#also it shows that i get attached so easily but in reality ... ppl are not at all as attached to me 💀💀

[silenthillbunni]

🌧️🫧💭

[ghouljams]

rereading ur aus and seeing so many ppl share their ocs made me want to join the dance line ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ (this is my first ask non-anon and prolly like my third ever ask so sorry for the word jumble, im nerVOUS).

I think I will name my little blorbo Stitch. The reason for her name is that she sells handmade plushies online (+ works part time at the local art store to make ends meet) and she gets hurt easily that it isn't too surprising for her to get stitches the various falls and cooking injuries. She's neighbors with Love and they get along very well (girlys with more than a few screws loose) and even gifted a green teddy bear to cabbage when she found out abt the changeling. Stitch is fully human, and at first it was for shits and giggles but it quickly became set that she had like, no magic. nothing. empty like a brick. It's to the point where, idk, I hope this works in this world, even the most normal human at least gets goosebumps/bad feeling (brush it off as the weather or just life stress) when faes are around, but she just don't feel shit. She doesn't have nor retains any magic, so faes can still get hooks in her, but like too strong of a tug and it would *physically* come straight off. Hence her random injuries, and the depth of the injury will depend on the weight of the tether. Tapping doesnt work on her either but it does make her throw up and physically ill.

Still figuring out how this would've happened, but so far my fav idea is that a fae scared her so bad as a child that something went wrong. I know this is mixing cultures, but my mum once told me (and i cannOT for my life find online material supporting this belief) that in the chinese culture one of the ways they explain why children see shit is because they retain the most connections to the Heaven Realm as newly reincarnated subjects (and the connection fades with age and blah blah). So maybe Stitch was seeing the faes so vividly that shit wrecked her to the point a screw goes loose (mentally, emotionally, magically (??) and physically (her hair grows gray now)).

The mental image that started this all is just Stitch walking in the streets looking like a fucking porcupine with all the tethers attached to her and maybe Konig passing by feeling confused that this human?? showed absolutely?? no sign of discomfort (which i assume should be unusually in his presence)??? Ghost once tried (for the first and last time) touching one of the hooks when she was chatting with Love and watches in slight horror (and surprised) as she starts bleeding from a cut on her arm as the hook disappears. Stitch just slaps duct tape (the only thing she had with her) over the wound to stop the blood with a big ol' grin and "It happens :)". 1fae1 def heard abt this incident and maybe even Price is befuddled

Once again, sorry for the word vomit, hope u at least enjoyed reading this mess and here's a giggle scribble of Stitch and Ghost + her dumb ugly mug <3

Love love love love love Stitch.

My Sister's OC Hell is also neighbors with Love, so join the party!!

Yeah people like Stitch exist in the fae au and I have not gotten a chance to talk about them because most of the darlings have fairly run of the mill human shit going on. BUT The humans that have just zero magic, and don't retain magic to any degree are called "Sinks". Y'know because the magic just sort of sinks into them and is lost forever. The fae are a little iffy around Sinks because yeah their hooks don't catch them right, and I think even for Witch it's like walking past a hole in reality.

Konig would be very confused, Sinks aren't super common and he would probably follow poor Stitch for a while just trying to figure out what was going on. At least Ghost has to play nice because Love likes Stitch. Love would like Stitch a LOT. Mostly because she's like a golden retriever, but also because she would be so excited to have someone to craft with! Yes, please come over to her flat and sew while she journals, here hold to baby so she doesn't get fussy, no don't worry about Ghost staring he just does that.

[cray0n-b0x]

Stares. Really hard at Alistair .... tell me about them . .. pls... I must know more

ah yes lol the boy, he always seems to be a crowd fav, hes p much the main character and i think the oc ive had the longest? at least the longest Mostly unchanged

he was british but now cuz my new oc story he's in is set in Not reality hes not but still british accent cuz lol i like it

very irritable, easily annoyed, yells a lot and gets into fights

but also super sweet when he likes ppl he just sucks at showing it (tsundere ass mf)

likes poetry, horror, and rock music, wants to be a rockstar or an actor but gets too much stage fright for either, he plays guitar and writes poetry but is too embarrassed to show people

he's intersex! but identifies as male, he has male outer parts but went through a mixed puberty, so hes pretty androgynous and people think hes a girl a lot (but he has a deep voice so.. idk he just confuses people)

very punk

very bisexual

other things he likes!!! :cats, dark chocolate, mint Anything, coffee, nature, rain, smoking, arson

had a rly shitty upbringing so he has a Lot of mental problems, he was abused young then passed between orphanages and foster homes and never rly got a stable life

allergic to alliums, ie onion & garlic

has weird attachment problems so he either hates and distrusts everyone or is weirdly and unhealthily attached and loyal to certain people

nicotine addict + has so many vices

has a pet cat named Holly

[thedeadflag]

I’m so confused! I know it’s not your responsibility to educate me but in your post bringing awareness to the negative aspects of g!p fanfic you say

“Why do these g!p characters rarely if ever involve experiences reflective of trans/intersex women? Why are they so utterly cis and perisex-washed? Why do nearly all writers have zero idea that tucking is a thing? “

Doesn’t that answer your original question? The reason they don’t reflect those groups of ppl is bc g!p isn’t trying to represent those groups of people or else it WOULD be transphobic to limit them to one specific fetish right? it just refers to a canonically female character with the addition of a penis (I don’t argue the name “g!p” should be changed bc that’s a no brainer why that could be offensive). But the fanfic in general, how could it be harmful? I’ve noticed in my time reading it as a non binary person it’s given me great gender euphoria reading a reader insert where reader has a penis while being a femme representing person just bc that’s a reflection of my personal experience. I don’t see anywhere where g!p fanfic ever references or tries to emulate the experiences of trans or intersex people so how could it be offensive?

Sorry this is way too long I’m just very confused

I'm going to try and lay this out as politely as I can. It's after 3:30 in the morning here, so this could be a bit disjointed and rambling. More under the cut:

In real life, ~99.999999% of women with penises are trans women. Which puts us in a tricky situation of (A) being the only women with penises around for media involving women with penises to reflect back on, and (B) being in the lovely position of precious few people actually having had meaningful real life exposure to trans women, meaning (C.) all those stigmas and all that misinformation are going to purely affect us and it’s going to be uncritically gobbled up by the masses, since they don’t have any meaningful information to fill in the blanks with instead.

When we peer into the depths of femslash fandoms and see all these folks who aren't trans women writing about women with penises, and using cis women’s bodies as platforms for these penises, it’s the simplest thing.

I mean, some of those folks might actually be struggling and confused about why they’re into it, what the real appeal is, why they get off on it, why they might have some feelings about wanting a penis of their own…

…but from our vantage point, it’s really easy to gauge 99.99% of the time. We can generally see valid, legitimate yearning to have a penis pretty damn easily in a piece of art/writing, and we can also see when people who create this media are just hung up on a boatload of baggage and fetishization.

And 99.9% of the time, the creators are just hung up on a boatload of baggage and fetishization, and see trans women’s bodies as a perfect vehicle to tap into that, generally due to deeply held cissexist views that link us and our bodies and genitals directly to cis men, to maleness. As if penises are rooted in maleness and masculinity (which is absolutely not true).

And I have sympathy for NB folks (certainly TME ones who have reached out to me in the past about this) who might be struggling with that, but just because they’re non-binary, it doesn’t mean they get to appropriate our bodies and reproduce transmisogyny and trans fetishization in their attempts at feeling better. Shit doesn't work like that.

Because again, the only women with penises in this world, essentially, are trans women. Meaning any woman with a penis in media is a trans woman, implicitly or explicitly. Meaning that when people who aren’t us want to write us, intent doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter if it’s just the writer’s fantasy, it’s still going to attach a variety of messages directly onto us.

And more often than not, due to cissexism, those messages are linking us to maleness, to toxic masculinity, etc..

While I do want to believe they're a fairly small minority, a lot of NB folks in fandom spaces like g!p characters in part because they see penises as male and the rest of the body as female and think that duality is interesting and would be comfortable, and is a nice balance of “both worlds” or a nice position “between male and female”, but that’s a wholly cissexist, transmisogynistic view to have, and it’s one that absolutely cannot be supported without directing sexual violence against trans women and invalidating our entire existence. Certainly not all NB folks into g!p like it for that reason, but holy shit a fair bit of them do and it’s weird and wrong and fetishistic.

g!p emerged from the idea that women can't have penises, and drew on the transmisogyny and cissexism of tr*nny porn to structure that frame of desire and the core patterns and trends within these works. It's always been trans women's bodies being used as a vehicle, whether or not the writers of these fics are explicitly aware of it, because the trope itself still holds true to its original patterns and cissexism. It's not the name that's the problem, it's the content; changing the name would be a surface level change that wouldn't affect anything.

g!p objectifies women with penises (trans women). A woman with a penis is more than just a woman with a penis, but the use of the term and trope is literally to (A) remind people that women don't have penises, otherwise the g!p term wouldn't be needed if people actually accepted women with penises as women, and that (B) this is a story centered on a scenario where there's a woman with a penis, with key focus on that genitalia specifically. it's the drawing point, it's the lure, it's what everything is centered on. It is a means for folks to write lesbian sex while also writing about penis in vagina and getting off to it. It's also no surprise that the penises so clearly emulate cis men's penises in these works, that is by design.

As I’ve said many times before, if you’re only writing trans women’s bodies to showcase cis men’s penises, you’re not respecting the womanhood of trans women, and this ultimately has nothing inherent to do with penis-owning women, it has to do with (cis) men and their penises, because trans women are just being used as a vehicle to emulate them. When NB folks do the same thing, and imagining themselves as those g!p characters, they are ultimately embodying cis men, their maleness, and often toxic masculinity, in a way that feels safe and distanced enough for them, a shell that they often code as cisnormative due to their own unprocessed cissexism.

And trans women don’t deserve that.

You seem caught in the idea that if something doesn't directly perfectly reflect trans women, that it can't be linked to us., which ignores the long long history of media being used to misrepresent marginalized peoples and cast us in insulting, dehumanizing lights. You show a lack of understanding of the g!p trope and the long history of its usage across a few other names, even if the content and patterns remained the same. It shows a lack of understanding of tr*nny porn and transmisogynistic stigmas, which the trope draws heavily from.

I think we can all recognize that most 'lesbian' prn that's made does not represent actual lesbians, it's overwhelmingly catered to the male gaze. We can also recognize that this category of porn has led to a lot of harassment towards lesbians from cis men who at the very least want to believe lesbians are just like they are in the porn he watches, that lesbians just need the right man. Lesbians are being used as a vehicle for a fantasy that was created externally to them, and doesn't represent their realities.

It's the same kind of situation here. The way g!p fics play out overwhelmingly doesn't reflect trans women's realities, but they are inherently linked to us regardless, as we're the vehicles for those fantasies, as unrealistic and harmful as they may be.

g!p characters are built in our fetishized image that’s based on a deeply cissexist misunderstanding of us, of the gender binary, and of bodies in general.

I mean, when 99% of cis folks don’t understand how trans women tend to be sexually intimate… when they don’t understand what dysphoria is and how it works and how it can affect us physically and emotionally…when they don’t understand almost any of our lived experiences…then they’re not going to be able to accurately portray us even if they wanted to.

And I’ve read enough g!p fics where authors wrote those as a means of trying to add trans rep, but because they didn’t understand us at all, it wasn’t remotely representative, and it was ultimately fetishistic, even if there was an undercurrent of sympathy and a lack of following certain common g!p patterns there that differentiated it from the norm.

If g!p fics were at all about reducing dysphoria or finding euphoria, then it wouldn’t be explicitly tied up in the performance of very specific sex acts, very specific forms of misogyny and toxic masculinity, very specific forms of sexual violence and exertion of sexual power, etc.

But it is.

So the notion that creating g!p fics helps NB folks? Nope. It CAN certainly prevent/delay those folks from facing a whole boatload of shit they’ve internalized, and coddle them at the expense of trans women.

Because if it was really about bodies and dysphoria/euphoria, there would be a considerable push (allying with out own) to end our fetishization and to represent us in and out of sexual contexts with accuracy, respect, and care. Because they wouldn’t care what sex acts were performed and what smut beats were hit, they’d just want to see someone with a body like their ideal being loved, being sexual, connecting, being authentic, etc. Which very much is not the case in the overwhelming majority of g!p fics. That's what we want, and it's not what g!p writers want, it's nothing they give a shit about.

Like, a ways back I started doing random pulls of g!p fics from various fandoms and assessing them for certain elements to provide some quantitative clarity. I started on The 100 here, and did OuaT here. Never finished the 100 one since the results leveled out and stayed pretty consistent as the sample size grew, so I didn't really see the point in continuing any further after about 140 fics when the data wasn't really changing much at all.

Lastly, media influences people. I've read countless posts and comments from people who use fanfiction as a sex ed guide, in essence. Which is ridiculous, but I also know sex ed curricula often isn't very accurate or extensive in a lot of areas, so people take what they can get. Representation in media can be powerful, and when it overwhelmingly misrepresents people, that's also powerful. Just because fandom is a bit smaller than televised media, it doesn't make that impact any lesser, certainly not for those whose primary media intake is within fandom.

Virtually all trans representation in f/f fanfiction is misrepresentative of us. That has a cost in how people understand us, how people react to us, and how people treat us. Not just online, but in physical spaces, and in intimate settings.

I invite you to read that post you referenced again, or perhaps this longer one which is a response to a trans guy who seemed to feel something similar to you with this trope.

All I can do is lay it out there and try to explain this. It's up to you how you handle this. All I know is whenever there's a big surge in g!p in a fandom, trans women generally leave it en masse, because it's a very clear and consistent message that we're not valued, respected, and that people value getting off on us over finding community with us.

[kpopisthereasonihavenolife]

k.taehyung/reader 

genre: arist!taehyung, painting!reader, parallel/horror universe

warning(s): violence, mannequins+paintings coming to life (bc ppl are scared of that), blood- but like red paint instead, horror/dread/action elements (i tried okay), bittersweet 

words: 20.3k 

One-shot | Two-shot | Series | Drabble | [Rated: Pg:15] 

Loosely based on Ib, an RPG Horror/Adventure game + Leia (Vocaloid)

synopsis: Taehyung, a freelance, abstract artist is in the middle of one of the worst art blocks known to mankind.  In an act of possible inspiration, he drags his best friend, Namjoon, to a new art gallery just opened.  Only, he didn’t know that his visit would result in him getting separated from his friend and thrust into a new gallery.  One he wasn’t familiar with in the slightest. Along with this mysterious new gallery, a collection of strange creatures lurking around every corner came with the unsettling territory. 

a/n: i literally started this in March of 2019.... I have no excuse for the wait other than my bad.  Regardless, Colorblind is FINALLY done and out! It’s obvs waayyy longer than I intended it to be back in 2019 when I could only pump out like 9k at max- it’s over double that now LOL. But that hopefully aint gonna stop y’all (pls, lmk what you thought/thnk, i’m so anxious about this one alsdjf)

“Here you are, gentlemen.  Enjoy your visit to the gallery,” the receptionist at the counter smiled as she would to anyone.  Handing over two pamphlets to the two men who stood in front of her.  One was dressed in white track pants, two stripes running down the legs.  A white, collared, button-up shirt with a tie exceptionally loose around his neck with a blue, track jacket with red and white stripes down the sleeve, matching his track pants.

The other man wore loose black pants around his hips.  A black and white vertical striped, sleeveless jersey with three buttons on the collar with a red cap placed backward on his faded orange-haired head.  

These two men were two Kim’s. Taehyung and Namjoon.  Taehyung works as a self-employed, freelance artist; throwing and brushing paint over a canvas in random ways and creating objects and places for his mind to be free in abstract ways.  Namjoon is a humbled journalist for a local news blog for his exceptional wording and phrasing on all sorts of topics.  

Taehyung had come to the new gallery opening not too far from his home in search of inspiration.  He had been in a bit of a slump lately, and with nothing to do and nothing worthwhile happening, he was desperate.  Namjoon tagged along because he was tasked with the job of writing a review of the new establishment and creating a small article to include in the next online publication.

“Welcome to the grand opening of The Gallery of Leia!”

Taehyung mumbled to himself as he read the title of the pamphlet given to him.  “Why Gallery of Leia?” He questioned the name as the receptionist answered promptly.

“Leia is the one surviving piece of an artist from way back when that survived a brutal fire.  In honor of its survival, the gallery was named as such.”  She said with a smile as Taehyung nodded and nudged Namjoon’s arm, who stood next to him.

“Let’s go,” he said as he walked inside, not trying to stick around for more conversation and holding up the line of people also trying to gain entry inside. Namjoon following him as he quickly scanned a the front of the pamphlet.  

The gallery was two stories in a decent squared size building.  It was quite the exercise trip in Taehyung’s opinion.  Sculptures were placed against walls or out in the open for rotational viewing pleasure.  Paintings and sketches were hanging, littering the walls for guests to see clearly.  All the different pieces from all sort of artists featured here was amazing, such a wide variety as Taehyung’s eyes scanned the names.  Some familiar, some not.

“Wow, this place is pretty busy,” Namjoon said as he looked around. Namjoon had pulled out a tablet from his side bag, turning on the large touch screen as he took the pen attached to the side of it and opened up a program for taking notes as he started scribbling.  Taehyung peeked over his shoulder.  

“You haven’t even seen any art yet.  Why are you already jotting stuff down?”  

“It’s always good to start an article with how packed or how empty a place is.  The more people there, the more popular or interesting to the masses it is, which normally leads to more pros than cons.  It’s like a first look into how interesting it may or may not be.”  He rambled off like he’s answered the question a million times.  Taehyung nodded with pouted lips.

“You’re such a workaholic.”  Namjoon rolled his eyes at the remark, placing the pen between his fingers as he held his tablet and lowered it to his side.

“Let’s go look around.” The gallery itself, aside from the art pieces inside it, was stark white.  White ceilings to match the white walls and tiled flooring in yet more, polished white.  The lights weren’t as strong as one would think for a gallery, but if they were any brighter the receptionist would need to hand out complimentary sunglasses along with pamphlets because of all the lights bouncing off and around from the white  interior.

Namjoon was busy looking at a large-scale sculpture of a red rose as Taehyung wandered around not too far from him.  He turned down a hall that was surprisingly void of any warm bodies. He was surprised to find an area that hadn’t been cluttered with people yet.  Though, he assumed it wasn’t all that odd considering the early morning hour.  

Along the left wall was a large, long canvas, easily engulfing a vast majority of the wall itself.  It also happened to be the only piece in this dead-end corridor.

Taehyung stood in front of the painting as he looked over it.  Trying to see each and every detail.  He was in awe of the detail and how much time it must have taken to even complete such a large painting.  The dedication and time served to it was admirable.

The painting gave off an eerie vibe.  A dark background with what seemed to be the space of a studio, a spacey and wide studio with canvas’s on walls, frames hanging, paints and easels littering the space leaking into a greater mass of a space with even more dark, distorted art. As he continued to look at it, he stopped to blink, reset his eyes and rub at them so he didn’t go crosseyed and get dizzy.

As Taehyung gazed at the whole of the masterpiece, Namjoon strode up to him.  He whistled lowly in an impressed awe.

“Damn. That's one dedicated, dead painter.”  He walked to the plaque underneath the frame, kneeling so he could read the title of the particular piece aloud.  “Parallel Reality. Painted in 1996 by-” he couldn’t finish because the hall suddenly darkened.  Namjoon and Taehyung both looked at the ceiling and the flickering lights before they blacked out completely. Leaving the room dark and quiet.

“A blackout?” Taehyung questioned. Namjoon stood up, walking back over to his friend.  

“We should go back to the front desk.”  Taehyung nodded as the two of them began the journey back, stepping carefully and squinting to make sure they wouldn’t run into any sculptures or walls.  All the while, never once running into another person.  In fact, the entire gallery was completely silent besides their footsteps.

“Where is everyone?”  Taehyung asked, his eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness.  

“I’m sure they’ve all gathered outside.  No point in staying in a dark gallery.”  The two made it to the front glass doors.  “It’s… dark outside?”  Taehyung looked out through the glass doors.  “It was just noon?”  Namjoon shook his head, pulling on the door, but the door refused to open.  “It’s locked!”  He grunted, yanking again, pushing and pulling on the door.  Nothing.  Namjoon sighed as he turned to Taehyung.  “Go look around, maybe someone is still here.  In the meantime, I’m going to try and get this door open.”

Taehyung nodded before he turned and walked back into the gallery.  The halls still dark, every window showing nothing but a dark, deep navy outside.  He walked to a window to look outside, maybe get a glimpse of what was going on.  But, nothing.  

He turned and walked away, but jumped when he heard someone banging on the glass of the window he had just left.  Running back, he could just barely make out the imprint of a wide handprint on the outside of the glass.  It made a chill run up Taehyung’s back. 

For a moment, he assumed it was Namjoon who had gotten out and was getting his attention to run to the front and get out.  So, he did, dashing to the entrance and when he didn’t see Namjon around any longer, he tried the door.  Still locked.  

He hissed as he whipped back around and went back to the window before he shook his head. As he walked around the gallery further, his eyes began adjusting to the darkness and eventually he was even able to make out some of the art pieces again.  

A painting of a black cat.  One of a man hanging upside down by his ankles.  A basket of fruit that he swore use to have an apple included in the basket.  The back of a woman dressed in nothing but red.  

He felt like he was walking in circles. More than ready to head back to just sit at the front until someone came- since someone had to at some point, he heard another set of footsteps.  At first he thought it may be Namjoon coming back to find him; however, the footsteps were too light to be his friends- he always was a bit of a heavy stomper. Taehyung turned and headed towards the steps as they seemed to move further from him instead of towards him.  

“Hey!”  He called into the echoey halls of the dark gallery. The steps halting momentarily before they started running.  So, Taehyung sprinted after them.  “Where are you going?!”  He yelled as he ran into an open, large venue.  He looked around as he ran, seeing no one around.  “Where are you?!”  He shouted before he stepped in a puddle.  No, not a puddle.  A puddle would only be an inch or two deep.  It surely wouldn’t be enough to engulf him entirely.  

Now, Taehyung was sinking.  Drowning slowly into the Abyss of the Deep before the lights flicked back on and the murmurs of people resumed.

-x-x-x-

When Taehyung woke up, his head was throbbing, his mind was fuzzy and his conscience more than a little confused.  Laying on his chest on the floor like a jersey-dressed starfish, he groaned as he pushed himself up to support his torso on his elbows.  His hair was messier than before as his bangs threatened to poke his eyes.  Looking back and forth, he was in a hallway.  The corridor was dark, a hint of purple and indigo surrounding the entire room.  Walls, carpet, ceiling everything was the same shade of purple.

Obviously, the polar opposite than the pure white of everything previously.

Rolling onto his back and pushing himself to stand, he wobbled as he held his head and tried to will away the headache that was beginning to slowly lessen.  

Going backward before trying to even round the corner down the way, he found a single wooden door at the dead-end of the hall.  Twisting the knob, he entered the small room.  The room was square, red and on the back wall was a single large painting of a woman.  Her eyes were closed and her face was blank.  Her hair was somehow painted off the canvas, down past the frame and onto the wall like it was real hair falling out of the portrait.  

In front of that portrait was a single small wooden table with a vase.  In that vase was a single, blue rose.  A rose with 10 large, vibrant petals and a vine that lacked thorns.  Taehyung had never seen a blue rose before- well, not a real, authentic one anyways. Everyone’s seen the fake, painted blue, red, pink, yellow, purple and whatever other color roses in dollar stores before. Thinking it was manmade, he examined it further, putting his hands on the table to close inspect.  He became far more interested in the flower the more he looked at it.  

It drew him in.  The color captivated him and the aura around it seemed almost important and he felt the slightest urge to pick it up.  Maybe he should, maybe it would be fine.  Reaching out slowly, he drew the rose from the vase and something akin to a jolt of electricity ignited his fingertips. It felt like he had somehow forged an instant connection with this flower as soon as the end of the vine left the crystal clear water of the vase.

Call him crazy, but he almost felt fearful of putting it back and leaving it behind.

The vase on the table cracked as Taehyung’s attention shifted to it from the rose.  Crack after crack spread on the vase before it burst into pieces.  Taehyung hunched backward to shield his face with his arms from the exploded glass.  Shards of glass sat on the table and fell to the floor as the water pooled around the wooden surface and continued to spread as it began to drip off the table’s edge onto the carpet.

“I guess, I’ll take it along.”  He muttered to himself as he turned his back.  As he exited the room, he failed to notice the woman’s portrait shift.  Her eyes opened wide- almost insane- as she smiled.  PItch black paint writing appearing under her frame in smeared text.  

WHEN THE ROSE WILTS, SO TOO WILL YOU WILT AWAY

Taehyung left the room and the hallway he returned to had changed from what he last remembered. There were random letters on the ceiling and floor, spelling something that Taehyung couldn’t make out in the dark hall.  At his feet, he felt himself kick at something when he moved to step forward.  Picking it up, he held a small blue key in his palm.  

Going further down the hall, he came to a forked path.  He could continue going down the hall or take the staircase he that presented itself to him.  The stairs lead up higher than he could see with two paintings on either side of the entrance. Two landscapes of a mountain range; one normal and the other an identical copy, only negative scaled.  Coming to a decision, he took the hall just to cover the ground floor.  Coming to just another dead end, he returned and took to the stairs up.  

At the top of the stairs was a door.  Trying it, it was locked. 

“Naturally,” he huffed.  Trying the key he had kicked with his shoe and picked up not too long ago, it fit perfectly and unlocked the door as he stepped through it.  The door slammed shut and locked on it’s own behind him.  The key becoming useless since their was no keyhole on this side of the door.  He dropped it, leaving it behind. 

He was in a library now.  It was a small room, maybe not even considered a library.  Just a room with bookshelves and books.  Like a compact study without a desk.

He didn’t recognize a lot of the books- which was surprising considering he did have a liking for reading.  He stopped scanning his fingers over the spines of books when among all the thick, sophisticated books was a tiny, thin spine of a bright red children's book.

Pulling it out from it’s snug place on the shelf, he held it in his hands.  It was a short, wide book with a picture colored very messily in what he could only assume was crayon on the cover of it.  Sitting on the ground, his back against the bookcase, he opened it’s thick, card-stock, wobbly pages.

The book was about a painter.  He had been painting his whole life, so long in fact that he started to blend his world with reality.  He would give his paintings ‘life’ and he’d treat them like they were truly alive.  In his mind, they were his friends.  

A painting of a lion toy no bigger than the size of a book, stills of sentient objects like a fan, and even paint brushes contained souls with a conscience and mind to this painter. Even a can of pressurized air that would ‘bully’ or tease the others when they least expected it was ‘alive’, leaving the painter to rip that painting of air up for it’s rotten behavior.

It ends with the painter creating a portrait of someone, something he wasn’t familiar with painting.  People weren’t his strong suit and as such, he was left in isolation for most of his life. His devotion to painting left him alone in reality because he ‘saw’ nothing else.  Thus, he created his own friend in a painting of a woman that didn't exist.  When she ‘came alive’ he even grew to fall in love with her.  The last few pages of the story were torn out, so Taehyung would never know the ending.  

“Who would fall in love with something they knew was fake?  Something painted would never come alive,” he muttered.  Considering the painter in the story to be an utter fool.

Taehyung suddenly jumped, children’s book sliding off his legs and snapping shut as the door to his left unlocked with a loud clack.  He slowly got up, picking the book back up taking it with him as he put it back on the shelf.  The door that unlocked started to whine.  The handle was rusty sounding as something from the outside started turning it.  

In a very logical fit of panic, Taehyung rushed and grabbed the thickest book he could find and held it at the ready.  Absolutely ready to whack whatever weirdo came into this room, knock them out (with luck), restrain them and then question where the hell he was. That, or a hit and run would work too.  He’d figure out which suggestion when the time came in a few moments.

The turning of the knob halted.  Stopped for so long that Taehyung thought whatever it was had gone away.  Lowering his book, he squinted his eyes at the door.  It was quiet, all he could hear was his breathing with the occasional nervous gulp of his.  

There was only but another beat of silence before chaos erupted.  

The door busted open, nearly ripping off it’s handles.  Taehyung, with a short, shocked scream, stumbled back as two things threw themselves into the room.  One was a woman, or rather half a woman.  Long brown hair cascaded down her head and her torso was decked in a red turtleneck.  Her face had a twisted demeanor etched into what would probably be a beautiful face otherwise.  From her waist down was nothing but a picture frame.  Her lower half didn’t exist and was replaced with a black void background and frame with gold edges.  It was like some horror effect that dragged around behind her everywhere she crawled. 

The second was an actual woman.  Legs, arms, chest and all.  Dressed in ruined overalls, a long sleeved white shirt with yellow stripes up the arms.  Tacky, torn brown boots on her feet as she stomped and kicked away at the woman in the frame.  She was wielding... a stick?  Or what looked like what may be part of what was once another picture frame.  End jagged and just asking for someone to get a nasty splinter.

The woman in the frame hissed at her like a dog as her clawed hands moved to drag her across the floor towards the actual woman’s legs.  The framed lady moved faster than Taehyung imagined was possible.  Dragging her half body across the floor and slithering with an absurd amount of grace like a snake.

The lady in the frame latched onto the woman’s leg causing her to in turn repeatedly kick at the frame’s head with her opposite foot.  The frame screamed as she was kicked against a bookshelf.  Books fell, toppling onto the frame as she screeched.  However, her insistent screeching silenced when the real woman took the jagged end of the broken frame she wielded and thrust it into the frames exposed and vulnerable head.

Red ‘paint’ erupted from the frame like a fountain before it became completely limp.  The woman shook the frame piece around, whipping it like a sword after a battle to remove the blood of the slain.  Then, the woman looked over her shoulder at Taehyung. He froze in place, his shoulders jumping at him finally being noticed.

Your eyes widened as they locked onto Taehyung’s. Shocked to see him there.  Your eyes were an unusually bright colored abyss with such a dull contrasting look in them.  He wasn’t sure if he could even see his reflection if he were standing right in front of you.  

You gasped lightly as if being hit with some sort of realization before turning to face him fully. Even if you were a good 10 feet from him he flinched. More than a little bit intimidated with you still holding your broken frame piece and witnessing you pretty much kill what he would label a Feminine Frame Monster.

“You’re the one everyone is looking for…” You muttered to herself.  There was a commotion beyond the door that was hanging pathetically onto its frame.  From down the hall, scraping and screeching were heard in a humming echo. You looked over your shoulder before you moved towards Taehyung, looking at him and grabbing his bicep with little hesitation. You yanked his arm to signal that you were clearly going to be ordering him around.

Taehyung felt like a doll being pulled around by a child.  You were shorter than he expected for someone who just took out a monster as he peered over your head, like a child standing as high as possible to peek out a window. Your grasp on him loosened as you moved to grab his wrist instead.  You pulled him slightly again, snapping him out of whatever daze he was in as he finally looked at you again.

“We need to go.  More of them are coming, and unless you want to end up painting fodder, you’ll follow me.”  He looked down at you as you finally noticed the rose peeking out of his jacket pocket.  You gasped, pointing at it with your other hand that whipped around the red stained frame piece.  “Hide that!” You seethed as Taehyung’s hand immediately shoved itself into his pocket to cover the rose before she began to run out of the room, Taehyung in tow; against his will, might he add.

The halls he was being dragged through were inconsistent and almost gave him a headache. First running through purple halls, then red filled with empty black picture frames.  Zooming through green halls that had arms shooting out of them, claws skimming over Taehyung’s jacket and reaching for his rose.  He pulled it from his pocket and held it to his chest to keep it safe from anyone- thing- trying to grab it.  Finally, your running came to a stop as you swung open a door before shoving him by his shoulder. You slammed the door securely shut before locked it.  

When the door was shut, Taehyung took a moment or two to look around as he tried to regain his breath.  

He was in a blue room now.  Two bookshelves with almost nothing on them and a small table next to a violet couch.  The table held a cerulean vase on it with water filled inside almost to the point it overflowed.  On the back wall was only one giant frame with a pure white puzzle glued one the inside of it.

“A milk puzzle?” He questioned more to himself than anything else. You sighed when it was quiet and then collapsed onto the blue carpeted floor.  Catching Taehyung’s attention, he panicked as he ran to your side, kneeling beside you and debating on whether or not he should put his hand on your shoulder. You panted and pushed your forehead against the door. Hair hiding your face as it hung, falling off your heaving shoulders. “Are you.. Alright?” Taehyung asked slowly- cautiously.

You only nodded as you finally caught your breath.  Sitting up straighter, taking one last breath to even your breathing before you finally looked up at Taehyung.  He knelt higher than your head level as he confirmed that he indeed couldn’t find his reflection in your eyes he stared into.

“You’re the intruder that everyone is looking for in the Gallery, aren’t you?” She questioned.  He blinked in confusion.  

“Intruder?”

“You don’t belong here and you need to get out of here as soon as you can.  This isn’t a place for someone like you.” Taehyung wasn’t understanding anything.  You held your hand out towards him, almost asking for something.  “Your rose. You still have it right?” He nodded as he showed the rose he still held cradled to his chest. He was thankful the vine was thornless, or else his palm would have been riddled with small, painful punctures. 

For some reason, he felt like his rose would be safe with you, so he easily handed it over. You took it and looked over it’s petals.  Admiring the shade of blue, you shifted her gaze to look from beautiful azure petals and into Taehyung’s eyes.  “What’s your name?” You asked.

“Taehyung,” he answered instinctively. You nodded at the sound of it, committing it to memory. “Yours?” 

“I’m Y/n,” you curtly told him as you lifted the rose back into the conversation.  “Do you know how important this rose is?” He shook his head.  You sighed as you moved to face him fully, sat relaxed on the floor. Lifting your arm to bring you opposite hand to touch one of the petals your fingertips dusted around a single soft petal.  You held it with delicacy before your grip changed and your nails gripped and plucked it off the stem.  

Taehyung gasped, a pain shooting through his chest as his hand flew up to grip his shirt. His one-knee kneeling position changed as both knees hit the carpet. 

It felt like his heart just skipped a beat and almost seemed to stall for a moment.  Shaken up, he wasn’t sure why, but it felt almost harder to breathe?  Air came more difficult to take and his energy felt zapped.  The one petal you had pulled off fluttering to the ground at his knees.

You plucked another one, the second petal fluttering to the floor to join the first.  More pain shot through him again as he found himself bracing himself forward, the hand that wasn’t clenching around the front of his shirt, falling in front of him to join his knees on the carpet.  It felt like someone was wrapping a rope around his chest and squeezing the life out of him.  Crushing his ribs and lungs suffocating him.

“What,”  he gasped, “are you doing... to me?” He sputtered as he coughed.  He heard you move before you were at his back, picking him up and bringing him weakly to his feet.  You practically dragged him to the couch, his feet dragging on the carpet the whole way before he fell into the cushions.  

As you stood over him, you pluck another two petals off and he let out small, silent coughs of protest. Whatever you were doing, he was ready for you to stop. He really thought he was dying. 

“Watch,” you told him as the dark bags under his eyes materialized.  You walked to the crystal water-filled vase.  Taking his rose that had lost four petals already, you placed the stem over top of the vase and dropped it inside.  The stem hit the water and immediately Taehyung’s eyes widened as he watched the petals regrow right before his eyes.  

The rose seemed to glow with a calming, almost reassuring, blue hue for but a moment before the pain in his body stopped.  The pangs of hurt disappeared from within his eyes as he let go of his chest and the pain faded.  It was like the pain was just a hallucination.  You slowly withdrew the rose from the vase and handed it back to him as you move to stand in front of him. He had moved from laying in pain on the couch to sitting himself up properly.

Taehyung gently took the rose from you.  “When the rose wilts,” you start.

“So too will I…” Taehyung finishes, unsure on how he knew how to finish the phrase. It was like it was just engraved on his tongue as he said it. The dawning realization that this flower was tied to his life grew into his mind as he spun it between his thumb and forefinger.  “But, I-I don’t understand.”  He shook his head.  You moved to sit beside him, ready to answer whatever questions he has.  “What’s going on? Where the hell am I?”

“You’re in the gallery.”

“No,” he denied curtly, lifting his hand in denial.  “I was in the gallery.  Now, I’m here.”

“You were in the real gallery.  Somehow, you got sucked into this one.  The gallery you were in isn’t where you are now and frankly I don’t know how you got here.  This is a fabricated reality created from a man’s paintbrush.  A human shouldn’t be able to come here.” You got up and grabbed a small, face down picture frame from the top one of the small, dusty, bookshelves.  Bringing it back with you to the couch, you handed it to him.  

Taehyung recognized the man in the photo. “I know this artist. He died a long time ago.” Though his name escaped the young artist.  

“Guena. That’s the pen name he used in his profession.” You looked around at the small room.  “This room, and all the other rooms too.  Every painting and creature here was created by him and his desire to create souls for his non-living creations,” you told him. “But, things are different now. Everything is distorted,” you scowled.  

Just like the picture book he found.  The creations were given life by the hands of the creator then the creator died, leaving all of his ‘lives’ behind.  If that were so, then it would be no wonder why everything would begin to fall apart. It was akin to a circus without a Ring Master. Taehyung furrowed his brows before he placed the photo beside him on the cushions.

He looked up to you, into your dull eyes that somehow held the most breathtaking color.  

“How long have you been here?” He asked.

“I’ve been here since the beginning and I will remain here until the end.”  

“Do you have a rose, like I do?” He felt like he knew the answer, but nonetheless less you shook your head.  He knew what he wanted to really ask, but he didn’t know how to ask it- what words should he use?  To you, who he had just met in the most fictional turn of events that he still can’t wrap his head around.  You were nothing like him and he knew that.

“I’m a painting, Taehyung.”

When you told him the truth he was already beginning to suspect, it wouldn’t be too far fetched to say he still internally panicked.  Something that looks so human, yet wasn’t at all.  You were nothing but brush strokes and shapes somehow given life.  You probably crawled straight out of a frame too.

You saw the emotion flash through his eyes and you were almost jealous of how his eyes could change.  Unlike yours that were stuck, his could tell you a whole story without the use of words.  Anyone in this place could tell immediately he was human because of those eyes. 

In respect to him and his unease, you made sure to keep your distance.  You truly weren’t a threat.  All you wanted was for him to get out, and to get out safely.  You’ve been watching your world fall apart since Guena died.  Every creature that was alive was losing their ‘mind’ and it was only a matter of time before it started to infect you too.  It was a disease that humans didn’t need to get involved in.

“I’m going to be your escort out of here.  With your lack of reaction when in the face of danger, you’d probably get yourself killed in an instant.”  You moved back to the door where you sat on the floor, you're back against the wood as you looked at him across the room on the couch.  “You rest for now and make sure to keep your rose safe with you.  This room is safe, so you don’t need to worry about something happening.”

Then, you stopped talking.  Taehyung almost felt guilty.  You were a painting, and you couldn’t show all the emotions that the could.  You weren’t actually real after all, so it was normal to assume you had a expressional limit.  He watched as you sat against the door completely silent and still with closed eyes.  He was unsure if you were really sleeping or if you even could.  

He looked at the rose in his hands.  This rose is so important and he didn’t know how to fathom what the hell was going on. It all happened too fast and he couldn’t begin to process it all. 

He missed Namjoon as he knew that he was probably still wandering around the real gallery looking for him. He wondered if Namjoon managed to get out since he wasn’t at the front or if the lights kicked back on and he was alright.  He lifted and looked at the photo of Guena beside him again.  

It was odd.  That was the man who somehow created this world and he was also the same painter who created Leia. The painting that gave the real gallery it’s name.  Taehyung never got to see that painting in the gallery- not that he was able too see much to begin with, and he’s not so sure he wanted to at the moment.  

Taehyung was a sympathetic and empathetic person- always had been and probably always will be.  The line between the two blurred in his case.  So, when he looked at you, he felt a sense of guilt as you kept away from him.  You spoke curtly, yet kindly.  You didn’t seem to have an ulterior motive and you seemed trustworthy enough; especially compared to that framed lady from before.  

You brought him here after all. A secluded room and you didn’t attack him or take his rose.  You plucked four petals off his rose, but then turned around and healed him. You even returned it, he knew it was all to prove the point of its importance.  You weren’t going to hurt him and he believed that with his whole heavy-beating heart.  

“Y/n? Are you sleeping?”

Your eyes remained closed, but you answered. “No. I can’t.  I’m a painting, remember?”

“Okay. Then, I have a question,” he said as you slid your eyes open.  Looking at him from your place by the door.  “That thing you killed?” Did you kill it? Could paintings die?  “What was it?”

“They’re called, The Ladies.”

“They? There’s more?” Taehyung’s voice slightly quivered at the idea of more hissing, hacking, floor-crawling, psycho half ladies being out there.  

You nodded.  “What you saw was only one of many Ladies.  She was a Lady in Red.  There are also Ladies in Green and Ladies in Blue.  They’re more common than most.  About as common as mannequins.”

“Excuse me? Mannequins?” You looked at him as a shiver ran up his body.  Goosebumps littered his covered skin.  “I fucking hate mannquins,” he seethed unconsciously to himself.  The look he put on his face was that of disgust and pure anguish and yet somehow twisted into an almost comical look.  You almost smirked at his foul language and facial cues.

Your smirk twisted and soon you burst out into laughter at his face that just seemed so comical to you.  A face someone like you couldn’t pull off because you were fake.  He looked at you as you laughed at him.  The tension that was in the air seemed to be shattered like a nail being driven into a pane of glass.  Soon, Taehyung was laughing at you laughing at him.  Your fit ended as you smiled and shook your head, calming down.  

Taehyung was more than happy to try and get a small nap in now that he knew that you weren’t completely devoid of emotion.  Someone, fake or not, who can laugh and smile like that surely wasn’t a bad person.  

-x-x-x-

Taehyung was startled from his small rest when a tremor shook the room.  Panicking as he sat straight, rim-rod up, you were already on your feet and looking at the door.  You half expected something to charge inside, even when this place was supposed to be somewhere to rest up and be away from any sort of harm. Taehyung flung his legs off the sofa and stood up so quickly he had a wave of dizziness hit him as he held his head and staggered.  Shaking it off, he was at your side, standing just a step behind you.

“What the hell is that?” He lightly asked, like if he was too loud something would hear him.  You just flexed your arm, the hand around the hardened piece of art frame you kept continuing to wield tightening.  “It feels like the ground is moving,” he looked down at his feet.  Like the carpet beneath him was beating in microbursts.

“It’s a distortion wave.  This happens the weaker this world gets and that means it’s only going to get that much worse outside.” You looked at him. “I hope you have some strength in those arms of yours, because you might have to use it.” Taehyung hated the thought of violence, even if it was against figuratively inanimate objects that weren’t supposed to exist . They weren’t alive, but they were still able to die.  His toes curled at the thought of it. You saw the unease in his eyes before looked back at the door, rotating your wrist and twisting around your weapon. “Just stick close to me and run like your life depends on it.”

The lack of an additional ‘because it will’ was an approved choice on Taehyung’s ears.

You opened the door and outside it was a madhouse.  Even more paintings coming alive.  Some stuck in their frames as they clawed at the air and hissed.  Distorted in sharp and blurred strokes as they swiped.  Ghastly hands and objects plunged from walls and hung from the ceiling.  Mannequins moved far faster than previously and he could hear the hissing and scraping of frames on the floor from the Ladies as they drug themselves across the floor like lethal roaches.

You bolted out of the safe room, Taehyung hot on your heels as he stayed immediately behind you.  You dashed down halls, staying in the center away from the walls and anything reaching for you.  You kept Taehyung at your side, pulling him to and fro away from anything that could harm him if he got too close.  You rounded corners in rushed steps or slides as Taehyung occasionally grabbed the back of your overalls to keep you from skidding into the walls from your unstoppable momentum. You swung and hacked at anything that came close and kept them at bay the best you could with your frame.

Taehyung pointed ahead of you, a set of doors ahead.  

“Go into one of those!” He wasn’t sure where he got off telling you where to go. Especially since he was literally the worse qualified person to do so. You didn’t seem to argue back though, so he continued. “The, uh, the yellow one!” He yelled over the chaos.  You just looked back at him slightly over your shoulder, brows creased.

“Which one is the yellow one?!”  You shouted as he slightly stumbled before he grabbed your wrist and took off, running faster and ahead of you before he stopped at a door of brilliant yellow, pulled it open and pushed you inside, slamming it closed. The room was empty save for a single mirror on the back wall.  Thankfully, yellow seemed to be a pretty safe choice.

Taehyung could always trust yellow. 

“Y/n,” he called as he still held your wrist in his hand and you were hunched over.  You weren’t alive, but you seemed unwell.  “What’s wrong?” He looked at the skin under his hand that showed with the fabric of your long sleeve pushed up your wrist.  He gasped silently when he saw it’s complexion shift into a distortion of ugly, muddle colors before vanishing as quickly as it came.  “What was that?” He shook his head. “No, hold on.  Different question.  Can you not see color?”

“No, I can’t.” You stood back up, yanking your wrist out of his grip.  You looked at your skin as you hissed.  The distortion was starting to hit you and the stages would eventually progress into a problem- but he didn’t need to know that.  “I was painted as portrait by a lonely, selfish painters.  He didn’t think to give me the ability to see color so, I can’t see colors or tell them apart.” You shook your wrist out. “Is that a problem?” 

Taehyung jolted. You were clearly touchy on the topic. He cleared his throat as he rubbed the back of his neck. 

“Uh, well not really . I guess if you have me, I can point out colors for the both of us.  Why didn’t you tell me you were colorblind though?  It would’ve been pretty useful to know before we started running for our lives through some fucked-up haunted house reality check.”

“I didn’t think it was relevant.” You sighed.  You had made it this far without relying on the colors you couldn’t tell apart.  Why would now be any different?  You couldn’t even see the color your body or clothes were- if they had color to them at all. For all you knew, you were all black and white and grey. You walked to the back wall and stood in front of the mirror there, frowning as Taehyung came up behind you.  He was as black and white as you were in your eyes.  

“So, you can’t see any color?” He touched his shirt, opened his jacket and pulled his headband.  He pulled your hair up dramatically and motioned to yourself as a whole in the mirrors reflection. “Nothing at all?”

“Nothing at all,” you confirmed.  “I can conceive the idea of colors, but I’ve never had a proper need to see or tell them apart.  I know when something is a threat and I know when something is not. That’s all that really matters here.” Your indifference was something Taehyung- a painter- couldn’t comprehend.  What kind of painting can’t see their own colors? Wouldn’t that be painful or frustrating at the very least?

“Your shirt is yellow and white,” Taehyung spoke. You looked at his reflection with raised brows.  “Your overalls are faded and nearly ruined, but they’re dark blue and your boots are brown.  Your hair is really pretty and your eyes are too.” He described your outfit to you like you were a child, but he meant well. 

Just saying the color of your clothes didn’t help you grasp the concept of what it really looked like aside from the range of grey and white and black you saw through your eyes. “Maybe that doesn’t matter, but I thought you’d like to at least now,” he muttered.

“Thanks,” you told him quickly as you pulled at your sleeves, fixing and adjusting them to cover your arms properly again.  So, that light shade of grey- nearly white- was yellow? “I've never actually learned what color is what to my eyes,” you told him.  “It’s nice knowing at least one color,” you whispered more to yourself than anything.

So, it did bother you. Taehyung felt something swell like pride in his chest as he was acting the role of teacher.

If it were any other situation and if you were a person instead of a painting, he’d be glad to teach you all the colors he could. He felt it was his duty as an artist- freelance or not- to educate those about all the corners of art.  However, you weren’t real and he wasn’t at home in his studio, but in a haunted gallery of danger.  

Taehyung stepped away from you as he made his way back to the front of the room and the yellow door. He put his ear to the door, not hearing much of anything outside anymore. He hoped that you and he were able to give them the slip- as obvious as a tactic as that was. When he tried the doorknob, however, it didn not twist.  Jammed or locked, he knocked his forehead against the yellow wood in frustration.

“Of course,” he groaned before he turned to see you still standing in front of the mirror in the back of the room.  “Y/n, the door is locked. Unless we have another way out, we’re stuck in here.” He announced, making his way back to you as you seemed to finally break out of your own reflection and look around.  

“There’s got to be something we can trigger to open the door or another way out.  Just look around,” you told him.  You started wandering the room, but Taehyung only stood still, crippling his chin in thought and tapping his toes.  The room was completely empty, what could he possibly miss if nothing was in the room except a single, wall mounted mirror?

He thought of all the cheesy cliches like a floor tile trigger or a secret compartment in one of the four walls of ht boxed room.  However, he wasn’t sure if he had the patience to test out those ideas. 

Taehyung stood in front of the mirror, looking at his own reflection that scowled back towards him in thought.  He scurried away from the mirror in a haste as he yelped when the glass cracked.  Splitting down the center in crooked, ugly cracks and small splinters of glass falling from the mirror.  Your ear picked up on the continuous cracking of the mirror’s glass, unlike Taehyung and before he knew what was happening, you were yanking on his shirt and jacket collar. He choked slightly at you pulling him away from it completely as it shattered.

Bursting from the inside out, glass shot forward before raining down to the hard tile of the room.  What was left behind wasn’t the wall behind the mirror, but a matte black door with a sign hanging on the center of it. 

‘PASSAGE’

“Is that our way out?” He asked skeptically as he stood back up and brushed off his clothes of any stray shards that clung to him.  Looking back, the yellow door you both had rushed through had disappeared.  Nothing, but this black door and the walls remained.  He huffed. “Guess that answers that, huh. Wha- hey!” He called as you had already started opening the black door to enter it.  “What if it’s dangerous in there?!”

“There’s no other option,” you told him, pushing the door open before stepping into the same, thick blackness the door represented.  “Stay here if you’re so scared,” you sarcastically teased as you stepped inside. Unsurprisingly, the artist was hot on your tail inside.

The two of you walked through the black hall that stretched from the door you both entered, Taehyung behind you as he grew in more in nerves.  There were no lights and the light front he doorway was long gone behind his back.  He couldn’t see his hand in front of his face and he felt like he was losing his mind.

He could only hear your footsteps, his footsteps and the sound of your sharpened frame weapon dragging across the ground that you had taken from your belt loop as soon as the darkness became thick enough to warrant a twinge worry.

The air in the ever stretching corridor became so thick it was hard to catch his breath as he moved to grab your wrist for guidance.  Then, giggling began echoing from every direction.  Bouncing off what might be a nearby walls and drilling directly into his head. Giggling that mimicked creepy doll sound effects in horror movies, only so much worse. You, unsurprisingly, weren’t phased by the verbal taunts- Taehyung, however, was.

You could feel the trembles in his fingers around the wrist of yours he held so tightly.  You twisted your wrist, freeing it from his grasp for a moment and you could physically feel his panic the moment his fingertips left your skin. He was quick to calm down when you shot your arm back and grabbed around his hand instead.

Taehyung only grew more and more nervous as the darkness didn’t seem to end.  There was nothing in front of him or behind him to act as a beacon of any sort of hope that it would eventually come to a brightly lit finish.  Not even your presence he knew was there was any comfort to him.  It felt like the darkness was ebbing away at his sanity and choking him. 

In the midst of his silent anxiety, he thought he felt something whisper along the back of his neck.  He let out a small, strangled noise of startled protest as he unconsciously ripped his hand away and out of yours.  His panic set in tenfold now that he had no idea where you were anymore.  

He reached out in front of him in a frenzied panic as he waved his arms around in front of himself like a crazy person. He was sure if he was in light or if someone could see him, they’d think him completely bat-shit insane.  No matter where he reached or how hard he searched, he couldn’t find you. He couldn’t even hear you anymore.

Your footsteps were gone along with the frame dragging and he couldn’t hear anything aside from his own hiccuped gasps of air.  A horrible humming filled his ears and he quickly brought his palms up to the sides of his head, covering his ears to try and block out the noise.  It only seemed to intensify though, as if he had cupped around the humming and shoved it directly against his eardrums.

His knees wobbled and his footing staggered before his knees finally hit the ground.  The hard ground that was below his feet changed the moment his knees collided with it.  

Water was running along the hard ground that now felt like tile. If he ran his fingers along the floor, he would be able to trace the groves of cement and glue holding the pieces of breakable flooring together. He wasn’t able to properly process it in the overwhelming state of mind he was currently becoming more and more trapped in.  

The water that seeped into his pants drew higher and higher before engulfing his knees, thighs and eventually coming to reach his waist. His hands stayed covered over his ears as he shuttered and shook his head back and forth- trying to chalk it all up as another nightmare.  He’d wake up on another couch any moment in a room that you had taken him too.  This was just his mind playing trick on him- wasn’t it? 

The humming grew louder and louder before it went completely silent. The shift in noise to nothing was too sudden; uncomfortably sudden.  He should be relieved that the horrible, horrible sound that drilled into his head had stopped, but he was only accompanied by the newfound silence with a chill running up his spine and staying in the base of his neck .

Taehyung couldn’t move.  He shook and trembled, waist deep in cold water.

Was this what insanity felt like? Was he really losing his mind?

Then he remembered.  He was finally able to move again when he remembered his rose.  The flower that was somehow keeping him up and kicking. He moved his hands from his ears and began to frantically pat around his body.  His chest, his hips and thighs. In and out of pockets. He couldn’t find it.  He thought he had already reached his maximum panic level, but he was oh so wrong.  

He lost his rose and he felt like he was near his breaking point.  He hated that it affected him so much in both a mental and physical sense. Taehyung had normally defined himself as a more or less tough person to break down in more cases. 

He hardly had time to adjust to the life threatening new world he found himself in with art coming to life to kill him. Not to mention that his life was tied to a blue flower and he was dependent on a painting for safety.  

Taehyung was literally walking through his own personal nightmare. Who wouldn’t start losing their marbles after all that? 

His ducked down head shot up when he thought he heard something drop into the flooded flooring. He swore he heard the water ripple as it sounded like someone was walking, or dragging their feet through the water.  The sound of moving water echoed and he couldn’t pinpoint from which direction whatever was around him was moving.  Then the water pushed up his legs like something pushed the water towards him and he froze again.

He felt a breath blow against his forehead, his hair blowing in small, annoying strands that tickled his eyebrows and forehead. Whatever was wading in the water beforehand, was now right in front of him.

His mouth opened like he was going to scream, but nothing came out before the room erupted in bright lights.  He flinched under the extreme difference, the humming coming back to drill into his skull as fluorescent lights lined the ceiling above him.

When he was able to pry his eyes open, they glued themselves open at the sight of the creature in front of him.  It was… he couldn’t even begin to explain what it was.  

It looked like it had the basic shape of a person, but the limbs were far too long and lanky and it was engulfed in a thick looking, black tar that oozed and dripped from it’s appendages.  It’s head was also shaped like a humans, but turned completely sideways. The side of it’s head parallel with the floor as that same, thick blackness dripped from it’s chin that pointed directly to the left.  The mouth was nothing but a white circle in the middle of its face with black dripping between it’s ‘lips’ like jail bars.  

Whatever it was, it was horribly ugly and Taehyung thought his mind was distorting. The space around the creature seemed crackly- like tv static.  

The artist couldn’t move, he couldn’t speak, couldn’t flee.  He couldn’t even scream.  But it could. It could move, it could groan and moan, it could scream.  And it did.  

The mouth opened further into an elongated oval and a set of eyes showed themselves in small, crescents with the ends pointing to the left towards their chin on their crooked head.  The shrill shriek it let out made Taehyung’s bones rattle under his skin, like someone had just run a xylophone stick across his ribs.

It had brought it’s long, thin, dripping arms up as it seemed to ready lunge at the young, fear-stricken artist.  It screeched once more before it began to lunge, but it was immediately stopped in it’s tracks before it could do any sort of physical harm.  

The screech was cut short, as the head- in fact- the entire torso of the creature was pushed down by something.  It fell face first into the water at Taehyung’s knees as a long, golden strip of a picture frame stuck out of the back of it’s head.  

Red paint leaked out of the creatures head as it lay still and motionless in the water, dying the flooded area a shade of crystal pink. The smell wasn’t what he expected- what he expected to smell like iron, blood and death instead smelt of a flower shop, honey and lemonade.  The monster with a frame in the back of it’s head smelt like summer. 

Was it… dead?

Then he heard more footsteps, however with the lights on and eyes properly adjusted now, he could see exactly where they were coming from and who.  It turns out that somehow he had made it into a room- a small cube area that had no windows and only one door that was now thrown open.  Through that door, your body was slouched against the frame out of breath- once again ironic since you weren’t alive- and dripping blue drops of paint from your chin.

He was speechless- no longer from fear, but from shock.  

You wadded through the pink water to stand in front of him.  You turned to the creature you had just taken down by hurling your frame piece at it and quickly pulled the frame out.  Red spurt from the wound like a pathetic, paint-filled fountain. Before long, it was simply oozing and rolling off the skull of the creature into the water before it started to completely fade away like ash.

You looked back to Taehyung who had disappeared previously from your grasp and you knelt in front of him. Waving your hand in front of his face, he didn’t respond.  You looked down and around him to see his hand stuck on the inside of his jacket- like he had stopped looking for something mid-search.  

“Tae-”

“Rose,” he whispered urgently, interrupting you.  You gently dug into the small pouch you had on your side- where you got that, he wasn’t sure- and before a moment longer passed, blue petals were shown in his line of sight.  That seemed to finally start to snap him out of it.  “That’s my,” he whispered, the rest of his words dying on his tongue.

“You dropped it earlier when you let go of my hand,” you told him.  You gently took his hand from the inside of his jacket and placed the flower delicately inside his palm.  “You need to take better care of that if you want to get out of here.”

One, small tear fell from his eye before he was throwing his arms around your shoulders and pulling you towards him.  Your face fell into his shoulder as you felt him shake around you. You raised your arms tentatively and started to pat at his back awkwardly.  

“Don’t worry,” you shushed, as you stared at the back wall. You could hear the ashy pieces of the creature disengerate behind your back as his tremors quelled to shivers and soon he was still and his breath wasn’t ragged anymore.  He had calmed himself down as he squeezed you against his chest.

“Thank you,” he breathed.

-x-x-x-

Once Taehyung was able to move again without shaking or fearing for his safety and he had properly calmed down, you led him out of the room he had been trapped in.  Going down another long hall with nothing but lights lining the walls, he briefly stopped at a plaque on the wall next to another door.  This door wasn’t colorful or odd- it looked so ordinary it stood out among the bright purple hall he stood in.

“Gallery ahead,” he muttered, reading aloud as the sighed at the plaque that had an arrow pointing ahead beyond the door.  

Opening the door, there was no noise and all was quiet.  Taehyung followed you as he looked around.  

True to the plaque, it really was just another portion of the gallery.  Proper paintings on the walls with names below it, statues sectioned off with rope and dividers, mantles with busts- it too looked like an authentic, ordinary gallery.  The door you both passed through shut with a soft click as he looked behind at it still jumpy from earlier on. He was thankful it didn’t slam at least.

The floors were tile and shining like they had just been cleaned and waxed.  The walls were covered in a boring, but oddly suiting wallpaper fit for an aged art gallery while chandeliers hung along the ceiling lighting the place in a soft, glowing light.

“This is a nice break from the rest of the place,” Taehyung told you, catching up to your back as you were making your way through the place.  He came to walk beside you, looking at your eyes that couldn’t see any color.

“It is a section of the world that hasn’t been touched too badly by the distortion. If anything is alive here, it shouldn’t be a threat,” you assured him.  The fact you had put away your makeshift weapon put him further at ease.  He looked back and forth at the walls lined with art.  

This was what he was hoping to experience coming into the real gallery today.

Just browsing around to try and spark something in him to create something new.  To inspire him- not threatening his very life after sucking him into an actual nightmare world. He briefly jumped when a painting of a black cat blinked before it stretched and jumped right out of it’s canvas. He meowed up at him as he rubbed against his leg before scampering off somewhere else.  His padding paw steps disappearing down the hall.

Taehyung almost smiled at that.

The two of you walked in silence, the only sound in the gallery was the sound of both of your footsteps and the occasional sound of harmless art brought to life.  Taehyung stared at your back as you walked ahead of him and he began to wonder.  He wondered about a lot.

He wondered what would happen to you when he managed to get out of this place.  What would happen if he tried to maybe take you with him? Could you survive outside this place since you weren’t really born?  Would this gallery even exist when he leaves it or would it cease to be?

He stopped in his tracks he he caught himself. Why was he even thinking about taking you with him? 

The young artist was ripped from his thoughts when he saw your body jerk forward before you were staggering on your feet then falling to your knees on the tiled floors of the peaceful part of the gallery.

“Shit,” he cursed under his breath as he jogged up behind you.  He placed his hand on the middle of your back as he knelt beside you and dipped his head down to try and catch a glimpse of your face. “Y/n, hey!” He called as your body shook and heaved like you were a living breathing person in the midst of a breathing fit.  You were a painting with a soul, but not really alive so did you breathe? He found himself asking that to himself way too often.  

He shook his head- that wasn’t the thought he needed to overthink right now. “What’s wrong? Talk to me,” he tried coaxing you.

You just shook your hand towards him; whether to shut him up or shoo him away he wasn’t sure, but he didn’t move from your side regardless.  When your arm raised, he saw beneath your sleeve a sort of discoloration. It was just like what he saw earlier in the mirror room.  

He took your wrist in his hand as he pushed your sleeve up when you suddenly fell into him. He jolted as he rolled you to lay on your side- your head lolling off in a way that looked uncomfortable with your shoulder pushing into the ground. He lifted your head, putting it on his leg to try and help you at least a bit.  

You twitched as he examined your skin. It looked like your arm was covered in a horrific bruise.  Ugly splotches of black, blue, purples, greens and yellows engulfed your arm like a tattoo sleeve gone horribly wrong. His brows dipped as he looked at the rest of your arm before he looked at the other.  It was the same thing, but not nearly as severe in terms of color and blotches.  It was like it was spreading.  

“What the hell?” He murmured as you seemed to be calming down.  You pushed yourself of his leg to lay on your back on the ground as your chest stopped heaving and you stopped twitching.  You closed your eyes, focusing on coming back down from whatever attack had ailed you and before too much longer, you were forcing yourself to sit up again. 

Taehyung sat beside you, slowly drawing his hand back and away from you as you pushed your sleeve back down to cover your ruined skin.  He narrowed his eyes at you as you looked back at him.  For someone who wasn’t really alive, you seemed to have bags under your eyes.  Something was straining you and you weren’t telling him about it.

“So?” He asked with a sharp tone as you just returned his word with a sigh as an answer.  He wanted an explanation and he wanted it sooner rather than later.

“It’s not-”

“Tell me or I’m gonna annoy you continuously until you give in. We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

You ticked your eyebrow up at him. “You’re threatening me? You realized I’m the one who’s been taking down everything that has attacked us so far, right?”

“It’s not a threat,” he promised as he crossed his arms sitting on the floor. He looked like a child.  In the end you let out another defeated sigh. There would be no point in arguing with him.  He’d probably run you in verbal circles until he got his way anyway.

“You know how the rest of the gallery is corrupted, you’ve seen it. Everything in this world that is art is affected.” You grabbed the sleeve of your arm as you sat more comfortably.  “Just because I’m fighting against it now, doesn’t mean I’m uneffected.  It’s a distortion that affects the arts- good or bad- and we can’t do anything about it. I’m just stubborn.”

Taehyung sat for a moment before opening his mouth again.

“So, you’re going to turn bad too?” He asked timidly.

“It’s unfortunate, but inevitable.”

“That’s crazy,” he whispered to the floors when his chin dipped down.  He groaned as he brought his hand up to ruffle his lightly colored hair.  You had been protecting him ever since you found him and now there’s a chance you could turn against him too? That was just crazy. You wouldn’t just turn on him like that, right? It’d be gradual and not just flipping a switch from sane to insane, right?

He was pulled from his thoughts again when you moved to stand and he quickly mirrored your actions to stand in front of you.  His arms hovered around your waist and back in order to catch you if you happened to fall again.

“Whatever happens, we just need to get you out of here as soon as possible.  If we find the exit quickly, we can get you out before I completely lose it.” You turned, ready to start walking off again to explore further when Taehyung shot his hand out and caught your arm.

“Wait!�� He shouted, the echoes of his voice bouncing off the white walls adorned with art that wasn’t malicious.  “Will you be okay?” He asked even though he really knew the answer.  You had just told him that you were going to eventually turn from who you are now to someone else- one way or the other.

You smiled at him, trying your best to reassure him but didn’t offer him a verbal answer.  You slowly pulled his hand off you before you were telling him to follow you.  His arm dropped back to his side slowly as he looked at your back with sad eyes.  

He didn't know what hurt worse; the fact that you basically just told him ‘no’ or the fact that you didn’t say anything for him to understand because even if your eyes are just strokes of paint, they held so much in them and it twisted his gut.  

Taehyung wasn’t very fond of the idea that he had to leave the peaceful atmosphere of the white gallery and go back out into the one that actively tried to kill him.  His rose was safe in the zipped pocket inside his jacket as opposed to the outside pockets at his sides. He watched before he began to follow you once again.  

The drastic difference between the white, bright gallery and the dark, dim, purple backlight one just from passing through a door still through him for a loop each time he went through another passageway.  He stopped trying to guess what kind of room he’d be going into, because he’d probably guess wrong every time if he did. 

You stayed on guard with your picture frame piece and he stood beside you-more ready to throw down with a sculpture than before- even if he still didn’t want to. He’d tell you what colors were where and lead you in directions if you asked if a certain color was around.  

He briefly wondered how you managed to get around before he got there with your inability to see color, but then he stopped thinking about it because if you just went into a room that was filled with a problem- you probably just got rid of it.  You were more than capable, you’ve proved that more than enough by this point.

“Taehyung,” you called from ahead of him. He had been so lost in thought his steps had slowed down and he was further back away from you than he knew.  “Don’t lag behind.”

“Oh, right,” he called before he was jogging back to your side.  Following you through a doorway, he wasn’t as shocked as he should have been to see a room that was dark with only a trunk inside of it.  Walking in, you stepped up to it before you tapped it with your frame piece to see if something was inside.  

There was only silence before the lid of it burst open.  

You jolted, stepping in front of Taehyung as he raised his hand instinctively to maybe try and throw a punch at whatever might leap out of it, but nothing came out.  The lid bounced against the back of the trunks frame. The inside of it looked like a pink cloud- it wasn’t empty, just unsettlingly pink.  It was like cotton candy or maybe something thicker like thread that could trap you if you touched it.

“What-,” you started before you were yelping into direct fight or flight.  The still pinkness in the trunk jolted before it shot out like sentient strings and separated into long, thick arms of darkened red that wrapped around you and Taehyung’s bodies.  

Your backs were forced together and to your misfortune, your frame was knocked from your hand and clattered to the ground.  The thick strands of red wrapped tightly around your midsections and squeezed as it entangled around your legs and arms and even around your forehead to keep you completely still. Immobilizing the two of you, it then started to slowly reel you in.  

Your feet dragged across the ground and your toes lifted up and off the ground at some point as Taehyung was left to keep fumbling over his own feet.  He wouldn’t fall no matter how tangled his feet got since he was bound and tied so tightly.

The pair of you were stopped in front of the trunk that seemed to bulge in size- like it was taking into account the size of two people before you were swallowed into the cloud of pink turned red.  The sound of the trunks lid slammed above you both boomed like thunder before you were falling.  

It felt weightless, but you could feel the wind rushing past you as you were sure you were coming closer to hitting the ground.  

It was pitch black all around, but you felt Taehyung reach for you- now freed from the strands of red thread that had encased you both. You felt him wrap his arms around your shoulders from in front of you.  His chest pushed against yours before his weight overcame your own and he was falling first in front of you.

The fall wasn’t long and it didn’t feel like enough to particularly kill a person, but when the two of you hit the ground with Taehyung bracing the fall you were quick to shoot up from his chest as he groaned laying on his back.  

“Are you stupid?!” You scolded as he winced both from your shrieks and the pain of the fall. He sat up, rubbing his back as he just weakly laughed.  

“Yeah, so?” Your eye twitched at his lame excuse for a joke at a time like this. As he recovered from his fall and came back to his senses that weren’t cloaked in sensitive fall-stricken shock, you looked around to where exactly you two fell.  

It looked like you were pulled into a child’s coloring book.  Scratchy, uneven lines of what looked to be crayon or oil chalks were used to make up houses, roads and not too far from you both was a mass of uneven, patchy blue chalk that you assumed was a lake of sorts from its size.  It was dark, but it was lit with small patchy lights lining walls or suspending overhead like floating light bulbs.

You made it to your feet after you helped Taehyung, grabbing his hand and offering your shoulder for him to lean on.  He graciously took it and you were quick to ask if his rose was alright.  He dug it out of the inside pocket of his jacket and showed it to you.  A petal or two were missing, but you assumed it was caused from the fall.  

No wonder he hurt so much, you mentally noted with an eye roll; his rose was damaged.  

You looked around and peered over the chalked created houses.  Maybe if you investigated inside one of them, you’d find a vase for him to use to restore his rose petals.  You hiked his arm over your shoulder for a more firm grasp on his body's weight on you.

“Alright, first things first,” you started as you got his attention. “We need to find a vase with water to get your rose to grow.  That should take the pain away.” He muttered in agreement before both of you walked- ambled- off.  

Walking with a body hanging off you was a lot harder than you initially though it would be.  He would walk the best he could, but the injury and loss of his petals were obviously affecting him more than he was willing to let on. 

The first house you both entered was a small one outlined in pink chalk and inside was just one big open room with a drawn, blue couch, a table and a coat rack.  On the table was a vase, but it was empty.  If it wasn’t all black and white to you, maybe you would have found the place almost charming in it’s own way- but it was just dull.

You quickly moved Taehyung to the couch and told him to stay put.  Taking the vase you left the house and quickly moved down the chalked, dirt road down the lake you saw.  Maybe you could put some of the fake water into the vase and just somehow make it work, who knows.

Making it to the lake, you knelt and dipped the vase into the mass of blue as it filled the vase.  Your arm twitched before it was jerked and convulsed with it’s own corruption again and the vase slipped from your fingers for just a moment- but that moment was enough to lose it in the chalky blue mass of scribbles.  

Without much thought, you dove into the water, quickly snatched it back and as fast as possible swam and pulled yourself out of the mass before anything that could possibly be in the lake even thought about grabbing you.  

You huffed in annoyance as your clothes were dusted with chalk and even though it wasn’t real water- you felt damp.  You shook out your sleeves before you got to your feet and went back to Taehyung who was waiting in the house you left him laying on the couch with heavy breaths.

When he saw you, his eyebrow quirked.

“What’re you covered in? Dust?” He asked as you just shook your head, kneeling at the couch side and replacing the vase filled with vibrant blue on the table again.  

“Forget about it. Give me your rose, please.” your hand was outstretched and waiting as he quickly pulled it out and handed it to you. You hesitantly placed the stem into the water and let it sink as the blooms of the petals rested against the rim of the vase.  You heard Taehyung sigh as if his pain was floating away and to your relief, two petals grew once again. “Thank goodness that actually worked,” you sighed.

Taehyung chuckled beside you. “Yeah, no kidding.  That was all assumption- if that had taken more petals off, I think I would’ve passed out or something.”

“You mangled to take four petals of damager before,” you told him. “Besides, you weren’t that injured,” you told him as you took the rose back out of the vase and handed it to him to replace in his jacket. “You just don’t know how to take a fall.”

“Excuse me,” he scoffed in disbelief. “Who was the one who took the brunt of that fall, huh?” He sat up and crossed his arms like a child pouting. “A thank you would be nice to hear, you know.”

Your lips tilted in a smile as you moved to stand up and stretched your arms across your chest.  You felt helpless without your frame piece that you had lost before you wound up here with the young, human artist.  Looking at him like this, you wouldn’t think he’d be in as much danger as he is.  He was in a whole different dimension with enemies at his back almost constantly, but here he was pouting for a ‘thank you’.  You chuckled.

“Thank you, Taehyung,” you told him. You weren’t sure if it was the dim lights or maybe your vision going because of your own distorting body, but you thought you saw the blank shade of his skin to your eyes darken.  Like color had possibly bloomed over his cheeks.

He cleared his throat before you could ask and he was getting up off the couch, walking to the door of the house. He was ready to leave, but stopped short.  You came up behind him and opened your mouth to ask him what the problem was when he spun around and shushed you.  He pushed you back and led you behind the couch, crouching down and covering you with himself as you both hid.

You had no idea what he thought he heard, but you kept quiet before you heard the door of the house you both were in squeak open.  You looked at Taehyung as he looked up, focusing on listening for any indication of someone coming closer to your hiding place.  

You racked your brain trying to think of what or who could be following you both.  Had someone been inside the trunk before you and had seen you at the lake? You weren’t sure.  You heard them pad into the house before they stopped and then a crash sounded through the walls of the room. The footsteps then walked back out of the room and the door slammed shut.  

Taehyung and you stared at each other, still remaining silent for a few more moments before determining you were safe. He let out a breath as he peeked over the couch first and scanned the room.  There was no one.  

“It’s clear,” he whispered as he stood up and moved away from you as you stood up next to him.  Your brows dipped as you saw the vase you had just used to heal Taehyung’s rose shattered into pieces with splashes of blue- grey to your eyes- dusted around the table top and blew onto the floor.  

You looked at the door with a narrowed gaze.  Just what was that? Could something you didn’t know about be wandering around? Then again, even you didn’t know everything there is to know about this gallery. 

“I think we need to hurry,” you muttered, Taehyung quickly agreed as you both scurried out of the house.  The two of you walked along the dusty, chalk paths before you were stepping up a set of stairs back into a proper gallery. It led to a section that you recognized. You started walking with ease, knowing what was where in this section and Taehyung took notice of that.  

“Do you know where we are? I mean, you’ve known a good part of where we’ve been, but I mean-”

“This is my section of the gallery. My frame is hanging around here, so yes I know it.” You told him, interrupting his rambling for an answer to his question.

“Your frame?”

“Yes. You know I’m just a painting. The frame I was placed in and the frame I came out of is around here.”

“Can I see it?” He asked without much thinking before you stopped and turned to him.  He almost slapped a hand over his mouth to keep himself from saying anything else without a filter before you turned on your heel and started off around a corner. “Y/n! Wait!”

“You wanted to see my frame, didn’t you?” You popped your head back around the corner to motion him to follow after you and he did so.  He trailed you- just as he had been- and eventually you took him to a deadend hall.  At the end of it, on the wall facing the rest of the narrow corridor, was an empty frame. “This is it,” you told him, motioning to it with as little care as you would as if you were showing off a bag of dog food.

The frame was silver and engraved with all sorts of weaves across it.  It was sturdy and not undamaged.  The glass of the frame was broken; however it must’ve been broken from the inside if the evidence of the glass at his feet was anything to go by. You must have burst from the inside out and created the glass mess in front of it.  The plaque under the frame read ‘Leia’ as the young artist looked back to you with wide eyes.

“You’re Leia?” He asked. At the discovery he had a pang of small guilt in his stomach from thinking earlier on that he didn’t even want to see the painting since the rest of the gallery was out for his blood. You blinked at him as you nodded simply.

“That was my title when I was created, but I was given a new name because I was granted a soul and free will within this dimension.” You crossed your arms. “Why does it matter what my art piece name is?”

“It's just that the gallery I came from was named after you,” he told you. “I guess I just never expected you to be the last piece of art from someone- not that it’s a bad thing!” He defended at the unimpressed look in your painted eyes. “It was the discovery of that painting that gave my gallery the name it has. You’re like the main centerpiece of everything.”

You looked blankly at your empty frame.  

“I doubt that the ‘Leia’ in the real gallery is like me. I may be ‘Leia’, but I’m more Y/n. It sounds ridiculous, but that painting isn’t me.” You softly traced the silver frame with your fingers before you were turning around again. “Come on, we’ve wasted enough time. No more detours.”

Taehyung was quick to chase after you but he couldn’t think of a thing to say to you.  He wanted to talk to fill the silence that gaped between the two of you.  Taehyung kept telling himself that he had no reason to try and figure you out, you were a painting for God’s sake.  What could he possibly want to know?

Other than everything.

He wondered about a great many things and couldn’t help but overthink what you may or may not have been through.  How did you feel about this world? Did you consider it home or maybe a sort of prison you were unfortunately born into. How did this world look to your colorless eyes? Just how did it feel being a painting exactly? 

When you were ‘born’ and thrust into a world that was already starting to collapse, how did you survive? Did you fight from the beginning, or not? He wanted to ask all these questions, but he knew that he wouldn’t. It wasn’t his place to ask anyway- this world isn’t his and you weren’t even human.

Taehyung followed behind you as a feeling in his gut started to bloom. He raised his hand to his stomach and palmed it through his shirt as his steps slowed and he watched you ever so slowly get further ahead of him.  He felt like he couldn’t do this without answers.  So, he acted idiotically and moronically and selfishly.  

Without you realizing, you got separated from Taehyung once again- only this time on purpose.  The next time you turned around to check on why he was so silent, you stopped in your tracks not seeing him around you.  

“Dammit,” you seethed.

-x-x-x-

Taehyung had back tracked all the way to your empty portrait frame.  He stood in front of it once more as his fingers traced the letters of your plaque. The letters spelling out ‘Leia’ in fine script before he was tracing the frame itself.

He felt selfish for wanting to know about you- a painting- and keeping himself here in a world that actively tried to kill him longer than he needed to be. He scoffed at himself, his mind remembering how he had judged the artist in the book he had read before and how the artist got attached to something like a painting. 

“Talk about the pot calling the kettle black,” he chided to himself.  

He needed to go home and although he understood that, he wanted to know more about the living painting that had been protecting him up until this point.  The same painting who was slowly getting infected with some weird, paint disease that could turn you against him at the drop of a pen.

He knew he was pressed for time. Time was precious, but he couldn’t help but feel like you were too.

Taehyung inspected the black emptiness of the frame that you had come from and reached his hand out.  His hand jerked back when the pads of his fingers weren’t met with the sturdy wall that the frame hung on.  Instead, the blackness encased by the silver frame rippled like murky water.  It was like a pool of ink as he reached out to it again and started to sink his hand into it further.

He wondered how deep that ink went, how far could he reach inside before it stopped him.  Could he be able to submerge himself fully into it, or maybe crawl into the frame like a painting himself.  

“But then, what would that accomplish?” He questioned himself with a half-sarcastic attitude. However, even if he knew it was more than likely fruitless, he started to climb inside anyways.  The frame was big, so he had no problem with grabbing the edges of the frame, lifting his leg over the bottom ledge of it and heaving himself inside the blackness.  

He braced himself, feeling like it would feel like that monster from before that encased him in terror as it threatened his very life.  However, this blackness wasn’t like before.  It was dark and felt endless, but it lacked the deep pit of dread that the monster had.  It felt like something- but he couldn’t place exactly what.

Loneliness maybe? Or perhaps a bittersweet sort of feeling; like being free, yet not being as free as a true human being.  He walked around aimlessly in the blackness, feeling less and less like he was walking on the floor.  He started feeling weightless, like he was walking on air.

There was clearly no end where he was, and he wasn’t so sure if he really wanted there to be.  A light at the end of the tunnel? That wouldn’t apply in this situation and he knew that perfectly well. Or, he thought that would be the case.  From behind him, he started to feel something close by, like the feeling of someone standing directly behind your back.

Whirling around, he saw nothing, felt no one and squinted his eyes as his ears started to pick up on some noise around. It sounded like it was echoing around from every direction, but he was still able to follow it- maybe it was because wherever he was in your frame was a directionless void.

It was nowhere and everywhere all at once.  

As he walked, the blackness started to slowly light up from a greyscale and before long he was standing in a room.  Like, a real room, but in this room he couldn’t touch anything.  He was in a studio- covered in easels, paints, canvases, stains and tarps and cloth and everything in between.  

However, if he even tried to touch something, his hand would just phase right through the object he wanted to grasp. He walked around the studio before the door to the room opened and hobbled in was an older man whose face he couldn’t see.  His face wasn’t even that, it was just black scribbles where the features should have been.  Static echoed around the room as he assumed that the old man was trying to speak, but the words didn’t reach Taehyung’s ears.  

He walked to an easel that was covered with a white cloth before he set up his area and sat on a stool.  He cleaned up some brushes, cleaned his palette and rearranged his paints to suit his needs and wants.

Taehyung watched in silence as the old man began to paint and even though there was clearly a passing of some sort of warped time, in the moment it all felt timeless.  The end result was none other than your own portrait.  He shouldn’t have been shocked to see your spitting image in your portrait, but he couldn’t help it.  

Then the old man just turned his back, his fake face seemingly looking right at the young artist before he pointed at you.  More specifically, he pointed to the white space of your canvas and Taehyung could have sworn he saw it ripple like water.  

The setting of the studio began to suddenly fade out as he started hearing murmuring in the distance echoing around him.  It sounded unbearably loud as he covered his ears and the studio brushed away in flakes like eraser debris.  

“-yung! -hyung!” He felt like his head was about to burst as he felt something grab the back of his jacket and yank him backward.  He was then tumbling out of your frame, out of the void and onto the floor of the demented gallery. “Taehyung!” Someone shouted his name above him as his eyes were blurry and he rubbed at them to try and get them to regain their focus.  He blinked as his brows shot up when his eyes shot open wide.

“Namjoon?” There, above him, hovered his best friend. Taehyung quickly whipped around to his stomach before pushing off the ground and looking up to the blog journalist.  “What? What are you doing here?”

“I should be asking you that.”

Taehyung was sure he was the only one who happened to fall into this sketched out dangerous gallery. Namjoon wasn’t even where he was left when Taehyung looked for him. He looked his friend over.

“How have you made it this far?” Taehyung was impressed. Aside from the disheveled state of his clothes with wrinkles and small beads of sweat on his brow and temple, he seemed fine.  

“It wasn’t easy, I’ll tell you that.” Namjoon groaned as he pulled the artist off the floor and straightened out his jacket, brushing him off. “I’ve been running around like crazy for hours looking for you.”

Taehyung was shocked and honestly glad to see a familiar face.  Then you came to mind.  He wondered if you were looking for him after he just decided to pull that disappearing act on you.  He felt guilty about it now that his actions settled in. For all he knew, you thought he got himself caught in another dangerous situation when he was really as safe as he could be in the moment. 

“Did you happen to pass by a girl? Like, our age but wearing outdated clothing.”

“Someone else? No, I didn’t. Is someone else here?”

Taehyung shook his head.  “No, she’s not a person, she’s a painting and- argh forget it!  It’s a long story and from the look you’re giving me, you don’t believe me in the first place.”

“How hard did you hit your head when I pulled you out of that thing?” Namjoon asked as he used his thumb to lazily point to your empty frame.  Taehyung squeezed his eyes shut as he rubbed at his temples.  He remembered the way his head spun when Namjoon started calling him before he was dragged out by the man.  His head had pounded just like how it did when he was in the room with the tar monster from earlier. 

He tried thinking back to the man in the studio he witness and tried putting together anything that could be used as a clue on how to get home. He seemed to obviously be pointing to something, something Taehyung couldn’t help but feel was important.  “Whatever you saw,” Namjoon called his attention, “forget it.  It’s probably a trap or something.  You can’t trust the things here.”

“Not everything is dangerous,” Taehyung countered with you in mind.  “Y/n isn’t.”

Namjoon sighed annoyed. “You don’t know that. You said ‘she’ was a painting, right? You can’t trust something like that thing.”

“Don’t call her a thing,” Taehyung growled.  “She’s kept me safe up until this point. Like it or not, I trust her. We need to find her before we get attacked by something.”

“Taehyung-”

“I’m not arguing about this.  Finding Y/n takes first priority.” Normally, Taehyung was more than obedient when it came to Namjoon.  Not only was he older, but the sense of leadership the older held made it easy to listen.  However, Taehyung didn’t feel that air of ‘need to follow’ right now around him.  

“What about leaving? What about that priority?”

“She can help us. Y/n comes first,” he finalized before he was turning on his heel and going off into the direction he had fled from your side.  Namjoon clicked his tongue as he reluctantly followed behind.

Logically, even Taehyung knew that you’d probably be agitated for prioritizing your location over his freedom and escape out of this place.  But, the nagging in his head didn’t let him argue the topic, even with himself.  He wasn’t going to just find a way to escape and not tell you goodbye at the very least.  

You had done nothing but help and protect him, the least he could do was tell you thank you properly before he left.  It was the right thing to do, even if a little bit foolish.  He knew that.

To his luck, it didn’t take nearly all that long for him to catch a glimpse of you rushing around a corner.  You were jogging around, looking to and fro for something- he knew it was him- and he was quick to start shouting at you with his arm raised in the dark halls.  Namjoon stood behind his shoulder, still unhappy.

“Y/n!” He watched your head whip around as you started running towards him.  As you didn’t slow down in your approach, the closer you got the more nervous he became before you skit to an abrupt halt at his toes and got up into his face, grabbing his jacket collar.

“Stop going off on your own! Are you stupid or do you want to get attacked again that badly, huh?!” You shouted in rightful anger as he felt sweat gather on his neck.  He raised his hands in defense as he slightly pushed your shoulders down to gain some distance away from your rage.  

“I know, I shouldn’t have run off.” You slowly released his jacket. “That was my bad and I apologize, but,” he stepped away from you and twisted to show Namjoon. “I managed to find my friend.  He was in the gallery with me before I got here. This is Namjoon.”

Taehyung introduced the two of you as you just stared at the man and he stared back in a silent competition that Taehyung definitely picked up on.  Clearly, there wasn’t much hope of friendship on the horizon- but he figured you’d cooperate with him so that they could get out safely.  You were that kind of person- cooperative if not a bit on the stubborn side.

“You found him, huh? Where?”

“Oh, I went back to your frame and he was there.” Taehyung easily answered, deciding to keep the fact that he crawled into the frame and saw what looked like memories to himself.  What if it stirred something up with you? Your mood was already foul enough, he didn’t want to risk it.

He wasn’t one to stir the pot, so to speak. 

Your brow twitched at his seemingly carefree manner at his ditching stunt.  You groaned as you whacked him on the arm before pointing your finger at his face in a warning manner, making him go cross eyed momentarily.  

“You run off like that again, and I’ll tie your wrist to mine. Got it?”

“Promise?” He teased as you just threw your hands in the air in defeat and started walking off.  He wasn’t planning on running when your back was turned again.  Just that one time was enough.  Now that he was with Namjoon too, he couldn’t risk being as careless.  “We’re going. Come on.”

“At your beck and call, Leader,” Taehyung chided, still trying to get your spirits higher from the mood he put you in.  Namjoon followed behind silently with skeptical eyes as Taehyung chatted with you like he’d known you all his life.  

-x-x-x-

Taehyung had since stopped his yammering as you lead the charge of three through halls and told them when to be silent and when to be cautious. You kept a close eye on Namjoon, something about the friend of Taehyung’s rubbing you the wrong way.  You couldn’t say whether or not you were a good judge of character since Taehyung was the first human you ever met, but you still felt something off.  His cold glare made your artificial skin crawl.

You had just walked through an archway before Taehyung made a noise of recognition as you turned to him.  He looked around with wide eyes.  

“What is it?”

“I feel like I’ve been in this area before.”

“Really?” You questioned.  You’d never really gone into this portion of the gallery.  It was always too dark to see and you were always put off by how quiet it was.  It was like there was something on the other side of the walls that irked you.  “Maybe you passed by here before I found you. I’ve never been in this part before.”

“You haven’t been here? I thought you had been everywhere.” Taehyung wasn’t accusing you, he was just curious.  He wanted to know why you hadn’t been here.  

“I had no reason to be,” you told him.  “Besides, I don’t think a creature like me who’s slowly corrupting belongs in a tranquil part of this place.”

“So,” Namjoon finally intervened from behind the two of you.  You both turned to look at his cross-armed figure, still glaring and fuming with some odd sense of presence you hated.  “You admit you’re dangerous?”

Your brows furrowed.  “Excuse me?”

“You said you’re corrupting.  So? That sounds like a red-flag if I’ve ever heard one.”

“I’m sorry,” you scoff in disbelief, “has it been you getting Taehyung through this place in one piece? Or maybe it was you who has been taking down threats left and right and going on wild goose chases when things go south. No?”

“Guys-” Taehyung tried dispersing the stifling air, but Namjoon’s ire interrupted him.  You both went back and forth and before long you were at Namjoon’s toes, arguing with him face to face- quite literally.  Taehyung watched as he tried to think of a way to calm you both down.  The last thing he wanted was to both waste time and have the two sides of his trust arguing against each other.  

Taehyung was going to open his mouth and shout or something, just to break the string of tension, but his jaw had just dropped when you had stopped mid-sentence.  Your hand was raised, an accusatory finger pointed at his best friend’s chin when it started to drop just a fraction to his chest.

“Y/n?” Taehyung called.  He shrieked when your hand came to grip his chin, squeezing his jaw as you yanked Namjoon’s face down to look into his eyes.  “Woah! Y/n, c-calm down!” You narrowed your eyes before you shoved him away, making his feet stumble back a handful of steps to keep himself upright.  Taehyung came to your side as you shook your hand as if it was contaminated. He looked you over and noticed the uneasy look on your face. “What’s-”

“Why are you sticking to that painting like glue?” Namjoon called to Taehyung as he rubbed his jaw.  “I’m your friend here, not that.” Taehyung looked up and towards the journalist with confliction.  

“T-that’s true, but-”

“But nothing.  That thing just grabbed and shoved me, but you’re at it’s side like I did something wrong.  You should be checking on me, not fawning over that.” He pointed at you, his eyes grew small in anger as you just shot back at him a silent glare.  

Taehyung was less than pleased to keep hearing Namjoon refer to you as ‘it’ or a ‘thing’.  Painting or not, you were still alive and, dammit, Namjoon needed to accept that already. He was ready to tell him off, defend you when you spoke first in a low tone.

“Do you trust me?” You asked. You were looking dead at Namjoon, but the artist knew you were addressing him.  You repeat the question when you’re met with only silence.  Taehyung immedately nodded when the question was repeated.

“Yeah, of course I do.”

“WHY?!” He jumped from Namjoon’s shriek across from the two of you. Your shoulders squared and the action didn’t go unnoticed. “Why trust something you just met?! Who is admitting to killing things and slowing losing its mind?!” His brought his hands to his chest, gesturing to himself. “You should be trusting me!”

“What is wrong with you,” Taehyung whispered in concern, wondering what happened to his best friend.  He was normally the type to roll with anything, even in stressful situations he always tried to take it with a grain of salt.  He was an optimist, or at least he always tried to be.  No matter the dark tunnel, there’s always a light; it was basically Namjoon’s life motto. “Did something happen? Stop accusing Y/n and just talk to-” he gasped when he felt your hand grasp his.  Your face was downcast as you squeezed his palm. “Y/n?”

You whipped your head up and looked at him dead in the eyes.  “We have to run.” Taehyung jolted back.  Run? From what? You looked back at Namjoon, your colorblind eyes slowly unveiling just who and what that best friend of Taehyung’s was.  “We need to get away from him as soon as possible.  He’s dangerous.”

“What?” Taehyung was in instant denial.  Namjoon? Dangerous?  The same Namjoon who would cry if one of his plants died or would lay on the floor, staring at the ceiling if someone asked him what his favorite brand of pen is for the hundredth time? “That’s not true, he’s-” Taehyung looked at his best friend to defend him, but stopped short.

Something about him was off. Taehyung had noticed it since the beginning, but dismissed it all. Now, it looked like some veil of black was hovering around his friend’s body as he glared at you. Namjoon didn’t look like himself.  He looked fake and at that, Taehyung’s eyes widened.  

He looked artificial- just like how you did to his human eyes.  

You must have seen it in his eyes, that’s why you grabbed his chin to inspect him further.  That’s why you shoved him away and that’s why you wanted Taehyung to flee.  

Your hand dropped his as you caught sight of the thing disguised as Taehyung’s friend moving just slightly.  You stepped in front of the artist before you took off before ‘it’ could.  It lunged and you were quick to react.  You lifted your foot and slammed it into it’s stomach as it leaned forward- not at the lack of air, but the force you put into your stomping.  You locked your arm around the back of its neck as you tucked it’s head under your arm and held it in place in a lock.  

You groaned as you felt your arms burn with contamination again and your grip almost loosened at the paintings thrashing because of it.  You planted your feet as firmly as you could, even if the thrashing made you teeterd from your heels to your toes and skid an inch back or forward here and there.  

You weren’t sure how long you’d be able to keep the thing under your arm contained and although you had just told Taehyung not to leave your side again, you were ready to tell him to run off and hide somewhere until you could find him.  

The moment you turned your head on your shoulders to shout for him to do so, you halted to see him literally at your back already.  His large hands had planted themselves one on your back to steady you and the only ensnared in the fake Namjoon’s clothed back, gripping it’s clothes firmly. Even the fabric felt like paint under his nails as he started to rip the thing away from you.  

Taehyung caught sight of the fake’s face and what used to be identical to Namjoon had muddled away to show a white tar surface with no sense of expression. He sneered as he took your place of taking it on before he was shoving it backward.  

Although he wasn’t a fighter, Taehyung was no push over.  He could hold his own if he really ended up needing to and at the moment, he did.  He pushed the fake as it stumbled on it’s own clumsy feet before it started to go after him again.  Taehyung swung his elbow out, cathing the fake in the whiteness of it’s face before it hit the ground.  

He backed up away from the thing he just put on the ground, turning to you and snatching your hand in his again.

Taehyung’s hand squeezed yours and when he did, you spun on your heels and took off, fleeing with the young artist beside you.  You both heard ‘Namjoon’ scream behind your backs as Taehyung looked back to see it still laying on the floor, skriming.  

Taehyung was terrified, more terrified than he was before.  He was terrified on how it gained his trust so easily- a thought that almost made him angry.  He felt stupid as he held onto your hand like a linelife as you weaved through the halls and soon came to a staircase.  

You stopped as you looked over your shoulder as Taehyung buckled to his knees and heaved after sprinting for so long.  He used the wall to support himself as you looked at him trying to gather his breath.  

You looked at your hand in his and attempted to pull it away from him, but he just squeezed tighter onto you and tugged it back.

“A little longer,” he whispered.  After a few minutes of him gathering himself and you making sure you both weren't followed, he stood back to his height and continued to hold you hand.  “Hey,” he called with a tight throat. “If we run into anyone else, if you don’t trust them, tell me and I won’t either.” You didn’t say a word to try and deter him from using your judgement as his own, you simply nodded in agreement.  

If all worked out, he wouldn’t need to use your opinions for much longer.  You were going to get him out.

The two of you ascended the staircase before you and when you reached the top, Taehyung looked around to see the spitting image of the original gallery.  

The white walls and matching floors and ceilings. The chandeliers that weren’t on with the power out and the windows all greyed out as if they were blocked by cement.  The front doors were locked as if there was no escape.  Trying a switch, he wasn’t shocked to see the lights not working.  

“Can you lead from here,” you asked him, just trying to get him to talk again.  “I don’t know my way around.” He only nodded before he was walking off, tugging you in tow as you thought of ways to make his voice come out again.  You felt oddly uneasy when he was silent.  The previous incident with the fake friend of his obviously taking a mental toll on him.  It was to be expected, but it still hurt your chest.

If you had a beating heart, you’d call this feeling heartache.

It was when you passed by a rather mundane looking couch that was suclupted in a strange, wavey shape when you figured out a way to get him to talk. You stopped and your hand in his anchored him when he looked over his shoulder.  When he looked at you, you pointed to the sofa surrounded in rope dividers.

“What colors is that?” You asked when you looked back at him.  Your actions and unspoken desire to get his voice to come out didn’t go unnoticed-  

He smiled. “It’s red,” he told you.

-Nor did it go unappreciated.  

From that, he would tell you the colors of whatever you pointed at that you passed and before he knew it he had come to a deadend with only one, giant painting on the wall- taking up the entire space of it.  His mouth opened as his hand dropped from yours as he looked at it.  

“That’s,” he looked at it as his eyes ran over every edge. “That looks like the gallery. The real one,” he smiled as he gazed at it.  This was it, his way out. He felt in his bones that this was his exit.  His hand reached to touch the canvas, but gasped when his hand just phased right through.  It was just like how your frame was.  He could climb into this and be somewhere else.  

Then he felt a chill run down his spine and a heavy feeling fall in his gut.  He pulled his hand back as he turned around and looked at you.  You were well behind him against the back wall, your hands behind your back as you watched him.  

“What?” You asked.  This was his way out and you both knew it.  You expected him to jump on through and finally be free of this hellscape, but instead he made his way back to you and away from his exit door disguised as a painting. He stood in front of you, toe to toe as he looked at you.

Taehyung gazed at you, his eyes began to sting as they felt misty.  This was ridiculous, he felt ridiculous. How could he cry about leaving you behind when he just met you?  You didn’t belong in his world and he knew that just as much as you.  Yet, the feeling of parting ways with you made his throat tight.

“I’m leaving,” he told you. “And I won’t ever see you again,” he choked.  You were shocked to see the first tear run down his face.  You wondered if tears were blue. You brushed it away with the back of your hand as more just kept coming.  He could see the distortion on your skin under your sleeve from the angle of you wiping his tears and he just wanted to cry more.

His mind started becoming delusional.  

If he chose not to leave and stayed put with you, would you hurt him? Would you hunt him down in time and kill him like the others had before?  Would he lose his humanity even? Turn into a painting and spend the rest of his time with you. You wouldn’t be alone if he did. What if he tried to take you back with him? Would you just disintegrate into paint splotches because you had no physical body to speak of?

So many hypotheticals and you wouldn’t allow any of them to come to fruition.

“Go home, Taehyung,” you told him softly with a smile, the hand you placed on his cheek rubbed his skin before letting it softly fall.  You urged him, not commanded him and he knew he had to go.  He sniffled as he grabbed your hands and held them again. “What, you want a hug goodbye or something?” You teased but when he didn’t reply, you rolled your eyes.  “You do, don't you?”

“And? What about it,” he sniffed as he pouted. You pulled your hands away from his, even if he chased after them when you did.  You swatted at his hands that tried grabbing yours once more.

“Do you want me to hug you or not?” You asked in impatience while he nodded like a child. “Then let my hands go.” He immediately abandoned your hands and wrapped his arms under your own and pulled you to your toes against his chest.  You felt your chest hit his with a dull thud as he held you like you were dying.  

Well, you sort of were, but he didn’t need the finer details repeated on your unavoidable fate.  

He started swaying you on your toes as he found a home on your shoulder. One of your hands was on his head, shushing him and the other pat his back between his shoulders.  He really was like a giant child.  Was this what a goodbye hug felt like? It felt nothing like the hug he gave you when he was attacked previously and reunited with him.  This one felt much more sad- desperate even.

“Teahyung,” you whispered as you felt him hum against your shoulder. “You need to go.”

“I know,” he admitted before he started to pull away from you when your hands moved to land on his shoulders to push him softly.  His eyes looked swollen and wondered what color the skin around his eyes were. It looked darker to your black and white vision. “I think- I think I’m going to miss you.  A lot.”  

You brought a hand to his cheek again, stroking it as you smiled at him.  

“You’ll forget a painting like me in no time,” you eased.  He frowned at that, wanting to hug you again, but you just pushed him away. Turning him by his shoulders, you started to push him from behind to the frame before you came to his side.  You gestured towards it. “Home is waiting for you.”

He swallowed another large lump in his throat.  He curled his lips over his teeth to keep from crying anymore.  He was so overly emotional and he was annoying himself because of it. He could only imagine how you felt watching his waterworks.  

“What’s going to happen to you?”

“I’m going back to my frame,” you told him.  “I’ll go back to my home too,” you smiled.  He felt a small sliver of relief at your answer.  “We’ll both go back to where we belong, just as he should. It’ll be okay.” You pat his back. “I promise.” You felt bad, lying straight to his face like that.  

He nodded before he grabbed the inside of the frame, and began to hull himself over.  He had one knee resting on the frame edge and the other still hanging out when he turned and looked down at you hovering above you on the wall.  He reached in his jacket and pulled out his rose before he handed it to you.  It was a silent agreement as he passed it onto you- he knew he wouldn’t need it anymore. You’d keep it safe even if he wasn’t there anymore and he knew you would.

He put on his brightest smile, “see you around, Y/n,” before he jumped completely through.

As his body faded into the stretched, painted fabric of the canvas and the frame seemed to close like a locked portal that you couldn’t ever even think about passing through, you fell to the ground, screaming as your body felt like it was on fire.

You laughed bitterly as you were just relieved that the one precious person you managed to meet in your miserable existence as a painting without a future was someone as kind and warm as Taehyung.

-x-x-x-

Taehyung felt dazed.  

He was staring at a plaque as his eyes were bleary like he had just woken up from a long nap.  He felt like yawning before he felt a shake on his shoulder.  He lifted his head, rubbing his eyes.  

“Hey,” Namjoon called with concern written on his face, “what’s with you? You zoned out for like two minutes.”

“I dunno,” he replied.  He moved to look at the giant painting of a black location with messy brushes of what looked like some haunted locations.  “I feel like I just woke up from a really nap.” He yawned as he read the name of the painting loud to himself.  “Parallel Reality,” the words read and they sounded familiar to him.  “I feel like I'm forgetting something,” he frowned. “Didn’t the lights go out a little while ago or something?”

“Dude,” Namjoon’s hand fell from his friend’s shoulder. “You really need to get some proper sleep if you’re taking micro-naps, standing up, around this many people and dreaming about power-outages.” It was only then that the artist was aware of all the sounds around him- buzzing from every corner of the building.

“I don’t wanna hear that from the reigning champ of disarranged sleep schedules.”

The journalist and young, free-lance artist continued walking around the blinding white gallery.  People crowded the place and the murmur of them all talking in whispers comforted Taehyung for a reason he couldn’t exactly explain.  

He and Namjoon had started down the final hall they had left to view. The sme hall that happened to contain the naming right to the gallery in the first place.  At the end of the hall, hanging on the dead-end wall was the one painting called ‘Leia’. The piece Taehyung came to see specifically to see if he could be sprung out of his art-block.

As he stood in front of the painting, he inspected it.

It was a young woman dressed in dated clothes with her eyes looking off to almost mimic looking off the canvas.  Her legs were coiled in thorns and she looked like she was running from something, but with a protective sense and not a fearful one.  She held a blue rose in her hand as the silver, engraved frame encased the painting.  

The piece wasn’t what he was expecting, but somehow looking at the piece, he felt calm despite the action set formed in brush strokes.  As the tour guide in charge of 'Leia’ began to explain how it was the artist’s last piece, Taehyung began to zone out again, while Namjoon scribbled down notes beside him.  

As she yammered on and on, Namjoon soon caught sight of his friend’s face. He stopped his writing as he lifted his pen up and lowered his arm to tuck it away in his pocket,. When his hand was free of any writing utensil, he placed it on Taehyung’s back.

“Hey,” he whispered softly to not gain attention from the other’s standing around them. “Why are you crying?”

Taehyung jolted as he quickly brought his hands to his face.  

He was crying.  

When did he start and why? He wiped them away only for more to follow through.  He was soon silently hunched over sobbing.  Why did he feel this way by looking at a painting? Art had always given him a sense of emotion- but he hadn’t felt such sorrow before.  

“I don’t know,” he whimpered as Namjoon took him to some place less crowded. As Taehyung calmed down, he felt oddly refreshed.  

“You okay now? I’ve got enough notes for an entry if you want to leave.”

“Yeah,” he replied. “I want to go home and paint,” he announced as Namjoon smiled, happy to see a spark behind Taehyung’s eyes return.  The spark of an artist that had finally overcome his art-block. 

“Alright, then let’s get going.” As the two men walked out, reception bidding them farewell, Namjoon started making conversation. “So, what do you want to paint?”

“I’m not sure, but maybe a blue rose garden or something. Paired with something old fashioned, like outdated clothing or old picture books. I’ll figure it out when I get to my studio.”

He didn’t voice it, but he knew he’d be back to view ‘Leia’ again, and this time he wouldn’t cry. The calmness he felt from the painting- regardless of his tears- was like being reunited with an old friend. 

What kind of man would Taehyung be if he cried in front of a friend?  

-END-

[dastardlydandelion]

Max Mayfield and Tory Nichols in a horror film, what would be the plot/monster and would they survive?

this is it. this is the tumblr ask. the ask i've been waiting for my whole life. my time to shine, here we go!

filming begins under the cut:

tried and true creature feature, this is a werewolf movie. let's go with a werewolf between the van helsing (2004) and trick r treat (2007) variety. the beast once transformed is fucking huge, clearly both lupine and human, head almost entirely wolf, body primarily bipedal in shape, but robust, sinew shredding claws and big ass bone tearing teeth. also tails!! bc tails are cute!!! powers include monstrous strength, accelerated speed, healing factor. weaknesses silver and decapitation.

okay, so van helsing (2004) werewolves are mindless rage monsters and trick r treat (2007) werewolves are cognizant. for our max & tory creature feature, they're gonna of the in between variety. i chose a werewolf movie for these two specifically bc they both have their anger problems and the werewolf has long been a symbol of anger unleashed in the horror genre, even tho common gray wolves are just like. i mean, yk, animals, they hunt and howl and pee on trees and most of the time would rather avoid humans. but obvi horror genre werewolves are not common gray wolves, they need to be scary, and like, the remnants of traditional folklore influenced by rabies and discourse in the middle ages...wait, where was i going with this? anger, yes, max and tory both have anger problems and i think this works for what i'm gonna do with this theoretical movie.

who's the werewolf in town? terry fucking silver. bc terry is evil and dramatic and also, i think it's rly funny for a werewolf to have silver as a surname. he's fully cognizant in his transformation and he's purposefully biting kids and teenagers bc he wants more talented karate students. and like. yk, with the enhanced strength, speed, and regenerative recovery of lycanthropy, well. there u have it, more talented karate students.

do max and tory know each other, if so, how? okay, so in this 'verse tory is a lil older than max. that reflects their canon ages, i think. let's say max is 13 and tory is 16. billy has tory in some of his classes and he more or less makes a deal to spilt his allowance with her if she'll babysit max bc he's tired of neil riding his ass to babysit max. tory needs money so she's like, 'sure, why not.' max finds it rly stupid that she's 13 and neil thinks she needs a fucking babysitter but as far as babysitters go, tory is fun. she likes to show max what she's learning in cobra kai and they spar together a lot. max would actually like to join cobra kai but 1) neil would throw a fit on various fronts and 2) lucas is in miyagi-do. max knows there's some rly intense beef between cobra kai and miyagi-do. ofc tory's filled her in on the karate war, how could she not?

well one day tory takes max to the playground to watch a plane fly like she does with miggy in ck, and it's nighttime, ofc, and lo, the full moon is out. shining up in the sky. they hear a howl. they both look at each other. max is kinda curious but tory's like nah, nah, we gotta go. she grabs her, starts pulling her along. but the next howl is a lot closer and they can hear smth running and it just sounds fuckin big. they're running too now, legs pumping hard, but there's no escape once the beast is right behind them, hot, rancid breath blasting the backs of their necks and harvest gold eyes glowing in the dark.

max gets bitten first. tory tries to kick the big ass beast off of her and then it rounds and bites her too. the terror is real now. and then shockingly, as fast as it'd come, it leaves. neither girl has an explanation for wtaf just happened but tory takes max home. billy gripes at her for being out late but helps her patch up. when susan learns what happens she decides to take max to get rabies shots right away. loads her up in the car, runs her off to the emergency room-- but when the bandages come off, they are no wounds.

tory's bby bro tries to help patch her up too. but he's like 4 yrs old and his idea of "help" is sticking bandaids with cartoon characters up and down the wounds in haphazard fashion. tory plans to redo it all properly once she's put him to bed. sure enough after he's asleep, and she peels the bandaids off from every open mouthed pac-man to every green teenage mutant ninja turtle, the wounds are gone.

meanwhile there's missing ppl err day on the news. terry turns kids and teens but kills adults for the lulz.

tory and max know what happened to them was an event that tangibly, definitely happened but neither have any explanation for their wounds just disappearing. max, our resident horror fan, is the first to propose a real life werewolf as an explanation. she cites the missing ppl on the news. tory thinks she's tripping balls but reluctantly gives an inch when she acknowledges no, she can't think of any other explanation.

life goes on. max tells lucas what happened only she leaves out the part abt tory bc she's not gonna tell a miyagi-do student she's kickin it w the enemy. he doesn't rly believe her, like how she didn't rly believe him about the upside-down in their canon. he thinks the horror movies are rotting her brain.

tory almost tells her dojo but she gets distracted being pissed off by sam and that should be her priority, right? sensei kreese is always going on abt getting back at the enemy. she spends her shifts daydreaming abt revenge bc it's more comforting than worrying abt past due bills and her mother looking paler by the day.

full moon next month comes around. neither tory nor max are cognizant of or during their first respective transformations. max's first kill is neil. she's seven feet of fur and fury, tears his ribcage open with claws like daggers and sinks her teeth into his putrid, maggoty heart. susan isn't home. billy is, but he doesn't hear any of the fracas. he's unconscious on the living room floor, crisscrossing impressions of neil's belt buckle blaring red on his back.

tory's first kill is sam. sam larusso wants to think she's a bully?? fine, tory will show her a bully. she hops the miyagi-do fence after hours. she just wants a fight. just a fight, they always fight. but then she's sprouting fur and tory as tory gives way to smth else. she'd not aware of being a person when she doesn't have fur. not really, all she knows is rage and ravenousness and the morsel below her has bunny rabbit wide eyes.

neither of them remember what they did the next day. not vividly, anyway. it's there but it's cloudy and hard to discern, like a groggy fever dream more than a memory. but max burps up neil's wedding band and tory finds señor octopus (sam's stuffed animal) bloodied in her bed. it's apparent what happened. max accepts this more easily than tory bc 1) she always kind of suspected she'd turn, since she sincerely considered what attacked them was a werewolf and 2) max isn't terribly upset abt killing neil while tory is acutely horrified she killed sam.

max kinda had some smidgen of attachment to neil bc like, he's the only father figure in her life and here and there they've had their moments. but his abuse (psychological/physical toward billy, sexual/financial/psychological/emotional toward susan, psychological/emotional toward herself) outweighed any and all of those moments. she is genuinely concerned that she tore a human being to pieces and only vaguely remembers it but like, if she had to kill anyone, she figures neil was the best to kill. max is mostly concerned bc she can't kill neil a second time. she's worried the next time she turns it could be an innocent person, or one of her friends, or her mom, or billy.

tory is blindsided and scarcely able to comprehend the reality, holy shit, max was right, she's a fuckin werewolf. and she's sick to her stomach bc she hated sam but she never wanted to do anything like that. she didn't want to kill, she just wanted to break her face. scare her. rough her up. she didn't want to eat her. she just killed someone. she's a literal horror movie monster and she just killed sam. what's miguel going to think?

tory and max talk. they decide they need to find the werewolf who turned them. we get montages of them going over the news articles with a fine-toothed *ba dum tss* comb and searching areas where it seems like a werewolf would be. the woods. some caves. max all of a sudden has a freakishly tall man constantly hounding her to join cobra kai. neil's gone but she still hesitates bc of lucas being in miyagi-do. also he believes max now and with the proff, she's decided to let the rest of the party in as well. they also exist in this 'verse. she showed them the crime scene and the wedding band she burped up. billy isn't a roid rage racist in this 'verse bc that would be a giant buzzkill. he doesn't believe the werewolf shit either. he thinks max saw neil get attacked by some animal and that the carnage was so traumatizing for her, she subconsciously created a werewolf fantasy to cope.

tory meanwhile spirals downward. bc she passes sam's memorialized locker in the hall everyday. her memorial table in the other hall, full of sticky note condolences and mournful teddy bears, and a picture of sam right in the center always, always accusing her. miggy is heartbroken and distraught. hawk didn't care for sam but even he's freaked out by what happened, how the news said there were only torn up chunks and bones picked clean found in her bedroom. tory is terrified of herself. she's desperate to find whoever did this bc she wants to make them pay. if sensei silver has been asking her extra questions lately and presenting her performance to the class more than normal, she doesn't notice at all. aisha notices tory's fucked up but tory can't exactly tell aisha that she *ate* sam. aisha is also mourning, she and sam used to be bffs. so she doesn't say a word.

max has a theory that if u can learn to control ur anger, u can learn to control urself when u shift. she is, after all, v familiar with angry horror movie werewolves. and she's savvy enough to know it's smth she and tory have in common. neil is dead but that doesn't mean max isn't angry anymore. she's still angry at the damage already done and tbh also angry that there's some werewolf around turning ppl willy nilly bc she recognizes the danger in that and it wasn't smth she consented to. but controlling ur anger is an easier feat for max than tory insofar that max has a support system w her friends, and better relationships with the remainder of her fam. tory has two mentors actively, adamantly teaching her and her friends to be ruthless, view the world as ur enemy, use violence as ur go-to solution, and that mercy is weakness not to be tolerated.

when the next full moon rolls around, they decide to spend it together under the correct inference that they will transform. they think it's better to be together. they're hoping they'll be able to control each other, if not themselves. or that if they are both mindless rage monsters again, that rage will be turned on each other. this would be a better outcome operating on the presumption that one werewolf will be able to take what another can dish out, at the v least more so than a regular human being.

max is successfully able to maintain enough of her consciousness to control her actions once transformed. she feels aggressive and hungry, but not enraged and ravenous. she can keep it in check. tory, on the other hand, uh...tory can't do it. she throws her wolf head back in the most bloodcurdling howl ever and takes off like a bat outta hell. max goes loping after her. they can't speak like human speak in this form, but max tries to communicate with her. whimpers plaintively. tackles tory at one point, not out of anger but just tryna subdue her, licks at her ears and tries to get her to settle. tory bucks her off.

tory runs off again, max in pursuit. they wind up at the skate park where billy n robby are prolly up to some fuckery or another. i could easily see pre miyagi-do robby n billy getting up to all kinds of mischief. ooh, actually, they're prolly arguing abt that. now that robby's in miyagi-do he has another outlet for all his energy and he's getting the positive attention he craves so he's not participating in hooligan activity or shenanigans w billy anymore and billy is like. offended. except suddenly there's werewolves. fucking. snarling, gigantic, toothy, hairy ass werewolves.

let's say robby kicked miguel down two stories in this 'verse too and tory recognizes him in her werewolf form even if she isn't exactly cognizant of herself. she tears straight for him, jaws open. billy doesn't exactly *mean* to protect him but it's kinda an automatic reaction from putting himself in between whenever he thought neil was getting too aggressive w susan or max. and like, sure, robby's the better fighter (not that billy would ever acknowledge this) but it's not like he's gonna karate kick the motherfuckin werewolf anyway-- billy is bigger, he's bigger and it's instinct and the next thing he knows, he's in between robby and the thing w sharp teeth (tory).

and that's when max gets serious. she bowls tory over, away from billy before she can bite. they're rolling, tearing at each other with teeth and claws. lo and behold, terry silver is lurking in the background like the evil mastermind he is, just watching them shred each other and evaluating his experiment. it's a p close match and tory is the more aggressive of the two but she's also been going, going, going since she shifted and she's burning herself out. she's also fighting with the blind instinct of a threatened animal while max maintains more precision bc she has better control of herself. max also isn't wasting energy unnecessarily. max gets her jaws around tory's throat and tory just goes slack. but she can think and she doesn't want to hurt tory, so she opens her mouth and relaxes her maw, teeth grazing harmlessly thru tory's fur.

tory's being shown mercy. possibly for the first time. it's so unlike her conception of others' ruthlessness, so unlike the worldview that's been instilled into her that it startles her enough to crack thru to her cognizance. she does the wolfy deference thing where they tuck their tails and lick at the dominant pack member's muzzle. max responds in kind and lets tory up.

this is when they notice terry lurking (billy's already worked out the werewolf that came to his defense is max so he's just dumbfounded watching all this shit, and robby's not abt to leave someone who just saved his ass, so he's stuck unsuccessfully tryna pull billy away and inevitably watching too). terry calmly slinks over, sizing up his charges. he's pleased with the performance. but tory and max are anything but, another werewolf fight ensues.

so while they all get huge after transforming sheerly on the basis of being werewolves, i'm gonna guess the size is proportionate to their human forms. so tory is a little larger than max and terry significantly outsizes them both. terry is also the more experienced werewolf. it's two against one but it's not the curbstop it would be if this was some weaksauce werewolf, it's dramatic evil karate werewolf terry fuckin silver. terry's shredding tf outta these two. their healing factor can't keep up, he's dishing out faster than either of them can recover and tbh they were already winded from fighting each other first.

but it'd be a major buzzkill if our movie had a downer ending. and also, the power of determination and friendship and shit. terry's got his jaws around max's throat now. he's a millisecond away from tearing it open. tory's pinned under him but she thinks fast, frees a hind leg, and rips her claws down his soft underbelly as deep as she can and doesn't stop ripping, like pedal kicking almost for a human, but with her hind claws. his intestines shoot out like paper snakes from a gag candy can!! okay, well, maybe they don't shoot out w that much gusto, but still. the bowels are free, the bowels are hanging low and tory's tearing 'em tf up, fluids n fecal matter errywhere. on tory. i'm sorry tory. ur under him, that's just how gravity works.

terry dies. healing factor can't keep up with the damage done, it's too critical. but nobody knows it's terry until the dawn breaks and he reverts back to his human shape.

max is v much 'i told u so,' in billy's face. robby promises not to tell. he doesn't want to get mauled or killed or anything. tory's able to cope better with what she did to sam knowing that it won't happen again, that she won't hurt anyone else she doesn't want to be she can control herself now. tory believes in mercy now bc max spared her, she trashes kreese's philosophy and joins eagle fang when johnny and daniel join forces in this 'verse too. max also joins eagle fang, takes her place in the front row right between tory and lucas at her v first practice.

credits roll.

after the credits we see tory considering turning her mother in the hopes that having the healing factor would help her mom's condition improve.

is that a teaser for the sequel?

idfk.

[magnaflourious-nerdity]

But Through Darkened Glasses

(You Need Chaos in Your Soul)

" And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you."

There was a prompt on some Halloween themed fandom challenge for October. Monday's was 'Black Cat' and for whatever reason. This is what happened. Bc im just going with that kind of thing lately I guess, I decided to spit it out here. I didn't beta this thoroughly enough I guarantee bc im lazy and also the fandom is like 20 people big, and generally full of forgiving, lovely, content starved ppl. The last point I am extrapolating from my own experiences of being in the fandom, haha.

_____

It's weird, he thinks, twining in and out of the fence post he's been following for the past few minutes, trying to get his bearings now that he's been saddled with twice his accustomed amount of limbs. It's weird that I'm not more freaked out about this. He pauses, grooms himself briefly and crosses the street under the lamp light. The bulb blows out halfway across. He doesn't even jump this time. Maybe it's a bonus of having nine lives, you don't worry so much about one or two practice runs. His ears twitch minutely as the wind shifts and brings a low, buzzing, sound sighing through the fronds of the willow at the edge of his yard. They're even more sensitive now that he's a cat- the ears that is -twitching at the slightest whisper of a sound in the night.

He doesn't even bother to slow his pace as he hops the fence and passes through his own back yard, simply fixing jade eyes on the window he knows to be Becky's, turning them away again with the knowledge that there's no way she'd be at home tonight. Not on a night where she's basically been given free reign to go full-tilt feral social-climber on every party in town. There's no gaining entrance into his lair in his current state (nor is he particularly keen to meet Rasputin face to face right now either) and his parents are out of the question. Can't guarantee his dad won't be too drunk this late on a Halloween to tie a bottle rocket to his newly acquired tail. Don't really care to see him if he's sober either. Or just in general

Instead, His attention remains fixed on the sound he'd heard in the distance before, as he cuts across lawns and ducks down the well trod neighborhood backalleys, avoiding any heards of desperate, last-minute, trick-or-treaters or gaggles of drunken party-goers he catches wind of.

He's at the point of shrugging off the weird sounds he's been hearing as the result of some sort of particularly lumbering rodent in the underbrush, turning his attention instead to the little flashes of lamp light glinting off of abandoned candy wrappers. Batting at one every now and then non-committaly. It wasn't as exciting as one might think, being a cat. Kind of a snooze even, as far as curses went.

Well, at least it had the wherewithal and the courtesy as a curse to take aesthetics into account.

He was definitely the kind of cat his father would have chased off the lawn with a bb gun, if it had showed up at their door looking for food. He examines the pitch-colored shroud of his newly acquired fur as best as he can, glad- in a removed sort of way -that at least he was a proper Halloween cat. Scruffy and mysterious, not one of those opulently fluffy, pearl-colored, fancy-feast models.

There was dignity in being a black cat on Halloween. There was style! There was pinache!

A whisper, a low hum beyond his perception.

There were secrets. There was power. All of it his for the taking now that the opportunity had been unwittingly granted.

He'd read a legend once- in one of his massive, dusty, volumes on the lore of shapeshifters, dating back to antiquity -that on Halloween, black cats were at the most transient state of their existances. They could- if they could find the right chinks in reality's armour, where the space between things overlapped and folded in on itself like challah -use the threads surrounding and connecting the worlds to perform any number of impossibilities. Assume other forms, be anywhere at once, sew prosperity or discord at a whim.

It was said that those creatures most in-tune with with the pathways could even travel between them all. All of the worlds bookended against and, at certain times like tonight, overlapping their own. Those most-adept cats could slip in and out of dimensions as easily as a shadow slips under doorway.

I mean, I guess now is as good a time as any to test that hypothesis, Merton mused, slit-pupils zeroing in on the slightest movement down the street from Tommy's house, which was naturally where his slinky, purposeful, wandering had taken him. There were no other thoughts to it really. After all. He and Tommy were each other's lifeboats, lashed together to weather whatever bullshit came their way, side-by-side.

At least where finding ourselves on the wrong side of dark magic is concerned. He amended to himself. There was no one else here so he wasn't sure why he even bothered really.

He hesitated silently under a street lamp. The crackling sound of the light flickering above him sounded grating to his sensitive ears. He could understand Tommy's super-hearing-based woes a lot better now at least. With his gaze shifting uneasily between the safety of Tommy's house- the safety of his company, and of his unconditional presence, and of his unwavering dedication to Merton's protection despite the workload that it was turning out to be- and back to the subtle, but suddenly noticeable undulations of the shadows at the farthest edge of the neighbor's hedgerows. An opportunity had manifested itself.

Almost neigh-imperceptably, something shifts in the air, pervading every cranny of the now darkened street.

A moment of choice for Merton. The unexplored possibilities mount in his head, weighed against the cons of breaching the utterly unknowable. He is bewitched, rooted to the spot. Eve on the precipice of the apple, by virtue of both temptation and fear.

He'd gone to more extreme means, on less intel, for far more ridiculous pursuits. This was just a short walk to the end of the street. But he hesitates nonetheless, his own mind overriding the detatched curiosity that grew into him- into his bones -the longer he was attached to this form. He feels the pull of the interstitial static of the spaces between space, it hums and pulses gently along to the music of the spheres. Soft, inviting, unknowable.

He thinks of slipping between the phases of reality. Could he regain his body on his own that way? Could he pick a better one? He pads gently forward, going only a few, cautious steps, questioning himself all the while and trying to brace his senses against the hypnotic call of whatever the netherspace was wordlessly offering to him. He is waiting to see when the time will be right. If it will be at all. What will come of it.

I can fix this on my own for once, right now. He tells himself . I can learn so much. About everything. I can fix so much if I can just...

The pull of the place between is Urgent. Heady. Disorienting, he finds. It beckons him more insistently with each passing moment, and every sound made in the darkness is a soft, sighing, call to action. To adventure. To satisfy all of his human spawned, feline fueled, curiosities alike.

But another sound, this one from inside Tommy's house- still nearly right next to him -severs the tie. It's Tommy's laugh, loud and sharp and as intimately familiar to him as a siren song of his own.

Tommy. His tail lifts up into the air of its own accord as he starts to correct course towards the tree in Tommy's back yard, one which frequent exposure to the Dawkin's household tells him leads to the- usually wide open -2nd floor window landing of his best friend's bedroom.

The whispering from behind him grows more urgent as he turns away from it. Easier to discern from the normal night-music of Pleasantville. It grows in pitch, insistent, like a vulture pecking at the stripped down bones of its roadside carrion.

Despite his growing unease, Merton still feels the gravity of the thin places of the world eying him up, clawing at him. He realizes, with detached horror, that if the last few minutes are anything to go by, in this form, he isn't even sure if he can resist it at all. Much less how long his moment of self possession can last.

Merton, as a cat, finds himself to be mostly a loose collection of animal instincts and a haphazard jigsaw of the the bits of the world that don't seem to want to fit right with himself; all of this sewed up into a body thats more suggestive of physical form than equitable to one. He doesn't know how to even begin to navigate the puzzle of resisting the undertow of the universe as it digs its fingers solidly into the newest and most vulnerable parts of his shared but singular conciousness. The shadows in the hedgerows, the ripples of what's underneath the idea of them, begin to pulsate. They flail. Or it flails, because he can't tell the collective from the distinct anymore, can only watch with awe as the patch of space and time it is currently occupying shimmers, and cracks, and grows, and reaches. Merton swears he can hear it SCREAMING in the back of his head. At the place where his thoughts dissolve into notions less definable by words, and transform instead into a swirling mass of impulses conducted by the now-shrill trans-dimensional, thrumming of the universe's insistent, staticky back beat.

He sees something solidifying in the ectoplasm of that open sore in the flesh of the world. Something besides the thrashing, churning, cult of tendrils reaching out from the places they can squeeze through in the cracks. The sight makes every single one of his hairs stand on end. Which is something, given he has a significant deal more of them now than he usually would. But there is no mistaking what he is seeing being melded together in the eye of that widening miasma. A hand claws its way past the meshing, roiling tentacles of that dark expanse. Pulling itself forward into the physical, out of the theoretical. A set of shoulders struggles past, dragging the other arm in to being along side it, pale and wan. There is a pause, one last still moment before, with repulsion thrumming through every part of him, he focuses on the well of dark magics still spewing forth parts of the creature. He sees the top of a head breech through the dimensional weak spot. The head turns in Merton's direction at his displeased hisses of fright. Merton locks up in immediate, gut-wrenching, horror when the creature gazes back at him, wearing his own face.

‐-----

I'll probably never continue this or even do anything at all w it,, but it was fun! In case you were wondering about the subtext between tommy and merton, yes. gay. Also whats dialague don't know her

[pacifistofpatience]

Undertale, Underswap, Underfell, Swapfell, and Horrortale Negative traits

Was trying to get a feel of the boys and I’ve been working on Negative traits that match their personality's and situations. A lot of these are them at their worst and not reflective of what they're usually like, and then some of them are me just noting things.

Undertale:

Sans- 

Ignores issues until they blow up in his face and then hopes they pass, it barely ever works out for him

Blows off things way too easily with jokes

Will ghost even the ppl important to him if he gets too involved in something. Most of the time doesn’t even notice he’s doing it till it’s too late

All his secrets are under lock and key. You’ll never get close enough to know them and hes desperate to keep it that way

Can “Mewh-heh-heh” but refuses to!!!!

Paps-

More likely to blow past other people insecurities without thinking

Jumps to his own conclusions

Its not that he cant take no for an answer, its just that sometimes he thinks he can easily make no into a yes with the right words/actions

can also straight up lie to your face without flinching

Will sometimes physically move others with out thinking. If you’re in his way your likely to get picked up and placed somewhere safe- but out of his direct path

Underswap:

Sky-

Easily swept up in the moment

Fleeting feelings, he could be happy one moment and then in tears the next. If you’re not lucky any romance with him could simply be a mayfly one

Believes that he can get other people to like the same things he likes if he just shows them how much fun it is!

Runs away from issues—literally

Even though he hates being treated like a child he knows he is cute and will use it to his advantage

Part of him may have a....mischievous side that sometimes gets a huge thrill at the thought of danger. hell never willingly put himself in any, but the adrenaline that comes with it makes it hard for him to not get swept up in it

Pappy-

Quick to judge others

Assumes everything will slot into place eventually, which it will not

A lot of the time will use all his energy to slack off from work instead of doing it. He could mow the lawn, or he could figure out a way to do it all from the comfort of the lawn chair (a lot of the time it doesn’t work)

embodiment of “Act dumb!” *Does something without thinking* “Not that dumb!”

SWALLOWS CIGARETTES WHOLE

Underfell:

Red- 

Will take his brothers side more often then not, even if Boss is wrong. It’s reflex

Quick to hold grudges and slow to let them go, if you cross him once you’ll most likely never get his trust back

Put all his energy into surviving in the underground and has kind of burnt himself out once he reached the surface

Boss-

The man personality was made by kicking a bunch of hornet’s nests and then stacking them together into a shape that vaguely looked like a skeleton

Full of himself

Easily forgets things that aren’t important to him but may be important to someone else

Never admits when he’s wrong

Refuses to indulge himself in the things he enjoys and calls it self-control. believes others should have his version of ‘self-control’

Violently refuses handouts- even if he needs them

((Honestly, i imagine a lot of his negative qualities are right up in your face...Which is kind of refreshing considering a lot of the others and how they try to hide their feelings. When push comes to shove Boss can spot when he was in the wrong and- while he will never admit to it- hes not the kind of monster to leave on a bad note if there’s a way to fix it))

Swapfell:

Black-

Controlling

Overprotective that can easily be turned into smothering if left alone

Extremely distrusting, it takes an unreasonable amount of time to earn his trust. Something a lot of people cannot be expected to commit to

Turns everything into a competition

Tells the truth even if it hurts others, and then is indifferent to their hurt

Mutt-

Severely insecure

At his worst, is the one most likely to use the whole “If you leave me ill destroy myself” line

Avoids conflicts to the extreme. Will bend over backwards to avoid them and go against what he believes in

A desire to be loved and admired but never makes the attempt to put himself out there

Becomes attached quickly, which leads to his emotional flood gates opening before the other party is ready (Or willing) to fully deal with them

Horrortale: (Admittedly I’m a little soft for these two so its hard for me to find anything really bad)

Jup-

A lot of…self-destructing habits that will never fully leave him

More likely to stand to the sidelines longing for something instead of trying to reach for it. even if the object of his desire is right there

Do Not Touch The Hole In His Skull

Mars-

A lot of shame that is not connected to the Underground. He’s ashamed of the things he likes (even if they’re harmless) ashamed of his thoughts and feelings and a lot of other stuff ‘normal’ people wouldn’t be

There’s a part of him that’s…disconnected from reality. You cant go though the horrors he’s gone through without learning how to dissociate with all the horrible things you’ve done

Cannot keep the spotlight on himself for too long, typically gets unconformable when one tries to do something nice for him

[id-never-letyoudown]

A Muse List

Wilford Warfstache: reality warping semi-madman. He goes through time and just rolls with the punches. Knows at least a dozen alternate versions of the same person. Makes multiverse ships technically canon. Sometimes he forgets which timeline he's in and acts like a kid who fell asleep in the car and woke up in bed. Kinda OP, but I I'll discuss anything big with the other mun beforehand. For now it's just small stuff. -tagged: pink stache whiplash

Dark: literally watch Damien. Only this Damien had ties to the mafia, which Celine was heavily against. Also Damien and Will had a romantic relationship, highschool sweethearts, promise ring. Then Damien started running for mayor, Wil met Celine, feels were had. (ps: he's got both sets of genitalia, cuz everyone forgets.) -tagged: 3d dream

Fordwil Stachewarf: started as a joke of a bizarro!Wil and now, welp, here he is. He's a manipulative green haired asshole. A creep. He does not "roll with the punches", if one version of you likes him then he will expect all of them to, and he will take. Stuff with him can get hella triggery so I don't use him often. He's a total hardass. -tagged: green jerk

Chase: ha, an average bro. Trickshots. Memes. Bad puns and scraped knees. Anxiety ridden and depressed. Tries to drink away the pain. Also he's a werewolf and used to have hella bad anger issues, they have gotten better, but when it's that time of the month it's easy for him to slip. -tagged: sad awoo

Dr. Iplier: ;A; after losing his V-card to his highschool sweetheart who was moving away, three months later when he tries to break it off, she tells him she's pregnant. So they have a shotgun wedding. Also his family disowned him for this. He had to balance college, a job, and financially caring for his long distance, pregnant, wife. The boy was stressed, and he vented to her. Very next day she says she lost the baby. And ol' doc blamed himself. They've been married since, and whenever he brought up separating she would bring up the baby. He hired a PI who uncovered that there never was a baby to begin with, so now he's just "fuck you, fuuuuck yoooou." Now he's trying to get her to divorce him so she won't take everything. -tagged: doctor love me

Host: ah hah, favorite boi. My Host did used to be the Author, and after getting his ass handed to him, started looking for ways to really amp up his abilities. He found It(not the clown, fck off)and offered a deal "I'll give you a vessel, in exchange for power" and It misinterpreted and took HIS body instead of letting him find someone else. Over the years he's realized his mistakes and has become much more humble. Basically: Host is a host to a being not of this world or even dimension. -tagged: host2

Yan: goes from "not feeling a thing" to "feeling too much" real quick. If you see him being peppy and cheerful, it's an act so ppl don't question him. He wants to feel. So whenever he gets feelings for someone he often takes it too far. Much too far. Also he's a kitsune h e r e -tagged: bloody cute

Winston: fucking pink, pompadour, greaser demon. Him big. Tol. Stronk. Very protective of his partners, especially if they're human. Big teddybear. Loves animals and works as a mechanic. His town? Almost everyone is a demon there, they just wear glamours all the time. -tagged: big pink

Anti: fucking glitchy glitch tech demon. Acts like a computer virus. Very bitter. Up Dark's ass. He has feelios that he refuses to deal with, so he just annoys Dark and insists on being by him most of the time. He likes Dark because he's one of the few who don't take his bullshit and aren't scared of him. -tagged: virus boi

Bing: saaah dude. Super laidback unless he's alone, then he gets to work and is actually semi serious. He's got a few defects, mainly with his eyes, so he wears shades. Default safemode, the dial(yes, dial)is on the back of his neck. Ppl confuse this for volume too often. Notch one: he can cuss. Notch two: he can look up lewds. Notches from then on just increase how raunchy he can be and the frequency of his lewd statements. Very last notch: he can FUCK. also, he has a detachable dick, like, he can still feel it when it's not attached, thanks to bluetooth. Weird man. -tagged: robruh

Virgil/Anxiety: anxious bab with a sarcastic tongue and foul mouth. Total pessimist. Will not go out of his way to interact with people. Loves puns and dad jokes and Disney. Sings. Acts like a damn cat tbh. But surprise! Him a spider. Has giant spider legs coming out of his back that he hides -tagged: smokey eye

Patton/Morality: god, fckin. He's trying so hard. He wants to be the bestest friend/father figure that he can be. Sometimes he holds his own feelings in and bottles them up. -cough-surprise binch, daddy kink and puns. -tagged: pun papa

AD: h e y, I know we all have headcanons n shit, but my Dark would have tried to get their pal DA out of the mirror and into a body, after things settled, somehow. It would have taken him years, but he would have. Course it didn't go quite as planned. By then whatever remained of the DA was far too gone, turns up being stuck in a broken mirror realm can really fuck you up. And eventually turn you into a demon. AD is not the DA anymore, all they remember is that night and that night only.

Any semblance of the DA they once had is now gone. Now they're out for revenge, and when you're able to travel through reflections that can come quite easily. Ofc they look like Mark(more specifically Dark, as he was the one who both put them in and took them out of the broken mirror that was keeping them tied to the manor), only hella scarred and with white streaks all throughout their hair. Their eyes are mirrors, which is just fckin creepy. Personality wise they don't trust easy. A smartass with a sharp tongue. Brutally honest. Redeeming quality? If they see someone/something that's vulnerable they'll protecc. -tagged: spitting image

Kink(Klancy): a kinky mtherfcker. Used to be in a hella abusive relationship with someone who called beating and using him with no regard for his safety at all "bdsm". And it was Klancy's first and only romantic relationship. It wasn't until his bad, horrid excuse of a dom took them to an actual, legit bdsm club that he realized what the dom was doing was abuse. So he dumped him, and Jeremiah and his buddies helped get his stuff. Klancy decided that from now on he'd take his sex life in his own hands. He isn't currently looking for a a relationship, but I'm a shipping hoe so if y'all are up for a slow burn, hit him up -tagged: kink it up

Eric: hoooooo b o y, well, his backstory was awful before. Now it's uh, downright trigger worthy. I won't go into detail, let's just say Pops has a bad touch way of getting Eric to "calm down". He is a quiet, anxious boy. We all know his canon story. He feels guilty that he's the only one of his siblings living now. And Derek doesn't help. He's moved out and with Klancy, because I want them to be friends and you can fite me in the pit. Klancy-aside from Host-is the only one that knows what Derek's been doing since uh, Klancy being Klancy decided he'd try the dad on for size and Derek said some questionable things in the heat of the moment. Klancy has practically adopted Eric, he'll fight Derek.

Eric is a nervous wreck and easy to manipulate. Which makes him perfect for juicy, angsty threads. -tagged: yellow handkercheif

Periwinkle: a defective Google unit made with an experimental sensory system, it made him incredibly sensitive to the point of pain. So he wears clothes from head to toe, along with a helmet, Daft Punk style. He works at a nearby Google place, doing surveys with owners of Google units. He fakes being emotionless when on the clock, as he's been threatened with deactivation due to violent outbursts. -tagged: off limits

Copiplier: his name's Leslie, Officer Morgan. He prefers being called Lee. He abides by the l a w!! No exceptions. Whenever someone makes a noise complaint or some other with the office, he's the one that shows up. Mostly because none of the other officers want to deal with t h a t mountain of paperwork. His hair's on the long side, man bun long. And he buff. When I say he looks good in the uniform I mean "gets mistaken for a stripper" good. Which is fair, because for some time he was a stripper, before police academy(cough, he still is, on the weekends). Strict boi is kinda dense and ever since Yukio gave him some damn pocky he's been addicted to it. Which is great, since he used to be a smoker. -tagged: oh officer

[astrogrlz]

Unhealthy Moons

Aries: The Aries moon has a lot of conditioning to do. Aries is like a child that needs to be constantly reassured and nurtured. Unhealthy Aries moon lacks emotionally maturity. They tend to be agitated, confrontational and also very vulnerable. They have an “angry” cry. Unhealthy Aries moon doesn’t see the importance of active listening, they completely disregard the other person’s feelings. They can also make themselves seem like a victim—again going back to that “child” complex. Struggles with identity are also highlighted

Taurus: Unhealthy Taurus moons have very BAD coping mechanisms. Keyword is indulgence but over indulgence. You tend to have an abundance of what’s not good for you. This can be alcohol, food, sex, compulsive buying, drugs, etc. They also are pessimistic. They can’t see a good and does absolutely nothing to change it. They just sit and let the fire just burn them. Unmotivated to do anything but also can get heavily attached to their “values” whether it’s people or again, their mechanisms etc. The biggest indication of an unhealthy Taurus moon is their lack of wanting to create or curate art. This sign is very in touch with expressing and spreading creativity. When that is hindered, they feel less of value. They tend to demonstrate poor budgeting skills and will become unresponsive to their environment

Gemini: Unhealthy Gemini moon is a bit tricky. Again mutable moons are usually very adjustable. But an unhealthy Gemini moon is one that is too sporadic that it’s hard to comprehend their needs. They can be very isolated which causes even further agitation. Also, they are constantly stressed. Unhealthy Gemini moons are very insecure when it comes to their worth and the validity of their ideas. On the other extreme, a Gemini moon may be too “happy” (happy isn’t the best word but close enough) that they just do things without thinking. Spending way too much money or just being out of touch with reality. This can hinder their rationality skills. 

Cancer: Unhealthy cancer moon lacks balance. They can almost be “stuck” in the past and refuse to push forward. They constantly victimize themselves and has a poor ability to communicate with their partner or those around them. Hindrance in creativity is also noted.  They find too much refuge in the home so they can be a “failure to launch.” Overabundance in comfort can be manifested into lethargic behavior. Unbalanced emotions also can lead to outbursts and saying things they don’t mean. 

Leo: Unhealthy leo moon lacks the intuition and drive to create. They are unsure of their talents, can be very needy and latch onto people. Constantly needs reassurance that it can drive them into a state of inactivity and lack of worth.They can make things about themselves than those around them. There is a sense of disregarding other people’s needs and all around being unrealistic and having unrealistic expectations. There is also an “obsession” with how you look. You want to please people TOO MUCH that you lose who you are in the long scheme of things.

Virgo: Mercury dignities in the moon placement is always a call for self destruction. Unhealthy Virgo moon lacks the ability to comprehend their emotions which manifests into anxiety and frustration. Also, poor structure and low self esteem. You will rely too much on organization that it only stresses you out further. Unhealthy Virgo moons don’t know how to phrase how they feel to others and will feel that it is a lost cause. Poor self care methods = bad health. Can have constant stomach aches. 

Libra:  An unhealthy libra moon really struggles forming authentic and proper partnerships. They can be really self deprecating, they may even do this to get sympathy from others. They thrive on pleasing their mothers specifically despite a strained relationship. They can get very stress induced when the ppl they try to please dont reciprocate. by return, they can act shallow and disregard others. on another flip, they can be very stagnant and use ppl for their own gain, their own pleasure, their own need for having ppl around them (libra moons NEED partnerships). They can lament about relationships when tbh half the time they are ones at fault--almost like a self sabotage.

Scorpio: Unhealthy Scorpio moons can be a bit selfish. They need others to comfort them but will simultaneously push them away. They might be too paranoid to open up to others bc of the fear of being incriminated or manipulated. They, too, lack emotional maturity. Their wounds may be too deep for others to understand so they just sit, mope around and wait for death. Sounds over dramatic but that’s exactly what an unhealthy Scorpio tends to operate or act. Again, they disregard people’s needs and may victimize themselves too much. Worst thing of all, they may not even realize it. They can be repulsive, pessimistic and lonely. 

Sagittarius: Unhealthy Sagittarius moon can be very resistant and almost stubborn to understanding other people's perspectives. they feel they are the most correct and like other people said, unhealthy sag moons can be TOO dogmatic. They like to be "free" and this idealization of freedom can get in the way of reality and being practical. they always fight for their own cause without being realistic about it. unhealthy sag moon can evolve into extremist behavior. Since they are fire, they may use "force" to voice their beliefs and make them become widely accepted. too much independence and self centrism can make it difficult for connections to flourish.

Capricorn: Unhealthy Capricorn moons are scared. they can be really isolated but on the lowest of keys, thrive for some emotional comfort and security. believe or not they can have outbursts and show anger/frustration. i mean how can they not when they feel "lost" in the world. They may not be in control and that can terrify a cap moon. Not being in control means no framework holding them together. "just going with it" scares a cap moon and this can turn into bad behavior, reliance on substances etc. Like we will see in an aqua moon, unhealthy cap moons may despise and get frustrated by feeling "small" in the world. They can be heavily pessimistic and do nothing to change it. Capricorn is the architect--when they no longer want to build or create, they have hit rock bottom. They may feel like they have nothing left to "fight" or strive towards. They can ruin their connections with others bc of frustration. Again, very self deprecating and rather be left alone despite NEEDING guidance

Aquarius: Unhealthy Aquarius moons are said to be "very detached" but that is not entirely true. They actually become too chaotic. They can become too extreme, completely disregard ppl's feelings, and may even act out to get ppl to care about them and what they stand for--to see how integral they are in the world. When air moons get going they REALLY get going. Again, aqua is air so there is nothing keeping them stable. their emotions can be so consuming that eventually it makes them NUMB. They can get lost easily, lose sense of purpose and destroy all their connections. Unhealthy aqua moon will drop everything and just immerse themselves in the fucking woods tbh. They will lack worth, lose common sense and completely shut down. there is no longer clarity. 

Pisces: Unhealthy Pisces moon lose their agency. They can get too raveled by how other people feel. they will feel like a lost cause; extreme loneliness and they will lose all sense of wanting to create and heal others. Unhealthy pisces moon might get attached to substances or anything that can take them to a different realm. they will lack clarity which can get them or others hurt. also, they can get very tensed, easily strung up and may not even be able to make sense of it. As a last resort, unhealthy pisces moon will look for some type of salvation; look for some type of spirituality that can be offered by people who have bad intentions. The unhealthy pisces moon can eat their souls away. 

[dragimal]

thoughts on Voltron s7

this is prolly old hat by now, but I still wanna throw my two cents to the wind. this is gonna get very rambly, and I’m gonna derail A LOT to air out other grievances I have w/ the show/fandom. a rant like this has been a long time coming-- the reception to s7 only pushed me to write this now. so beware, I guess. also I’m not rly tryin to Start Shit, so I’m slottin’ this under the cut

I think I should start at the beginning: I didn’t like Voltron for the first 3 seasons.

it was perfectly passable, but not.... exactly the kinda thrilling saga Tumblr made it out to be. all the hype put me under the impression that VLD was a deeply emotional/character-driven story much like ATLA-- I was sorely disappointed to find this wasn’t the case. instead, I found a typical space-mecha plot populated by pretty tropey characters-- certainly not bad, but not all that emotionally gripping either 

I actually grew p bitter over Voltron’s particular brand of popularity-- mainly the comparisons to ATLA, as if VLD was anywhere as deep and clever. I wasn’t mad that it was popular so much as it seemed popular for the wrong reasons

now I’m not saying that enjoying VLD is “childish” or whatever, I’m just saying that comparing VLD to ATLA is p damn insulting, imo. ATLA has a level of depth in plot, worldbuilding, themes, character arcs/interactions, etc. that’s incredibly impressive-- esp for a kid’s show. u just don’t get that depth from VLD-- and honestly, that’s just fine! I know I’m singing ATLA’s praises to the heavens here, but I’m also kinda sick of Tumblr trying to compare every damn thing to ATLA, as if every piece of media HAS to be another ATLA to be worthy of praise (like the whole “Zuko redemption arc” thing has been taken wayyyyy too far when critiquing villains...)

ATLA and VLD aren’t trying to accomplish the same things, so it’s kinda shitty to place those kinda expectations on the creators of VLD when they’re trying to do their own thing? like, I don’t expect Osomatsu-san-- a very stupid show I deeply adore-- to be the next FMA just b/c both shows have a focus on brotherly bonds; they’re clearly two separate things that I can enjoy for different reasons

anyways, to cut that ramble short, VLD just wasn’t my thing when I first started it. I’m not big on mechas, and I typically prefer pointed storylines over ‘adventure-of-the-week’ setups. not that VLD doesn’t have some underlying plot for the first couple seasons, but it takes a while to get past random villain fights and/or adventures every ep and condense it into a continuous plot thread. some ppl like that kinda thing, I just don’t. the reason I continued to watch it-- despite my misgivings-- is b/c I like watching things with friends. my bf has always liked VLD and wanted me to see it, so I enjoyed watching it with our audience of two

I’m glad this setup forced me to continue watching, or else I would have never reached the turning point-- episode 33 (s3): “The Legend Begins”

this was the point at which my feelings switched from “eh” to “oh... OH. OH SHIT.” I’d finally started to get INVESTED. I finally began to develop real attachments to the characters! I was finally eager to learn what happened next; finally perched at the edge of my seat in anticipation! VLD had finally found its footing and solidified its unique voice, and I couldn’t have been more proud!

yet, what did I hear from the fandom as this narrative transition began?

“the show has gone downhill, and it’s only getting worse!″, "[x] characters aren’t developing anymore” and/or “the showrunners HATE [x] character!”, etc. etc.

though I suppose it’s a bit simplistic to say the fandom as a whole thought this way; in reality, just a vocal subset of the fandom thought-- and continues to think-- this way

yes, patient reader, this is one of those conversations. because we really can’t have a proper fandom discussion anymore w/o getting into those topics, can we? god, if only

so I’ll stop beating around the bush: antis fucking hate the new seasons, mainly because:

1) a lot of antis love Lance for some reason? antis don’t like the fact that Lance isn’t, like, the entire damn focus of the show (calls for “black paladin Lance” galore....), so they don’t like the fact that other main characters play significant roles in the show. this has devolved into unfounded critique of Lance’s character development in the last few seasons, when in reality Lance has gotten SIGNIFICANT development from s4 onward (just like most every other character..). he’s gotten more confidant in his abilities and is less defensive of his character, he’s more cooperative w/ his teammates, and he’s learned to (usually) recognize when a situation requires a serious approach rather than nonchalance. like, as someone who doesn’t much like Lance, I think it says something that my feelings have advanced from, “jesus I can’t stand this guy, can he shut up for one goddamn second,” to, “nice, Lance is mostly bearable and sometimes charming, now.” this point bleeds into the next point--

2) a lot of antis LOVE klance-- or the ship Keith/Lance, for any random readers that don’t know the Voltron fandom. klantis-- as these particular antis have been dubbed-- hate ANY semblance of connection either of these characters have w/ other characters, b/c it threatens klance. Keith and Lance both canonically have strong connections to other specific characters (Keith to Shiro, and Lance to Allura), so these ships are the most threatening to klance

now, all stans/shippers have fans that are a bit too defensive, sure. I’m not saying that sheiths (Shiro/Keith shippers) or any other stans/shippers in VLD aren’t ever at fault. but antis always ALWAYS bring an insidious dimension to fandom wank in the form of-- for lack of a better term-- “social justice posturing”

I’m not claiming that discussions abt representation and sj issues in fandom aren’t important, but antis always take these sensitive issues and simply use them as ammo in what are typically giant ship wars. there’s no nuance, no room for different interpretations-- only black/white divisions of what is “valid”/”canon”/”acceptable”, which are then strategically warped in favor of what the antis of that particular fandom favor (which, in the case of VLD, is Lance/klance)

of course, not ALL VLD antis are specifically out to discredit just one ship, as evidenced by the proliferation anti-shaladins (those against shippers of Shiro w/ ANY of the paladins). BUT this is exactly where anti tactics are utilized in full-force, and where this petty ship war further devolves:

antis fucking HATE Shiro.

Shiro poses the biggest threat to klance (at least in terms of fandom, b/c Allura canonically poses a much bigger threat tbh), thus antis have steadily built a “case” against Shiro not only as a bad partner to Keith, but as a bad character in general. the more “reasonable” antis claim things like, “Shiro’s too mentally ‘broken’ to be with anyone!” “Shiro’s too old to be with anyone, he’s practically a grandpa!” and, “Shiro’s too much of a parental/guardian figure to consider any paladins as potential partners,” while more extreme antis have claimed that Shiro literally IS a pedophile, or straight-up dangerous due to his mental hang-ups

there is clearly a lot wrong here both canon-wise (Shiro has shown 0% confirmable attraction to any character in canon; everyone’s actual ages are vague at best, thus there are no exact age gaps to measure, etc.) and in terms of plain ethics (callin a guy w/ ptsd “too broken” fuckin WHAT). but this is what antis have devolved to-- dismissing Shiro’s mutual connections to his fellow paladins at best, then accusing him of straight-up horrific shit at worst. all in the name of protecting a ship. boy howdy.

(*SIDENOTE* I hypothesize that Allura doesn’t get nearly the same level of hate b/c mlm ships are favored in fandom, thus there are more sheith shippers than allurance (Allura/Lance) shippers to oppose klance. she may also be protected by Tumblr’s over-the-top glamorizing of any and every female character, but that’s a rlyyyy weird discussion that’s hard to quickly/accurately dissect, so I’ll just leave that particular hypothesis to the side..)

anyways, patient reader, let us return this tangent back to the original point: the general criticisms directed at s4 and onward. how do antis relate to this?

well, it’s real fuckin convenient that ppl suddenly started recognizing VLD’s writing/plot/etc. flaws when the show wasn’t catering quite AS much to Lance, or Lance/Keith interactions. real fuckin convenient ppl suddenly started criticizing Shiro as a character when said character’s relationship w/ Keith began to gain more focus and development. real fuckin convenient that ppl are finally recognizing that VLD isn’t as great as ATLA, when the last few seasons have gotten PRETTY DAMN CLOSE to ATLA’s level of emotional depth

so I’m bitter abt Voltron again. but rather than being bitter abt VLD being popular for the wrong reasons, I’m bitter that VLD’s flaws are finally being recognized for the wrong fucking reasons

and this is where it gets real fucking dangerous, b/c antis are dangerously persuasive to the general fandom public

since antis use sj language as ammunition for petty-ass shit, they can easily gain the attention of... god, I hate that I have to unironically use this term, but Tumblr “normies”. I literally have no better, simple term to describe somebody on Tumblr who hasn’t watched VLD (or simply hasn’t engaged in the fandom in a significant way), so please just roll w/ me here, for my own sanity. so Tumblr normies-- as those on Tumblr are prone to-- are vigilant in keeping up w/ sj issues across the board. this is good! it’s good to be aware of and critical of the content we consume..... until it’s. not.

I’m not the first to say that Tumblr has a very warped, very dangerous approach to sj activism. much like full-on antis, there is so much black/white thinking, lack of nuance, swift and unforgiving retribution for even slightly differing opinions, etc etc. it’s why so many ppl on Tumblr even ARE antis, b/c it’s rly just the fandom-offshoot of this mentality

but even beyond the most extreme “activists” of tumblr, anti’s sj language is dangerously appealing to even the chill normies-- nobody WANTS to support dangerous relationships or bad representation, after all! so they latch onto that rhetoric too, b/c when normies see antis' (usually unfounded) criticisms thrown around, they don’t know the show/fandom well enough to be able to verify those criticisms. and like, I get the appeal of it-- I’ve def made similar mistakes w/ unfamiliar fandoms as well, b/c I want to support a cause that seems just. it’s p natural to want to align w/ what we perceive as a just cause, esp when convinced by a persuasive speaker

thus, antis have gained a significant following of normies due to the simple fact that Tumblr normies DO care abt sj issues, but they DON’T care enough to research the show themselves to see what’s what

so, let me quickly recap the stage I’ve set for you here:

1) the fandom in general has given Voltron more credit than is due, and has subsequently placed ridiculous expectations on it. this has given Tumblr normies a false impression of VLD and its standards

2) antis are SUPREMELY protective of klance (and Lance in general), and have thrown around WILD accusations at any ships that threaten it, leading to--

3) antis throwing Shiro under the bus time and fucking time again.

4) by abusing sj language/tactics, antis appeal to Tumblr normies’ sense of duty, thus gain their approval in ganging up on whatever antis deem unjust in VLD-- whether it’s actually valid or not

so fuckin forgive me for being a bit skeptical when I heard rumors of “bury your gays” in Voltron from antis/normies, when these same ppl are actively throwing around accusations of pedophilia in the name of goddamn shipping

but I’ll fully admit, I passed judgement on this criticism a bit too quick, considering I hadn’t even seen the new season yet. it’s never good to blindly accept opinions purely on the basis that they bolster ur own assumptions, and I’m not immune to that charming trap (tho thankfully I’m not typically a vocal member fandom, so I was mostly just nodding along w/ my fellow shieths asdfg)

so finally, dear reader, we reach the actual point of this post: after seeing s7 for myself, what even ARE my opinions on it?

well. the handling of Adam and his relationship to Shiro............... wasn’t great. it was pretty fuckin terrible, actually. despite all I’ve said against antis, I agree w/ their general view that Adam’s relationship w/ Shiro (and his subsequent death) was shoddy, underdeveloped, and disrespectful to some degree. I’m personally not sure it’s worth the title of “bury your gays” for several different reasons, but I wouldn’t fault someone for calling it that, b/c there are definitely several other reasons that reinforce that trope. it’s worth discussing, and definitely worth voicing criticisms towards, esp in terms of Dreamworks’ “lgbt rep” advertising before s7′s release (which was absolutely scummy, there’s just no other word for it)

so if I agree w/ antis’ basal complaints in this instance, then why the hell am I even talking abt this? why am I putting so much effort into dissecting the fandom, only to essentially reach the same conclusion as those I fundamentally disagree with?

well, I suppose it’s all abt the framing.

I’m not gonna link the post b/c, again, I Don’t Wanna Start Shit, but most of y’all have prolly seen that one post that breaks down the history of the “bury your gays” trope, and how it was possibly utilized in VLD. it’s a p good argument in that respect-- I think it hits the main points of how/why Adam and his relationship w/ Shiro was just plain Bad

and to the untrained “normie” eye, that’s all it is. however, there is a cryptic framing present that reinforces anti talking points, which only someone involved in the fandom would recognize. 

(*SIDENOTE* I don’t mean to pick on SPECIFICALLY this post, I just think it’s a nice rundown of a few of the main rhetorical tactics used by antis. it’s certainly not a unique post in the fandom, but merely a good example of this brand of posts)

for one, this post forces an emotional distance between Shiro and the paladins. this post INSISTS that Shiro can ONLY be interpreted as a guardian character that can’t relate to the other paladins in any significant way due to age gaps and traumatic experience. THUS, according to antis, Adam was the only person that Shiro could have intimately discussed his problems w/ b/c they’re the same age and have a history. Adam's death removed this potential confidante, thus leaving Shiro to sort out his issues alone

while I agree that it would have been nice to see Shiro chat w/ a new character he has a history with (esp considering we rly haven’t gotten much backstory on Shiro yet), so much of this argument is simply false

I’ve already mentioned the bullshit that is the vague age gaps, but even if we were to take them into account, there ARE characters who are assumedly at or over Shiro’s age: Coran and Allura. and yeah, Coran is prolly not the best choice in terms of real emotional connection, but Allura? she could prolly fuckin relate. Shiro’s had his body and autonomy violently violated by the Galra, to the point that his original body is now destroyed; Allura has had her culture and people violently violated by the Galra, to the point the her original planet/culture is now destroyed. Shiro is/was a leader to the paladins, and takes their collective failures to heart as his personal failures to his team; Allura is a literal princess to her people, and takes their downfall as a personal reflection of her lack of ability to protect them. their situations obviously shouldn’t be 1:1 conflated, but to say they have no points of relation here is fuckin insulting

but since age gaps like this mean JACK SHIT when it comes simply developing emotional connections and mutual respect, we don’t even need to go so far as to match ages! this is evidenced by actual intimate interactions Shiro has had with the paladins!

the first one that comes to mind even involves antis’ favorite-- Lance! episode 45 (s5): “The White Lion” involved a moment where Shiro approached Lance on his own and opened up abt his mental health, saying he, “didn’t feel like himself.” now it could be argued that this was Shiro’s clone-- not Actual Shiro-- approaching Lance for help. tho I firmly believe that are still true parts of Shiro present in his clone, even if he’s not fully there. the clone is still protective of his team (before his mind is COMPLETELY hijacked, of course), and I believe any connections/loyalty/trust Shiro has towards the paladins is still true for the clone (even if this can, once again, be forcibly overridden). this moment is Shiro-- the part of Actual Shiro that’s present in his clone-- approaching a fellow teammate for help. of course, Lance doesn’t know exactly what to do in this situation, but he at least stays w/ Shiro for support

and then of course there are all the great moments Shiro has w/ Keith that antis want to forget abt. moments where Keith has laid down his health and safety for Shiro, moments where Keith has barred his soul to Shiro, moments where Keith has done everything in his power to reach out to a hurt and struggling Shiro.  moments where Keith has made it ABUNDANTLY fucking clear that he’s here to the bitter end, that he’ll NEVER give up on Shiro. it literally doesn’t fucking matter if u interpret these scenes as platonic or romantic, b/c the fact of the matter is that Shiro and Keith care DEEPLY abt each other in some shape or form. disregarding that is forcibly ignorant. also, we've now confirmed that Keith and Shiro do have a HISTORY back at the Garrison together before all this Voltron nonsense started (even if it isn’t necessarily a romantic history), so Keith also has that leg up

the subtle framing of Shiro as STRICTLY a “guardian” character is also a classic anti tactic, as it implies a sort of pseudo-pedophilic undertone to any Shiro/paladin ships, which is just.... gross and dishonest. yes, he’s canonically a leader to the paladins, and oftentimes takes on a guardian-type role, but once again, he also canonically opens up to other paladins on a mutually respectful/intimate level. there’s nothing in canon that would strictly suggest he’s ONLY a guardian figure-- “space dad” is a fandom interpretation in the same way that framing him as Keith’s lover is a fandom interpretation. neither is more or less 'canon', and it's petty to suggest otherwise

another weird point in that post is the insistence that Shiro is a “tragic gay character”, which is just..... not fucking true, first of all. he’s definitely suffered the most out of any main character, I agree, but he’s GETTING THROUGH IT. he’s been pulled through it by the paladins, and he’s learning to use his own strength to pull through as well. he’s so incredibly fuckin strong and it’s a fuckin shame that ppl don’t see how inspirational he is to those that may be struggling emotionally. plus, he's never suffered BECAUSE he's gay, nor has he ever had a damn HINT of queer-coding until Adam was shoehorned in (which is its own separate problem w/ the show, but it's not a "tragic gay" problem)

but beyond all that is an even more subtle insistence that Shiro has always been a beloved character to ALL in the fandom. antis’ underlying implication that, “hey normies, Shiro-- our beloved Space Dad-- has been given the shit end of the stick, and u should be mad abt it too!” 

as if antis haven’t spent the last several years shitting on Shiro at every turn, saying he’s got “scrambled egg brains” b/c of his ptsd, and other horrific shit. the fact that they can turn around to “defend Shiro’s honor” now that he’s *confirmed queer* (and, initially, confirmed less of a threat to klance due to Adam) and STILL be taken seriously is goddamn terrifying 

like I am literally seeing posts like this-- IN 20FUCKIN18-- that normies are taking at face value and reinforcing:

to any normies reading this: SHIRO AND KEITH AREN'T FUCKING RELATED!! racist antis insist that they have to be related b/c they're both Asian and the second half of their last names (Shirogane and Kogane, respectively) are similar. I'm literally so baffled over how this tactic is ever taken seriously, but who fuckin knows I guess. and if antis are trying to make a case for adoptive siblings, Keith canonically met Shiro by at LEAST his early/mid teens-- LONGGGG past the developmental age of youth where he might latch onto another person as a strictly non-romanceable relative, so. No. fandom is free to interpret Keith and Shiro’s relationship as brotherly, but to say that that is the STRICT and true 'canon' interpretation of their relationship is, once again, fuckin petty and dishonest

just. how fuckin DARE antis act like they give a SINGLE goddamn shit abt Shiro’s emotional needs and trauma after pullin this shit. how fuckin DARE antis misuse real sj issues to appeal to the lowest common denominator in normies, looking for fodder to fuel the flames of hate

so, if I may be so bold as to utilize one of antis' many battlecrys: this discussion does not exist in a vacuum. Adam's shoehorned relationship w/ Shiro is shitty and worth criticism, absolutely. but brushing aside the fandom history driving the resulting uproar-- as if ship wars aren't HUGELY influencing this backlash-- is SUPREMELY fuckin ignorant

antis latched onto Adam HARD when he was first announced, despite all the signs he'd be a side character at best, that he was stated clearly to be Shiro's ex, and having no context for his personality. Adam was antis' newest shield to their ship-- somebody to take Shiro's romantic potential away from Keith, thus leaving Keith open to Lance. Adam's death eliminated that shield, leaving antis reeling-- they couldn't just jump right back into hating Shiro after having showered his newly-christened gay ass w/ praise for all of the Tumblr normies to see. so, their anger was tactically redirected towards Adam's development

there is nothing shocking abt any of this tbh. all antis is the same, and they're all bitter assholes that are completely willing to abuse real sj issues for their own goals. plain and simple.

I don't rly have a proper ending for this. I'll just say that I like s7 a helluva lot, and Adam’s shitty development doesn’t rly phase me? not everyone feels that way, which is valid, I just don’t particularly give a shit abt Adam. I have hope for s8-- esp in terms of potential development for Shiro. since Shiro got such heavy focus in s6, it makes sense that he was pushed to the sidelines a bit this season to leave room for the other characters (Keith, Lance, Commander Holt + Earth stuff in general, etc.) to develop and shine. I've heard rumors that Adam did in fact have more development that was cut, which I'm honestly willing to believe b/c the development we got felt cut short, rather than simply planned that sparsely in the first place. my hope is that s8 will return some focus to Shiro, and possibly slot in some of these cut scenes to bolster a better backstory to their relationship? pure speculation tho, and it doesn't rly excuse Adam's treatment in s7, but it's worth considering

before I completely end off here, I just want to go on one last FINAL tangent: I'm so damn disappointed that everyone is sleeping on kexa (Keith/Acxa)??? if anything it poses MUCH more canon threat to BOTH klance and sheith purely b/c it's 'safely hetero' and b/c the show itself has hinted at potential feelings there (“She’s always been sweet on that one with the flippity hair,” and “Oh look Acxa, it’s your favorite paladin~”). like I haven't seen antis OR sheiths even mention this, it's baffling. the fact that it'll prolly be canon is bittersweet for me: bitter b/c DAMN I love sheith, and sweet b/c damn.... I'm rly diggin kexa....

so the moral of this post is: blease appreciate Keith's beautiful goth gf, she deserves love

thank u and goodbye

[rocksalive]

not to say i’m not nuts abt the movie coco, bc i am, but i have some questions

1) how the FUCKING MOTHERFUCKING FUCK does tia victoria know how to operate a soundboard 2) how come having memories of “that bastard who left mama imelda on her own” passed down the riveras from ppl who knew hector in life doesn’t count for keeping him alive. does your name have to be in play or sth. do they have to know your face. is it bc part of the story they remembered him for was factually wrong? 3) what are the photo rules? does a really good drawing/painting work? how clear / in focus / big does ur face have to be? do u have to be looking directly at the camera, and if so do families know that? if the photo age and the age you show up as when dead are drastically different, does it still work? 4) i’ve seen a theory that the age in the ofrenda photo determines ur age in the land of the dead, which kinda makes sense, but then what happens if ur remembered but have no photo? does it just default to however old u were when u died? also what if ur photo at varying ages is on a bunch of ofrendas? does it avg out? is it decided by whichever family u were closest to? 5) how does ernesto get that fuckin hoard back from the ofrendas. does he have a staff of some kind to collect & carry them 6) related: how tf does the land of the dead’s economy work. ernesto employs security, but i guess they could just be really enthusiastic fans, and the agency employees could be altruistic volunteers? but then how come the almost-forgotten all live in shacks, and hector’s clothes get nicer when he’s remembered? is wealth somehow a direct consequence of rememberedness? how does that work as a currency? 7) how is it that on the morning of dotd, just mentioning “mama coco’s papa” has her asking if papa is coming home, therefore remembering him p easily, but less than 24 hours later she’s completely forgetting him? does she remember papa as a concept but not exactly hector as a person? is this the same problem as #2? what counts as being remembered? 8) does the curse kick in the moment miguel removes the guitar, or the moment he strums it? the strumming triggers the dramatics, but he stole it before then. if he’d run back to the plaza w/o strumming, would it just have kicked in whenever he played the first note? 9) “this day is to give to the dead, u stole from them” “a family curse needs a family blessing” -- is he cursed bc he stole from the dead or bc he violated the family ban on music? make up ur mind, allergy dude! or are all dotd-related crimes inherently family matters due to the nature of the holiday? 10) i understand the ofrenda setups are based in reality, but miguel’s “lemme leave a ton of lit candles unattended, for hours on end, on wooden surfaces covered in papers and flowers, in a wooden attic on top of my wooden house” is particularly objectionable from a fire safety standpoint 11) if i believed that my ability to see my family after i died depended on them having photos of me, i would make damn sure we had multiple photos and backups somewhere safe, and in the modern era (when coco takes place) i would sure as shit make copies of existing family photos. ESPECIALLY if the tradition required keeping these precious photos in close proximity to fire. why did no one take mama imelda’s photo to a damn kinko’s 12) hector’s hair seems to be more attached to his hat than his head. is this part of his general lack of cohesion or is all hair in the land of the dead wigs? 13) EXPLAIN THE GODDAMN SKELETAL POLO PONIES 14) how do you build anything. does someone thoughtfully leave out a bunch of tools and raw materials as offerings each year. does it just Appear. someone had to make that de la cruz statue 15) miguel named a street dog after the horse in a de la cruz film. this isn’t a question just what a fuckin nerd

this post inspired by my having watched coco 3 times in 4 days. thx for listening to my Ramblings guys

[felixeslee]

92 q tag

hello this tag is highkey irrelevant now but it’s been in my drafts for ages so !! laskdgjasodigjsaldkgasodigjasdg which is why i wont b tagging anyone bc im so late but !! yeah !! ok !! !!!!!!!!!1111!!! lets !! go !!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

tagged by @hyuunjins @hyunjinh @straykiz and @dae-hwee from my w1 blog (lmaoo hi pindi this is sarah!! AIddgsdfk if youre aware of this blog but hope its ok if i do it here alskdg ) 

rules: once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 92 truths about you. At the end choose 25 people to be tagged. 

🌙 LAST

Drink: the water that I drank this morning!! Aka around 12 hrs ago asdgasdgoij pls stay hydrated kids 

Text Message: i texted my brother if he knew where my dad was lol,,,,,,, sldkjgaosidgj 

Phone Call: CALLED MY BROTHER BC HE WASNT RESPONDING MY TEXTS,,,,, he also didn’t pick up ldskgjsoidgjsldkgsjdg

Song you listened to: Goodbye My Love by Aileeeee <3 lovv 

Time you cried: TODAY ,,,, i was getting super anxious bc i didn’t know where my dad was ??? he was supposed to pick me up but he forgot abt me until like an hr later… sldkgjaosidgj 

🌙 HAVE YOU EVER

Dated someone twice: no :00 lmao i’ve never dated… ever alskdjgaoijsdf 

Kissed someone and regretted it: i havent had my first kiss yet HEH 

Lost someone special: unfortunately, yes :( 

Been depressed: sdgksjadoiglskdfosdijgalskdfaosdigjaksdgoaisdjf idk 

Been drunk and thrown up: lmao i’ve never drank ,,, at all,,,, the smell of alchohol scares me,,,,, evn my little brother has had a sip once and he’s 5 yrs younger LMAO ,,, but im a noob and don’t wanna try sldkgjosidjgs 

🌙 IN THE PAST YEAR HAVE YOU

Made a new friend: yay yes yeslgkdgsdf

Fallen out of love: i dont think i’ve ever evn been in love…. Sdlgksjdoigj 

Met someone who changed you: yes,,,,,,,,, 

Found out who your true friends are: uhhhh idk aslkdgjaosidjf i honestly can never tell when someone’s being a fake friend so!!!!!! Idk honestly lmao

Found out someone was talking about you: i did ! but it wasn’t for anything bad or anything……… they just criticized me behind my back?? But i agreed w their criticism so alsdkjgaosidgj  

🌙 GENERAL

How many people on tumblr do you know in real life?: ummm,,,, like 4?? We r mutuals evn though none of them r actually kpop blogs,,,, so i always feel guilty spamminig their aesthetic feed w my screaming tags and annoying shit LMAO but i lov them <3 

Do you have any pets?: NO :”( I WANT A DOGGO THO …. REALLY BAD…..

Do you want to change your name?: uhhh ik so many sarahs its not evn funny and my last name is hella basic too????? Theres 3 ppl that share my first+last name in my school alone….. So maybe i’d change it to my chinese name (yue) ?? also bc it sounds more sophisticated,, and i lov anything that makes me sound smarter than the reality of my dumb self LOL 

What time did you wake up this morning: LOL so my alarm rings at 6:40 but i get out of bed at 7:10 SLDGKJSODIF … and i need to get out of the house by 7:20 lsdkgsdoig 

What were you doing last night: physics and apush :SLDGJOSIDFJ the 2 most dreaded classes UGH

Something you cannot wait for: DINNER .. i love me some gud dinner

Have you ever talked to a person named tom?: thomas jefferson my mAN 

What’s getting on your nerves right now: when it’s so heckin cold i can’t concentrate + i hate taking notes when it’s cold??? Bc then my hands r like half numb and it HURTS WHEN I TAKE NOTES sldkgsoidjf ALSO WHEN I DRAW ,,,,, STIFF FINGERS R THE WORST WHEN DRAWING

Blood type: i think a????????????

Nickname: my most common ones r swisso + salad (i promise these make sense in context LOL ) 

Relationship status: return NullPointerException; //im a cs person,,, dont judge

Zodiac sign: capricorn!

Pronouns: she + her

Favorite show: i dont watch many shows but i love watching a gud studio ghibli movie when im feelin down

College: this QUESTION LSDKGJSODIGJ ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, i wanna go to college but will any accept me ??!?!

Hair colour: its naturally black but it’s currently dyed ombre from black → brown !!!!!!

Do you have a crush on someone: i havent had a legit crush in 3 yrs lmao……. 

What do you like about yourself: the fact that im a deep sleeper. Idk how light sleepers function omg like wouldn’t u wake up to like,,,,, everything??! :((( that makes me sad bc u hav no idea how much i lov a nice long undisturbed slumber

   🌙 FIRSTS

First surgery: okAY so like i've had 2 procedures done on my eyes lmaooo like (1) when i was a smol beb of like 1 yr old i rolled off my bed aaaannnnddd the corner of my eye hit the edge of the sharp corner of the bedside table!!! and then y1ke$ things got ugly loll (((yes, i wuz dum + clumsy since the day i popped from the womb))) its all stitched up now and i hav a tinie tinie scar aslkdgs okay and (2) there was something weird abt my tearducts LOL so u know when u get sad nd stuff ur nose gets runny and u sniff a lot??? well like that wasn't the case for me bc the passage way from my eyes to my nose was completely blocked off,,,,, which resulted in me lookin like i was full blown cryin like every 2 seconds... like if i kept my eyes open for too long my eyes would get watery and tears would flow out LMAO ,,,, i looked like i just never stopped crying,,, but it was just my eyes were just ALWAYS WATERING sdlgjsdif damn u have no idea after the procedure i was like 'do ppl live like this??? not having to wipe tears every 0.2 sec??? oh my god,,, i am livin THE LIFE' 

First piercing: i hav no piercings!!! Bc stabbing holes thru myself scares me sdlkjgsoidg but i love the way earrings look tho so :///// 

First sport you joined: dance or gymnastics???? I dont rly remember

First vacation: CHINA prob???? 

First pair of sneakers: i think sketchers LMAO ,,, the big thing  

🌙 RIGHT NOW

Eating: nothing!!!!!

I’m about to: do som sketches for my AP art class 

Listening to: my dad sing som old chinese folk stuff behind me LOL 

Want kids: i already adopted all 9 members of stray kids tho ??? idk if im ready for more atm 

Get married: LOL This question just reminded me of smol story from my childhood: so like i used to b rly close w these 3 other kids,,,, one other girl and 2 guys,,, and our parents were all rly tight too,, and our four families would just go camping together and it was rly :’’D fun and so we all made a pact that I would marry one of the guys and the other girl would marry the other guy and we’d all go camping together forever but then KINDERGARTEN HIT,,,, we moved schools and yeah im still rly close w the girl but i miss the 4 of us dkgjsodigjsdlkgsdf LOL 

Career: waterbottle 🌙 

WHICH IS BETTER

Lips or eyes: eyes? Eh idk i just never rly considered lips ?? LOL 

Hugs or kisses: hugs? I dont hav experience w kisses so sldkgjsoidgjsd yike syikes yikes 

Shorter or taller: TALLER

Troublemaker or hesitant: uhhhhh neither??? Like i just want someone playful + extroverted bc im quite introverted,,,,,,,,,, so if he was hesitant we’d just b super awkward and quiet,,, and i don’t like getting involved w sketchy troublemaker shit either LOL ,,, 

Older or younger: as long as they r in the same school grade level,,,, and i guess 1-2 yrs older is okaY? But lowkey freaks me out if too old 

Romantic or spontaneous: sldkgjsoidfj both? Like i lov someone who is unpredictable and spontaneous,,,, but on the other hand im lowkey a helpless romantic lasdkgjaoisdjf 

Sensitive or loud: both i guess too??? Its good to have someone understanding and sensitive but also someone who knows how to have fun  :) 

Hookup or relationship: hookups,,,,,,,, just dont make sense to me,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, like i get attached to someone p easily so even if i dont plan on being attached,,,, i’d probably get attached :(  

🌙 HAVE YOU EVER

Kissed a stranger: YIKES no 

Drank hard liquor: nO 

 Lost contacts/glasses: UH I HATE THIS BUT YES….. 

Sex on first date: yikes * (6.02 *10^23) adkgaosidjgaslkdf no thaNK you 

Broken someone’s heart: i dont know,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, like i might’ve but maybe im just not aware ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, but on a sidenote i think my old comupter science teacher gets a migrain everytime he sees me LOLLLLLL sdlgjsoidgjsldf 

Been arrested: no,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, :0 

Turned someone down: yeah lmao i kinda feel bad tho bc they were all good ppl,,,,  lskjgosidjf but thankfully im still good friends and pretty tight w all of them ~  

🌙 DO YOU BELIEVE

In yourself: ocassionally i try to :’’D

Miracles: lol yes 

Love at first sight: i used to ? but not anymore,,,, like i believe u can be attracted to someone at first sight ?? but i feel like love cannot be attained thru visual contact only asldgjoasidjalsdg

[celestial-jeon-remade]

I wanted tell you that! Armys need to have more people like you who actually appreciated what our boys have and not try to portray them into something they are not! I AM DEEPLY IN LOVE WITH YOUR SPEECH!!

aw thank you so much :( I'm glad that for once I'm not swarmed w ppl telling me I'm too sensitive? although some dumbass told me to get over myself which...makes no sense cause it’s not about me but ok... be mad i guess (also -you not even acknowledging that it's an issue not only shows how normalized did maltreatment is but also contributes to the fucking problem at hand !!! so!!) 

and yea honestly if ur gonna go off n say we gotta love and support all our boys u gotta stop acting like ignoring or being mean to jungkook is some sort of heroic act done at the others sake cause jungkook is a part of bts and deserves to be praised just as much!! 

also we gotta stop seeing them as 2 dimensional ppl? 

Hobi can be shy! he gets flustered easily! he can get upset and mad! he isn’t just some goofball. he isn’t running on one emotion even tho he is very optimistic, he can get down or hurt and we should keep that in mind.

Yoongi isn’t lazy or cold. he’s very social, works super hard, and loves the other members so freaking much that they're closer than family to him. he even holds hands to calm down!

With Tae, everyone freaked out when he wasn’t happy go lucky in the dance video and?? he’s allowed to feel other emotions! n no he didn't look mad or bothered either, he’s called ‘blank tae’ for a reason he just had an indifferent face on.

Namjoon is so brilliant?? he can spout such philosophical insights it’s like he’s been reincarnated 10 times but he also loves lil plushies and going out into nature and crabs?

Jin is so funny?? a lot of ppl will obsess over his looks or make us pay attention to his vocals (which isn't bad ofc) but like, he’s such a comedic and his optimism and self love is so great and can rly teach us a thing or two?

I don’t think Jimin is misinterpreted by the fandom (this is Libra Privilege) i still wanna appreciate how he has this switch between being serious and being fun! he can have a sexy stage presence but also be very clumsy and energetic like a kid

and Jungkook gosh where do i start. it can be hard to understand him because he IS introverted and shy and doesn't rly talk about himself but he is TRYING. he wants to get closer and he’s even learning 2 languages to do so. it’s our own fault as fans if we don't look beyond the powerful and cocky stage presence and try to push this fuckboy persona on him cause in reality he is the sweetest boy ever. he tends to get attached to ppl and places easily he says, and he loves army and his members so damn much, and he’s always giving it 110% even if he doesn't get half of what he gives back. he deserves better than a simple brush off. 

they are multifaceted people who we still don't fully know and as fans we should do better than to allow misconceptions that could deter their actual personalities from getting out of hand

[seasaltmemories]

Dennis�� Connection to Zarc: Arc V Character Analysis

So this may or may not be a little series I do.  While I have no hard plans, I’d enjoy going through the cast in whatever order I choose and talking about whatever aspect of the character I feel compelled to tackle at the moment in a very personal and subjective matter.  As a result if this is well-received and/or I find myself interested in continuing this I might share my thoughts on other characters in the future.

Due to @skittymon’s encouragement on this post and the fact it’s been about a year or so since episode 114, I think I’ll dive into what really stood out about Dennis’ character to me.

While I love the non-counterpart cast of Arc V to bits, I feel like Dennis is the prime example for why I believe that Arc V wasn’t really about the counterparts themselves.  Starting with the public reveal of his connection to Academia in season 2, every time he appeared I was left with this sense of  “this changes things”  His arc really builds on the themes and message of Arc V while giving a weight to different aspects of the plot.

Starting with episode 74-75 was really the first time I really thought deeply about Dennis as a character.  That’s not to say his earlier appearances are bad (I love his duel against Gongenzaka) but it introduces a very human element to Academia: reluctance.  He’s not like Yuri, the Obelisk Force, or Sora (from what we had seen so far) who deeply believe in Academia’s goals and enjoys fighting for the cause, but he’s not like Serena, someone who can turn his back on it so easily.  It’s just his job, one that he continues on doing despite the regrets it leaves him with.  Still this doesn’t excuse the harm he’s caused.  Even though he prefers to entertain as opposed to battle, there’s no erasing the fact he started a war.

Drifting into the hypothetical a bit, but this is why the only ship that I personally wish was canon is Janushipping.  Not even in a romantic context, just that they had explicitly known each other.  In the flashback we’re shown, he is on enough good terms with Ruri that waving to her as they pass by is not unusual.  Now this doesn’t signal a deep friendship or anything, but if there had been just a smidge more focus on it or at least an acknowledgment of it by Ruri, I feel it could have added a different type of pathos to the Heartland Invasion.  Seeing your home burn to the ground is very traumatic and horrifying, but it is an alien concept to most ppl and hard to empathize with.  Being able to add a human face to it through Dennis’ betrayal of Ruri adds a dimension (lol) that is much easier to relate to.  It would also give a bit more weight to Ruri as a person by showing her outside the role of Shun’s sister and Yuto’s friend/crush, but I digress.

By the time 112-114 roll around, it’s pretty easy to ignore this past revelation as Dennis acts the part of heartless soldier pretty well.  It’s only at the end of 114 do we see a continuation of this conflict.  By now he’s decided that he doesn’t want to continue and support Academia, but at the same time he feels he doesn’t doesn’t deserve redemption.  Yusho himself offers forgiveness to him with no strings attached, but the conflict between who he is and what he’s done drives him to card himself.  It’s one of the most somber moments of the series and deserving so bc we just watched a young teen commit the equivalent of suicide.  While by now we know he can return and we see this happen on-screen, there’s still the fact that Dennis thought the best fate for himself was to not exist.

Tying this in with other events, it really gives a weight again to redemption, something I think Arc V tried to do.  Winning people over to Yuya’s ideology in one duel wasn’t really done until season 3, when the show presents him as his most developed.  Before, the only person who switches so easily is Serena who unlike almost any other Academia soldier was not aware of the level of violence being done.  Sora took nearly half of season 2 before he declared himself as defecting from Academia and initially he was very much against doing more than making sure his loved ones (Yuzu and Yuya) were safe.  In season 3 the mass defecting of Academia forces can feel odd after such slow processes but in-between it all we’re smacked in the face with a character who feels redemption isn’t possible.  It’s a harsh reminder that comes very unexpectedly and also goes to differentiate the three ‘redeemed’ members of the “Fusion quartet”  as this post by @x-ali-chan-x nicely summarizes 

Next this also reminds the viewer that these are child soldiers.  In a fantastical series such as Yugioh the horror of this is nowhere near the level of reality, but it’s still hurts.  As many victims he’s hurt, Dennis is a victim himself, and it’s very hard to ignore that act when faced with these actions.  On another note it almost mirrors Zarc’s fall before he even learn his existence.  To declare either as blameless is to outright ignore the show, but outside circumstances are both a key factor.  If left to their own devices, both would probably prefer to simply entertain ppl. Even if the damage of their actions outweighs any sympathy in your eyes, that doesn’t take away the tragic elements to their struggle.

Interestingly enough, exactly 30 episodes later is when we get a resolution to Dennis’ arc.  To understand the impact of this, context is required.  The fanon around Dennis’ character was largely composed of angst and hurt with the only sign of recovery being shown as happen years in post-canon  I say this as someone who was writing fanfic like that bc the fact 144 is so optimistic hit everyone out of right field.   Not only was it positive, but it felt right, better than any conclusion others had proposed.  I remember discussing with a friend how the idea of him becoming a teacher and sort of finding his redemption in the next generation was something that had never occurred to her yet it was perfect.

Personally 144 is one of the reason I will never discount the “make Reira smile” arc as pointless.  To me the duel between Yuya and Dennis shows the best of entertainment dueling in several subtle ways.  At the beginning Dennis is falling into some old habits, painting himself as a villain for Yuya to defeat and make everything better with.  Though his self-carding is never outright mentioned its memory is hard to ignore as he still views himself as unworthy of being “good.”  Then Yuya flips the script and reaches out to him.  The duel becomes less about vanquishing a foe and more about understanding someone else to build a bigger and brighter future than before.  In a way this prepares the audience again for how Yuya will handle Zarc.  The way Yuya overcomes Zarc’s shadow is by trying to understand him and instead of damning him showing how better alternatives exist.

So again when I see the statement that the counterparts were the star of the show, I have to disagree.  Even if some of what I pointed out was more coincidence as opposed to intentional actions on the creator’s part, I feel you can’t argue that Dennis’ role in the story wasn’t meant to have importance to the overall narrative.  And for the most part I think many agree.  Despite supporting character I have only seen one person express dislike for him.  Usually the coldest reaction I see is indifference or neutrality, and that is overshadowed by the love I see showered on him.  His impact sticks in a way I think the character himself would be proud to see.

[v-le]

Kdrama: Tomorrow With You Review

Forewarning: There are moments within this review in which I sort of abandon any sense of professionalism, oops. Enjoy! *images to be added soon.

The OTP

Same age in real life omg I've never seen a pair so perfect.

NO SECOND LEADS. I absolutely love it when the focus is only on the mains, with no pointless distractions or love triangles that go no where. I love it. i rly do

cute cute cute cute times a million

They honestly looked like a legitimate couple, I feel like I could spot several moments when they even broke through their actual characters and ad-libbed it out or something

Many people were also complaining about how slow (I assume they meant relationship progression???) it was, and got annoyed over their "back-and-forth-ness"?? honest to god, yes they were so beautiful that I barely noticed it. But also, it was so logical to me, the process they went through in which they lied to each other & then failed to communicate until later. Like, it didn’t piss me off because it made sense...? I didn’t see anything wrong with it? It went a little like: 

Yoo So-joon hits on her because he knows how they’re connected by death.

He tries to shake her off, but realizes who she really is (a fellow survivor).

He becomes interested again.

THEY FCKING GET MARRIED in FCKING EP 4 IF THAT IS SLOW TO U, THEN STFU AND GTFO

He obvi don’t love her fully, but she’s already heads over heels

She feels suspicious af and he doesn’t tell her stuff (that even his friends know). And he gets angry easily while he tries to protect his ppl, but keeps his secret hidden.

She got sick and he pulls off his romantic but materialistic resolution.

He opens up to her a little bit more and they cry it out.

He makes a wrong move again and then is basically forced to reveal his secret.

She’s like what the actual fuck is wrong with you, but comes to terms with it.

They get closer, but she feels empty because she rly don’t know much about him and he is as careless as ever.

Her heart breaks over the reality of him disappearing so easily.

So-joon is slowly realizing the future that’s in store for them.

Tries to call it quits and play noble idiot, but she won’t take his fake, snarky ass.

So they make up and he really really really realizes that he must change the future, no matter what. He has nothing left for her him but her.

He tries hard. but doesn’t try hard enough.

By the time he disappears & she waits for two years, they are basically one heart.

By the time they reunite they are the cutest couple in the world.

I think a big issue people had with So-joon’s character was that "he didn’t love her" when they got married, but I think that wording is extremely misleading and not entirely accurate. Yes, I don’t think that at that point he could say "I love you" to her with sincerity, but it’s not like he flat out was disgusted by her or hated her…?? It was more like, he was not fully aware of what he was getting himself into, by getting married. Not just to her, but the concept of marriage and the commitments that come with it in the first place. That was what he was not on board with, which is how he may have come off as indifferent. But we all knew that Song Ma-rin would change him for the better because the ones with flawed intuition always get taught a good lesson or two from their loved ones.

DO U KNOW how MaNY times he was shirtless WITh HEr?????

I swear I think I counted properly, but they kissed like 9+ times and probably hugged like 15+ times like omfg I’m pretty sure that is a record

Can I also just mention that for me, when a couple wipes each other's tears, like when one of them actually takes their fingers and smushes the falling teardrops, that is just game set. To me, that solidifies their relationship as one where 1) they aren’t embarrassed to cry in front of each other 2) they care enough to show tender affection for each other 3) they sympathize together. And that is exactly what they did. MORE THAN ONCE excuse me.

The Plot

A lot of people complained about the various flaws within the actions of the characters and the mechanics of time-travelling. Honestly… like I mentioned earlier, since the OTP was so convincing to me, the holes in logic kinda flew past my head. Like, I didn’t dissect them too deeply because I was so distracted, or I just didn’t bother

Don’t you see that their progression only felt natural?? You start out with one side that is overconfident about the commitment as if he’s strolling through a park while the other is lovestruck, but always smart enough to know when bullshit is going on, and is never afraid to call the other out for it. It only took a matter of time for them to find real and genuine appreciation for each other, and it was worth it.

"WTF were you thinking moments" & justification:

So-joon letting Song Ma-rin go home by herself while Kim Young-jin was still lurking. Ok I have no solution to this like you honestly....DID YOU NOT LEARN FROM AHJUSSHI THAT YOU BASICALLY GOTTA STICK TO THE PERSON LIKE GUM IF YOU WANT THEM TO BE SAFE?? U HAVE TO HAVE THEM IN UR SIGHTS AT ALL TIMES.

So-joon getting onto subway and ultimately getting stabbed. Ok, he even said himself that he wanted to catch him with his own hands because if he doesn’t now, he'll get away and who knows how much more havoc he could wreak? The police would do no good being there blatantly, and so he had to hold out since he was the bait anyway. He just should’ve been smarter with defense, like c’mon man let’s not get cocky with your fighting skills now.

So-joon letting her run onto the street. Ok yes, he def should’ve reacted faster and realized what kinda danger she would be in after being aware of it for like 2 years aiya. But I assume it was a spur-of-the-moment, blinded happiness kinda thing. They were cute af and they were happy and like who really thinks that hard y’know???

So-joon just bracing himself and Ma-rin for the car crash. He was facing their deaths, I assume. Yes, they could’ve just jumped out of the way, but at the same time, he had already mentioned that he just wanted to enjoy the small moments they have together, instead of always trying to cheat and change fate. If they were meant to die in that moment, he was going to take it as is. (which is lightweight greedy bc wb marin???? but whateves lol).

I really do think that the story-line was extremely tightly woven to begin with. Even up until episode 16, we saw scenes from episode 1, and vice versa; everything fell into place perfectly and the details were down to each minute of their lives. Everything was very clearly thought out and i felt like they picked and pulled at certain pieces at the proper times and revealed others at the most crucial of times, too. Props to the writing team for creating such a complex & dynamic web of characters and events that spanned nearly 3 decades.

The Cinematography

Stunnnningggggg. Especially that iconic moment in episode 1 when he pulled her out of the path of an oncoming truck and talked to her for the first time, like the way the sunlight was hitting the camera, it was just something else I swear.

Overall, the colors were warm and fluffy, but the future def always looked more bleak and dry and dark.  Beautiful dualism with a strong impact.

Also can I just mention that when So-joon disappears, it’s also very mystifying, the fast wisps are quite a touch.

Also ngl the couple themself was extremely aesthetic; like they are both very attractive people & when attractive people cuddle a part of you kinda just dies inside, y’know??

The Emotions

Ok I admit that my reactions were probably overboard because I was so attached

but straight up this is the kind of drama my heart was searching for.

I always love it so so so so much, (although realistically speaking, it’s only fantasy ones that can pull this off w/o it being some noble idiocy shit) when the force that is keeping a couple apart is a force that is greater than themselves. It’s more than them just choosing to not be together. It’s them wanting so desperately to be together, but circumstances, in the best kind, life and death ones, prevent them from doing so. The reason I like these kind of situations so much is seriously because that’s where all the love comes out. The pain of love.

It was so so so soooooo excruciatingly painful to watch So-joon and Ma-rin's future unfold the exact way he saw it would. It tore me to pieces because I could feel Ki-doong's hopelessness from losing his best friend to a murderer, Ma-rin's deathly painful heartbreak from simply NOT knowing what in the world is going on or what will happen (and for her dad to tell her to move on), but just having to wait, and So-joon's very own inability to fix it all. Oh dear lord watching him visit her grave in the future where she no longer exists, that shattered my sanity because it hurt so much.

I literally cried in the smallest of moments. When he disappeared in front of her eyes, I burst into tears along with her because her crying was so beautiful (yes, actually tho), but at the same time, I felt it deep down inside. It felt trivial, to cry over that one moment, but it also meant so much more than that. It represented a real fear of losing your loved one, and o dear lord i can’t.

Like I said, the heartbreak was everything I’ve been wanting. It felt so raw. In those moments where even he cried because he was so scared for the future (after eating in the tent with ahjusshi, calling ahjusshi on the phone in the cafe, reading her letters sent to him from her past self), knowing how much was on the line, and how much he just wanted it to be okay, it hurt so much because I had so much hope along with him. I honestly didn’t expect them to allow their future to play out the exact way he saw it; I rly thought that they’d pull some plot twists because that’s what dramas do......... and so when everything really did unfold painfully, my heart was unprepared and it tore apart. Even though I knew that they would be together in the end no matter what, I didn’t know how, and everything still hurt like fking crazy.

I know a drama does it right when I can feel the pain physically in my own chest. When it suddenly feels so heavy and ache-y that I kinda wanna give up in life a little bit. That's when a drama pulled the right strings & carved a good-sized void in my heart.

The Special Connections

I, tbh only decided to watch this because I found out that Kim Feel, my eternally favorite musician, sang an OST for it, and I was feeling extra down from his military enlistment. What a beautiful gem he brought me to. When his voice played at the still frames in the ends of some episodes, my heart filled with this indescribable sort of happiness and longing.

The "seoul station" that So-joon refers to is actually called Si-cheong station, one I manage to catch a geofilter for back when I was in Korea!!!!!!!!!!! It was an exciting discovery, to find out that the exact route So-joon takes back and forth is one that I have traveled on myself.

Idk if this really has to do with anything, but the director also directed Oh My Ghostess and King of High School, so everyone kept saying that this drama would be a rom com BUT BOY WAS THAT SHIT DARK AS F*CK IDK WHAT Y’ALL HAD IN MIND BUT like, no no, no, that was nowhere close to the other 2 dramas he made. It was a beautiful change of atmosphere nonetheless.

The Message

The fact that Ma-rin is a photographer speaks volumes. For a man who is infatuated with the future and has lost focus of the present, just one photograph can speak volumes. A photograph captures the present and instills a moment in time. For Marin, this is what her life's work depended on; this is what she lived by. Capturing the present and cherishing individual seconds in time. And for So-joon, this is exactly the kind of person he needed to save him from himself and his future selves. So so so beautifully laid out.

Even just the ending line: "today". Like akjfkjdagkahkgdhlanjak, if you don’t get the message from this then you are just... idk wtf you’ve been watching LOL. Granted, the drama is called "Tomorrow With You", but clearly that is not what they are tryna get at. That was the theme throughout the entirety of the drama with So-joon being an apprehensive wuss, but the reality of it is to face the present, and live for a today with you. Love love love <3

Favorite Moments

When he asks "So... do you like me?" and she replies "Was there ever a time when I didn't????" LIKE IDK something about the trivial-ness of both statements yet how deep they hit home.... like obviously, they like each other or else they wouldn’t have gotten so far. But the fact that he had a need to reiterate that, and the fact that she was like "dude have I not made myself clear how much I like u" like that is just so adorably cute and squishy goals to me omggg.

When she sniffs him as they walk home from dinner and giggles and says "Hehehe husband smell" OMG WHY R THEY SO FREAKING CUTE I JUST--.

When he disappeared right before her eyes, it shattered everything in me.

When he grabbed her and saved her from the accident, it was one 2-sec move that altered entire lifetimes, for better or for worse. It was beautifully shot, despite it being an extremely cliche move. It’s okay. It was gorgeous and it’s def my favorite wrist grab to date LOL.

When he started crying because he saw the car accident on the news and he legit was dropping tears, but she laughed it off and hugged him and her smile was so sweet and innocent but he’s legit in agony and it was just so cute and heartbreaking at the same time LIKE HONESTLY that phrase is what describes this drama in a nutshell. Heartbreakingly beautiful.

Despite its flaws, this drama was honestly what I’ve been looking for so so so long. It’s definitely not my number 1 because there were things it could’ve done better, and each episode did not stand out like a number 1 drama should have, but it definitely tore me to pieces, out of joy AND despair. I loved it to bits and I will never forget this gorgeous couple and their journey that transcended time.