga.

Here's just a couple of manga that I love & just think are top-notch.

NUMBER: 1 : TOKYO GHOUL

A series that means a lot to me in many ways. When I first got into Tokyo Ghoul it was by the very first season of the anime during 2014 and upon hearing the opening theme of Unravel and seeing the first episode, I was hooked and went into the manga series right after. A nuanced morally compelling storytelling with an array of so many cool and great characters and narratives, incredible art progression from Ishida Sui, and overall just a satisfyingly great conclusion to boot.

NUMBER: 2 : J NO SUBETE

On the surface, looks like a regular BL series, but underneath an emotional-roller-coaster and pretty heavy story about a transwoman named J. Set in the 40s /50s, you fellow J childhood and the awful, rough bullshit she deals with in life as well as her love & massive admiration of Marilyn Monroe. Really such a good story that deals with some real heavy shit...but still so good.

NUMBER: 3 : MONSTER

Not only one of my favorite anime adaptations but also equally as wonderfully engaging & just as well done as a manga as well. Monster is such a captivating, intense story and truly one of my favorites from Urasawa's works. Following Dr. Tenma, a talented neurosurgeon who has grips with the moral dilemma of either saving the Mayor or saving a young boy who was shot in a murder. Tenma chose to save the boy instead and while it costs him being demoted he still believes he did the right thing. Unfortunately years later discovering the boy he saves...turns out to be a killer. This series is such a banger from its storytelling to the characters and just one of the best from Urasawa's.

NUMBER: 4 : GOODNIGHT PUNPUN

At first glance of this manga, you might think of it as something of a cute slice-of-life story about a cute cartoony bird. But actually when reading it...IT'S WAY MORE DARKER and GETS A LOT MORE FUCK UP! For real Goodnight Punpun is one of those series that's start-up pretty light-hearted and a little bit goofy with Punpun being a cartoony-drawn bird amongst very average-looking humans as a young kid in the first volumes of the series. But as things move forward within the story as Punpun gets older and his family situation gets more unstable as well as his life, the tone gets more depressing as a whole. Love the dark psychological storytelling, although it definitely the type of story you can only read once in awhile or in a good headspace because it definitely can be a hard read.

NUMBER: 5 : BERSERK

Seriously, what can I say about Berserk that already hasn't been said on some level. But this manga is seriously, I feel one of the most top iconic series within manga as well as one of the most engaging, moving, fantastic, epic storyline I've read thus far. I know the series itself is still ongoing, and I've been keeping up-to-date with this story since reading the very first chapter. Hearing about Kentaro Miura death....was tough, I knew he had serious health issues, which is why volumes would tend to go on pretty long hatiuses... but man. Another influential iconic figure in manga gone, Berserk is definitely a series any manga-lover or anime fan should read once in awhile.

NUMBER: 6 : SHOUWA GENROKU RAKUGO SHINJUU

Not only one of the most beautifully mature, well-written, compelling storytelling I've seen thus far in an anime series. But as a manga, even more so, a well-crafted story on the life and times of a sad, burden-ridden, slightly bitter, depressed, old man known as Yakumo Yurakutei, who is a highly skilled and experienced master of Rakugo, which for those who don't know is an traditional Japanese verbal form of entertainment. Think of it as something like a form of Improv done by only one person playing different characters to tell a story, This series has many layers to its storytelling that's is done so well dealing with Yakumo and those in his life that has impacted him as to the type of pained almost broken old man he is within the present time. Just a overall good & bittersweet but fantastic story that's deserves to be check out more.

NUMBER: 7 : INNOCENT

It is one of the most beautifully drawn manga series that I have read so far while also being equally gruesome as well. Innocent is a fictionalized historical manga set during 18th century France about the story and legacy of Charles Henri Sanson (actual real historical figure), who is the fourth generation of a family of Executioners known as the Sanson family who are the royal Executioners of Paris. The story follows Charles rough journey towards his path of becoming the Monsieur De Paris. This absolutely such a fantastic piece of work, both in terms of the visually amazing stunning artwork and along with the historical storytelling of Charles coming to terms with his hated lineage and becoming Executioner of Paris but also showcasing the societal/political chaotic changes and upheaval of France slowly leading up to the French revolution. Although some historical aspects are obviously fictionalized, but still such a good series.

NUMBER: 8 : THE PROMISED NEVERLAND

While my feelings on the anime are highly mixed due to really, really, really not caring for the way they handled parts of the storytelling from season 2 of the anime series. But the manga, on the other hand, is a totally different story. Seriously, reading this series was a blast and just an enjoyable experience from beginning to end, as well as seeing Emma and Ray also Norman grow & and develop throughout each arc was great to witness including seeing the rest of the kids thrive and survive the outside world. For this manga was a great read, and definitely, I'll say at least personally to me was done far better then the second season flimsy adaptation.

NUMBER: 9 : HOMUNCULUS

Truly an mindfuck of a manga in more ways than one. But still a pretty damned good and wild story, Homunculus is a story about a homeless man named Susumu Nakoshi who ends up meeting a seemingly antagonistic young medical student named Itoh Manabu to do a little experiment on him by drilling a actual hole in his skull for a total of 700,000 ¥en. Itoh, who is very fascinated with studying the human minds and amongst other things such as ghosts and the occult, but ultimately he thinks he can unlock the hidden psychic potential of Susumu brain. Nakoshi goes through the process, and at first, nothing seems to happen after going through the the operation. Until he closes his right eye and starts seeing otherworldly nightmarish monsters and shapes with his left eye when he looks at other people. This series is truly a weird but also such a highly intriguing and fascinating psychological read while at the same time being a bit of a downer, but still an excellent but messed-up good story.

NUMBER : 10 : ATELIER OF WITCH HAT

Okay, so I just recently started reading this manga series not that long ago, about a couple of weeks ago, and now I'm so freaking hooked. Atelier of Witch hat has truly captured my heart and mind with its engaging and creatively fascinating world-building involving witches and magic to the just as highly interesting characters and storytelling. Which centers around our young protagonist Coco ( the girl on the cover) who is this super adorably passionate girl who has such a huge love for all things magical /witches and deeply wishes she could become one as well, but unfortunately normal people or "outsiders" can't become witches, you have to be born into it, but that's doesn't stop Coco from trying her hardest to still wanting to be a witch. One of the things I love most about this world and how it handles dealing with magic and witches is that magic is really normal within this world and how witches tend to uses it to help and serve regular people in need or even for lighting up a cobblestone pathway also I really like how the magic system is structured in this series, such as instead of casting spells or any from of magic with words or a phrase, magic is casted by drawing, Coco here ends up in a pickle with accidentally casting magic that ends up turning her mom into stone & thus Coco journey towards witchood begins.

Seriously, even though I've just recently gotten into this manga & and its ongoing tale it's already has captivated me on so many levels and I just can't get enough of it so far wonderful storytelling and amazingly beautiful drawn artsy apart of it which really adds a lot of this series fantastical elements. Definitely a must to check out!!

Wanted to do a list of a couple of some of my most top favorite manga series and ones were I feel other's should give them a shot at checking out if there into any of these stories. (^ _ ^)

[some-triangles]

Warning: Deltarune

On the one hand I'm sad that the dark fountain in the church didn't bring us Religion! in the same way we got TV! and The Internet! and um Board Games! in the previous chapters. I thought a steadily more aggro take on various opiates of the masses would be the natural progression, but no, church is where we get to think about predestination instead. There's a pretty strong narrative excuse for this, though.

GAME THEORY:

In chapter 4 we learn that anyone with a knife can make a dark world, and that the worlds made reflect the people who make them. Kris is definitely the author of chapter 3, and I think for thematic reasons (kings and queens who don't get along being a big one) they're the author of chapters 1 and 2 as well. This is why those adventures are all silly and teenage-cynical and full of pranks. We get two takes on Chapter 4, one of which is by Susie, who spends a lot of her time in charge making fun of nerds who think they're smart. The other author has a much more serious take on religion, as befits someone whose entire life is themed around said religion's one and only holiday. (She also includes a lot of theming around music and sound, as befits a musician.) She's the roaring knight, an impossibly cool girl named December, so cool she froze to death a while ago. It was probably Kris' fault in some way. December's mom has made a deal with Kris to try to bring her back from the dead using the dark fountains, but in the meantime she's flying around down there in the magic world being a witch.

Unfortunately there's this whole prophecy which says she can't come back from the dead. The prophecy is the basis of both the adventure and the light world's actual bible, which is completely bonkers as a narrative choice - if we're going to break the prophecy we're going to have to attack and dethrone god, essentially. The good ending is going to have to involve some crazy nonsense which allows magic to exist without destroying the ability of the reader to give a shit about what is happening. Have I mentioned that Chapter 4 is full of Homestuck references? Homestuck hangs over this thing, and so does Umineko. Ralsei is Sakutarou, it turns out. Susie is going to be Maria and will break the world if he can't be real.

BUT IS IT GOOD:

There are many things that I liked about Chapters 3 and Four of Deltarune, a Game by Toby Fox. As usual, the light world segments were outstanding. The sequence where you have to fly your soul through the HVAC system at the Holiday mansion while Kris swats at you with a hockey stick, all while Girl Date is occurring, is gaming at its finest. Crawling back home after killing a chaos god to find that Sans Undertale has gotten your mom wine drunk and they will not stop playing The Jazz on the victrola nearly destroyed me.

Also it turns out that Susie is the hero of the story. (Kris, of course, is the audience surrogate.) I should have known this when she refused the call way back in Chapter 1. If you want to beat the Chapter 3 secret boss (which I have not done yet and may not ever - more on that below) you better be outfitting her in all the best gear, because she's the one carrying both the fight and the narrative. In chapter 4 she even gains a mentor figure and then has to physically and symbolically best him. She's learning from her friends and growing and she's the one with the primary love interest and it is going to destroy her when she figures out that Kris is as fictional as Ralsei. Tragedy awaits! I'm putting this here because doing Hero's Journey in a way that's fun and surprising and doesn't overpower the narrative is really rare and deserves praise.

NONETHELESS:

Most of the actual video game here still involves running down long empty corridors dodging things and occasionally solving easy puzzles. You get one gimmick per chapter. The gimmick of Ch. 3 is fine, if you like Zelda 1 and/or edgy flash games heavily indebted to Zelda 1. The gimmick of Ch. 4 is climbing. There's so much fucking climbing.

Chapter 2 is still the most successful part of Deltarune because Queen is in it and that means jokes jokes jokes to distract you from the sameness of it all. The story is getting more serious now, so we can't do that anymore. The villain of Chapter 3 is a less-compelling retread of Spamton who wears out his sweaty welcome far before you're through with him, and this is intentional, and thematically consistent, but it sucks. We are successfully capturing the feeling of too much screen time, vapid serotonin sickness. This is unfortunately not a fun thing to experience.

SPEAKING OF FUN

Whether game should be "fun" or not is of course a long-standing thematic debate in Dental Rue as a whole. I have said before that if the point of the genocide route in Undertale was to punish players who chose it, Toby shouldn't have put such a fun boss fight at the end, where you get to listen to Classic of Video Game Music while you work away at the bones; as a result of this I believe that Undertale taken as a whole is not as morally didactic as people make it out to be. Whether this was on purpose or not is another question, but Deltarune may have some answers.

The chapter 4 secret boss is easy to find, fun to fight and has a remix of an old favorite tune to listen to while you learn. It encourages Susie (firmly the main character by this point) to use her healing magic, and lets you notice that it gets stronger every time she uses it. All the while, Gerson is talking to you about the philosophy of storytelling, and invites you to think about what it all means. Deltarune asks: is there a good kind of leveling up? (Deltarune also asks: what if there was a guy who was devoured by his own story but a young, bright-eyed disciple came along to finish the work the old master couldn't? Let's call this old author Andrew H.)

Chapter 3 is a different story. The roaring knight fight is not fun. The music is ugly, the space is cramped, the hitboxes unfair. You can't save and come back to it without going through the entire tedious TV minigame battle again. You have to do things that feel squirmy and morally questionable to get there at all, and it's a sequence break, which may or may not be a sin in this universe. Is this part of the Snowgrave route? Are you only supposed to get some of the dark shards? Are there good and bad ways of playing video game???

Only time will tell. Chapter five is supposed to come out next year, which suggests we may get all the answers before I hit retirement age, unless Toby's hubris in re: finishing the story gets the better of him. Deltarune remains an infuriatingly uneven yet completely unique and constantly surprising experience. I renew my pledge to live long enough to play the rest of it.

[amelias-calamity-quintet]

I saw an open tag for this from both @pelicanpig and @ixtaek and figured I'd give it a go.

1. How many works on AO3? 6, but definitely more on the way

2. Total AO3 word count? 851,802, and it's going to jump up again tonight with more GoS importing. Have I mentioned I haven't been on AO3 for even a year? To be fair, I'm importing my Wattpad catalogue as it goes through edits.

3. Top 5 fics by kudos:

The Legend of Zelda: Mark of a Hero | Part 1 - Hyrule

The Legend of Zelda: Mark of a Hero | Part 2 - Farona

On Your Mark - A MoaH Pre-Story

The Legend of Zelda: Goddess of Secrecy (oh, the irony. To do this list with my Wattpad stats)

Bookmarked - A MoaH Myths Compendium

4. What fandoms do you write for? Currently only uploaded for LoZ, but I'm planning to import some from SSO and Myst here shortly once GoS is all brought over. And still really only actively for LoZ.

5. Do you respond to comments? I do! And usually with behind the scenes notes. Though if that stresses anyone out, I'm happy to leave them off.

6. Fic with the angsty ending? Only three of my fics are "done" (Part 1 of MoaH doesn't seem like it should count), so On Your Mark by technicality.

7. Fic with the happiest ending? Goddess of Secrecy, of which the last 8 chapters should all be imported by next Wednesday so y'all can read it too.

8. Do you get hate? I have not on AO3, I have on Wattpad, so it's been a nice change of pace switching over.

9. Do you write smut? I do not right now, but who knows where we'll be in the future.

10. Do you write crossovers? If Links Meet counts, then yes! And absolutely open for more.

11. Ever had a fic stolen? Thankfully no. Kinda surprising considering how big GoS is on Wattpad.

12. Ever had a fic translated? Not a fic, but a fanwork, yes. I developed an oracle deck (I only wrote the manual, I didn't make the card art) and a TTRPG for the SSO fandom and I had folks translate those. I think the deck got over 10 different language translations in, it's been a minute though.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic? Not exactly, I don't think what we did for Lost Legends quite counts, but I would definitely be open to it.

14. All time favorite ship? Eh, indifferent. I will usually write the implied ship of a fandom (i.e. for LoZ, Zelink) and I will usually be invested in making it a good relationship, but romance plots don't super interest me to write over everything else there is to tell in a world.

15. WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Not yet uploaded, for SSO, I doubt The B Team Druids comes back fully. I plan to import it for easier record keeping than it currently is on my SSO blog, @writingonjorvik, but I doubt it sees continuation. I can see plot for it, I don't see a lot of motivation resifting through SSO lore.

16. Writing strengths? Oh, I'm going to regurgitate what I've been told, but folks seem to love my characters and my worldbuilding, so I'd say they must be pretty good.

17. Writing weaknesses? Plots and scenes. I don't think either is bad, but they are just serving their purpose as a throughline to give some sense of forward progression and place so the characters can faff about with the worldbuilding.

18. Thoughts of mixed language dialogue? From what I've heard, it's more accurate to how bilingual people actually speak, so I'm all for it even if I have to translate it myself.

19. First fandom you wrote for? LoZ. Goddess of Secrecy was the first fic I wrote and it totally didn't go to my head it getting popular in high school

20. Favorite Fic you’ve ever written? MoaH is probably the actual answer as a series, but I would be remissed to not say GoS. That fic made me as a writer, I owe so much to it. MoaH's just proof of that labor and learning.

And I'll go ahead and tag a few folks while I'm at it: @karama9, @drsteggy, @mistresslrigtar, @sillylildude, @nocturnalfandomartist, @abbyz-elda, and @zeldadiarist if you'd like to give it a go. And anyone else that would like to play as well.

[kiwi-luminaryofthestars]

04/20/2025 Progress Update:

TLDR: About 1.5K written, we're at 26K drafted for chapter 6. Done with third section, now it's just fleshing out completed drafts of sections 4 and 5.

Sweeeet we got section 3 done. Now it's time to flesh out 4 and 5 and draft will be done. I have no eta on this because this is the last week of finals and I'll be pretty busy, but I'm hoping to get it done asap. YES SO HAPPY!!

Very sorry I didn't do a progress update yesterday. I wrote like a tiny bit (mostly just went over pre-written sections and moved around some things, small edits, that sorta thing) but then I started playing poker and got distracted lmaooo. I would call it fic research if I was not already done with the poker section. Just wanted to unwind and LORD I had so much fun. Won four tournament rounds and got second in two more. It's just Xbox poker so it's not that impressive but I still always love playing it, even in online form.

I fucking love poker. Have I said that enough lol? I don't think I'm the best at it, but I have a Texas Hold'em obsession and I am not ashamed lol. I would play it all the time if I had the option.

Anyway, I'm sleepy and getting the Sunday blues so we're gonna relax the rest of the night and get more writing done tomorrow. Looking forward to this chapter being done, we're getting there!! Sending all the good vibes your way for a lovely sleep and a better Monday.

[nonclassyparty]

man with the plan (j.wy) - chapter 3

Summary: "Don't forget Pretty, I'm serving life plus one. So if I get busted for attempted escape, I'll throw in a homicide in there as well with no problem, that’s like a parking ticket to me." When your brother ends up in jail for a murder he didn't commit, the only thing left for you to do is to find a way to break him out. But after a perfect plan is set in motion, you don't expect a romantic variable to get added into the equation.

Pairing: jung wooyoung x fem. reader, jeong yunho x reader (but if u squint)

Status: in progress

Word count: 11.2k

Warnings: cursing, mentions of blood, violence, death

Taglist: @tinyjuni @hazysan @atinytinaa @tenebrisirae @doggopepper @dazzlingstarrs @lavishloving @cherrypandora @silentcry329 @jeagerist-20 @myunvillage @manipulatedstars @bitteryu @maru-matt @bubbleteakittyy @joonsthethicc

my main masterlist // playlist // moodboard // ao3

chapter 2 // masterlist // chapter 4

Chapter 3; Where have all the good men gone and where are all the gods?

"I went through all of it five times by now, every appeal is denied, I keep getting brushed to the side every time I just so much as mention it to anyone in the courthouse," Yeosang sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose in frustration with one hand while he twirls his drink with the other. "I'm telling you, Y/N, someone made sure the lack of evidence was brushed under the rug, they were stressing his previous record, you saw it yourself that day in court!"

You nod silently, eyes falling to the table filled with, by now, empty plates in front of you both as your voices carried over the pleasant jazz music playing in the background of the restaurant.

"Someone wants Jongho to go down for this and made sure that he never sees the light of day again outside a prison cell." He continues and your gaze flies to his face which was filled with anguish.

Jongho and Yeosang loved each other once upon a time. Highschool sweethearts that you imagined would stay together through thick and thin.

When everything between them fell apart, Yeosang claims it was Jongho's fault and Jongho claims it was the opposite (you think it was both of them), you barely saw Yeosang again unless it was at a crowded college bar somewhere, a  smile of familiarity exchanged between the two of you but nothing other than that.

But he was the person Jongho called when he needed an attorney and Yeosang did his best, you can vouch for him, but there is so much a simple attorney can do against people at a much higher security clearance.

And yet, after doing everything that was in his power even still stubbornly investigating the case when all was said and done, his guilt is palpable.

"No murder weapon, no actual motive, nothing except the footage from the security cameras of him walking up the front steps of the house. It doesn't make any sense, it's obvious he was already dead when Jongho walked into his office." Yeosang runs another frustrated hand through his hair before taking a sip of his drink.

"I know." Is all you can quietly say, why? 

Because you've spent a good portion of the last eighteen months trying to drill the same thing into the heads of anyone that was willing to listen. Judges, attorneys, police officers...and it all fell onto deaf ears so now, your brother was stuck in a cell for life for something he didn't do unless you do something about it.

Which you are.

"I mean...it has to be someone from the higher ups orchestrating all of this." He voices out with a frown before scoffing, "The governor went on live television and said if the death penalty was still allowed, Jongho would be the first one sent to the chair. Who says that nowadays?! With so little proof..." He trails off, eyes falling downwards in defeat.

Your hands clench at the mention of the governor, the image of his precious son in his scrubs and white coat coming to mind. You wonder if Jung Wooyoung sees the actions of his father as something admirable or does he detest him for it.

"Do you visit him regularly?" Yeosang breaks you out of your thoughts with his quiet question and you straighten up in your seat, hands wrapping around your own glass of gin.

"Yeah, every Friday." You answer with a faint smile, deciding to retain the information that you see Jongho every morning as you work at the prison, from Yeosang for the time being.

"H-How is he? Does he look okay?" He asks, fingers playing with the napkin laying on his empty plate.

"He's fine." You respond with a solemn sigh before forcing a smile, "He bulked up a lot. I guess when there's not much to do, working out gets fun."

"Ah." He nods, eyes still on the napkin.

"You should visit him sometime." You state lightly, knowing that your brother would love to see him but Yeosang just shakes his head.

"I don't think that's a good idea." Yeosang chuckles humorlessly, scratching his nose, "Besides, Soobin and I got engaged and...well, I don't know how to tell him that. It's just best if I stay away."

You nod in response with a heavy heart, knowing that your brother deep down always hoped he and Yeosang would get back together once Jongho got his head screwed on right and stopped messing around. That train has passed now.

"I get it." You tell him, not wanting Yeosang to think that you resent him for anything regarding your brother. While he may be Jongho's ex-boyfriend that's getting married to someone else pretty soon, Yeosang has been there for you almost your whole life. 

When all you had was your brother to lean on, there was also pretty and quiet Yeosang with his gentle nature and short but meaningful words by your side.

"I'll keep working on his case though, I'm not letting it go that easily." Those words hit a nerve inside your brain and you bite your lip.

"I don't think you should." You express quietly, avoiding his questioning gaze.

"Yeosang, whoever the people that did this to him are, they're dangerous. They have connections and they obviously have the power, snooping around could put you in danger." You disclose, shifting uneasily under his hard stare but it had to be said, "I don't want for something to happen to you. And Jongho wouldn't want that either."

"So, what? We should all just let him rot in jail?" Yeosang questions, cheeks heating up in anger as his eyes shift into a glare towards you.

"I'm not saying that-"

"Then what exactly are you saying, Y/N? Because he's not getting out any other way." He utters before declaring; "Just because you gave up on him, doesn't mean I have to as well."

The harsh words make you flinch, reminding you of the night you found out Jongho was taken to custody and everything you said to him.

The only time you've ever given up on your brother were the ten minutes between speaking to him for the first time in jail and before speaking to Yeosang afterwards and for the last year and then some, you've been trying to repent for the words you've said to him that night.

Yeosang's way of getting Jongho out includes legalities, courthouses, attorneys, re-listening over and over again to people calling your brother a murderer and in the end losing because you're up against bigger fish. You've given up on that.

Jongho is getting out, Yeosang, just not your way but mine.

-

The cold air nipped at the skin of your cheeks as you inconspicuously made your way across the gravel towards the wired fence surrounding the yard.

As the days go by, you're starting to learn the routine of the correction officer's occupying the guards room near the yard so by now, you had the gist of when it was safe to walk closer to the fence without anyone seeing you.

Anyone but the inmates themselves that is but so far, apart from a couple of catcalls and whistles, they didn't seem top pay much attention to you.

Your brother would wait by the same corner every morning, back turned to you until he heard your footsteps, this morning was no different except this time; Jongho wasn't alone.

"Gentlemen." You give them a sarcastic greeting, eyes stuck on the back of his cellmate who you have yet to exchange a single word with.

"Hey." Jongho nods at you with squinted eyes and when he notices your eyes on his new 'friend', this Coin guy, he nudges him with his elbow.

The guy turns around and you gauge his face properly for the first time.

He's taller than Jongho with messy hair hidden under a beanie, sharp eyes and plump lips that were currently twisted in a scowl as he glances back at you. "Hey."

His voice is deeper than you expected.

"I'm Y/N."

"Yeah, I know." He leans on the fence with one shoulder, eyes always on lookout towards the yard. "Coin."

"Your real name." You tell him, skipping formalities and Jongho glances between the two of you, already opening his mouth to reprimand you most likely. You're quicker, not backing down. "I don't deal with stupid nicknames, your real name."

Coin glances back at you, annoyance evident in his eyes before he looks towards Jongho and returns his gaze back to the yard, sighing with an eye roll. "Song Mingi."

You let out a breath of relief, making sure to remember it while Jongho mumbles something about finally knowing his real name.

"How are you doing? With the digging?" You mutter, stuffing your hands in your pockets as you try to inch closer to the two of them without anyone noticing anything out of the ordinary.

"I can't get through the wall leading to the tunnels." Jongho mutters back, foot kicking at the grass below him. You frown, glancing over your shoulder to check if the door to the guards room is still closed shut.

"What do you mean? I told you how to do it-"

"No, I know how to do it but I just don't have the time." Your frown only grows. They're locked up, in your books, all they have is time.

His cellmate, Mingi notices your confusion and he answers your unspoken question; "Count."

Your brows raise at that as you glance at Jongho, who only nods in agreement.

"Constantly coming back up for count won't let me do what I need to do to break through that wall." Your brother voices out.

"You don't understand, I planned this on a schedule." You explain to them as quietly as you can, worry displayed on your features, "You have as much time as I'm here which is a month, two at most if I drag it out but it's less likely because my boss will pull me out of here as fast as she can. If you're not through that wall by the end of the week, we'll be behind on schedule and that means you're not getting out of here."

Both of them stay silent, glancing at each other before their eyes fall down to the grass with no obvious ideas of a solution.

You sigh in frustration, already sensing a bigger problem surging up from all of this. "Is there a way to stop count from happening?"

Mingi looks at you like you've lost your mind. "There are three things certain in life; death, taxes and count." 

You pursue your lips, looking over your shoulder to check the guards room all while working your brain for a possible solution.

"Well, actually..." Mingi starts again after a moment of contemplation and both you and Jongho swiftly turn your heads to him in anticipation, "The only way to stop count is...." 

He trails off, looking over his shoulder. The two of them were huddled by the furthest corner of the fence, the rest of the inmates too busy either playing basketball or working out.

Mingi shakes his head, "Never mind, it's a bad idea."

Jongho cocks an eyebrow, "Worse than the idea of losing Jiyeon to your cousin?"

Mingi gives him a sharp glare which seems rather intimidating but if Jongho says it so freely than you think it's safe to say that Mingi is all talk and no action, he's rather harmless.

He presses his lips, turning to you with a sober expression on his face; "Lockdown. We get Gen Pop locked for a day and he'll have all the time he needs, there's no count, the CO's don't even come around."

Your eyes light up at the genuinely good idea, half thrilled at the solution and the other half at the fact that this Song Mingi guy has half the brain to come up with excellent ideas after all.

Your brother wasn't stuck with someone completely daft at least.

"Okay." You nod, hope filling you up to the brim. You glance between them, "How do you get a lockdown?"

Jongho turns to Mingi again who seems to be deep in thought as he fiddles with the beanie on his head. He straightens out after a moment.

"Can you get to the prison's heating system unit?" He asks you and you take a quick moment to think, trying to picture the blueprints in your head.

"Maybe."

"You want to get a lockdown?" Mingi glances over his shoulder before huddling closer to the two of you, "You'd better get the inmates riled up. And if you wanna piss of the meat in concrete, turn up the heat."

Your eyes sparkle, Song Mingi will most definitely be useful. "Got it."

"Y/N, you better be fucking careful." Jongho murmurs but you're already stepping away from the fence.

"Don't worry." Is all you tell him and with one last rushed smile, you start heading back inside the building where your office is located.

-

You carefully glue a piece of wood to the beautiful model in front of you, the warden is quietly working next to you as well, gently touching it like it's about to crumble under his calloused fingertips.

"You know, my wife and I didn't have kids but if we did, I think I'd wish for them to be something like you." His confession takes you by surprise as your head turns to him sitting on the uncomfortable chair next to you.

Well, he's about fifteen years too late for that, where was he when you and Jongho were getting moved from one foster home to another?

Still, the confession makes you chuckle softly, cheeks warming up although the guilt you feel is already unbearable. You didn't expect to spend any time with this man.

And the warden, you have to admit, was a nice man. A good man.

You can't really say you could imagine him as your father because you still have memories of your real father and none of them are good but...maybe a grandfather.

"That came out of nowhere, forgive me but I just wanted you to know that I really appreciate you helping me with this." He chuckles, holding another piece to the model and keeping his hand there to make sure it stays intact. "And I know it must be awfully hard to know your brother is so close yet you can barely speak to him. I backed into some information about you, how he is your only family left."

You swallow, a hand that was holding the tiny wooden pieces falling into your lap as you turn to him, not awfully fond of speaking about this to anyone in this place. 

It means opening up and opening up meant getting attached.

And you can't get attached to anyone here. Not when you're knowingly using them.

The warden must take your silence for something else because he continues with a deep sigh, "What I'm trying to say is that I've seen you speaking to him through the fence and...in a way, I'm deciding to turn a blind eye to it."

Your lips part at that, blood rushing to your face at the thought of getting caught.

"Partly because Jongho is well behaved in there. He's only had one misconduct and that was when he first was brought it and partly, it's because, as I said, I can't imagine what it must feel like to see your brother in a place like this..."

Your eyes burn, half from the pure gratefulness and half from complete and utter guilt that weighs you down.

The warden is a good man. And all you've done so far is feed him lies with a deceiving smile on your face that leaves him blind to your true selfishness.

"Thank you." You whisper, in complete honesty with a smile, fingers playing with the small pieces of wood in your lap.

"Don't mention it." The warden shakes his head, he hesitates for a moment with his eyes set on the model in front of him before; "I followed his trial closely and my personal opinion is that he was just a man that found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time..."

You almost gasp at that, shocked that he'd actually say it out loud. Many people might share his opinion or not but they're not allowed to discuss it.

"But my jurisdiction doesn't go beyond the walls of this compound, so I'll do my best to make sure he's treated fairly at least in here."

There's the guilt again.

You shove it down, simply murmuring another 'thank you' in the sincerest possible way you can muster up before going back to work.

-

Your eyes follow Doctor Jung as he moves across the room, carrying with himself a tray with the insulin shot and your mouth can't help but perk up when he catches your eyes and looks at you in question, biting back a smile of his own.

This game you play with him is starting to become a bit too fun.

"What?" He asks as his brows furrow as though he wants to whine but refrains himself from doing so, eyes focused on preparing your shot as you roll the sleeve of your shirt up. You chuckle lightly.

You already poured the corrosive down the grate for today, you can relax for at least this once around him.

"You wear glasses." You comment simply, eyeing the thick black frames sitting at the bridge of his nose. He glances at you, lips still pressed together, still trying to hold back a smile, as he takes your arm and runs a damp cotton ball over it.

"My eyes were too irritated for contacts this morning." He shrugs with practiced ease but you notice a little shyness to his expression, as if he's embarrassed of his glasses.

He shouldn't be. They look good on him.

"Long night?" You ask with playful eyes and he hums in question, eyes trained on the needle sinking into your skin, "Irritated eyes. Were you up doing something til the late hours."

The insinuation hangs heavy in the air and he stays quiet, as he pulls the needle out.

"If by long night you mean laying on my couch with a box of Chinese food watching re-runs of Friends, then yeah, I had a blast." He answers with a sheepish smile, glancing up at you as he presses a clean cotton ball to your hand which you hold instead of him, your fingers brushing in the process.

You hum, teasingly cocking an eyebrow, "So, no girlfriend?"

His eyes catch yours again and for the first time, he looks like you're close to driving him over the edge as he pokes the inside of his cheek with his tongue.

Wooyoung shakes his head, lips pulling in a smirk as he almost returns your flirtation, "No, no girlfriend."

You don't expect a guy like him to be single. Even though it goes in your favor, still, it's a bit surprising.

He seemed like the type who got along with women amazingly, you didn't hear much differently from others.

But Jung Wooyoung seems awfully shy in your presence. Always slightly avoiding your eyes before a great moment of braveness and then an immediate retreat back to his shell.

He just doesn't fit the profile of the serial womanizer and party animal you've been told about when you tried to ask around about him to your old college friends.

So, either Jung Wooyoung is one heck of an actor and all of this was a performance to get into your pants (and you'd be a hypocrite to judge him for it) or you made him shy.

And if it was the latter, well, it's fucking adorable.

You only nod in response as you roll the sleeve of your shirt down, glancing at the grate to your right and feeling the empty tubes in the pockets of the coat digging into your back as it hangs over the chair you're sitting on.

Just a little bit more, and you'll be able to break through the water pipe below the grate.

"You?" Wooyoung's voice brings you back to reality and you turn to him in question as you're too caught up in your own agendas to keep up with the conversation. He sighs, albeit a little embarrassed before he jokingly asks; "Do we have any admirers?"

"Me?" You ask, innocently pointing to yourself before nodding, "Oh, yeah. I have six of them. Currently looking for a seventh so I can have one for each day of the week."

"Ah." His brows raise, a smile threatening to appear as he's obviously catching onto the fact that you're bullshitting him, "You have your hands full, then."

"I manage." You shrug keeping up the act for a couple of seconds more before letting out a chuckle which he joins into, "No, I didn't really have time for any of that in the last year or so."

He cocks his head to the side, observing you with a small smirk, "Career woman, huh?"

You chuckle bitterly because he truly has no idea.

"Yeah, I guess you could say that."

Your eye contact lasts longer than necessary and you snap yourself out of it, noticing that you've been just sitting and talking to him for a long moment after the shot was done and sleeve was down.

You clear your throat, breaking the eye contact and standing up from the chair.

"Well, I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Same place, same time." He smiles and it causes these pretty little indents to appear on his cheeks that do something ridiculous to your chest.

"Right." You nod, bidding him another smile and you're out the door.

-

You fix the mirror in front of you to align with the mirror behind you hanging from the door of the old closet in your office, your shirt unbuttoned and hanging off of one shoulder as you adjust the mirror so you can see the tattoos on your back.

When you locate the lines that are supposed to represent where the heating system runs through the compound, you carefully trace them with your eyes down to the one common square where they all connect on your lower back.

With a nod to yourself, you quickly get dressed, close the closet shut and make your way to the staff bathrooms on the first floor, right next to the infirmary.

Getting near the prison's heating system doesn't present itself as much of a problem, all you do is kick open the grate leading to the air vents in the locked bathroom stall and crawl up by climbing onto the toilet seat.

The heating room isn't much further away, you crawl through the vents until you reach where it's supposed to be and after stilling for a moment to check if it was empty, you lift up the grate and carefully slink down until your feet touch the dirty floors.

The room is stuffy and dark but it's empty, not a soul besides the scarily looking furnace in the middle of the room. You approach it with caution and check the thermostat located on the pipes near it.

Before reaching out and cranking the temperature to the highest possible setting.

With hurried movements, you carefully climb back up the air vent using a rusty shelf for extra boost and return the same way you got in.

Once you're back in your office, slightly sweaty from all the exercise, you can't help but smile lightly at the intense rise in temperature already that you have to crank open the window in your office to make a little bit of a breeze.

If it must be this hot already in here, then you can't imagine what it must be like in the cells.

-

"Alright that's it, lockdown! Everyone back to your cells!" Jongho's head picks up at the voice yelling from down below amongst the ruckus and shouts of the agitated inmates. They've been going at it for the last hour, calling out for some AC until one of them snapped and started causing trouble with the correction officers which inevitably made a dozen of them act up as a result, "I said everyone back to your cells! Now convicts! Lockdown!"

Jongho's eyes light up in relief, he was sweating buckets because of your little trick but it just might be worth it.

"Damn, your sister really turned that furnace up." Mingi mutters from the top bunk, sweat gliding down his brow as he jumps down the bed and watches the cell door glide shut as the yelling outside continues. "Well, you got your lockdown bro, do your thing."

Jongho shakes his head, "You're coming with me."

"What?!" Mingi's head whips back from where he was fixing the sheet up to protect their cell from the outer view. "No, no, no. I'm the lookout man, that's it."

"It's a two man job, I need your help to kick down the bricks." He explains to his doubtful cellmate, already kneeling down and using the bolt which you told him to get from the benches in the yard to unscrew the fitting holding the small metal sink attached to the wall. "It'll be quick, then you can come back out."

Jongho moves the metal sink to the side and the hole which he broke through a day ago is revealed and he slinks through it with Mingi cautiously following behind him before pulling the sink back in it's place from the outside, to cover the hole in the wall.

Mingi gasps in wonder at the small tunnel they find themselves in, darkness surrounding them from all sides.

"How do you know which side we're supposed to go?" He whispers to Jongho who is already moving through the darkness with practiced ease.

"Y/N told me." He simply responds, never questioning his sister's directions. "After we break through this wall we'll be connected to the main tunnel and have all the access we need."

"And then what?" Mingi asks, following behind him careful not to trip up on any of the rubble beneath his feet.

"And then...we wait for what Y/N tells us to do next." Jongho says reaching the main wall where he was already picking apart the mort on the bricks.

"You really trust her? That she can pull this off?" Mingi asks after a moment of silence, already joining Jongho's side to pick at the bricks with a nail he found on the ground.

Mingi's obvious distrust in his sister made Jongho angry.

Maybe he didn't think you were competend because you were related to him and to be fair, Jongho was in prison. But you two couldn't be more different.

Where Jongho only excelled in sports and woodshop (when the teachers didn't piss him off), you were amazing at everything. Math and physics being a highlight in your academic records, a structural engineer later on as a career.

That wouldn't mean much to a stranger. Nowadays, anyone could graduate college.

But Jongho knew you. And he knew just how smart and resourceful you could get with just about anything, especially if you put all of yourself in. Which with this project in particular, he could tell you have.

Jongho turns to him with a serious expression. "I trust her with my life."

Mingi gives a doubtful shake of head, muttering while he punches through the wall, "You're trusting her with my life as well."

The bricks slowly start to give out.

-

You stare at the devil's face which you traced from the side of your arm onto a piece of paper, folding it and gliding it in the pocket of your jeans, making sure everything you need is tucked into the back of your jeans before you walk down to the entrance of the building, nodding at the officers standing by the front door and make way to the sick bay located near B-building.

The sick bay is filled to the brim with inmates suffering from heat exhaustion. Wooyoung is working in a rush, tending to each new patient that they bring in with his face pinched in concentration, not even noticing you passing by.

Which is good. Logistically, you have no business being in the sick bay but it was the only building connected by underground tunnels to A-building where your brother's cell was and the chaos of the self-induced heatwave was a perfect opportunity to slink through the building and to the storage room with an air vent unnoticed.

Finding the tunnel that lead to the cells in building A was harder than you thought, the sounds of the riot above didn't exactly help with the tension you were feeling inside. 

It took a lot of wrong turns and roaming in the dark damp tunnels with a flashlight in your hand as your only source of light before you heard a loud thump somewhere to your left followed by what sounded like bricks and gravel falling to the ground.

Cautiously, you stepped around the corner with your heart stuck in your throat, not knowing what you will walk into before you breathe in a sigh of relief when you spot two familiar heads peering through the gap in the wall, surrounded by rubble.

"Thank fuck." You mutter, slightly jogging towards them as Mingi kicks at the lower part of the wall again to make way for them to get through.

They seem bamboozled to see you there.

"How in the hell did you-" Jongho starts but you quickly interrupt him, the chaos from above making you on edge.

"We don't have time, come on!" You tell them, already moving back down the dark tunnel, the dust accompanied by pure stress making you feel choked up.

You can hear their footsteps, quietly following after you as you lead them to a bare wall that you place your palm on.

You start walking backwards, recounting your steps and then stop, rolling up your sleeve and flashing the light over it so you can look at the tattoo and make sure your calculations are correct. 

Placing your arm against the wall, you mark a dot on it.

"This is it." You voice out, remembering the wall from the blueprints, you turn to face Jongho and Mingi who hang onto your every word; "Somewhere on the other side of this wall is a drainage pipe to the prison's old sewer system. If you can get through this wall, you can get into the pipe. If you can get into the pipe you can get into the infirmary. If you can get into the infirmary, you can get out of here."

They look like they have more questions but obviously decide that this isn't the time nor place. They seem slightly impressed, maybe even a little giddy as they smile at each other, Jongho steps closer to the wall as he runs a hand over it. 

"That's one big pile of concrete." He whistles, turning to you, "How do you know where the pipe is?"

You shuffle a couple of steps away from them, propping a light against a couple of leftover bricks sitting by the side of the other wall and place the small paper you've tucked into the pocket of your jeans against the head of the light.

"We've got someone to show us where it is." You answer, pulling out a small piece of duck tape from your pockets and making sure the paper sticks to the flashlight.

"Oh, really?" Mingi asks, albeit a little sarcastically as he crosses his arms over his chest, "Who?"

You turn the light on, immediately facing the wall and smiling in relief as the image on the paper is projected onto the concrete wall.

Jongho and Mingi follow your gaze, the latter jumping a bit once he comes face to face with the devil from your tattoo staring back at him, reflected onto the wall. 

Mingi does a quick sign of the cross across his chest.

"Sweet Jesus, Mary and Joseph!" Mingi exclaims, inching further away from the caricature. You would've found it funny if your mind wasn't preoccupied with the current task at hand.

Just as you open your mouth to tell them the plan and loud screech from above interrupts you and all three of your heads snap up towards the ceiling above you.

The screech isn't what worries you (maybe it should but you digress), it's the fact that it didn't sound dulled enough for it to come from the prison cells. No, this screech was a bit too apparent.

Almost like it came from the place connecting the cells with the tunnel.

You glance at Jongho with worry to find him already looking at you.

"I'll go check what that was." He says quietly and you open your mouth to stop him, scared for him to be leaving you. He doesn't let you get a word out, "Y/N, don't worry. Stay here with Mingi and tell him what to do, I'll come back."

You glance at Mingi who stays quiet by your side giving you a nod before you turn to Jongho with a somber expression. "Be careful."

He nods with a small chuckle, "Always." 

And he turns around and disappears behind the corner.

-

Jongho crouches down to get through the fresh hole in the wall and as quietly as he can before walking down the tunnel and heading over to the hole covered by the metal sink which leads to his cell.

He carefully places his ear against the surface, a frown growing on his face when he hears footsteps up and down the cell.

His heartbeat immediately spikes up, fear of someone finding the hole in the wall turning into anger at the potential problem if someone else were to find out about your plan.

With one quick mustered breath, he shoves the sink away and as fast as he can, crawls through the whole to grab whoever it is on the other side by surprise.

"Relax! It's me!" A familiar voice chokes out as Jongho already managed to have his hands wrapped around the collar of the sweatshirt. He blinks at Kim Hongjoong's face in confusion, eyes falling to the drawn up sheet covering the, now, opened door.

"What the hell is going on?" He releases Hongjoong, walking towards the opened cell door to peak outside, just to see the inmates going positively ballistic on both floors.

"All hell broke loose." Hongjoong explains, standing in front of the sink that was moved to the side, "When they called for lockdown, about twenty cons didn't back down so they locked the cells while they were still out. They scared away the CO's and got ahold of the keys to the station, unlocked the rest of the cells from there."

Jongho sucks in a sharp breath, observing the pure and utter chaos happening outside. Screaming, fighting, maniacal laughter echoing from the walls. Not even the wildest of animals behaved like this.

"I saw your cell empty when I was passing by and put two and two together. Can't really disappear into thin air from a locked cell so I figured, I'd keep watch." Jongho turns to the older man who shrugs when their eyes meet, "I wanna get out of here just as much as you do and apparently, you're my golden ticket out of this shithole and I can't have anyone catching you, Choi."

Jongho stays quiet, the noises overwhelming him along with the fact that he most definitely did not trust Kim Hongjoong. The man was a flight risk, he could put all of you in danger.

"So, this is it, huh?" Hongjoong asks, staring down the hole with his hands tucked deep inside his pockets. Jongho notes that the older man looks like he just discovered a gold mine.

"Yeah." Jongho brushes past him and pushes the sink back the way it was, concealing it from the outside world. He can't risk going back there today, Mingi will have to do the job and Jongho will keep watch. "This is it."

"What is the plan, exactly?" Hongjoong questions, leaning back against Jongho's bunk bed with his arms crossed.

Jongho glances over his shoulders to check if there's anyone loitering around his cell but he's relieved to see everyone is more occupied with either going batshit crazy or sticking to their own cells to not get hurt or killed.

"Coin is down there, drilling a hole into the wall separating us from the pipe leading to the prison's old sewer system." Jongho explains to his best ability, hoping he got the order of the words right. 

You were always the smart one out of the two of you, he was just the muscle.

"Alone?" Hongjoong cocks a brow in curiosity, although Jongho has a feeling that the older man already knows he's not alone.

"No. Not alone." He says through gritted teeth, sending the man a glare.

"Who's with him?" Hongjoong doesn't intend on backing away as he tilts his head at him.

Jongho sighs, giving away the fact that you're down there seems like such a bad idea. Kim Hongjoong was dangerous and Jongho really didn't want you anywhere near him. In fact, he would feel much more at ease if Kim didn't even know you existed.

"The person who planned all of this." He reveals with a shrug, eyes trained on the wall behind Hongjoong's back as he slowly sinks to sit on the floor.

"You mean that girl?" Jongho freezes at that, eyes snapping towards Hongjoong's face that now sports a smug smirk, "The one that visits you in the yard each morning."

Jongho stays quiet, deciding to not comment on anything but just keep staring at the wall with his jaw clenched.

"At first, I thought it was a bit of a reach," The older man continues in faked thoughtfulness "I was like, 'there's no way she'd be brave enough to pull something like this' but then I remembered that it all started from the moment the construction work started back up again and their new pretty supervisor stepped inside these walls."

"Shut up." Jongho interrupts, his temper starting to get tested as he glares at the older man, "We made a deal, you and I, so respect that and don't talk about her. At all."

Hongjoong holds his hand out in faux innocence, not being able to bite back a grin before dropping his hands.

"I'm just saying, whoever she is to you, she cares about you a lot if she's willing to go through all of this just to get you out."

Jongho pretends like he doesn't hear him.

-

It's been awhile since Jongho left you alone with Mingi and your nerves are starting to become visible the more it takes for him to return. What if something happens to him up there? You know it's a lock down but so many things could go wrong in matter of seconds in a place like this.

 Mingi sighs next to you, obviously sensing your concern; "Let Jongho worry about the noise, he can handle himself. You worry about how you are gonna drill through a six inch concrete wall with what used to be an eggbeater."

You glance down to the modified eggbeater you snuck inside your bag this morning and carried through the tunnels tucked at the back of the waistband of your jeans.  "Ever hear of tensile strength? Hooke's law of elasticity?" You ask him, deeming the object in your hand now sharp enough to use as a drill. Mingi gives you a bland look from where he stands, leaning against the wall with the devil caricature splayed over him, "What do you think?" You sigh, turning to him. "If we drill holes in strategic locations, we compromise the load carrying capacity of the wall."

 Mingi turns to you like you just spoke in French, "How about speaking in normal people words?" You roll your eyes. "We'll be able to break through the wall." Mingi eyes you stepping closer to the wall in curiosity, taking a stand right next to you as you point at the image of the devil's face on the wall. "We go in through the tip of each horn, the eyes, the end of the nose, the bottom of the fangs, end of the braids, makes a sort of X." You explain, handing the eggbeater to him. "Let's get to it."

Mingi gives you a reluctant sigh before getting to work, placing the tip of the eggbeater to the concrete wall.

He works in silence for the next ten minutes, you keep glancing towards the direction of the tunnel where Jongho disappeared off to as your foot keeps tapping the floor from the nerves.

After another minute, Mingi speaks again being much more talkative than you expected from when you first meet him. The morning before, that is.

"I got a question for you." You turn to him from where you leaned on the opposite wall and watched him work, "What if you do all this work and the pipe turns out to be 10 feet the other way?" "It won't." You shake your head. The confidence in your voices makes Mingi look over his shoulder at you with a scowl, "What, you got x-ray vision?" You sigh again (it's all you seem to be doing in his presence), glancing to see if there are any signs of Jongho coming back before stepping closer to where Mingi was working, "I calculated the drill point co-ordinates, hid them in my tattoo and projected them onto the wall. Everything's been worked out so the image hits the right point of the wall. It's just math."

"Okay, nerd. What if your math is wrong?" Mingi questions without missing a beat, not even taking his eyes away from where he was drilling. You roll your eyes again, getting annoyed by his questions and you bluntly reply; "You'll drill into one of the dozen gas lines behind the wall. There'll be an explosion and we'll be burnt alive." Mingi's hand slows down until it rests to a full stop as he gives you a careful glance; "But you're good at math right?"

Your mouth perks up in amusement but you refrain from answering and just nod to the wall. "Keep drilling."

With another sigh, Mingi goes back to work and you glance at the watch on your wrist.

"Hey, I need to go back." You tell him, attention on the direction where Jongho disappeared off to. Mingi turns to you in question. "I need to get out of here if it's a lockdown, it means all the staff will be together if the CO's won't come around."

He pursues his lips, attention focused on the wall. "Yeah, okay."

You hesitate, "Do you know what to do?"

"I'm not stupid, Y/N." He scoffs, glancing at you, "Keep drilling at the horns, eyes, tip of the nose and so on. Form an X. Go."

Your eyes stay stuck on the tunnel, hoping Jongho would finally come through just for a second. Just for you to know that everything is okay. You feel your heart clench in anguish.

"Hey," Mingi brings you back to reality and you turn to him, "He's fine. He was here for over a year before you showed up, it's not his first rodeo. Go."

After a moment of contemplation, you nod and glance one last time towards the tunnel before turning around and disappearing down the other end.

-

It's deadly silent on the first floor of the building where the sick bay is when you step out of the storage room whose air vent you just dropped out of.

You quietly close the door shut behind yourself, feeling a chill of unease run up your spine at the deserted floor that was busking with people when you first walked in.

 At first, you think they evacuated all staff but Jongho and Mingi would've mentioned that as a procedure during lockdown. 

You walk down the empty halls of the building's left wing, trying to figure out where everyone is with your defenses so high up that the crunch below your feet makes you jump a step back as your eyes fall to the floor.

It's glass...broken glass.

Well, that can't be good.

Your head turns to the side where the commercial wood door is located, looks like it's glass lite was punched through with something. You feel your heart pound in your chest and without further thinking you pull the sleeve of your shirt to cover your palm before grabbing a large piece of glass that looked sharp enough to be used as a weapon if needed.

Quietly, you continue heading down the hallway, remembering a spare exist located on the first floor of each wing of the building.

Only you don't make it too far.

Shuffling to your right makes your head snap to the direction in surprise and you come face to face with an unknown man standing a couple of feet away from you.

Your heart drops when you notice the dark blue pants and a grey sweatshirt, a trademark for inmate fashion at Chungju's Detention Center but also, the pair of cuffs hanging from his left hand. His face twists in a nasty grin at the sight of you and that's when you knew; you needed to get the fuck out of there.

You don't even think twice about it as you start running up the staircase, having no idea where it leads or who is up there but it's the last thing you think about when you hear footsteps behind you.

"Hey! The pretty bitch is here!" You hear a deep voice yell behind you and your heartrate spikes as your legs carry you as fast as they can up the staircase.

Once you near the top, you glance down both corridors to your left and right before noticing bar doors on the entrance of one of them, feeling a dozen of footsteps enclosing in on you. Swiftly, you run down the corridor and through the bar doors before slamming them shut and locking them with the pair of keys stuffed into the lock on the other side of them.

Just as you're about to pull the keys out, a hand reaches through the bars and grabs you by the hair, slamming your head twice against the bars on the door which makes you cry out in pain.

"There you are." The inmate breathes heavily as he holds you against the bars, hot breath heavy against the skin of your cheek as you struggle against him and you know he's muttering things in your ear that you even refuse to acknowledge, too busy blinking through the pain in your head that leaves you disoriented for a second before you fling the keys out of the lock and sent them gliding down the corridor as you sink in the piece of glass you held in your other hand into the man's shoulder so hard that it pierces through your shirt and into your own hand.

He screams loudly, losing his grip on you and with a pained grunt you rip yourself away from him, eyes growing wide as you see a dozen of inmates surrounding the bar door and rattling them, all yelling at you, mockeries, catcalls accompanied by a bunch of other adjectives you'd rather not repeat.

A noise you're not even aware that you make escapes you of out of the pure fear and panic as you start running down the corridor, checking each room just to see that they're all empty. 

Noticing camera monitors stacked up on a desk in one of the small offices, you immediately run into the room and slam the door shut, locking it with the emergency lock before dragging the bookshelf that was in the room to rest it against the door.

You look around, trying to find something to wrap around your bleeding hand before pulling out a kitchen towel that someone must've left after lunch on the desk and wrapping it tightly around your palm.

You can barely catch your breath, your hair flowing down your shoulders as it must of come lose when the inmate grabbed you by your ponytail, as you come closer to the monitors for the security cameras heart dropping at the sight that greets you.

The left wing, you can recognize the halls where you entered from the storage room, is seemingly empty. But the right wing, where the sick bay is, is in shambles, convicts are running down the halls as they please, breaking stuff and rummaging through the medicine cabinets. There are smashed doors and windows everywhere but what almost knocks the air out of your lungs is the monitor in the left corner.

It's one of the rooms in the sick bay surrounded by glass windows from all sides leaving it completely vulnerable as inmates bang against the bulletproof glass like animals trying to break it and in the middle of it, banging against the window connected to the outside is Wooyoung.

By the looks of it, the glass won't last for much longer. You can already see that they managed to break through a small hole on one of them. You glance through the window from the small office noticing officials armed to the teeth waiting outside...yet no-one was coming in.

He'll be killed if you don't do something. You have to get him out of there.

You glance at the air vent above your head and without further contemplation, drag the desk with the monitors under it before climbing on top and kicking the vent open. With a grunt, you pull yourself up inside the vent and start crawling in the direction where you've memorized the sick bay to be.

It's a maze of small tunnels but when you catch sight of a portion of it turning into a slide, you guess it leads to the lower levels and as gently as you can, you remove the screen and slide down with the help of the pipes running down it, careful to not make too much noise.

You're sure you're above the first level now, the first indicator being that the noise volume is much higher. You can hear the yells and you slow down your breathing as you near one of the grates to peer down.

You can see some of the inmates running around and you crouch lower to see the familiar glass windows that they're all banging against. Bingo.

Carefully, you crawl through the vent in front of you and stop by the grate before peering down. Your breath hitches when the top of Wooyoung's head greets you. He's stomping over a book that was lit on fire and you assume they threw it in through the hole in the window, trying to smoke him out.

As quick as you can, you work on opening the grate, pulling on it as hard as you can until it pops open and you push the lid to the side before lowering your head and a hand down and holding on to a pipe behind you with the other hand for stability.

Once your head is dipped inside is when you realize just how terrified Wooyoung must feel. The inmates screams are loud enough to pierce an eardrum, the banging and smashing against the glass enough to rattle anyone. The room is starting to get filled with smoke, obstructing your vision.

And the new side of you, unusually protective over him, feels like she'll do anything to get him out of there.

"Hey! Hey!" You yell trying to wave to Wooyoung, who fails to hear you as he's more focused on putting out the fire by covering the smoke with an empty garbage can. "Wooyoung!"

His head snaps up at that and his eyes grow wide in recognition when he sees you, immediately running  to stand below the vent.

"Come on!" You hold your hand out but not before pointing to the small table pushed near the window, "Drag that over and climb up on it! Come on!"

Wooyoung hesitates but only for a second before he's jumping on the task and quickly pushing the table towards the vent before climbing on top of it. 

His fingers wrap around the opening of the vent and you pull him up to your best ability until he's able to hang by his elbows and pull himself up the rest of the way through the opening, crawling up to plop himself down  on the pipes next to you, heaving for air as you pull the grate back over the opening of the vent.

You both lean back against the pipes behind your backs, breathing heavily as the yelling from below is heard until he finally breaks the silence.

"What the fuck is going on?" He whispers, still out of breath as his head turns to you. He discarded his white coat and was just in plain scrubs now.

You close your eyes, still leaning your head against the pipes before they flutter open again, "All hell broke loose."

You know there's no time to waste so you get back to crouching on your feet, turning to Wooyoung, "See these pipes? We're going to stay on them. They go through the wall and over the hallway and they're going to get us out of here. All you have to do is follow me. Okay?"

Wooyoung still looks positively shaken but is trying to calm down. He nods. "Yeah."

As quietly as you can, the two of you start crawling on top of the pipes with you taking the lead careful to not make too much noise to alert the inmates roaming below you.

It works for a good couple of minutes before you start hearing Wooyoung getting slightly breathless behind you.

You glance over your shoulder to him.

"Are you alright?" You ask him softly and he picks his head up, dark hair falling into his eyes.

"I'm okay....I'm fine." He breathes out and you hesitate for a moment before deciding it's for the best to keep moving.

So you do. You move a couple of feet down the pipes before you hear Wooyoung again.

"You know what, I need a minute. I'm sorry." Wooyoung says, the words rushing out as he sits on the pipes and runs a hand through his hair, taking a deep breath and probably trying to calm himself down.

"It's not much further." You try to reassure him, thinking that the mention of safety will bring some comfort to him and stop himself from driving into a panic attack.

"Just a second, please." He breaths out, swallowing loudly as he looks around the dark vent.

"Okay, we can stop if you want. Catch our breaths." You nod in understanding, sitting down on the pipes as well and hoping he won't think that you're bothered by the sudden break.

He glances at you, remaining quiet before eventually nodding, "Okay, yeah. I could use a minute."

A long silent moment passes between the two of you. You can hear footsteps accompanied by yells running up and down the halls below the two of you.

"Things should be winding down around now. Pretty soon, the police will break in and it will all be over. It's just a matter of time." You voice out, deep in thought as you stared through the vent right in front of you where you could see the grey tiles of the floor.

"How the hell did this happen?" Wooyoung questions, hand gripping the pipe running at the side of the small airway tunnel.

You pause, knowing exactly how it happened; "I don't know. But...I think if we stay up here we'll be okay."

"I can't believe this shit." He mutters, inching closer to you to peer down through the same grate of the vent.

You both fall into a silence, you can feel that he's still shaken up. Heck, so are you but him being here managed to distract you.

It's only fair if you return the favor.

 "You ever been to Baja? Mexico?" Wooyoung looks at you like a second head just sprouted from your shoulder, you just keep talking in hopes of distracting him; "There's this great place down there. Twenty bucks a night. Hammock on the back deck. Beers are fifty cents. Twenty five cents at happy hour."

He smiles at you lightly and it causes a smile of your own to appear. You sniffle,

"You ever been to Thailand? Thailand's great." You comment with a sigh and he snorts from beside you.

"Y/N, if you're trying to calm me down, you're doing a terrible job." Wooyoung comments but it's with a smile on his face which makes you giggle.

"But I am trying."

The two of you fall into light chuckles that dissipates into the air quickly.

"Why are you here?" He asks quietly, smile fading as he turns to stare at you.

You look through the grate just so you wouldn't have to look at him. "What do you mean?"

"Crawling around in the ceiling, risking your life."

"You needed help, and uh," You sniffle, looking the other way so he couldn't see your face, "I came to find you."

What was that about getting attached, Y/N?

If Wooyoung is surprised by your admission, he doesn't show it instead his brows furrow, "How'd you know where to go?"

You still at that, vision trained on the pipes running across the wall opposite of you. "I, uh, was hiding in a station that the CO's left empty and saw you on one of the monitors." You spare him a glance, hoping he doesn't notice the way your eyes shake when you lie, "I saw the blueprints for the whole compound when I started supervising the new construction site, the ventilation system is ancient, I took a lot of time studying it because you don't see a system like that in buildings nowadays and so I was sort of familiar with the layout."

You flinch when you feel him brush a piece of hair out of your face, thumb gently gliding under your eyebrow. He whispers; "And how did this happen?"

You look at him in confusion but your lips soon part as you notice the blood on his thumb and you reach out with your own hand, only then noticing the blood sliding down your cheek from the gash on your eyebrow.

You gulp, avoiding his eyes, "When everything went off, I, uh, went to the first floor of the left wing and a couple of convicts spotted me." His eyes widen before roaming over the rest of your body and stopping on the badly bandaged hand laying on your lap, you chuckle trying to play it off as nothing. "I ran to the second floor but one of them banged me pretty hard against the bars on the door."

"Oh my God." He mutters, jaw locking as he seems to internally scold himself. For what, you can't know. "Are you okay? They didn't do anything else, did they-?"

"No. No." You quickly shake your head, uncharacteristically touched by the concern. "I'm fine."

Wooyoung stays quiet for a second and you sigh lowly, looking through the grate to see that there was still people running down below.

"Wait." Wooyoung speaks up again and his curious eyes make you face him again, "What were you doing in this building in the first place?"

You freeze at that.

Because truly and honestly, you don't even have a lie for that. You haven't prepared one not for your lack of effort, you just simply could not think of a single one. 

Your trip to this building should've been a breeze. Just sneak your way to the storage room, crawl up the ceilings to where it connected with the A-building, show Jongho and Mingi the wall and return back, unnoticed. You weren't supposed to be met with a fucking riot in here when you returned.

You don't have a lie to tell him.

So the next best thing you can think of is; just act like you never even heard the question.

You turn away from him, crouching on your feet again, "We should keep moving."

After a quiet moment, you feel Wooyoung move after you again.

You crawl through the ceiling for a minute or so in silence before you glance at him again, "The door to the visitation room. Did you ever use it?"

"Not usually, but my access card should work." He replies, seemingly moved on from your avoidant mannerisms.

You nod, forgetting that he can't see you properly before turning around to respond to him. Instead, you freeze when you see someone lifting the vent screen and motion for Wooyoung to be quiet. 

The convicts....they're looking for Wooyoung and now, undoubtedly, you as well.

In confusion, he follows your eyes and sees the back of someone's head poking through the opening. 

Swiftly, Wooyoung moves over and kicks the guy in the head with his foot, making the inmate fall back down with a yell of pain before pulling the screen back on as more ruckus explodes from below, banging against the ceiling intensifies as do the mocking yells and taunts of the convicts that are hunting you down.

"Come on, let's go." You declare in a rush as you both continue to crawl up the space. 

You don't how long you move but you come in front of an opening where you can see the prisoners who have been stubbornly on your tails, looking around for the two of you.

Once the prisoners pass through, you two find yourselves peering down into the room for a short moment, making sure it's empty.

"All right." Wooyoung sighs, getting down first from the vent, carefully standing on top of a bookcase before jumping to the ground. He holds his arms out, to help you get down.

With a shaky breath, you follow after him, standing on top of the bookcase and looking at the distance towards the floor in slight anxiety. "O-Okay."

"Here," Wooyoung nods reassuringly with wide eyes, arms still held out below you, "I got you."

You place your hands on his arms for at least some type of leverage before sucking in a breath and leaping down, your body slowly thudding against his as his arms enclose around you with a low grunt.

His nose brushes your jawline as he lowers you down to the floor, in one piece.

You pull away from him and your gazes meet for one solid moment before you pull yourself away, reminding yourself that now is not the time nor the place to be sharing romantic moments with the man.

Suddenly,

"Hey Doc, you gonna keep her all to yourself?" Your heads snap towards the inmate standing in front of you two, staring at you specifically with a smirk that sends chills down your spine.

The moment he starts advancing towards you, Wooyoung surprises him with a fist to the nose and an arm around his neck to suffocate him and you're shoved into the wall as the two start to wrestle across the room. You can barely breathe.

Your fear only heightens when another inmate runs in to help his pal, trying to pry Wooyoung off of him but he doesn't notice you huddled in the corner.

You, on the other hand, notice his bandaged up leg and without even thinking about it, you run up behind him and wedge your foot as hard as you can into his injury three times as he wails in pain and falls to the floor, clutching onto his injury.

The prisoner in Wooyoung's hold finally gives out, passing out in his arms and falling to the ground.

On instinct, you latch onto Wooyoung's arm and start pulling him after you, "C'mon. This way."

You keep running down the hallways before Wooyoung pulls on your hand, brows stitched together in confusion, "This isn't the way for the visitations room."

"We can't make it through there, there's another exist here." You've seen the blueprints, you know!

He hesitates, "Y/N, if you're wrong...."

"Wooyoung, we don't have time!" You can hear footsteps and yells behind you and you turn to him in desperation, sweat dripping down your back, "Trust me."

Wooyoung stares at you before looking down both ends of the hall and then finally, giving in and following after you.

You run down the halls that are all starting to look a bit too similar but you know that there's an exit located somewhere near from the view outside the windows lining the walls. You pull Wooyoung through a small room that seems to be used a break room that, like the maze it is, leads to a storage room and finally...

"This is it." You say pointing to the door at the end of the room. You can see the grass through the glass on it as well as armed officers with their guns pointed towards it waiting on the other side.

The footsteps behind you appear to be coming nearer and nearer and you and Wooyoung share a look before you're running towards the door and flinging it open.

You immediately raise your hands up in the air, yelling "Don't shoot!"

All you can process is yelling until you realize that you're being pulled behind the line of fire and you and Wooyoung get separated as you get led away by unknown officers. They recognized you as staff members.

The entire outside space of the compound is surrounded by officers and even soldiers, cars and army trucks are pulled up nearby along with ambulance trucks.

"Wooyoung!" You hear a male voice call out as you're being led to one of those ambulance truck and your head turns to the direction it came from to see a familiar figure that Wooyoung runs to.

"Dad!" He yells back, collapsing into the older man's arms and you feel something in your chest ache.

You don't know if it's from seeing a person be comforted by a parent after a traumatic event as you've been abandoned by both. Or is it from seeing the governor, one of the main advocates for the highest possible sentence to be given to your innocent brother. Or maybe, it's simply from seeing Wooyoung be so vulnerable and small in someone's arms.

You don't know.

-

"Thank you." You tell the paramedic that just finished wrapping up your hand with a small smile and get a nod in return as he lets you have a moment to yourself, sitting in the back of the opened ambulance truck with a thin blanket wrapped around you.

Your fingers brush against the bandage on your brow, the wound all cleaned and covered now. It still doesn't make you feel any less sticky and gross.

You quietly watched as the officers advanced towards the buildings, you could hear shots fired inside and it all made you feel sick to your stomach.

"Hey." You hear a voice to your left and you look to see that Wooyoung has snuck in to sit besides you, his scrubs replaced by a pair of jeans, sweatshirt and a thick jacket.

"Hey, you okay?" You ask quietly, not even being sure if you can bring the volume of your voice up at this point.

He nods, "Yeah." before his eyes roam over you once again, just like they did when you were crawling up in the ceiling.

"All bandaged up." He notices jokingly, eyes focusing on the wound on your palm

"Yeah, it wasn't anything too bad." You reply, noticing that his father left awhile ago, "Your dad was here?"

Wooyoung chuckles, face flushing red immediately as his eyes fall to the gravel below your feet. "How embarrassing, my dad coming to check up on me like I'm a child."

You hum, eyes tracing over his side profile and the pretty lines of his jaw, "I don't think it's embarrassing, I think it's nice that he cares so much about you."

Wooyoung looks at you, something unrecognizable swimming in his eyes. "You have anyone to check up on you?"

You chuckle bitterly. The only family you have is stuck in the building across the compound. "No."

"Oh." Wooyoung lets out, face contorted into an expression you hate the most. Pity.

You open your mouth to jokingly scold him about it but all the words get stuck in your throat as you see someone get carried out in a body bag from A-building. Wooyoung notices your attention somewhere else and looks over his shoulder to see what caught your attention.

He presses his lips together, turning to you. "You didn't hear?"

Your eyes immediately snap towards him, feeling your throat close up, "Hear what?"

"Someone killed the new officer that started working here two weeks ago."

It feels like a bucket of cold water washed over you and your eyes follow the black body bag that gets placed into a vehicle. His colleagues carrying him seem downright heartbroken.

You didn't know who the new officer was, neither one of you was here long enough to meet each other but it still didn't stop the guilt to burn through your chest like acid.

Your eyes burn. You did this.

"He had two daughters in middle school." Wooyoung adds, eyes plastered on the same thing as you. The man's dead body. "They found several stab wounds in his abdomen."

A sound so guttural leaves you before you can even reign it in and Wooyoung's head turns to you, his eyes softening immediately once he notices the hot tears streaming down your cheeks.

Such a violent death. An innocent person.

"Oh, Y/N...." He utters softly, placing a gentle hand on your shoulder. "It's okay, you're okay."

"Someone died...?" Is all you can say through your sniffles as you bite down hard on your lip, not even being aware of the words that leave you, "An innocent person?"

An innocent person with a wife and kids waiting for him to come back from work tonight.

The guilt almost doubles you over, hits you like a train going at full speed.

You never thought your plan would affect anyone this much that it would result in a life getting lost.

But you turning up the heat this noon, something that was supposed to be so simple and just cause a lock down in A-building, started a chain of events that ended up taking someone's life prematurely.

This is on you. 

You might not be the one that stabbed him but you were the one that created a path that led to him getting stabbed.

"Hey, Y/N-ie." Wooyoung softly consoles you, hand now brushing the skin of your cheek, "Why are you crying?"

You barely register the nickname he calls you with but his touch is soothing, warm.

You obviously can't tell Wooyoung the truth, you can't tell him you were the cause for all of this. Instead, you have to let it fester inside of you, slowly eat away at your insides until there's nothing left.

But you have to tell him something. So, you go with the second truth;

"I was scared." You whimper, the events of today finally crashing down on you as you softly sob, "I was so scared."

Wooyoung surprises you by pulling your face into the crook of his neck, his arms coming up around you as he pats your back. But you melt into the warmth of his body and the smell of his clothes.

"I was scared too." He confesses softly in your ear, hand still patting your back over the blanket, "It's okay to be scared. I don't think you'd be human if you weren't scared in a place like this."

You stay in his embrace despite hating to be touched most of the time, until your tears cease and turn to soft sniffles against his sweatshirt.

It feels nice, you think, to have someone check up on you.

-

On the drive back home. When he enters his apartment. Sits in his living room and later on in the night, lays in his bed;

Wooyoung can't stop thinking about you.

[theworldremixed]

Fic Masterpost

I figured it's about time I did this. I mean they're all on AO3, but I figured having a Tumblr masterpost might put things in perspective as regards how much I've actually written lmao. Here we go.

Disclaimer: I mean, my writing is pretty mediocre, but I honestly find that the fandom space had to be filled out somewhat, so I started writing fic.

EarthMix

This is the pairing I've begun writing fic for again, so I have the most fics for EM.

Now unlocked. I don't think Joong is looking around for fic anymore, and certainly not on Tumblr. There are tons of unlocked fic in the tag, too, so there 'ya go!

The Stars, Our Witness 'Verse

The universe that started it all, partly as a way to archive EM activity before I became a fan, and partly as a way to stave off my delulu.

The Stars, Our Witness

Rating: E/NC17 Chapters: 16 (finished) Summary: They’re scared to cross boundaries. What happens when the lines blur? Tags: slow burn, friends to lovers, FWB, "canon rewrite" (in the sense of IRL being "canon" Warnings: divorce era. 'Nuff said.

2. supernova

Rating: E/NC17 Chapters: One-shot Summary: the same versions of 🌏 and 🪐 as in TSOW, but basically D/s pwp. Tags: pre-negotiated D/s; still a whole lot of longing.

3. of longing and loudness

Rating: E/NC17 Chapters: One-shot Summary: Oneshot set in the The Stars, Our Witness (TSOW) 'verse, and a reactionary fic post-LOL 2024. Tags: engaged!EarthMix

4. Beneath the Sunrise (in progress)

Rating: M (for now, but knowing me, this might go up) Chapters: 2 (so far, out of a slated 10) Summary: EarthMix get outed. They deal with the consequences. Tags: married!EarthMix, social media elements, bullying

General EarthMix fic

Mostly one-shots written as a reaction to a post, among other things.

laissez-faire

Rating: M Chapters: one-shot Summary: featuring Earth's obsession with mix's grey sofa Tags: engaged!EarthMix; domesticity

long distance

Rating: E/NC17 Chapters: one-shot Summary: of short reunions and busy schedules (lol honestly this has zero plot. I just missed them when they were in Japan for Happy Weekend, so I wrote a fic) Tags: PWP, quickie.

so here's the situation

Rating: E/NC17 Chapters: one-shot Summary: ~situationship~EarthMix (written after the Vivi interview had been released, and after they went on a museum simulation Van Gogh date literally the day after) Tags: situationship; we're dating but aren't together

househusbandry

Rating: G Chapters: one-shot Summary: Dreame gets EarthMix as endorsers for their vacuum. Why are they everyone's Favorite Married(TM) Couple? Tags: domesticity Note: This was written on my Notes app in like, 10 minutes, so the link is to my Twitter post to that fic.

in pari delicto (in progress; converting to prose)

OK so let me just write an author's note here. This is an unfinished Twitter social media AU because I would be writing about a topic I knew very, very well: law school. Now, I'm inclined to transform the fic to prose and transfer it to AO3 because I have no patience for the whole edit-edit concepts of socmed AUs and I honestly respect anyone who's done it. That said, I will likely continue this once I finish Beneath the Sunrise, or simultaneously as I write it.

PhuTian

Ah, ATOTS. Why do I love you so? Of course I'd write ATOTS fic.

re/live

Rating: E/NC17 Chapters: one-shot Summary: In which Tian celebrates his fifth year with his new heart in the best way. Tags: tian's birthday as an excuse to write smut, sloppy blowjobs, insecurity issues

old wives and the tales they tell

Rating: E/NC17 Chapters: one-shot Summary: Mayhaps Phupha has a kink. He refuses to validate the good Doctor Nam's speculation. Tags: domesticity kink, villager!tian, headcanon epilogue to ATOTS Note: Written in response to @earthmixsclowderofcats's Thai BL Kink Meme! Please show it some love and answer the prompts too please PLEASE!!

bad behavior

Rating: E/NC17 Chapters: one-shot Summary: Tian watches as Phupha grabs something from the nightstand – a pen? – and uncaps it. He holds Tian’s chin with one hand, and Tian feels the wet drag of the pen against his cheeks. “Chief, what are you—” “There,” Phupha says, “Whiskers.”

betwixt bewitched entanglements (in progress. might possibly discontinue.)

Rating: E/NC17 Chapters: 19 (out of a planned 15 lmao, I swear this was supposed to end earlier. Summary: Magic meets royalty meets a society walled off from the rest of the world. Tags: Royalty AU, Magic AU, political intrigue, slow burn Notes: Look. I got carried away writing this, and to be honest, the concept's flown so far away from me and the worldbuilding had been so solid in my head and I even know how this fic will end, but honestly? It's not getting engagement. That's not the sole reason for writing fic - of course not - but I'm not quite sure if it's worth my time and effort writing this out.

JimWen

10/31: So I just wrote this today woohoo!

the ebb and the flow

Rating: E Chapters: one-shot Summary: The first time after their last time. (Wen learns how to swim. Jim learns how to trust. A one-shot on the wandering thoughts of Wen and Jim as they navigate being in a relationship: the fear of stagnation, for Wen; and the fear of betrayal, for Jim.) Tags: introspective; plotless; PWP; alternate ending

OngsaSun

The first half of 23.5 excited me so elfin much that I'd write little tiny Ongsa character-explorations in between episodes. Here are the two I'd actually published.

gravity

Rating: G Chapters: one-shot Summary: Ongsa muses on the meadows of her mind. Tags: anxious!Ongsa

nightfall/daybreak

Rating: G Chapters: one-shot Summary: Ongsa is no stranger to the dark—that is, until she gives in to the light. Tags: depressed!Ongsa TW: "dark" as a metaphor for depression

[ninefoxgambitgame]

this one's US politics

Sorry. I nuked my newsletter, Bluesky, and a couple other social media accounts because I was out of cope, so that leaves Tumblr.

I'm over a year late on CROWNWORLD. My agent and editor are aware. The book is not likely to get done soon despite my being under 10,000 words / 3 chapters from the finish line, because I'm too stressed and exhausted to soldier on.

The parts that I haven't discussed much if at all in public:

My health cratered a few years ago. I wrote most of STARSTRIKE in all lowercase while seeking ways I could write flat on my back in bed without making the pain worse. I spent a year bedridden, getting 0-4 hours of sleep per night (not a typo); I only left the house for doctor's appointments or to vote.

This included uncommon bad med reactions like the one that sent me to the ER with internal bleeding. I'm cautious about new-to-me meds for a reason.

I was making good progress writing early in 2025 but then I had a concussion. I'm mostly recovered but my balance is still not 100%.

A family member had multiple health crises that could have killed them.

South Korea's president attempted an insurrection (a common interpretation) by declaring martial law in December 2024. Almost all my family is in South Korea. I couldn't even discuss it publicly because there was a nonzero chance that it would endanger my relatives. (I've been to a literature festival in Seoul under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture, Tourism, and Sport. They know I exist, and South Korea has a history of dictatorships.)

I learned my father had a cerebral hemorrhage that same month. He's in South Korea. I'm in the USA. The unstable political situation in South Korea would have made any attempt to visit him unusually fraught.

The Trump presidency. Unfortunately, chronic health problems curtail the kinds and amounts of activism I can physically do even before we get to being burned out.

My husband works at LIGO, which won a Nobel Prize for the detection of gravitational waves predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity. President Trump's proposed budget would (among many other things) cut funding for one of two LIGO sites, at which point why not defund both. (NSF budget news [science.org] but the link may be paywalled.) You need two gravitational wave observatories to verify a detection (triangulation). What about other observatories internationally, you ask? There are two: VIRGO (Italy) and KAGRA (Japan). LIGO can detect out to ~150 megaparsecs, VIRGO to ~80 megaparsecs (best case), KAGRA to ~10 megaparsecs (best case). But space is volumetric, so for a comparison you need to cube these numbers. LIGO's at ~3 million (let's call that 100% as a measuring stick). VIRGO's at ~500,000 (~20%). KAGRA is at ~1,000 (under 1% - worse by a couple orders of magnitude, in fact). These are estimates, but I've estimated conservatively.

This is a proposed US budget, not an approved one, but if LIGO doesn't get cut, it's because something even more essential than basic research in astronomy/physics is axed (further).

I am selfishly stressed about the possibility that my husband will lose his job. I'm on his health insurance, and did we mention my health? This has career implications for me as well if I become the primary breadwinner. If we knew for certain one way or the other, we could plan; but the uncertainty is wreaking havoc for pretty much everyone.

I've had my books challenged and pulled from libraries for "DEI" reasons (Tiger Honor seems to be the usual "problem" due to the nonbinary protagonist; I don't think Phoenix Extravagant ever sold that well). A studio optioned Dragon Pearl but was stymied first by the Hollywood strikes (solidarity to the unions!) and then opted not to negotiate for another renewal because when shopping it around, the feedback was that a Korean space opera was too "DEI" to be a good investment in this political environment. (Whatever one's feelings about this, this is absolutely true in a business/economic sense.) So this makes career planning additionally selfishly fraught. Too bad I didn't go all in on het shifter romance? I started writing one! - het shifter romance is my favorite kind - and I loved it but somebody had a book contract to attend to.

I am sad for the US wrecking ball clown show and I am sad for everyone everywhere who is affected by the US wrecking ball clown show. ("Lying low" politically is a lost cause when one is a semi-public figure.) I am, perhaps controversially, of the opinion that the despot playbook of North Korea and past South Korean dictatorships ought to be assiduously avoided, not enshrined as some asshole US administration's hashtag life goals. But I'm just a science fiction writer, not a politician, so what do I know.

Any impact to me is unimportant in the grand scheme of the world. My job is producing entertainment fiction and it's by definition nonessential. My household will lurch along; I'm not in financial distress. But I am selfishly stressed out of my mind and likely to spend June 2025 writing bad music, badly playing 16-bit videogames, badly designing/coding a visual novel and/or graphic novel only half a dozen friends will ever see. Maybe I will scribble at the het shifter romance without any intention of writing well, but rather stress relief, and continue moseying toward music composition/orchestration. Under better circumstances, this would make a nice mini-vacation; but these are not better circumstances.

Anyway, my failings as a writer and human being are well known at this point; but if the book isn't delivered in June, that's why. It's not much of an apologia. Y'all stay safe and take care of yourselves and each other out there.

Yours in calendrical heresy, YHL

[rosieblogstuff]

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

44 😲 in my main AO3 account. 2 others in my older account = 46!

I didn't realize I had that many things!

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

270,883

3. What fandoms do you write for?

All 44 of those works in my main AO3 are MacGyver 2016. One is a crossover with The Rookie. The other two at Star Trek TOS and Star Wars fics.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Table + Flashlight + IEDs

Mac + (Wilderness + Training + Survival) + Jack

Lost Causes

Lake + Stick + Fever

4 Times the LAPD Didn’t Pull Jack Over + 1 Time They Did 

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I try to! I often respond to a chapter's comments when I post the next chapter of a longfic. And sometimes I just space on it and respond a year later when I notice I failed to respond.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Oh definitely my X-ray + Penny flashfic, Bad Penny. Most of the comments are variations on HOW DARE YOU!!!

There are a couple other flashfics with pretty ambiguous endings, too.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

That's a hard one. Most of my fics have a happy or at least comforty ending. Maybe... uhh.... Electricity + Combustion ? which I literally labeled "whump with a fluffy ending". I also have two Jack Lives fics so that's always a happy situation at the end...

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I haven't. A few weird comments but I mostly scratch my head and ignore them. Anybody who hates on my fics will be getting a very long and nasty reply, followed by their comment being deleted.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Nope, no smutty fanfics here. I did have a romance I posted for another fandom awhile back (and never finished), and I've written fade-to-black stuff in my orig fic novels.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

Just one! My Macgyver 2016+The Rookie cops-vs-spies crossover, in which some LAPD officers keep coming across a black GTO involved in shenangains around LA: 4 Times the LAPD Didn’t Pull Jack Over + 1 Time They Did

It's probably the funniest thing I've ever written, and the ending is one of my very favorites. Also possibly the only gen fic ever posted in The Rookie fandom, although I don't look over there much.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yes. Somebody stole all my completed fics from FF.net last year. There was a big Tumblr post about some site full of stolen fics, and sure enough, there mine were. I asked to have them remove, got not reply. I haven't posted anything to FF.net since then.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not that I'm aware of.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes, but not for a long time. I used to frequently co-write fics in my first fandom.

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

I'm going to go with Washington State Ferry M/V Wenatchee. Who doesn't love a good ferry boat? It's an irconic style, fun if you're walking on, handy if you need to drive on, saves you hours of driving around Puget Sound by land. Also just a very nice-looking ship.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

Ugh, wow. I have a couple dozen things I kinda like but might never finish. My favorite, and least likely because I've made the least progress on it, is a MacGyver fic about Patti having plotted out her revenge better, and tring to fuck over the team by having listed Jack as her replacement... which of course gives him access to high-level secrets like Oversight's identity. Much drama ensues.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Ramping a story up. Characters. Make a story fully story-shaped.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Endings. 😫

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

Hmmm I don't think I've ever needed to. Like most things in writing, I'm not against it in theory, but it can be done well or badly.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Anne McCaffrey's Pern, back in the paper fanzine days. Prior to joining AO3 in like 2019, I had 0 fanfics posted on the internet but a few in zines listed on Ebay. 😂

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

This is IMPOSSIBLE to answer. I could answer it differently every day for the next couple weeks. Anything I already mentions plus a couple more!

[hojiteaversion]

Why I Think RC Has Trouble Sticking Their Landings

(Or, a pantser talks about structure and DLS for like 8 paragraphs)

My short answer: Because these stories are first drafts

Longer answer: ⬇️

1) (Lack of) Developmental editing

RC's model has its authors write long stories 2-4 chapters at a time. As much as the authors might perfect these chapters, they have no way to change something later on if they realize a scene no longer matches the big picture. An author may revise and make a batch of 4 flawless chapters, but it still doesn't mean they will fit the story seamlessly.

Developmental editing, according to this article, "involves feedback on the big picture of a […] writing piece. A developmental editor will critique structural elements like the plot, characters, theme, and organization of ideas." They also say that this kind of editing is recommended after the first or second draft.

So this type of revision would help an author make sure every character has its place (too many LIs and uneven LI screentime could be fixed), that characterization is consistent, that the plot is clear and moving at a good pacing, etc.

In DLS, for example, things that might be revised after a developmental editing: Leo's introduction scenes not matching his characterization later on, the Leo/Vlad rivalry that seems a bit strange in hindsight, more prominent role and scenes for Sandra, a more consistent progression in Noe/Laia and Ezel/Laia routes, fairer distribution of LI scenes (🫠), Laia's character motivations, the plot mysteries might be revealed to the reader a bit earlier, etc.

But these stories are arguably first drafts that will never be revised holistically (like Choices stories are/used to be, as far as I'm aware), so problems that only become clear once you're further along might not be fixed satisfactorily (or at all).

What sort of problems? Well...

2) Structure, part I

So the visual novel medium is fairly recent, right? Choose Your Own Adventure stories have existed for a while, but, I'm pretty sure, not in the scale of RC stories. 3 seasons demand a lot of story. And the thing is, I'm not sure there is a lot of guidance out there regarding story structure for interactive stories? Not that I've found, at least.

This is a problem, I think, because even if these authors follow the existing material on story structure (Save the Cat, Hero's Journey, Classic 3 Act, Seven-Point Structure, etc.), they will have to do the work of adapting it for a visual novel that A) has 3 seasons as a default, and B) 3 seasons of more or less equal length.

Look, it absolutely can be done! But my point is, I think it's generally uncharted territory and requires a lot of problem-solving. It's not just figuring what must happen in this story for it to be satisfying, it's also deciding when each thing must happen in a way that fits the requirements of three seasons and their finales, which must all fit together, but also be individually exciting and balance setup and payoff. And there is no way to go back and fix it if you realize you messed up the pacing somewhere! Not to mention…

3) Structure, part II: Routes

Not only do they have to figure out plot and structure (without being able to revise the finished story as a whole), but they also need to figure out and balance at least 4 different dynamics. As in, when it gets established, how to keep those dynamics fresh even after they get together, and how to synchronize MC's development with that relationship and its milestones. And again, it's not like there is a manual or a right answer. You have to write and fix afterwards — except they can't 😀. So if an author realizes later on that x couple needed a scene earlier on, or that they rushed things, or any other problem, there is nothing to be done except maybe add more scenes that might stand out from whatever they're trying to correct.

A tiny example of this problem in DLS would be Leo and Laia telling Derya that they're dating, which is clearly a correction of the scene in 4x02 where Laia called him "a friend" because "[she] thought it went against local customs to make a show of pre-marital relationships". In 2019 Istanbul. It would just make more sense if she had just called him her boyfriend in the first place.

4) Authors

I'll admit I'm least informed about this one, but based on a few interviews I've read with the authors, it seems some of them have never written fiction or visual novels before…? I could be wrong! But! Imagine being new to this medium and having to figure all of that ⬆️ out, with the limitations that RC's model brings. I'm not sure how much training and/or assistance they get in this entire process. It just seems a lot for one person.

And I have no answers for any of this, by the way! I don't work there, I don't know how the company works or how it doesn't. This is just my tentative opinion based on my limited experience with writing. It's extremely hard, and I genuinely cannot imagine trying to do any of that ⬆️ in the first place, but especially if I had to get it right on the first try.

Every writing advice on Earth recommends multiple drafts on longform writing because it's impossible to make your story the best it can be on the first attempt. So I think the RC endings often being unsatisfying might be, mainly, a consequence of that.

[faroreskiss]

The Power of Understanding / Part 2 (v2)

Read on Ao3

Rewritten v2 posted on: 2023/09/10

Cheat Sheet

Chapters: Pilot, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9

Summary: You have been with the Chain for a while now, as their "scholar" and translator. You know everything about them, because you are from our world. But do they know the truth about how you can understand everyone? Loosely based on the same reader in my NSFW fic, which is a very loose prequel to this one, and a work in progress. More background info to come, if I feel like it :D Isekai reader, but she doesn't know about the Linked Universe. Warnings: None. SFW. Maybe Teen? Points of interest: This is your thing if you are into the mystery of chain being able to talk to each other. I am an actual trained linguist IRL, hence this HAD to be written! Some fluffy Twilight x Reader content in this chapter.

So, what was happening to you today? You just couldn't stop thinking about Twilight for some reason. You even carried your work over the stables, having to inhale the smell of horseshit around you. 

But he was just... there. Not like he has been far away lately. You’ve literally been stuck with him (and the rest of the chain) for around two years. Your ‘situationship’ with Wild was still there, and the rest of the chain was aware of it, you were guessing.  You both weren’t exactly super subtle about it, hand holding and such and sometimes a small kiss here and there, but you were never explicit with it either. Nobody questioned anything, everybody had their… quirks, you guessed. 

Did they think you were just in a relationship, you wondered sometimes. Were they even familiar with the word, situationship? Gods, what would they think of the involvement of you, Zelda and Link at the same time, if they knew? Technically, everybody had their room in the house in Hateno, but, well... Ah, you really missed Zelda too, and her delicate fingers on… You took a breath and then sighed. You were getting distracted.

Anyway, nobody owes anyone explanations in the Chain that you learned. That was the agreement of the Links, in which you were indirectly included. If they don't want to tell, you don't force them.

Except, you pretty much knew everything. Well, you weren't really familiar with any game where all the Links were together except maybe some fanfiction where they met in the afterlife, but Wild didn't "exist" back then, from your perspective.

Now, Time was out with the others, getting some business done in Castle Town. Wild also joined him to get some ingredients for the recipes he learned from Malon.

Back to Twilight... You were watching his strong arms, brushing the horse gently. He definitely had a tall stature compared to the other Links. The Links you are in contact with are ranging from their mid to late twenties, maybe early thirties (except Wind, though he was still almost a 16/17 -year-old teenager). So, most of them were fully adults.

"Hey, I can feel ya starin', ya know, Trivia Queen,” he said with his Ordona drawl that occasionally made an appearance, sighing, while still brushing his Epona.

Right. That was your nickname. When you first arrived, you kept spouting things about them that you supposedly should not "know" about, which made the Links (except Wild, he was used to it) extremely suspicious. Over time, they got used to it, especially after finding out about your "job" at Wild's world, as a historian, linguistics scholar. So they left it at that.

The other rule was that you were not supposed to discuss one Link with another, unless you are sure you are not revealing any secrets.

...which was a rule that was established right after you revealed that Twilight is Wolfie, to Wild. Seems like the Old Man already knew (you and Wild joined the chain pretty much as the latest additions), and it was his idea to come up with it. And it was kind of unfair because Wild said he already knew Wolfie from his initial adventure! Hah, good riddance. It did end up being revealed to everyone anyway, after his near death experience.

Fair to say, you were the persona non-grata for a while. And that nickname was not Trivia Queen, but it was Trivia-something else for a while (Thanks, Vet).

"Mhm," you idly replied.

Twilight raised an eyebrow, catching you lost in thought while the stables filled with the scent of horse dung. "Hey," he called out again, his voice carrying a mix of amusement and curiosity. "Lost in your own world again?"

You sighed, blushing slightly, and tried to shake off the daydream of you and him in a big bear hug. "Yeah, just got a bit distracted," you admitted, turning your attention back to the ranch's budget paperwork. "These numbers can be quite mesmerizing, you know."

The rancher chuckled, his eyes warm as he continued brushing his Epona. "If you say so," he replied playfully. "But I have to admit, you manage to make even the most mundane tasks seem fascinating."

You couldn't help but smile at his compliment, feeling your heart flutter slightly. "Thanks, Link. You know how to make a 'trivia queen' blush," you teased back, trying to keep the conversation light-hearted.

His grin widened, and he leaned against the stable door, looking at you with that undeniable twinkle in his eyes. "Oh, really? Well, consider it a skill I've honed over time," he said, winking playfully.

You playfully rolled your eyes, trying to hide the butterflies in your stomach. "I suppose I'll have to keep my guard up around you, then," you replied, feigning a serious tone.

Twilight chuckled, and for a moment, the two of you locked eyes, a silent understanding passing between you.

"You wish you could," he winked.

There was an unspoken awareness that, despite the friendly banter, there were lines he would not cross. You respected his relationship with Wild, and he respected your history with him. And of course, the fact that everybody's existence is but a flicker...

Yes... Who knows how long you will still be here anyway? Even the stuff with Wild and Flora is as dangerous as it is. You can literally disappear and get back to your own world, leaving them behind.

This was the thing that was stopping you from the other type of "feelings" you could catch. You never spoke about this with Wild or Flora. To be fair, not like there was any time to. You… literally had the most intense moment of intimacy one night, and less than 24 hours after that, you and Link were taken in via the portal and met with 8 other Links. Poor guy even hesitated to sleep with you in the same bedroll, literally the night after. 

 And since the adventures with the Chain started, there was this weird gloom between you two sometimes (both missing Zelda), but the respect you have for each other never disappeared. That was another unspoken agreement.

The moment you want to speak about this awkward issue of you having a heart big enough for love for other people, the reality of your existence would be bare.

Anybody can disappear, forever, anytime.

Time's return broke the moment, and you both quickly resumed your tasks, acting as if nothing significant had transpired. "So, what were you two chatting about?" Time inquired with a sly grin.

"Just discussing the ranch's budget," you replied casually, keeping things vague.

The Old Man raised an eyebrow but seemed to take your word for it. "Alright then, just remember we've got some preparations to make before the next portal appears," he said, his eyes flickering with a knowing but serious glint. It wasn't the first time he witnessed something like this.

You nodded, grateful for the diversion. "Of course, I'll get back to work."

As the day went on, you couldn't help but steal glances at Twilight, his presence always managing to captivate you. Though you were the "translation magic" of the group, your understanding of him went beyond language. It was a connection that had been forged through shared experiences and unspoken feelings of the last couple of years, despite the initial incidents you had.

And as you continued to work alongside the Chain, you held onto the hope that, in the midst of all the chaos and adventure, there might be a chance for your paths to intertwine in a more profound way. For now, you would cherish the friendly banter and the secret glances, knowing that no matter how many worlds you traveled, Twilight would be a part of your heart's journey, for now.

[mammothartist]

Reasons why Ijin is great :)

This is going to be partitioned In sections because actual essays are for school. :/

All this is gonna be my opinion and what I see, so yeah.

Reason #1: He is so genuinely kind.

    What I’ve seen is that it’s a common theme that the main characters of manhwas are kind, but it feels like Ijin wishes the best for people. For example, he never brings down others emotionally. What I’ve seen is that people make MC’s inherently jealous to add flaws to their character, but with Ijin his flaws come from his inability to be vulnerable ( we’ll come back to that later). It’s really refreshing.

Reason #2: He cannot lie for his life.

    I just find it so funny that he is only able to lie by omission and when he actually gets a ‘good’ lie out , they see right through him. That leads to our next point

Reason #3: He has no poker face.

    Sure, he is able to hide his past, but by other characters he is extremely easy to read. Like how Maya was able to find out that he didn’t kill the numbers just by his face alone. I just find it funny because of his non- existent poker face it we get those bulging eyes shots. 

Reason #4: He is pretty. 

     Do I have anything else to say ?

Reason #5: He is so hot .

    I swear my heart skips a beat anytime we get a handsome Ijin shot. 

Reason #6: He has androgynous features and Characteristics 

    To be honest, he has so many ‘feminine features/Characteristics’ that aren’t his strength,skill in fighting, and like- his hair. I swear if you were to turn him into a woman he should serve that exact same purpose in the story. He has such a gender neutral role in the story. But tbh,I think it’s my bisexual ass speaking but 🤷‍♂️

Reason #7: He’s so traumatized 

    I have a love-hate relationship with this fact because yes, it’s the main reason why he is a pretty 3 dimensional character but also it’s like , :’( . He acts the way he does throughout the story because of his grueling past, for example…

his food insecurity- food was probably not a main concern to the camp.

His constant paranoia- when those girls asked for his number in the most recent chapters, even when they did nothing wrong, he still had that jolt of fear before they asked. 

His inability to be vulnerable- not allowing people that aren’t hospital staff to tend to his wounds, was taken advantage of by the people in the camp.

His stare- he’s gained as a way of warning people to not harm him. 

He seems to dissociate when under stress- I noticed this when we where showed the first time he got a nightmare while he was in Korea, and instead of crying or reacting strongly ( What I would’ve probably done) he blanks out.

He has trouble rationally thinking when under intense stress- when his grandpa and sister was kidnapped and he was pitted against the numbers, instead of killing the numbers , he just squeezes his eyes closed like he is a child waiting for a bad thing to pass. 

He has an extremely emotionally damaged inner child- We’ve seen Ijin get sentimental over things that would be considered the bare minimum ( it’s a bit of a stretch but eh) but we as the readers know that he has experienced one of the worst things that could happen to him at a young age . But, he never grew up with a frame of reference of what a normal life is . I believe this also leads to how he never matured at a normal pace, he is just allowing his inner child to have some fun, we’re told this by the other characters.

( This is the ones I could list off the top of my head) He becomes an inherently ‘flawed character’ due to how emotionally stunted he is. He gets a lot of character development that revolves around him being more honest. That leads me to my next point. 

Reason #8 - Character Development 

         He gets a lot of character development, like him progressively opening up to his family, him making deeper connections to the people he cares about. Not being on edge all the time. One that I’ve seen the most is his ability to be merciful. He progressively becomes better at determining who deserves mercy or not and I think he’s awesome for that.

These are the reasons why I think Ijin is pretty awesome. I could write down more but it’s 11:55 and my brain is melting. Let me know if I got anything wrong about trauma response stuff. And if you disagree I’d like to know why! I don’t bite :) ( sorry the grammar sucks, I have no excuse ).