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alreadyblondenow · 4 years

Text

How old is too old?

Jung Jaehyun x reader // SMUT, SMUT, angst, fluff

Themes: OLDER JAEHYUN, YOUNGER READER, please I’m begging you don’t read my works if you’re not comfortable.

Word count: 5k

Summary: Jaehyun was your father’s best friend and life has it’s own twist of reuniting you again.

Warnings: OLDER JAEHYUN, YOUNGER READER, BOTH LEGAL AGE, sex, sex, sex, over stimulation, choking, slapping, dom Jaehyun, mentions of other idols, pairing of other idols, swearing, unprotected sex, rough sex, filthy sex, sad ending, Jaehyun is Johnny’s best friend, Johnny is your dad do the math. Mentions of alcohol, mentions of pregnancy, sad ending

A/N: I did this in one sitting. This is only a made up story and theres no way in hell that this is true. If something about the warning doesn’t sit well on you please don’t read. I would like to thank the anon who pointed out the sensitive topic. I already deleted some parts and edited the fic. Again thank you, and I will be better next time. For the first 200+ readers, I’m sorry if the fic was carrying something sensitive and I was clueless about it but after consulting with some of my fellow writers, I think the edited version of this fic is now safer. Thank you! And if the concept is still sensitive you can message me again I’ll be happy to delete it.

Have you ever seen someone so dreamy and handsome that he sparkles every time he’s around? Or whenever he’s around he just lights up the whole room with his smile. He’s like an angel or a saint that walks among us. Mr. Jaehyun or Mr. Jae, as you call him, is the epitome of that description.

Same birthday, different age.

Years later

“Good morning princess, happy birthday”

The sun is hitting your eyes and you put an arm on your head, not minding the person kissing your exposed thighs. Yuta has been your fuck buddy ever since the day you’ve been introduced to sex. He was your first at everything, but you two never had the guts to take your relationship to the next level. Nonetheless, you’re both still scared to lose each other.

“See you tonight?” you said weakly, admiring Yuta’s angelic features under the bright natural light that comes in your room perfectly.

“Definitely” he kissed your cheek and flopped on top of your naked body, “Don’t forget to clean up well, I came almost five times inside you last night,” he said before he kisses you one last time and leaves you to enjoy your morning.

On your way to the dining room, every one that crosses your path greets you good morning and happy birthday. You respond with a smile and ‘thank you’ as you continue to walk, everyone seems busy for the dinner party tonight.

On the long table, you found your mother and father having coffee and reading the newspapers. “Morning” you greet the before you sit.

“Happy Valentine's day” Johnny, your father, teases you as he folds the newspaper. You roll your eyes at him at let out a small laugh, “You’ll love my surprise for you tonight” he added, chewing his toast with strawberry jam on it.

“Another car? Oh, wait. Did you bought me a whole Chanel boutique already?” you tease your father, even though he perfectly knew you hate material gifts.

“Oh no. You’ll like this one” he smirks at you and stood up to give you a kiss on the forehead, “happy birthday, I’ll be back before dinner and before the guests arrived. Just have to handle a few things at the office”

“Why do I feel like you’re about to buy me a private plane” you tease him again and left you with your mother to enjoy breakfast together.

Living with fame and money all your life didn’t make you a spoiled daughter, or a big spender like your dad. You’re always about the simple things in life that give you genuine happiness, it’s always the people around you are showering you with expensive gifts that you’re grateful for but to be honest, you don’t need it. Family, career, and love. Those are the most important things in your life. But about love, you’re not sure yet.

During the family dinner, as usual, the house is packed with family, family friends, and some people at work. Champagnes everywhere, people chatting about business or whatnot, families catching up, and friends reuniting.

“Where is dad?” you asked your mother, Seulgi while you wait for both your father and Yuta to arrive. You’re not blowing your birthday candles without your dad.

As you chat with other people and enjoy your celebration, your ears rang when you heard people exclaiming that Johnny has arrived. You walked to the entrance to greet your father, and to your surprise… Jaehyun is with him. Handsome as ever as if those years of not seeing each other didn’t make him age.

“You remember Jaehyun right?” your father introduced you to Jaehyun like one of his business partners, but Jaehyun is more than that.

“Mr. Jae, you’re back- is he, the gift that you’ve been telling me?” the question was directed to Johnny but your eyes are glued to Jaehyun, shaking his hands still.

“You’ve grown so much!” Jaehyun knew it was wrong to scan your hot body but he couldn’t resist. He’s good at hiding it.

Seeing Jaehyun right before your eyes made you feel things that you are not supposed to be feeling. He’s not your uncle, you don’t share the same blood, he’s just one of your dad’s business partners. The lust that you felt the moment you saw him scan your body felt so wrong but good at the same time. How can Mr. Jae do this to you?

As the night became more and more interesting, you and Jaehyun spent hours and hours talking and catching up. You have completely forgotten about your other guests, you just want to talk to Jaehyun the whole night.

He hasn’t changed a bit, the only thing that changed in his life is his steady career. The business in Connecticut made him filthy rich because he put his whole life on managing it. He apologised for leaving you and not saying goodbye, “to be honest I’m happy I didn’t see you before I leave, I knew you would be sad and I couldn’t bear seeing you like that. How are you?”

“The same sweet girl that you left, Mr. Jae” you just flirted and you hope he will just shrug it off. “Managing my own business now, I could live alone already but I’m too attached with my parents-“

“Hey, princess” Yuta came out of nowhere and interrupt you mid-sentence. He kissed you on the cheek, enough to make Jaehyun think that he’s your boyfriend or someone who has your heart. “Didn’t get to spend some time with you tonight, but it’s fine. I left your present on top of your bed, I hope you like it”

Jaehyun was watching attentively the whole time you and Yuta were talking, and after Yuta left you noticed that Jaehyun was smirking while he drinks his wine. “Now, I’m perfectly convinced that you’ve grown. He’s not your fiancé or anything right?”

“No no.” you shook your head nervously, “Just someone, who can provide my sexual needs” you added confidently letting him know that, yes you’re an adult now.

The catching up with Jaehyun continues, but soon your birthday ends and everyone needed to go home. Jaehyun kissed you on the cheek and told you that he was so happy to be reunited with you again.

“Oh, Mr. Jae” you blurted out before he gets in his car, “Happy birthday”

Jaehyun smiled so sweetly, heart-pounding, ear turning red because he’s so happy that you remember. “Happy birthday to us”

Weeks after your birthday, you decided to live separately with your parents and move out of the mansion. Johnny was sad about it, but he clearly knows sooner or later he needed to let go of you. While you were putting your stuff and organizing some of your things, someone knocked at your door but you’re hands are full you couldn’t open the door for them. “Come in, it’s open. Sorry, my hands are full” You were inside your walk-in closet, putting your shoes inside boxes and you wonder who it might be.

“Thought I should say hi to you. Your father is busy taking important calls” Jaehyun explained.

For a moment, you and Jaehyun chatted and exchanged questions. He asked you what made you change your mind about living on your own, you asked what's his business with your dad lately. Both gave interesting answers until the room became silent as you go back to packing your stuff.

He watches you put your things on boxes, but your Victoria’s Secret satin sleepwear catches his attention. Those thin shorts that expose your butt cheeks whenever you bend over, thin sleeveless top that he oh so wanted to remove, the way your nipples ghost on your thin satin sexy top makes him want to pinch your nipples until you’re whimpering.

You don’t know what he needs, but you feel his breath on your nape. His presence is not easy to avoid when he’s directly behind you and awfully close. “Mr. Jae, do you need something else?” You clear your throat before reaching something but he stopped you from moving. He turned you around and his hands are quick to hold your ass, squeezing them gently with both hands, your body relaxes against his chest but your heart is pounding.

“Put your leg around my waist” it was a stern tone that made you follow without hesitation. He put you on the nearest wall and pinned you the there, his hands are busy removing your shorts and panties. Once you’re naked waist down, he unbuckles his belt and released his thick, veiny cock. The place was dead silent and you couldn’t talk because you can’t believe what’s happening. He kissed you on the cheek before pushing in halfway.

It hurt. But he didn’t care.

He pulls out again only to push right back in a little harder than before. You closed your eyes because it fucking hurts but it felt so good that you part your lips and rolled your head back.

After a few pleasurable thrusts that stretched your walls good, he stopped. The goal was not to have sex and had an amazing orgasm then and there. Jaehyun was testing the waters if you’re up to doing something stupid with him. His main goal for putting his cock inside you was not to give you an orgasm but to let you know that letting him fuck you someday will fucking feel good.

“If you want this to happen again, go to my place tonight. I’ll text you the address” he went down to get your shorts and panties on the floor and helped you wear it. He buckled his belt in front of you without taking his eyes off of you.

Jaehyun left you in your room with a confused mind. Questions over questions but you do know one thing, he will surely see you in his place tonight. And because of that, you finished putting your stuff and took a long bath on the tub. Making sure that every part of your body smells like lavender.

The thought of Jaehyun being your father’s best friend doesn’t sit well on you but the urge and the want of being fucked by Jaehyun lurks in your mind. What’s so wrong about having sex with Jaehyun anyway? Yes, he’s older but you’re an adult too.

As you drive to Jaehyun’s house for the first time, you try not to think about the people who will get mad if they know about this stupid thing that you’re about to do. Jaehyun’s house location is so far from the city, away from every chaos you could think of. As expected, his house is big and well guarded. But it feels cold and lonely.

“You live alone? Mr. Jae?” you asked when you got out of the car, Jaehyun welcoming you with a hug. He looks comfortable in his house clothes, slippers and all.

“Yes. My helpers come and go every weekend to clean the house. How was the drive?” He put an arm around your waist before he opens the door and enter his house, it was beautiful inside. A Chet Baker song was playing somewhere around the house, and it smells good. “I cooked dinner, I hope you’re starving”

You thought that once you stepped foot in his house, he will bring you straight to his room and have sex with you because it’s always like that with Yuta but you’re wrong. He made you dinner and the set up is kind of romantic. The food that he cooked is delicious it made you feel like you were eating somewhere expensive.

And just after dinner and two bottles of wine ago, you two catch up some more. You caught yourself laughing at his stories, giggling when he flirts with you, smiling whenever he looks at you deeply. Then it hit you, maybe he’s just shy to admit that he likes you and that his true purpose is to date you not just fuck you.

“What I did earlier is rather bold and wrong, I’m-“

“It’s okay, Mr. Jae. I’m here, it happened already” he smiled as you sip on your wine.

“Please, call me Jaehyun” he smiled back to you.

When the two of you grew tired of catching up already, finally he brought you to his room. He left you for a minute to lurk around and all you felt was loneliness. The room felt lonely, his entire house too and you’re not stupid to know why you’re here. It’s clear that Jaehyun is lonely in his life even though he has all the money in the world.

“Where are you?” you feel his lips on your neck. Maybe he noticed that you were spacing out. But again, Jaehyun is close to your body just like earlier and it brought you back to reality. You can feel the warmth of his body that you oh so crave, his soft lips that you want to kiss and taste. He turned your body around to face him and just like that he kissed you softly as if he just read your mind.

“Is it weird?” that an older man is kissing you right now?

“No. Not at all, do it again?” you confidently requested, and he happily did it again. Arms around Jaehyun’s neck, kissing each other like everything is right, your fingers go through his soft hair. Every moan that comes from your mouth goes straight to his cock making it twitch and want to be inside you.

He sat you down on the edge of his bed and went in between your legs, removing your laced panties slowly. Dress all wrinkled and just above your thighs, straps already fell off your shoulders making you looked ruined already.

“I can’t wait any longer,” he said while removing his pants together with his expensive underwear. What’s about to happen is, Jaehyun will fuck on the edge of his bed. He pushed inside you again for the second time today without foreplay, rolling hips slowly making you see how lustful he is.

He was so concentrated on fucking you, but he leaned down for a kiss and pull away again so he can see his cock go in and out of your pussy. Jaehyun’s deep grunts and moans are like music to your eyes while yours are like an achievement for him. Hearing you moan because of him feeds his pride and he loves it.

“That Nakamoto guy you’ve been having sex with didn’t fucked you enough” he informs you confidently with a sly smirk on his face. You were so sensitive by this time, both legs folded and clipped on the edge of the bed giving Jaehyun more access to your cunt, explore angles as he pleases. You wanted to close your legs so bad, but it feels so damn good you force yourself to keep your legs open for him.

“Spread your folds for me” you followed and you let him flick his thumb up and down your slit while he fucks you still, putting pressure on his finger and putting his whole cock inside you.

“Too much,” you said weakly, out of breath, gasping so hard.

“And that’s what makes it feel good, enjoy it.” by this time you don’t know what made you cum so hard, his sexy voice, his cock inside you, or his fingers. The orgasm Jaehyun gave wasn’t something Yuta can easily deliver and you hate that you’re comparing them with each other. You close your legs and shiver on the mattress, feeling your pussy tingle even tho Jaehyun pulled out already.

“Good?” he leaned down on you again and kissed your lips, your neck, your face while you two crawl up to the bed and lay comfortably with the pillows. The kiss was full of hunger and lust as if he’s not letting you rest even just for a minute after making you cum for the first time. It was so intense that you’re high isn’t going away and you can feel him line his cock again while he distracts you with his hungry kisses.

“Jaehyun, I need to breathe” he chuckles and gave your request. He used the time to remove his shirt and get you naked before positioning himself again in between your legs that you refuse to open, “Baby, don’t make me open those legs for you” it wasn’t a threat, but it made you scared even tho he was kissing your neck the whole time he was talking.

His beautiful body is on top of you as you slowly open your legs again for him, he tickled your sides and it made you giggle. “Y/n, relax why are you so tensed?” Jaehyun’s arms are perfectly wrapped around your body and it’s making you blush and shy because it’s such an intimate position, the kind of sex position married couples use.

“I’m not tensed, it’s just everything feels new and were so close-“

“Get used to it then” he proceeds to kiss your neck and make you calm using his lips, he was still embracing you and you doubt that he’s going to pull away any second. “Ready?” he asked, rolling his hips a little and you nod your head ‘yes’.

There’s that stinging stretch again because of Jaehyun’s cock that makes your mouth open and your eyes closed. Your embrace to Jaehyun tightens while he thrust in and out of you slowly, but not for long. His thrusts became hammering pounds, that your head hit his headboard already but no one cares, it feels good. “Harder Jae, harder” it was a breathy tone that Jaehyun loved.

You can’t believe that those hard and piercing thrusts can make you both cum in no time and as expected, Jaehyun is wild. “Jae” you call out his name but he chose not to listen.

Tears on your eyes started to fall because of the overstimulation but the man above you sill hasn’t stopped, deep inside you don’t want him either. Jaehyun was the kind of man who will not stop even though your cunt is overflowing with his cum, he overstimulated you, he overstimulated himself. And just like that you both cum again, moaning as loud as you can because you perfectly knew no one can hear you.

That night, you’ve been fucked far too many times in ways you’ve never been fucked before. Every round was more intense than the last one, you never felt so thankful to whoever invented birth control pills because you’re damn sure than Jaehyun can get you pregnant.

You don’t know how, but you somehow passed out and you woke up clean and covered with Jaehyun’s thick duvet. He wasn’t beside you, so you forced yourself to go up and wear his black shirt as cover to your naked body and went outside his room. The house was so big that you don’t know where to start finding him, good thing you found him sitting on one of his couches facing the lit pool outside with a glass of wine on his hand. Body still exposed but he’s wearing a clean Calvin Klein boxers briefs now.

“Why are you sitting so far away from me, come sit on my lap” the invitation made you smile and you walked slowly towards him and sat on his lap as requested. “I'm sorry that I had to drag you into this mess. I’m too old to find someone that will love me genuinely, that’s why I find people who can satisfy my sexual needs”

See, you’re right. He’s lonely. And he got the idea of making you a target for his needs because he knew about you and Yuta being fuck buddies during that time on your birthday. “Oh, so that gave you an idea, huh” you smirk, and raked his hair away from his face.

“Yeah. I'm sorry”

“No don’t be. Clearly, I loved everything that happened tonight the moment I stepped right in”

“How about your man friend, Nakamoto. Will he be okay about you fucking other people? Older people?” he took a sip on his wine, leaning comfortably on his expensive couch giving you a perfect view of his hot body.

“You may be old but you fuck like a horny teenager. Yuta doesn’t need to know” the conversation is getting serious.

“Good because, what we have, what happened should stay between us. It will ruin my career, my job, my friendship with Johnny, my relationship with you”

Ouch. That hurt you. “So you’re my second fuck buddy now?” how can you even think that he likes you and that what just happened in his bed was not just because he’s lonely. How can you think that he longs for you, need you? You scoffed and tried to get out of his lap but he’s quick to grab you and put his hands on your thighs.

“No no, I didn’t mean it that way. We’re together. We’re together as we can be, but we can’t go public until we found a solution. Okay? Don’t frown, please. My heart can’t bear to see you sad or disappointed”

“Okay, I’m sorry I overreacted”

“Let's sleep?” you nod your head with a smile and just like that he left his glass of wine on the table near the couch and carried you back effortlessly in his room. You will never forget this moment that you two slept in one bed. Back against his chest, arms around your waist, the air that comes out from his nose hits your nape perfectly like a reminder that he’s close to you.

Days went on and on like this until it turned into weeks then months. Jaehyun didn’t feel lonely in his house big house anymore, and your life is complete now because you found love. He helped you designed your apartment but you never stayed there because you live in Jaehyun’s now with him.

You and Jaehyun go on to dates like a normal couple but with utmost caution. Spending beautiful nights under the stars, celebrating holidays together, going on vacation. You and Jaehyun plan a lot for the future, and it makes you happy because you have something to look forward to.

As you live with Jaehyun, you became the woman of the house who managed everything even the expenses. Everything was transparent between you and Jaehyun, ‘what’s mine is yours’ as he described it. It was like a trial to married life with Jaehyun, and you’re loving it so far. A perfect love story and no one is reckless enough so not a single soul suspects your relationship.

“My business partners are giving me a headache” he complains as soon he enters your shared room and kissed you. He smelled like car air freshener and he looked like he had a rough day.

You continue reading your book and reply to some of your clients through email on the side while you wait for Jaehyun to come to bed with you. Focused and unbothered, you didn’t feel him kiss your legs as he crawls on the bed shirtless and only wearing hid pajamas.

“Can we have sex? Make my day better please” he asks so sweetly in between kissing you on your neck, your book is long forgotten.

“Thought you were tired?” you caressed his flawless back, feeling his back muscles on your hand, he only shook his head and kissed you down until you reach the fluffy pillows. Swiftly he unbuttons your sleepwear, revealing your boobs that he soon attacked with kisses and love bites. You managed to get him naked and he managed to remove your thin shorts and underwear.

He checked your slit and you were a little dry, so he went down between your legs and spit on your cunt. Filthy but hot. Whenever you have sex with your boyfriend, his cock still stretches your cunt like he’s getting bigger and bigger each day. You never get used to is. You let out a soft ‘ouch’ and Jaehyun heard it, “Yes that’s right. Hurt for me baby”

“I’m not tight you’re fucking big Jae. You’re not even hard enough and yet-fuck!” he interrupted you with a piercing thrust mid-sentence. “Why do you always do that” you whine, he just smirked and continue fucking you wild.

Whenever Jaehyun is stressed like this the sex is always rough and wild, and you love it. He pulls away from kissing your swollen boobs and put a hand around your neck choking you well. His other hand is intertwined yours so whenever it’s too much you can always tell him to stop. But it was never too much for you. The overstimulation, yes. But his roughness, never. “Harder,” you request in between short breaths.

You smiled at him before you cum, eyes rolling back as usual. He pulls out slapped your cunt while you’re still sensitive and shivering, enjoying the view of his beloved girlfriend whimpering on the bed. “Why is fucking you one time is always not enough. We always have to go for a few more rounds. I’m so in love with you” He grabs both of your hands and put it around his neck, “Keep me close Y/n, I love you” he said before going inside you again to fuck you a little bit softer, gentler, and slower.

Having slow sex with Jaehyun is as good as having rough sex with him. “Does it still hurt? I’m sorry” but he still thrusts and puts his entire cock inside you making a bulge on your stomach.

“Fuck I forgot, pull out when you cum okay? I forgot to take my pill this week. Sorry” it was something that didn’t scare Jaehyun. Having kids with you is something he dreamed of happening and he’s ready for it.

“I want to have kids with you” he sounded serious but you’re not on the right mind right now to tell him your answer. You want it too, but you’re not yet ready. You still have so much to unlock in your life. If he pulls out, that will give you relief. But if he doesn't, well, you can just hope that you won’t get pregnant.

After a few thrust,

He pulled out.

What a relief.

That night, Jaehyun stayed in bed a little late just looking at your beautiful face under the nice moonlight shining through his window. He will ask you to marry him and live a normal life, he will face Johnny and handle the situation in his own hands. He will do everything in his power to give you a happy life without hiding from the people who will judge your relationship.

The next day, you woke him up with loving kisses just how he wants it. Jaehyun lived almost half of his life waking up alone in a cold bed, but now that you’re part of his life, he gets to enjoy waking up from your kisses and waking up with a dimpled smile.

“Good morning, you’re up early,” he said groggily but with a smile.

“See you tonight at the party? I have to leave early and take care of some stuff at the office”

He nods his head and forced himself to sit up and give a kiss. A little longer than you expected, but always sweeter than yesterday’s kiss. “I love you. Find me later okay?” you nod your head ‘yes’ and kissed some more.

The annual business party that your dad threw for his company is a big event for him, nonetheless, it’s not stressful just full of people wearing tuxedos, gentlemen with their wives, your dad’s business partners together with their secretaries.

Wearing a beautiful Valentino dress, you walk to the entrance with Yuta hoping that your boyfriend will not get mad because this was just a last-minute thing. Yuta came out of nowhere before you enter the party, and you didn’t want to shoo him away because it will hurt his feelings. After all, you two had a history.

Seated on the same table, you and Yuta, your father and mother, Jaehyun, and his date Yeri. As part of hiding, you and Jaehyun didn’t talk too much but he did tell you you’re beautiful in front of your father and complimented the necklace that you’re wearing which he gave you. Seeing Yeri near your boyfriend hurt you like you two just broken up. Like you and Yuta, Jaehyun and Yeri had a history because they’re ex-lovers.

“Come dance with me” Yuta being the music lover that he is dragged you into the dance floor and made you dance with him. You feel Jaehyun’s eyes follow you even though you were busy dancing under the upbeat music and having fun with Yuta on the dance floor together with the other guests.

Jaehyun on the other hand invited Johnny to smoke tobacco with him. Men with tobaccos stayed in a room where they can play poker peacefully and talk more about business. This is the perfect time Jaehyun thought. The perfect time to tell Johnny about his relationship with you. Seeing you with Yuta was like the push he has been waiting for and now, he’s going to do it.

“Johnny, I love your daughter” he blurted out, holding his tobacco with his right hand.

Johnny chuckled and shook his head in disbelief, “I know right. Crazy how she was just a little girl, felt like only yesterday. Can’t believe she’s running her own business right now and being successful” he smiled, taking a hit on his tobacco.

“That’s all true, but that’s not what I meant” the atmosphere was quiet even though Jaehyun and Johnny are away from the other men. “Were in love Johnny. We’ve been together for ten beautiful months now”

Johnny was speechless and he wanted to punch Jaehyun on the face right then and there, but this is his party. He can’t cause a scene. Johnny is a powerful man, he can ruin anyone and he’s well aware of that. So instead of causing a scene, he fixed his rings and told Jaehyun that, “You’re a well-established businessman Jaehyun. I think you don’t need me anymore as a partner and… best friend. Stay away from my daughter” he pats Jaehyun on the shoulder and made his way back to the party again to find you.

“Can I dance with my daughter, Yuta?” your father smiled at you and took you dancing. You saw Jaehyun sit beside Yeri, smiling so beautifully and making each other smile. “Oh look at my best friend, I’m happy they got back together” it was a lie that Johnny had to made up to ruin your relationship with Jaehyun and also his way to find out if Jaehyun is telling the truth.

Johnny saw the sadness in your eyes, that’s when he confirmed it. “How about you? Yuta looks like a fine man who’s been around. Give him a shot? After all, The Suh and Nakamoto company looks good merging” it was clear that he was suggesting you to marry Yuta someday because of business and you hate it. But you smile and joked nonetheless.

“Arranging me for marriage dad?”

“Psh. No. I’m just showing you a choice. Yuta is a good person, comes from a good family, and-“

“And I’m not in love with him” your dad knew he had to shut up.

You thought that the party will not stress you out and you will have a great time but the opposite happened. Now, you just hope that Jaehyun will turn everything around remove the stress away. But no. He was silent when you got home and didn’t welcome you with kisses that you oh so crave by this time. You went separately, of course, he was the first one who got home but he’s still wearing the same clothes he wore from the party when you found him in the living room drinking hard liquor.

The dress is beautiful, but you wanted to get out of it because it reminds you what your father just told you about marrying Yuta. Soon, Jaehyun joined you in your shared walk-in closet but he’s still silent.

“You didn’t tell me you were going with Yuta. Baby, I was hurt. I wanted to dance with you so bad but-“

“You should’ve danced with Yeri” you blurted out. “She was beautiful Jae, you just let her sit in the table all night. Did you even offered to take her home?”

“Why would I do that, we're together” he watches you unzip the beautiful dress and expose yourself in front of him with only the lingerie that you’re wearing. “Okay sorry I was overreacting” he leans on the door, shoulders crossed, and his bow tie is already undone. “But I told Johnny about us earlier”

You were speechless and disappointed, you scoffed and you can’t believe he did that. “Well you look disappointed” Jaehyun was hurt, he thought you would be happy that he finally had the guts to man up and tell your father the truth.

“I am! Because you decided all by yourself. You didn’t talk about this with me. No wonder my father was acting weird”

“What, do you want to hide forever Y/n? I’m doing this for us. Don't you want to get married and have kids someday?” by this time both of your tones towards each other were a little higher than usual.

“I know your intentions Jae, but it's not yet the right time. I want to have a family and kids with you but not now. I’m just starting to build my life. Come on Jae, you sound like you’re proposing to me now“ you still sound disappointed.

He thought that getting married will make you happy, but now it’s clear to him that he’s wrong. “Maybe I am”

“Well, then I have to say no for now” that was like a bullet straight to his heart. It was like saying ‘Jaehyun, I can’t marry you because you’re too old. Wait for me to get older, then we’ll talk about marriage’ He ignored what you said.

“Wha did johnny told you?” his eyes were cold, there’s no sign of spark in it.

“He said you were back with, Yeri” you were removing your makeup at the bathroom with only your robe covering your naked body.

“That’s bullshit, my own best friend” Jaehyun sounded irritated you can here drawers closing loudly because clearly, he’s not happy that Johnny bad mouthed him in front of you.

“I know its not true, Jae. He was just saying that because he’s concerned and I don’t know, protecting me?”

“Huh? Protecting you from what Y/n? Were together for almost a year now tell me, am I treating you bad? Can you say that you’re in bad hands?” it was not a question. You knew so you didn’t answer.

This is your first fight with Jaehyun and this is the first night that you shared the bed without facing each other. Tonight he lost his best friend, and he can't afford to lose you too. But he was stern. He still wants to make your relationship public and be engaged soon. He not forcing it but you know he wants it real bad.

If last night you fought for the first time, this morning Jaehyun didn’t feel your kisses woke him up for the first time since you two were together. That simple gesture makes Jaehyun happy first thing in the morning and now that you didn’t do it for the first time, it felt like you’re going to leave him soon.

The same argument went on for days, even you don’t know how to fix this problem but still, life goes on. Jaehyun tried having makeup sex with you but you just let him fuck you and it never fixes things. He was so desperate and he was trying so hard to bring back everything but it was not easy. All he ever wanted was to make you stay in his life. But looks like the relationship is ruined.

Finally, he realized a sad truth. Sooner or later he has to let go of you even though he loves you wholeheartedly. When Jaehyun first mentioned the breakup you were furious and mad, “I’m like this Jaehyun because I don’t know how to fix it but I never wanted to break up! But you! How dare you to even make it an option!” of course you didn’t want to break up with the man you love, being not on the same page for now in the relationship is not enough reason to just throw everything away.

“I can’t give you the life that you want Y/n, we continuously hurt each other every day I can’t hurt you furthermore. We can’t be together anymore” he was so calm and you can’t understand how does he do that.

The perfect love story you thought is now ending with tragedy. How can loving Jaehyun become so wrong? But he was right, sooner or later reality will slap you hard and the truth will not be on your side. Loving Jaehyun was something you will never regret doing, but it was wrong because he was your father’s best friend, you two can’t seem to find your way back to each other now.

As you finally agreed to the breakup, moving out of Jaehyun’s house was a fucking torture. You see to it that you get all your stuff during his working hours so he could enjoy the heartbreak that he singlehandedly decided for the both of you. It was a great relationship that deserved a peaceful breakup.

Jaehyun went home on an empty house and it broke his heart to million pieces. Pictures of you and him scattered around the house and letting go of you is life-changing for him in a bad way. Together with the happy memories that you left in his house is the necklace that he gave and every cute note he gave to you whenever he needed to leave the house before you can even wake up. It’s as if you wanted everything to stay in his house, keep everything hidden like it always has, like you and Jaehyun never happened in the first place.

Jaehyun married Yeri a year after your breakup and the news broke you. Deep inside you were still clinging to the chance of getting back with Jaehyun and turn everything around but you’re wrong. No one knew about your relationship except Johnny. That’s good. You don’t need to explain yourself to people.

As years went by, you decided to build your life with Yuta and love him fiercely without worries, without hiding, you told him about Jaehyun and he didn’t judge you not even a bit. The wedding made the news of two companies merging, and the whole country celebrated.

Years after your wedding, you were at the record store buying lullabies for babies so you can listen to it and hope that your daughter can hear it. You’re seven months pregnant with Yuta’s baby and you’re excited to be a mother.

“Y/n?” a familiar voice called your name and you’re too scared to turn your back and face him but you don’t have a choice.

And you’re right. You haven’t seen him since the breakup and he was like a ghost to you now. He hasn’t changed a bit. After four years, you’re now in front of Jung Jaehyun with a baby on your belly and a wedding ring on your finger.

#nct-writers #nct smut #nct angst #nct jung jaehyun smut #jaehyun smut #nct x reader #jaehyun angst #nct imagines #nct scenarios #nct 127 smut #jaehyun x reader smut

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omegawolverine · 4 years

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Plesse tell me about queerness in the get down!!

okay okay queerness in the get down let's fuckn goooo

disclaimer: I havent watched this show in full for like 5 months at least, probably gonna get something wrong and/or forget some more important bits. also this wasnt proof read I just word vomited

tws: period typical homophobia, abuse mention, f slur use, bury your gays trope, overdose mention, mention of a creepy possible age gap (the age gap hasnt been confirmed so that's why its possible), cops

going from least to most prominent queer characters, let's start with mylene cruz!

so, from the beginning of this show she has an established romantic relationship with ezekiel (although the status of their actual relationship changes frequently throughout the show) and though this was a relationship she was hesitant to pursue, it is clear that she does have romantic feelings for him and if not for them both having growing careers in very different music genres (zeke specifically working in a genre that she repeatedly labels as bad because she thinks they're ruining records + that it isnt real music because they're using someone elses piece and rapping over it, that's not really important here tho lol) they probably wouldve had a much healthier, smooth sailing romance. that being said theres a few things that happen in the show that, while not explicitly clear, or even really good coding at that—to the point where you wont catch if you really arent looking for it (and trust me, I always look for coding, hers was just so little that it flew over my head until I saw someone else mention it)—are still cool to think about!

so, for starters, I wanna mention the toy box performance, which was performed by mylene and regina, who are best friends. that's all cool and shit, and you dont really think much about it...until you hear about the fact that the show runners purposely colored a lot of the scenes in that performance with the bi colors. like. the writers after the show ended basically said "oh yeah there was plans to make her coding more explicit, but our shit got cancelled soooo" and then dropped the fact that she was gonna be bi (or at least implies bi) in the series, which puts a new twist on a few things.

now, besides the bi coloring in the background of the toy box performance (which was mostly on scenes with her and regina, which involved a lot of uh,, lowkey lewd dancing. with each other. in very revealing outfits. wooooo), there's her music! I dont tend to read too much into this one bc, like I said before, her coding is fucking light and the writers themselves said they didnt really get to do much with it, but I think some stuff with her music is interesting. specifically how her, yolanda and regina's song set me free blew up because dizzee, resident (lowkey enby coded) bicon, got their song played in a queer club. also that the song was majorly important to dizzee and started playing literally right as he kissed a boy for the first time and realized "oh shit I like boys that's bonkers". also that the song can be taken in a gay way since literally the entire thing is about becoming your true self, fully and unapologetically, which is what both dizzee and mylene's entire character arcs are about. dizzee (and a lot of other queer people, apparently), heard this song about being set free and it resonated with them so much that they got that shit most of its popularity.

speaking of dizzee and mylene, they parallel each other a lot in the way that their arcs are about them realizing who they are, coming into themselves and no longer just letting people treat them like shit in a sense (dizzee starting to tell people essentially that they can call him weird all they want, they can make fun of how he acts, what he likes, how he dresses, etc. but he likes how he is and quite literally saying "it's okay to be an alien" as he has consistently compared himself to one throughout the show vs mylene learning that if she wants to be a disco singer she needs to put her foot down, not let anyone, not even the love of her life, not even her abusive father, stop her from achieving her dreams, etc. and continuing to pursue her career with or without their support). one more little parallel that I think is interesting is during I think s2 towards the end of the show is when dizzee and thor are shown together having fun with each other, painting all over the building and each other and are basically just being happy and in love together and then they have these clips of them being interspersed with clips of mylene at a party where she is starting to realize that if she wants to get anywhere she needs to be her own main priority and that she needs to put her career and her dream, which is what makes her the happiest, above all else if she wants to succeed. idk I just think how the show made these two into a weird parallel, accidental or not, is neat. maybe not an explicitly queer parallel, but I think at least how her music and whatnot helped dizzee, the main queer character in this show, blossom, is important.

moving on we got shaolin fantastic also known as "oh no your internalized homophobia is showing-"

so, heres a quick list of...interesting shao facts:

Consistently referred to as fag/faggot (shaolin fanfaggot is my personal favorite); he gets really defensive about this despite nobody actually thinking he's queer, it's just people being assholes to be assholes, and he is the only character consistently referred to using a slur, especially a homophobic one, especially for a "straight" character. dizzee, a canonically queer character, is called a fag less than shaolin is even though dizzee actively goes to gay clubs, has a not so secret dude he "hangs out with" and wont let anyone properly meet, paints his nails, wears less than straight clothes even by the 70s standards and is just all around the definition of fucking queer (and I mean like in the weird way, not the gay way). in fact theres only like once I can remember him being called a fag and it had nothing to do with him actually being gay it was literally just like thrown out there the same way you would call someone a bitch.

Has only shown sexual interest in women, yet refuses to have deeper relationships with women in general (possibly because of trauma but who knows) but takes his relationships with his "brothers", specifically zeke, very seriously

Tells zeke and zeke ONLY his real name when zeke was planning to stop being his friend bc shao more or less got boo boo, a like 14 year old black kid, arrested for selling hard drugs; he was clearly scared and trying to do anything to keep zeke around, literally chasing him down the street and hounding him until he got zeke to stop and argue with him

Kept threatening to beat up zeke in the end but couldn't actually bring himself to do so, instead saying that zeke is "fucking lucky" before walking away

Let's zeke get away with things that nobody else can, in general just has a weird soft spot for ezekiel that he shows with nobody else

when shao found dizzee with thor in a vaguely compromising situation (like they were just shirtless covered in paint sleeping next to each other but shao had also seen everything they painted on the walls ((which some of it was sus)), it was clear they had painted on each others bodies and dizzee had been routinely disappearing with this guy for weeks now yet not producing nearly as much art, at least, as far as we audience members know) he didnt judge him but instead, waited for him to get cleaned up and then told him something along the lines of "theres a reason why im so secretive blah blah blah [not everyone needs to know everything about me]", which, in context, kinda implies that he might be a lil. a lil homiesexual. jus a lil.

whenever even the possibility of zeke leaving him comes up he absolutely loses it. he has literally cost ezekiel life changing opportunities because he thought zeke would just up and leave him for them. this could be abandonment issues bc he's a severely traumatized character, and that probably does contribute to it, but it also is just not a reaction he has to any of their other friends just randomly dipping in and out of his life soooooo

generally speaking, this mfer has got either bisexual with a big hard on for zeke coding or homosexual with terrible internalized homophobia and still a hard on for zeke coding. either fucking way, that nigga gay. he gay as hell. gay as fuck man. there wasn't really much to analyze here tbh bc the coding is just so fucking obvious if you look for it or you are/have been a gay person who's dealt with at least a little bit of internalized homophobia.

also, just a sidenote, idk how fucking old shao, but I'm praying hes like at max 19 bc I'm pretty sure zeke is a minor in this show and shao definetly is not so the whole him being heavily implied to have a crush on ezekiel thing is kinda. oof. not oof if zeke is like 17 but any younger than that? OOF.

edit: apparently the characters are only supposed to be a year apart in age but i had no clue about that before writing this post and since shaos age was never actually stated in the show i naturally assumed he was an adult since his actor Looks Like An Adult. this is definetly on me to a certain extent, but i also never saw anything about this when trying to find our their ages so 🤷‍♀️ maybe i just didnt look deep enough, sorry!

now moving on to the main event...marcus dizzee kipling :]

so, first things first, let's talk enby coding bc him being bisexual was already confirmed!

um, to start off, I just wanna say I dont think this enby coding was intentional or even really coding, it's just moreso me being a dizzee kin on main and knowing as a transmasc enby he has very transmasc enby vibes. for example:

cool, gender neutral nickname that everyone calls him

paints nails various different colors

the whole wardrobe is just a transmasc enby heaven...fishnet shirts, jean overalls, jackets and cuffed pants galore, the big colorful pins, etc

gender neutral hairstyle (when I had my fro it was very sexy and made it easy to transition between hyper masc and vaguely fem, which is pog)

comparing himself to/representing himself consistently with an alien character (though this is meant to represent his sexuality, it could also double as a gender thing too, not neccesarily bc of the whole nonbinary alien trope but bc an enby who likes aliens might heavily identify or compare themselves to whatever their idea of an alien is, whether that just be a genderless entity or a motherfucker with fly style and no need to be perceived as anything other Wacky As Hell)

moving on from there, let's talk about how his queerness is presented to us and how, while it may be a really good piece of representation, especially coming from netflix, it still lacks in A Lot of places.

so, let's start with good things!

i personally really like the get down's queer rep with dizzee bc it's (for the most part) nonsexualized and very very soft, about dizzee figuring himself out and realizing there is a place where he fits in, and about two teenagers in the 70s falling in love over their shared passion for street art. it also features an interracial couple where both boys challenge stereotypes both about queer men and men of color, which is epic poggers and very sexy. this piece of rep specifically is very important to me bc I am a queer black person and even tho interracial relationships are mostly normalized now, I've still had people give me shit for primarily dating white people in a town that is...primarily white lol

mm anyways, I can also appreciate how in the get down, dizzee being represented by rumi the alien is not a thing specifically related to gender (as it often is) and instead is about his sexuality and just in general weirdness and how it has led to him being alienated amongst his peers, poc or otherwise. him seeing himself as an alien is not about just his queerness, which is important, it is about him being a queer black man who talks different, acts different, dresses different and is "soft"—he isnt a walking black male stereotype and he wouldnt have been seen as masculine back in the 70s by any stretch of the imagination. this can be relatable to a wide spectrum of queer poc, from queer black men currently who still have to deal with this shit or to people like myself who are afab neurodivergent mixed race enbies that have always been signaled out as weird and alienated for it. dizzee is god rep bc while he has a small part in this show, his parts are very impactful, hard hitting and show queer poc of all ages that they arent alone and that it's okay to "weird", you just need to embrace it because somebody will love you for you, as thor did for dizzee.

that being said theres um. some minor problemas here,,,

namely:

dizzee and thors first kiss

the lack of development this pairing got

the way dizzee was confirmed bisexual off screen, he never said the words himself, just showed interest in both genders

the way dizzee and thor were never even confirmed boyfriends or just fwb so most of the fandom just calls them boyfriends bc Why Not

dizzee was implied fucking DEAD??? AT THE END OF THE SERIES?????? AND THOR WAS IMPLIED ARRESTED?????????????

now, these might have been things that wouldve been fine had the show been given it's full run but it wasnt which is why we are now left with probelms.

so, from the top, let's go over these: dizzee and thor's first (and only "on screen") kiss was one that was shown in a montage of other queer people making over and doing other vaguely romantic/sexual things, one of those things being a whole ass naked titty being mouthed at, but the actual kiss...was just not shown? like they really did just say "yes they kissed <3 you know this from the context clues of it being in a montage with kissing, hickey giving and titty sucking <3 but no we will not show it <3" LIKE HELLO? I SAW A NAKED BOOBIE BUT NOT TWO MEN KISS??? HUH????????

also, dizzee and thor were both fucking high as hell during this bit like this isnt a terrible thing but it's also like sometimes you do shit when you're high that you wouldnt do sober and they just never kissed again on screen so like?? like idk that's not that bad but it does kinda irk me since they deadass got no other on screen intimacy after that unless you including painting on eacher other or sleeping next to each other on a shitty mattress but not touching at all during it bc they were both at opposite ends of the mattress like half way off it

so yeah, that was trash. then we got lack of development, which kinda goes with the "dizzee being a bisexual but he never says it in canon" thing cause like...okay dizzee was already sort of a side character from the get go like he wasnt the mc by any means, but he became way more of a background character as things continued until we basically only saw him for performances or when he was with thor, yet they got no fucking development as a pairing other than "dizzee realize he gay, he like thor, he and thor spend time together and ig probably do some gay stuff but we dont really know bc we only ever see them do graffiti together now" like?? tf am I supposed to do with that shit. answer. quickly. and then theres dizzee not being confirmed bisexual, which is just a running problem with shows literally doing everything to say a character is bi except for having the character just...say they're bi? which would be so easy? like a good way dizzee and thor couldve had some development is by thor teaching dizzee things about the queer community that he didnt even know existed, thor couldve helped him understand what being bi meant and helped him label himself and whatnot but instead we got an off screen confirmation that the writers had bisexual in mind when writing him. which is garbagé.

the whole thor and dizzee never having a confirmed relationship status is also a development problem cause like literally nobody knows if they were just friends who made out, maybe fucked, who knows, or if they were dating bc dizzee does give a love confession but a love confession doesn't mean there is a relationship, especially since thor didn't say he was in love either (as far as I remember, I could be wrong, plus whether or not that really happened or was apart of dizzee literally overdosing during a performance is unclear so 🤪)

and now for the biggest issue...bury your gays trope.

during the season 2 finale, dizzee and thor are chased by cops after they are found doing graffiti, one of the cops is able to catch thor while the other chases dizzee into a train tunnel and there is a train seen headed straight for him before the show cuts to black on a train horn. the show writers claim that if they had gotten another season, dizzee wouldve been alive but since they didnt and since that's essentially super fan trivia knowledge, most people dont fucking know that and instead had to watch a black queer teenager chose death over being fucking arrested by a white cop. on top of that, thor didnt see any of that shit because he was caught and the cop started hauling him off while dizzee was still being chased so thor literally has no clue where his friend/possible boyfriend fucking is or that he's likely dead in a goddamn tunnel all alone, unless you count the fucking pig that chased him in there who wouldve died too. this shows rep was so fucking good as far as most shows go on not having major fucking problems, on not being toxic and over sexualized, etc, etc. and then they just. killed a black queer teenager for no fucking reason. like it was literally the last episode ever, it would add nothing to the plot, it would just devastate fans and devastate it fucking did. I dont cry easy but seeing a character I identified with, who I had hyperfixated on, die because he'd rather that than be arrested is terrible. it fucking sucked.

so yeah. that's my all too extensive thoughts/analysis on the get down's queerness. theres definitely stuff I missed, or misinterpreted, or looked too much into, etc, etc., but this was a fun thing to spend time writing sooo yeah!! thanks for the ask anon, sorry this was just a big rambley info dump, but hopefully you get some enjoyment out of it since it took like 3 hours at least 😭😭 feel free to ask clarifying questions lol

#shit self #asks #the get down #mylene cruz #shaolin fantastic #dizzee kipling #long post #analysis #info dump #idk if anon has seen tgd or is just being nice so i tried givinh background to things #kinz #bangerz #discourse

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thekidultlife · 4 years

Text

The Most Convenient Escape | Jihoon Soulmate!AU (5)

⍟ Pairing: Jihoon x fem!reader

⍟ AU: Fantasy/ Soulmate AU

⍟ Genre: ANGST, SLOW BURN, fluff

⍟ Warnings: mentions of abuse, drinking, and sex

⍟ Word Count: 8.5k

⍟ Synopsis: For all your life, you have a deep disdain towards Soulmate Bonds, so much so that you are able to write opinions about it in a local newspaper. However, as life would have it, you wake up one day bonded to a person you hardly knew. Throwing in an investigation, annoying roommates, and a revolution looming just beneath the surface, you had to seek for the most convenient escape.

⍟ A/N: So on to the next chapter! This is probably the longest I’ve written for this series! Anyway, please excuse my tarot reading skills, my knowledge is only limited to watching pick a car readings in youtube and google. Now that’s out of the way, please enjoy! -Hyeri

⍟ Taglist: @shoshishua, @woozisnoots (I also want to thank @minkwans and @oprandomfeels for leaving such a nice messages on the tags in the previous chapter!! I dont want to sound creepy but i do comeback to them if i needed motivation to write! so thank you!!)

CILVEKAN ESPIONAGE TURNS PARLIAMENT INTO A BATTLEFIELD by Jeon Wonwoo and Kwon Soonyoung

The Porta Persa Edition, October 12th

Words that break like cannon shots, arguments that burn like incendiaries, bulwarks of statements that are hardly impenetrable—such is a terrifying and impressive sight to behold upon the ancient halls of the Parliament in these last few weeks. The fate of the two Cilvekan agents who were previously caught in Lower Efendel had been a divisive force upon the venerated legislative body of our nation; rendering them into a heated stalemate.

Armed with wit and sound proofs, Conservatives led by Atlen County Representative Kang Jinho campaigned for stringent travel restrictions, as well as a thorough examination of all Cilvekan nationals entering and leaving Porta Persa. He contends that the security of this powerful nation must not be compromised for simple material gains.

Pointing an accusing finger at the trading and tourism industry which has seen immense growth in profits due to the inflow of foreign immigrants and visitors into the country, Conservatives have been critical of lax travel regulations over the years in which they view, as in Rep. Kang’s words, as a means for ‘alien entities’ to ‘wreak havoc in this peaceful land’ and ‘further their covert operations to diminish and weaken the stability of Porta Persa’. According to Rep. Kang, it is rightfully so that sacrifices are to be made to ensure that no foreign powers would dare to assert their influence over this country.

On the other side of the argument lie Santaragossa Assembly Representative Lee Jihoon, the flagship of both Libertarians and Moderates on this matter, who, with his rapid fire responses, have advocated for softer regulations and an extensive counterintelligence program instead.

In his speech to Congress today, Rep. Lee disputes that economic factors are hardly simple, and should not be diminished into mere ‘increase of gains’. In his words ‘There are people who, if harsher travel restrictions are thus placed, will be left for wild dogs to eat, for the weather to beat and rattle their bones on the cold earth. With no means of a livelihood to provide for themselves, what will become of them? For us who have a roof to sleep in, and food on the table to eat, it is easy for us to say that travel restrictions are a minor inconvenience. Yet for these people, harsher travel restrictions are equivalent to a death sentence.’

He further advocates for a better counterintelligence program wherein proper and stronger defenses are to be implemented only at the appropriate areas, as this is not only cost effective, but also ensures that the livelihood and the human rights of all people in Porta Persa, whether be citizen, immigrant, tourist and whatnots are protected and venerated…

◇

“Lee Jihoon was truly frightening during that session. I swear to god, sitting there feels like he’s attacking me personally.”

Unlike the usual, the three of you were not relaxing comfortably outside the lush courtyards of the Royal Academy, eating carefully prepared lunches and enjoying the view. Instead, late morning sunlight poured from the open windows, illuminating the wooden desk and chair you were sitting on, silently listening to your friends.

To your right, sat said friends: Wonwoo and Soonyoung who were fresh from the printers, the rancid smell of ink sticking to their regal school uniform. On Soonyoung’s hands was the freshly printed draft of your newspaper, which was to be released the next day.

He folded the newspaper and tossed it beside you on the desk.

“He’s been like that for what? A week now, I reckon?”

“Two, in my opinion.” Wonwoo answered, adjusting his glasses. He was the calmer kind of fellow. Soonyoung was more theatrical.

“Oh good god, it’s been two weeks already?” Soonyoung exclaimed, his lips ajar. “No wonder Y/N is here all the time!”

Wonwoo glanced at you, who simply turned away and faced the open window. “Why are you here exactly?”

You continued to grind Alizarin berries on your portable mortar and pestle with a nonchalant look on your face. “I’m making your allergy medicine.”

“Not yesterday and in the last few weeks,” Wonwoo retorted back, giving you an inquisitive look. “Now tell me, is it because of Lee Jihoon?”

Groaning, you continued to pour all of your irritation at the poor powdered berries in your mortar. “Must the reason always be Lee Jihoon?”

“Well, why are you here then?” Soonyoung shrugged, glancing at you with raised brows.

Exasperated, you sighed and left the mortar and pestle alone for once. In all honesty, the reason was indeed Lee Jihoon. After he saw your breakdown two weeks ago, you were avoiding him at all cost because you knew he was going to ask you about it and you were not one to divulge such sensitive topics.

Of course, you wouldn’t let them know. “The way my room looks is just nauseating.”

Soonyoung made an incredulous frown while Wonwoo snorted.

“Right.” They both said.

Having childhood friends has its own disadvantages: you couldn’t really hide anything from them. Yet you wouldn’t tell them anything for that matter. Your room was indeed nauseating, spinning around and around as your vision blur if you just stay in one position for far too long.The way your stomach churns and your legs buckle because of the amount of suppressants you were taking to block your soulmate connection was something you simply cannot express into words.

You stare at the red powder inside the mortar. The smell was making you lurch, reminding you of the suppressant, yet you expertly concealed it with a cough and a broad change of subject.

“Aren’t we supposed to go somewhere today?” you asked, adding more berries to the mortar.

“No, it’s on Friday, 3pm,” Wonwoo replied, checking his travel sized planner. “For some time, Soonyoung and I have been tracing documents from Luce Trading to see if they could give us some clues. But most of them inexplicably got lost or destroyed from last year’s flooding, but thankfully, Soonyoung found some in a novelty shop.”

Upon hearing, you quirked a brow at them. “That is quite interesting. It is possible that something important is in those documents, especially when they had deemed it necessary to destroy them. It seems like fortune is on our side today.”

Wonwoo nodded. “Exactly my thoughts.”

“I reckon, those documents can finally settle the question of who their actual victims are,” the other male remarked with a considerate nod. “We can actually take a step forward in this investigation!”

You forced a smile. Truly, you were elated but the way your heart was palpitating wasn't feeling that great to you. Wonwoo adjusted his glasses once more, a habit he has acquired whenever he was thinking of something.

"Quite frankly, I still haven't forgotten what Jihoon had told me a few months ago," he started, fidgeting with his hands. "And god knows if he's telling me the truth or throwing us off the scent."

"Oh that one..." Soonyoung exclaimed, nodding. You glanced at the two of them, looking betrayed.

"Why have I no knowledge of this?" You asked, eyes shooting daggers.

The two boys quickly exchanged glances and panicked.

"You haven't told Y/N?" Wonwoo asked the other male, who was beginning to pout.

"What…I thought you told Y/N!" He replied, pointing at you.

What seemed like a little misunderstanding was going to become a lot of bickering later on, so as you rolled your eyes, you put yourself between the two of them.

"Alright, enough. Just tell me what Lee Jihoon said," you spoke sternly, hands on your hips.

“It’s not as straightforward as you think,” Wonwoo recounted. “Jihoon kept going in circles about our newspaper, Alex Fireflower—”

“Me?” you exclaimed, furrowing your brow.

“Yes, you. And the Gestalt case,” Wonwoo continued, acknowledging you. “At first, I was under the impression that he was simply inquiring what my thoughts were with regards to the Gestalt case as a fellow classmate, yet as it turned out, he appears to be hinting that it was a suicide case.”

A bewildered look was what you gave him, not understanding how a blatantly homicide case could possibly be a suicide. “I need you to expound further than that.”

Your friend shrugged. “That’s where the problem lies. We know that the Gestalts might be involved in the sex trafficking ring due to the judicial records we’ve discovered before, yet to what extent is a matter we have no knowledge of.”

“Oh, yes, that tax evasion case filed against Luce Trading that was suddenly dismissed by court with no apparent reason…it seems malicious, yet I still doubt that it should be considered a connection to the syndicate” Soonyoung remarked.

“Those things usually happen yet everything involved in this case should be accounted for. Even including the possibility of it being a suicide,” Wonwoo continued.

“Yet logistically speaking, how can it possibly be a suicide?” You asked, clearly unconvinced. “Lee Jihoon is merely giving us chaff.”

“That is the reason why I cannot just stop thinking about it. It’s perplexing.”

“You’re just doing mental exercises, Wonwoo,” you dismissed him. “Trusting Lee Jihoon is definitely not advisable. He’s a politician. We might be unaware that he is in fact a part of that syndicate, and is simply playing cat and mouse with us.”

Wonwoo heaved a long sigh, leaning against the bedpost. “That, I won’t deny.”

“Rather than running on conjectures, we should proceed with the investigation instead,” Soonyoung interrupted solemnly. “We simply do not have the entire narrative.”

"I completely agree," you replied, leaning against the table as you go through another wave of stomach cramps with much composure. "Let's…lay out what we know first."

The two of them nodded at you, which you considered a signal to begin.

"So, we know that some government officials are involved in a sex trafficking scheme. Why do we know that?"

Soonyoung answered. "Because Wonwoo unintentionally eavesdropped a conversation between his father and a parliament member, who was trying to ask him to vote against the amendment of the Soulmate bond."

"He offered my father membership to the syndicate among other things…" Wonwoo quietly continued, perusing his thoughts.

"Right. We know that the Gestalt case is somewhat related to the syndicate. Why?"

"For one, that parliament member who had attempted to lobby for my father's vote was asking him to vote against the amendment which has stemmed from the Gestalt case. It could possibly be a stretch but we should not deny it."

Nodding, you continued. "And the fact that we had found out that Rene Gestalt had already died right after the High Court suspension. And had died under a different name and under a mysterious circumstance."

"If Rene Gestalt was a simple nobody, he wouldn’t have died in that manner," Soonyoung added. "And that tax evasion case shouldn't have been dismissed so easily."

"Luce Trading is more profitable than Kwon International, isn't it?" You asked, but Soonyoung immediately replied.

"Hey now! We had better sales for the past decade!"

You giggled, "Alright, my apologies."

"I still find it hard to fit the pieces though," Wonwoo interrupted. "Why Luce Trading? Why did Himi Gestalt die but not Rene? What exactly happened?"

The three of you exchanged glances.

"We need more information."

You leaned back, sighing as you felt the heaviness of the possible truth you have in your hands. Wonwoo and Soonyoung were pretty much the same. That’s why, more than anything, you didn’t want any sort of distraction, especially those that involve soulmate bonds.

“In the meantime, Y/N,” Wonwoo began, giving Soonyoung a look and then the two gazed at you with concerned expressions. “Are you truly, definitely, a hundred percent, alright?”

You knitted your brows, and immediately replied. “I’ve never been better.”

“No…! No, what we meant is…” Soonyoung was the one who responded. “You…you fought with your father, didn’t you?”

It was a sudden inquiry, you can admit that, but you were not at least surprised they had asked. Your father must’ve gone to Soonyoung’s father and then they informed him of the matter.

“A few weeks ago, yes,” you told them, nonchalant as you added more berries to the mortar. “I have decided to cut ties with him once and for all. He’s nothing to me now.”

You noticed that they were taken aback, but it was an expected reaction. The decision was indeed done in the heat of the moment, yet you didn’t feel anymore remorseful.

“You do not have to worry about me. I have you two, and our newspaper is doing quite well in sales,” you reassured them. “Cutting him off is simply removing dead weight off my shoulders.”

Without any warning, Soonyoung pulled you to a tight embrace and Wonwoo followed soon after. You simply stayed still in surprise, as they continued to console you silently, knowing that you didn’t need any words to make you feel better.

“Y/N, please know that we will always be here for you,” Wonwoo began. “We’ve been together since we were children, and we’ll always will be.”

“If you wish to get something off your chest, we are always here to listen. You don’t have to carry everything by yourself.”

You grimaced at this, but hid it easily by burying yourself underneath their embrace. You’ll tell them everything someday, but now, you simply wish to brave the storm by yourself.

“I will.”

◇

"Jihoon!"

Heavy footfalls echo across the marbled hallways of the Parliament. Rows of white columns line up on the curve, the view of Porta Persa easily seen with just one turn of a head.

"Jihoon, please wait for a moment!"

Harsh steps that march through with controlled frustration, and another set which was running after them. Nobody was on sight other than two men who were adorned by their heavy purple robes, billowing with the wind.

"Lee Jihoon!"

"What is it ?!" The other snapped, his eyes piercing and intense.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs sighed, his demeanor tinged with concern. The whole Parliament hearing was tense and unnerving, and Lee Jihoon seemed to be in the middle of the swirling storm.

"I simply wanted to see if you are doing well," Joshua offered, his voice calm, yet the other simply scoffed.

"What do you suppose?" he replied, his tone filled with frustration and sarcasm. "If we lose next week's vote, it'll be all over!"

Joshua reached out for Jihoon's shoulder, trying to help the other through his temper.

"Alright Jihoon, listen to me. We still have time. We can still convince the others to vote against the bill."

"But we need fifty more votes! Where in heaven's name are we going to find those?" He exclaimed and then groaned, resounding through the deserted hall.

"You need to calm down, Jihoon!" Joshua reminded, shaking some sense into him. "You're making a mountain out of a mole hill!"

The dark haired male blinked, stunned by the sudden loudness of his friend's voice. The high had finally subsided in his veins as he huffed and removed himself from Joshua's grasps.

"Jihoon…"

"I apologize. I'm simply exhausted," he replied, sighing as he turned his back to the other. "While this issue has been particularly draining, my soulmate bond is eating my energy away as well."

Joshua blinked, wondering what was the matter this time. They had left Jihoon in his dorm room that day as instructed, yet for some reason after that, he seemed to have become more snappish and gloomy.

Jihoon sighed once more, probably the nth time for today.

"She…she was crying when she arrived, you know. I have no inkling as to why but it did hurt me…seeing her like that," he continued, now more to himself than to Joshua. "I wanted to comfort her or do something, anything…but she pushed me away, both physically and mentally. It's been weighing on me since then."

Without a word, Joshua walked towards him and placed an understanding tap on his shoulder. "I wish I can offer you some help."

At this point, Jihoon simply shook his head with a downcast smile. "There is nothing we can do about it if she doesn't want me."

Those words, as he said it, felt more painful than he had anticipated. Yet that was the truth—she had blocked him, in more ways than one. Jihoon wished he knew why yet he had already spent enough sleepless nights on it that he didn't need more.

"In the meantime, it would be nice if we had those fifty votes before the weekend."

◇

Oct. 14th

Desmere District, Porta Persa

"So, it's here?" You asked, standing in front of a decrepit shop, flanked by two of your friends. "Are you sure it's here?"

You weren’t really one to judge but the way the roof shingles were about to fall, the dull green paint peeling off the door, and the dusty shop window filled by various junk accumulated over the years, was telling a rather clear story.

You could even hardly read the name of the shop.

“52nd Oppleton street, Esmond Novelty Shop….Yes, without a doubt this is the one!” Soonyoung replied cheerfully, grinning ear to ear, “Come on now! No time to waste!”

Wonwoo glanced at you with a knowing look as he followed after Soonyoung through the door. Today seemed to be one of those days where Wonwoo was in a rather irritatingly playful mood. “You heard him. No time to waste now, Y/N.”

It wasn’t new for you to be the victim of their teasing, but you didn’t appreciate it either when it comes. Thus, as you rolled your eyes and pursed your lips, you threw your hesitation out of the window. Following closely behind, you heard the charming bell chime above you as soon as you entered, yet the dust which wafted through the air was not as charming as you had feared.

“Welcome to our shop! Feel free to look around and see if anything suits your fancy!” A male voice greeted you three, though you cannot make out a clear image of him as he seemed to be covered by the centuries old dust.

“Ah, we’re actually looking for someone…” Soonyoung replied, fishing a piece of parchment inside the pocket of his vest. “Um…a Madame Adora?”

While the three of you seemed to be unsure, the tall burly man, which you have now seen after the dust has settled, nodded in understanding.

“Yes, yes. Please follow me. Her shop is at the back,” he replied and turned around, not waiting for you to respond.

Exchanging curious glances, you followed close behind—carefully studying your surroundings as you did. There were a lot of books for one. Stacks upon stacks of leather tomes piled on top of another which was rather deadly if one wrong move was made. The shopkeeper, seemingly used to this dangerous environment, easily navigated his way through the path provided.

There were a lot of miscellaneous items as well: old shoes, typewriters, some ornate desks which were long forgotten. Dirty porcelain dolls, dull grey candelabras, and even a baby grand piano covered with various knickknacks—essentially, this was a shop of extras: once loved, tossed away and buried under the sands of time. Their fate seemed to have given you a melancholic mood, yet there is little you can do to change it.

“Where do you find all of these?” Wonwoo asked, curious as he perused over an old book about outdated potions.

“There are numerous ways,” the man shrugged, dodging a stray pole which was protruding from a pile of junk. “Sometimes we buy them from people who move houses, sometimes they just give it to us, and some just find their way here.”

His words immediately reminded you of the thought that objects do have souls in them. They used to be someone’s important thing; they were once given meaning and context by the people who used to own them. This place had become their new home now, amidst the sea of other objects that were no different.

A light knock on wood snatched you from your thoughts as you averted your attention back to the matter at hand. The shopkeeper had stopped in front of a slightly ajar door, peeking carefully at the space.

“Madame, these people wish to speak to you,” he called out, yet he was met by silence and a rather loud creaking of a chair being moved. A grainy “let them in” soon followed, though you were not as sure since it was just above a murmur.

Nodding, the shopkeeper moved and allowed you space to walk inside the room. With rather modest postures, the three of you silently entered in file, easily spotting a worn out loveseat, which was probably a bright emerald in its youth, to sit on. It was a rather small space, enough to be a breakfast room, with second hand furniture and astrology-related objects littered around to give a sense of mystique.

“Robert, fetch those documents for me please,” the old woman ordered, who you hardly noticed with how she was almost covered by the wooden desk before her. The shopkeeper, who was apparently named Robert hummed and disappeared, closing the door shut.

As soon as he was gone, you scooted on your seat to take a closer look of the old woman. Just as you had anticipated, Madame Adora was petit, but was made to look larger by her bulky dress adorned by stars and moons embroidered in metallic thread. It had the same fabric as her headpiece which was wrapped around her head like a towel. The one which caught most of your attention however, was the large dangling sun and moon earrings which were as big as her head. You wondered if they were as heavy as they looked.

“Um…we’re—” Wonwoo began but was instantly halted by the Madame with just one hand.

“I know what you seek, my dear children,” she began, her voice croaky. Probably from smoking a bit too much; you thought as you noticed the ashtray on her table next to the burning sage.

The three of you raised your eyebrows, wondering what Madame Adora could’ve meant by her words. She seemed to be the eccentric type, and you wouldn’t be surprised if she busted out tarot cards and a crystal ball any minute.

“You are on your path to fulfill a great purpose for humanity. It is a fate neither you nor this country can avoid,” she continued, making you glance at Wonwoo and Soonyoung. You wanted to ask them if she was sane, but out of courtesy, you decided to keep your mouth shut.

“O-Of course…that—that’s what we’re trying to do,” Soonyoung replied awkwardly as he shifted on his seat. “But we do need to—”

“Yet be cautioned. This path does not offer refuge nor solace for the tired and weary. You will be accompanied by danger, deceit and the deep dark evils of this world. You will face adversaries stronger and larger than you had anticipated. Poke the bear, and its claws shall appear. Be strong and always seek for the truth.”

“Uh…yes, of course,” you replied, ending with uncertainty. “So the documents—”

“Ah, yes. Robert will be here soon,” she interrupted yet again. “While we wait, would any of you like a tarot reading?”

“T-tarot reading?” Soonyoung exclaimed, as he leaned forward, not sure if he had heard it right.

What a surprise. You simply smiled.

Interrupting your gloating, Soonyoung suddenly nudged you with his elbow, making you look at him.

“What?” you asked, your voice a whisper.

“Y-you do it, Y/N!” He replied, his expression not betraying the fact that he was a bit afraid.

“What? Me? Of course not! Do you suppose I believe in such buffoonery?”

“Now, now. It’s just tarot cards, what harm could it possibly do to you? Attack you with a paper cut?” Soonyoung immediately replied, even though he was the one who got frightened first.

“Soonyoung is right, Y/N,” Wonwoo joined in, though you knew he was trying to gang up on you. “Besides, you wouldn’t be so cruel to deny this poor woman an income, would you?”

You closed your eyes, and breathed in—incredibly irritated by this game Wonwoo was playing today. However, you just didn’t have the energy to pick up a fight with how your stomach was beginning to churn once again; the suppressants returning with a vengeance after the pain relievers had worn off.

“Fine then! I’ll do it,” you seethed through gritted teeth as you stood up and walked towards the old woman. “I’ll do it.”

Now much closer, you saw Madame Adora smile warmly at you, which made you feel a bit guilty for getting angry. Sighing, you turn your gaze down to the wooden desk, unable to look into her eyes.

“Boys,” the Madame suddenly called in her raspy voice. “Robert is waiting for you in the other room to look at the documents. Your friend will join you shortly.”

At this development, both Wonwoo and Soonyoung glanced at you, asking if it was alright for them to leave you. You smiled at them encouragingly. You’ll be fine. It’s just a tarot reading.

“Please don’t start without me,” you turned to them as they left the room. “I’m looking at you Kwon Soonyoung.”

Your friend simply grinned and gave you a salute. “Aye, aye!”

When the door was finally shut and you were left alone with the old woman, you glanced at her, wondering what was about to happen, or if she was going to do something.

“What’s your name, my dear?” she asked, something you hadn’t expected.

“Uh…I’m Y/N,” you soon replied, fiddling with a stray lock. You tried to deduce what the Madame was thinking, but nothing came to mind. She was eccentric and unpredictable; there was no use trying to predict the next set of events.

“Well then, please take a seat, Y/N,” she offered the armchair beside you which you quickly sat on. “Is this your first time getting a reading?”

“Yes, I…” you tried to evaluate your next words. “I’ve never been to a shop like this before.”

She simply chuckled at you, pulling out a deck of cards from a drawer. “I understand, dear. We readers are few in number, yet believe it or not, just like magical practitioners, it is necessary for us to have proper licenses.”

With the new information, you raised your brows and nodded, wondering why you haven’t known of this field before. As you continue to swim in your thoughts, Madame Adora began waving the smoking sage around the area.

Knowing your curious look, she gave a small smile. “To cleanse the space, my dear. Sometimes we carry residual energy from people, objects or situations. It is necessary to cleanse before we begin the reading, so we can only pick up your own energy.”

Nodding once more, you didn’t really know what she was talking about. You were no magi, and your knowledge of magic was limited to alchemy and potions, which was grounded more into the material world than the metaphysical.

“Alright then. What kind of reading do you wish to do?” She asked and you only gave her a blank look—completely innocent to the kind of readings a reader could perform.

Without you needing to say a word, the Madame nodded in understanding and explained it to you.

“A reading, in its base form, is a medium to provide some clarity. The Universe itself provides the answers. So if there is a question, a situation which you wish to seek clarity on, then we could begin with that.”

Even before the old woman had finished talking, your head was already turning gears and cogwheels. You wanted to ask about the syndicate and the investigative reporting you were doing, yet for some reason, a niggling feeling inside of you was telling you it wasn’t the right question to ask.

So you searched for it, concentrating on the feeling that you knew you could trust. However, at the end, you were surprised to where it had led you. You didn’t want to ask about it. It was done, it was there. It didn’t matter anymore. But you felt it. It was so strong that it made shivers creep under your skin. You know you needed to hear it.

You sighed. It’s just a tarot reading. No harm done.

“I…uh…” you gazed downwards, finding your wrist wrapped in ribbon to be quite fascinating; deciding for one last time if this was indeed the decision you were making.

“My…uh, soulmate bond.”

You were not sure if she had heard you with how small your voice sounded, but there was no way you would repeat yourself. The way you finally said those words out loud felt like some sort of acceptance; an acknowledgement that a soulmate bond existed between you and that person. Before, it felt like it was simply a figment of your imagination.

To your surprise, the Madame nodded at you, smiling proudly. “Then it shall be. Let us begin.”

You nodded back, watching as she began to expertly shuffle the cards.

“I will be doing a simple spread for you. A first card or cards would explain your energy, and then his energy. Afterwards, your strengths and weaknesses, then the state of this connection. Finally, we will be asking for the future of your soulmate connection.”

Unaware of how specific tarot can be, you only stared at her quite agile hands, not fully understanding everything.

“Please be reminded, dear that energies do change. What is shown here is simply the current energy of the soulmate bond. You and your soulmate still do have the agency to change your future, yet for now, this is what it is.”

You definitely liked the sound of that. If tarot had been in any way fatalistic, you would’ve soured on it in an instant. You always believed that you had some semblance of control over your life, or at least you wanted to.

Quietly, the Madame began drawing out cards, mostly cards which jumped out while she was shuffling. As she began to neatly arrange the cards into a grid-like form, you watched out for any reaction or expression from her. As it turned out, the most you could get was a slight raise of a brow.

When it was all done, she flipped the deck over and placed it beside the spread. Peering overing, you saw that there were a lot of cards, some were upright and the others upside down. You wondered what these all meant.

“Well then, my dear,” she spoke to you, glancing all over the spread and then nodded in understanding. “Let us begin with your energy—Eight of Swords, Queen of Swords reversed and the Hermit reversed.”

“Are those good or bad?” you asked, curious, yet the old woman simply tightened her lips.

“What I could say is that, you may seem to be trapped in your situation right now, whatever your situation may be. Look at this woman in the Eight of Swords,” she replied, holding out the card to you. “ She is blindfolded and surrounded by these swords. She seems to be trapped and imprisoned. It could be your thoughts or what you are telling yourself, as swords symbolizes our mind and how we communicate. You could be suffering from self-doubt.”

Taking in her words, you could feel a lump forming in your chest, knowing that she was indeed right.

“And then we have the Queen of Swords, which is you. When she is upright, she is a force to be reckoned with: intelligent, independent and the speaker of truth, however dear, we have her in reverse, which only shows the shadow side of this energy. The Hermit in reverse is telling me the same thing. My dear, I must apologize, yet this is what I see. As you continue to trap yourself with negative thoughts, you are slowly closing off your heart, becoming coldhearted and bitter, leading you into more loneliness and isolation. Whatever has caused you to become like this was incredibly painful that you have been pushed into fear, creating these defensive walls which then became the swords blindsiding you at this moment.”

You were silent, knowing full well what the old woman was talking about. You wanted to be angry at her for speaking a truth you were trying to avoid all this time, yet there was only sadness in your heart.

“I’m so sorry dear, but this is what the cards say, but please rest assured that your energy could still change. Considering the strengths of this connection, I have high hopes that this soulmate bond will succeed,” Madame Adora consoled you, seeing the deep hurt in your eyes.

“It’s fine,” you replied, swallowing the bile forming in your throat. “Please continue.”

Hesitantly, the Madame moved to the two cards beside the first ones she had read. “For your soulmate’s energy: the Two of Pentacles in reverse and the Hierophant.”

“As for now, your soulmate is in an imbalance. Look at how this person is trying to juggle the two pentacles in the card. He could hardly balance them at all. It could possibly be that your soulmate finds it difficult to manage their career and this connection with you, as this is a pentacles card which usually pertains to finances and the material world. Or, it could possibly be that they cannot find the balance between their traditional values and the constantly changing world with the Hierophant. Their views are definitely being challenged by you and your connection. Nevertheless, they seem to have felt your withdrawal and decided to focus on their career instead, which has now become two burdens on their shoulders.”

Making a downcast look, you felt guilty for making him feel that way. If he had indeed felt your pain through the bond, then he was no better than you. He was hurt too and the thought of you unintentionally inflicting pain on someone was something you were not keen on.

“Now then, let’s move to the strengths of this connection with the Chariot and Strength cards, which are incredibly powerful cards to have. Even this whole spread is powerful, considering how much Major Arcana you have.”

You leaned your head to the side. “Oh, is…is that so?”

“Yes. The Major Arcana holds more significance than the Minor Arcana, that is why having numerous cards from this suit could mean that this connection could be life changing for the both of you. With that said, having the Chariot and Strength implies that the both of you have a tremendous amount of strength and willpower. You and your soulmate are influential people who will stop at nothing to achieve your goals. That is why, even through all the pain and difficulties this bond will bring, this connection will survive.”

Not knowing what to make of that, you simply nodded. You were unsure if you do want this connection to survive. You hardly know your soulmate and you had no interest in doing so. You had long abandoned the idea that you will find love in a soulmate bond.

“Well now, look here, Y/N. I have been called upon to draw three cards for the weaknesses of this connection. We have the Five of Swords, the Nine of Swords in reverse and the High Priestess in reverse,” she continued, showing you the three cards.

“At this moment, there is conflict and disagreement in this connection. It could possibly be that the both of you have fought and that was the reason for your stagnant energy and his withdrawal, and with the Nine of Swords in reverse, usually this card means your anxieties and fears, and in reverse, it could be a release of those negative energies. However, in this reading, it seems like the both of you are hiding this inner turmoil in your hearts. Look at the image here,” the Madame pointed at the Nine of Swords.

“The woman is crying on her bed at night while these swords loom above her—she is crying alone, only the night is her companion, when everyone else is asleep and oblivious to her pain. In a way, you both are mirroring each other. You try to keep this conflict in your heart, making you feel disenchanted with this connection. You had lost hope of finding this love you seek. They on the other hand, try to bury themselves in their career or material possessions. They want stability and a sense of normalcy, yet cannot find it. The Universe has been providing divine guidance, yet with the High Priestess in reverse, the both of you cannot hear or perceive the signs.”

“This is further clarified with the Hanged Man and the Tower, both in reverse. These two cards represent the state of this connection, which further confirms the stagnation and fear of change in this connection. I felt this in the beginning when I was tapping to your energy, but dear, have you been blocking your soulmate bond?”

For some reason, you could only look at her and speak no words. There was fear in your eyes and guilt in your gut. It felt like you had done something unforgivable. You cast a glare to your arm, unable to utter any words of admittance.

“Dear, may I see your wrist?” Madame Adora asked softly. You were hesitant at first but eventually gave in, pulling the ribbon that was wrapped around your wrist and placed it on the table.

Gently, she examined the dull black bars on your skin as you watched curiously. You would ask what she was doing if she hadn’t begun speaking once again.

“You are in pain, dear. Deep, deep pain you need to heal from. It’s not a fresh wound, but scars inflicted from so long ago yet continuously being pried open over the years. You keep on ignoring, burying these scars, hoping that time would help it heal someday,” she said, her fingers on the marks.

“Yet when this soulmate bond came, it had forced you to face them even if you have no wish to, even if you were not ready to. This bond is making your fears rise to the surface—the fear of heartbreak and of disappointment. Thus, instead of waiting for someone else to do this to you, you decided to nip it in the bud. You try to convince yourself that you wish to be alone, that you are comfortable alone, yet deep inside you, you long for someone to share the heaviness which weighs down your heart.”

Without even realizing, you had furrowed your brows and was glaring at the offending soulmate mark on your skin. There was a feeling deep inside you which refuses to accept the old woman's words. It was too painful to acknowledge the yearning that was deeply-rooted in your heart. It was too embarrassing to say that you had made a mistake.

You were simply protecting yourself. Those scars had long healed itself. You had already cut ties with your father and that was the end of the story. There is nothing more to talk about. There was no need to face any more of this. There is no need to reconcile with your soulmate.

Gritting your teeth, you could sense anger rise deep inside of you.

“But dear let me reassure you that despite everything, you will come together in the end. For the future of this connection, you have the Two of Cups which signifies a union. It is my soulmate card because as you can see, these two people are sharing, exchanging cups—”

—!!

You slammed your fist on the table abruptly, the cards jumping in disarray. Madame Adora looked at you sadly as you snatched your wrist away, holding it close to your chest. Your eyes were burning with rage, yet the old woman knew that that anger was rooted from deep longing and sadness.

“I don’t want it,” you muttered in a low voice, and then, after a short pause, began shouting as if it would relieve the guilt in your chest. “I don’t want it! I don’t want this! Could you please leave me alone!”

Without waiting for a reply, you ran out from the room, from the shop. You were in no capacity to continue the investigation with your friends when you are in this state of instability. You just want to leave and disappear for a while.

Just for a while.

◇

Back inside the room, Madame Adora was greeted by Soonyoung and Wonwoo, who were surprised to know that you had left running out of the shop.

“Ah, did Y/N lose her temper again?” Wonwoo asked as he had heard you shouting earlier. “We must apologize, Madame.”

“No, it is I who wishes for your pardon. I must have hurt your friend,” she replied. “Please give this to her as an apology.”

The two men watched as the Madame pulled out a small box from one of the desk’s drawers and placed it on the table. They wondered what the Madame had said in the reading that made you lose composure.

“We will deliver this to her immediately,” Soonyoung replied as he took the box and dropped it inside his pocket. “And thank you for the documents.”

“It is meant for you. I had been called upon to buy the desk which it was stored in, and when you came to this shop in search for such an item, I knew it was meant for this purpose,” Madame Adora replied, intertwining her fingers together. “But more than that, please watch over Y/N.”

Both Wonwoo and Soonyoung exchanged glances. “W-we will.”

“Simply watch over her and give her support. She is going through something which only she can resolve.”

As the Madame said those words, her gaze was caught by the single card by her side. It was the card at the back of the deck—usually meant to summarize the energy of the whole reading.

It was the Lovers.

◇

It was already dreadfully dark when you had decided to return to your dorm room.

The wisteria trees were already a midnight grey, the unlit path, a dark purple. Only a few streetlamps offered illumination through the pitch-black night as you waded through the campus in silence.

You took your time alone—wandering on random alleyways, sitting on deserted park benches, watching people pass by as they live their own lives, with their own problems. Nothing seemed real during those hours of isolation in the midst of the crowd. It was like the pain was too far away for you to reach; the events from that afternoon too far away to be reality.

Yet you knew you needed to return somehow. Thus, with eyes exhausted from crying tears unshed, and the ribbon you used to conceal your soulmate bond in your hands, you opened the door to your dorm room and saw its gauche splendor in shameless display.

With a sigh, you wrapped the ribbon on your wrist haphazardly, not caring if not seemed sloppy as long as the black bars were far from your sight.

Walking to the common room, you scanned the area for your roommate, wondering if he was asleep or still at his office on a Friday night. It would be better if you didn’t see him, you thought. There would be less explaining to do.

Yet the common room was depressingly empty. It had occurred to you that you never even spent much time in there as much as you would’ve liked. Was it simply because you were avoiding him or you were just not interested in sharing the same space with him, you didn’t know.

As you move past the wooden dining table and towards the kitchenette for a glass of water, you bumped into something fleshy and soft which definitely made you shriek and fall onto the floor in a painful thud.

“What…on earth?” you muttered, gradually coming down from your sudden adrenaline rush, your sight refocusing.

To your astonishment, you found one Lee Jihoon lying on the floor, obviously drunk by the whisky which was once inside the bottle he was clinging on to for dear life. Apprehensively, you crawled towards him, to check if he was still breathing. Yet before you could touch him, his dark brown eyes were on to you, still cold and jaded as the nights of December.

“Jihoon—“

You were about to reprimand him for bringing in prohibited alcohol inside the dorms and for sleeping on the floor during a cold autumn day, when you realized that his skin was red. Bright red.

Concern immediately shoots up to your brain as you reach out to him.

“Jihoon!” You exclaimed, shaking him to sobriety. “Jihoon! Are you intolerant to alcohol?”

Despite your concern, he could only hum groggily. “It’s…fine.”

“What do you mean ‘it’s fine’? How many bottles have you drunk?!” You asked, looking around and saw several bottles of the same whisky he was holding. “Oh god, you even chose one with high alcohol content! You shouldn’t be drinking this.”

“It’s…fine, Y/N. I only had a few… just a few…”

He simply groaned in reply, lying comfortably on the floor without a care in the world. You only stared at him in exasperation, brushing your hair as you sighed.

You felt an urge to just leave him like that on the floor until dawn breaks. He can take care of himself, and being drunk probably isn’t something new to him. Yet you knew you can’t just do that. Whether or not he was Lee Jihoon, you had the obligation to not leave him to die of alcohol poisoning or of hypothermia.

The last one was a stretch, you admit but still, there was no way you could leave him like that as someone who tries to be compassionate at every point of day. At least, the sofa was a lot better than the cold floor.

Reaching for his arm and placing it around your shoulders, you tried to carry Jihoon to the sofa just a few steps away. Yet you hadn’t anticipated how heavy he actually was as you barely dragged him across the room, huffing and panting. You were not one with the best fitness

“Come on, Jihoon. Hold yourself up! You’re simply too heavy for me to carry!” You exclaimed as you tried not to stumble on the way.

“Mmn…I’m sorry...I’m trying…” he drawled, his eyes half-lidded and unfocused—obvious indications that he has drunk too much for his own good.

Just a little bit…

Taking that one step remaining, you immediately tossed Jihoon to the soft sofa with a long and exhausted sigh. He only groaned, his hair in a disarray. You had only noticed now that he still had his work clothes on: a grey suit piece sans the tie which he must’ve tossed somewhere in the immediate past.

He had his eyes closed as you sat closely to him, watching his chest rise and fall with every breath. Jihoon seemed to be in peace this way, far from the constant creases in his brow or on his lips. Brushing away a stray lock of hair from his face, you noticed the angles on his face, the fullness of his cheeks, the rosiness of his lips. Was he always this familiar to you? It was a question you had no immediate answers to. Yet you had never anticipated to end your exhausting day with a drunk Lee Jihoon, yet that’s where you are now.

“I should give him some medicine to ease the redness,” you muttered to yourself as you stood up, your mind already listing the ingredients you needed to make one tablet, but before you did, a hand had stopped you in your tracks.

“Please…don’t leave me,” his voice, still lethargic, echoed behind you and you were forced to turn, your eyes captured by his unrelenting gaze.

“Jihoon…” you spoke softly, returning to your seat beside him as you helped him sit up clumsily. “But you’re still flushing.”

“Doesn’t matter…” he replied back, leaning unsteadily until you caught him in your arms. Now he was peacefully resting his head on your shoulder, burying himself into your embrace.

“J-Jihoon…?”

To say that you were wholly surprised was an understatement. You were floundering and unable to make anything out of this situation. This was something incredibly out of character for the Lee Jihoon you thought you knew.

“Y/N…I must….must apologize,” he began, which definitely made you furrow your brows in bewilderment. “I’m so sorry… I—I failed you…”

You stared into the air incredulously, not understanding what page Jihoon was in.

“You didn’t fail me,” you replied back. “You didn’t fail anyone, Jihoon…”

However, it seemed like your words fell into deaf ears as he snuggled up to you, wrapping his arms around you tightly.

“I’m so sorry…Y/N…please…please forgive me…”

Concluding that this was probably one drunk confession, you allowed him to find comfort in your presence, placing a consoling hand on his back as he continued to apologize to you.

This was a side to him you hadn’t expected to see. It was vulnerable, raw and unapologetically real—words you never thought you’d associate with Lee Jihoon. Yet there you were, as you hugged him back, finding solace in his arms as well when there was no one in the world you could share your burdens with.

“It’s okay, Jihoon…” you replied to him as you closed your eyes. “At least you tried, and it’s good enough for me.”

“Yet…yet…why can’t I feel you…?” he cried out, his voice clearly in pain. “Why can’t I reach you…? I…I always…alwaysss wanted to know you…to hold you like this…”

“Jihoon…”

You wished there was something you could say or do, yet you didn’t even know what he was talking about. It felt like the two of you were talking in a circle of riddles; finding yourselves in different pages.

“Y/N…please don’t be angry…please….please….don’t reject me,” he continued on as if in a trance. “I’m so sorry….so sorryyy….”

There was something in his words, or the way his voice shook that had pierced right through you. You wondered what you had done to him to plead to you like this. Yes, you did push him away a few weeks ago, yet that was the farthest you had gone to hurt him. You couldn’t understand what was happening, nevertheless, you still felt called upon to take action.

Moving your hand, you brushed his soft locks gently.

“I won’t reject you, Jihoon. I won’t push you away. I promise you.”

◇

PARLIAMENT PASSES BILL CRACKING DOWN ON CILVEKAN NATIONALS by Jeon Wonwoo

The Porta Persa Edition, October 27th

In a historic vote, the Parliament has passed a bill on harsher travel restrictions for Cilvekan nationals as well as an extensive program which allows for the investigation of all Cilvekans in Porta Persa. This bill marks a tantamount win on Rep. Kang Jinho and his Conservative party—warranting a speculation of a bid on the Prime Minister seat.

This soon-to-be law highlights restrictions set on the amount of Cilvekan nationals leaving and entering Porta Persa wherein local governments can monitor their actions inside the country. It is also in the prerogative of the local government to deny entry to any Cilvekan wishing to enter. According to Rep. Kang, it is necessary to be able to detect any sort of preemptive strike against Porta Persa to avoid endangering the security of the people.

This bill also boasts a program which, in conjunction with the restrictions, shall implement a vast inspection of all Cilvekan nationals present in the country. They are to undergo a thorough investigation conducted by the police and shall be warranted to arrests if ill-intentions against Porta Persa is proven.

With this bill, according to the Parliament, the government shall be able to ensure that the national security of Porta Persa shall not be threatened by any means, even if it meant sacrificing privacy and material gains. Sacrifice is and always will be inevitable on the road to peace…

◇

In the pitch black darkness of the night, echoes of footfalls resounded across the streets of Porta Persa. There was breaking of glass, breaking of wood, and shouts of women.

Fear was high in the scent of the night. The streets of Porta Pera enshrined by men and women—rounded up in handcuffs and tied by accusations. Half the town was awake and afraid, half the town asleep and aloof.

The night had just began.

-Hyeri

#seventeen #svtcreations #caratwritersclub #seventeen imagines #seventeen scenarios #seventeen angst #seventeen fluff #seventeen woozi #lee jihoon #woozi #the most convenient escape

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jackieboyandmarkimoo · 4 years

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So... moving on?

Hello everyone!

First of all, considering that we’re all still in a global pandemic, I just want to say that I hope all of you are staying safe and that you’re following all the rules to protect yourself and those around you.

Second of all, let’s talk a bit about the elephant in the room (at least the way I see it). This blog hasn’t really been a proper confessions blog for a while now. I’ve stopped spending as much time on Tumblr, but beyond that, I’ve also actually sort of stopped watching Jack. Not entirely, to be fair - I’ll occasionally check out one of his videos, or I’ll watch a series he does if it’s something I’m interested in (as it was the case with TLOU2). But, this isn’t to say that I don’t consider myself a fan of him or his content, because I still do, and if someone was to ask me who my favorite YouTubers are, I think my answer will always be “Jacksepticeye and Markiplier”.

However, considering the current state of this blog, and my preferences when it comes to YouTube content and who I’m watching, I made the decision to transform this blog into just a fan blog for Jack and Mark (and also kinda Ethan to an extent, mainly because of Unus Annus). I think I’m already sort of doing that anyways, with the content that I share on here, so the only real change that I now need to make is to edit the blog’s appearance and also change the URL.

Now, while I don’t consider myself anything close to a “popular” Tumblr blogger, and while I do believe that the majority of you won’t really care about what I do with this blog, there are still over 11,000 of you who follow me, and I do feel a bit bad for just... well, distancing myself from what this blog was originally and thus stopping this whole “confessions” thing. And for that, I do want to apologize. I’m sorry if, for whatever reason, any one of you feels even remotely upset over this; it is also somewhat difficult for me to step away from something that I did for a very long time and that I genuinely enjoyed doing.

I want to thank each and every one of you - whether you’ve submitted dozens of confessions or none at all - thank you for following me, interacting with me, reblogging my dumb posts and whatnot. I really do appreciate the JSE community, it is genuinely one of the best ones out there, in my opinion.

I know this might seem dramatic or even unecessary perhaps, but I feel like it is appropriate to give a proper thanks to you guys and a goodbye to this chapter of my online journey.

So, as I’ve said, I - Cypris - will still very much be here, and any of you can talk to me whenever you want to. This will be a Jack/Mark fan blog, and in the next few days I’ll make the necessary changes to reflect that. If you were here specifically because you enjoyed the JSE confessions content, I won’t be upset whatsoever if you now choose to unfollow me or something. I can only hope you’ve enjoyed what I had to offer so far. :)

And don’t worry, I will not be removing any of my previous posts, all of the confessions will still stay up and I will most likely provide a link to the confessions tag even in the new blog design, so that if anyone ever wishes to read through some of the confessions, they can do so.

Once again, thank you all so much for being here and being my friends - I hope you will continue to be here even in the new “era” of this Tumblr blog! As always, I’ll try my best to deliver only the best content that I can. ;)

#jacksepticeye #jse #markiplier

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1358456 · 5 years

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Final Dex Holder Preference List, 1st Edition

Heh. These titles are getting long. Dex Holder Preference List, so the same thing I’ve been doing for a long while every now and then. Final because... Generation VIII started, and I can’t see myself staying around for Generation IX. The end is near. And 1st Edition because So-boy and Shi-girl are brand new, so this only has my first impressions on them. As I see more of their data, their position is bound to change. So this is the start of the final series of the list. Think of it like the “Final Battle” type chapters in the Pokemon Special arcs that end up being something like “Final (最終) Decisive (決) Battle (戰) IX” or some sh*t.

If I recall, when Y debuted, she was ranked 8. When Moon debuted, she also ranked 8. So... where would Shi-girl rank?!

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Top Favorites

Platinum (1) ... Duh. 晝夜長川, 初志一貫, as usual. I think this is the third time I used these phrases for Platinum’s ranking in the Preference Lists. Thankfully she didn’t appear in SM/USM for random ass bullsh*t, so nice dodge there!

Y (2) Also not going to change ever. Thankfully she didn’t appear in SM/USM for pointless random ass bullsh*t, so... another dodge! Now, while Y’s ranking hasn’t changed for years, the phrases I used for Platinum can’t be used here because it wasn’t consistent (一貫) from the very beginning (初).

Red (3) Same as Y. Good thing he didn’t show up in SM/USM. ... I recall saying that I was going to experiment with a more “brutal” Red. ... It’s incoming in an SC update. But the update is for the end of the year, so... have to wait.

Blue (4) ... Good thing she didn’t show up in SM/USM! If anyone in the top 4 did, they would’ve all fallen enough that they’d still be in the top 4 in this exact order. ... Wait, what? Heh. There’s that much of a gap between the 4th and 5th. And while Blue may be 4th, she’s honestly in the same ranking as Red. They’re like a single entity. Blue (女) and Red (子) livin’ together and even married in some chapters, and it’s good (好)!

Moon (5) The power of overhaul. She’s back into the Top Favorites! ... Not that her ranking has changed at all. The Spirit of Vengeance! Undying devotion to serve Platinum, and undying hatred for her enemies mixed in would be quite interesting to write about! ... If I ever get to doing it...

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High Preferences

White (6) Hey, she’s back up here. Now that I’ve been convinced that she’s not really a laughing stock in a battle, she can do some cool stuff on screen for once. And overhaul~!

Emerald (7) I have to get used to the idea that after the overhaul, Emerald is the most combat effective Dex Holder among Generation III. ... Unless I choose to overhaul Ruby and Sapphire too, but... hm. Anyways. With the “new” overhaul a long ass time ago, he should be far more fun to use in battles. ... Whenever that’ll be.

Diamond (8) My interest in Heart is plummeting. But then again, my interest in all the others are plummeting too, so... I guess that’s pretty irrelevant. I feel like I could use him a lot more now that I’ve organized the headcanon chronology. And maybe I can come up with more headcanon entries as time passes! What if Platinum teaches him etiquette?

X (9) So close to being able to use him a lot more with Y in a cute and sweet setting and whatnot. I need to come up with more headcanon stuff for X & Y. Maybe he can teach her how to swim? ... Assuming he knows too? Can’t have both drowning at the same time. Heh.

Pearl (10) I want to focus a lot more on the united Sinnoh trio, where Diamond protects Platinum from closer while Pearl protects her by taking the offense. Like Platinum’s shield and sw... sigh...

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Low Preferences

Sapphire (11) Overhaul incoming along with Ruby as a united unit? Hmm... Currently, Sapphire and Ruby serve like a... middle zone. Point of neutrality, I guess?

Ruby (12) I have to find purpose for these two. Sapphire especially, but Ruby needs to be there too since those two are basically a single unit. But at this point, I’m kind of bored of these two.

Black (13) He’s freeeeeeeeee~! Hell, it’s about time. ... But... meh. I’m kind of bored with using him in a doomy setting with White, and I’m also kind of bored with using him in a fluffy setting with White.

Sword (14) Hey, new boy. ... A mix of Diamond and Ruby, and is ranked lower than both, since I don’t like Diamond’s passive traits, and Ruby’s seriousness doesn’t really complement it. More data required, of course, since the arc just started, but my first impressions for him aren’t that good. ... Also, because of the identical set hat with Shi-girl’s coat, his head kind of... blends in in the picture. Hahaha.

Gold (15) Oh how far he had fallen. His post-Cycle personality is kind of boring. He’s just “one of the good guys” now, and there are already a lot of them. But his pre-Cycle personality is that of an ass. So... heh...

Crystal (16) Her personality is very generic among the girls. So... she doesn’t really add anything.

Shield (17) Hey, new girl. ... I really don’t like those overly “bubbly” personalities. So... very bad first impressions. Hopefully she does something cool instead of freaking out little kids. ... That... sounds weird.

Rakutsu (18) He jumped up a bit because I find him roasting Black and White to be far more amusing than it should be. To the point where I might choose to have him exist in my stories, with him constantly roasting Black and White and every time he does, someone (usually Y) just shouts “GET F*CKED!” in the back.

Faitsu (19) So far, she’s just cute and amusing to watch, but... ehhh...

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Rock Bottom

Sun (RB) Was his only character development seriously reverted at the end? What a waste.

Yellow (RB) Generic personality, no development, bullsh*t powers. Yawn.

Silver (RB) Meh.

#preference

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cdelphiki · 6 years

Note

Fanfic writer asks: 1, 2, 5 (link it maybe), 7, 11, 12, 13, 20-23, 25, 28. Also, do you think fics should be fully written before the writer starts the publishing process? Why or why not?

Oooh, thanks for the asks. Let’s see:

1. How old were you when you first started writing fanficiton?

It was earlier this year, just about a week before my birthday so technically I was 25.

2. What fandoms do you write for and do you have a particular favorite if you write for more than one?

So far I’ve only published in the Batman fandom. I’ve written in the MCU fandom and not published because they are still too drafty. (A Peter & Tony and a crossover between Batman and Avengers). The batfam is my favorite, for sure. Just love those kids.

5. If you had to choose a favorite out of all of your multi chaptered stories, which would it be and why?

Life Happens, for sure. I only have three long stories so far, and then kind of that little side fic to Life Happens, but out of the three I prefer this story. The Missing Piece was my intro into FanFiction writing. I had only ever written original works, so it was this nice transition to writing characters I did not make up. Cracked Foundation was some random story that popped into my mind when I was working through the plot for Life Happens, actually, and was more of a distraction to me than actual story I loved and worked hard on. There’s a lot about it I really dislike. Actually, I wrote all 20k words for that story in the span of a couple evenings, which probably contributes to my dislike for it. Life Happens has been my baby for months now, and I’ve still not lost interest. So yeah.

7. When is your preferred time to write?

Friday evenings, Saturdays, and Sunday early afternoon/evenings. It kind of sucks because that’s also the time friends like to hang out, and I can’t do both. So really, I try to squeeze it in whenever I can. Usually evening/night time is when I do the best work, though.

11. Have you ever amended a story due to criticisms you’ve received after posting it?

Yes! I added 800 words to a chapter of Life Happens based on feedback that it ended too abruptly and moved too quickly. I have never and will never change the ending of a story, however, because people are mad at me that I didn’t write the story they wanted. I will, however, write fan-service alternate endings. (hint hint wink wink)

In my original work, I have also done major rewrites based on criticism. That’s how writing works. You get feedback and you respond how you see fit.

12. Who is your favorite character to write for and why?

Uh, wow, that’s difficult. I freaking love Damian to pieces. Adore that stupid little brat. But Tim now has a special spot in my heart because I’ve been stuck in his head so long, and Jason is so damn funny. I think my favorite relationship to write is Tim & Damian, and that’s about as close to answering the question as I can get, because I can’t really pick between the three.

13. Who is your least favorite character to write for and why?

Dick, probably. Just because I haven’t quite figured him out. Reading character studies on him has helped a ton, but I just never feel like I hit the mark well with him. I still love him and would put him above all the other characters in the Batman fandom (excluding Bruce, I’d put him squarely between the three other boys and Dick). I tend to just avoid characters I don’t know.

20. Are there any stories you wished you’d ended differently?

Hmm. Not so far.

21. Tell me about another writer(s) who you admire? What is it about them you admire?

Oh, this goes so against my shyness. Eek. I can’t really order them. Looking at my user subscriptions, I’m subscribed to ten people within the fandom, and they are audreycritter, autumnhobbit, bandgeek18, dawnseternallight, dreamersmyth27, fishfingersandjellybabies, lemonadegarden, lowflyingfruit, raberba_girl, and wingfeathers.

Okay, and I’ll just pick a couple to say why I love them so much, but I really do love all these writers. I’m very likely to read whatever they post within the fandom, unless it’s just a ship I really cannot stand. (sorry heh)

With LemonadeGarden, I love the way her stories feel like a dance when you read them, swaying back and forth between dialogue and exposition and whatnot. They are almost dreamlike they are so graceful.

Audreycritter was author of the first fanfic I ever read, and it’s what drew me into FanFiction in the first place. I had been searching for a book about Damian Wayne, because while I love comics, I really wanted that inner dialogue and longer story, and came across Let There Be a Bruise on google. I was actually away at training for work, and I remember spending every single free moment I had reading through one shots on my phone after. I was so entranced. Audrey does Damian’s character justice and I love that about her.

22. Do you have a story that you look back on and cringe when you reread it.

Yes. All of them. There are aspects of all my stories I cringe at, even my current WIPs. It’s just how I am with any form of art I do.

23. Do you prefer listening to music when you’re writing or do you need silence?

It varies. I have ADHD and sometimes listening to music helps me tune the world out and focus, and other times I get really caught up in the music and start paying attention to it instead. Just depends on the day, what my mood is, and what kind of music I put on.

25. Have you ever cried whilst writing a story?

Yes. I’ve cried a couple times writing Life Happens. By cry, I mean I teared up pretty heavily. I did so many times while plotting it out, too. Some of my whumptober fics have had the same effect on me. I’m weird and love when that happens.

28. What is something you wished you’d known before you started posting fanfiction?

I can’t really think of anything, to be honest. I’ve only been writing FanFiction since March. Maybe that Tumblr is such a great place to read about the various characters and learn more about what makes them tick.

And finally, do you think fics should be fully written before the writer starts the publishing process? Why or why not?

I have done both ways and I see the pros and cons of each. For me, the comments are what drive me and keep me motivated, so with my longer two works there is no way I would have found the ability to focus and stay driven to finish out the story if I didn’t have someone there reminding me that they want to read what happens next.

But, when you write the entire thing out first, you can make sure the entire story flows well, nothing is mismatched, and the beginning and end lend themselves to each other. So yeah. Also, you don’t give the audience 10 chapters and get right to the climax then quit and leave every hanging forever. I know we’ve all read stories like that.

I don’t see an issue with writing chapter by chapter, as long as you keep in mind that it’s perfectly okay to go backward in the story and edit. In ‘real’ fiction, authors are constantly revising earlier chapters to fit with how the story went, so there’s nothing wrong with doing so in fanficiton, even if you’ve already ‘published’ it.

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murasaki-murasame · 7 years

Text

Danganronpa V3 Liveblog Part 19 [Chapter 6 - Trial]

I was going to make some sort of a vague meme about this ending, but honestly I don’t even want to indirectly spoil anyone about what happens, so I’ll just say that this was fantastic.

This probably won’t actually be the end of my liveblog, since I have some post-game content to do, and some optional bonus things throughout the game I might just google and write about later whenever I get around to that. But this is the ending of the main game.

Anyway, thoughts under the cut.

[Fake edit: hahahaha holy fuck this ended up being 10.4k words long. Good fucking luck to anyone who wants to read all of it, I guess, lol]

Jesus christ, where do I even start with this??? There’s just . . . so much shit that went down. So much.

To start things off, I wasn’t kidding when I said that this was a fantastic ending, overall. I loved it a lot. It was so ambitious and intense and surreal that I couldn’t help but like it. I definitely have SOME issues with things, but I’ll get to them later.

I should at least say that, as you can all verify from my last post, I wasn’t exactly expecting Tsumugi of all people to be the mastermind. I guess it justified her continued existence in the story, after she felt so weirdly pointless.

Though before I talk about Tsumugi specifically, on the whole topic of pointless characters, Himiko was definitely . . . the weakest link by far. I don’t really hate her or anything, but she just had so little going for her as a character by the end. Even the whole thing with Tenko dying and giving her emotional strength and development and stuff felt like it didn’t really change much. So seeing her alive by the end, especially in the epilogue scene, felt . . . awkward. It’s not like I wanted her to die or anything, but I feel like the epilogue might have had a bit more . . . weight to it, if it was just Shuichi and Maki left. I dunno. I’ll talk about the epilogue later.

On the topic of Tsumugi, I honestly think I might prefer her as a villain over Junko. Mostly because this game’s entire ending and it’s overall theme feels way more interesting than everything Junko represented. I’ve said before that I really do like Junko as a villain, and that seeing her come back yet again would have been totally fine, but I think I liked Tsumugi as a villain even more than her. I’m aware that with how Tsumugi’s character works in general, there’s not much that actually sets her apart from Junko, but still. The things she represents on a thematic level are really interesting to me.

I also just appreciate that it was genuinely surprising to me that she was the mastermind. I really didn’t see it coming until they basically spelled it out for me.

I probably should have guessed where this trial was heading in advance. I said last time that the shot put ball and whatnot confused me, but it should have been obvious that it was hinting at Kaede not truly being the first killer. And the detail of the secret entrance to the hidden room being in the girl’s bathroom should have clued me in about Tsumugi. I could easily see someone else figuring it out if they had a good memory and also figured out that the chapter one case would be relevant again, but I didn’t remember the detail about Tsumugi having gone to the bathroom around the time Rantarou died, so that was a genuine surprise. I really like that they actually planted evidence pointing toward her at the start of the game, even though it didn’t really become apparent until you learn stuff much later in the game.

I also really liked the whole detail of how her talent as the Ultimate Cosplayer connected with her role as the mastermind. It really wasn’t what I was expecting at all.

To dive right into the Big Twists, it turns out that my guess about how this would end was basically the opposite of what I expected. I’ve said before that I expected the reveal to be that the world of V3 was a fictional story being broadcast to the ‘real’ DR world, but in the end, if we at least take the ending at face value, it was the entire DR franchise that was ‘fictional’ in the context of V3′s world. So that threw me off big-time. In general things escalated way more than I expected, and there were way more layers of meta going on than I thought there’d be.

But I love how that all tied into Tsumugi’s identity. Like, I totally believed that she was really Junko, or at least some kind of clone or descendant or whatever of Junko, and I accepted the idea that ‘Tsumugi’ was just a fake identity. But nope, Junko is just a character she’s cosplaying! I didn’t consider it at first because of the whole cospox plot point, but then the big twist happened and it became clear that she can cosplay as Junko because, in the world of V3, Junko is a fictional character.

The whole scenario of her continually switching between cosplays was, to be honest, genuinely disturbing. Especially since they got the original VAs to voice their appropriate lines. So it really felt as if all of the previous characters were coming in, which helped make the trial feel really fever dream-y, in a good way. It really hammered in that feeling of artificiality going on.

It’s interesting to me that, with how the whole ending worked, ‘Tsumugi’ was probably still a fake identity of sorts. Like how every other character’s identity was made up, to the point where it was heavily implied that even their names were fictional. So it’d make sense if Tsumugi’s whole identity was also fake. She called herself the Ultimate Cosplayer, but if we believe her story then the whole concept of Ultimates wouldn’t truly exist in their world anyway. But I like the implication that she was basically just pretending. It’s consistent with everything else, at least, and her talent didn’t really play into her actual plot role at all, just her ‘aesthetic’ as a character, if that makes sense. So I like the idea that she was just a random, ‘talentless’ member of Team Danganronpa who adopted a false identity in order to take part in the killing game. The idea that we might have never known her true identity at all beyond, well, her job position and her personality, makes me like her even more as a villain, somehow.

In general, I love how incredibly meta this ending was. I love how cynical it was. I love how it rejects itself as a franchise, and everyone playing it. It’s great. The fact that they openly talked about the Danganronpa franchise, Team Danganronpa, and the entire fandom, was just great. I totally get why the guilt-trip nature of it might bug people, but I like it. It’s certainly hard to argue against the point it’s making. This game only existed because people actively supported this series. Because they genuinely enjoyed experiencing the emotionally thrills and catharsis that the killing games gave them. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if the series just keeps going like nothing happened.

I’m aware that the ending wasn’t really intended to be genuinely spiteful towards it’s audience, especially since the final moments of the game are all about the audience changing their minds and deciding that they want to stop the killing games, and to also save as many of the remaining characters as possible, but there’s definitely still a very clear element of spite going on that can’t really be ignored. It’s very vocally aware and critical of the way that people enjoy violent media, even if it also accepts the possibility of people being able to change for the better and be positively influenced by the stories they read.

It just fascinates me that they even went this far. That they took their franchise to such an absurd point. That they created the idea of this fictional future where their own franchise would grow so big and so popular that they’d start killing real people to continue it. That they made themselves, as the people who made this game, the villains. It’s such an incredibly risky move that I’ve basically never seen before, especially if we take into account that this franchise has been going on for like 5+ years already. It’s also part of why I don’t think this ending was 100% spiteful toward it’s audience. Because, at the very least, it also holds itself accountable in all this. The devs are aware that they’re the ones actually sitting down to make these games in the first place. So it’s not like they’re placing all of the blame on their consumers.

The whole back and forth spiral of emotional tension and cynicism and hopefulness and redemption and self-awareness made the whole ending part incredibly intense and emotional. It really did feel like the people making the game were laying themselves bare and engaging in a direct conversation with the people playing their game, to ask them to consider the idea of violent media, and the idea of the authenticity of lies/fiction vs truth/reality.

Weirdly enough, this whole ending reminds me a fair bit of Nier: Automata, and that game’s entire thematic point. They’re very different games, in obvious ways, but they’re weirdly similar.

I didn’t really see the whole Argument Armament section coming, but oh man that part sure was an experience. Thankfully I’ve been slowly getting better at them, but it was still really stressful. But what truly made it special was hearing the voices of the audience during it. I just love the entire concept of you literally arguing against the voices of people saying stuff like ‘ugh, I hate meta endings like this!’ or ‘I’ve invested too much time and money into this franchise for it to just end!’ or ‘I just want to see people kill each other, death is the entire point of Danganronpa!’. And then eventually it just became a bit of an unending scream of ‘HOPE DESPAIR DESPAIR HOPE HOPE HOPE DESPAIR HOPE’, which was honestly the most perfect way it could have ended. With how obsessed this franchise has been with the concepts of hope and despair, and with how more and more emotional weight and baggage has been placed on those concepts, it’s very fitting that this game basically ends with you facing down a horde of disembodied voices mindlessly shouting out that words, and you telling them that you plan to end the Danganronpa franchise.

And on the whole note of that part, I really liked how Keebo played into the ending. Maybe it would have had more impact if he’d been the protagonist this whole time, but the idea of him being ‘the audience surrogate’ was really cool, if only because it set up the aforementioned scene. I also liked that he wasn’t immediately validated in being obsessed with hope. He wasn’t necessarily in the wrong or anything, but he wasn’t able to argue for hope in the face of despair in the way he wanted to. They also didn’t try and suddenly ignore Shuichi in favour of having Keebo suddenly be the protagonist in the end, so that was nice.

Before I talk about the epilogue and some other assorted points, I should say that the part where they explained the game’s title was AMAZING. I loved it so much. The reveal of this being ‘Danganronpa 53′ was such an effective ‘wait what’ moment. And then we got the incredible parody logos for Danganronpa 4-10. That was an amazing scene. And in general I just love the sorta-dystopian future that whole scene sketched out, of the DR franchise going on for such a long time that they eventually decided to hold a ‘real-life killing game’. But anyway, it also completely validated how weird this game’s title is. I guess on some level it’s still a bit unnecessarily confusing for it to have ‘3′ in the title, but I like that they gave such a surprising yet effective explanation for the ‘V’ part. I may or may not have laughed out loud when one of the random lines of audience dialogue said ‘V is the roman numeral for 5′. I don’t know why that was so funny to me, but it was.

The audience dialogue thing was also an amazing concept that added a lot of unexpected comedy to the situation. It did a great job of encapsulating the attitudes of the fandom. It was hilarious to see random lines of text floating about that were complaining about the ending being boring and them wanting to see an exciting clash between hope and despair. There were too many lines for me to remember, or to have even noticed in time, but a lot of them were really hilarious. I kinda lost it when they started complaining about Shuichi, and when they randomly started insulting him over how he didn’t have his hat anymore. That was great. Then we got some random and hilarious lines like ‘Shuichi is so yummy <3′. I think my favourite one was probably ‘Danganronpa 25 was the best one’. That made me laugh. The writers of these games know us so well, lol.

Though, as I kinda said above, I do appreciate that the audience got their own redemptive moment in choosing to allow the franchise to end by not voting, while also asking Keebo to do what he can to save everyone other than Tsumugi. That was really nice.

Back on the topic of the game’s title, I wish they’d kept the ‘everyone’s new semester of mutual killing’, since they ended up name-dropping it during this trial, but they never really brought up the English game’s subtitle outside of the part where the game’s full name was said. I think that the name-drop would have just had more impact if they’d kept it as the game’s subtitle in English. It’s a minor issue, though.

I kinda want to leave my thoughts on the epilogue for as late in this post as I can, so I should talk about some other points first.

I talked a bit about how this trial went back over and re-did chapter one’s trial, but I didn’t go into much detail about it. I thought it was a really neat concept, to go back over such an old case and point out how the conclusion everyone came to was wrong. I thought that that whole trial was complicated enough as it was, but I really wasn’t expecting there to be a whole other layer to what went down in it that was being saved until the end of the game. But it actually made a lot of sense. As I said, we knew from the start that Tsumugi went to the bathroom around when the murder happened, but that didn’t seem to be an important detail until we found out later that that’s where the hidden entrance was. They even took the time back in chapter one to go over her cospox to explain how she couldn’t have possibly been the killer, which did a good job at getting us to stop suspecting her. But as it turns out, she was able to kill Rantarou in a way that avoided needing to use her talent at all.

It also addressed the one thing I disliked about the first trial, at least in terms of the in-universe logic and mechanics of it. At the time, I suspended my disbelief about it, but the idea of someone being successfully killed via a complicated Rube Goldberg machine felt a bit contrived. So I love that the big twist was that Kaede’s whole complicated set-up actually ended with her missing her shot, and so Tsumugi had to rush in and beat Rantarou to death with a spare shot put ball to make it look like Kaede’s idea had worked. I don’t quite know why, but the image of Rantarou just being absolutely baffled by the fact that a shot put ball just fell by his feet out of nowhere, and Tsumugi panicking in the background and rushing in to beat him to death with ANOTHER shot put ball was just the most hilarious thing ever to me. It was great. But I do feel genuinely bad for Rantarou. He must have been so confused about all the unexpected things that happened in the moments before he died.

I’m also very grateful that part of the twist was that Kaede was truly innocent [beyond having had the genuine motive and intent to kill, but you get my point], and that, specifically, she wasn’t even related to the mastermind. After the twin sister reveal, I expected that part of the twist would be that Kaede was in on the mastermind’s plan the entire time, or at best was unaware of it but still related to the mastermind. I immediately thought that it’d be too lame and out of the blue for anything along those lines to be the case, so I’m glad that the twin sister thing was just a red herring, and that Kaede was just a random, everyday person. I guess this also means that her moments of being cross-eyed weren’t some sort of a hint at some kind of ‘mental instability’ or whatever. That’s nice. I didn’t really mention it at the time, if I remember right, since it didn’t really feel important enough to talk about, but I’m very thankful that the game didn’t use something like that as any sort of a sign toward someone being ‘crazy’ or villainous or whatever. I mean on some level they still played into that trope to some degree, if only in order to use it as a red herring, but still. One of my own eyes is kind of crossed, a bit, so it would have been slightly depressing to see something like that be used as that sort of plot point. I sure didn’t expect a game like this to give me a reason to bring up that kind of a personal detail, but here we are!

This also gets me onto the topic of Rantarou himself, and . . . honestly, his entire deal ended up feeling really disappointing. He kinda just served to give an example that backed up what Tsumugi said about the state of the world. We didn’t really learn anything new about him. We just got a bit of context for what killing game he was a part of, and why he got roped into this one. Which is fine. I just kinda wanted something . . . more. I think he’s the kind of character who I might want to spend some time thinking about before I make a final decision on how I feel about his place in the story. I’m at least genuinely curious about how exactly his killing game ended up, for him to end up as the Ultimate Survivor. I’m still not entirely sure how that whole concept works, especially when they casually mentioned that if they executed Tsumugi, then Maki would become the new Ultimate Survivor, which I still don’t quite understand, since she was one of the ones volunteering to die in order to let everyone ELSE survive. Anyway, I think the basic implication is that he was the only survivor of his game, so I wonder if that means that he killed someone and successfully escaped. It’s the only way I could really see it ending up that way. I guess the alternative option is that maybe he and one other person survived and escaped because of the rule about the killing game ending at that point. I’m not sure, though, since it seems odd that only one of them would have been called the Ultimate Survivor and forced into this killing game, and not both of them. Then again there might also be something else to it, with how he implied in his video message that there was some trick to the ‘two survivors’ rule, but I still can’t quite work out what that would be. Either way, with what we know now, I feel like his whole thing of saying that he wanted this killing game to happen makes me think that he was taking some kind of genuine pleasure out of it. If it was just a matter of him saying that he needed to win, it might have just been out of a desire to survive, but in that case I don’t think he’s say that he wanted this game to happen. I dunno. His whole character feels weirdly confusing to me, but maybe it’ll make more sense once I spend some time going over things in my head.

And on a similar note, I said before that I expected the Monokubs to be somehow based upon other survivors from his game, but I guess that one didn’t pan out the way I expected. What WAS the point of the Monokubs, in the end? Was the entire running thing of them seemingly having repressed memories like everyone else a red herring? It felt like their characters just sorta stopped existing early on in this trial after they all got blown up and then never mentioned again. I wouldn’t be too surprised if they were genuinely pointless, but it’d still be a bit lame.

I guess I’m on a bit of a roll here with talking about specific characters, so I should take this time to say that I honestly feel kinda bad for Kokichi now. This trial didn’t really tell us anything new about him, but it spelled out a lot of the fairly obvious things being hinted at, and it made it abundantly clear that he wasn’t really a bad person at all. He didn’t have anything to do with this. He really was completely lying about being the mastermind in order to try and stop the game. Even his gang seems pretty harmless. So it’s pretty hard not to feel bad for him, even if he was still genuinely annoying and irritating as a person. Though now that we’ve gotten to the end of the game, I’m still a bit confused about all of the stuff that went down in chapter four that pointed toward him being obsessed with Shuichi, and jealous of Kaito’s closeness with him. I still feel like there were very deliberate hints pointing in that direction, but it never went anywhere. There’s at least the whole ‘when I find someone I like, I do anything I can to make them notice me, even if it means strangling them’ scene, which seems even more confusing to me now. I dunno. Maybe he DID have his own feelings for Shuichi, and it just didn’t get explicitly mentioned in the game itself. Maybe it’ll be elaborated on more in his free time events, and post-game stuff in general. Either way, it still feels like a bit of a strange loose end. Maybe I’m reading too much into things.

Though it’s hard to unironically call anyone in this game innocent or sympathetic after the whole plot twist about them all being Danganronpa fans who volunteered to take place in a killing game. That sure was a twist. A lot of the ending had a more comedic tone to it, even if basically all of it was genuinely kinda horrifying and emotional and involved the characters finding out that everything they knew was a lie, but that part in particular stuck out to me as being 100% horrifying. Although it was kinda amusing seeing the game point out via Shuichi that there’s already been several detectives in the franchise. Which I guess takes on a slightly different context when you think about this being the 53rd entry in the franchise, but you get what I mean. Everything else was just depressing and unexpected, though. Seeing Shuichi excitedly talk about having planned out an exciting murder AND execution for himself, and how neat it’d be to have a detective become a murderer, was really hard to sit through, especially since he still had that little moment of being flustered about not wanting to be too demanding toward the people running the games, that made it clear that it was still genuinely him saying it. Then we got the part of Kaede saying that she has no real faith in humanity, which just hurt a lot. And then they dragged Kaito of all people into it and I started to genuinely wish the scene would stop because I didn’t want to see what he had to say. But then he went and had the most terrifying audition of the three, where he talked excitedly about wanting to murder everyone else in the game. That really just twisted the knife that had already been stabbed into my heart after the first two auditions we saw.

So it’s hard to be TOO sympathetic of anyone when all of them genuinely wanted this. I guess, come to think of it, this also probably ties into what Rantarou said about him wanting this to happen. He probably did genuinely like the idea of taking part in these games. Which puts a really sinister twist on his character, and also every other character in the game.

In general it’s kinda awkward to talk about any of the characters in the way they’re presented to us, now that we know that all of their backstories and talents and stuff are just lies, and that they’re actually just normal people who willingly took part in a death game. We probably don’t even know any of their real names. But it’s pretty clear that a big part of the game’s message is that just because these things might be lies, it doesn’t mean that they’re ‘not true’. These are still the characters we know and love. These are still the people that they genuinely believe themselves to be. At least after having their memories replaced, they became people who didn’t want to kill others, who were horrified by the idea of it, who banded together to stop it. For the most part. You get what I mean. So there’s still value in the characters as we knew them, even if they were the result of taking existing people and then replacing all of their memories and giving them new identities. There’s still value in the experiences they went through, the lessons they learned, the feelings that they experienced, and even the feelings that we experienced because of them. In spite of this trial’s set of reveals, it really was, in the end, a celebration of the power of fiction. It embraced the value and meaning of fictional characters and their stories. It validated the characters, and the experiences they had in this game. So I’m still allowing myself to see them as the people we knew them as, and to feel sympathy with them because of it.

It’s really disturbing to consider that the identities they were given were just . . . made-up identities that had barely anything to do with who they were before. It’s especially depressing to think about how all of their motives and whatnot were thus completely made-up and pointless. All of their backstories and traumas and whatnot were just fictional. Which makes it really depressing to think back on topics like Ryoma’s self-loathing because of his past, or Kirumi’s dedication to protecting the country even if it meant killing everyone else in the game, or Maki’s history with being trained as an assassin and how that basically broke her as a person. In a sense, those things still hold weight and validity because the characters at least BELIEVED them to be true, but it’s still just . . . depressing to think about how much pain was put onto these characters in the name of giving them interesting backstories and whatnot. This also presumably means that Kiyo wasn’t ACTUALLY a psychopathic serial-killer who had an incestuous relationship with his sister. Huh. He sure got the short end of the stick in terms of how his backstory reflected upon him as a person.

[Fake edit: I don’t know how I forgot about it, but there’s also the fact that apparently Kaito was just given a terminal illness as part of his backstory, which is a really fucking disturbing concept. To think that they just casually decided to make things more interesting by messing with his health like that. Especially since it’s pretty easy to guess that they gave it to him because of how enthusiastic he seemed to be about wanting to kill everyone. So it’s like they were giving him the illness as a sort of dramatic irony, to set up a scenario along the lines of him dying from his illness after he killed all of his friends, making everything he did pointless. And of course there would have been the additional angle of it becoming something that the audience at home could sympathize with him because of, which . . . definitely worked, I suppose.]

But obviously the characters weren’t exactly all clean and sinless individuals before this game, even if these depressing backstories and whatnot are fake. They clearly all had their own problems before the game started. And the characters we know now are probably at least nicer, on average, than the people we saw in those auditions.

And as I said above, Tsumugi was probably no different. She clearly knows all about what her life was like before this game, but Tsumugi as we knew her for 99% of the game was almost certainly a false identity. She was still the closest to her original self out of everyone in the game, but still.

At least we know that, on a visual level, it was only their outfits that got changed. So that’s nice to know, I guess, even if it’s not particularly important.

Now that I’ve gotten to the end of the game, I can finally talk about the last major thing I got spoiled about! Which didn’t even technically end up being completely accurate in it’s implication anyway! Yay!

Basically, a week or two before I started playing the game, I was just scrolling down my dash, and one of the recommended posts was a fucking DRV3 meme about Shuichi rejecting both hope and despair, in favour of dying. Of all the ways to be spoiled, I got spoiled via a goddamn meme, and of all the things to be spoiled about, I got spoiled about THAT. So throughout this ENTIRE game, I’ve had the vague idea of Shuichi dying stuck in my head. Which has been kinda agonizing. I’m so glad that it wasn’t actually accurate, and that he lived, but I still hate that I got spoiled about it. I suppose that I only had myself to blame for not having installed xkit by then in order to blacklist the DR tags, but still. Considering that I had never posted anything about DR before that point, I can’t really be blamed for assuming that Tumblr wouldn’t decide to just randomly suggest me a post about it.

That point, and the point of me having seen a screenshot from Kiyo’s execution, were the main things I got spoiled about. I also thought I got spoiled about someone [aka Kaito] killing because of their terminal illness, which ended up being technically untrue and probably just a made-up example of the sorts of motives in this game, even though it still lead me to the correct assumption of ‘Kaito ends up being a killer’. Those are the main things. I also knew in advance that this game has a really controversial ending, and that it has a bonus dating sim mode thing, but I didn’t know anything specific about those things, so the nature of the ending still surprised me, and honestly the existence of a dating sim mode isn’t really a spoiler to me.

So yeah, those are the things I knew about this game in advance. I wish I could have gone in COMPLETELY blind, but oh well. It didn’t end up affecting my enjoyment of the game as much as I was scared it might.

Anyway, the main character left who I want to talk about is Shuichi. I’ve already talked about basically everyone else, including Keebo and Himiko, and I don’t really think there’s much to say about Maki. I still love her a lot as a character, but this part didn’t really give me much to say about her that I haven’t said already, except for one detail [that I’ve kinda already talked about] that I guess I’ll mention again in a second.

Though I guess it’s also worth talking a little bit about the surviving cast. Which I’m more or less including Keebo and Tsumugi in, even though they died at the very end. The fact that Shuichi, Maki, and Keebo lived until [more or less] the very end was pretty predictable since they’re all so noteworthy, although as I said above I genuinely expected this to end with Shuichi dead, so I suppose it ended up being surprising that he actually lived to the very end. In that sense I guess Maki was the most predictable survivor. And obviously Tsumugi staying alive until at least the final trial made sense, in the end, since she was the mastermind. So other than Shuichi who was surprising for his own unique reasons, I’m still slightly baffled by Himiko surviving. Even in spite of her [relatively minimal] development and focus, she still felt really weird as part of the final three characters, next to much more important ones like Shuichi and Maki. But this sorta thing always happens in these games, and it’s probably a good thing that at least one of the survivors was someone who I would never have expected to survive.

Anyway, on the topic of Shuichi. I still adore this boy with all my heart and soul. He’s wonderful. At this point he probably beats out Hinata as my favourite DR protagonist. He’s such an incredibly good boy who deserved a much better life than what he got. I’m just kinda casually ignoring the stuff we learned in his audition, lol. But I kinda have to ignore that whole can of worms if I want to talk about what I like about any of the characters, really. I really felt horrible for him during this entire trial, especially after the reveals started kicking in. Seeing him go through so much emotional pain, until he decided to just accept death as a means to put an end to the killing games, just kinda broke my heart. There’s several points during the overall trial/ending that I nearly teared up at, and him talking about how in spite of the fact that everything he went through might have been a lie, the pain in his heart was still real, was definitely one of them. That really hit me hard. I loved seeing him be so resolute in saying that the concept of the killing games is horrific and deserve to be stopped even at the cost of his own life, but it was still hard to watch.

I hate to keep bringing this point up again, especially at this point, but I still at least like to believe that he had his own crush on Kaito. I’m very aware, especially now that the game’s definitively over [aside from the bonus stuff], that it’s probably not canon, but I still choose to believe it. I’m still choosing to believe in the way that his story and his thoughts and feelings toward Kaito came across to me. And hey, in spite of the guilt-trip-y nature of parts of this ending, it was ultimately still a celebration of the meaning of fiction and the validity of the things that fictional characters allow us to experience, so I don’t feel too bad about sticking to this interpretation. I know that the game made a pretty clear point to address Maki’s feelings for Kaito while not saying the same sort of thing about Shuichi’s feelings, but still. Though I should say that it’s not like any of this meant that I felt negatively about Maki’s feelings for Kaito and how they were portrayed. I still felt bad about seeing her find out that they were more or less a lie that had been written out as part of her character. I mean, it’s hard to call those feelings a lie when they were based upon the sorts of interactions and dynamics that would understandably lead to such a thing, so I won’t dismiss her feelings or call them fake or anything, but I can also see how the game was organized to force her to feel that way, which is still fucked up.

This is getting more into headcanon territory, there’s certainly something appealing about the idea of Shuichi developing feelings for Kaito without it having been ‘written out in advance’. Again, I’m not trying to imply that that whole deal makes this sorta thing less genuine, but still. There’s something both cute yet tragic in seeing things through this lens of Shuichi developing feelings that nobody had expected or planned for. Especially since, in hindsight, even if it might not be ‘canon’, I wouldn’t be surprised if Kaede was literally written by Tsumugi as being ‘Shuichi’s designated love interest’. They were even literally shoved into adjacent lockers, just to hammer in the fact that the game basically shoved them together. This isn’t some kind of ship hate, though. I actually still quite like Shuichi/Kaede as a ship, as I’ve said a few times before. But with how this ending works and what it says about the game in hindsight, it’s hard not to retroactively interpret these sorts of things through this kind of lens. With how many things Tsumugi specifically pointed out as being part of a pre-written script, it’s hard not to wonder just how many character points and relationship dynamics were similarly ‘part of the script’. And out of basically everything that didn’t get explicitly talked about, Shuichi and Kaede’s dynamic seems like the most likely think that was ‘forced’ to happen. Especially if we assume that Tsumugi might have expected her to survive for most of the game, whereas she died basically immediately and then Shuichi spent most of the game interacting with Kaito [and Maki, to a slightly lesser extent].

So even if I won’t really be as bold as to call any of this canon, there’s definitely room to make some interesting interpretations regarding concepts like the sometimes ‘forced’ nature of love interest scenarios in media. In spite of my warm feelings toward Shuichi/Kaede as a ship, I can’t help but me very intrigued by the idea of him not following along with that whole dynamic that was set up from the start, and instead getting cut off from her almost immediately, and instead spending most of the rest of the game with Kaito, in a way that might not have been planned for. I like the idea of a character like Shuichi indirectly rejecting the heterosexual romance set-up that he was basically shoved into, and instead developing feelings for another boy in a way that nobody planned for, entirely of his own volition. It’s just an appealing idea to me. I guess along these sames lines it’d be hard not to also look at Maki’s romantic feelings for Kaito that were explicitly fabricated, but as I said above I have no interest in engaging in ship hate, or denying her feelings. You get what I mean, though. I also can’t help but think back to that one scene where Maki asked Shuichi if he liked Kaede or not, and he just kinda vaguely said that it’d be normal to like someone even in a situation like this, and after that his hypothetical feelings for her pretty much never came up again. Not explicitly, at least. I figured at the time that he ‘obviously’ had to have been in love with her, because that’s how these things work, but after the concept of romantic feelings being fabricated came up explicitly in canon, it’s hard not to look back on that scene and wonder if there was anything more to it.

Another thing along these lines that’s kinda interesting to think about in hindsight was that it was Tsumugi who had that one off-hand line about asking Shuichi if he, Maki, and Kaito, were part of a ‘reverse love triangle’, which he hurriedly denied. At the time I was kinda intrigued by that line’s existence since it, in addition to Shuichi’s whole ‘I shouldn’t talk about another boy like that’ line, made it explicitly clear that the game was at least aware of how romantic his feelings for Shuichi come off as being, but that line certainly gains an interesting new context when you know that Tsumugi is the mastermind who knows everything, including the ‘settings’ of every character. I can’t tell if this somehow supports my whole aforementioned interpretation of events, or if it implies that this whole set-up in my head might have been intentionally planned by Tsumugi. I’m not really sure. It’s hard to tell just based on that one line if this might have been something she specifically wrote into Shuichi’s character. Though the fact that she goes out of her way to basically mock Maki over her fabricated feelings for Kaito, while not doing the same for Shuichi, makes me think that she only wrote Maki as being in love with him.

So for now I’m sticking to this whole headcanon interpretation, partly because I just fundamentally ship Shuichi and Kaito, and partly because I like this hypothetical meta-narrative subversion of romantic tropes in media.

Anyway I think that’s basically everything I feel like saying about the characters, and most of the story beats. Before I talk about the epilogue, and my feelings on the game as a whole, I should probably talk about a few more of my issues with the game.

I think we can all agree that the mini-games were, and always have been, largely pointless and unnecessary. They’re just not very great. They’re definitely more stream-lined and not as clunky as they used to be, but they sometimes feel SO ‘stream-lined’ and simplistic in design that I start to question why they even exist. The Psyche Taxi is probably the biggest offender of that. It’s such a waste of time. It never tells you anything new. It’s just this painfully drawn out procedure of the game spelling out stuff that it just went over a minute ago, and there’s not even any way to make it go by any faster because there’s a limit to how fast the car can go. I never felt like it did anything to help me solve any mysteries, at least from what I can remember. I think that the Mind Mine thing also felt pretty unnecessary, with there being only like one time where I had to think about which option to choose. I also never ran out of time in it or anything. The Hangman’s Gambit was also pretty bad, but mostly just an exercise in frustration where I either know what the answer is but have to figure out what exact wording the game wants from me, or I have no clue what it wants, and I have to awkwardly stumble my way into a solution. Which at least got a bit more manageable when I got the skill that shows the first letter of the answer immediately.

The sword rebuttal game was fine. It’s a neat representation of arguing with someone, though it usually wasn’t too difficult to figure out the logic of what to do, and sometimes the slicing mechanic just felt a bit clunky and hard to control. There were definitely a few moments where I felt stumped by the logic of them, though. The Mass Panic Debates were also OK, though they ended up never being anywhere near as difficult as I expected. I think that they were afraid of them overwhelming people, so they never made the logic of them too difficult. I don’t even think I needed to get that one skill that lets you focus on one conversation at a time. I’m glad I got the skill that silences loud voices, but that wasn’t really part of the inherent difficulty of those parts, and more just an annoyance that I got a skill to get rid of. The Scrum Debates were a really neat concept, but they felt woefully shallow and under-used. It basically always felt like the logic of them was just another Psyche Taxi-esque scenario of the characters rehashing an argument they’d already gone over before, with it just sometimes being guesswork to figure out which keyword was meant to argue against each statement. I really wish that they could have re-worked it so that new sorts of arguments and debates came up during them, that made me think about it from different angles. I also wish that there could have been more than one of them per trial, since that just lead to them feeling really minor, especially since we didn’t even get one in chapter six, so there were only five in the entire game. I think that there was also only one Mass Panic Debate per trial, which similarly made those parts feel kinda shallow and forgettable in spite of how both of them were hyped up as the new mini-game types. I guess I’m glad that they never tripped me up too hard, but it was also a bit disappointing that they never felt very exciting or meaningful.

Also, even though it wasn’t really a ‘mini-game’, I was never a huge fan of the sections where you have to browse your entire list of truth bullets and pick one. Those parts nearly always fell into being either so easy that it wasn’t any kind of a challenge, or so weird in their logic that I almost had to brute-force the answer.

In general the best part of the trials gameplay-wise were just the regular non-stop debates. Nearly everything else feels kinda unnecessary. But the regular debates were really good. They obviously varied a whole lot in difficulty, but that’s fine.

And even though this isn’t a complaint, I should round this section off by saying that the Argument Armament parts were really good and I have no real issues with them, other than that I kinda suck at rhythm games, so it took like half the game before I started getting actually good at them. I can’t really say that they were TOO difficult as rhythm games in spite of my inherent lack of skills at the genre, since I’ve seen a lot worse from regular rhythm games, and I’ve also witnessed the absolute insane nightmare known as Drakengard 3′s final boss, but still, it probably would have been had if they were genuinely difficult as rhythm games, and in practice they were at least difficult enough for me to struggle with them, and they made the finales of each trial appropriately climactic. Plus, as I said before, the one with Keebo was absolutely great as a way of representing the idea of arguing against the entire DR fandom.

The closing arguments have also always been a really neat idea, and I’ve always loved the aesthetic of them. Including the music. They’re always a neat way to end things off in a trial. The puzzle element of them still does feel a little pointless since the entire mystery’s already been solved and so it feels a bit like padding, but it’s not a big deal.

I guess I’m getting off-track in terms of talking about my complaints about the game, but other than the mini-games being largely boring or obnoxious, there’s not much else to go on. Maybe I should go back and quickly give my thoughts on each case’s murder mystery, just to end things off.

Chapter 1′s case is still a major highlight of the game, if not the entire franchise. I love it a lot. I guess it’s probably the most interesting case in the entire game, but most of the rest of them are still very good too, and this wasn’t the one I had the most difficulty with, even if I didn’t see the identity of the culprit coming. I still have general issues with the basic concept of setting up a female protagonist only to replace them almost immediately with a male one, but it still played out in a really compelling and emotional way, and at least fulfilled my desire to see a DR protagonist become a murderer, in a way that I didn’t even see coming even though they laid out hints for it in advance. Though obviously it’s impossible to talk about it without talking about the chapter six twist about how her plan actually failed, even though Kaede herself thought it did. That was a really neat extra layer to that whole mystery. I’m also still kinda sad that they killed off Rantarou immediately, especially since I feel like the endgame did a bit less to develop his character than I wanted it to. He’s definitely someone who I want to learn the most about via free time events and stuff.

Chapter 2′s case was probably the one that at least felt the most difficult to me, at least when I was actually sitting down and going through the trial. It was probably because I was playing it later at night than I should have, but as I talked about earlier in this liveblog, it just kicked my ass. It was the only trial in the game that I had to take a break from and come back to a day later to finish it, though a big part of that was due to me misunderstanding how retrying parts of the trial worked. Either way, I can’t help but commend Kirumi for setting up a mystery that, at least to me, was very difficult to solve. I’m also still sad that they killed off Ryoma early on as well, since he was another favourite of mine, but I liked his role in this chapter so I’m fine with it. This chapter in particular is one of the more depressing ones when you know in hindsight that everyone’s backstories were completely fabricated and forced upon them.

Chapter 3′s case was weird and I think most people also probably see it as a low point of the game. I loved the whole occult aesthetic of it, and the plot twist of killing someone off during an investigation, but it ended up feeling too easy. It was weird, though. Like, the identity of the culprit was obvious from the start, even ignoring that I’d been spoiled about it, but the actual logic behind how the murders happened, mostly Tenko’s, felt surprisingly difficult to me. It was basically at the same level as Kirumi’s case in that sense, but maybe even higher than that since I distinctly remember dying in this trial like five times, but I didn’t need to stop and come back to it later since by this point I knew that retrying parts of a trial if you die isn’t really a big problem. The motive in this case was definitely the most bizarre, not to mention the most unsympathetic. It’s almost weird how in a game filled with mostly sympathetic and understandable killers like Kaede, Kirumi, Gonta, and Kaito, you have Mr. Psychopathic Incestuous Serial Killer thrown right into the middle. It was just bizarre. I also wasn’t a huge fan of the game for killing off Tenko, a lesbian, in a way that was explicitly described as being ‘a pointless waste’. But whatever. I quite liked Angie’s whole sub-plot in this chapter as well, though I’m glad she got killed off.

Chapter 4′s case is still . . . iffy to me. I know that it was intentionally unsatisfying and kinda depressing and out of the blue, but it just really threw me off and felt really disappointing. It’s probably my least favourite case in the game, but maybe chapter three is worse than it. It doesn’t help that this whole chapter happened before Kokichi started getting any degree of redeeming or even particularly interesting qualities, at least in my opinion. I also still feel a bit let down by how the whole climax felt so weird and unexpected that I wasn’t even as depressed by Gonta’s death as I should have been, considering how much I liked him as a character. There were definitely a few parts that got to me, but not too many. I really liked the whole virtual world concept, though, even if most of the mysteries related to it felt painfully easy to guess. This chapter also made me like Miu a fair bit more, and it was pretty neat getting a case about someone’s murder attempt getting turned against them, even if it’s not a completely original concept in this franchise. I also still feel a bit confused about certain aspects of Kokichi’s feelings and motives in this chapter in particular, as I went over before, but it’s not a big deal. [Honestly, my favourite part of chapter four was probably just finishing off Kaito’s free time events.]

Chapter 5′s case was really depressing, and also way more complicated than I expected it would be. I at least remember it feeling pretty difficult, though the effect was lessened a bit because of the weird detail of me kinda-sorta-not-really-but-technically being spoiled about Kaito being a killer, which made the outcome of this case pretty obvious. But it was more about the ‘how’ and the ‘why’ than the ‘who’, in the end. This is where I started liking Kokichi a lot more as a character, which also makes me think back about this chapter positively. And obviously I love every part of the game that has Kaito in it [except for the one obvious exception, lol], so that made it a really emotional ride as well. Having to actively pick him in the vote and have him get executed was incredibly painful.

I guess there’s not much to say about Chapter 6′s case that I haven’t said already, so . . . yeah. It’s obviously not a murder mystery trial like the others so I can’t compare it to those ones in that sense, but it was probably still my favourite trial just due to how incredibly intense it was, and how much of an emotional roller-coaster it put me through. It’s at least easily my favourite chapter six trial in the series.

I don’t think there’s much else to say about the characters, other than that they’re probably my favourite cast in the series, as a whole. It’s hard to compare them to the casts of DR1 and DR2, since they all feel like they’re going for slightly different things, but still. I just love this game’s cast a lot. It probably helps that this was the first game I actually played for myself rather than reading/watching an LP of. There were definitely a few characters I felt ambivalent about to the very end, like Himiko, but for the most part I liked them. And chapter six definitely made me like Keebo and Tsumugi a lot more, in very different ways. I’m still kinda ambivalent toward Keebo, but he at least ended up being more than just pure comic relief, though I still dislike how his ‘persecution complex’ is framed by the narrative, with how he gets treated by everyone in practice. I liked the vague idea brought up of him learning to embrace the things that make him unique, but it fell kinda flat because of how badly his character as a whole was executed. And as I said above, I really like Tsumugi now, after having seen her as boring and pointless up until this point, even though she definitely feels less like her own unique character, and more of a representation of ‘the ending of DRV3′, and all that entails. I still think that I might prefer her as a villain to Junko, but it’s hard to compare them. Again, it’s kinda less about them as individuals, and more about them as the concepts they represent. Anyway, the characters I liked least were almost definitely Himiko and Kiyo. At least with Kokichi he was still a genuinely interesting and complex character who I slowly warmed up to, Rantarou was just sorta disappointing rather than actively bad, and Angie served an interesting plot purpose even if she was hard to like as a person, and pretty flat. Himiko and Kiyo were the ones with least going for them. Mostly Kiyo, whose entire purpose was just to be really creepy and off-putting. I’m more ambivalent about Himiko. I just wish that she felt more . . . interesting, I guess, or had more development. But in general I actively liked the majority of the cast, by the end.

Anyway, I suppose I should finally talk about the epilogue, although there’s not really much to say about it at this point. It was just really good. I was initially skeptical of the idea of the ending ‘backpedaling’ on actually killing everyone off, but at least Tsumugi and Keebo genuinely died, and I really liked the way that everyone else surviving played into the element of the audience themselves having their own redemption moment of sorts. The part where Shuichi says something along the lines of ‘maybe they wanted this lie to become the truth’ was one of the moments in this part that nearly made me cry. I think it put me the closest to actually crying, honestly. It was just a really effective way of tying together this game’s lies vs truth theme in with the whole theme of the power of fiction and the redemption of the audience. The idea of us, as the audience, loving these characters enough to want them to live, to want their ‘lie’ to become a new sort of ‘truth’, really got to me. And on that whole note, I forgot to mention it, but I really loved Shuichi’s whole speech about the love between all of them, and how the love passed onto them from everyone that died has meaning, and can even change the world itself if it could successfully get through to the audience and change their minds. That was a really nice scene. I also couldn’t help but like it when Maki pointed out how much Shuichi was sounding like Kaito, and how obviously Shuichi could do something like change the world, since he’s Kaito’s sidekick. And, of course, the part where Shuichi used Kaito’s catch-phrase about the impossible being possible also really got to me.

It’s interesting that, right at the end, the game basically calls into question everything that Tsumugi said, and made it unclear what the outside world will truly be like. I can see why that might seem unsatisfying and wishy-washy to people, but I like it. I like that, to the very end, you can never tell for sure what the truth is. It really gets across what the game is trying to say about the concept of truth vs lies. And on that whole note, I loved Shuichi’s whole part of saying that you can’t really call either truth or lies ‘bad’, and that lies can be just another way of telling the truth. It’s a simple concept, but it hit pretty hard as the culmination of this entire game. And I quite liked the final line of [from what I remember] ‘If the world can change to even a small degree, then this story won’t end’. That was a nice way to end things off. The whole ambiguity of this ending does make me wonder if they’ll decide to genuinely continue the series. I honestly hope they don’t. Partly just because I really resonated with the whole point about the killing games being inherently evil and needing to be stopped, but also partly because it’d kinda destroy the ambiguity of this ending. We’ll see. I’ll probably be fine either way.

I feel like Tsumugi’s final words about her being a ‘cosplaycat killer’, and her seemingly disappointed or annoyed expression before she died, will nag at my brain for a while. But I think that’s a good thing, that the game’s leaving me wondering about what her deal is, even to the end.

I think I’ve finally, finally run out of things to say, so all I can do is just say that this was a fantastic game. I get why a lot of people disliked it, but I really loved it a lot, even if it had some issues. It was undoubtedly my favourite game in the series, though. I certainly prefer it over DR3 as a conclusion to the franchise. I’m kinda sad that this is the sort of game where you can’t really explain why it’s so good without spoiling people. That sucks. And it’s also the sort of game that only really has it’s full impact if you’ve experienced the franchise up to this point, so I couldn’t suggest that someone go into it blind.

As I’ve said before, I’ll check out whatever post-game bonus stuff there is to do, so that’ll be the rest of this liveblog. I’m not sure how many posts it’ll take to finish it all off, and how much time it’ll take, but we’ll see. I think I might take a bit of a break from the game for a day or two in order to let my thoughts on it simmer for a while, and also so I can do some other things I need to do. Once I’m done with the entire game, that’ll probably be when I allow myself to dive into the fandom, finally. That’ll be interesting. I’m not entirely sure if I’ll reblog fanart and stuff, though, in case I want to keep my followers unspoiled. I dunno. There’s probably a good amount of stuff that’s not TOO spoiler-y that I can reblog. And to be honest I wouldn’t be surprised if I even end up making some of my own fanart. I at least really want to draw Shuichi and Kaito, for obvious reasons. But this franchise in general tends to have the sorts of characters that make me want to draw them, so who knows what I’ll do.

Anyway I need to forcibly stop myself from continuing this post because my brain is starting to melt a little bit and I need to go to sleep, lol.

#murasaki rambles #danganronpa #danganronpa v3 #danganronpa v3 spoilers #I can't believe this ended up being so goddamn long #then again this part of the game took me like 4-5 hours to play through #and very nearly the same amount of time on and off to actually write this post up

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