#bc theres no full time job that i can work that will ever give me even half the middle ground that i crave bc of my dumb disabled body that

[t00nyah]

t00nyah explaining project moon without actually explaining project moon

after posting lcb trigger warning i wanted to do this

or

me explaining project moon in the shortest way possible except its goofy af bc im eepy and lazy but im in a desperately talkative mood (i post mostly about limbus company since it came out cmon)

what the fuck is projmoon:

project moon is the coolest ever indie game development team we love them; they've made three games so far, also have an unfinished novel, a...idk, just another novel that was initially a comic but im a hater (im sorry(not)), and another comic

they've been doing it for like 7 years almost and still have no idea what optimization is but its okay we love them

there's a lot of killing and just amoral guys in general who can and will kill thousands. its THE 'your meow meow killed thousands of people' 'and they looked good doing it!' universe. everyone is fucked up there guys. but UMMM thats kinda the appeal

so the games! we all here are gamerzzz!

LC

it all started 6 years ago, when lobotomy corporation released in early access and my gf was like hey look what i found

lobotomy corp is a game where you're a manager in a big company, L corp, and you have to get your guys, employees(lucky ones who got the job) to work with abnormalities(fucked up creatures) so they would generate enkephalin, a big energy resource

except your guys will probably die when you're already so attached to them so you just restart the day each time this happens

theres like a maaassive plot, it is the beginning of literally everything, like some stuff still haunts us in limbus company (looking at a particular individual) and there are more characters that you'll fucking love(sephirahs) and then learn their fucked up story (and then learn your fucked up story and not be happy about it)

ah yes while im on it theres no actual self incert in project moon games im sorry but every character IS a character

gameplay-wise you just have to organize your guys, give them equipment, assign them to a job, make them suffer and struggle to suppress abnormalities if they try to make a mess(kill everyone) and do hard tasks your besties make you do

LoR

later, in like 2018 i think, they almost immediately after full release of LC announced a sequel, library of ruina

library of ruina is a game that continues the story(duh) and i can't tell you much about it without spoiling lob corp too, but in this one you have to USE BRAIN like A LOT because its a STRATEGY CARD GAME

in this one you dont even have a character you play as, you just follow the characters' on their journey. but dw! you'll get your own customizable guys to adore here too!

basically in this game the characters from LC and your guys are called librarians and you have to greet guests of the library, that were specifically invited there and /tp-ed, basically fighting them. every battle has its own story and eventually it branches off into four arcs and oh gott i love library of ruina a'right you meet characters for like one story and then have to fight them knowing their issues and how life fucked them over enough to get there</3

gameplay-wise you build cool decks from cards of those you've killed for your guys, pick guys for fight and then pick cards. simple. i think. not so simple in game but i simplified it

there's also a lot of amazing lore drops, bc in LC we were kinda isolated and focused on the corporation, but in LoR? we get to see all kinda of people of The City, we learn about The City, we learn about factions and all, we get all the lore we missed by being stuck in that manager chair

LCB

okay and now we're here. limbus my fucking company.

limbus company was, again, announced almost immediately after LoR's full release(PM are CRAZY), and released february 27 of this year, and already has more story in word count than lor does or so i've heard...

limbus company is pm's first mobile game(but dw there is a steam release if you're more of a pc person or your phone will explode if you try to install it(and it will)) and their first...(behold) gacha game. yep. but no dont get scared it actually has the best gacha system ever known to men

they've also tried to make it enjoyable without getting into previous games but to me it doesnt feel right i dunno i feel like it's just not that cool without knowing the context and going insane screaming at carmen or connecting the dots, also like the events of LCB are all connected to LC and LoR, so ummm if you try to get into limbus without at least learning what the other games contain be ready i'll personally explode you

in this game you basically play as dante(they/them for the sake of mysteriousness of 'who TF they are') and you have 12 deranged guys named the sinners who are ALL BASED OFF FUCKING CLASSIC LITERATURE did you fucking know pm are fucking literacy nerds and cant have a game without book references without exploding??? well they are.

so the characters (IN CASE YOU'RE INTERESTED) are:

1. gregor (metamorphosis, franz kafka)

2. rodion (crime and punishment, fyodor dostoyevsky)

3. (emil) sinclair (demian, hermann hesse)

4. yi sang (the wings, yi sang (kim hae-gyeong))

5. ishmael (moby dick, herman melville)

6. heathcliff (wuthering heights, emily bronte)

7. don quixote (don quixote, miguel de cervantes)

8. hong lu (dream of the red chamber, cao xueqin)

9. ryoshu (hell screen, ryunosuke akutagawa)

10. meursault (the stranger, albert camus)

11. outis (the odyssey, homer)

12. faust (faust, johann wolfgang von goethe)

also don't forget dante is based on the divine comedy by dante alighieri!

also dante DOESNT FUCKING KNOW SHIT. faust seems to know all shit and never tell dante.

i mentioned it being a gacha game. so like. you dont pull characters. instead you pull the initial deranged guys' alternative versions where they end up on another job like cult leader or a terrorist idk

the best part? you dont necessarily have to get them from gacha in most cases, you can get special currency, ego shards, to get whatever you want separately. also pm added ideality that you get from unfortunate pulls that you can spend on the special identity from the banner. but tbh i think its way easier to get the shards needed than pull that much, not really worth it

gameplay-wise? well. you have to basically just choose your guys' identities(those alt versions, they use them in fights to be stronger), choose their skills, a little similar to ruina (except TBH lcb lets you fuck around and put it on auto until it doesnt really work out (please dont autoplay with r corp ishmael or at least check what they're doing you silly goop they might do friendly fire if you're stupid enough)). the game consists of cantos, chapters that tell you a separate story of a sinner(in the order i gave earlier, not everyone knows that), that have story-episodes(cool ones), story-and-fight-then-episodes(epic ones), and sometimes just-fight-episodes(who the fuck thought those are a good idea?). and in the end of a canto there's always a dungeon. honestly, first two cantos are easy enough to just learn basics yourself, im rambling at this point

there's also hellish grind options and paid stuff like battle pass with the coolest perks ever

also LoR and LCB have mili songs, which is fucking cool, they're such bangers. no no projmoon games' ost in general. just fuckign bangers my guys and i mean it.

well that was fun and games. like i mentioned theres also:

Distortion Detective

im such a fucking fan of this unfinished novel, im so upset they abandoned it </3 pm did say they're probably going to rework it as a game or smth later but in my opinion it just loses its charm if its not a novel

distortion detective ... i cant explain it without spoilers to the games but its basically about moses, the distortion detective, who solves distortions which are like uhhmmm... people turning into some funky shit(that expresses their feelings). and she has a parthner named ezra. they're both poor traumatized women. and stuff happens. thats all i can say without spoiling everything. you learn a lot about the distortion phenomenon from moses' perspective.

WonderLab

wonderlab is a comic made by artist mimi, that follows taii, rose and catt. its about another lobotomy corp branch that actually introduces us to the concept of abnormality aberrations (slightly similar but different abnormalities like we have a little red riding hooded mercenary's(do you remember me mentioning pm being literacy nerds?) team fortress blue team version or whatever) that is used in limbus quite a lot so we old people from LC can be like 'heehehehe this is like like snow white's apple's aberration, so funny, reminds me of good ol' days...'

Leviathan

my main enemy. initially it was a comic, but i think they had to stop working with the artist for some reason and continue it as a novel instead.

issue?

i didnt read it. im so sorry i failed you. but i cant. first vergilius, main character, is ugly AS FUCK and he's STUPID i hate his guts. BUT OH DEAR LORD HE APPEARS IN LIMBUS COMPANY AND I HATE HIM EVEN MORE. AND NOT JUST APPEARS, HE'S THE GUIDE OF THE BUS, HE'S KINDA ALWAYS THERE. I HATE HIS GUTS. oh hey lap-- charon, no, you're good, you're amazing, vroom-vroom, yes, right, you're so right.

i'm pretty sure it has A LOT of important context for some stuff in LCB but i just CAN'T MAKE MYSELF TOUCH IT. please read leviathan for me.

i'm sorry it turned into a looong ramble but here's t00nyah's awful brief guide to project moon. in case you want to know about world-building or the story in particular...i'm always here to dm me. please do. i really love telling people about project moon. there's just a lot to unpack.

edit. okay apparently it was easy to misinterpret my leviathan commentary so im putting this here for the sake of clearing the confusions for future!! tl;dr: i know it wasn't continued as a comic for REASONS, it's OBVIOUS!! and yes, leviathan is important, i just can't make myself read it therefore don't have enough knowledge to write about it(cool idea: write your own post about leviathan if you're seeing this and are enthusiastic about it! i just won't.), i still don't like vergilius, it's just a me-thing. DO read leviathan if you're interested</3

edit2. after thinking for a while, decided to add this just in case: i was given a summary of leviathan! well. it IS something. (opinion on vergilius hasn't changed much sorry not sorry, still a me-thing.) but yeah 👍 all good 👍 still not liking it much, mayhaps because i couldn't read it myself, but. it can be found here in the comment section.

[flockofdoves]

i objectively would choose my current situation over basically any other time of my life ive lived through but also nonetheless sometimes it feels a bit meaningless to look back at previous periods of my life like ‘thank god im at least out of that situation’ because theres always a new way for things to be really bad. like when i was isolated and worked one on one with an evil evil evil supervisor in a job that flared up my chronic pain i was able to go to sleep on a regular schedule and made some art in my free time and didnt have roommates who stole and ruined all my stuff and made me take care of their animals. like i still absolutely choose ‘having friends and living with my girlfriend and having the opportunity to continue my learning’ over that but i hate how no situation ever sums out to on a whole things being better on a level of how emotionally and physically draining it is on average throughout a normal week. i absolutely have much higher highs now but the wide variety of stressors are way more complicated to balance. i want to someday get to a point in my life where just objectively i can reflect on how i feel throughout an average week and Know 100% it averages to better than it has instead of just being a different flavor of bad. but also idk maybe im just emotionally immature and dont know how to handle anything

i keep thinking about dropping out again but i know thatd just change the flavor of bad. my mom would stop giving me any financial support and i dont think being able to work full time would make up for that. id probably linger too long in doing nothing bc of my current burn out then struggle getting out of the hole that would create and id really regret just dropping what i cared about with school and work related stuff rn and i wouldnt know how to keep up with people i know from those contexts. and i know the biggest reason im continuing with school is because some of the few jobs that seem physically and emotionally sustainable for me require a degree. so i do really just have to continue like this. it could be worse absolutely 100% i know that but i just dont know how to have hope for it being better. its not even that bad but i still dont know how to sustain it

[samuelroukin]

god, okay so re: gaz being very deliberate/smooth af and also liking to be called baby boy: for similar reasons I was thinking 'princess' (which I will admit is maybe personal bias sdfgsdfg but thats where my brain goes for pretty + cool + spoil me) at first in a generic way but then I was thinking about han calling leia princess to piss her off in star wars and uhh is it just me or do those two dynamics have a lot in common?? this might be kinda crack-adjacent but I can't stop thinking about it

like on the price/han side: kinda macho and cold and lives for the job, but the minute he actually likes someone (true for friends also but its infinitely worse for crushes) turns into a giant dork full of feelings with barely enough bluster for plausible deniability, and also like, the thing where when they get together he goes soft (princess (derogatory) becomes princess (mine)) and lets the other one get their way all the time, but can never fully let go of their original posturing,, also, teasing/banter as a form of affection, not in the ghostsoap way where they're playing gay chicken, but more of a feelings chicken thing bc once he starts caring he can't stop, and thats terrifying bc it messes with his self image, but at the same time needing to know that his feelings are reciprocated ... oh, and some angst about the other one being unattainable, too good for him etc

and then on the gaz/leia side: just to state the obvious - is it really necessary to look that good just to run around a war zone with your friends? no but they're going to do it anyway - gets rescued and skips past grattitude straight into 'I'm gonna give you a piece of my mind', anger tends to come out icy and cutting, it takes a lot to make them loose their composure/way with words, not just chatty or good with people but diplomatic (in the words are just another way to fight sense, and they want to win the war not just this battle), also, and this is one of the things that makes me think 'princess' in particular (in the sense of 'ruler in waiting'), they have pride but it doesn't seem to cost them anything to yeild to others when it makes sense, like, they're not self important people, they're people who are used to being important, and thats a big difference - at this point they're still quite young and have more qualifications than most people ever will but they don't have a big head over it bc they're not most people, and they know they have a long way to go before they reach their full potential (I'm not sure I'm explaining this well at all dsfgsdfgsdfg). also idk if this is confirmed or denied in canon anywhere but I'd like to think gaz has a real sense of being from somewhere (positive) and thats where some of his swagger and even keel comes from. idk if he still has that community to go back to or if he outgrew it (maybe being stationed in london wasn't working for more than just work reasons) but either way, that sense of identity tied to a specific place and time is another thing he's got in common with leia.

and then when it comes to the people they like, they don't hide it exactly, but it doesn't break their composure either, like they'll admit they like them back when they decide to do so and not a minute before, and you can see the crush on their face but its not straightforward sappiness, theres layers to it (and maybe they need a bit of a battle of wills to like someone that much in the first place, maybe theres a bit of conqueror in them and it wouldnt be fun if it was too easy), the only time you get raw emotion before they decide to confess is when they think the other person is really about to die.

also the scene from empire strikes back where leia kisses luke to make han jealous? I think that would totallyyy work with gaz kissing soap in front of price, like I think soap would be like 'yeah okay I'm enough of a bro/slut for this' and help gaz make it look good, thinks its worth the risk of punishment bc of how good ghost is gonna fuck him after, but no punishment is forthcoming bc price just watches gaz go and lets him get away with it, and thats when soap starts to realize there's maybe more to all of price and gaz's banter even tho its very PG compared to him flirting with ghost -- idk can you tell that I have a hard time getting into gaz pov lol? part of what I'm trying to solve here, and also one of the things I like about han and leia as a paralell is they spend a lot of time in the crushing but not fucking yet stage which is the hardest part of gazprice imo

I'd love to know if you agree or disagree with any of that charactarization but also feel free to ignore this weird tangent sfdgssdfg

i know way too little about star wars 😭 but gaz being called princess is 👀 (as long as it doesn't have the feminization thing that often goes along with it, but that might be personal bias against it on my part lol)

also this "(princess (derogatory) becomes princess (mine)" god yes

also also this "gaz kissing soap in front of price, like I think soap would be like 'yeah okay I'm enough of a bro/slut for this' and help gaz make it look good" yesssss

i think all of this makes sooo much sense even with my limited sw knowledge, i think you're getting him pretty good (just like price will when --)

and another thing i think he has in common with her is the way they're both stubborn as FUCK

[sanchoyo]

sorry hi again. want a queen ship mocumentary.

^_^)/)🌵

touching the cactus.

oh me too.... I don't think there's a single character thats NOT a hot mess, and theres so many of them that it would have a few full seasons of shenanigans. the character dynamics...

-everyone having a crush on pereskia. (she is extremely aro and too focused on Important Matters to actually notice)

-arilla doing way more jobs than he SHOULD be and being an exasperated babysitter to everyone. please just let him eat an entire cake alone and drop into a food coma. thats all he wants hes already half dead!! let him rest!!!

-queen's the horribly demanding boss that you dont want to say no to, because..she IS nice, don't wanna hurt her FEELINGS, but...my goodness she asks a LOT. but she asks it so nicely!!! (the running gag of her being so proper and pretty in public vs in the lab when shes a mess, too) + queen and arilla both being the worst at fighting. the episode where pereskia, worried queen might not do so well if shes not there to act as a body guard, tries to teach her to fight and its the most pathetic flailing youve ever seen in your life. she gets a LITTLE sweaty and just curls up bc its TOO HARD and shes SORE and doesnt want to be sweaty anymore :( (she has done (1) push-up, with shaky arms)

-sapote and cara being an entire comedic duo. cara's culture shock abt the aliens vs sapote never being shocked by humans bc shes so down for anything. (all of the other aliens are shocked by how unphased sapote always is) sapote and her sister being SOOO opposites (her sister is older, more mature, and way sweeter. and also a crybaby) +the daycare shenanigans vs how...it would very quickly devolve into an r rated series if sapote was the main focus and we werent around any kid or teen charas jkdhfkj it would turn into. magical girl rick and morty im sorry to say but its the truth

-saguaro and queen's little passive aggressive talks every time they speak to each other. 'oh im sorry was it SCIENCE that brought deep blue back the first time? noo it was the miracle of mew aqua miss queen ^_^' 'mew aqua IS science from our ancestors ^_^' 'no, i think you're mistaken! there's no way thats true it was a gift from deep blue ^___^' ...everyone deciding saguaro is a weirdo (they are ALL weirdos) but then it cuts to saguaro explaining WHY they do things in their particular way (explaining deep blue cult stuff) and its like oh ok! theres an entire cult on this ship! haha thats probably fine! but they keep insisting its SUPER normal guys cmon. also using it to justify anything they do. deep blue sama WOULD want you to give them that bag of tea and pastries u stole from the cafe btw he told them himself. not lying btw. true and if you dont well. PERHAPS deep blue will tell them to put a tack on your chair.

-erdisia having to take a workplace sensitivity class bc she keeps trash talking humans. sure, we want to kill ALL OF THEM, but! you ought to speak nicer abt them when cara's around!!! :/ (none of them see the irony in this btw except arilla whos regularly just staring directly into the camera like :\ ) every ep she tries to sabotage cara so SHE can work with sapote senpai instead. this is always thwarted in extremely looney toons fashion and its so frustrating to her but hilarious to watch. tunillo is in the same sensitivity class. but they, and this is important, cannot STAND each other and refuse to believe they have any of the same issues (or their humanphobia is even an issue)

-tunillo refusing to sleep for a week and starts being increasingly paranoid and hallucinating things on the screens he monitors bc hes so sleep deprived. so every other hour hes setting off red alerts and everyones panicked trying to find the. fake threats...that increasingly become more absurd...but by the end everyones incredibly unhinged and worn out by the end because theyve been on high alert all day...so they dont believe tunillo when he spots team tm2 actually breaking into the ship HAHA

-cara catches a (mild, normal) human cold, and everyone else catches it and are convinced theyre gonna die of Human Cooties. rip. and like, queen is a doctor. like, shes a scientist, and shes a doctor, technically speaking! but no one with a brain* TRUSTS her to do regular doctor things (*sapote and arilla are outliers adn should not be counted.) but in the event of everyone getting sick, she WANTS to play doctor!!! please just let her poke you with a LITTLE needle 🥺 she wont do anything weird she promisessss u wont wake up tomorrow glowing purple or anything 🥺🥺🥺

-cara calling tunillo an incel gamer type and he has NO idea what ANY of those DIRTY EARTH WORDS mean but hes SO insulted bc of her tone that he goes and rats on her to queen. queens like, cara honey sweetie my dear little snake child. what does gamer mean? and cara turning red trying not to to laugh. and shes like ohh no worries maam. gamer is a COMPLIMENT. and her and sapote and arilla are trying SO hard. so hard. not to laugh bc queen spends the week telling everyone theyre being such GOOD gamers!!!

-sapote continuing to bring human things on the ship, and people asking cara what they are since shes their resident human. and cara just starts, at some point. lying? for her own entertainment? theres not much else To Do when ur So Watched all the time. so its like oh yeah! well THAT is an item of HUGE importance to us, used in very sacred ceremonies. very ancient and beloved. and it cuts to a shot of a toilet plunger.

-cara and sapote dont have clearance to certain areas. (cara even less than sapote!) they want to GO in certain areas sometimes. (well. sapote does, and cara is obligated to follow her) so it stands to reason they just. they just gotta get the fingerprint of someone who DOES have that clearance! like arilla! sapote knocks him over the head and the entire episode is them trying to weekend at burnies him around to explore the ships more closed off areas. but they keep being stopped by EVERYONE because EVERYONE needs SOMETHING from arilla, all of the time. forever.

-the running joke of erdisia being some kind of Creeture, like. why is she like that in general? crouched in the rafters hissing. can someone get her down. shes tiny but so so so mean. there would be erdisia roast comp videos of all her sickest burns.

-all of them enabling each others worst behaviors. its like if its always sunny was set in a scifi setting. an episode where mira gets kidnapped or something and is like wow! all of you are really messed up :/

-...the quiche commentary corner where it cuts to him in his cell making comments on everything (dont ask how he can know whats going on. its not important whats important are his opinions) he hears abt mira and is like ohh. so. do you think them having a mew kid is gonna add stress? to like, ichigo and masaya's marriage? u think theres a chance of divorce? think I got a shot maybe? ik its been 20+ years but 🤔 instead of caring abt the drama of queens upper circle, LMAO

[princeanxious]

You need some help? Do I need a shovel?

Ooo yeah id love to dig myself a nice hole to chill in /g

But for real yeah no im just real agitated at the world and life n' stuff and bc I cant catch a real break lately its like gnawing at me and wont let me chill

(And uh. I may have just. Vented a ton in the tags so like. Pls feel free to ignore that. It was mostly just to get it off my chest.)

[antiloreolympus]

10 Anti LO Asks

1. It took over a 150 chapters for Hera to face the consequences of trying to set up her niece and brother in law knowing full well her sister would hate that union. 

2. i just dont get how rachel is totally ok to listen to and take ideas by random people to add to LO, but is offended over the idea she listen to even minor input from literal greeks for her GREEK MYTHOLOGY story. like she'll take suggestions to add r4pe to her story for shock value, but listening to greeks to make it even a little accurate is too much to ask of her? im not saying she has to do a "presents" line like riordan does, but silencing greeks out of their own culture's stories? really?

3. am i the only one who hate the modern setting? something about it is so underwhelming, and rachel focuses on it way too much to where when she finally tries to add fantasy and/or ancient elements (flying around, the ancient clothes, growing big (??), the magic pom, etc) it just feels out of place. a lot of stories have a blend of modern and fantasy but LO just overemphasizes the modern too much for too long that the fantasy now being added seems random over a natural fit.

4. im not against the idea of making up new stories for the gods to work in, but i think the issue with LO is none of the stories add anything? like why do we need a chosen one story in persephone? why do we need hades to now be a kaiju to take out his dad? why have hera be a cheater? why have persephone need to teach hades slavery is bad? why have a trial? & the list goes on. theres so many interesting new stories you could use with them and LO picks the most useless ones, esp in a romance comic.

5. Idk if this is just me or what, but the panel of Hera snorting in laughter after Hestia talks about Persephone being a candidate for TGOEM comes off so poorly timed considering Hera is fully aware that Persephone can't be in TGOEM bc of the Apollo thing

And ik the scene is supposed to be more like "haha hestia thinks she doesn't love Hades bc of TGOEM" so maybe I'm looking Too Deep but that was the impression I got when I first read the scene, it made me feel really icky rather then laughing with her 

6. the idea of rachel even touching the other pantheons is a threat, also would just lead to a bigger mess. rachel for starters cannot stand hxp not being the top so?? would persephone take out the abrahamic god when they become more culturally important than the previous pantheons?? like she can joke the other gods are out there but she cant even keep one pantheon together, imagine her trying to connect a bunch of others that she cant rip off from tumblr text posts. it'd be a disaster.

7. rachel: i hate people acting like PJO is the best depiction of myth. also rachel: you should 1000% see my completely made up story masquerading as greek myth as the most accurate thing ever.

-----FP Spoilers/Mention-----

8. (Spoilers for chapter 190!)

So I have a lot to say here but I'm gonna keep it brief

Firstly, are we really saying Persephone having wrath is just Eris' meddling? Is that what we're doing? And that Persephone only has ambitions because Eris gave her wrath? Okay. Okay. Persephone literally couldn't have dreams without interference from someone else, idk what else to say other then how fucking sad that is, and more "Oh see shes not bad at all, it was Eris who made her do it because she cursed her uwu"

Secondly, ik it was done for bad reasons but Zeus' punishment for Persephone is the highlight of season 2 for me. That's all I'm gonna say. 

9. FP Spoiler: Man, my prediction that Persephone will be the one to cause winter looks like it might be coming true. I’m calling it now - Persephone will mess up doing her mom’s job, get angry about not being able to see Hades (I doubt she’ll give a shit about her mom now living as a mortal - it’ll be a passing, one panel mention at most) and then she’ll cause the winter by “oopsies”.

Also, let’s see how bad RS messes up the Demeter’s Exile to Eleusis. She already messed it up by making it a Zeus punishment instead of a self-imposed exile. Screw the importance of Demeter exiling herself from Olympus I guess. 

10. FP Spoilers Episode 190: I'm fucking crying, Persephone has absolutely nothing to make her interesting anymore.

Her intelligence was warped into her brain by Athena, she's pretty because Aphrodite slapped her with a pink cushion (and also because Hera), she's kind not because that's her personality, but because Hestia literally crammed kindness down her throat and her ambitions and anger issues aren't the natural result of her smothered childhood, they're just Eris deciding to be a dickhead for no reason.

I have asked this question many times throughout the trial, but exactly what was the point of this entire scene again??? Why did RS have to give Persephone a pseudo-Sleeping Beauty backstory??? What has this accomplished??? Everything this episode told us about Persephone we've already known since mid-season 1! Why is RS so determined to suck all the intrigue out of her characters via bs-retcons??

Also, wow, really feminist of RS to introduce a new, supposedly super-powerful female character, only to have her literally dragged down by Asspollo and humiliated in front of everyone. So empowering. So cool./s

Eris did legit nothing. She showed up, rattled down some more "look how cool Persephone is"-talk disguised as a "tragic" backstory-twist, got pulled around a little bit and then disappeared. Cut out her scenes and absolutely nothing changes. Same for Apollo revealing he's Zeus' son. (Which, wow, what a plot-twist. Who could have seen this coming. Not like Apollo and Artemis being Zeus' kids is basically a cornerstone of their mythos./s)

Also also, this episode tried way too hard to make me feel bad for Persephone after the verdict. Like, oh nooo, you got put on the gods' equivalent to house arrest and community service? In a literal paradise, far away from the guy who wanted to force you into marriage and everyone else who could hurt you? And you get to be ruler of the mortal realm too? You poor baby, however will you bear this cross?

There is literally only one downside to this outcome and it's that hxp won't be allowed to see each other for a while. (Though even then, I wouldn't really call it a downside, hxp has been nothing but forced and terrible.) Zeus even says, right after verdict, that the punishment is temporary and that he'll lift it when he's convinced Persephone and Demeter have atoned for their crimes. But hxp act like this means they'll be separated forever and do all this overly dramatic kissing and I'm sitting here like "calm the fuck down, it's literally not that bad???"

[bnha-butterfly]

Hi! Aaaaa it says reqs are open so? Dbdbbff could i pls request the twins suna and kita with a trans male autistic s/o? Like headcanons on how they interact with him or whatever u want really tbh jdndfnn just ignore this if i did it wrong and sorry if i was specific enough. Ty in advance!

 Kita, Suna, Atsamu, Osamu with an autistic trans male s/o

Hi hi random ask again fnfnf so u said u prob might take a while to get around to my request so i figured if i sent this ask in to give further detail it wouldnt like really screw with anything bc u havent started working on it yet? Presumably? Hdhdhf when i sent my req in i didnt really have anything specific in mind outside of general autism but! I did think of more details that i havent seen really talked about in general (in all kinda autism content and discussions ngl) so uh what do u think about adding to my request "low functioning" s/o like cant go to school or get a job bc its just so stressful and s/o cant cope type stuff (bc whenever theres autism representation its always the more "higher functioning" end of things which is like not everyones autism? Like its like that very one dimensional type of autism rep when theres so many different ways it affects ppl and - i am not going to go on a rant in an ask jesus christ im so sorry djdhfh) and dealing with some rejection sensitivity dysphroia/rsd?? Bc these are topics that dont really get covered and all fnfnfn its ok if u dont want/cant add this to my req tho im sorry for just randomly springing more details on you dhdhfb also sorry this is really long and wordy and if its hard to understand i tried to write it in a way thatd make sense dnfjf i just wanted to send this for your consideration ok ty! Sjdjfh 💚💚 💚

A/n - Just as a heads up I try to keep my blog as functioning label free as possible cus they lowkey make me uncomfy (don’t worry I didn’t have it in my rules so it's okay!) I’ll explain why they make me uncomfy/ why I hate them in a different post if anyone wants to know why. 

Kita Shinsuke

  This man always has a stim toy. Realistically he probably has a little pouch in his book bag that he carries with him everywhere that is just full of stim items. There’s a stress ball , a fidget cube and a few other things

Whenever you feel dysphoric he will literally remind you about how handsome you are. I mean like stand you in front of the mirror and point out all of his favorite parts of you

Definitely reminds you to be kind to your body and your brain cus they’re doing the best they can

If he has to cancel plans with you he always makes it up to you and tells you that he’d rather spend time with you.

Kita is so understanding and caring. He understands that school and work aren’t really an option for everyone for different reasons and he definitely understands that both are designed for neurotypical people.

Suna Rintaro

Rin keeps an extra pair of headphones on him at all times for if you get overwhelmed 

If you ever mention to him that you’re going to sleep or if he sending you a good night text he always reminds you to take off your binder

Sometimes he wants to hangout with the team and has to turn you down. He knows RSD can make turning down spending time together feel like a kick in the face so he always promises to spend time with you later and tell you he loves you

If you ever have a low spoons + dysphoria type of day he’s coming over and spending time with you in bed. He’s bringing some of your favorite snacks/drinks/food and one of his hoodies that still smell like him. 

His love language is quality time so he probably takes you on a lot of dates. Especially if they have something to do with your special interest or hyper fixation

Miya Osamu

He learns how to cook all of your safe foods just the way you like it.

Every morning you are greeted with a kiss to your temple and a sleepy Osamu grumbling a soft “good morning handsome” to you.

He understands that work isn’t really for you. But, sometimes he’ll take you with him to the onigiri shop with him to keep him company. 

This man would move heaven and earth to see you happy everyday without hesitation. 

He’s super responsive to all boundaries you have. Don’t want to be touched or cuddled a certain way? Okay. Need him to give you space after a meltdown/shutdown or on extremely dysphoria days? No problem.

Miya Atsumu

If you are nonverbal/semi verbal he definitely made you communication cards. He gave them to you for either an anniversary or your birthday and they are super well done. They’re laminated their color coated and they’re just lovely

He’s such a good listener. He could listen to you talk all day and never get tired. Whether it’s you just talking about insecurities while in bed together or him listening to you talk about a hyperfixation/ special interest you know he’s always willing to listen. 

Insecurities who??? Not with Atsumu around. If he is not kissing away your insecurities he’s making you “laugh away the bad vibes”. 

He always reminds you how much he loves you. He literally will not leave for practice until he gets a kiss and tells you he loves you, it’s gotten him in trouble for being late a few times but he always says he’d do it again. (and he always ends up doing it again)

[angeltiddies]

eternal skyline of a spotless mind- or the one where the first 5 or so minutes of 15x20 are the only minutes i accept. 

in which i ramble a whole ficlet on accident and y’all i need the full fic. yes there’s a tinnnny bit of smut. also spn 15x20 spoilers slightly 

now i want the fic where dean applies to be a mechanic, gets the job, does real good. he and miracle live in the bunker, sam and eileen moved out a year ago now to follow a job opportunity for eileen. it’s a big place to be alone in. he keeps watching over and over all of the movies he has in a file entitled ‘cas’ favourites’ he sips whiskey, a responsible amount, and pets miracles head while his head is on his lap. sometimes he dives into the lore, he’s glad sam isnt here to give him shit about finally doing his research, but he’s trying to find a way to cas. to save him. and one day he tries to mix up a spell thatll open a portal into the dark nothing and his ingredients sputter and spark and he thinks it’s gonna work this is it, and it just doesnt. the smoke clears, the sparks stop popping, and there’s nothing. and so that night he goes into the dungeon draped in one of cas’ old trenchcoats and he sits in that spot he had to sit years ago and he cries, and miracle sits beside him and he cries because he’s trying he’s trying to live for love he’s trying to do right by cas and he just....he cant...cas died thinking dean didnt...didnt love him. and god, does dean love him. so he cries and he whispers iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou and he falls asleep on the concrete, uses miracle as a pillow but dean doesnt think he minds. and he wakes up in the morning, eyes puffy, and he drags himself to work, and he’s back to square one. and this continues for a while, dean doesnt really remember when he tried the spell, but it’s been a while. a month, maybe more. and he goes into work, and there’s a new car for him to work on. it’s old, a classic, but dean kinda thinks she’s more junk than classic, sue him, and he starts working on it, and he opens the trunk to pop a particularly stubborn dent out of it, the client’s not paying for that but he just can’t let the car be driven around all beat up, and there, right in the trunk, is a trenchcoat. bundled up, and tan and big and dean grabs it, he shouldnt but he does and his heart is beating so fast as he brings it to his nose and smells it and it’s cas it has to be and so he rushes to the front office, demands to know who the client is, when are they coming by and as he’s going completely wild wanting to know everything it suddenly goes calm. because there, in a worn flannel and blue jeans, is cas. castiel. and dean just looks for a moment, to convince himself its real, and then hes rushing to a wide eyed cas and saying ‘you stupid son of a bitch’ and crashing his lips into those ones which he has wanted for and then cas isnt really kissing back so dean stops because he...he cant take anything more from cas, he needs to give and he...he stops himself because what if...what if this wasn’t what cas wanted, so he pulls back, lets his hands linger on the soft of the flannel, and then cas is speaking, head quirked, ‘do i...do i know you?’ and fuck. his heart drops right out of his ass. his knees buckles and hes on his way down when castiel catches him, pulls him up, hand on his shoulder, and he holds on to him. and dean lets out a ‘you don’t remember?’ and castiel says, ‘no. i...i dont i’m so sorry.’ and dean thinks all hope is lost until cas asks, ‘i know this is too much to ask but it...appears i know you, and i kind of just, woke up one day in a field and i...i dont really have anywhere to go..and um’ and hes rambling but he’s determined to get his little angel back, all the way back, so he says, ‘you wanna come home with me, angel?’ and cas grins and dean wants to see that grin everyday of his life. so he finishes cas’ car, lets him trail behind as they drive to the bunker. he doesn’t explain it really, just opens the door and says ‘well, heres the place’ and cas walks in and looks at everything with such wonder. and he brushes his fingers across the gold embossing of an angel on one of the books there and dean just watches, listens to cas breathing, aches to touch.

he sets cas up in his old room, cas quirks a head when he sees all the suits and ties in the closet, says something like ‘now i understand why i woke up looking like a tax accountant’ and hes being good old cas, sticking so close to dean and he’s sitting beside him to watch a movie and miracle is sprawled across their legs and cas says, ‘i could get used to this’ and dean says, ‘yeah cas, me too.’ so they sit and they watch and they repeat that day in day out and the bunker isnt so lonely anymore, and he and cas do everything together, and dean researches spells to get cas’ memory back. he thinks it has to do with the fact that his grace got ripped out in the process, theres a small nick on his adams apple that he recognizes as the place it must have left, but he coughs himself out of thinking about that neck and those lips and that hair and those thighs and- he hasnt kissed cas since the first day, he longs to. he sees the way this cas looks at him and he wonders. he wonders if maybe...maybe this castiel can learn to love him again. and it’s going on a year now. cas works down at the local flower shop and has an apiary on the hill above the bunker, deans still in his same routine of life, and they’re not...they’re in the same place they were before cas confessed. just, in this middle ground, this unspoken something, so as he lies beneath a car he decides, the happiness isnt in the having its in just being in just saying it, so he goes home that night, picks up flowers from a competing shop bc he doesnt wanna spoil the surprise, and sets up the table. cas’ name is still carved there, cas had laughed when he first saw it because “what kind of long name is that,” and dean was bursting with fond. and anyways he lays down a table cloth and lights a candle and waits. shaking in his skin just waiting for cas to get home, and then cas is walking in saying ‘hello, dean’ and running down the stairs, groceries in paper bags overflowing in his arms, and his hair is disheveled and dean helps grab a bag and puts it in the kitchen and waits for cas to follow and see...the set up. and cas asks, what’s this about? and dean looks at cas and takes a deep breath and says, ‘someone once told me there’s happiness in just....fuck...in just saying it so here goes. and its okay if you..if you dont but...’ and cas is getting closer, his head quirked and deans heart is beating out of his chest and he says ‘i love you.’ and then cas is rumbling, ‘dean, look at me’ and so he does, looks up into wide blue eyes and cas is smiling. smiling so big and beautiful and dean wants to hear it he needs to hear it he needs- ‘i love you too, dean winchester’ and then theyre kissing again, kissing and holding and deans a little embarrassed but hes crying and then theyre skipping dinner entirely and cas has his hand on deans bare shoulder and hes shivering into the touch its so overwhelming and he fucks himself down onto cas’ cock and cas digs his fingernails into deans thighs and looks up at him blue and beautiful and overwhelming and deans pretty sure he blacks out when he comes except, he doesnt, because his eyes are open and the lights in the room are all busted and cas is lying there under him looking up, dean thinks so at least, he can’t really see him and so he laughs and he laughs and he’s not really registering what happened, a beautifully timed power outage like something divine saying this is how you met and he’s here still and you finally have him and so he climbs off of cas and grabs something to wash them up and a candle or two from the table and when he comes back, and wipes the damp cloth gingerly across cas’ body he notices cas tense and he sees in the candlelight cas is looking very serious and he stops being sweet just asks ‘cas? whats wrong’ and cas says, ‘dean? dean. dean winchester... dean...righteous soul the one i fell for and will always fall for the one i love the one i have always...’ and dean dives back on top of cas and kisses him senseless because now cas remembers everything before and he remembers everything after and everything now and its perfect

and honestly they still arent really sure what happened except that maybe the spell needed angel mojo so it snagged it from cas or maybe the empty curled itself around cas mind and all it needed was the Loud of too many emotions to overflood it but all that matters is that they are here together.

and then one day, at the dinner table, cas looks at dean and he says ‘dean, will you....’ and he shuffles inside his pocket and presses a box into deans hand and its- ‘will you marry me?’ and dean is practically leaping over the table to kiss cas and saying “yes yes yes of course of course i wanna grow old with you i wanna be with you always in life and death in everything always together”

and cas is crying because he could have what he wanted, he has the one thing he wants most and dean wants him most too.

and then dean is pulling back and cas is looking pensive and he says, ‘there is one thing, dean.’ and dean looks worried so he places his hand on his knee and he says, ‘i want to be human, all the way human.’ and dean looks like he wants to protest or cry and hes not sure which it is but then dean is crying and saying ‘ill help’ and then the next day theyre out with the bees, because cas thinks his grace will do them good, and dean holds cas’ hand in his tightly and follows that little nick on his throat and opens it ever so slightly with the angel blade and tries not to think about how hes hurting the person he loves and he loves and he loves and then the grace is flowing away and dean captures it in a bottle, hands it to cas, who later pats it down in the ground so they can grow a new tree, and dean gives cas two little stitches on his throat and kisses all around them and washes cas hair for him in the shower and then

when the day comes, they go together, they get to live with one another and watch the sunsets on their front porch with miracle and jack and sam and eileen all looking out over an eternal skyline.

[freebooter4ever]

okay i think ive found a solution to my class woes

'maybe this works better as writing' was essentially what i took from yesterdays class. But i dont think its the fault of the source material - because i can see it play out in my mind crystal clear like a movie. Its just that my skill level is not at a point where i can get that /out/ in a way other people can understand - which admittedly is the entire point of storyboarding. ironically the source material is partially about this exact creative process - the space between Now Here and Here Now the muddle in the middle where nothing works and you're just trying to get to the end for some clarity in order to begin.

basically i see two options: A) i give up my conceptual symbolic bullshit with silly characters and instead pick something easier that i will have a better chance at producing something at a level the class demands (but with no garauntee that even doing something easier i will be able to hit that level bc lets face it my art is shit and ive been trying to improve for so many years that at this point its like maybe this is just /how it is/ so work with it?). option A also seems extra difficult bc i lack whatever creativity most people have for original ideas and i have little motivation to fix this bc ive only ever wanted to visualize my weird silly characters. however pathetic that might be.

B) i can keep drawing what i want to draw and continue with my weird bullshit conceptual symbolism and silly little characters and just take the class as an observer instead of turning in work.

I'm leaning towards the second because i already am doing work i hate at my actual job, the thought of adding more work i dont want to do onto that pile makes me exhausted. And the class is so full that crit went 2 hours overtime and me not turning in work would hardly be noticed. And im learning loads just by watching what other more experienced people are doing. I swear to god its magic watching the instructor pop out storyboard after storyboard in seconds and at first its just lines and then the image comes through at some point in the drawing process and its just like WOW.

I didnt sleep, ive been stressing out about this all night...i just need to figure out a way to propose B without sounding like a slacker who just doesnt want to put the work in. (or AM i a slacker who just doesnt want to put the work in????? I cant tell at this point)

theres also the issue of my house sitting is ending soon, im no longer going to have a space to work that isnt a closet, im still too scared of libraries and cafes (which is where i practically lived all of 2018-19) bc covid - luckily its getting colder so working outside is more reasonable but that means less time bc transportation/bathroom breaks/food are all more difficult. which leaves option C that my depressed brain says 'yes' to but i really stubbornly dont want: drop the class, take the hint, and fucking give up on drawing already.

[collegecoward]

Hey, so I graduated this past May and since then I've just been working 40 hours a week. I feel like I need to go to college to do something with my life but I feel like theres so much in my way and I havent done anything to even start and I dont have a clue what I'd want to do. I'm so unsure on how to do anything regarding financial aid or even applying to colleges. I'm also worried that it wouldn't work with my schedule for my job. I work 5 days with 2 off days and I'm on evenings so I feel like I wouldn't be able to balance work and school, but I would have to bc I'm my only financial support. Sorry for the dumping my problems, but any advice?

How To Do College 101

Congratulations on your graduation! Working a full-time job after graduation (during a freaking pandemic, no less) is no small feat either, and I applaud you for that, too. Once upon a time, I was like you: I didn’t know anything about college except that I wanted to go, and now I run a blog telling people how to go to college. College might be strange and unfamiliar now, but in time, you will learn how to do it! 

This might be my longest post, so strap in for a fun ride!! My answer comes to you in three parts:

How To Do Community College

How To Do University

How To Do Financial Aid

P.S. I’m going to say this only once, but feel free to ask why: Do not attend a for-profit college. Okay, now onto the basics!

How To Do Community College

I encourage you to read my Ode to Community College. Community colleges are real colleges designed for people who are low on funds, are working or have other responsibilities, don’t know what they want to study yet, and/or don’t know how college works yet.

Step 1: Applying

Community colleges accept anyone who applies, and the application is usually just like filling out a job application, but you will also need to send in your high school transcript, and I recommend sending any test scores. Your college may have you take a placement test to see if you’re ready for college. If you’re not quite ready, they may have you take some pre-college courses in English or math before you officially start a degree program.

Step 2: Choosing a Degree Program

Among other things, community colleges award associate’s degrees, which are essentially the first two years of a bachelor’s degree at a four-year college or university. You’ll take introductory classes like English, math, science, and social sciences, as well as electives (i.e. fun classes). Here’s a list of programs that might be offered at your community college.

Step 3: Taking the Right Classes

Make sure you stick to your college’s degree plan so that you take classes that 1) count toward your associate’s degree and 2) will transfer to a university. Most classes you take for an associate’s degree (AA, AS, or AFA) should transfer to a bachelor’s degree (BA, BS, or BFA) easily enough, but sometimes universities aren’t very transfer-friendly. The best option is to transfer to a university that has a partnership with your community college, which is information you should be able to find on your community college’s website. If your community college doesn’t have any partners, you’ll want to research the transfer policies at the universities you’re interested in and follow their guidelines on what classes to take.

Step 4: Transferring

In your last year of community college, you will apply to a four-year college or university for your bachelor’s degree. You’ll need to pick a major when you apply because for the next two years, that’s what you will be studying. Make sure you tour the university before you attend and get acclimated before your first day! 

How To Do University

Whether or not you attend community college for the first two years or enroll directly into a four-year college or university, you’ll want to understand how to navigate the basics as early as possible.

Step 1: Exploring Your Options

Use my Self-Reflection Toolkit and this quiz from Marquette University to explore potential majors. These are just meant to get you thinking and guide you as you learn more about yourself and your interests. This process will take time to research and figure out, and if you enroll directly into a four-year college you can change your major after you apply. As I mentioned, the first two years are mostly basics and figuring stuff out, so either way you have time. 

I was very bad at choosing colleges to apply to and applied almost at random. I learned a lot from those mistakes, and on my FAQ page you’ll see me trying to impart that wisdom on others. I recommend doing your research, going on virtual tours, and getting used to just looking at college websites, even if you don’t know what you want yet. Start by window shopping for colleges in your state and see what they have to offer you. College Board also has tools for finding a college that fits your needs. It’s worth starting as early as possible, and I know that you can do it. Like I said, I was really bad at it and I still made it through.

Step 2: Applying

Applying to a four-year college will take more steps than a community college application. Many colleges require letters of recommendation, essays, and application fees (look on their websites for fee waivers). More information is on my FAQ page, of course, but be prepared to complete these steps before application deadlines. Each college sets its own deadline, but if you want to go next year, you’ll likely need to apply by January or February. Applying can be daunting, but you will need to do it at some point, even if you go to community college first. 

Step 3: Finding Resources

Access any and all resources your university offers, which will include advising, counseling, career services, and more. The same is true at a community college, but I would argue it’s even more true at a university. You might find out about internships, research opportunities, fun events, and all that stuff that excited you when you saw it on your university’s website! Even if you don’t feel like you need resources, you’re paying for them, so you might as well use them! Often people won’t know how to help you unless you tell them you’re struggling, like how you told me what you’re going through and I wrote a post that’s turning into a short novel! (I’ll be done soon, I promise.)

Step 4: Taking The Right Classes

Just like at a community college, you want to make sure you’re taking classes that count toward your degree and interest you. Make sure you’re following the prescribed degree plan on your university’s website and communicated by your advisor. If you find that you’ve chosen a major that doesn’t fit your interests, make sure you speak with your professors, your advisor, and anyone else whose opinion you trust.

How To Do Financial Aid

Step 1: Understanding The Basics

There are three major types of financial aid: loans (money you have to pay back after you graduate), grants (government money you’re awarded based on your financial need that you don’t have to pay back), and scholarships (money from a college or other source that is awarded for any reason that you don’t have to pay back). Loans might come from the government, your college, or a bank. I recommend borrowing from the federal government because the interest is so low (basically, it’s cheaper to pay off than a bank loan).

Step 2: Filling Out FAFSA

If you want to go to college next fall, or if you just want to do a practice round, fill out FAFSA now. I’m assuming you’re under 24, so you will need your parents’ tax information even if they’re not going to help you pay for college. Filling out FAFSA will never, not ever ever ever require you or your parents to take out any loans. Rather, FAFSA gives you access to any need-based financial aid you might be eligible for, whether that aid comes from the government or not. Loans agreements are a totally separate form, and you can take some loans without your parents’ help. If you’re not eligible for FAFSA, check whether your state or college has its own FAFSA alternative.

Step 3: Reading Your Award Letter

After a college sends an acceptance letter, they will also send a financial aid award letter. The letter will show you how much you’ve been awarded in scholarships and grants and how much you can take out in loans from the federal government or the college itself. You should compare your financial aid amount to the total cost of attendance, will you can find on the college’s financial aid webpage. The total cost of attendance is how much it costs to pay for tuition, fees, housing, and a rough estimate of your other living expenses. Basically, it’s how much it costs to be a student for one year.

As you said, I wouldn’t expect you to be able to work 40 hours while maintaining good grades, so may need to be frugal and creative to fill in any gaps financial aid didn’t cover. Private colleges tend to have a really big “sticker price,” but may offer generous scholarships as discounts, whereas public colleges tend to be cheaper and may have (large and small) scholarships to help you pay.

Step 4: Applying

In addition to the scholarships that you may be automatically awarded if you meet certain criteria, your colleges may also have scholarships that you have to apply for by yourself. This information will be located on a college’s financial aid webpage. There are also scholarships from nonprofit organizations and businesses. Visit my resources page for info, ask people you know if they’re aware of any scholarships, ask your boss and coworkers, and ask Google for “scholarships in [your town].”

Okay, I threw a lot at you, but those are the basics as I see them! You can totally do this. It’s going to be a big learning curve, but the payoffs will be big. And you can always come back here for more advice and reassurance. I’m proud of you already for thinking of your future and doing what you can to support yourself and your learning.

[max--phillips]

Hey Max! I know I’m a day late but we still sharing drama?? If not just ignore 🤷‍♀️

Anyway I have come to share some WORK drama!

Okay so since I started working at the grocery store deli (about 3 months ago) a bunch of management has changed. SPECIFICALLY theres been an f ton of drama with the deli manager situation.

It was my second week there and we got a new manager (I’ll call him R). He has proven himself to be incompetent AND childish. He constantly talks to me (starting as soon as I met him) about his ex wife and how he doesn’t want his son to visit him and how his son is just a burden etc. and I’m like”TF EW!”

It was his third day and as soon as I’m walking into the deli I catch the start of a fight between our old manager (I’ll call her A) and R. R initiated it and was full out yelling (in front of costumers btw) that A is trying to sabotage his job so she can have it for herself (keep in mind A willingly stepped down from being managers so she could spend more time with her children). All A did was give him advice on how to order more stock like TF?! A was in TEARS!

Okay so another thing, so we have to wear disposable gloves since we work with food yea? And I’d say about 20% of the workers wear size medium and the other 80% wear size XL (me included). This bastard started HIDING the STORE PROVIDED XL gloves form us! He was saying we were “stealing” them and I’m like DUDE WE WEAR THOSE FOR WORK! So we were forced to squeeze into size larges which would make them rip. IT WAS SO ANNOYING!

He would refuse to use my pronouns (they/them) because “I wear makeup therefore I’m a girl” his words not mine.

Time skip like a month of me working so it was mid November. Thanksgiving was going around so we were all stressed and kinda snappy with eachother but there was (and still is, she’s still treating me like this) a coworker (let’s call her B) who took it to a whole new level. So when we work together it’s usually just me and her. She would slap stuff down, stab knives and the temp needle into things VERY violently for no reason! Itd scare the shit outta me! She’s cuss at me, she constantly got in trouble with the store managers for ‘incidents’ with costumers whatever that means, and would yell very personal attacks on me. On multiple occasions she’d tell me to “shut the fuck up” because “my voice was so annoying” meanwhile I’m here asking what she put in the fryer so I for accidentally put the same thing in the other one.

So back to R. R decided to step down recently and thus another ex manager (who was called in almost a month ago to teach and monitor R) (let’s call the ex manager M) so M had to take his place. But B and R are out with the omnicron variant. Well R came back two days ago. And R, since he stepped down, has been calling in and simply refusing to go to work (not willing to give a reason or anything!) almost every day 15-10 mins before his shift! He said he’s quitting soon but he still has to pull his own weight until then! Also the store manager keeps trying to call him into his office but R keep ‘missing’ work. Suspicious 😒

anyway work just has me UGH DKEHHSHAHJWJBS AHHHHHHHH rn

DUDE what is it with grocery store deli departments being the worst to work in

Listen as someone who worked in food service for several years. Hiding the xl gloves bc people wear them is the most bonkers thing I have ever heard. Just order more??? Why would you steal them anyway????????

Also the “you wear makeup therefore you’re a girl” thing is. Possibly the worst argument against using someone’s pronouns I’ve ever heard, and they’re all bad

Anyway I hope that R quits and B gets her shit together and A has a good day (and maybe you find a better place to work?? Rjgjebfjsbsj)

[spikedru]

Hi! So first off, your blog is incredible (probs the best buffy blog I have come across so far?) & second, I have gathered you are a spike fan, super curious to hear your thoughts on the terrible episode in season 6 (?) where he tries to r*pe buffy. I feel like everyone tends to ignore the weirdness of season 6 but I really want to explore other folks opinions on it

lmao thank u for enjoying my bullshit <3

it got kinda long so im putting my thoughts under a read more. tw for discussion of sexual assault

to be frank i dont think ive actually sat down and watched seeing red since the first time i watched the show back when i was like. 14. a lot of shit goes down in that ep that is not fun to watch, nor was it supposed to be. in my personal opinion, i dont like most of season 6. it starts out fine, bargaining and after life are interesting, engaging episodes. the seeds of everyones explosive interpersonal dramas are about to fully bloom, and theres a lot of narrative tension in that regard. but as the characters unhealthy coping mechanisms start to catch up with them and bad decisions after bad decisions are being made, i no longer enjoyed watching characters i love begin to succumb to their downward spirals. the push/pull of negative character development works for some people, but it just wasnt enjoyable to me. i started this blog in march right around the time i was doing my first s6 rewatch in years and i eventually gave up right before riley shows back up because it wasnt fun for me to watch anymore (also because i think as you were is a dumb episode lol) :/ lmao i guess as a depressed 20 something i dont want to also watch a bunch of depressed 20 somethings struggle with real world problems. im still debating whether to just go back and watch the dark willow eps, bc that was fun to see, but other than that ... :/

back to seeing red, while i hate that it lead to an attempted sexual assault, i can understand the narrative path that got them to that point. spike is absolutely in the wrong, he's the one that took it too far, but regardless, from a character perspective i can see how he got to the bathroom. the buffy/spike sexual relationship is absolutely toxic the moment it begins. its built on misunderstandings, buffy using spike without regard for his feelings not understanding that despite being soulless he is his own person with his own emotions, and spike not understanding why buffy is turning to him, that her own self loathing and depression is what is driving her to him as a means of escape, not truly because of a purer emotion like love which is what he wants. their whole tryst is a stew of muddled yes/no mixed signals. and after buffy decides to break it off with spike for good, as a way for herself to begin healing from her depression, it makes sense that he wouldnt fully believe her. she had been turning her back on him and then crawling back so often, why would this time be different? again with the misunderstandings of the relationship between the both of them. they had reached a standstill where neither party knows how the other is interpreting their actions. i like this excerpt from Critically Touched's review of Seeing Red, because i feel like he is able to explain how they got to that bathroom scene in a very succinct way

"Something had to happen with these two. Spike had to just leave the show, die, or do something so bad to Buffy that he'd need to get a soul to even attempt to make things right with her, despite the fact that having a soul makes him a new individual in the process. So, despite obviously not "enjoying" the scene, I did find it shocking and I did find it valuable from a character perspective. Due to their twisted sexual relationship this season, I'm not convinced anything else other than this would result in Spike fighting for his soul to be not just a better man... but to be a man (which is poetically said in "Beneath You" [7x02])."

here is the link to the rest of the review -> [link] which i feel like, as with his other buffy reviews, is able to objectively analyze the episode in a really interesting and in depth way, and also help contextualize the episode not just within the season but the rest of the show. i recommend looking through the rest of his reviews, its an interesting perspective from someone who clearly loves this show a lot and is willing to take the time to analyze both the narrative threads as well as the character development, giving every single character their dues in his analysis.

i genuinely love both buffy and spike a lot as characters. they are both incredibly engaging and interesting, in how they grow and change throughout the course of the show, as well as how they play off each other and what they bring out in each other. seeing red is a difficult episode for a lot of people, and for good reason. while their relationship was toxic for both parties it was absolutely spike that took it too far, his attempted sexual assault is inexcusable, and he pays dearly for his transgression. i dont know if i will sit down and watch seeing red ever lol, its definitely up there with the body for episodes that i refuse to rewatch often (though for entirely different reasons lol).

i hope i explained that adequately. its a sensitive subject and i kno a lot of people understandably dont like spike because of his actions in s6. he had straddled the line between good and bad for so long that he had to reach some kind of tipping point to either go fully good or fully bad, and if he died or left the show it would have felt that his character arc had been cut short or left unfinished somehow. its unfortunate and terrible that the tipping point had to come at the cost of assault towards buffy, but as Critically Touched said given that the nature of their relationship was roughly sexual and full of misunderstandings, i can see how it ended up in that bathroom.

also just as a quick aside the way the scene is shot does an excellent job of evoking this sense of dread and wrong. you can tell immediately something awful is going to happen and it makes my skin crawl

[ddaenggtan]

black irises in the sunshine | kth

anger is everything. other gods tease you for the short fuse, but it comes with the territory. people have called you stupid, have called you dumb, oafish, useless, incompetent, insolent, rude, arrogant. all of it. insults and mockery flung at you, but even your skin isn’t thick enough to deal with constant abuse. it’s the exact reason you keep going to the underground, knuckles bloody and bruised, fighting anyone that dared enter the cage. it’s the reason you go to the clubs, surround yourself with mortals and their writhing bodies. it’s there that you see him the first time, voice husky as it rolls through the room. it’s there you find someone who treats you differently than the rest. you just never expected him to be one of the muses. | monsters and gods pt 3 (masterlist)

pairing | taehyung x reader

genre/warnings | greek god au, calliope!taehyung, ares!reader, theres a lot of violence and it does get descriptive so be aware of that, none of the main characters other than ares get hurt and its not uncalled for or anything in a narrative sense, so just be aware of that; there are mentions of other idols, but if you can guess them you get a cookie because they are Vague; suuuuper bisexual Ares, Ares Can Step On Me, like I am SO gay for her it isn’t funny; explicit smut ft: cunnilingus, taeHUNG bc hes got MASSIVE SCHLONG,  some body worship kind of and then just....regular worship? like? idk how to explain that? lots of praise and lots or orgasms

word count | 14k | cross posted to ao3

a/n | HOOOOOOO this has been sitting in my google docs for literal months waiting for an ending and i decided to try to get it out for tae's birthday bUT that didn't work because i have a Job and shit so YEET I GUESS HAPPY FUCKIN NEW YEAR??? LIKE??? YEEEEEEEEEEEEE this fic is very near to me because Ares is my sweet sad angry babie and i love her, and i love tae and i love suho and i love the muses and i just........lOVE this fic like i think this is currently my favorite of the mag series so!! i hope yall also enjoy it!!!! yall are welcome to send me messages about this even tho I'm terrible at replying to them in a timely manner!! thanks to everyone who helped me with this, and everyone who has expressed interest in it, and everyone who has ever read anything of mine, because you're genuinely the best people ever, and this is literally a gift to y'all because you deserve it. 

Fuck, that was too hard .

The guy across from you goes flying, hitting the chain link wall of the cage harder than you intended. Every nerve ending in your body is on fire, and even holding back, you've got a better buzz than even the best nectar can give. Your blood sings as the guy gets back up, and you almost wish you could remember his name, because he's put up a hell of a fight. For a mortal, anyway. 

He charges at you again, and time slows as your vision tunnels. You can see the feint as he decides on it, how he hesitates in bringing his left up. You wait, watching him get closer and closer. You start to dart to your left, letting him think he's got you, before you side-step and dart to your right instead. His punch goes wide as you steady your balance and move. The top of your foot connects with his ribcage and the resulting crack of bone is lost amid the cheers and yells of the audience. 

Your opponent steps back and you're proud of the way he doesn't show the pain. He doesn't wince, doesn't move to touch the spot you hit, just tightens his stance and clenches his jaw. It's only you that notices the hitch in his breath, the way he flinches with every inhale. Your eyes narrow at that, zeroing in on the rib. You'd meant to just crack it, had been holding back most of your strength to keep from hurting him too seriously, but as he steps forward, you can see the way he grits his teeth against the pain. 

The fight leaves you immediately, like a bucket of cold water straight to the chest, and you drop your hands. 

"Yield." He just stares at you, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Yield to me, and then go to the doctor."

"I'm not gonna yield," He says. He spits a mouthful of blood out onto the floor. "I'm not weak."

"Seriously, dude," You insist. "You're not gonna win this, and I don't want to hurt you more." 

His scoff has you seeing red. "As if a princess like you could hurt me."

Your fist connects with his face before either of you registers that you've moved. There's a voice in the back of your head reminding you that he's just mortal, he can't take the same kind of beating you can, but it's lost in the haze of fury. The next thing you know, the ref is dragging you away and slamming you into the cage wall. Your opponent is being dragged out - you still don't know his name - and he looks beaten senseless. Victory rolls through you accompanied by a sick satisfaction at the way his blood looks decorating the canvas beneath your feet. 

It lasts for less than an hour. It's always like this; the thrill of the fight, the burn of success, it's gone faster than you can blink. It's what drives you to keep fighting, to keep going to match after match, just to seek out the under-the-table stuff afterwards. It's never enough, not anymore. Back in the old days, they'd let you fight anything. Bears, bulls, lions, giants, anything they could get a noose around long enough to point it at a colosseum. That was a long time ago, though, before all the rights movements happened. You won't lie: you miss fighting beasts like that. The sheer power and strength they have, the survival instinct that makes them such fierce competitors, it's so much better than the rules and regulations of the mortal world now. Fights have gotten dull, rehearsed, more like a performance or a show than an actual fight. People make more money losing than they do winning and it's made the world boring. 

You flex your hand as you open the door to your favorite bar. Something caught it at some point in the last fight, a cheekbone or a tooth, and it stings a little. Doesn't hurt, not exactly, not for a goddess, but it did enough that you feel it at all, which means it couldn't have been anything but torture for the guy on the other end. The bartender waves at you and gets your usual ready as you sit, and you idly wonder if Busted Rib Guy will be okay. It looked painful, for a human, and you'd tried to hold back, but…

Well, you weren't really responsible for what happened to condescending little fucks, were you?

You sip the bourbon, enjoying the burn as it goes down. The lights are dim, tonight. You're glad. You don't want to deal with people looking at you, men coming over to talk to you, trying to advise you on how to properly bandage your knuckles or how to avoid the bruise on your cheek next time. If you had wanted to avoid it, you would have. You'd intended it to hurt worse, honestly, but that first guy'd had a weaker right hook than you expected. 

You look around, wondering if anyone here would provide a decent distraction for the night. There's a pretty brunette in the corner with carefully crafted braids, and as your eyes travel, you imagine what's hiding beneath the silk and leather. You're pulled from the thought by the sound of music, and you curse under your breath. You forgot that it's an open mic night and you'd meant to go to the bar across town instead. Irritation colors your vision; every open mic night is awful, full of lofty poets talking about their trauma and wannabe Taylor Swifts thinking they're on the same level as Sappho. Ah, now that was a girl with a set of pipes. You miss her, wonder what she would say to the butchering of whatever song you're about to hear.

The voice that comes isn't what you expect. It's smooth and deep. The world turns to velvet around you as the voice wanders from one speaker to another, creating a mesmerizing multi-dimensional effect despite the way the singer doesn't ever leave the stage. You turn, knuckles white around your bourbon glass; he's utterly magnetic, every eye in the room trained on him as he purrs into the vintage mic. Long fingers are wrapped around the scuffed metal, decorated with jewels that glitter in the dim light of the bar. You can smell the lingering cigarette smoke from the guy beside you and the Jäger from the girl two stools down and for once, you don't even care. He's captivating, voice travelling between speakers in the bar and coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. 

Your eyes don't leave him, and you wonder if you can memorize the way the blond waves fall against his forehead if you stare long enough. 

The red seeps away from you, slinking back into the corners of your mind, settling once more into a low thrum under your skin. It fades into the background of this man's voice, the charisma that rolls off him in waves as he pulls the mic in close just to push it to the side with a teasing smirk. It settles something in your chest that hasn't been calm since the fight in Athens so long ago. 

The music fades out sooner than you'd like, and he gives a slight bow before wandering into the crowd. You do your best to follow him, but the gold of his hair disappears almost immediately, lost in the throng of people around the stage waiting to speak to him. You turn back around, downing the next bit of bourbon that Suho pours you. 

"I know," He says with a grin. You cock a brow at him, not having said anything he could agree with. "He's good. That's what you were thinking, right? He's why we're so packed on open mics. Got the audio and lighting guy whipped, so he's got all these special effects, too. Drives people crazy.”

"He's alright," You mutter. You toss a few bills down on the bartop and step back. Suho gives you a courteous nod as you leave. The bouncer gives you a dirty look when he spots the lit cigarette between your lips, but he knows better than to try to tell you otherwise. You've taught him better. 

You lean back against the brick wall of the alley and take a drag. The warm smoke fills your lungs and you close your eyes. It's a different kind of burn than you're used to, a distraction from the crawling sensation that drives you to fight. It's calmer, more controlled. Feels like the smoke from Hestia's fires. Feels like home. 

"Never expected to see you here," A voice calls out. It's deep and startling in the darkness, but you don't jump. You just open your eyes, exhale, and look to where it came from. 

The singer stands before you in the same undone white button up and black tee he performed in. He doesn't have a cig, doesn't seem to have much of any reason to be outside. He moves almost lazily, as if he doesn't even need to, just wants to, and when his gaze flicks up to meet yours, your vision fills just for a breath with every opponent you've ever faced lying at your feet. 

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" The words slip from your tongue before you can stop them. It's not his fault, the voice in your head says, he didn't mean it that way, but still, your blood is thrumming now that he's here and you want to know what he's talking about. Want to know why he thinks you wouldn't be here when there's attractive people and good bourbon and you've never seen this man before in your life. Want to know why he already seems to think you aren't civilized enough to be at a bar, why he spoke but all you heard was Zeus' voice in your memories.

"Exactly what I said. Should I be clearer?"

"Yeah, probably," you spit. Yet another person that assumes you're stupid, that you don't understand basic languages, as if you haven't been speaking them since the ancient times. As if you couldn't speak circles around him if you wanted. "Unless you want your teeth on the fucking ground."

"Good to know the stories are true." He tsks and you're filled with a strange sense of disappointment and fury, both at him and yourself. Your vision turns red at the edges and the cigarette between your fingers is crushed in your grip. He pays no mind to it, just saunters past with a lazy, swaying gait that draws your eyes to his hips and then down the long leather-clad legs. "See you around, Ares."

"That's not my fucking name," You yell after him. He doesn't respond when you shout your actual name, the one you chose, on your own, as a middle finger to the Olympians. "Get it right next time, dickwad."

He turns the corner of the alley and the streetlight catches his face just enough for you to see the smirk he wears. For once in your life, you're torn; you want to smash his face in, yes, because how dare this random guy speak to you like that when you could kill him with one finger to the right pressure point. You also find your skin's hotter than usual, stretched too thin over your bones, and you want him to run his hands over you until it feels right again.

Until it feels like it did when he was singing. 

How did he know my title?

The thought comes unbidden, days later, with the desperate hit of a palm against your shoulder. You've got the woman in a headlock, patiently waiting for her to pass out completely so the fight can be called, and your mind is wandering. 

How did the singer know who you are? You hadn't thought anything of it at the time, distracted by fury and frustration, but with time comes a special kind of clarity. You've never seen him before, not that you know anyway, yet he didn't hesitate to call you Ares. The only ones who know of your kind are your kind, but you haven't seen any of your siblings among mortals in a long time. You thought you knew the other gods and goddesses, but maybe not. It has been a while since you stepped foot in the golden city.

The woman in your grip goes slack and you release her. You're still lost in thought as the ref calls the match and leads you out of the makeshift ring. The cheers of the audience are background noise at this point, akin to static or the buzz of electricity, and you pay them no mind as you head to collect your winnings. You didn't even get any kind of buzz from success this time, too immersed in the way the singer walked and talked and looked. The image of his smirk is burned into your retinas. 

"Yeah, you didn't hear? He just got out of the hospital. They had to keep him overnight because they thought he might puncture a lung. I heard that if it had been a little worse, they would've had to wire his jaw shut." You stop, fingers brushing over the stack of bills you don't even remember being handed. You look up, making eye contact with the guy whispering nearby. Your suspicions are confirmed when his friend smacks his arm and juts his chin in your direction before they both disappear into the crowd. 

You shove your way outside, frustration creeping through you and coloring your vision. You manage to keep it contained long enough for you to make it to the alley behind the warehouse, but it explodes from you in a rush of thrown dumpsters and sheet metal. 

Fuck , you never meant to hurt him like that. You told him, you fucking told him to yield, it isn't your fault he didn't listen. It's not your fault that he went and insulted you, acted like he was better than you just by virtue of being a dude, as if you weren't worshipped in the old days for the power you had and the blessings you could give. You'd held back, through all of it, you'd told him to yield, and he insulted you. It wasn't your fault. 

You slide to the ground, running a shaking hand through your hair. It isn't your fault , you repeat. You close your eyes and take deep breaths, the way Hestia taught you, willing the fury to dissipate. It's like a fire in your veins, burning and bubbling your skin until you can't resist anymore. You take another breath. It isn't your fault. You tried. You offered an out. It isn't your fault. Fuck, what was his name? 

With a growl that quickly morphs into a scream, you kick the dumpster once more before stalking off into the darkness. You need a fucking drink and you're gonna find a distraction in someone else if it's the last thing you do. 

The club is packed when you get there; you're not usually a fan of clubs like this, too full of people who are too friendly, but they're perfect for nights like tonight. You don't even need to wait in line, just slip the bouncer a 50 as you pass, and the bartenders are quick to spot you. You're pretty notorious in the city for over-paying, which means you're knocking back bourbon before you have a chance to ask for it. There are people everywhere, pressed up against both sides of you while the bass thrums in your throat, and it takes you longer than you're proud of to realize why. 

There's a band playing, apparently. They're not bad; the vocalist isn't anything like the singer from Suho's, but it doesn't make you want to tear your ears off, so you consider it a success. 

You're dancing before you remember deciding to. Everything's a blur when you get the itch in your bones, the need to make someone bleed. To feel something that isn't rage or condescension. People are even closer here on the dance floor, suffocating in their proximity, but there's a woman grinding her ass into you, and it sparks the dying fire in your gut. The beat of the music drowns your own heart, and it's all flashing lights and heat and a body pressed against yours that is all too willing.

She follows when you go back to the bar for another drink, and giggles when you lick salt from her wrist before downing tequila. Her hands are wrapped in the leather of your jacket as she kisses you, your own resting lightly on her hips. She laughs against your lips and says something you don't hear before ordering another drink. Something makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

You take the brief reprieve to look around the club, searching for whatever it is that has you on alert. You find him on the upper level of the club, leaned over the balcony with a drink in hand. You can't make out his expression, exactly; it's too far away and too guarded. But you'd know him anywhere now. The singer knocks back whatever's in his glass, eyes never leaving yours. You don't know why he's here, if he comes here often or if the Fates are having a laugh at your expense, but you do know you want to make the most of it.

The girl is back, pressing a heated kiss to your lips and drawing your attention from him. You return it, nipping at her lips and getting a small gasp in return. You smirk and bite your way down her neck. She's breathy in your ear, hitched moans lost in the beat of the music, but you barely hear her as you suck bruises into the skin of her neck. He's still watching you. His drink is gone and he's gripping the bannister of the balcony, rings glinting in the light. You wonder if the cool metal could soothe the burn in your bones. You want to know if he can bring that calmness from before back, if he can soothe the frenzy in your mind with his hands the way he can with his voice. Just imagining it has you soaking through to your jeans.

The girl makes a particularly loud noise in your ear and you're brought out of your thoughts. As if he can sense it, the singer straightens. He gives you one last look before disappearing back into the crowd, and you wonder if you're imagining the disdain in it. You draw back from the girl's neck, about to tell her to find her friends when she slides her hands in your hair and tugs.

The burn in your blood is back, now, and you hope this girl is prepared for what awaits her.

"You're here early," Suho says when he spots you in the nearly empty bar the next night. He's not wrong, either; you skipped the fights tonight completely. There was no buzz last time, no relief, and you have no reason to believe there would be tonight. Not with the way the singer captivates your thoughts. 

Besides, you have enough money leftover from the previous few to last a couple days.

"What, did you decide not to kick someone's ass before getting wasted?" Suho doesn't wither at the look you give him, just pours you a couple fingers of bourbon and slides the glass over. "Or did they just stop letting you in completely?"

"I might change my mind if you don't shut up," You tell him. There's no real heat behind it. You've known Suho for years now, been coming to his bar for so long it almost feels like home. You're almost friends at this point. 

It helps that he knows when to bite his tongue so he doesn't get his teeth knocked out.

"Seriously though, I don't think I've ever seen you here this early. Especially not on mic nights." You're very careful in your lack of a reaction to his words. You'd seen the workers setting up for it when you came in, and even if you hadn't, you know when mic night is. You've spent enough time avoiding it.

"Does he sing every time?" You ask in lieu of an explanation. You don't look away from the amber liquid in your glass, letting the silence hang as the bartender does his best to follow your thought process. 

"Taehyung? Most weeks, yeah. It's been a nice change from the usual drunken karaoke. He goes around to some of the other places in town, too. Apparently he just likes to sing." 

"Taehyung," You repeat. The name rolls from your tongue a bit awkwardly. It's more than you expected, somehow, but you can't place exactly how . Just...more. "Is he always that good?"

"Oh, yeah. We have regulars now for mic night because of him. He's got a whole fan club and everything."

"Hm." You drain the rest of your bourbon and Suho refills it. He leaves you in peace then, serving some others that appear at the bar. 

The place fills faster than you can blink. That's what it feels like, anyway. It's like one moment there's you and a handful of other people scattered around, and now you're being jostled between some dude a million feet tall that definitely doesn't look old enough to be here and a girl with her tits up to her throat and surrounded by a cloud of perfume so thick that it starts a migraine behind your eyes almost instantly. She flirts with Suho a little, likely trying to score free drinks, and you roll your eyes. She pouts at him when he gives her the total, batting eyelashes that go on for miles, and for once, you wish Suho would just give in and comp the drinks. 

"I'll pay for them," You say. She was definitely saying something, maybe you should have been paying attention to it, but fuck , this migraine is only getting worse the longer she stands there. "I'll pay for your drinks."

"Oh, thanks," She says. Her smile is hesitant, and quickly turns apologetic as she takes in the boots and the ripped jeans and the leather jacket. "Um, I'm not...I don't, uh…"

"Do I look like I want to fuck you, sweetie?" She looks a little affronted and a laugh escapes you. You lean closer, letting your breath ghost over her cheek as you speak in her ear to be heard better. "If I wanted to fuck you senseless, you'd know it. And I can guarantee you it would be a hell of a lot better than the watered down rat piss this guy's giving you." 

When you lean back, her face is flushed and she's stammering. You smirk and hand her the drinks she'd ordered. 

"Too bad you’re not, you don’t, huh?" You tell her. The patronizing tone isn't lost on her, nor is your mockery of her earlier words, and she shuts her mouth with an audible click before strutting off. Suho glares at you as he pours more bourbon.

"Can you please try not to run off my patrons?" He mutters. "Some of us actually need money to live."

"Some of us would like decently timed refills and to not choke on perfume," You quip. "And better bourbon, for that matter." He hisses something about what he's giving you being top quality but you tune him out, throwing one leg over the stool Perfume Girl vacated. You'd like to keep just a little bit of personal space. 

Across the bar, you catch a brief glimpse of the girl from the night before and you wince. Her neck is thoroughly bruised, and you catch a peek of bruises and scratches on her back as she shrugs her jacket on. You didn’t mean to be so rough with her, even if she had been into it; you’re usually pretty good about remembering that the mortals are just that - mortal - and as such have to be handled delicately. They’re so fragile, it feels like they could break with a strong wind. Guilt settles in your gut and turns the bourbon in your glass to cough syrup. You’ve half a mind to just leave before she sees you, are about to turn and do exactly that, but the speakers screech to life and the deafening feedback from the mic keeps you glued to your seat. 

The crowd quiets even as the excitement ramps up, all talk silencing but for the occasional hushed whispers here and there. The first few notes of the song echo through the speakers, and a spotlight appears on him. 

He looks different this time, his hair dyed a vibrant blue that matches the glinting jewels in his ears and on his hands. He's an absolute vision and you wonder how Aphrodite has allowed him to live so long when he's so beautiful. His voice hangs in the air and calms you, the same settling in your chest as last time, the same freedom from the burn in your veins. It's addictive. 

The song doesn't last nearly as long as you want it to but the stillness inside you lingers long after he's done caressing the microphone. You place a few bills down for Suho and light up a cigarette as you head outside, ignoring the dirty looks from other patrons as you do. You're on a mission, the thrum of bloodlust returning with every second that passes, and you can't even be sure if he's still around or if he's wandered off already. 

You stand in the alley for what feels like hours, turning at every sound and smoking cig after cig just so you have something to do. You've almost decided to say fuck it when footsteps sound from the back of the bar, coming closer to you. 

His blue hair is visible even from the other end of the small alley, a giveaway similar to the light at the end of your cigarette and the smoke you blow into the air. There's no way he hasn't seen you, you think, you're making no effort to hide or be sneaky, and yet he's continuing forward as if he doesn't see you at all, eyes focused on a phone in his hand. You wait until he's just a few steps away before speaking.

"How do you know my title?" You ask him. He stops as if he'd always meant to and doesn't even bother to glance up at you or respond. The edges of your vision turn scarlet at the blatant disregard and you're speaking before you can even process the words. "I asked you a fucking question, pretty boy, you're gonna answer me. Unless you want that precious mouth bloodied up."

"And you wonder how I know who you are," He drawls, still not bothering to spare a glance at you. A scowl grows over your face at his sarcastic tone. "If you're going to hit me just get it over with. Otherwise, I have places to be."

He stands, waiting and expectant, but you don't move. He's humming, quiet and to himself like he doesn't even realize he's doing it, and the red seeps away from your mind until you're left clear-headed once more. You sigh, long and heavy, and crush your cigarette into your denim-covered thigh to put it out. It tickles. 

"I'm not going to hit you," You tell him eventually. "I just wanna know how you know me. And how you do it."

He cocks a brow at that, finally looking up from the phone in his hand to level dark eyes on yours. "Do what? Sing?"

"No." You swallow around the sudden lump in your throat. The words are harder to find than you thought they'd be, lost in the depths of his gaze, in the clarity you're so unaccustomed to, in the way you feel like you can breathe for the first time in days. "I don't care how you sing, that's not important, it's the...fuck, you know what, never mind, it doesn't fucking matter." You push off the wall and step past him to head towards where the streetlight gleams off the bar windows. 

"Tell me." The command has you stopping in your tracks, and you're again flooded with just wanting to know how. How he clears the haze, how he stops you, how he makes you feel real. You turn, hands stuffed into the back pockets of your jeans. "How I do what?"

It takes you several long breaths before you can answer, and you aren't even sure he can hear you over the sounds of people leaving the bar, and you find yourself disappearing into the crowd without waiting for a response. Your own words are reverberating in your skull, getting louder with each step you take, and you wish you could just turn it off . 

"How you make me feel like a person again."

You avoid the bar for a few weeks, going hours away from your usual area to an unfamiliar hole in the wall just to make sure you don’t see him. You’re more deadly than usual in your fights, victories coming quicker, injuries piling up along with the guilt, but you can’t bring yourself to return. It’s unnerving, the way everything goes quiet around him, the way you can think, but the worst is the way you can feel. Everything’s calm and steady and blue, and it only makes it easier for the regret and the guilt and the anxiety to curl around your throat and squeeze until you can’t breathe, to clog in your throat while the laughter of your siblings echoes in your ears, and you...can’t. You can’t do that, you can’t let it win, you can’t let them win, they can’t know that you’re everything they think you are and worse. 

You can’t let yourself drown in that, and yet you find yourself back at Suho’s, lost among the crowd while Taehyung’s voice surrounds you. The ache in your bones fades away, chased by the thrum of the fight that still lingers despite the hours that have passed since you felt your opponent’s femur break under your palm and their screams echoed in your ears. Everything is calm again, and the guilt nearly drowns you.

He hasn’t even finished singing before you’re outside, chest heaving as you gasp against the weight on your chest. You broke someone’s femur , and did you even really need to? The fight itself is a blur even now, snapshots playing through your mind like a montage. The way they’d darted at you first, how their foot felt connecting with the backs of your knees, the determination in their eyes when you went down, the jolt of shock as your hands wrapped around their leg, the dull throb of a barrage of hits against your waist as you pulled them down as well and bloodied their face, the blood-curdling scream as you snapped the bone like a pretzel stick.

Your breath comes faster in your lungs, forced out by the growing guilt that lodges there in its place. Images swirl in your mind, chased by a never-ending stream of thought and regret that you should be used to by now. Fuck, you didn’t need to, and you still did it; you lost control, you fucking hurt them, and for what? A couple hundred? Was it even worth it? Who knew when they’d be back into shape to fight, what if they needed the money? They weren’t even half-bad. They got you down, at least, shouldn’t you have gone easy on them? You don’t even remember their face, can’t remember what the announcer said their name was, words drowned out by the buzz under your skin.

Metal crumples under your grip and you spare a half-second to mourn Suho’s dumpster before you slam your knuckles against it. It tingles, not even real pain, and you don’t hesitate to repeat it. By the time the metal is disfigured completely, a distorted mess of paint and steel and garbage, you still aren’t in pain, but there’s a sheen of gold across your knuckles and you feel less like you’re drowning and more like you’re suffocating. The usual. You can handle that. You think. 

You don’t even realize that you’ve slid down to the ground beside the dumpster until the back door of the bar opens and footsteps echo through the alley. You wish you knew how long you’ve been here, how long you’ve sat among empty bottles and stale beer and broken glass, but you can’t be sure. The brief reprieve brought by Taehyung’s voice is long gone, chased away by the guilt and rage that still sits heavy in your chest. You hope you’re not noticeable here, that whoever’s left will just pass by and leave you to piece yourself back together on your own. 

Voices tell you that it isn’t likely, the deep baritone of one too familiar to ignore. The other is new, but you’re familiar with the tone, the inflection, the intent behind it. You've heard it before, in crowded clubs as a guy pushes too close to some girl who can barely stand, in a coffeeshop when a random customer can't take a fucking hint, at the local campus when some professor insists that there could be maybe one thing her student could do to pass. It makes everything in you curdle, the bourbon from earlier threatening to work its way back up; it screams predator , and you absolutely refuse to let anyone fucking talk to someone like that, like they have some right to whatever it is they want. 

You refuse to let someone talk to him that way. 

"Seriously, Kratos, didn't I tell you to leave me alone? Did Aphrodite not teach you your lesson last time you harassed someone?" Taehyung's voice brings a calm that's an unsettling match to the anger washing over you. You're used to the red at the corners of your vision, the tint to everything you see, but you aren ' t used to the way it all turns purple and focused and clear . 

There's no haze this time, there's no abrupt shift of you moving before you know you've done it. You can feel the glass crunching under your boots with every step you take, can feel the way the air has a chill that creeps down into your lungs with every breath, can almost taste the apprehension that's rolling off of Taehyung despite his relaxed stance. The only thing that gives him away is the tense set of his jaw and the mix of relief and fear when his eyes land on you. 

"I'm pretty sure he said no, Kratos." The god turns at your voice and you watch the realization wash over him as he realizes what - who - you are. 

"Been a while since anyone's seen you, Ares." He scoffs a little, not moving from where he has Taehyung caged against the wall of the bar, one hand pressed firmly into the brick. He's entirely too close, and you have no doubt that the stench of him permeates the very oxygen around them. 

"Been busy. Doesn't change the fact that the man said no. Take the loss, walk away." Kratos' eyes narrow at your words and he steps away, but only to move closer to you. 

"Why do you care so much? You've never been one to care about any of us before." Kratos inches closer and the hyper-focus that Taehyung's voice causes starts to melt away with every twitch of your fingers. You've never liked Kratos, all brute strength with no respect for the challenge, no appreciation of the fight, too focused on sheer power and exhilaration. He is the worst of the worst of the worst of your kind, of all the war-focused gods. Every bit of yourself you hate is every piece that Kratos loves about himself. 

"I care that you don't seem to be able to understand when someone doesn't want to be around you, you absolute piece of filth. Taehyung had a point though, I really thought the whole thing with Aphrodite would've taught you how to back off. Or should I pull the video out, I think I still have it saved for when I need a good laugh." Malice and fury twitch across the other god's face and you absolute revel in it. You can feel his anger prickling across you, like needles in your very pores, and you ache for it. It's been so long since you last had a good fight, a real challenge where you didn't need to hold back at all. 

Too long since you fought a god like yourself.

"You're testing my patience, cousin," Kratos spits. It's a little generous to call the two of you cousins - you're several times removed, at best, and potentially closer than that with your family's warped history - but you let him have it. It might make him feel better. "I'm having a conversation, that's all. And if said conversation means that we end up back at my place, then, well, can anyone really blame me for what might happen to this pretty little m-"

Your fist connects with his jaw immediately and the red floods you for the few seconds it takes to register Taehyung calling your name. The calm struggles for a second, warring with the rage, but it wins out eventually. The singer's talking, but you can't make out any actual words. You're too focused on Kratos, the way he's righting and readying himself for a brawl. There's a fire in his eyes that matches the one in yours and everything in you feels alive for the first time in too long. 

This fight is different than your usual ones. There's no blur, no warped sense of time that usually comes with the adrenaline. You're focused and controlled in a way you haven't had to be for centuries, careful and precise and deliberate with every swing and every kick. The red seeps back in slowly and every time you think you're about to lose it, you hear Taehyung, still pressed against the wall of the bar. 

Kratos lunges at you for what has to be the tenth time, clearly trying his best to knock you to the ground - he succeeded, once; you let yourself get distracted, too caught up in thoughts, but it didn't last long - and you sidestep him just in time for him to ram into the ruined dumpster instead. He looks pissed when he turns back around and something in you sings at the sight. He makes for you again and you dodge again, only to be dragged back towards him by the grip he has on your jacket. Fuck, should've taken that off , whatever, he's too close.

Pain explodes in your side and you're fairly sure he's busted part of your rib, but you just slide your arms out of the sleeves and twist to plant your knee straight into his gut and then slam your heel down onto his much-less-safe toes, and then back up to knee him in the groin. It's nowhere near enough to take him out, but his nose is oozing golden ichor and he groans with every shift of his weight, and you've got him pinned against the wall with your forearm pressing hard into his windpipe. 

"Now, you're gonna listen to me you steaming pile of dog shit," You hiss. "When someone tells you no, it's not a fucking negotiation. It means you fucking leave and find someone with loose enough morals or enough internalized self-hatred that they're willing to subject themselves to your absolutely pitiful fucking excuse of an existence for the thirty-two seconds it'll take for you to get off." 

Kratos doesn't respond, just sneers and spits blood at you. It's a miracle you don't actually try to rip his head from his body, because the thought crosses your mind for a second too long. Instead, you just press harder against his windpipe and enjoy the choked gasp that it draws. 

"You don't stalk people either, the way you did with 'Dite. Don't you know it's better to let them come to you sometimes?" You tsk, ignoring the way he claws uselessly at your arm. Gods may not need to breathe, that's a fact, but they feel pain, and there is no way this isn't absolutely excruciating for him when even you can feel the small bones in his neck cracking and breaking. "And if I hear even a whisper of you pulling shit like this again, then I'm gonna find you, you pigshit. And when I do, I won't hold back even the slightest, and do you know what comes after that?" 

His eyes are full of fear now, and only grow wide with terror as you lean in close enough that he can feel your lips against his ear as you whisper. 

"You are going to wish that you could die." 

When you do release him, he disappears instantly, with a cloud of acrid grey-green smoke curling around your ichor-spattered boots. He's only been gone a second when you slump, the adrenaline fading as quick as Kratos had left. Your side is throbbing now, your knuckles are bruised and broken and gold, there's a pain in your leg that you aren't sure what's causing, your head is screaming even through the high of the fight, your face stings in the crisp-cool air. Every breath makes the pain worse so you stop breathing. The brick wall of the bar is rough against your palms, but it's the only thing around that can keep you upright, so you'll take it. 

"Well," a voice drawls from your left. You'd jump if you had anything left in you, but every ounce of energy is gone, spent teaching Kratos what Aretha Franklin meant when she sang about respect - and really, there was another fantastic singer, you really should visit her sometime soon - so instead your head lolls to the side. You aren't sure what it is that jolts through you when your eyes land on Taehyung, fingers curled carefully around the collar of-

Your jacket. That's your leather jacket. You barely remembers shrugging out of it, but you're glad it's not on the ground, trampled and covered in the gold spatters that decorate the rest of your body. 

"Well?" You echo, wincing at the pain it causes. You've definitely got a busted lip, that's for sure from the way it feels different and swollen, and you're pretty sure there's a head wound, too, because you don't remember there being a golden halo around Taehyung before the fight. 

"Well," He repeats, slinging the jacket - your jacket - over a shoulder. "You should get that looked at." He starts walking, making his way to the entrance of the alleyway. He gets halfway there before he stops and turns and cocks a brow. "Are you coming, or do I get to keep this?" Your jacket waves a little, as if he's wiggling it, and it makes you feel like a stray dog being lured off with treats. 

You're never going to tell anyone that it works.

Taehyung's place is as nondescript as the car he parks outside. It's a plain apartment building on the outside - looks like maybe it was a hotel back in the 1930s, based on the outdated carpeting in the lobby and the grate on the elevator he steps into. Even the hallway is plain and unassuming as he leads you to the end and uses an old, tarnished brass key on an older, more tarnished brass knob. You aren't sure what you expected, you can't even begin to guess what Taehyung is like outside of the dirty alley or the stage where he sings, can't fathom what kind of decor he could possibly have. 

What you step into isn't anything you could have guessed. It looks like he has the entire rest of the floor to himself based on what you can see, but there's also a spiral staircase tucked into a corner, bookshelves built in under each step that are filled to the brim, and a fireman's pole in another corner, so there's at least one more level above this, but something tells you both the staircase and the pole continue past that. There's artwork everywhere, pieces you recognize and pieces you don't, several van Goghs and a couple from Matisse and you think in the corner you spot an actual fucking da Vinci sketch that's supposed to be somewhere in Europe. There's a gramophone beside a top-of-the-line sound system, an entire wall that's just a record collection, books upon books, framed bits of poetry - including an actual hand-written rupi kaur, a signed Maya Angelou print, and a signed cover of ain't i a woman by bell hooks that you would die to know how Taehyung got his hands on. It's a museum's wet dream and yet it retains a lived in atmosphere. There are mugs left on tables, blankets strewn about as if someone just got up from a nap, an easel propped up by a far window with what looks like an impressionist painting of the cityscape, books tossed down half-read with receipts and coupons and candy wrappers and everything but a bookmark tucked between the pages. 

It feels like a home and it makes your heart flutter in your chest at the same time that something in your stomach shrivels up into itself. 

Taehyung walks like he’s meant to be followed, so follow you do. You spy another man - older, you think, but it’s hard to tell, really - sprawled across a couch, blanket splayed across his lap as he watches some kind of dance show on a flatscreen hung above a warm and roaring fireplace, a couple of girls in what looks to be the kitchen, one sitting on the counter while the other stands between her legs and pretends not to notice the former stealing strawberries from her bowl as she taps at her tablet, and there are footsteps creaking above you, hidden behind walls even as Taehyung leads you up the staircase. They all look up when you pass, but only the man gives you a second glance; his eyes are a weight on your back that doesn’t leave until you’re upstairs and following Taehyung into a large, rather nice bathroom. 

It’s vintage as well, but it’s spacious and well-kept, like the rest of the place. Taehyung pats the marble counter by the sink and you bite your tongue against the urge to tell him you aren’t a dog. You don’t move though, instead watching him as he lays your jacket across a brass bar on the wall and then digs around in a cabinet for a minute or two. When he straightens up, he’s got a somewhat dusty off-white box in his hands, and he frowns. 

“Up,” He says. “I need to look at your ankle.” 

You don’t move, but you can tell he doesn’t miss the twitch of your nose at the thought of being commanded like an animal. Like someone who can’t understand. Like-

He sighs. 

“Please, will you sit on the counter, so I can look at your ankle?” You huff, but you do as he says. 

He doesn’t speak as he works, completely silent except for the odd command - “Roll it for me...alright, now flex that...deep breath...stop fidgeting or I’ll only make it worse…” - and the occasional hum under his breath. It seems to be second nature, like he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it, and it endears you more than you’d like. His touch is gentle but firm as he lightly squeezes your ankle and wraps it, lifts your pant leg to rub some kind of cream into a somewhat worrisome golden bruise forming on your calf, darts under your shirt to quickly and painlessly set your ribs before wrapping those as well. He doesn’t say anything at all until he’s almost finished with the cuts on your hands, golden ichor long gone and wounds already on their way to healing thanks to some sort of mist he spritzes on them. 

It only stings once, as he’s spraying something over some kind of cut on your thigh where Kratos ripped through the denim there without you noticing. You can’t stop the hiss as the pain hits, though you regret it when he glances up at you. 

“Sorry,” He mumbles under his breath as he dabs lightly at it with his long fingers. 

“It’s fine,” You tell him. “I’m used to it.” Your voice is rough, always, but softer than usual. You don’t know why. You can’t decide if you like it.

The entire time he works, you wait. For him to tell you it wasn’t necessary, that he can fight his own battles, that he’s not surprised a brute like yourself got into a fight, that you’re no more than what the rumours say you are. You’ve got a million different curses and insults ready to spit back at him when he finally speaks.

“Thank you,” is what comes. It shocks the words out of your mouth, and you actually look up from where you’ve been watching him methodically wipe gold away from a scrape on your forearm. His gaze is concentrated on the injury and his lips are pursed and you wish you could figure him out. 

He must take your silence for the confusion it is, because he continues. 

“I mean it,” He says. “I’m usually not someone that lets other people fight for me, but we both know that I couldn’t have taken Kratos. He’s too strong, and he was counting on that. Until you showed up.” You don’t respond. “Is there a reason you left before my set was done? Or why you were sitting in an alley beside what is possibly the most gnarled dumpster I’ve ever seen?”

You don’t answer him, instead focusing on the way his hands feel as they tilt your chin so he can look at the cuts and bruises and scrapes that decorate your face. You focus your gaze just past his shoulder, content to memorize the pattern of his gaudy vintage bathroom wallpaper, and he doesn't press for more. The distracted humming picks up again every time he stops talking, and eases the storm of guilt shame rage pain hurt grief loneliness in your chest. 

"I fight," you eventually say. Your voice is too loud in the quiet of the bathroom, shatters the silence like a sledgehammer, and you hate the way it trembles. Still, Taehyung doesn't look away from where he's carefully wiping gold from your skin, just cocks a brow, and it's as if a dam breaks in your throat. "Like, real fights. Actual competition, with rules and shit, and...sometimes the bad ones, because they tend to fight differently, it's a different kind of fight, y'know, and it's never really fair, because I'm...I'm me, but I hold back, just for fun, y'know, and it's, uh. It's alright usually, I go in, do my thing, I win, I go drink, and it all gets, I dunno, easier, maybe, for a while, like I can think right, but, um.”

You hesitate for a split second and force yourself to focus on the way the alcohol-soaked cotton tickles the cut on your head. 

“Sometimes it's not...sometimes I can't control it as well, the anger, and I kind of just lose it on people, and a while ago this guy, he almost needed his jaw wired shut, but he was kind of a prick anyway, I guess, so whatever, but, uh, today, I...there was this girl and she was doing really well, actually, y'know, managed to get me down to the mat, which is rare and pretty impressive, and I'm pretty proud of her for it now, but then, I just. I just kinda lost it, like, I just kept swinging, I couldn't stop, and then I just...I broke her leg, for no real reason, just because I wanted her to hurt, and I don't...I'm not sure why I even did it, because I'd already won, right, like what was the point of doing any more, it wasn't even helping at that point, y'know, it's not like the buzz kept up any longer because I broke this kid's leg, and I love the fights, they help clear my head for a second, but I never wanted to actually-"

You words stop short, like there are too many of them to say in too short a time, and it's then you realize Taehyung's hands are in his lap and he's looking at you fully. His expression isn't neutral anymore, it's not the carefully crafted mask of a performer, it's real and open and genuine and all you see there is pain . For you. Pain and understanding and compassion you never expected to find anywhere but the deepest corners of your soul. Looking at him looking at you like that makes you feel like you can breathe again.

"You never wanted to hurt anyone." His voice is rough, like maybe there's emotion clogging his throat as well, and you aren't sure what that does to you, but something in you jumps at the thought.

Tears mar your vision as you nod and you curse under your breath before wiping them away. He catches your quivering hand in his and just holds it for a second. His eyes don't leave yours and there are a thousand things you expect him to say but what he says is: 

"I believe you."

And that...it's more than you can take, and you break, right there on his bathroom counter, sobbing into his chest while he just rubs your back and hums and you remember the face of every person you've ever hurt and the look in their eyes as you left some of them for dead. 

You wake up the next morning curled up on the most comfortable chaise lounge in human history, sitting up and shoving the blanket off of you in a rush before you remember where you are, why you're there. A glance around tells you that you aren't alone; there's two guys bent over a table that you think might also be a tablet, conversing quietly and pointing every so often at whatever they're looking at, a girl balanced along the edge of the staircase holding a lyre - which, wow, you haven't seen a lyre in that good condition in a while - and strumming lightly along it before she frowns and shakes her head and restarts whatever melody she's playing, and the same guy sprawled over the couch with a blanket strewn haphazardly over him while he watches a different dance video on the flatscreen. He's the closest and you don't really want to talk to any of these people but you think you might have to because you aren't really sure how Taehyung got you here last night but you know it was quite a drive. You'd just mist over to the bar if you really wanted to, but your ribs hurt like a bitch still thanks to that fucker Kratos. Anything as intense as misting is out of the question for the time being.

The man on the chaise spares you a glance that feels longer than it should, full of a judgement you have no doubt you deserve and yet somehow fires your anger anyway. 

He rolls his eyes before you even say anything and waves a hand towards the kitchen. You snap your mouth closed and shoot him an irritated look, but you storm in that direction anyway. Healing is exhausting, and you want nothing more than some meat to tear into and a cold beer. 

When you get into the kitchen, however, Taehyung is standing there already, as if he’s been expecting you any minute. There’s a plate in front of him, full of food you barely recognize, and he slides it towards you. 

“Eat,” He says. You grit your teeth, unmoving, and he sighs again. “Please sit, and eat. You need the strength to heal properly.” 

You resist for a split second, but there’s a softness to him now. Something you can’t exactly put your finger on, but that you know is different , somehow, and it changes things. It makes you want to listen, to do as he asks, because he is asking . He’s not telling, he’s treating you like an animal. 

It’s a request, not a demand, and that makes all the difference. 

Taehyung is quiet while you eat. He doesn’t look at you, doesn’t watch to make sure you’re doing it, but you have no doubt he’s keeping an eye on you. It’s quiet, but not unbearably so; the air is broken by the sounds of the lyre and the television, as well as the soft chattering of the men at the table. It makes it comfortable, makes it soft in a way you’re unaccustomed to being, like the way people talk about lazy Sunday mornings or that voice they get when they see a cute animal.

It feels like home should be, instead of what yours is. 

“So why’s Pretty Boy giving me the death glare?” You eventually ask past a mouthful of food. Taehyung barely looks up, just glancing past you to the guy laying on the couch. You can feel his eyes boring into your spine, but it’s nothing new. 

“Taemin’s just protective,” Taehyung says softly. “Especially considering the stories.”

“The ones about me, you mean.”

A myriad of emotions passes through his eyes when he nods, and you wish you could more easily decipher them. Maybe in time, you will. 

Maybe.

“Those, yes,” He says softly. “But he’ll learn.” He doesn’t say it, but nonetheless, you hear the words as clear as day. Just like I did.  

Someone hums behind you and you glance over to see a woman - the strawberry thief - making her way into the kitchen. She gives Taehyung a look you don’t care enough to figure out, and they have an entire conversation in the span of five minutes. Something about it irks you, and it only gets worse when they start moving around each other, Taehyung handing her things without her asking. 

It’s ridiculous, and you know it, but the air gets heavy in your lungs and your head starts to swim and suddenly you’re suffocating. It’s too much, there’s too much here, and you can’t take it anymore. 

The force with which you shove away the counter would have slammed it into the wall were it not already attached. There are slight cracks in the granite tops, though, and there’s just enough clarity as Taehyung calls your name for you to feel guilty about it. It’s not enough to stop you though; you have to get out, you need to get out, before you do something worse, and the cracks in the granite are proof of that. 

You’re out the door in an instant, your form coalescing painfully back into solid matter as you reach the hallway. Your ribs ache, screaming with the effort of trying to mist away from this place, this home , and you lean against the wall in the hope that it will help steady you. 

The door opens behind you, the creak of the old hinges deafening in the silence of the hall. There’s a commotion behind it, voices overlapping each other and reverberating in your skull until they’re a twisted mockery of your siblings. 

You stumble down the hall, one hand clutching your ribs to keep them as still as possible despite your movement. It’s not lost on you that there are footsteps following you, but you can’t focus on them now. You’re not moving fast, and you need to be, you should be running , but you can’t. Your vision is already clouding slightly at the edges, the sudden spike of adrenaline waning now that you’re out of the apartment. 

Someone says your name and you swing. 

It’s instinct, the way your fist flies through the air; you can’t control it, not this, not when the red is all you can see even as it seeps away and turns lilac. It doesn’t matter anyway. You don’t make contact with anything but the wall, plaster crumbling around your fist and onto the carpeted floor. 

“That was rude,” Taehyung says softly. He doesn’t sound mad, though he should, considering you almost decked him straight in the nose. “I’ll take you back.”

He drapes your jacket over your arm and walks away, toward emergency stairs tucked into the corner instead of the elevator, and you follow. He hums as he goes, and he lets you lead the way down the stairs, keeping pace with your quick steps until both of you step out a side door into an alleyway. 

Out of habit, more than anything, you light a cigarette and put it between your lips. You don’t miss the disgusted scrunch of Taehyung’s nose, but you do ignore it. The smoke is familiar in lungs, comforting, and he doesn’t understand it, won’t ever understand it, but he doesn’t have to. 

“Sorry, Tae,” You say after a few minutes of silence. Taehyung shrugs one shoulder and moves to lean beside you against the stone of the building. 

“Are you okay now?” You nod, taking a deep breath, remembering how Hestia had taught you, so long ago, how her hand felt against your chest, the warmth and love it held. “Then you’re forgiven. And you can call me Calliope, if you want.”

You’re both quiet after that. He doesn’t make fun of you, he doesn’t judge you, he just silently drives you back to Suho’s bar, which is when you remember that he doesn’t know where you live. You’re fine with it; you don’t want to see him in your run down hovel. It’s not much, especially compared to his own apartment, but that makes sense, too. 

What could ever live up to the home of a Muse? Not even a muse, really. The Muse. The Head of the Nine Muses, the one called on most often by those in need, the one that everyone knew, the one that Hephaestus just put statues of in the gardens of Olympus, according to the rumors that Apollo sent you. 

The calm that he brings lasts until you get back to your apartment, nearly ten full minutes after you disappear into the alley beside Suho’s bar. It’s the longest the calm has ever lasted, and the view of the city tinted lavender is one you think you love. 

If you can love. 

Things get clearer, somehow. The weight on your shoulders lessens, makes you feel less like Atlas and more like you, how you were all those years ago in the now-ancient days when things made sense. When people fought for honor and glory and justice more than they fought for oil and death and greed. 

It could be because open mic nights are frequent around the city, and you’re able to figure out his schedule pretty well. You don’t go every night that he sings, just when it gets to be too much, when the scarlet haze starts to bleed into your irises like a flag in front of a bull. It helps, for a while, lets you settle long enough to pull the pieces of you back into a shape that vaguely resembles yourself. 

It could be because the fights happen every night, and Taehyung is no stranger to where to look to find them. He watches every one that he can, when he isn’t singing, and his presence anchors you. Focuses you, so that you can pull your punches just enough, so that there’s less hurting and more fighting. It doesn’t work every time, you still lose yourself in the rage and do more damage than you ever mean to, but it helps enough. And when it doesn’t, he’s there, to slide a hand across your shoulders in that exact same way that Hestia used to, that Apollo might if you let him close enough to know you’re alive, that Artemis would , were she anywhere but where she is. 

It’s a strange feeling. You’re not used to companionship, you don’t know how to have friends. You still say the wrong things and do the wrong things and he still speaks to you like he expects to be listened to, but you both are learning. You apologize more often, and he corrects himself quicker. It’s a slow, fragile thing, this friendship, but it’s there. 

Until the night when it’s not. 

You aren’t sure how it happens. It’s been weeks since you last saw Taehyung; he mentioned some project he was working on, something or another that would have most of his attention along with that of several of the other Muses. You had brushed it off when he said it, some snide remark about how you don’t need him there to win. 

You would take it back if you could. 

Because you were right, of course, you don’t need him there to win; you can do that on your own. And your control has gotten better, stronger, over the last few months, but complacency is what always leads to disaster. 

The guy deserved it, is what you tell yourself as you’re pulled out of the ring. He was a piece of shit anyway, you remind yourself as you call Apollo with shaking hands. He didn’t deserve your mercy, you tell the golden gold after you’ve begged him to help save the man’s life. Artemis would have done the same, you insist to him, long after he’s hung up the phone and left to follow the ambulance to the hospital. 

You don’t go to Suho’s. You can’t bear it, not when he might be there, not when he would read it on your face in a heartbeat. You don’t want to watch the disappointment crumble into something more familiar, something worse, you can’t watch him look at you with the knowledge that your siblings are right, that they’ve always been right, that you’re nothing better than a crazed animal. 

The club is packed full when you get there. The bartender starts to pour you a drink and you just take the bottle, leaving a too-thick wad of bills in return. The bourbon tickles as it goes down but it warms your stomach and distracts you from the haze in your mind, the repetitive beat of they were right they were right they were right they were-

“Whoops, sorry,” someone says, a second before they knock into your shoulder. You’ve been around long enough to know a fake fall, and you scowl as you glance towards them. 

He’s cute. Taller than you, with skin that would hide the marks you so love to create, and hair that looks like it would be soft in your hands. His clothes fit well, and they look like they were chosen for comfort over style despite the way he walks like a model in them, which you always find attractive. 

The smile that slips onto your face is familiar, as is the way you bring your hand up to rest on his hip in an effort to steady him. 

“Don’t worry about it, sweetheart,” You tell him, not being subtle in the way you eye him. He looks soft; you love them soft. “You headed to get a drink?”

“I might be,” He says teasingly, a coy grin forming on his lips. 

“I’ve got something better, if you’re interested.”

His eyes roam along your body, his breath drawing somewhat quicker when he notices the scrapes on your knuckles. “I might be.”

It takes five minutes to get him to a corner quiet enough to talk. Less than three to get your lips on his. One and a half to start sucking a mark into his neck that makes him moan so pretty you can’t help but want to hear it again. 

One of your hands is up his shirt, playing with the pebbled buds and the metal pierced through them, while the other teasingly massages the skin of his hip when he’s torn away from you roughly. 

“What the fuck?” Your voice growls as you look up. The guy is standing there, looking for all the world like he’s ready to run, but he isn’t watching you. 

No, his eyes are on a familiar sight; Taehyung, his hair now a pretty lavender that makes you think of a home you don’t have, even as he doesn’t look at you. 

“Taken,” He growls, releasing the collar of the guy you had every intent to make cry with pleasure. The guy scurries off before you can stop him, though, and you don’t bother to hide your disdain. 

“What the fuck is your problem?” You demand, already lighting a cigarette as you head outside. Taehyung follows, pulling it from between your lips and crushing it in his hands before you have the chance to get your lighter out.

“Me? You looked like you were about to eat him .” He follows you all the way to the street outside and down the sidewalk, pulling each cigarette out of your hands before you can light it. He waits until you’re a decent distance from the crowd outside the club before he stops you, one hand lightly encircling your wrist. 

Your boots scuff against the ground as you stop, not turning to look at him. You’re too afraid to, too worried he’ll see it all on your face and just know that you’ve fucked up, maybe beyond repair. 

“Apollo called me,” is what he says instead. “Said I might want to find you tonight.”

You should’ve known. That little fuck, of course he would rat you out. 

“I didn’t-” 

The words choke in your throat. You want to say you don’t need him. You don’t need him to come running like you’re some scared little girl who can’t control her strength, you don’t need him to piece you back together because you aren’t broken, you don’t need him because you don’t need anyone, you never have. 

“I know you didn’t,” Taehyung says quietly. “I know he deserved it, I know what he did, and I know you didn’t mean to.”

Something inside of you breaks and you find yourself shaking. 

“He hurt her , Tae, I heard it, I heard her telling her friend about it on the phone, I saw her crying, I saw her clothes, okay, he-”

“I know,” Taehyung says, pulling you into a loose hug. “I know you did, it’s okay. He’s going to be okay. He’s not gonna escape his punishment from that, you didn’t send anyone to Hades today. It’s okay.”

The cloud struggles, for what feels like hours. Guilt settles like lead in your stomach, and you wish you weren’t so used to the feeling. The rage returns every time you remember what that girl looked like, what she sounded like on the phone, how you felt when you realized it was your competitor who had done that to her. 

There’s no honor in that. There’s no justice, no glory, in beating an opponent who was never aware they were in the ring, and it makes your blood boil all over again. Taehyung’s voice soothes you, slightly, makes the edges of your vision turn indigo, but it isn’t enough. 

It’s never enough. 

“I have to go,” You say, pulling yourself away from him. “I need- I have to find-”

“A distraction,” He finishes for you, too aware that you can’t find the words you need. “Some mortal that you can bruise and break and bang until you feel less like a monster?”

That’s exactly what you want to do, what you had been about to do with that guy at the club, and it’s only Taehyung’s voice calling your name in that soft, sweet way of his that makes you wonder if that’s not a good plan. 

“I’ll be a distraction, if you need one.” You whip your head around, staring at him, but he doesn’t flinch. “I’m sturdier than the mortals, I can take more. Let me be your distraction.”

“I…” You hesitate. You don’t know why. You shouldn’t even be entertaining this idea, it’s not a good one, but then...when have any of your ideas been good? “I can’t fuck in a house with eight other people.”

“You have an apartment,” He says easily. “Let’s go there.”

It’s a bad idea. You don’t do that, you don’t fuck people at your apartment, you don’t have people in your apartment, it’s your space. It’s a bad idea, it can only end in disaster. 

“Okay.”

Taehyung’s lips are soft against yours, yielding and pliant just the way you’re used to. His hands are big and warm against your ass, even through your jeans, and the feeling gives you the courage to slide your own under the ridiculously patterned button-down he’s wearing. 

He lets you lead the way through the door, kicking it closed behind you with slightly too much force. Your apartment is small, a studio with a bed tucked in the corner for the rare times that you need it. 

You push Taehyung onto it and slide yourself onto his lap, already grinding down onto the hard length you can feel there. He's not quite as enthusiastic, but his fingers are like steel against you, pulling you down with every rut of your hips. 

This, you can do. This, you're familiar with. 

You push on his shoulders, doing your best to get him on his back so you can have better access to the clasp of his jeans, but he resists. You try again, firmer, using a harsh suck against his skin as a distraction, but he still doesn't go. 

Frustrated, you pull back. 

"Not like this," He says. His voice clears some of the fog, and you frown. 

"Do you want to be on top, then? Because I don't mind, I just need it," You tell him. He sighs a little, but he flips the two of you over so he's kneeling between your open legs and your back is cushioned against the mattress. 

"How long has it been since you spent the night with someone who knows who you are?" He asks, pressing a kiss to your cheek as he sits back on his knees. 

You shift, uncomfortable. "A while. Why does that matter? Just fuck me."

"No," Taehyung says, voice gentle but firm. You cock a brow at him and move to get out from under him, but he stills you with a hand on your thigh. 

"You are a goddess," He tells you, trailing his hands down so he can undo the laces on your steel-toe boots and slide them off. "You have held Victory in your palms and set her free." 

His palms burn through the denim on your thighs, but you welcome it as he slides your jacket over your shoulders to the bed beneath. 

"You are the winner of wars. You are the one who grants battlefield wishes. You are the dead's escort to Hades." He leans down, pressing a soft kiss against your cheek and then down your throat. 

He pulls back as he gets to your collarbone, eyes blown wide with unfamiliar desire, and it makes your breath catch in your throat.

"You," Taehyung tells you, with desire in his eyes and belief in his voice, "Deserve to be treated like the goddess that you are, with the respect you have earned, and the care you deserve." 

As often as you fuck people, it's been a very long time since anyone wanted to fuck you for any reason beyond your appearance and the personality you show them. But this? This look in the muse's eyes as his hands settle on your knees as he waits? 

Taehyung wants to fuck you because you're you. Not despite it, not because he doesn't know . He has seen you at your worst and yet he keeps coming back, keeps showing up as you fall apart. Each time he stays, hands you a basket so you can pick the pieces of yourself up off the ground, holds the tape so you can mash it back together, and is ready to help steady you when you start to crumble again. 

He's here for you , to treat you in a way no one has ever treated you before. He's your friend.

He cares.

You nod, however tentatively, and his lips are on yours in an instant. They're firmer now, less pliable and more controlling, but you don't mind. Not this time. 

Not with Taehyung. 

His hands don't hesitate as he strips you both of your clothes, but you can feel it each time he checks to make sure you're okay. The way that he watches your expression, the tense of your muscles under him, the cadence of your gasps for air between kisses, he reads all of it as clear as if it's a book in front of him. He slows down before you can stop him, his lips drawing back from the kisses he draws across your thighs, and he speeds up as your thoughts start to drift, swiping his tongue and two fingers through your folds to tease and bring your attention back to him. 

His fingers bury themselves in your heat, crooking slightly to brush against that soft part of you that makes the world spin, and it's all too intense. His lips are hardly even touching your skin, just pressing gentle kisses against the skin of your thigh, a gentle complement to the way he glides his fingers in and out of you, slow and steady and delicious, but it's absolutely intoxicating. 

He's talkative, too; he gives you constant praise. He tells you how well you take his fingers, how good you look with his fingers inside you, how absolutely fantastic you taste on his tongue, how he'd live between your thighs if he could. 

It's too much, and you can't be sure why, not when your orgasm is approaching quicker than it ever has, not when your walls clench around him and you soak your sheets, not when he's cleaning your cum off his fingers with his tongue.

"Good," He purrs. "Now you're all warmed up." 

His mouth hits your heat without hesitation or warning, before the aftershocks are even finished, and your hips buck upwards. His arms slide underneath your thighs only to grip them and bring them back down. You can't move much in his grip except to grind your pussy against his mouth, which he seems to enjoy, if the muffled grunts that escape him are any indication.

He doesn't stop until his tongue is buried inside you with one finger drawing lazy circles on your clit and you're cumming again, hands gripping the soft strands of his hair so tight that you would be afraid of pulling it out if you could focus on anything besides the feel of him against you.

He lets you ride the aftershock, this time. Waits until your pants die down slightly, until you're back in your mind. 

"Good?" He asks you. His voice is deeper, rumbles instead of slides, but it breaks through the post-orgasm haze long enough for you to nod. “More?”

“More,” you agree, wrapping your arms around his broad shoulders and pulling him into a heated kiss. You haven’t been this clear-headed in a while. Every sensation is clear and crisp, every sound heightened, everything is simultaneously more while also being exactly what it’s always supposed to have been. 

Taehyung’s cock is everything you could have expected from a muse; thick, long, beautiful, and it fills you in a way that’s indescribable as he slides inside. He groans at the feeling, deep and throaty and beautiful, and begins his thrusts nearly immediately. 

It’s as slow as he was with his fingers; steady and forceful, but unhurried. As if he wants to take his time. As if he wants to savor it. Savor you . 

“Do you have any idea how amazing you are?” He mutters, almost as an afterthought. “What you look like right now, what you look like when you’re fighting, when you’ve won and you’re triumphant? It’s fucking addictive, seeing that confidence in you.”

“Shit, Tae, don’t stop-”

“It’s so fucking intoxicating,” He groans, pace quickening. Your arms wrap around him more fully, nails like claws down his back as you arch your back to get him deeper. “You get this look in your eyes, like you can do anything you fucking want to, and it’s so fucking brilliant, because you can , you can do anything and everything you ever fucking want to do, and no one can stop you.”

A whine you’ll never admit to escapes your throat, and Taehyung drives his cock further into you. 

“Let go, my sweet,” Taehyung purrs in your ear. “Let yourself relax, just this once. For me.”

His hand touches your clit and it’s so much, too much , you’re feeling everything so intensely that it takes a solid minute to realize you’re coming down from an orgasm. Taehyung has stilled inside you, unmoving but groaning as you flutter around him, and you push weakly at his shoulder. 

He slides himself out of you, looking entirely too proud of wet spot underneath you and glistening against his lower stomach. You wobble your way up to rest your elbows underneath you, and it’s like he can sense your words before they come. 

“No,” He says simply. “I don’t you to get me off with your mouth.”

“A hand then? I don’t want you to leave unsatisfied.” 

A frown pulls at the corner of his mouth, and he leans down just enough that your lips are almost touching, a not-there kiss that you can only wish for. 

“In what world is fucking you to the point of Elysium unsatisfying?”

The crowd around you is deafening; some of them are cheering for you, but the majority are rooting for your downfall. Such is the life of a challenging the champion, you suppose. 

You don’t know how Taehyung found this place; maybe Artemis had heard rumors, or maybe he searched for it himself. You can’t bring yourself to care, not when you’ve got someone worth fighting on the other side of the arena. 

The sand crunches beneath your feet. It’s hot, hotter than it should be since you’re still wearing your signature jeans and boots - without the jacket this time. You learned from that mistake. 

Your vision tints pink as you size up your opponent; he’s massive, not one to be easily defeated, and you relish the challenge. It’s been so long since you’ve fought a giant. Excitement thrums under your veins as he turns to you. He scoffs. 

If you had a little less control, you might be flying across the arena already. He clearly has no idea who’s standing across from him. Probably thinks you’re some demigod, come to challenge him for the fleece he isn’t supposed to have. 

He’ll learn. 

Something moves in the distance. It should blend in, considering how dark it is, but instead it draws your eye, and you don’t even question why. You would recognize him anywhere, have recognized him everywhere, and his presence calms you. Makes you remember a few nights ago, falling into bed in a hotel in Rome because the burn was to much and you needed him to help you release it. 

“Try not to be too quick, princess,” The giant across from you huffs. You cock a brow and send a look to your muse, who just rolls his eyes, despite the smile playing across his face. 

Violet rings your vision as you ready your stance. The announcer yells something that’s lost over the noise of the crowd. Taehyung leans forward, elbows on his knees, excitement and pride in his eyes. 

The giant swings. 

[beomglocks]

Misery Loves Company

Part : one

Plot : in which choi yeonjun is the human enbodiment of death. of course because of this, he's never had friends. when he is given the task to fulfill the death of a group of young friends, he can't seem to bring himself to do it.

Wordcount : 1.2K

Genre : angst?, fluff, yeonjun sad :(, death, major character death, dont know if this is a spoiler but no one really dies, txt are friendship goals, mild swearing, soobin is a mood

A/N : i came up with this bc i love pain :) but i love junnie he deserves happiness

.·:*¨¨*:·. .·:*:·. .·:*¨¨*:·.

he didn't wanna do it. he really didn't wanna do it.

if he could have the ability to go back and undo what he just did, he would because sparing people wasn't on yeonjun's job description. it had been an "in the moment" decision as they say.

people have a path laid out for them. some people's timers go off while old and some while young, nothing can change that, everyone is bound to die at some point. for a simple human, theres no telling what that path holds. will they marry, have children, graduate school, have a nice life?

it was yeonjun's job as the angel of death to carry out the deed of ending the human's life once their timer went off. no, he didnt feel any remorse (usually) since he'd been doing this for a long time now.

it had been a particulary normal day for the angel. he killed all the people that were intended to die for that day. it was a bright day in seoul, the sun's warm rays shining down on the bustling city encouraging people to go outside and enjoy it's gift for a while. truth be told, yeonjun preferred these kinds of days for one reason in particular.

he sighed as he gently floated down onto the sturdy branch of a remote tree. the location where he settled was perfect since this was reletively unknown part of a bigger forest, there being a tiny shed by a serene lake. it's not that he didn't want to be seen because it's not like anyone could see him anyways. it was more of he didn't want his presence felt. he was aware that humans could feel deaths presence and thus made them paranoid or gloomy.

sounds of life pulled him out of his mind as he looked down onto a group of four boys playing by the shed.

"soobin hyung can you PLEASE tell beomgyu hyung to give molang back," one of the boys pouted. he stopped chasing the other boy to complain to his older friend. "choi beomgyu quit being a brat," the older boy lazily chastized. the dark haired boy stuck his tongue out and handed the plush back to the younger.

it was moments like this that helped yeonjun relax after his mentally draining job. he wished he could have friends like this. no one in the underworld wanted to be friends with him since he was death personified, they were terrified, rightfully so.

yeonjun didn't consider himself scary but ask any other person and they'd be trembling just mentioning his name. he was born with different colored eyes, one red and the other green, both having a role in aiding his role as the angel of death. it didn't help that his personal style consisted of dark/monochrome colors which contrasted his bleach blonde hair. that and the fact that he never seemed to smile.

despite that, he smiled at the group of friends before him. he had been watching over them for quite sometime. he had learned their names, likes, dislikes, and even personalities. he really felt like he could really be their friend in real life if he were ever given the chance.

soobin, yeonjun had learned, was quite reserved. charming, but reserved though yeonjun noticed that when he was alone with his friends he was an entirely different person, sometimes partaking in their antics. he was the oldest among the group of four.

beomgyu was the gremlin of the lot, unsurprisingly yeonjun had taken a liking to the kid. of course because beomgyu reminded him of the devils of the underworld. beomgyu was mischivious and liked to mess around with his friends, though never enough to cause harm because he did care deeply for them. beomgyu was humorous and always had even the most stoic person laughing.

speaking of stoic, yeonjun looked towards a red headed boy reading a book by the shed. this was taehyun. he was a year younger than the other two but seemed the most mature by far. this didn't exclude him from his friend's antics, to yeonjun it meant that he knew when to differenciate having fun and being level-headed. though yeonjun sometimes noticed how he would roughhouse and it left yeonjun stunned at the amount of strength this kid held in his body.

hueningkai was the youngest of the group. yeonjun had grown to like how full of life this kid was. huening was truly a breath of fresh air for the angel of death. yeonjun first felt like their personalities would clash since huening really did seem like an actual angel but he liked the contrast. kai was always laughing and never seemed to really frown and yeonjun liked that since he was always surrounded by sadness and death.

"hey, did any of you do mr. kim's homework?" beomgyu exclaimed. once again, yeonjun was pulled from his thoughts. he didn't go to school or anything but he always overheard the boys conversations and decided that he, himself also hated school.

hueningkai tiredly plopped down next to taehyun and sighed, "no, it's too hard and taehyunnie won't help me." beomgyu crossed his arms as he stopped right in front of said boy, "hyunnie what the hell's the point of having a big brain if you wont share it with others?" he bent down to pull at two strands of the red head's hair.

taehyun looked up from his book with a frown, "it's not my fault you guys weren't paying attention in class." he motioned to the tall boy sunbathing a little ways from them, "ask hyung to help."

"nope!" soobin hastily shouted. "i have no idea how to math so don't even look at me!" beomgyu sighed dramactically, "you all are useless!"

yeonjun giggled to himself. he had a percentage of all the knowledge in the world, he figured if they were friends he would be of some sort of assistance to the boys. he smiled contently as he surveyed the group. somehow his eyes fell upon taehyun who for some odd reason was looking directly at yeonjun.

this sent chills up yeonjun's spine. very little things scared the angel of death but the red haired kid's eyes were really something else. this had happened on occasion, yeonjun would notice taehyun staring at him or looking in his general direction. yeonjun knew that no human could see him so he figured taehyun mustve felt his presence.

in this moment, however, yeonjun did not like the way taehyun seemed to be looking at him. the kids eyes seemed sad but very piercing, almost as if he knew something was going to happen.

yeonjun brushed off the look as huening shifted in his postion on the boys shoulder. he looked up at taehyun and sighed putting his head back in position. "can you stop daydreaming and staring off into space like that, its creepy," huening stated calmly. "sorry," taehyun blinked away. "sometimes it just feels like someone's watching us, i dont know."

huening removed his head from taehyun's shoulder and opted in resting his head on the hard wood of the shed, "tae if you're trying to scare me its not gonna work. you should've told soobinnie hyung that line, it wouldve been funny to see his reaction."

taehyun frowned, turning his attention to soobin and beomgyu bickering about their level of competence, arguing over which one of them was smarter, frankly none of them were in taehyun's opinion. he leaned against hueningkai's broader shoulder this time, "right."

[chateautae]

i’m absolutely not okay and am still sobbing as i type this wtf :(((( this was one of the saddest things i’ve ever read and i’ve read stories where there’s a major character death and where there’s not a happy ending, but this one topped the cake for sure😭 sammy you are the queen of smut, fluff and angst, it’s true i fear. ugh no my heart dropped so many times and i’m so STILL SO SAD. i thought chapter 7 was rough but boi this one got me😭

can i just say I FCKING HATE ALEX OH MY GOD. WHAT A PRICK. I LITERALLY HAVE NO WORDS TO DESCRIBE THE AMOUNT OF HATRED AND DISGUST I HAVE FOR HIM. I VOTE FOR ALEX FOR THE NEXT CHARACTER WHO SHOULD HAVE A BROKEN NOSE AND OC SHOULD GIVE IT TO HIM. UGHHHH. AND DONT GET ME STARTED ON OC’S MOM. I HAVE NEVER WANTED TO SMACK SOMEBODY SO FRICKING HARD OH MY GOD. @ OC’S DAD: DIVORCE HER. PLEASE.

on a real note, i really want to applaud you on your writing and just how talented you are!!! no like actually you’re beyond talented and let me tell you why! when things were going bad for oc and tae, my heart was hurting and dropping left and right and there were tears coming out that i wasn’t even aware of. the way that you write your stories literally makes the reader just so absorbed and it’s like we’re on this ride with the characters and are going through everything together. like not only that but when oc was in the garden and when jimin came to visit (I WILL GET TO MORE ON THIS BC IM IN LOVE WITH JIMIN) it felt like i was sitting in a meadow of flowers underneath the sun and everything literally felt brighter and lighter. that is how talented you are. i’ve read so many fanfics, literally fics from when i was a directioner and till now, this is the best one that i have read. seriously. thank you for letting us read this work of art!

no jimin in the high class series is so spot on to who he is irl!! reliable, patient, kind, mature, etc. he’s legit JIMIN IRL. like my heart was in shambles but when jimin came to visit, the pieces were starting to come back together. and thats another reason why you’re so talented sammy!! bc literally when everything was bad, it felt so dark and i was like “sht it really is only them. they have no one else.” and it really felt like i was in that dark and confined space with them. but when jimin came to visit, it was like a small light peeping through the darkness and i had that same realization with the tae and oc that they really aren’t alone and they have this amazing group of friends here to protect them, help them and be there for them. like jimin was the symbol of hope that everything will be okay again. UGH SAMMY!! YOU’RE SUCH A TALENTED WRITER. I WAS SO ABSORBED THE WHOLE TIME.

THERES JUST SO MUCH TO UNPACK. YOONGI IS HOME. JIMIN IS A SAINT. WE GOT AN OT7 REUNION. TAE BEING AN AMAZING HUSBAND AND JUST BEING THERE FOR OC DESPITE HOW DRAINED AND TIRED HE WAS, BUT STILL HOLDING ON FOR DEAR LIFE BC OF HOW MUCH HE LOVES HIS WIFE. OC GOING THROUGH HELL AND BACK AND TRYING HER BEST TO HOLD ON EVERYDAY FOR TAE. their love for each other is impeccable and beautiful. no it rlly is!!

but no seriously this chapter was beyond amazing and you did such a great job!! i’m not only excited to see how this series ends but i’m also super excited to read jimin’s story with his oc! all of the members seem so close to who they are in real life and i’m beyond impressed and excited to read their stories!! also!! will all of ot7 be similar to themselves irl too?

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU AGAIN FOR LETTING US READ THIS MASTERPIECE AND YOU HAVE BLOWN MY MIND YET AGAIN!! NOW I’M GONNA TRY TO RECOVER AND REREAD THIS WHOLE SERIES AGAIN AFTER😭

-🪐

"it felt like i was sitting in a meadow of flowers underneath the sun and everything literally felt brighter and lighter. that is how talented you are."

SATURN ANON??? THIS LOVELY LOVELY MESSAGE?? I almost cried reading this because it's simply a dream for any author to hear. I'm so glad I could deliver a chapter worthy of all this praise, thank you so so much for investing all this time and even writing to me!! I'M SO HAPPY YOU LOVE JIMIN TOO TRUST ME, HIS STORY WITH HIS OC IN MY OPINION IS THE MOST INTERESTING ONE!! YES the members are relatively very similar to their irl personas.

Yoongi's the reserved yet intelligent one, namjoon's incredibly logical yet supportive, hoseok's full of fun but can be a real shoulder to lean on, Jimin's a fucking angel, but Seokjin and Jungkook's characters are quite exaggerated and probably differs the most from their irl personas. Seokjin is quirky in the high class series but not as much irl and Jungkook's very outgoing where as irl he's more shy!!

THANK YOU AGAIN FOR MY LOVE YOU WORDS REALLY MEAN THE WORLD TO ME!! 💓💓

[nonasidesstuff]

the dimension travel au

aka Virgil’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week

so this is like half bullet fic half outline half word vomit but here it is!

this is based on a set of art drawn by @greenninjagal-blog that you can find here with the original version of this au

i dont mind if anyone wants to use any of these ideas just tag me/send me a link if you do!

this got SUPER LONG so its going under a cut

ok lets start with

virgil

his world is medieval-with-magic

the magic here tends to take on different elemental forms depending on the user

people who use magic are called witches

his is storm based (lightning, rain, wind, etc) and is good for both offense (shooting fucking LIGHTNING at someone is great in a fight) and gardening (the ability to call rain at will is pretty nice)

he can also make potions but in his world ANYONE with magic can make potions

the thing is,,,,, magic is illegal in the kingdom he lives in

so when he found out he had magic at like age 11 he fucked off in the middle of the night

he found another witch (a water witch) fairly soon after he left and they taught him how to control his powers and how to make potions

also how to hunt bc hed planned on living out of cities

5 years later hes 16 and has learned all he could and leaves to go to the woods in the middle of nowhere

his teacher had told him about a cottage they had built in a clearing in the woods and said he could go there bc they were leaving the kingdom

they left behind a lot of books on magic and he learned more reading those

the cottage was actually in pretty good shape? the roof was a little leaky but the furniture inside was fine

the outside was a nightmare though. overgrown plants all over

as the years went on he restored the area around the cottage and found a bunch of neat stuff

like a vegetable garden that had been overgrown and wild but still had healthy plants he could cultivate for food. there were also some spice plants that had gone out of control that he harvested and dried for later use

he found out the woods around his home were full of berries (wild strawberries and blackberries. shhhhhh idc if they dont grow in the same places this is a Magic World) and discovered that one of the trees in the clearing was actually an apple tree so yay fruit!!!!

so he was living the good life

cut to 3 years later

hes 19 now and a full-blown weather witch and potion maker

he has sectioned off his garden into 3 parts: spices, vegetables, and potions ingredients

unfortunately some ingredients just wont grow well in a garden and have to be harvested from the wild

virgil realizes hes running low on a couple of said ingredients and decides to make a run to the patches of potion herbs he knows of

he only gets halfway there

a swirling blue-and-yellow vortex opens up 20 feet in the air to the right of him and something falls out

something human shaped

holy shit its a PERSON

he rushes over to make sure this person is okay and.

they have reddish brown fox ears?????

and a reddish brown and grey tail????????

he pokes one of the ears and it twitches

holy shit theyre REAL????!!!!!!!!!

he gathers up this person and takes them home

he puts the strange person in his bed and tends to the minor injuries they obtained from falling 20 feet

this is when he realizes that this person is dressed,,,,,, very strangely

now, people in virgil’s world have some freedom in what they can wear. they can wear whatever the FUCK they want. virgil is partial to dresses and skirts himself

but what this person is wearing is different. the material was like nothing hed ever seen before and in a strange style

(it suits him. its really cute)

he slept for a little over 9 hours

(virgil slept on the floor)

and when he woke he was disoriented and woozy

so he ate a small meal and drank some water and fell back to sleep for another couple hours

when he wakes again, he feels much better and is able to introduce himself

“I’m Patton Baker! Where am I?”

patton

his world is like if you took every single magical girl/boy anime out there and mashed it into one world.

so its chaotic

theres aliens/demons/monsters attacking every other week

this attracts magical creatures like a magnet and they start giving magical girls/boys powers. these are called magical guardians

these people are public figures and are treated the same way idols are in our world (not allowed boyfriends/girlfriends etc)

its a tough job

patton became a magical boy when he was 14 and has been for the past 3 years

the powers his magical guardian are able to give are based off of endangered or threatened animals (yes im sort of copying tokyo mew mew shhhhhhhhhh)

patton became infused with the dna of the island fox

his transformation is triggered by a small tattoo-like marking given to him by his guardian. it’s on the base of his neck

he Absolutely has a magical girl transformation

when he’s transformed, he has the ears and tail of an island fox as well as claw-like nails. his hair is the reddish-brown of the fox and his eyes are silver

his outfit is light blue with silver and white accents and dark blue sleeves

when detransformed he has blond hair and blue eyes

his magical boy weapon is a bow that he can shoot arrows of light from

his group was based out of florida and has been going strong for about 15 years. magical teens come and go as they gain their powers and retire or, tragically, lose their lives fighting

at the moment there are six people including patton

their most recent foe is a monster that has the ability to make people and things disappear, and they’re not sure what happens to them

theyre fighting this thing at night when it happens. the creature has already taken the streetlights out and the teens are fighting in heavy darkness. patton, who has better night vision due to his fox genes, sees the monster about to grab the leader, and strongest, of their group

and he makes a choice

he pushes her out of the way and gets grabbed by the monster instead.

there’s a single moment of searing pain and then the world dissolves into swirling lights and dizziness

when he wakes he’s in a strange house. he introduces himself and the person who’s taking care of him introduces himself

he’s told he fell out of some sort of portal and virgil tries to help him figure out where he is in relation to his home but. virgil doesnt recognize any of the places patton is talking about. and patton doesnt recognize any of the ones virgil says

virgil asks patton about the fact that He Is Part Fox and patton talks about the magical system back home and thats when they realize theyre dealing with dimension travel

patton stays in bed for the rest of the day and by the next hes feeling much better! so he helps virgil around the house and they get to know each other

the day after that, virgil remembers that he really needs those herbs, so he tells pat hes going out for a bit to gather them

he gets about a quarter of the way there when Another Portal Opens and dumps out a person. this time right in front of him

this person is also wearing odd

clothing, but in a different style than pattons

he checks to make sure theyre not injured (they knocked their head a bit but other than that seem fine) and carries them back home

the person is unconscious in virgil’s bed for a couple of hours longer than patton was, but he wakes up entirely coherent

he introduces himself as “logan croft”

logan

his world is one full of magic

magical creatures of all sorts live there and magic is a welcome part of society

there’s elves, fairies, merfolk, unicorns, any you can think of

magical schools are also big parts of it

people who have mastered their magic to the highest degree are called mages

everyone else are called wizards

the way magic works in this world is with spells (think harry potter but without wands)

some people are born with more magic than others and as such have a harder time controlling it when it manifests at around 10

so theyre sent to magic schools where they learn how to safely do so

if they want to stay at these schools after they learn control then they move on to higher forms of magical education to continue learning

logan is one of these students

he was born with a MASSIVE amount of magic and when it manifested he. accidentally leveled his house

everyone was fine!!!!!!! but the poor boy had absolutely no control

so he stayed at a school for people with high amounts of magic and by the time he was 13 he had enough control to leave if he wanted to

of course this being logan he Absolutely wanted to keep learning so he moved on

he was so good actually that he ended up in the best magic academy in the world

he consistently learned magic at a faster rate than his peers and so by the time he was 18 (people normally didnt until they were like 21/22) he was a mage in all but name

so he was ready to take his mage exam

the mage exam is considered both easy and the hardest and most dangerous thing you could do

its easy in the fact that you only have to cast a spell correctly

its hard and dangerous bc its a spell that NO ONE outside of historians have ever seen before and you only have 10 minutes to memorize it. things go wrong Frequently

needless to say there arent many mages and people tend to either quit before reaching that stage or fail

and failure can be painful

so logan decides to take the mage exam

the spell they are given is a long string of words dug out of an ancient book of spells and historians arent entirely sure what it does

so ofc its given to the best in the academy

logan takes his ten minutes to memorize the spell and begins chanting

now in this world, when spells are used a runic circle made of light appears under the person casting

small spells have small circles and bigger spells have larger and brighter ones

the one this spell called forwards was massive and so bright that it blinded the exam practitioners (i think thats the word?)

when the light died down logan was gone

theyre unsure whether it went right or wrong but unfortunately theres no trace of where logan had gone so theres no way to see

when he wakes hes somewhere he doesnt recognize and is being taken care of by two people

they all introduce themselves and logan gets the story about what happened to him

and he realizes hes in a different dimension with different magical rules

naturally he wants to learn everything

so he and virgil have long discussions about the differences in their magic systems

(with patton chiming in every once in a while with how bonkers magical girl powers are)

after logan gets back on his feet virgil really REALLY needs those herbs and so he decides to go back out

logan tags along this time bc he wants to see the differences between the flora and fauna of this new world

they get about half way there and once again.

a portal opens

its light blue and yellow

virgil goes “jesus christ AGAIN??????? am i a MAGNET for these things??????????”

and a person falls out

theyre another animal person. this time with scales covering the side of their face and down their arms

virgil and logan carry this whole other person back home and as soon as they walk in

patton is like “janus????!!!!!”

janus

turns out

janus is from pat’s world!!!! and the same mg group!!!!!

he became a magical boy about a year before pat did and was merged with the dna of a golden lancehead viper

so hes been a mg for like 4 years

his outfit is white with yellow bows and a black cape thing with a yellow inside. his scales are bright yellow and his eyes are heterochromatic. one is a normal eye (brown) and the other is a bright gold color with a snake-like pupil

his marking is on the inside of his left wrist

his weapon is a set of knives made of light that he can call at will and either slash with or throw

he and patton got along rather well in the current time

in the past, they,,,, didnt

it wasnt violent but they were kinda snippy at each other and janus was aggressively sarcastic which pat Did Not Appreciate

but after working together for a few years they got to know each other better and saw each other through low points in their lives and became close

janus was still a sarcastic little shit but now its more playful

he likes to suggest “pushing it down a flight of stairs” for any problem

“man i have a big math test tomorrow with a mean teacher that i didnt study for im screwed”

“push it down the stairs”

“the teacher or the test?”

“yes”

he will also aggressively remind you that Self Care Is Good And Needed

(“patton youve been patrolling for hours every night this week. go sleep”

“but i-“

“go 👏 to 👏 sleep 👏”

“bu-“

“go sleep or im going to knock you unconscious and THEN youll sleep”

“ok fine”)

anyways the dimension monster came back and despite the whole group being more careful, it got janus

luckily (to every one else) this time they managed to defeat it

once again, the pain of dimensional travel fucking SUCKED and janus was unconscious for about as long as patton was

he woke and ate a small meal and fell back asleep for like an hour

when he woke up that time he was shocked and happy to see patton

they reunite and everyone gets to know each other over the next couple days

and then virgil remembers that he STILL HASNT GOTTEN HIS HERBS and they all decide to tag along when he leaves to get them

virgil just like sighs and said “nothing better happen this time i swear to god-“

and they make it most of the way there!!!!! virgil feels a little hope!!!!

then another portal opens

its red and green

(virgil: “GODDAMMIT”)

this time TWO people fall out

the group gather up the two portal people and take them home to heal bc

holy shit they are in bad condition

theyre unconscious for a solid 2 days

Roman and remus

their world is BAD yall

the world is very scientifically advanced, and a group if scientists decided that they wanted to prove the existence of alternate universes

and they did!

but they accidentally opened a portal to a hell dimension and they couldnt close it

so the whole world became an apocalyptic nightmare

this happened when the twins were 15

theyve been surviving on their own in an apocalyptic hellscape for just over 4 years now

remus is the close range fighter with a variety of Large Sharp Knives and roman hangs back and snipes the ones going in for remus’ blind spots with a modified rifle. or if he has to fight closer range he has a modified pistol

roman also is the one to carry their medical supplies bc remus did Once and never will again

they travel together bc even though they cant stand each other some days (remus makes gross comments a Lot and roman likes to complain about the lack of conditioner)

(roman once found an old bottle of perfume and dumped it on remus’ head. in retaliation, when they were relatively safe remus found a dead squirrel and chased roman around with it for a solid 15 minutes)

theyre still twins and theyre all each other have left

currently, roman and remus are running from a creature that caught them off guard while they were sleeping

it had managed to get a few good hits on them before they managed to fight back so they both have a couple injuries

roman has a long slice down his arm and remus has some real bad claw marks down his back

the two of them find a building they can hide in while they wait for the creature to move on and discover that its some sort of science lab

they decide to explore for a bit bc they have 0 braincells between the two of them

what they dont realize is that this is one of the labs that the scientists were using to build their dimensional machines

what they do realize is that the monster found them and it starts chasing them through the facility

the two of them are in really bad shape

malnourished after living on just what they can find for 4 years, both bleeding profusely from open wounds and various injuries from other run-ins with the creatures

they arent able to run as fast as they usually are able and so they get cornered in a room with a large machine

they back up to it to stay away as long as they can and

one of them presses a button

the machine behind them whirrs to life and the two are sucked into a portal oh so similar to the one that ruined the lives of everyone on their world

roman wakes first

he wasnt hurt as badly as remus so the portal didnt take as much out of him as remus

everyone introduces themselves and roman has the his first full meal in. a long time

(he might cry a lil bit but shhhhhhh)

and now that hes awake, virgil can give him a potion to help speed up his healing

thats when romans like “holy shit MAGIC?????”

bc there was none on his world

and they all talk and get to know each other

(the other four are Horrified at how awful his world was

bc like, patton and janus’ wasnt very good either but it wasnt an apocalypse

the next day virgil leaves logan in charge and FINALLY goes and gets his GODDAMN HERBS

nothing happens this time :)

and when he gets back remus is awake

hes fed and virgil gets him a potion too

the two heal and just kind of marvel at the fact theyre safe for the first time in years

also that theres GODDAMN MAGIC!!!!!!!!!!

they still can’t believe theres actual magic

the five dimension hoppers eventually meet thomas, virgil’s talking magic cat

(virgil: “he can think and talk like a human hes not my cat”

thomas: “im totally your cat stop denying it”)

he decided to wander around the forest for a while (he does this often) and only got back after all of the portal shit ended

he is the only cat with magic and says he ALSO fell out of a portal but it was a few years before he met virgil

i dont really know what happens after this

maybe they go try to figure out how to get home?

maybe they decide to stay and live in the woods for the rest of their lives

 maybe they decide “you know what? FUCK the government” and stage a coup to make magic legal

 whichever it is definitely has a lot of found family goodness

can you tell i started running out of steam like 3/4 of the way through