#and read you a definition of pain from a dictionary like you all are too stupid to understand the concept by yourselves. and then said

[curious-sootball]

You know... now I understand why a fucked up mother is such a popular archetype in queer stories.

[erospandemos]

I just can't help it

Yandere Chaewon x Reader

Part 1

“The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too.”

― Ernest Hemingway, Men Without Women

What you’re about to read is a confession to you. An apology, if you prefer to call it that, as I’ve professed my love to you plenty of times—although it won’t ever be enough—and you’re at the knowledge of every crime I’ve committed since we met. 

My Korean teacher repeatedly reiterated the lack of clarity in my essays and oral exams. I’m not good with words, you see. That’s why I thought that letting you know about the events in my life that shaped me and the feelings that followed me throughout these months would make you understand me better.

I know our conversations weren’t as deep as you probably expected. I’ve tried to explain myself to the best of my abilities and even if it was a mess you seemed to make out that flurry of words and comfort me. Sometimes, I truly thought you understood me more than I did. 

It’s true that we always talked in riddles and puzzles but it made more sense that way. Because our—my—love was pure madness and somehow the riddles explained it better than we ever could. 

The lack of sleep shouldn’t have affected my mind too much, at least in the part that’s in charge of writing. 

If you’re reading this, I hope you understand. Sorry if I’m rambling a lot, and sorry if I will ramble more in the following pages. Right, sorry if I’m apologizing a lot—you told me not to do that. I just can’t help it.

I was tortured since the age of 6 when I started going to elementary school, that’s as far as I can remember. You could also say I was “bullied”, it’s what the adults like to call it, but it’s the same thing. People get defensive, almost offended when I use the other term. “Wow,” was a common reaction, “that’s a bit extreme, don’t you think?” I didn’t think it was extreme. 

When I so naively asked my teacher the difference between the two words, she chuckled and looked at me as if I asked her what the difference between hot and cold was. Surprise was another clear feeling I could read from her expression. She asked me how I knew those words. I simply said I heard them from outside and she told me to forget them.

That evening, when I came home, I  took the chair from my mother’s desk and put it next to the bookshelf, I climbed it and looked at the books on the top shelf. They were the books she used the least and between them, sitting all dusty and forgotten, was also the dictionary. 

I blew and rubbed the dust away then I looked for the two words. I read the two definitions closely and more than one time but I still didn’t understand. They were the same. 

I didn’t ask my teacher anything else. My teacher was clearly against explaining them to me.

But I was sure, I knew those two words extremely well because I felt them on my skin. 

I wanted to be an idol. I told everyone in my class because I thought it was a normal dream—we all watched idols on TV in the afternoon—and being an astronaut seemed a lot harder. Apparently, it wasn’t. Because I wanted to perform on a stage, I was “pretentious”, “narcissistic”, an “attention-seeker”, and a “whore”. I didn’t know what they meant and thought they were compliments and they etched those words into my skin. 

I later found their definitions in the dictionary and understood what they were saying.

I wasn’t the only girl who wanted to be an idol. Hayoon, a classmate of mine, dreamt of testing for JYP, SM, YG, and all those big companies. She took dance and singing classes, they were both in group and private. She could afford it because her family was very rich. From what I heard in the classroom, she started training when she was just a little girl because her parents saw her dancing in front of the TV during an episode of Inkigayo.

Surprisingly, Hayoon was never shamed. Because she was “humble” and had “her feet on the ground”. She was loved by everyone and was the most favored prospect for the role of an idol, everyone seemed to believe in her dream. She was confident, danced well, and was beautiful. All the girls went to her house at least twice a month to go to her huge pool, splendid garden, and majestic house. I never went, I was never invited.

She was good at everything and topped all subjects. However, I sang better than her. In music classes and festivals, I was always chosen and often took the roles instead of her. When she realized she wasn’t the best, she became embarrassed and frustrated. 

She didn’t have any way of making me sing worse and neither could sing better than me, even after all those expensive lessons, so she took to poking fun at me to try and drag me down. Of course her friends joined as well. They were always calling me "ugly", "weird", and "gross" in a way that didn’t seem childish or playful, but demeaning and insulting.

The other kids constantly berated me between classes, glued my books to the desk, slapped me and then ran away. They knew all the spots where there was no CCTV in the school. They even stole my brand-new headphones and glued my shoestrings to my shoes when I didn’t see them. We wore slippers and my shoes were in my locker.

My teachers never helped me. I’ve tried telling them and they didn’t believe me, or rather, they chose not to believe me because that was easier for them.

Only a girl had the courage to help me, it only took one word and two days to have everyone against her. “Stop,” she only said that and then everyone hated her. You never go against the group, you never try to make yourself different, you never try to fight back. 

In the end, I understood the difference between torture and bullying: one was for hurting and one was for fun.

During middle school, the bullying stepped up a notch. Some of my classmates went to my same middle school, they had many friends there and the rumors spread like wildfire. Many of the students liked to take their stress out by bullying other students. They were pathetic and talentless, they hated anyone who had potential unless they provided them anything, like Hayoon.

Smoking was illegal. But they didn’t care. They found all the corners of the school where the CCTV didn’t see them and studied where the professors usually walked to avoid their path. It wasn’t always perfect and sometimes they were caught but it sure helped them and the bullies.

One day, I was dragged by my hair behind the basketball court and after getting pushed to the ground, the girls started slapping, laughing, and kicking me. The smoke from their cigarettes and the kicks to my belly and back took the air out of me. I couldn’t breathe and I thought I was going to die. They were experienced—they noticed my lack of breath, gave me breaks to catch it, and started kicking me again.

They were caught by a teacher who forgot his bag. They claimed they were only giving me “birthday punches” and didn’t admit anything, nor apologized. They weren’t stupid either. The girls had a very good reputation and a good student persona, essentially they didn’t have any criminal records. 

When I was asked what happened, I was ready to tell them all the atrocities that took place in school. But then, I remembered the girls’ eyes. I looked at the professor and I knew, right there and then, that he didn’t believe me, even before I said anything. They wouldn’t have done anything but the word would have been out, that I snitched on the bullies and then I wouldn’t have survived.

So I stayed silent.

The girls only got punished for smoking after they explained they only wanted to try and continued to do it anyway.

Between the end of middle school and the start of high school, the bullies got more creative. They tied me up and broke my legs with a crowbar. The older the girls got, the more of them wanted to be idols, and the first thing they had to do was to get rid of the competition. They succeeded as I stopped dancing altogether since that day.

I continued singing but nobody wants to see an idol in a wheelchair, right?

After I couldn’t walk normally anymore, they started treating me like a rag. They used me to clean the bathroom, by pushing me around on the floor, putting my face against the toilet, and mopping me with dirty water. I was like a toy to them and their friends joined the fun.

Part 2

It was no wonder that many bullied students leave the school. Sometimes, they leave on their own, because they can’t stand the torture anymore, other times, the school removes them. The bullies only bully others because they can and they know they can get away with it: they have influential parents or come from wealthy families, so the school can only quietly get rid of the problem and those are the victims that can’t stay quiet.

The class in my department didn’t have many students but it was enough: 20 students. During the year, 5 students left, and at the end of the year, 2 others were sent to another school in the province. The remaining 13 weren’t enough to be left alone in the classroom so they joined us with a class from another department that also lost many students. In total, we were 31, which was a big number but they didn’t have any other choice.

You were one of those students. I only noticed you after a week because I got used to keeping my eyes low not to anger any of my classmates. You sat beside me. People usually tend to avoid me since they could also become victims of the bullies but you knew it and it was your decision.

“Is this seat taken?” you asked me. When I heard your voice, I had a moment of hesitation. I kept staring at the wooden desk but then I thought that you might have accused me of being rude for ignoring you and that would have been a good enough reason to pick on me, so I raised my eyes.

“No, it isn’t,” I replied. Your eyes were cold. I genuinely thought you were a bully too.

“Then, can I seat here?”

“You can if you want…” I told you, unsure. “But I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“What? You fart a lot?”

I was taken aback. “No! I don’t.”

“I suppose it’s fine then,” you said and took the chair out to take your desk. You started getting ready for the lesson and didn’t seem to have any intention of doing anything to me. Every time someone spoke to me, it was to make a comment, make a joke, or give me an order. Still, I was suspicious of you.

The lesson proceeded as usual. You took your notes very diligently, writing almost everything the teacher said, making graphs and small summaries to keep your memory fresh. If you were to tell me you were the top student in your class, I would have believed it and later I’d find out you really were.

Your behavior wasn’t the one of a bully. And it wasn’t the behavior of a bullied either.

At the end of the last lesson before the lunch break, the teacher gave us surveys for our future career choices. I stared at the paper with a pen in my hand. What should I write? My future, my future was stolen from me. My dream was as meaningful as an ant’s life. After everything they did and said to me, a miserable life of insignificance and sadness sounded perfectly fit for me. I kept wondering and pondering until you turned to me.

“What do you want to do when you grow up, Chaewon?” you asked me while you were lazily spinning your pen between your fingers.

“I- I don’t know, what about you?” I stuttered. I couldn’t bring myself up to pronounce those words. I felt as if I had been banished from even muttering them and thinking about it only brought me horrible memories.

“Web security,” you said. “I go around and check companies’ safety in their servers and sites. I’ve already started an internship so I’m sure it’s what I’m going to do.”

“An internship? This early?”

“Yeah, I figured the more experience I get, the better. I got nothing better to do anyways.”

“Don’t you have any hobbies? Don’t you hang out with your… friends?”

“I don’t have that many friends, to be honest,” you replied nonchalantly. “I mean, I do go out like once every three months so it isn’t a lot but I still have friends I can talk to. I’ve never been good with people, I guess.”

“Ah, is that so?”

“I was always better on my own. I tried a lot of stuff and I liked web stuff better,” then you turned to me for a second time, looking at me more intensely than before, “but you didn’t answer my question yet. What do you wanna do?”

Being put on the spot like that, I wasn’t sure about what I was allowed to say. More than that, I didn’t know what I really wanted, if the dust of my once desire was still in me if my heart wasn’t dead cold. However, after all these years, a subtle string of fate kept me going and it was still something that I liked doing.

I looked at your eyes. They didn’t scare me.

“I want to be… an idol,” I said in a single breath. After I finished the sentence, a heavy feeling of guilt dawned on me. I felt as if I just committed a crime and I was in danger.

But you didn’t judge me.

“An idol, huh?” You laid back on your chair. “That’s pretty cool. I know it’s very hard if you really want to do it, props to you. It takes some guts to train for that stuff. To dance all day, to have everyone look at you, it’s something.”

“Do- do you think I can do it?”

“I don’t know, you tell me. I don’t know how well you dance, or how good you sing, or even what you tested for.”

“But is it a possible dream?”

“You can watch idols too, right? They had the same dream as you did. They did it. I think it’s possible, yeah. And I think you can do it, Chaewon.”

When you said that, I felt so relieved. It was comforting. Finally, I found someone that didn’t hate me, that didn’t shame and believed in me.

Just as you stopped talking, the bell rang. It was the time.

“Oh, look at her, ms. Idol,” said Yejun and pushed my head away for fun. He started laughing.

“Hands off, Yejun. And go away before I sock you in the face,” you said.

“I’m so scared, oh my god,” he laughed. “What do you think you’ll do huh? Do you want to protect this filthy rag? How generous,” he said and then slapped me.

“That’s enough, fuckface,” you got up and stared into his eyes. “That’s the last warning. Leave before I do something I might regret.”

He scoffed. “Really, you talk a lot. Don’t forget that you work for my father.”

“I don’t think you get it, Yejun. I don’t just work for your father. He depends on me. One click and his whole 20 servers will blow up. Do you really think that incompetent fool of your father fixed all the problems? He doesn’t know shit about his stuff, he only knows how to count money and scam his workers. There are so many weaknesses I could just hack the whole thing and change your company to my name.”

“You aren’t funny.”

“I wasn’t trying to be. Now, that I’ve seen who this rag of yours is, tell your friends to keep their hands off her. I don’t want to see your father come back and beg at me and he’ll know it was all your fault. Everyone listens to you apparently, so spread the word. I won’t hesitate.”

Yejun stormed out of the class in anger.

I felt like I was reborn, that I finally found my savior. You were the angel I needed and you came to save me from this hell.

“I don’t like this place, let’s get out of here,” you said and I followed you.

We went to grab lunch but right behind the vending machines you got attacked. He called you a nerd, whatever he did, but I couldn’t stand it. I felt a force in me and I grabbed his neck, I squeezed until he couldn’t breathe anymore.

I’ll be honest, if it wasn’t for you trying to get me off, I would have killed him.

Just as that guy run off, you freaked out. I didn’t blame you. Still, you took my arm and pulled me to somewhere more covered to talk to me, scared that someone else might have seen it. I could see the surprise in your eyes, but you didn’t look terrified, you were concerned if anything.

Your hand was still bleeding, the red liquid dripped to the floor. I stared at the droplets, slowly coloring the grey concrete, as if it was the ticking of a clock. At each tick, I was getting more impatient, there was something inside me that wanted to jump out, run after who hurt you, and make him pay for it. But I had to calm down, you were in front of me.

“Chaewon, what the hell!” you whisper-shouted while repeatedly glancing behind your back and into the hallway. “Where did that come from?”

“I-I don’t know what happened,” I stuttered. I was saying the truth—at the time, I truly didn’t know why I reacted in the way I did. I never raised my hands, I never talked back, I never reacted.

“Shit, I’m bleeding a lot,” you cursed. You gritted your teeth and started walking towards the school clinic. I followed you.

You talked to me as we were walking. “You don’t just choke people randomly, you know?”

“I- I really swear! I pro-promise… I have no idea what happened!”

“Listen, Chaewon, I saw you pinning his neck against the wall. You raised a senior with one hand.”

When we were in front of the nurse's office, you pinched your nose and waved your hand to stop me from talking. The cuff of your white shirt was stained with red, it already spread so much in just a short time. You must have been in pain. My blood was boiling.

“You can explain yourself later,” you said and opened the door. “I have to close this wound first.”

I followed you into the room. For some reason, the room was empty, there was no trace of the nurse and it looked like she hasn’t been there for a long time as everything was very tidy and the coat hanger was empty. Often, when people can avoid work, they’ll do it. The nurse must have seen that there was no one needing her in the morning and decided to leave for some coffee.

You sat on one of the beds, keeping your arm stretched out so the blood wouldn’t stain the sheets and with another hand, you searched into the cabinet for something you could help yourself with. You took out bandaids, alcohol, gauze and cotton buds. You really made a mess, trying to pour the alcohol on your arm and spilling half of the content on the floor.

After sloppily cleaning yourself with cotton, you got the bandaids.

“Do you really think bandaids will do?” I asked you. “It’s way too deep.”

“Is there any other way?”

“Yeah, we have to put stitches on you.” I took the chairs from the desk and sat in front of you. In the cabinet beside the bed, there were also needles and thread for that procedure. Luckily there was an anesthetic as well.

I put on gloves. I cleaned your wound again, better than you did before, and applied the anesthetic gel. It took about two minutes to take effect, in the meanwhile I prepared the rest of the equipment I needed: forceps, curved needle, and new thread.

When I was sure you didn’t feel anything, I started stitching your wound.

“How did you learn this?” you asked me so curiously.

“I… I got used to taking care of myself,” I said softly. It was embarrassing. You nodded. I could feel your eyes scan me, looking at all my bruises, the bandaids on my face, and many more wounds underneath my shirt.

You sighed. “I’m sorry. I hope they won’t attack you anymore. Always stay with me, they are scared of people who have a known name.”

“Thank you, but I don’t think it will do anything.”

“Just do as I say,” you repeated. I could see how sure you were from your face. You definitely didn’t see, as my face was facing the floor, but I smiled for the first time after you said that. Your desire of protecting me was honest. I was really happy that you cared for me.

When I came home, I had the time to think through what happened that day. As I was drinking a cup of water, I looked at myself in the reflection of the window, my fingers tracing my wounds and bruises, itching the dried blood on my nails. Where did that strength come from? I could have sworn they had taken every ounce of energy from me, I knew I had no will, no ambition, no desire to even talk back until today. And yet, I hurt him.

I felt good. It didn’t feel good to hurt him per se but to know I defended you. As to him, I should have killed him. But you stopped me. You shouldn’t have done that. He hurt you. That shabby gross fool tried to hurt you, how could he?!

I was so lucky to have caught you before it was late. I couldn’t imagine what would have happened to you if he succeeded—the bruises on your face, the blood on your face—you would have looked just like me. No, I couldn’t stand that. You didn’t deserve to go through the pain that I did, not after you defended me. Oh, if only I could lay my hand on those sinners, the pain I could inflict them, all the experiences that I felt inside my skin, into my very flesh.

I want to hear them scream. To beg for forgiveness. To regret their very existence. I want them to apologize to you, to offer their life…

Crack

I looked down at my hands. What a mess. I completely shattered the cup I was holding—bits of sharp glass everywhere, even some into my skin. The veins of my hand were bulging, I could feel the blood in my body flowing so fast and forcefully. The adrenaline was high in my brain.

I didn’t realize what I did until I heard the sudden noise.

It was true, just as you said. It wasn’t me. But why? This must have happened because I was thinking of you getting hurt… yes, it was your thought, just you. It was because of you. I didn’t want to see you hurt, you were my only hope in this world, just the thought sent a shock through my spine and into my head, and I would go crazy.

You made me like this.

Completely insane.

“Chaewon! What happened?” I heard Yujin calling me and I turned around to see her rushing out the hallway. Yujin was my roommate, we shared the rent because it was cheaper that way. She wasn’t a bad person, not at all. But she couldn’t understand my life, she lived between rich girls and handsome guys.

To be kind, you need to know what misery is. She was just nice.

“Oh, Kirin-chan,” I said.

“How did you break your glass?” she asked worryingly, grabbing a towel to clean my bloody hand of the bits of glass.

“My bad, I was standing up and it just slipped out of my hand.”

“Then how did it get all over your palm?”

“I slipped and fell right onto it, you know how clumsy I am.”

“Yeah,” she commented without much belief, “just like all the time you come home with bruises on your face.”

“It isn’t my fault if they don’t put warnings after cleaning the stairs.”

“It isn’t your fault,” she repeated. “Anyways, don’t forget to clean it up, I’ll go back to studying,” she ended, turning around and leaving the lounge to return to her prettier room.

I continued to stare at my hand.

I couldn’t help but think about you again… my head got foggy… my thoughts haunting…

What if they scarred you?

What if they bullied you?

What if girls broke your heart?

What if you were friends with the wrong people?

I knew I was crossing a line when those questions took form but it was too late and I didn’t even care anymore. It was a promise I made myself, to protect who I loved, and I swore I wouldn’t fail again. I would protect you forever, no matter what.

I feared that you’d run away from me but instead, we got way closer than before. When I walked into school the day after the incident, I was genuinely scared I wouldn’t have seen you—that you had stayed at home, that you changed class or even school. What worried me the most was the fact that you could have been scared of me.

I waited for you anxiously. I kept scratching my nails, rubbing my arms, looking around for you. So many times I got up and walked around the paths outside the school where I thought you’d usually walk, even if I didn’t know well what were your habits, and not finding you, I’d sit back at the wall and wait again.

After several minutes, you arrived at school. At the sight of you, my dizziness and worries faded away. I immediately ran at you and hugged you so tight, you had to know how much I missed you.

You were surprised, of course, you were. “Huh? What has gotten into you Chaewon?” you laughed jokingly.

“I just thought you wouldn’t come to school anymore,” I told you.

“Why would I do that? Today is a school day.”

“It’s okay, that’s perfect. I’m just so glad I can see you again.”

Part 3

The door opened to the locker room and I and the other trainees entered sitting down. They changed their clothes from casual streetwear to old clothes and gym wear. I’ve been training for a bit now, I got to know all the trainees well, there were a lot before but now they only remained half. The one that finished first started stretching. "It's one minute and a half. Let's do this," she sighed.

One of them threw to the other a white sheet with a name written on it and did the same with the others. "Here. Your name tags."

"That's it? Just a minute?" the girl chuckled.

"A minute and a half. Everyone does their part and it's a difficult choreography, don't you forget. It will be enough."

"It's for evaluation. Don't forget every detail counts," another girl added.

We went out of the room and made our way toward the practice room, each one with a name tag on it. The corridor leading to it was cold, probably because they just changed from thick to thin clothes, but it got hotter towards the end where the air got denser. One at a time, they entered bowing at the line of men sitting on the right of the mirror in front of the door.

Everyone had papers and a pen and a serious look plastered on their faces. After a couple of stretches, the girls got into position and the music started. They smiled and danced with their full capability and the judges looked sharp. When the music stopped they held their ending pose and went in a line waiting for their words. The air suddenly felt cold.

"There had been improvements on what we said the first time. But we can also fix others," the first said and the men nodded. They wrote on the paper and scribbled.

"You. When the others did their move you were coordinated and that's fine but you did it wrong. You need to raise your hand higher," he said making the move himself and the girl followed.

"Can you do the move a bit before the ending?" another one asked, gesturing his intention. "Yes, that one. Please get into the position and do it."

They did and when it came to the next section he spoke again, "One more time."

"Once more."

"Five...six.. seven... eight... an-"

"Okay," he said and got up walking to the center of the room. He demonstrated the move more and more times. "Don't tense your muscles too much when you do this alright?"

"But," the oldest got up, "you were all a lot better today, good job. Specially Soojin and Gaeul."

"That's it, goodbye," they said.

"Thank you!" the girls answered together.

BLAM. The oldest almost slips as he got out and the others held him up. The girls let out a muffled laugh, their mouths covered with their hands."See girls, don't tense your muscles too much or they won't work properly," the man chuckled. The judges left fast, embarrassed by their eldest and the group laughed in relief.

"Are we really doing this? They are not saying anything anymore."

The youngest looked at them from the ground, laid down breathing hard, and said, "We're close to debuting."

When everyone was done with their stuff and cleaned themselves they left. Almost all of them ran out to catch the last bus of the day or were just in a hurry. I, on the other hand, had to walk home so I did everything slower. When I got out, in the distance, I heard a group of girls around my age shouting and laughing. When they got closer, I realized they were my classmates, there were about four of them and they were drunk.

They noticed me.

"Look at you. It's late, pretty girls like you shouldn't stay out," one of them said and I frowned.

"Don't tell me. You were practicing?" she said laughing. The other three got in a semi-circle in front of me.

"It's a really difficult life isn't it, miss idol? Everybody wants you and you're here dancing until late," she mocked me, with her fingers under her eyes faking tears, and let out a hearty laugh. The choir followed with a carol of joy.

"It's sad really," she continued, "so popular but so tired."

She pushed me down on the ground and the group stepped back making more space for the two. She forcefully pulled my hair, forcing me to get up. The girl got closer and said, "And you're so pretty. It would be a shame if anything happened to this pretty face."

She slapped me. They laughed. They kicked me. I tried to defend myself, curling into a fetus position and protecting my head. They snickered as they continued wasting the effects of the alcohol on me. When they were finally satisfied, they got up and left me there on the side of the road and went away to the opposite way of where they came from.

I remained on the ground with tears on her face and sobbed trying not to make any noise, I wanted silence. However I heard their voices again, from the distance, and they were screaming.

"What do you think you're doing?!" the same girl as before squealed."We're girls, you think you can-." The group gasped.

"You're five and I'm one and you just beat that girl up. You think I care?" It was a male voice.

The girls ran away but the guy didn't try to chase them and walked to me.

"There's a convenience store nearby, we can get something cold for your face," he said with a soft tone. I recognized the voice and looked at him, I recognized his face too. It was you. My legs trembled a little as I held myself upon your shoulder for support. "It's fine, take your time," you said dusting my back.

At the shop, you bought a bag of frozen peas so I could put it on my face where it still hurts. "I ate those for dinner, they're great. I can use them for everything, look, you're using them too now," you said and I laughed. I calmed down a little and your face got more serious and worried.

"I told you. Starting from tomorrow I'll bring you home," you said.

"But it was only this time," I said.

"And the other four before."

"Kind of."

"Being there by 11:30 should be good."

"But you should sleep."

"I would just be studying, and either way, it's way better to have your company," you insisted, leaning down on the chair. A small smile formed on my face. Ever since that day, the two always walked home late at night even when it was freezing or when it was raining. We got way closer.

You grew up so well. Unfortunately, many girls seemed to notice you and fall for you. I don’t blame them, you were very charming, so attractive for such a young student but I couldn’t let them near you. They were fools, too stupid to realize they were nowhere close to your level, you were levels above and they were just insects. I had to make sure no one bothered you, to avoid you crying because some worthless bitch broke your heart.

I was surprised when you told me you got asked out. But then I felt my chest burn.

There’s only one thing that I can’t stand in this world and that’s people who think they can take what’s mine. I don’t care about gossip, jealousy or envy, I don’t have anyone to compete with, I just want what’s mine. And you are mine.

It was so easy to scare them away. All it took was a quick talk behind the school, a very convincing speech, a cutter to their throats…

They were scared of me. Good. You didn’t suspect anything—they’d still smile at me as if nothing happened, I made sure to tell them. I couldn’t let you know, to worry more than you already were.

The bullying had completely stopped towards me because you were always by my side defending me and eventually they all got the message. If you were just a crush before, now I love you. If I loved you, now I worship you. You’re my religion, my god, my purpose. I’ll kill for you, live for you, and I’ll love you forever. Wherever you go, I’ll follow you. Whether that’s heaven, hell, or any other world. My very existence is embroidered into your name, I can’t exist without you.

Things were going great, so great. You only had eyes for me. Those two beautiful pupils could only look at me, at my face, at my body, only at me. I loved when you stared at me, I was yours after all, you could watch how much you wanted.

That was until those two eyes became one. You got a big bruise on your left eye, it was swollen, black, and horrible.

You were waiting for me near the big tree behind the school like you always did, and you talked to me like you always did, without worry or pain. “Hey, Chaewon,” you greeted me.

“What happened?!”

“Nothing, I just hurt myself,” you lied. How naive you were, you were too kind, too nice. I didn’t believe you one single bit. I wonder why you did that? Why did you lie to me? Was it to protect whoever did that to you? To protect who hurt you?

“Tell me. Tell me, who hurt you?” I asked you calmly.

“It’s really nothing Chae… I’m serious, I only hurt myself—”

“TELL ME WHO THE HELL HURT YOU RIGHT FUCKING NOW!!!” I asked again, the sudden increase in volume startled you and you backed away into the tree. I didn’t know at the time, and you’d tell me later, but my eyes were empty. You got scared, I apologize, I just couldn’t help it.

“Ch-Chaewon?” you stuttered.

When I realized you were terrified, I calmed down. “Huh? Oh, my bad, sorry… I was just really worried, but now, please tell me.” I shook my head and took a couple of steps back.

“Okay, I will tell you… it was Seojun,” you finally confessed. “I bumped into him and spilled his drink on his uniform. I apologized, but since I was alone and his ‘friends’ were with him, they thought they could get their revenge on me.”

“I see… let’s get you some ice for that eye for now,” I told you and we started to walk into the infirmary for the second time. I hated walking into that place, especially with you. I tried my best to hold it inside me, not to scare you again, but I was going to snap anytime soon.

“Chae, are you alright?” you asked me.

“Oh, don’t worry about me, dear… and it will okay from now on. You don’t have to worry about Seojun anymore.”

You know, people say that the first time is special, you never forget it. The first time I bathed my hands in the warm liquid that is human blood, my body was cold. I felt hesitation at first, but I knew I was doing it for you, and thinking about you, all that fear was gone. And I killed him.

Yes, it was me that killed Seojun. I don’t regret one bit what I’ve done to him. I made sure he suffered as much as he made you suffer. An eye for an eye, as they say.

That day was special, it was like I confessed to you and instead of a ring, I gave you a life. It was only fair you’d give me your life in return.

The murder of Seojun made headlines in the news and when asked about it, the students never said anything nor praised or acted sad at his death. No one missed him. It’s quite sad that life can be so insignificant that not a single person will care about how gruesome your death was and forget you the next day. To be quite honest, he deserved it. We die in the same way we live.

You were a bit suspicious of me at first. You didn’t really doubt me—you were curious. The news of his death was delivered by our professor during the first period with a sigh before continuing the lesson. The reactions were mixed but mostly towards one extreme: relief.

When a bad person dies, two things will happen: if you’re a good person or a victim, you will be happy; if you’re equally bad then you’ll be scared, because you know he already got what he deserved and nothing prevented you from having the same fate as nothing is stronger than luck.

You were both worried and glad. I’ve always noticed how you tend to care about other people, it’s something that I really love about you, you just have to direct toward the people who deserve it. “Hey, Chae, do you know anything about Seojun’s murder?” you asked me during the break. You were hesitant at first but I was sure you’ve thought about it long enough to decide to spill it.

You must have thought about what I said the other day: You don’t have to worry about Seojun anymore.

“Huh?” I raised my eyebrow at you. “Why would I have anything to do with his death?”

“W-well… you see… you said that I didn’t have to worry about him anymore and the next day… he dies.” Your shoulders were so tight almost as if you were trying to keep the words inside of you. Your gaze flitted around the room, never settling on one person or object for long.

“It must have been a coincidence,” I told you. “And karma.”

“Right,” you muttered. Then you relaxed your shoulders.

“By the way,” I changed the topic, “there is going to be the last test before the debut at Hybe.”

Your eyes changed completely, they brightened. Every time I talked about my dream, you always seemed too excited for me. You fully believed in my ambition and constantly encouraged me to keep trying. Whenever I practiced, I always thought of you.

I always think of you.

“That’s awesome, Chae. It’s your opportunity, you wanted to become an idol all this time.”

“I will start practicing right away then,” I said. “I want to be with you that day. Can you come with me?”

“What day will it be?”

“Next Saturday, 4:00 pm.”

“Next Saturday… 4:00 pm,” you repeated. “I’ll make sure to be there—I will be there, I will.”

“Thank you,” I smiled and hugged you. You were still a bit against the idea of hugging but slowly you were getting used to it. I trusted that you’ll eventually come to love it.

I had prepared about four songs for the test: two for my singing and two for my dancing, one of them was good for both. I decided to be very broad with my songs because if they asked for more, I’d be prepared. You never know. I didn’t want to go there and have them ask for a random song and fail horribly.

You were waiting for me in front of the building with a little bag of snacks. I mentioned all of them before to you and you remembered. Some of them were for when I’d finish the whole thing and some as a snack to calm my nerves.

Honestly, I felt like you were my boyfriend already. If anyone saw us together, they’d say the same thing. Every little thing you did was so full of attention, I knew you cared for me, and I loved you so much.

Anyways, the time came. I bid you goodbye and entered.

The test went terribly wrong.

You waited two hours for me, only for me to blow it all up. When I came out, I was so embarrassed, I didn’t want you to see me at all.

“So Chae, how was it?” you asked but I didn’t reply. It was hard to come up with any word at all. I couldn’t even look at you in the eyes.

“Chae?”

“Chaewon?”

You finally got enough at the third time and you grabbed my shoulder to shake and direct my gaze at you. “Chaewon, answer me please!” you said with an upset tone.

“Do you… do you think I’m a failure?”

“What are you talking about?” you asked back.

“Hey, am I a failure? Tell me. Were the guys right? I am not meant to be an idol after all, should I give up after all? Tell me, please!” I hiccuped and cried. I was truly heartbroken. It was the test per se but the fact that I disappointed you, that I wasted all your determination and belief you had in me.

“Chaewon, no…” you whispered and went for a hug. It was awkward, you didn’t know how to hug. You tried to put a hand on my shoulder and one on my hip, but it didn’t work. Then you tried to put both of them on my shoulder but you looked like you wanted to headbut me. On the third try, you succeeded and properly hugged me very tightly.

I buried my head into your chest, it was where I could really feel safe.

“Chaewon, what happened in there? How did it go?”

“I FAILED! I BLEW IT ALL UP! IT’S ALL GONE!” I yelled and gripped you harder.

“How is that possible? You’re perfect, I mean, you sing so beautifully and you’re beautiful,” you said. “You’ve been practicing… why? How?”

“I’m sorry it’s that I was so worried. I got distracted. I continued to ask myself if I’d fail and so on… I knew the lyrics but I got jittery and…”

“No, Chaewon! I told you to believe in yourself. You can do it. You can do it.”

“But—”

“You have talent, Chae,” you repeated, “and I’ve seen it since day one. You will not fail. You just have to try again.”

I was embarrassed to see if I could try again but you weren’t and you stormed inside the building, dragging me by arm to ask the staff if I could try again. You explained everything and even pleaded with them until they gave in.

This time, you were waiting for me outside the door. I knew I wouldn’t fail again.

Don’t think about anything else. Focus.

I sang the first song. Just like I practiced. Then I danced. It was perfect.

I passed. I was so happy and I just had to tell you. I ran outside but you weren’t there.

I searched everywhere until I understood you weren’t in the building and had to search for you outside. I found you in an alley, bloody and bruised.

I immediately called the ambulance and they rushed you to the hospital. Your condition was so bad they had to x-ray your whole body and do a small surgery.

When I found you, you could barely talk or even breathe. You were laying in a pool of blood, that came from the numerous cuts all over your body—they weren’t clean but all rough and jacked, meaning they came from brute force and not blades. Your clothes were also messed up and ripped. Together, I could count on 19 injuries at least. I couldn’t understand at all. Why would someone do that to you? And how did it happen?

Together with you was a bag with two drinks and a couple of sandwiches. I suppose you went outside to a convenience store to buy something, maybe for me, and then… you were attacked. This may have been premeditated, it’s impossible a group of people randomly hurt you that bad.

I couldn’t stop crying, you know?

To see you in those conditions, I could only think of the worse.

What if you’d never wake up again?

What if you’d be miserable for the rest of your life?

What if you died?

It was my fault. I’m sorry, it was totally my fault. It was because I took way too long in the test, chatting with the staff, seeing the other girls so happily, while you were being jumped… I could have protected you, we could have gone home together and this would have never happened.

The doctor called me. “Kim Chaewon?”

“Yes?” I raised my eyes. I saw him and wiped my tears before standing up and walking to him.

“Is he okay…?” I asked.

“He’s not in danger is what I can tell you. Some of his bones are broken and he has received a concussion, he may be asleep for a while, you see,” he said.

“Can I see him?”

“Yes, you can,” the doctor agreed, “this way…”

He guided me toward another floor of the hospital. You have been transferred from the emergency room to the patient’s rooms. You were in the section where more care was needed—the hallway was quieter, everyone walked slower, and everything was more gentle.

I entered your room slowly, holding myself up with a hand on the door frame and then I saw you. Your eyes were closed. Your whole body was covered in bandages and you were hooked to all sorts of machines with cables and cords everywhere. It was almost like seeing a puppet tied up in strings and they were keeping you alive.

I was scared to come close to you. I feared that any of my movements could have damaged you even more. You were so fragile at that moment.

I gently lowered myself to the chair next to your bed and held your hand. I cried. I cried again, so much. I couldn’t help but keep thinking it was my fault. If only I was quicker…

Some of your items were put in the drawer. I noticed your phone together with your wallet and backpack. The screen was cracked and some of the blood crusted into the cracks. I don’t know why I felt curious but I unlocked the screen—you trusted me enough to let me know your password months ago to check some messages while you were busy cooking—and it opened KakaoTalk. You were texting me and the phone memorized it.

Chae be careful the bullies might be after you

Don’t go in the shortcut at the

Oh, dear. You were on the brink of death and all you could think was to warn me, to protect me. You didn’t even think of calling for help. I understood everything. It was those bullies again… they didn’t forget, did they? It’s because their life turned to hell after they didn’t have anyone to bully anymore and they got revenge but attacking you.

I was angry. I was furious. I was so pissed that I unconsciously cracked your phone even more. It was that feeling again, all over—the fire in my chest.

I will kill them. Each one of the. I will make them suffer. I will tear them to shreds. I will kill them. I will kill them. I will kill them. I will kill them. I will kill them. I will kill them. I will kill them. I will kill them. I will kill them. I will kill them. I will kill them. I will kill them. I will kill them. I will kill them. I will kill them. I will kill them. I will kill them. I will kill them.

I will make them pay for everything they have done for you.

They were so stupid. It was so easy to trick them: I attacked their leader when he was coming home late and forced him to send a message to everyone who was involved in your attack—he confessed right away when I showed him my knife.

The guys came on point the next day. It was all so easy. They always hung out at the abandoned warehouse where they could make all the mess they wanted and dragged their victims to torture them properly and in private. Now they were dragging themselves to their death.

I dressed in black that day. You never liked seeing me in black. People used to tell me I tried to stand out too much so they forced me to use torn, old, ugly clothes, but when they stopped tormenting me, you brought me to buy more clothes for me.

But that day I wasn’t dressing as the victim. I was in the guise of the Grim Reaper.

I prepared my knives, axes, clamps, nails, and staplers and waited for them in the building.

Humans are so easy to kill. They are so frail and mortal—I had to be extremely careful not to let them die immediately to cause them all the pain they deserved. I’ll spare you the details. You don’t have to know of the gruesome parts of their murder. I’ll just tell you everything they did to you and in their years of bullying, I did to them. From crowbars to knives, to fire and stabbing.

When the last one stopped screaming, I felt at peace. The silence was absolute. I couldn’t even hear the wind, the cars, or the noises of the city. It was completely quiet.

I finally avenged you.

Part 4

Disposing of the bodies was quite simple but extremely tiring. I had to chop their bodies to bits, bury them and hide all the evidence. I cleaned with bleach all my weapons, the floor, and the walls of the warehouse. I had to soil the floor since it was dirty before and I couldn’t leave a clean patch in there, it would have been a dead giveaway.

Of course, I had to get rid of all their phones. I broke them into little pieces before grinding them up to a bag of dust and flushing them down the toilet.

I got most of my weapons from around the city. I stole the knives from the school kitchen and returned them to them. I did the crime on a Friday night and finished in the evening of Saturday so they wouldn’t have noticed the disappearance of their tools. I bought the rest of the tools from a hardware store so I could have just put it in someone else’s garage.

I couldn’t burn my clothes or rags because that would have caught the attention of my neighbors or anyone nearby so I colored it with all sorts of paints so the blood would have been unrecognizable. If anyone analyzed them, it would look like they were of an artist. And then I disposed of them.

Burying the bodies was the most laborious part and I could only do it during the night. It took me both Saturday and sunday to get rid of all the evidence.

The next days were all marked by nightmares. I didn’t dream of what I did. What haunted me was you leaving me. I was afraid that my crime could have separated us.

Chaewon, you’re a monster.

I can’t be friends with a murderer.

I can’t love a killer.

I hate you.

I wish you died.

I was distressed and jittery during the day and couldn’t sleep at night. Many times I would get distracted in those thoughts, imagining all the things you could say to me, and not realize people calling me. I would often zone out and not hear anything else.

“Chaewon? Are you okay?” my classmates would tell me. I would snap out of my daze and realize most of them were looking at me then I’d realize I actually chipped a corner of the table off with my grip.

“Oh, I’m sorry, it’s nothing,” I could only say. They would continue with the day forgetting about it or just tell their friends excitedly about a classmate with a freakish strength.

It was especially hard when I was training with the other trainees but I told myself you wouldn’t be proud of me if I wasn’t doing my best and forced myself to dance.

On Monday, their disappearance was announced but nobody could find anything. Not a single trace. The secret was safe with me.

They also announced your attack but they didn’t connect the two events together, assuming you were also a victim. The attacks in this Korea were common anyways. Bullying was so widespread you could say it was part of our culture.

After a week. you were still asleep. The doctor concluded that they must have stomped your head too for you to be concussed that badly. They damaged the nerves.

Unfortunately, I knew only after I killed them. If I knew I would have done the same to them so they could feel the pain you felt but I guess cutting their limbs counts as nerve damage as well.

I was getting extremely impatient waiting for your awakening. The doctor couldn’t help me but it wasn’t their fault. I’ve only realized now how much I relied on you and those days without you were as sad as Halloween without candies.

When I woke up, I couldn’t tell if the Sun rose already or if it was still sunrise, it was timid, and the light cast a somber hue in the room. It was gray and pale. The soundscape was eerily quiet, the usual chirping birds seemed to have disappeared, as if even nature was mourning alongside me.

Walking through the corridors of the school, I felt like a solitary figure amidst a sea of faces. Conversations echoed around me, yet they seemed distant. The classrooms, usually alive with energy, felt suffocatingly silent.

I couldn’t help but notice how happy the other students went on with their days, completely ignoring what happened to you. Worst of all, some students even mocked you, saying you were a loser and you deserved it. My bloodthirst was beyond the roof. I had to hold myself back a lot not to commit other killings, reminding myself that I could have raised a case of a serial killer if I wasn’t careful enough.

I thought I had been sneaky enough not to raise any suspicion but I didn’t know the only person to find out would have been you.

I was in an alley near the hospital when I met one of those mean girls. They were badmouthing you and I had to make sure they wouldn’t do it again. I didn’t kill them, you don’t have to worry about that. I merely sent a message, a little punishment. I got one nail for each insult they said toward you. Poor them, they won’t have nails for months—I hope it hurts.

They ran away but when I turned around, I saw you. You were looking at me so horrified and disgusted.

“I had my suspicions, Chae…” you said. “The coincidence was too perfect. I woke up and saw the news, I knew it was you. And now, I’m sure.”

“You’re mistaken, dear,” I tried to say foolishly.

“Chae, I saw everything.” Your face morphed into an extreme melancholy, of disappointment and sadness. My face instead contorted into a horrified frown. You… my best and only friend, my love. You discovered my worse secret—I knew what the consequences were and I knew what the risks were.

“I mean, what are you even doing here? Weren’t you still sleeping?”

“I woke up this morning—I got discharged—and the doctor let me take a walk… and then I saw you.”

“Do you know what I did all of this, darling?” I asked, my nerves were so tense and my blood was pumping like crazy. I was getting more and more scared. There was a thread inside me that was being pulled and pulled…

“W-what is it?” you asked with hesitation.

“It’s because… I… I love you.”

I saw the shock on your face but I couldn’t stop myself anymore. I did it. I snapped. You found out and there was no turning back. You didn’t have a choice either.

“W-what? What are you saying?”

“Darling, don’t you get it? I love you so so so so so much. I love you so much—to the point I killed for you. Yes, I did kill them. I murdered them. I slaughtered them. I made them suffer, love, the way they made you suffer… Please! Please understand—I’m doing this because I love you.”

“Chae, you’re scaring me. Stop…”

“Oh, don’t be scared, my love. I would never harm you or kill you… I would only cherish you—in fact, I did all of this to protect you from those bastards! I love you with all of my heart.”

That fire inside of me took over again and this time I was already glued to you, my knee under your thigh, pinning you to the wall, a hand on your cheek and one near your waist. You couldn’t move at all, I wouldn’t let you. I was finally this close to you… your skin was so smooth and soft—just like you, my precious baby.

Maybe I was smiling a bit too much. You’d describe to me later that I looked psychotic, yes, I was crazy.

You didn’t know how to react. I admit, you were so cute—so vulnerable and fragile, just at my mercy. Yet, you dared to take and push my hand away from your face.

“Chae, I’m sorry,” you said and it almost broke my heart, “but I just… I-I- I don’t know…” you said.

“What aren’t you sure about? Is it my love? Is it not clear enough?” I asked. “I’ll do anything for you, just ask me.”

“Please stay away from me,” you replied, “for a while.”

“What are you saying, darling?”

“Chae… you’re my best friend and I understand why you did all of that. I do. But I need to think about it. Don’t worry, I won’t say this to anyone, no one at all, but I need to stay alone for a bit,” you pleaded, “I just recovered too.”

“Okay, fine,” I agreed. You were right. It was a bit too much for you, especially after you just woke up from that concrete hospital bed. Also, I knew I could trust you. You never betrayed me so that did not scare me.

You slowly backed away and left me, alone in the alley.

I don’t know why but I started laughing hysterically.

I thought I messed up a lot. That isn’t the way your lover should look at you, right? Terrified and pleading on the verge of tears. You should have looked at me lovingly. I was so scared you’d leave me and I couldn’t let you do that. I needed you too much.

But then you left me waiting for almost a month. I respected your choice and didn’t contact you at all but it’s been too long. I figured that knowing I killed tormented you so I didn’t touch anyone else but rather I kept it to simply threatening them verbally and that seemed to work.

You have to understand I couldn’t take it anymore. Looking at your pictures every night wasn’t enough. Listening to your voice from the vocal messages wasn’t enough. Smelling the shirts I stole from you wasn’t enough, and the smell was fading away. My imagination wasn’t enough, especially when I knew I could have you and I was just waiting for the right moment.

Then the right moment came. I sent you a message just to let you know, you couldn’t say no. I went right to your house, which I came over to many times already, and even your mother knew me. She let me inside with a smile, she was so kind. I knew where you got that virtue from.

I heard you running frantically around your room. You must have been dressing up, so I waited until you were done, knocked, and opened the door. Your room smelled just like I remembered it, it was so good, it was just you.

“It’s been a while, Chae,” you said, clearly nervous. “How are you doing?”

“I’m doing terrible, honey,” I answered honestly and you gulped. “You know, I’ve been good to you. I waited and did nothing else. I did not kill or hurt anyone. I let you have your space, then why did you disappear for an entire month?”

“I kept thinking and reflecting on what happened…”

“For a month?” I was furious. “Did you try to make me forget you? Did you try to forget me?”

“It’s that… It has been a tough month,” you said. “My best friend murdered 6 people, or more… How could I go back to what we were before? You killed… humans.”

“So? They didn’t deserve to live anyways. I did it for you.”

“No, Chae—”

“They beat you up so badly you couldn’t even walk!” I snapped. “They badmouthed you, they laughed at you and… why are you defending them?!”

“Yes, but you took their lives.”

“They were going to take your life too! Don’t you get it?”

“Chae, please—”

“No! Shut up! I can’t take this anymore! I can’t forgive them. They’re always making fun of you, beating you up, torturing you—just because you’re my friend! But you keep shoving it away and get hurt for me… I- I…”

I hugged you. I had to hold onto something and you were the only one that could have helped me stand up. All those years… I was so pent up, I was so tired of it. I know you told me many times to let it be but I can’t. Sorry, I just can’t help it. I can’t let anyone walk away after they hurt you, even if it’s something as little as pinching you, because you mean too much to me.

“Darling, I love you!” I sobbed and pleaded onto your chest, bathed by my tears, “I missed you so much. If I don’t see you even for a day, it starts to hurt, you know? I’ll do anything to stay with you, anything! Just tell me! I want to see you every day, I can’t let you leave like this…”

“If it’s like this,” you started, “we can make a deal.”

“A-a deal? Really?”

“Yes, a deal. You can see me how much you want but absolutely no killing. No physical assault and no insults to anyone.”

“Is that it?”

“Yes, you just have to restrain yourself.”

“Very well. Then, I promise, I will never kill again, I swear. Does that mean I can see you every day?” I asked. My tears finally stopped pouring out, the hiccup was still there, but I could focus and talk to you properly now. I took a deep breath and spoke, “Then you have to be my boyfriend from now on.”

“What did you just say?” you asked with confusion.

“You can’t say no. You are my boyfriend now. You know already, I told you so many times. I love you with all of myself.”

I knew you liked me a little already. I wasn’t sure if it was as strong as my love for you was, although I doubt it can, I knew you were interested in me. No one would stick with me for that long and no one would defend me from all those bullies. I knew you loved me, of course you did, you always took care of me since our first day and I couldn’t help but fall for you too.

I tried my best to change my appearance to suit your ideal type more. I dressed better, I dieted, I worked out, and I practiced so much that I wouldn’t disappoint you.

“Chae, are you sure? I’m just a regular guy and you’re an idol…”

“Don’t lie to yourself, honey. I wouldn’t give myself to just anyone. You never laughed about me, you believed in me when nobody else did, and you infected me with your kindness and humanity. You’re the best man I can ask for.”

“Thank you…”

“You’ll be my boyfriend and I’ll be your girlfriend, okay? Do you accept?”

“Uhm…”

“Do you accept?”

“Yes, ma’am!”

“Ma’am?” I laughed. “Don’t tell me you have some weird fetish going on… It’s okay. Just tell me, I won’t mind, hehe.”

Part 5

You have been very strict with me. The first thing you did was to establish a set of rules and all the punishment that would have resulted in breaking them. You’ve been very clear in defining them and made sure I understood you were very serious about it and would absolutely punish me if I dared to not respect them. They were something along the line of:

NO KILLING. The punishment is an instant break-up.

NO BODY HARM to anyone. The punishment is no contact for two weeks.

NO KIDNAPPING/STALKING/THREATENING other people. The punishment is no skin touching for a week.

RESPECT YOU. We’re together in this relationship and I have to listen to you.

TRUST YOU. You'll leave me if I don’t trust you when you tell me you aren’t cheating.

I accepted them and we started dating. Our relationship was as good as it was before but this time I got to be as clingy as I wanted, hugging you as much as I wanted, holding your hand wherever we went, and most of all you gave me a lot of head pats. You always gave me head pats to congratulate me when I did well in school or had a good performance.

It was difficult to respect those rules and you showed me how convinced you were of them when I broke the hand of a guy who shoved you against the lockers. You really ghosted me for two weeks without saying anything. When they ended I couldn’t help but jump on you and I promised to be more careful. Since then, I didn’t break any other rules and you showed me your love in so many ways, I lost count of them.

We learned a lot about each other and helped each other all the time. You helped me be more confident with my skills and get angry (but you told me I was cute when I got mad). You were always a bit discouraged with your work, giving up easily, and I made sure you knew how great you were. Just like me, school has really made you more insecure about yourself, but when we were together, we achieved a lot more.

Recently I discovered a hidden diary you used to keep under your bed, between the mattress and the frame. The last thing you wrote was months ago, way before the incident, and it was you rambling about me. ABOUT ME! And it was so adorable. “I have the biggest crush on my friend!” You wrote on the last page.

I stared at the words in a daze, it was like the words were screaming in my face. I was used to only obsessing over you and knowing you were going through the same thing warmed my heart.

You know, I’ve never believed in good endings, but with you, I think I finally found one where we are the protagonists. Our story is not like a fairy tale, it’s far from perfect, I am not a princess, nor could ever be one. However, you made me feel like one and I’m more than sure you’re my prince.

Sorry if I am always so obsessive and so imperfect, I just can’t help it.

THE END

Written, 7 June - 27 June 2023

[m1d-45]

from soil….

summary: albedo has learned many things, and yet sometimes it feels like he knows nothing at all.

word count: 3.9k

-> warnings: massive spoilers for albedo lore… bottom text

taglist: @samarill || @thenyxsky || @valeriele3 || @shizunxie || @boba-is-a-soup || @yum1x || @esthelily

< masterlist > || part 2 >>

as a synthetic human, albedo wasn’t raised as most were. he was ‘born’ fully grown, the shaky knees that let him stand those of an adult. rhinedottir hadn’t wasted any time, immediately beginning his training in various forms of alchemy from the moment he was oriented enough to try and speak.

he was taught the periodic table before he was told the names of colors, he was told how to tell which solvent was best for an experiment before he even understand the nature of his creation. he could recite the best methods for creating hydrogen gas by heart, he knew how to make carbon dioxide go supercritical and even experimented with ferrofluids on the side, but he didn’t know what it meant to be ‘burned’ until curiosity got the better of him and he put his hand over a flame.

he was told not to, like so many other things embedded in his memory, but never why. he knew fire was hot, of course, but.. even as his hand jerked away of its own accord, he found himself wondering what the odd feeling under his skin was.

rhinedottir was disappointed to learn of what he’d done, but had simply given him the instruction of ‘don’t hurt yourself, it’ll set you back.’

‘hurt’. thats what this was?

as he waited for his ammonia to drip into the iron solution, he picked through the many bookshelves in the room. many were scientific texts, with a few encyclopedias, but he wasn’t looking for those.

pulling down the lone dictionary with his now-bandaged hand, he flipped through the pages, keeping an eye on his experiment in his periphery as he did so.

hurt

(v) cause physical pain or injury to

(adj) physically injured

(n) physical injury; harm

how strange…

he shifted the book in his hands, staring at his wound through the bandages. carefully flexing his hand, he stopped right on the cusp of something sharp, the skin of his hand… was hurt.

albedo continued to read through various definitions, his experiment shifting in color to a dark brown without his notice.

why would he divert his attention from something so thrillingly new?

albedo was no longer a stranger to pain.

it took him far too long to realize he should probably be buying borosilicate glass equipment to handle the sort of experiments he was carrying out, only ever noticing when his third watchglass cracked under the heat of manganese heptoxide. his hands were permanently covered in little nicks, each carefully wrapped in bandages as to not get anything into them, some deep enough to scar but most barely enough to annoy.

slowly, he began to learn. he learned the safest ways to clean up shattered glass, he learned how to wrap his dominant hand and had become somewhat ambidextrous as a result. he learned when he needed to stop and take a break before he got a headache, he learned to tell when his hand was cramping from notes and took the time to practice with his other. pain was no longer unfamiliar, but it was still just as strange.

he was learning.

though he didn’t fully understand why this wasn’t taught to him, why he wasn’t told how to make a salve for burns or given a set of gloves to prevent it happening in the first place… he sort of could see why he wasn’t. pain was the result of failure, of a broken piece of equipment or a too-hot burner. it made sense.

did it?

he carefully poured water into a beaker, not paying attention to the conversation behind him. one of rhinedottir’s friends was over, as was becoming increasingly common, and he’d stopped listening once it turned to her daughter. a few compounds caught his attention, but he couldn’t afford to be distracted. the ratio of acetone and water had to be just right, and he was nearing the balance point, the solution fizzing less and less with every addition.

“she’s quite the- klee, don’t-”

without warning, something heavy crashed into albedo’s back. the bottle in his hand tipped and jerked, splashing into and over the rim of the beaker. the heater beneath it hissed as the ice cold water dripped down the side, and though he stood quickly, reaching to unplug it, it was too late. sparks flew as the wiring shorted, the red glow of the plate beginning to fade.

something hot and sharp rose in his chest, buzzing in his hands, the air turning thin. his jaw tightened with the feeling, the cord in his hand biting into his palm.

he’d knocked over his stool in his haste, and beside it was a small child, wide red eyes staring up at him. with bright blonde hair and long, pointed ears, it was clear she was the woman’s daughter.

and she had ran into him.

the woman—alice, his mind supplied, though he didn’t quite hear it—crouched besides her, pulling her up and dusting off her clothes, “klee! what did i say about running in the lab? you know it’s dangerous.”

rhinedottir sighed, leaning against the wall and looking at the failed experiment. “another failure…”

the sharp spikes of feeling turned on him in an instant, and the cord fell from his hand in surprise. he didn’t mean to mess it up! it wasn’t his fault klee was running around! why was he to blame?

“gold, it’s not his fault. i should have watched klee closer.”

“nonsense. he shouldn’t have even been using a bottle. pipettes are much more precise, and if he wished to have any sort of credibility to his findings, he should have used those to better track how much he was putting in. ‘add water until it stops foaming’ isn’t much of an instruction, you know.”

alice stood, some sort of response already forming in the draw of her brows, but albedo turned towards his mess. his hands shook as he moved the too-full beaker to a bin, the heating plate heavier than usual. he ignored the increasingly heated conversation behind him, letting his hands go through the familiar motions of disposal. his chest felt heavy, an odd pulse between his ribs reminding him of the reason he was wiping water off his desk.

he didn’t hold it against the girl, of course. she was too young to even be thought of chastised, and… rhinedottir was right. he probably should have used a pipette to add the water, or at least something less volatile than an open bottle. after this long, he should have known.

his vision blurred, the wad of towels in his hand washing into one mass. he threw the towels into the trash, his free hand coming up to wipe at his eyes. had vapor gotten into them? that wouldn’t be good if that were the case, but though they stung it wasn’t as sharp as it would be from chemicals.

albedo wiped up the last of the water, absentmindedly wondering why his chest ‘hurt’ if he hadn’t been injured.

alice visited often, usually bringing her daughter along as well. he wasn’t sure why, as she was surely too young to learn much in the way of alchemy, but she evidently had learned not to run in the lab, thankfully. she sat on a stool at her mother’s side, carefully drawing in a small notebook.

albedo stood at the sink, doing his best to focus on removing the caked sediment from his glassware. alice was talking, again, telling a story of a place he’d never been or heard of, and his thoughts admittedly wandered when he wasn’t careful. he’d wonder about the knights she was talking about, the cavalry led by a man in frosted blue, and he glanced over his own outfit. plain white, as typical, but he wondered about the dye that would have been used. he always wore white—“easier to tell when you’ve spilled something,” rhinedottir always said—and his few attempts at making dyes always ended up splotched and uneven. how did they dye clothes? or did they dye the thread first? would that be more or less efficient? was it harder to work with dyed thread, maybe, because it could wear during the weaving process?

curiosity bubbled within him as he rinsed off a stir rod, scraping off the leftover sediment with his nail. it would take too much time and space to try what he was thinking, not to mention that he didn’t even know how to go about it, but…

he turned to put it on a towel and paused, seeing klee looking up at him from her stool. she waved, shyly, pen tucked against her palm, and he hesitated for a moment before waving back. it was small, barely a raise of his fingers as to not draw attention, but she lit up anyway. her feet kicked against the stool in excitement and she hid her smile in her sketchbook, and albedo felt his own begin to form. he felt warm, a gentle feeling starting to rise. he tried to pin it down, running over the list of emotions he’d learned, but it didn’t match. it wasn’t the sharp, white-hot spike from when he’d ruined his hot plate, nor the slow but insistent press of curiosity. he felt… soft, almost, a delicate heat pushing him to smile back, gently-

“albedo.“

the sharp call of his name scattered the feeling like fish recessing deep into a lake, repulsed by the word.

rhine had cut off alice, evidently, the latter’s hands still raised mid-gesture.

“are you finished? why are you looking at klee like that?”

though it didn’t show on his face, albedo felt as confused as alice looked. her hands had moved to her sides, eyes flicking between the two of them with an odd twist to her mouth.

albedo swallowed something cold and bitter, taking a breath. “like what?”

he tried to put as much genuineness into his words as he could, but rhinedottir just shook her head.

“you know how.”

“i-“

“get back to work, albedo.”

she looked away, cutting the conversation short despite the argument still on his tongue.

he didn’t know. she never told him. none of the books in his lab ever described what it meant to be alive, to feel, to grow. he’d read all of them, cover to cover and back again, but none of them described what he wanted to know.

albedo turned back to the sink, wondering if there was a name for the cold pit in his stomach.

the next time alice comes, albedo has the time to look and properly greet her. he doesn’t have anything important or time sensitive going on, simply waiting for a dish to crystallize, and it was clear that the short wave he gave, pencil still in hand, had made her happy.

“hey albedo! what are you working on?”

almost subconsciously, his eyes flick to rhinedottir, searching for her approval, but she’s turned away, inspecting some random report on his desk. his chest feels cold as he lifts his sketchbook in lieu of a response. he’s drawn a cecelia, a kind of flower he saw on his last expedition, only ever growing near the top of a cliff.

he wonders of rhine would be proud of its accuracy, if nothing else.

“oh, a drawing?” klee seems to stand a bit straighter when she registers that the notebook in his hand is for drawing and not for research, and alice chuckles at her enthusiasm. “could we see?”

again, albedo seeks his master’s approval. he doesn’t find it.

he takes a quick look around the lab but knows there isn’t anything dangerous. the only active and open chemicals are the one in the beaker behind him, and that’s both well away from an edge and covered with a watchglass. so he nods, spinning his pen from his hand and into a pocket as they carefully move across the lab. he notes the caution with which klee steps over a fallen pen, the hand not in her mother’s tightly gripping her bag.

he tilts the book up for her to take—his heart had picked up at some point and he can see a quiver where his thumb digs into the binding, when did that happen?—but she just peers down at it from where she is, not reaching. it only takes a moment for something bright to reach her eyes, unfamiliar yet not unwelcome.

“cecelias, right?”

hesitantly, albedo nods. “i was exploring the eastern edge of mondstat, looking for valberries, but… i found these instead.”

she hums with a nod, her expression shifting slightly. “you need to go further north if you want valberries. cecelias grow on starsnatch cliff, and you want to go to stormbearer point.” albedo made a note to ask rhine where that was. “still, this is very impressive! the detail is remarkable despite not having a reference; you must’ve been blessed by the creator themself!”

her eyes glitter in a way that tells him it’s supposed to be something said in jest… but he doesn’t get the joke. behind her, rhinedottir’s head snapped up, eyes narrow, the report long discarded, and albedo takes the risk before his master can speak.

“who?”

alice’s face falls.

albedo looks over at klee for the nth time, checking that she was still happily doodling on her own paper. rhine had been swift to pull alice into a side room after her comment, so it was just them left in his lab. her, on the stool he’d offered her after her mother was pulled away, and him, still on the same chair he’d been for the past few hours. his pen felt cold in his hand despite the fact that he should have been producing more than enough body head to keep it warm, something… uneasy bubbling in his blood.

words pushed to the forefront of his mind, the same as they did every time he checked on klee, and this time he let them go.

“do you know who was alice talking about?”

she stops, the room falling silent as her pencil stills, and he feels oddly exposed in front of her wide red eyes. she reaches up to adjust her hat, the clover on it smudging lightly with graphite. “the creator?”

albedo nods. “rhine never calls people ‘creator’s of things, even masters of k-…. masters of alchemy are simply ‘alchemists’ to her. i’ve never heard of such a title before.”

klee pouts, stuffing her pencil into the rings on her notebook and settling it in her lap. between her fingers, he swears he sees something shaped suspiciously like a cecelia.

“the creator made everything! mama says that they are older than even her, and that they gave klee this!”

the stilted grammar of her words throws albedo off, but not as badly as when she reaches for her bag—nearly falling in the process—and unhooks a large glass-looking jewel inset in silver. it glitters red, a pattern of a flame engraved within, and he finds himself leaning closer. questions spring to his mind—‘how did you get it? what does it do? does it have a name? how is it made? how were you acknowledged by somebody so important at such a young age? is there even a significance to it at all? why doesn’t rhinedottir have one? does alice?’—but she speaks before he can voice them, voice unnaturally cohesive for somebody so young.

“i got my vision after i tried to make the biggest bomb ever!” after she what- “i made a mess out of my station… but mama says it’s okay! she helped me rebuild it and everything, and even stitched back on dodoco’s ear!” she points to a small plush charm hanging off her bag, leaving him with still more questions than answers.

“didn’t your mama teach you about them? why are you asking klee?”

albedo fell short.

was this something that parents typically taught their children? he supposed rhine would technically be his ‘mother’…. but even that was more in the literal sense. she was his mother as in she created him, but she was his master in that she taught him about and guided him through alchemy.

(but was that even for his sake? or was it hers?)

before he could say anything, alice had come back, a crease between her brows and a heavy frown on her face.

“come on klee, we’re leaving.”

klee quickly hooked the ‘vision’ back onto her bag and stuffed her notebook inside, slipping off the stood with a ‘bye bye albedo!’ before he even understood what had happened. her hand folded into her mothers, having crossed the room swiftly, free hand tucked under the strap of her bag.

alice gave albedo a long look, filled with a feeling he couldn’t begin to decipher, before her jaw set and the door opened, a wash of cold air sweeping in as they left.

rhinedottir nearly slammed open the door, shutting it just as harshly behind her, but albedo didn’t flinch from where he was weighing out sodium. she’d been returning from expeditions more and more irritated lately, the domains she’s been searching somehow turning up less clues each time. he’s not privy to her work, so he simply keeps his mouth shut, never offering his advice or help even when he knows it helps to talk puzzling things out.

he tapped his stir rod on the edge of his beaker, knocking off the excess solution, and listened to her go through her routine. boots off, shoes on, coat off, lab wear on. bag down, notes up, then the bang of her door.

he stifles a smile at her predictability. most of her actions are prescribed, a routine she likely follows unintentionally, but it brings him a small bit of comfort. she did the same things when she returned today as she did every other day, no mater the size of her discovery, retiring to her room to review her findings. he learned quickly to shut down any attention-sapping experiments as quickly as possible after she returned to be able to dedicate as much as he could to listening to her ramble, leaving space on his table for her diagrams. he rarely got a word in, but that just made him all the better listener, able to concisely say everything he wanted to in the moment’s space of her breaths.

with all of this in mind, he covered his beaker. the solution would be fine overnight, so long as it was chilled, and he was quite looking forward to tonight’s talk.

albedo stood from his stool and began to clean up, listening to the clock tick down.

a few hours later, rhine returns with a heavy sigh. he hears papers flap in her hands as she shuffles through them, the sound growing louder as she approaches. she sits in the chair he’d set out for her in preparation and drops her papers on the table in a messy pile, various diagrams drawn across them.

she picks out one seemingly at random, depicting a diamond-shaped sigil inset onto a large set of doors. a complex web of patterns wraps around it, ending on eight smaller sigils. below the diagram, she wrote out a quote, presumably the one inscribed across the top of the door, “when seeking those who have lost their faith / there’s not much one can do but wait / you take the swiftest trail at once / and try until your hopes prevail.”

he doesn’t know what it means, but he keeps the words in his mind as she shoves aside the rest of the papers, setting down that one and beginning to talk about how she tried to solve it.

“there’s over 40,000 combinations—i did the math—and i wasn’t going to sit there for however long it took. the geo slime condensate only had enough elemental energy preserved in it to activate all of the sigils twice, and that didn’t account for actually killing the things.”

albedo propped his arm on the table, resting his chin in his palm and staring at the paper. he took in and registered her words, of course, hearing and understanding them, but a majority of his mind was focused on the paper. each of the winding paths started at the center sigil and twisted out, quickly becoming hard to follow- likely due to erosion, since the domain seemed embedded into a cliff face.

still, he pulled at the puzzle, picking at the edges. the inscription played on loop in his mind, producing ideas just as quickly as he shut them down. it couldn’t be that they had to leave to a secondary—or more—location, since six separate places for a domain was too complex and highly unlikely. it couldn’t be that there was some sort of prayer or hymn they needed to follow, due to the same argument as the first. there had to be a simpler solution….

“have you tried activating them in the order of the pathways?”

silence.

he looks up at her lack of response, finding her with her hands raised, clearly mid-ramble.

“i apologize for inter-“

he’s cut off with a wave of her hand as she picks up the paper, flipping it towards her. “dont, you already said it. what do you mean by ‘order’? actually, don’t answer. you can tell me tomorrow.”

just as quickly as she arrived, rhine left, picking up all her papers and leaving with a swish of her coat, her door nearly slammed shut.

albedo’s eyes flicked to the clock. she was barely there for ten minutes.

why? he’d spoken up before… granted, never interrupted, but… surely that wasn’t a large enough offense that she left?

he looked around his desk, empty of any equipment or glassware in preparation for the usual hours-long talk. it was earlier than he normally went to sleep, and though he could in theory return to work…

an unusual hesitation had seeped under his skin, pulling at his hands when he tried to stand. what had he said to make her leave? he’d just wanted to help…

after a moment, he stood, awkwardly pushing in his stool. ‘tell her in the morning’…

something odd and unsettling curled around albedo’s limbs as he went through the motions of preparing for bed. his fingers felt stiff where he ran them through his hair, the sheets on his bed cold despite the fire. an unmovable weight had sat itself on his chest, telling him that he’d done something wrong, but couldn’t tell what.

he hadn’t done anything. he’d just offered his help. she was the one that broke routine.

the weight told him that he was wrong.

he didn’t know why.

[dead-dove-yandere]

Laura would be so excited the her darling remembered her name (even for the wrong reasons, lol.)

I adored the story, thank you~!

Also, I was wondering how Cayce might react if her darling figured her out and started ignoring when she acted out?

~ 💌

I’m so glad that you liked it!! Laura would be absolutely over the moon in that moment - it would only be further confirmation that her belief that she is her darling’s soulmate is true.

As for Cayce - it definitely would end with someone being hurt. It’d be like throwing oil onto a fire.

TW: Stalking, obsession, bullying, insults, violent behaviour, abuse

♡ - You weren’t stupid, like Cayce seemed to think you were. It didn’t take you long at all to see that her antagonistic behaviour was to get your attention.

♡ - So, you decided the only way to get her to stop would be to turn the other cheek. You practice grounding yourself, ensuring that you keep in control of your annoyance and frustration, so that when Cayce next threw a pencil at you or yelled an insult across the hallway, you could calmly walk away and get on with your studies and duties.

♡ - Cayce didn’t take it well at all.

♡ - The first time you put your new strategy into action, she’d yelled across the room as she was often wont to do. You kept your head down and continued reading your textbook.

♡ - The look of surprise on her face when you didn’t react at all quickly hardened into offence, and she tried again.

♡ - “Oi! Asshole, I’m talking to you!”

♡ - You kept your ground and ignored her still, watching as she went red in the face. It didn’t take long before she stormed off. It seemed as though your plan was successful at first.

♡ - Cayce didn’t give up easily. Over the next few weeks she continued, still doing anything she could to get even the slightest gasp of annoyance or frustration, but your will was stronger.

♡ - It wasn’t long before she escalated. Her insults became more harsh, her tactics more frustrating. She started swiping books from your hand, sharpening pencils to jab you with, stealing things from your locker and putting them somewhere unreachable or, in many cases, down the toilet.

♡ - You even caught her a few times mingling with known gossipers, trying to find ammo to use against you or spreading rumours of her own.

♡ - You didn’t let her have the satisfaction of seeing you upset. She was cruel, but she was still just a common bully and you didn’t want to let her shake you.

♡ - Then, one time, she really got cruel. Alone in a study hall, she saw you revising and picked up one of the large dictionaries and called to get your attention.

♡ - You barely managed to look up when the heavy, hardcover book smacked straight into your face. You reeled back, letting out a small shriek of pain as your lips went numb and your nose cracked loudly, snapping as it flattened from the force of the hit.

♡ - Your head span, making you feel nauseous and dizzy. As the dictionary fell to the ground, you could just see blood dripping from your nose onto your uniform through your blurry, tear stained eyes.

♡ - You look up as you try to pinch your bleeding nose, but it’s too tender to touch. You see Cayce right in front of your desk with a wicked grin - she finally got the attention she so desperately craved.

♡ - She reaches out, grabbing a fistful of your hair and painfully jerking you closer to her, until she’s right in your face.

♡ - “I thought you said you were going to help troubled students, so why the hell have you been ignoring me? Decided I’m a lost cause already?”

♡ - She lets go, letting you slump into your chair and nurse your injuries. Without another word, she leaves the room. She doesn’t care if you snitch or get her into trouble. It’s not as if consequences bothered her anyway. She’s just glad that she’s got you to look at her again, even if it was in fear.

♡ - In fact, she’s especially glad that you looked at her in fear.

Dividers Credit: See Pinned Post

[crimeronan]

had my original fiction opening critiqued at irl group tonight! under a cut because this is long and it'll be painfully boring for people who have not been following my Anxiety Saga (and who do not care about the OCs), but tl;dr: very positive :3 we went a half hour over our usual time just discussing the story.

the prose, imagery, and exposition were all highly praised, ppl said the style is easy to read & a few even said it scans as fully publishable right now

didn't have a chance to get into the whole magic-as-autoimmunity meta or a Million Other Things because this story is a BEHEMOTH. but if i write more then i can get into it at other sessions :3

UNANIMOUS praise for the depiction of magic as painful/costly, one guy says he usually hates fantasy magic bc the stakes feel too low. but these didn't

characters were much more polarizing. everyone had a slightly different interpretation of and different emotions about the various narrators

also nearly every time someone said "this character thing didn't work for me" or "i hated this character detail," someone else would pipe up like "actually that was great for me personally. you should keep it" which made me laugh. THRILLED to accomplish this

pretty strong majority opinion that sol is an insane sociopath, i got some 'i'd like to see more depth in her' feedback until one woman said "my problem with her is that she's supposed to be super powerful but then her narration is exactly as neurotic and hypervigilant as your reader proxy's" while i was Vibrating With Excitement like YOU HAVE IDENTIFIED THE THING I DID ON PURPOSE YOU DID IT YOU GOT THE UNRELIABLE NARRATION IM YELLINGGGG

pretty unanimous empathy with and concern for the reader proxy narrator who's in a Very Bad Situation. some devastation upon finding out i don't plan for her to narrate the entire novel. about half the group was like "but... but everyone else is. everyone else is an evil sociopath :( i like the girl :(" sorry guy.s. i promise i'll make you want to read about them before i rip ur girl away

i cut some explicit/graphic threats of sexual and physical violence because i thought they went too far, despite this being psychological horror. three ppl gave me the feedback "i need to see some kind of explicit threat to really know the stakes here" i'm never questioning my dark edgy shit again. every character is fucked forever. amen

ONE READER DID CLOCK DEVIN AS TRANS and it was the Same One who clocked sol perfectly. she was like the mention of scruff jarred me so much that i googled the dictionary definition of scruff. what's the deal there & i was like oh. transgenda. & she was like I THOUGHT IT WAS SOMETHING LIKE THAT

everyone else: wow i did not notice that at all. and/or i assumed the scruff was leaves or twigs not stubble

OH AND!! i got a note that my character dialogue is all extremely distinctive. which was Such A Relief because i Know my fanfic dialogue is distinctive but i wasn't sure if i was replicating that with the OCs. it's hard to figure out how people talk & make it different from how other people talk when you yourself are only one person with one speech pattern.

very good positive experience. the problem now is that if i want to talk about other aspects of the story like...... literally everything, literally everything about everything to do with the story..... i gotta. i gotta write it. oh god.

[twopoppies]

Here’s that Twitter thread translated + quotes. No pics bc lazy (: Hope this helps!

Re-reading the lyrics of "Daylight," and especially the verse that mentions the "Bluebird," I wondered several times what Harry's sources of inspiration might have been and why he chose this particular bird.

Aside from Louis

The Bluebird (Sialia, in Italian) over the years has also taken on mythological connotations and is often found in seafaring literature. It would represent eternal happiness as well as springtime.

In the Native American Cochiti tribe, the Sun's firstborn son is named Bluebird. In the short story "The Sun's Children," featured in Ruth Benedict's Tales of the Cochiti Indians (1932), the Sun's male child was named Bluebird (Culutiwa). (Sun -> Bluebird -> Louis)

In Navajo tradition the Bluebird is associated with the rising Sun. The Bluebird Song is sung to remind tribal members to rise at dawn to give thanks to the rising Sun. "Bluebird said to me: Get up, my grandchild. It is dawn; it said to me."

The bluebird, understood as a representation of the concept of freedom, which coincides with a form of "resurrection," is also found in two of the authors whom Harry has repeatedly acknowledged to be a source of inspiration for him: Paul McCartney and David Bowie.

“Oh I'll be free, just like that bluebird. Oh I'll be free. Ain't that just like me?" sings Bowie in "Lazarus." A kind of testament, where he seems to want to tell us: just as I am dying, I am ready to be reborn and to feel free at last, whatever form I will take.

In McCartney, the Bluebird (a song written with his wife Linda during a vacation in Jamaica) becomes a metaphor for the transcendent power of love and the liberation of the human spirit from a form of physical and mental slavery. The Bluebird itself becomes a symbol of Love, understood as the only source of Freedom.

“Late at night when the wind is still I'll come flying through your door, and you'll know what love is for; I'm a bluebird.”

Turning to literature, we know that Harry also loves Charles Bukowski. Several times he has been seen reading his poetry, and his writing has also been influenced by the poet in the past. No wonder, then, that Bukowski wrote a poem entitled "Bluebird."

“There's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I'm too tough on him”

First published in 1992 in the collection "Last Night of the Earth Poems," Bukowski tells of the malaise inherent in every person, a pain that each of us feels, latent, a kind of background noise of our existence. Again, that longed-for sense of freedom.

The Bluebird is also quoted by Oscar Wilde in "The Decay of Lying (1889)." A Bluebird singing about beautiful and impossible things that are not but should be. Yeah...

“Champing his gilded oats, the hippogriff will stand in our stalls; and over our heads will float the Blue Bird singing of beautiful and impossible things, of things that are lovely and that never happen, of things that are not and that should be.”

In "May-Day," by Ralph Waldo Emerson, we find not only the bluebird but also daffodils. I wonder where I have seen them before

“When I bought my farm, I did not know what a bargain I had in the bluebirds, daffodils and thrushes; as little did I know what sublime mornings and sunsets I was buying.”

"Gay as a daffodil" = "Gay as a bluebird" Finally, I couldn't help but look up the meaning of Bluebird in Urban Dictionary (it's all Harry's fault and his cryptic slang). I leave the considerations to you. *definition posted 2017

(Don’t mind me lurking on your page I sent in some stuff last night so I’m 👀)

You are brilliant. Thank you so much for taking the time to translate all of that!! That’s really a beautiful thread and now I love that song even more. 😭😭😭😭

[poppyseedsorpoppy]

Crows' Feet | Complete

Everything was soft, burning, and Eddie wished that humans had hollow bones because he wanted to be closer. He wanted to pour himself into Steve, live inside him like a mouse in the walls, because no amount of skin could ever be enough. He wanted to devour Steve and be consumed by him, tied together until no one could see where one ended and the other began. Eddie wanted to drink down his tears and chew on his pain until Steve only had sunlight left inside of him, wanted to fill in every gap and patch over the cracks until the dictionary had to create a new definition of whole to describe them.  --- In which Eddie and Steve grow up, find themselves, and discover just how much they mean to each other.

Hello Hello Hi! This project for @steddiebang has taken over my life since last spring, and I'm so excited to finally let you all see what I've been working on! This work is a series of thirteen linked, POV-shifting oneshots which move chronologically from Steve and Eddie as children, through canon, and beyond. Getting the details just right on this one was definitely a labor of love, and I hope you like it as much as I do. Please read the tags! There's a happy ending, but there's also a lot leading up to it.

In addition, I need to send the biggest, warmest support out to @anarmel for creating such beautiful art. I was screaming basically every time I opened discord-- their grasp on mood and detail are glorious, and they were genuinely so kind and supportive throughout this process. Anar's post is linked here, but you should go have a browse through their page more deeply, too! It's a wonderful place to be.

[walker-extended-universe]

Just Leave Me Be

Relationship(s): Trey Barnett/Geri Broussard

Tags/Warnings: Pregnancy, Difficult Pregnancy, Medical Conditions, Insecurity, Stubborn Geri, Communication, Healthy Relationships, Emotional Hurt/Comfort

Summary: Geri's pregnant and having a hard time adjusting to being on bedrest. Trey tries to help.

Written for @febuwhump alt prompt 2: "I love you."

Taglist: @theladywyn, @ihavepointysticks, @klaatu51, @itsjessiegirl1, @neptunium134

-----

“Do you need anything before I go?” Trey asked, hovering nervously in the doorway to the bedroom.

Geri smiled and shook her head. “I’m fine. If I need anything else I’ll just-”

“You’ll call me.”

Geri rolled her eyes. “I don’t need to call you to get an extra water bottle or pack of goldfish.” Not that Trey hadn’t already packed a small army’s worth of food into the bedroom, including a new mini-fridge for his prepped meals.

“Babe, being on bedrest is no joke. James will understand-”

“For God’s sake Trey! I’m pregnant, not paralyzed!” Geri snapped. “I don’t need all this- This coddling and babying. I can take care of myself while you’re at your very important job.”

“I know that,” Trey said softly. “I just…. I worry about you. And the baby. You know what the doctor said….”

She knew. Of course she knew. She knew her pregnancy was risky, not only because of her age but because of her heart condition. On top of that, she was having a difficult pregnancy with intense morning sickness and scary abdominal pains. That was why her doctor put her on bedrest despite only being in the second trimester of her pregnancy.

She knew Trey worried. She worried too. And normally she was happy to have Trey fuss over her.

Maybe it was her hormones or maybe she was lashing out because of her own worries, but lately his fussing had started feeling stifling. Anytime she left the room for more than two seconds, he was looking for her. He was always asking her if she needed anything or if she wanted a foot rub and she knew he didn't mean anything bad by it but-

But she knew he’d been using up his days off to look after her and she felt bad enough asking Colton to look after the Side Step (with Liam and Stella’s help).

She needed some space. She needed some time alone. She needed to not feel like such a burden.

“Hey, come on, don’t shut me out like that.” Suddenly, Trey was at her side on the bed, wiping away tears she hadn’t realized were spilling. “What’s going on, Geri? Talk to me.”

She shook her head. “It’s nothing. You should go; you’re gonna be late and-”

“And James will understand. Talk to me; I’m not leaving until you do.”

Geri sighed. “It’s not- I’m not- I can take care of myself.”

“I know that.”

“I-I’ve always been able to take care of myself. I’ve never really needed someone else before. And…. I don’t know, I’ve always been proud of that. Whenever Hoyt would leave me high and dry, I’d just move on. Whenever Cordi didn’t have time for me, it wasn’t a big deal. I was always just… I could deal with it.”

“But now you feel like you can’t just deal with it and that scares you?”

Geri nodded silently. She swore Trey could read her mind sometimes. “A little. But, it’s also…. I don’t want to…. I don’t want to burden you.”

“Hey, don’t talk like that.” Trey pressed a soft kiss to her forehead. “You’re not a burden. I mean, maybe you are in the technical ‘dictionary definition’ sense of the word but you- and our baby- are a burden I’m more than happy to carry. And you shouldn’t be ashamed of needing help from your future husband.”

“I know that. Logically, I know that. Emotionally….” She sighed. “I’m just…. I’m scared.”

“And that’s okay. That’s what I’m here for. And so are Walker and Cassie and James and Abby- we’re all here for you. And there’s nothing wrong with needing a little help or reassurance.”

“I know. I’m just- Still getting used to all this.”

“And that’s okay too.” Trey kissed her softly. “Do you want me to stay home today?”

She shook her head. “No. You need to go to work. I’ll be okay on my own for a few hours. And if I really need anything…. I’ll call you.”

Trey smiled. “That’s my girl. I’ll come by for lunch, okay?”

She smiled. “Yeah, okay.”

He kissed her again and got up to leave. “Oh, and one more thing,” he said as he was putting on his hat. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

[theoddcatlady]

Blind Date

Fuck blind dates. Last night was the actual worst.

Let’s back up. The main reason I agreed to this was because I owed my sister a favor. Two days ago she cornered me in my bedroom and told me about her friend Martha. She is a year younger than me, was feeling super bummed because her last boyfriend just flat out ghosted her, and she is super nice.  

It was either I go on this date with a girl I didn’t know or pay my sister two hundred bucks. Out of the two, I’m picking the date.  

Martha and I chose to meet at a local pub. The moment I got there and saw here I knew this was going to freaking suck.

I’m a little superficial, but we all are when we date. We all have types. Martha… was really not my type. Calf length khaki skirt, itchy olive green sweater, cat eye glasses, hair done in two braids, she looked like a librarian. A very boring librarian. My type is a bit more flashy, a bit more fun.

I of course still sat across from her, introduced myself. Maybe the boring librarian aesthetic hid someone who secretly went caving on the weekends and loved sky diving.  

Hahaha. No.  

This book you absolutely could judge by its cover, and this book was a fucking Webster’s Dictionary. Every sentence that came out of Martha’s mouth was in a monotone, and she had practically no life. She went to school, she came home, she studied, she played with her cats (she has four- Aileen, Jane, Amelia, and Nannie), and she read nonfiction novels. She didn’t even have a TV. You’d expect a geeky looking girl like this to at least marathon The Witcher or The Mandalorian over a few weekends.

I was starting to sympathize with the ghosting boyfriend when I decided to give myself a break by offering to go up to the bar and get us something to drink. She asked for a soda. I was going to get something a little harder for myself.

As I stood at the bar, I heard someone clear her throat next to me.

“Rough date?”  

I glanced up and saw another woman, dark haired with the most dazzling amber eyes I’d seen on a human being, the color of a glass of whiskey. She laughed and offered me her hand. “I’ve seen that face a lot. Made it too. I’m Tanya.”

“David.” I shook her hand. “It’s a blind date.”  

Tanya grimaced and nodded. “Oooh. Say no more, I feel your pain,” She said, giving me a pat on the shoulder.  

“It’s not that she isn’t nice, she’s just not my type.” I took a deep breath. “I’m probably going to split as soon as dinner’s done, tell her it’s not working out.”

Tanya laughed. “That’s fair, but my advice? Better make clear pretty quick this will not lead to something more. Don’t wanna hurt her feelings, you know?” She said.

I nodded before scooping up our drinks. “If you’re still here after she leaves, buy you a drink?” I offered.  

Tanya winked. “We’ll see,” She sing songed.

I weaved my way back to the table. I just barely sat down when Martha blurted out, “You like her, don’t you?” It was the first time all night she actually had emotion in her voice, and it was not good.

Shit. I glanced over at Tanya, who was chatting with a few of her girl friends now. “We just chatted for a second,” I said.

Martha took a deep breath, taking off her glasses to clean them off on her sweater. “That’s not a no,” She mumbled.

Now I was feeling like an asshole. And yeah, I probably deserved to. I shifted uncomfortably in my chair and decided to just be honest. “Listen, you’re great-”

“But I’m not your type,” Martha interrupted, a bitter sounding laugh leaving her a second after. “I know. I fucking know, David. I’m going to the bathroom. Leave me alone.”  

She shot up and stormed to the bathroom, a tear trickling down the side of her face. I shrunk down in my chair, definitely feeling like an asshole. Here was this perfectly nice girl, maybe a bit socially awkward, but nice. And here I was, hitting on other girls while I was on a date with her. Wow. Crown me king of the assholes, because that was a low move.  

I spent the next several minutes planning my apology, imagining poor Martha sobbing her eyes out in the bathroom. I did her wrong and I had to make it right.

About fifteen minutes passed before I decided to go after her. I was getting worried, maybe she was really upset and needed to be driven home.  

Just a bit of context, the doors to the bathroom at this pub were known for being a little loosey-goosey on their hinges. Meaning I just reached up to knock and I accidentally pushed the door open.  

It was like time stopped when I looked inside.  

Martha was standing at the sinks. She wasn’t crying anymore, she looked… calm. Disturbingly calm, for someone whose hand had apparently melted over another woman’s face. This other woman had dropped to her knees in front of Martha, her whole body limp and only held up by the melted skin grip that Martha had on her. The woman’s skin was turning black down to her neck and I swear I saw it inch down in that second the door was open.

It took until the door closed until I realized I recognized that woman’s dress. Tanya. That was Tanya.

I did something potentially dumb, in that I just headed back to my table and sat down, texting my sister to pick me up, because I assumed I’d been drugged. There was no way I saw what I just did, right? That’s not even possible.

Another minute ticked by as I stared at my phone, waiting for my sister to fucking answer me, which ended me nearly jumping out of my skin when Martha plopped down in the chair across from me.  

“Hi, sorry I took so long,” Martha smiled, “I think we need to start from scratch.”

I glanced over at the bathroom. “Something happen in there?” I asked.

“Maybe,” Martha laughed, the first time I’d heard her laugh all night and it gave me fucking chills. The only thing I could pick out as different so far was that she’d taken her hair out of her braids, the wavy length coming down past her shoulders.  

I swallowed before glancing out the door. “Listen, I’m actually not feeling well- and no, I’m not trying to ditch you, I swear to god- I think someone slipped something in my drink or I’m getting sick, so I’m trying to get ahold my sister to take me home,” I said.

“Oh, you poor thing!” Martha reached across the table and rested her cool fingers on my forehead. “I think you are feeling a bit warm. Tell your sister not to bother, I’ll just drive you.”  

What was I supposed to say? ‘No thanks, I’ll just wait for someone who doesn’t have melty hands?’ Yeah, I had to let her drive me home. I’d make plans to pick up my car in the morning, when I didn’t feel like I’d been slipped LSD. 

Martha handed me a sealed water bottle once I was settled in the passenger seat. “Drink this, nice and slow. What’s your address again?”

After taking a sip I told her and then glanced at the dashboard, where a book was resting. I picked it up and read the title aloud. “Invisible Darkness?”  

“Yeah, a friend gave it to me,” Martha said as we drove out of the parking lot, “You remember when I said I liked nonfiction? Don’t assume I’m crazy or anything, but I actually really like true crime novels.”  

“I wouldn’t think you’re crazy for that,” I went back to thinking about Tanya kneeling on the floor in the bathroom, “Lots of people like those. What got you into them?”  

Martha bit her bottom lip before glancing over at me. “Well, I picked it up along the way from someone I knew. Sorry for the nothing answer, I mean, isn’t that how that always works? Most people are just pieces and parts of everyone they know, if you think about it.”  

It was then it hit me what was suddenly very different about Martha. You remember the glasses I talked about, right? They were gone. And instead of cornflower blue eyes that I did find kinda pretty… her eyes were amber. The color of a glass of whiskey.  

Just like Tanya’s.

By the time I was dropped off, Martha looked even less like herself and looked more like Tanya. Ever time I’d glance over, she was just a little different. Her cheekbones a little sharper, her lips a little fuller, her figure a little more hour glass shaped. I couldn’t get into my apartment fast enough.  

I don’t know what I saw last night and I’m not sure if I want to know. But Martha’s texted me, saying that we should try again this weekend. She says this time she’ll pick me up since she knows where I live now.  

I’m so fucking afraid of what she’ll take from me if I turn her down.  

[solradguy]

Mr. Radguy, I'm trying to do a bastard's translation of the Last Resort 4koma (read: i do not know any japanese so i'm crossreferencing a bunch of kana charts, dictionaries, and machine translators) and I'm having difficulty um. figuring out what Sol is saying.

May I have a hint, please?

DeepL seems to be better at figuring out "tough guy" dialog than other machine translators so definitely prioritize what that one spits at ya over the others. Don't listen to a word that Google Translate tells you. That said, the Google Translate app's OCR (text scanner) is pretty good.

Google Keep's OCR is the best one I've found for desktop though. Compiling a manuscript to translate from will make it a bit easier. Feed it an image then click the 3 dots and "grab text from image."

JPDB.io is better at detecting grammatical forms of words than Jisho is, but Jisho's dictionary is richer overall. I use both of these together but feed words to JPDB first.

メンドクセー or めんどくせー "What a pain in the ass"

ヘヴィだぜ "That's heavy"

テメェ or てめぇ "You [derogatory]" I usually just leave this as a flat "you" in English because Sol uses it for everyone indiscriminately lol But if he's throwing a ばか or some other insult and ends it with a よ　or ぞ then I translate it as something like "bastard" or "dumbass" depending on context.

Sol in the original Japanese usually comes across more as grumpy than in the official English translations where he's sometimes just straight up mean to others entirely unprovoked. I try to keep him closer to the mood of the Japanese text because I like it more but this is a chef's choice situation. Do what feels right to you.

やれやれだぜ // You get a LOT of freedom with how to translate this but don't translate it as "good grief." That's a Jotaro Kujo thing. "What a pain," "Not again...," "Give me a break," and "Cut me some slack" are ways I've translated it before. "Give me a break" is how it's typically translated in official GG stuff but Sol says it so frequently using that rendering wears out pretty quick.

If you've got a translation but it doesn't feel like it "fits" Sol, just imagine how a gruff edgy 1980s action movie hero would say it. Cuttin' off the -g on -ing words and the th- on "them" ("Let's get 'em") works sometimes but do it sparingly or it'll start lookin' like he's talkin' a bit in a yeehaw accent, ya dig?

Something I struggled with in my early translations was never using contractions. All the "they're"s and "it's"s were spelled out. "They are," "it is"... It feels mechanical and I don't know why I did it so much. Just something to keep an eye out for if lines start feeling too stiff.

Good luck!! Double good luck if you have to translate Jam dialog!! Hope some of this information helps. If you get really stuck on a line, feel free to send it to me and I can take a swing at it.

[taegularities]

Now that the pain has passed I can finally leave a baby ass review

Rid. RID. How do you manage to make us feel so much? I cried reading this fic, I felt the pain right in my bones and I literally could not stop. You have a way with words that just makes me break and heal and smile and cry and I hope you appreciate that precious talent of yours as much as you should <3 cmi is a work of art from start to finish, and it is definitely the kind of story that will stick with me for a while. I can’t wait to see more of Jungkook’s pov bc homie is fucking up real bad. I can’t wait to see reader with hobi bc it’s pretty obvious that that’s where this is going (hopefully not lmao). I can’t wait to see Jungkook and reader finding their way back together bc I know for a fact that you don’t write sad endings

Oof. Just so many emotions and so little words in a dictionary to explain just how much I feel each time I’m reading you. Thank you for sharing your art on this platform✨

But I am still in pain. Do not think that I’m not in pain smh… that okay.. okay at the end?? NOT OKAY. She should fight for him, tell him that she’ll move out and drop the job and become a writer bc that’s what she needs to do if she wants to be with him. And he needs to stop thinking he doesn’t belong in her world bc he literally IS her world like come on jungkook😭

Brb, I’m going to go cry some more

ella, two days later and i'm still so 🥺🥺🥺 about this review. you're too kind and i don't deserve you and i love you and i just, i'm running out of words, bc how tf is everyone here so kind, i'm fkn baffled ??? 😭

i definitely appreciate whatever i put in my docs, but the biggest reason for it are readers like you 🥺 i mean, i'm 100% sure i wouldn't have the confidence to put out so many chapters of a slice of life fic if you weren't so encouraging and sweet about it. like... "a work of art from start to finish"? how could i not feel all the motivation in the world, reading such praises :(((

okay whew, once again, we're a little more emotional today hahaha

but anyway, yes, you're so right. homie is fucking up real bad, but i also hope you guys will understand him a little better after the next chapter. i'm already working on it and my heart is in shambles. ha ha also the hobi bit 🥴 no comment...

yes, absolutely correct!! we don't do sad endings in taegularities town 💕

THE "Okay... Okay" GOSH, THE STAR OF THIS CHAPTER FR. i love and hate how much this has been affecting everyone bc same 😭 like, she wants to fight for him, but she's also done yknow?? she just. shut herself off :( her becoming a writer is such a good idea. it'd be so nice if both could follow their artistic dreams.

and yep, once again.. "he literally IS her world" broke my heart. that's it. ella i love you. a lot. please don't forget, you're one of so many lovely people who keep me going on this platform, and i'll never be able to express my gratitude <33

[queenofbaws]

More lyric prompts??? More likely than you’d think 🤩

(Also now that it’s the weekend I hope you’re doing well haha!)

I’m just getting used to being on my own

There had to be some kind of word for it, right? There had to be.

For the first week or two, that's what he did - or what he tried to do, at least - scoured the dictionary until his eyes went blurry and he couldn't make sense of the pronunciation guides anymore, hoping against hope that if he could find the right one, if he somehow miraculously stumbled upon something that came close, maybe everything would just be a little...less. He searched the definitions one by one, coffee going cold and colder still as he read through for something, anything, that fit.

That feeling you get when you think there's one more step but there isn't, so you almost fall but you don't; the too-late panic that fills your mouth with spit when you realize you nearly choked on something you shouldn't have put in your mouth in the first place; the dizziness of waking up from a bad dream only to realize you're in another bad dream and have to force yourself into the real world again; the loss of waking up from a good dream only to realize none of it was real or ever would be; the pain you feel in a tooth that's been pulled even though it isn't there anymore; the hollow ache that started in his stomach and spread through his chest and lungs and heart and arms and head when he opened all the doors in the house to find Beth and Hannah still weren't there.

There had to be a word and Josh had to find it - how else would he ever be able to know what all this was?

six sentence sat(or)sunday!!!

[blbookhorde]

Scum Villain's Self-Saving System Book Review

Title: The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System.

Author: Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

Genres: Fantasy, Xianxia, Comedy, Romance, Action

Main Tags: System, Isekai, Cultivation

Chapters Read at Time of Review: All.

Translated: Complete Official Translation

Length: Around 350,000 words (published into 4 volumes in English)

Smut Level: For most of book 1.5, last few chapters do contain a sex scene but it’s a 3.5 smutty.

Warnings: mild homophobia, a few semi-sexual scenes are dubious consent at best, a man kisses a corpse, a teenager has dirty thoughts but no sexual action is taken, the single full sex scene is a bit r*pe-y (I have seen good arguments for both sides (one that its r*pe, the other that the MC’s dark thoughts are because of his internalized homophobia), either way its violent and painful sex.)

.

Scum Villain is Mo Xiang Tong Xiu’s first work, and it tends to get often overlooked by the two novels that followed it. And while her later works are beautiful works of art, its Scum Villain that I’ve read the most times. Because it’s funny.

This is not a book that takes itself seriously and it carries a pretty lighthearted tone and script throughout most of the novel. (One of the biggest jokes about Scum Villian, is that from any other character’s perspective, this novel is a dark fantasy-borderline horror. It is a great example of how MC’s are the ones who set the tone of a work).

It is an isekai story that follows one Shen Yuan, who wakes up in the body of Shen Qingqiu, a peak lord, and a powerful cultivator, (Who also happens to be the first major villain from a webnovel Shen Yuan likes to read, who meets a violent and horrible death at the end of the novel). Shen Yuan is accompanied to his new life by a System who gives him missions and ensures he stays in line (and doesn’t act in a way that’s out of character for the original Shen Qingqiu).

A large part of the novel is Shen Yuan trying to not fangirl at the new situation he is in, while also roasting the author for all the plot holes he now has to fix if he wants to survive. But his main mission is “taking care” (read bully) the main lead. And this is where things start to go wrong, because Shen Yuan is fond of the male lead and bends over backwards to make sure he’s alright. (I could list all the things Shen Yuan does to help Lou Binghe (the main lead), and trust me it is a LIST, but that would be fairly spoiler-y, so I will not do that.) Of course, Lou Binghe sees all this caring behavior and falls head over heels in love, and thus begins the start of “Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System”.

There's a lot more I can say about this book, but I don't want to get into too much detail and spoil the read. (Maybe later I will post a longer and spoiler-filled review.)

In conclusion, I would say, that if you like more fantasy/comedy based BL this is pretty good one, also if you are just starting to read Cultivation and Xianxia works, this book dose a good job of explaining all the terms and getting you caught up in a lot of the lingo used in BL and webnovel communities. A long, but good read for beginners to the genres.

.

See a term/word you don’t know? Or is there a rating scale you are confused about? You can find a masterlist of all the terms, ratings, and definitions used in reviews here -> BL Book Horde — Dictionary (tumblr.com)

[arcxnumvitae]

RULES: repost, don’t reblog. just pick a muse of yours and fill it out.

MUSE: Aodh

— basics

▸ is your muse tall/short/average? Tall! He’s 6′1, a big boy

▸ are they okay with their height? He doesn’t have many thoughts on it

▸ what’s their hair like? Aodh’s hair is a long red that falls to the middle of his back. Whenever he enters some state of excitement or agitation it will begin to flicker like flames of a fire with a similar glow and hue.

▸ do they spend a lot of time on their hair/with their grooming? Only about the necessary amount. Since he’s fae gentry, he of course has to present a neat and tidy appearance, so he has some servants in his house help should he be donning a more elaborate style or preparation for a party.  

▸ does your muse care about their appearance? To a normal degree. He certainly doesn’t want to appear slovenly but he also isn’t the type to obsess about a hair being out of place or anything.

▸ does your muse care about what others think about them? Not really but also kind of? He’s a grump and a killjoy, a bit dour, and he’s aware of that fact. He’s not really looking to change it. But at the same time he can be a bit bummed about the natural conclusion that comes with acting like that. For instance, he’s jealous of Ruaidhri and Eilidh’s friendship. He doesn’t have any friends really.

— preferences

▸ indoors or outdoors? Indoors ▸ rain or sunshine? Rain ▸ forest or beach? Forest ▸ precious metals or gems? Gems ▸ flowers or perfumes? Flowers ▸ personality or appearance? Personality ▸ being alone or being in a crowd? Being alone ▸ order or anarchy? Eh, order I guess. He doesn’t really care ▸ painful truths or white lies? Painful truths ▸ science or magic? Magic ▸ peace or conflict? Peace ▸ night or day? Night ▸ dusk or dawn? Dusk ▸ warmth or cold? Warmth ▸ many acquaintances or a few close friends? A few close friends ▸ reading or playing a game? Reading

— questionnaire

▸ what are some of your muse’s bad habits? Hah. Let’s see, obsessive, clingy, honestly pretty needy. He’s definitely a pessimist and that glass is always half-empty. Catty, just kind of an unpleasant dude.

▸ has your muse lost anyone close to them? how has it affected them? Eilidh, his wife who ran away from him when he became too obsessive and controlling. She’s sort of another end product of how he was acting and he’s gotten a good ten times more bitter and unpleasant to be around than he was before. To Aodh, he doesn’t realize what he did wrong (to which, yes he was wrong), so he was incredibly hurt. The lengths she’s gone to in order to keep hidden from him are more salt on the wound. So overall he’s withdrawn into himself more and is just not feeling the best

▸ what are some fond memories your muse has?

Early on in his marriage with Eilidh, when things were still good. It was an arranged marriage so it was understood that there wasn’t mutual love (Aodh did love Eilidh though, but she didn’t know that), but they were still working together to see what they could build from their union. Waking up beside her every morning was a dream come true to him.

▸ is it easy for your muse to kill? Not at all and he hasn’t had any reason to. Despite his awful moods, Aodh is actually kind of a pacifist. He can’t really find it in himself to hurt anything.

▸ what’s it like when your muse breaks down? First there’s the anger, a raging inferno of rage that flares up with white hot intensity. But then just as quickly it’s gone, and in its place is...absolutely nothing. Not even any embers to be stoked, Aodh would pretty much shut down. Why bother caring anymore? What good has it done him?

▸ is your muse capable of trusting someone with their life? "Trust” is not a word that’s often in a Seelie fae’s dictionary, so it’s hard for him to imagine it. Maybe a life partner he could, but aha well look at what happened with that.

▸ what’s your muse like when they’re in love? You know the stuff with H.ozier where it’s like their love is their religion? “I’ll worship like a dog” etc. etc.? That. His kind of love can be very intense, and as we saw with Eilidh, can cross the line to overbearing obsessions if he isn’t careful. Funnily in contrast with his general personality to others, with a loved on Aodh is simply the type to worship and adore them with every ounce of his being. It might be off-putting really for any who hadn’t seen him with a partner before.

[percontaion-points]

A Four Letter Word prologue & chapter 1

Click to see the rest of the snark & image descriptions

Prologue

All because my best friend, Evan, told me he loved me—on my wedding day.

Prologue summary: Our unnamed protagonist muses about the dictionary, words, and the literal definition of the word “love”. She never really believed in love... until she was literally getting married and her best friend stood up and said that he loved her.

Chapter 1

"Evan, if you come out, I promise we can go to Dave and Buster's and shoot and kill some zombies afterwards, okay?"

"And play ski-ball too?" he practically whines.

I knew I would get him with this. "Yes, we can play ski-ball too, but you have to come out and let me see your costume."

Is this supposed to be the love interest? Why is he acting like he stopped maturing at three years old?

This isn't romantic, or even remotely amusing behavior, despite what the author would have us believe.

I can’t believe I have to beg and plead with him—he’s twenty-seven for Pete’s sake.

ARE YOU SURE?! BECAUSE HE'S ACTING LIKE HE'S SEVEN.

"You really promise? You swear on your most prized possession, your autographed poster of ‘NSync?"

I knew he was up to something. My heart double beats and I clutch at it. He means business. My autographed ‘NSync poster is everything to me.

I'm literally on the 6th page. I cannot.

Why did the author even bother writing these people who are almost 30 if she was only going to write them with the emotional maturity of elementary school students? This is so embarrassing... and honestly says a lot about the author if this is how she thinks people nearing their 30s act like this.

I quickly strip down and pull the practically non-existent costume on. Once I think it's on properly, God only knows, there’s not much too it, I turn around and gaze at myself in the mirror. My mouth gapes open, and all I can do is stare at my image and the lack of costume it’s wearing. Damn Ashlee for suggesting this stupid store. I swear the next time I see my little, meddling, fashionista, best girlfriend; I am going to do some serious bodily harm. I should have known this store only stocked skimpy costumes. It should be named Slutty R’ Us, not Harry’s Costumes.

I literally don't know what she even expected.

I have a feeling it is going to be a very interesting Halloween party.

Chapter 1 summary: One year before the prologue, we enter on Evan and Zoey trying on costumes from the Slutty R' Us costume shop. Evan is being a brat about it, and Zoey bribes him to come out in his... uh... I'm not even sure how you could make Tarzan sexier. The dude literally just wears a loincloth and nothing else. This goes on for way too long, and it's tedious and physically painful to read.

Zoey is really turned on by the sight of Evan in literally a loincloth, and keeps reminding herself that she isn't his type. He usually goes for leggy blondes... Except for one girl. He was with her for a really long time before they abruptly broke up. Zoey doesn't know why, which she thinks is a little weird, considering how close she and Evan usually are.

When it's Zoey's turn, she puts on her sexy outfit. She thinks that she looks good, but then remembers that they're going to a party, and there will be a lot of eyes on her. Evan calls to her to come out, and his jaw is practically on the floor when he sees her. He says that it's a good thing that they're going together, so that he can beat the guys back from her. However, Zoey is glad that she is going with the sexy costume, so that she can maybe find a real date.  

[gleefullypolin]

I am still highly distracted by the spoilers and suffering for it but hearing that both Obi Wan is done after ep4 and that the carriage scene is also in ep4, I think a lot of the over the top yelling about Kenebling I saw was a touch dramatic.

(not that I am also not dramatic, I am and will continue to be so)

I haven't read or thought much on Penelope possibly having a dream but if she does...good for us, ha. I know the metadata said a dream in ep2 but in my head (and the way I'd write a fic) it would be near the end of the ep to bookend the brothel scene at the front to contrast both how he acts with her and his feelings for her over the episode. Cue wake up scene and fade to black for a mini cliffhanger before going into the 3rd ep where that garden scene is supposed to be for real. What a ride it's going to be.

Knowing we get some serious yearning, jealousy, horny jail vibes and they pretty much have to be eps 2-4 before the carriage scene that's so much to work in through 3 episodes, Obi Wan feels so much more like a plot device than anything else at this point.

Oh they are so angry about the promo. Every time I open twitter I see a new and offensive bad take on why we're getting promo but they didn't (in 2022, with the pandemic restrictions still going strong no less). It's nasty behavior and says a lot more about them than it does about s3. Truly one season per couple is perfect. No pressure to break them up for drama, no storylines fading and feeling hugely OOC or painful for almost a whole season just to act like the huge conflict never happened because they're moving onto the next one. I will happily let the next couple take the spotlight and all the better if I manage to get invested in them along the way.

20 years? That's so impressive! Adulting and too much of it, I agree, but impressive nonetheless.

I am so distracted and still searching down holes I probably would never go down to find more spoilers LOL! But I need all of them. I did see that we only get Obi Wan in 1, 3 and 4. And I would be good with that. I saw the Carriage spoiler and girl I died. I saw it ends on a cliffhanger and I will say I do have a rule about no cliffhangers because they give me the GREATEST anxiety there is. So as soon as episode ends I will be back down my spoiler hole for episode 5.

I think if you look up the word dramatic in the dictionary (something they definitely had when I was younger) it would have my name listed there. I read something that brothel scene number 1 happens in episode 2 and that brother scene number 2 didn’t come until episode FOUR! FOUR!!! I said. Yes I got dramatic again. I might have dropped to my knees in true Darth Vader style and yelled NOOOOOOO! But then I said Stacy…and Yes I talk to myself a lot…I said Stacy shut the front door, it will be ok. And then I was fine. Because then I remembered that no one knows really anything past episode one and we are all making stuff up in our heads and getting paranoid now.

I think its going to be fun and games and yearning and pining with a pinch of annoying there is this other suitor who likes veggies hanging out in the back for a couple of episodes and then all of a sudden episode 4 there is going to be some serious shit going down. And whatever happens in that one is going to be the ballgame. Because I noticed we only got like 3 screenshots from that episode. Like two of her in her dress dancing with Lord Kenobi at the ball and her serious face as he’s talking to her. And then Colin all angry and serious on the stairs…so what the hell goes down in 4 because damn. That’s where it all goes sideways and they end up literally sideways in a carriage!

I saw more beautiful promo today of Nic and Newts in Australia and it made me just flutter and flurry and not care that everyone was angry about it because it was so sweet and pure that you have to be mad and crazy to be angry about it. The things I have read that they keep saying about them is just trash and not nice. I’m happy it’s one season because if you focus on a couple for too long, writers have a tendency to screw it up by adding in dumb things to keep the story interesting like new love interests or fake drama that no one asked for. I’ve watched too many Ryan Murphy shows to trust writers. I want to see them happy and sexed up next season and running off to find a room. Maybe Colin can throw in a couple lines of “My wife” to make me giggle too.

I was ok with 20 years until my co workers told me it was like 41,600 hours of my life…though I’m pretty sure a lot of those hours were sneaking off to read fanfiction too.