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makeste · 4 years ago

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so let’s talk about the new bak-u-go stuff

hey guys, so long story short, I took all of the bak-u-go stuff out of my weekly liveblog/recap post, and put it into its own separate post so that it didn’t take over the recap completely. so this is my big “all of my thoughts about the second OFA user’s vestige in chapter 304” post, basically.

my opinion going into the chapter

okay so without mincing words, my very controversial stance on this theory going in was more or less, “yes, I do think that maybe that Bakugou-shaped shadow who looks exactly like Bakugou could, in fact, be Bakugou.” not only that, but it strikes me as much more feasible than the alternatives, “Bakugou’s ancestor who looks exactly like him was the second user of OFA for some reason, and Horikoshi keeps hiding his face because... we don’t really know”, or “this is just some random guy with spiky hair, and again his face is being hidden just because.”

like, there is some reason we’re not allowed to know what he looks like, especially at this point. and writing-wise, there are really only three possible explanations for this. (1) it’s a red herring meant to trick us for some reason, (2) his character design hasn’t been completed yet, or (3) something about this character’s appearance is a spoiler, and the reveal is supposed to be a surprise.

regarding (1), I actually think this is the case with the Third. clearly he is not Kirishima as some had speculated. he doesn’t appear to be familiar at all. so if that’s the case, why is his face also being hidden? my theory is that it’s simply to lampshade the fact that the Second is being hidden as well. if Second was the only vestige whose face we couldn’t see, it would be beyond obvious at that point that he was someone familiar to us. having another vestige doing the same weird stuff makes him stand out slightly less.

anyways though, as far as Second himself being a red herring, I guess he could be. but a red herring for what? not to say it isn’t possible, but I don’t really see what the purpose would be.

regarding (2), this is a remote possibility, but imo it would be pretty uncharacteristic of Horikoshi. plus by this point he’s had more than enough time to flesh the design out. all of the other vestige character designs are completed, and we’ve seen all of Second and Third except their fronts and faces by this point. so I’m gonna go out on a limb and say this isn’t the reason.

which leaves (3): this character’s identity is important in some way, and is being purposely kept secret. this to me implies that it must be someone we know (because otherwise it wouldn’t be a spoiler). which basically means that no matter what, the possibilities are about to get weird.

my thoughts on the new “evidence” in the chapter

first off, my biggest impression is that there really isn’t much new evidence at all either way lol. but okay, let’s review what we got.

I’m ignoring Third at this point because I honestly have no idea who he is. he may very well be someone we haven’t met yet, so I don’t think there’s much point in speculating. so let’s focus on Second instead.

the hair

first off, his hair isn’t quite right to be Bakugou’s. it’s darker than Bakugou’s hair usually is, at least in the close-up, and also the hair on the nape of his neck doesn’t quite look right; it’s got more of an undercut vibe than Bakugou’s usually does. Bakugou’s hair is usually more out-of-control dandelion puff from the back.

so yeah, I’m not sold by this image. though on the other hand, I will say that as far as the argument that his hair is too dark, that’s undermined by the wide angle panel right before the close-up in which his hair isn’t colored in at all.

so yeah, it could just be something about the lighting in the close-up. also, the RHA scan seems to have upped the contrast a bit more than the original image.

here it doesn’t seem to be quite as dark compared to the wall he’s standing against. I could be wrong, though; we’ll get a better idea when the official version is released in a couple days.

but overall the style of the hair seems more off to me than the color. on the whole, I’m not really convinced either way here, so I’ll move on.

the rest of him

okay so first off, obviously this is not Bakugou’s current hero costume in any way, shape or form. honestly my first thought was “what is Shippuuden-era Naruto doing here in the OFA Mystical Space Land” lol. so yeah, no idea what that’s all about.

however he does have gauntlets! so this is definitely someone with some sort of arm or hands-related quirk. and Kacchan does have a new gauntlet design that we’ll see in movie 3, so it’s not outside the realm of possibility that these could be another new design along those lines. that said, these are clearly not his current big ugly grenade-style gauntlets.

last but not least, this person seems older than Bakugou, which for me makes me considerably less enthused about the possibilities here, since I’m a weirdo who likes the idea of a timeskip even less than most people seem to like the idea of time travel, lol. then again there really isn’t much here to support that��“he seems older” statement; that’s just the general vibe I get from him, idk.

I will say though that he has Kacchan’s same triangle-shaped torso with the same broad shoulders and upper back tapering down into a more slender build. that stuck out to me right away when I looked at this image. but he really does give off Naruto vibes as well lol, like I can’t unsee it sob.

anyway, and last but not least,

the hidden faces

because so far most of the attention seems to be on their appearances. but those aside, this chapter introduces a very interesting question that this mystery will have to address one way or the other. namely, why are these two vestiges turned around and not interacting with the others?

“so that we can’t see their faces, duh” -- no, I get that, lol. but let’s talk in-story explanation now. why are they huddled in the time-out corner not moving or speaking? what could possibly be the reason for that. we can see them clearly enough, so we know that they’re “unlocked” and fully formed in that sense. All Might’s vestige is the only one that’s not yet visible, and supposedly that’s because he was quirkless?? and so he didn’t have a quirk factor that could be passed down through OFA initially. though I didn’t quite understand all of that part tbh.

but so then what’s the deal with these two losers? are they just antisocial or what? OFA First says that the vestige souls which were chilling out inside of OFA gradually gained the ability to take a physical form as OFA grew more powerful. and these two clearly have taken a physical form. so then why don’t they talk? there are only a few explanations for this that I can see.

(1) it could be that these guys are still alive, just like All Might (who doesn’t seem to be able to speak either, although the other vestiges can communicate with him in other ways).

(2) or, these guys are purposely hiding from Deku for some reason. (or at least, hiding as best as they can in this weird little rock slab floating in space.)

that’s it. if anyone else can think of more possibilities let me know because I’ve been sitting here racking my brain lol. this is all I can come up with. and honestly, either of these explanations would be suspicious as hell, theory-wise. if these two vestiges are still alive, that almost guarantees time travel right there. and if it’s simply that they’re hiding themselves from Deku, then that begs the question of why. which, again, leads us back to “they’re familiar, and Deku would recognize them.” (though that last bit goes against what I was saying earlier about the Third, doesn’t it. honestly I’m just spitballing here now, I haven’t really thought this all out too thoroughly.)

soooo... yeah. that’s pretty much where I’m at. nothing about this seems to make any more sense than it did a chapter ago tbh. though I will end this post by addressing one more thing, just cuz.

“this theory is dumb and makes no sense”

the correct statement to make here isn’t “this makes no sense”; it’s “we don’t know what’s going on yet.” if and when we finally get an explanation, then we can start making judgments about how much sense it does or doesn’t make. but until then we have nothing to base that verdict on.

same thing with “it’s dumb” -- look, “I hate time travel plots because they rarely work” is a valid opinion. but “rarely” isn’t the same thing as “never.” there are good time travel plots out there. idk why everyone keeps rolling with the assumption that this is going to be some cliche plot hole-filled science fiction bs narrative with a tragic ending. we have literally nothing to base that on. we have no answers and a whole lot of questions, is what we have.

maybe it will be disproven! or maybe it won’t, and it will be exactly as awful as everyone thinks and it will ruin the manga entirely. or maybe it will actually be really cool. we don’t know yet. that’s my one and only conclusion here -- that we shouldn’t jump to conclusions. but then again I guess it wouldn’t be BnHA fandom if we didn’t. anyway so thus concludes my post.

#bnha 304 #bakugou katsuki #bak-u-go #bnha theories #bnha meta #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #makeste reads bnha #and now I gotta get back to editing the recap post which is a hot mess rn lol #I might be later than usual with that today #it was a weird chapter and I had to read multiple translations to figure out wth was going on #but anyways

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fluffyvillain · 5 years ago

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The Bond

Chapter: 4/?

Summary: Henry and Mila meet again after two years

Pairing: Henry Cavill/OFC

Warnings: A little swearing, like two words

"And what did you do after that?" Doctor Leitmann adjusted his glasses.

"I invited some friends over and I drank, a lot." Mila was completely honest as that was the deal between the two of them.

"Mhm, you see, it's not uncommon for people to swap one addiction with another and, let's face it, craving for a soulmate is sort of an addiction. Not rarely do people substitute this addiction with a different one, the one that allows them not to feel."

"I don't plan on doing that, but I have to admit that it did make me forget, even for only a few hours."

"Alright. Now, can you, please, tell me how you felt after you had left Henry at the restaurant."

Mila put both of her legs on the chair where she was sitting, hugging her shins, leaning chin on her knees. "Disappointed. Sad. Hollow. Piqued. Broken. Angry."

"Were you angry because of the way he treated you or because you didn't bond?"

"Because of the way he acted, the fact he doesn't feel the same about me makes me devastated."

"That's good, some people get angry at their soulmate because they don't feel the same way, but that is not something they chose, just like you didn't choose to feel this way for him, that is destiny. Now I'm going to ask you to do something you probably won't like, but you need it in order to begin your healing."

"Please, do."

"I need to contact Henry one more time, just to make sure. Ask him to meet you, try to explain that he got the wrong picture of you."

"Is that really necessary?" Mila felt like throwing up just thinking about it.

"I'm afraid it is, if you don't do this, you will always live with a grain of doubt."

"Well, my pride is already bruised, so what is there left to lose?"

"We will talk again last week, like we agreed. Until then, I want you to practice all the breathing techniques I showed you and everything else."

"I will, thank you."

"You have my number, if get into crises, feel free to call me at any hour."

"Thank you. Goodbye, doctor."

Mila decided to rip off the band aid right away.

Dear Henry,

Can we meet again? I wasn't lying about what I said. Please.

Mila

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10 DAYS LATER

"So, what are your impressions after first week as a CEO?" James asked Mila.

"It's okay, a little bit stressful, but i like the position so far. And it's not like I could even make a mistake when gramps has been checking up on me the whole time."

Robert put down his glass on a table. "That's absolutely not true."

"Really, gramps? Out of 5 business days, you visited me only 4 times and you missed the 5th one only because you had a meeting outside of town." Mila raised an eyebrow at her grandfather.

"Can you blame me for wanting to help you?" Mila's eyebrow shot up even higher. "Okay, I just have to make sure that you have everything under control before I retire."

"Dad, we all know that you are never going to retire. Or you will, for a month or two." Rose joined the conversation.

"I second that." James supported his wife.

"We agree too," twins exclaimed in unison and once again their family was creeped out by the fact that they often said the exact same thing at the exact same time.

"Anyhow, I invited you here for a reason. So, you all know how I've always talked about finding my other half..." three silent nods followed, and two eye rolls - which were followed by their mother's death glare. "Well, that's not happening. I mean, it did happen, I met him, but we didn't bond. He simply doesn't feel it." Everyone kept silent, staring at her, except for uncle Blake, his eyes were fixated on the table. "I seeked professional help and I was advised to share this with my family, not to keep it inside. I've tried contacting him again, but he ignored me, so, definitely, that's it. I didn't even know that that could happen, but it can and it did happen to me." She took a deep, shaky breath.

"Cuz," Stephan grabbed Mila's hand and she expected words of support coming from him, "do you want us to kick his ass? We can do that much."

"I highly doubt that would be possible."

"Do you really think we can't do that, that we aren't strong enough? Who is that guy?" Mike supported his brother.

"Your favourite Superman."

"Christopher Reeve? He's a little dead I'm afraid."

"Okay, your second favourite."

"Cavill?"

"That's the one."

"Okay, maybe we cannot fight him, but he just dropped to the bottom of my list."

"Thanks, Mike, it means a lot to me."

"That's not fair." Everyone turned to Rose. "It's just not. Why would that happen, why to you?"

"Auntie, I will be fine, it will not be easy, but I will truly be fine. Don't you know me? I have my job to keep me busy, I will do different stuff to keep me occupied, like Sudoku, crosswords, playing video games, reading. I won't sink." Mila wasn't saying this just so Rose would calm down, she was sure she could do it, because she had to.

Robert walked over to his granddaughter speechlessly, he kissed her forehead before he excused himself to go to the bathroom, only Blake noticed a single tear rolling down his cheek, but he chose not to mention it even to his wife.

Rose insisted on staying with Mila overnight, but Mila refused. She needed to be alone, she needed to figure this out on her own. After she had bid them goodbye, she did the dishes, really focusing on what she was doing and it took her three times longer than necessary. Dishwasher wasn't even an option in her recent past or future, she used everything, every possible chore to get her mind of the way Henry felt.

Nights were the worst, she didn't know it at this moment, but it would take her months to be able to fall asleep without much trouble. Tonight wasn't an exception either, so Mila threw a blanket over her back, sitting in front of a glass wall of her living room, watching clouds get rid of excess energy, shooting up lightnings.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

2 YEARS LATER

Waking up 2 hours before having to go to work was difficult at first, but Mila got used to it now. Doing morning yoga and meditation became a forced habit of hers, she did it so much that she got trained to block Henry's feelings within minutes, but not this morning. She almost never got the feeling of sadness and pain coming from him and even if she did, it was for a very short time. This morning those feelings wouldn't go away, it took her a lot to tone them down to a point she only felt them in traces.

The same thing happened the next day and the day after the next one. On the third day, she could barely eat her lunch, so she retreated to her office and decided to do something she hasn't done since a few days after she had met Henry. She put his name in Google search engine and pressed enter.

Henry Cavill breks up with a long time girlfriend as she finds her soulmate

Elaine Svensson finds her soulmate, dumps Henry Cavill

Henry Cavill is back on the dating market

Those were the first three results. Oh, that's what's going on. No wonder he's been feeling this way. Now that she knew what was going on, she though it would be easier for her to block it. Knowing how much love he felt, it wasn't a surprise he felt that way.

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2 WEEKS LATER

After finishing her yoga session, Mila made herself a cup of tea. She got her phone off a charger to check her social networks, but she was surprised to see that she got a an e-mail on her personal address last nigh. She opened it and stared at it for quite some time, it was an e-mail she should've received 2 years ago.

I was wrong, you are not just some crazy fan.

I did some research about you, I asked around, I know who you are.

We need to meet, does tomorrow work for you? I'll come to your hotel.

Henry

She wasn't sure whether she wanted to answer at first, but she wasn't like him, even if her response was negative, she wanted to do it. She just wasn't sure what to write, so she opted for a short one.

FUCK YOU!

No, that's a little harsh, it would be rude for you to write it.

SCREW YOU! GO TO HELL!!!

She pressed backspace until everything was deleted. Breathe, Mila. She knew exactly what was going on, he wanted her to be his rebound. Otherwise, she would feel the change in his feelings. He knew her love would be unconditional, that she would never leave him, but she wasn't anyone's second choice, not even his. She deserved better.

Dear Mr. Cavill,

Thank you for your e-mail.

Unfortunately, tomorrow doesn't work for me. As a matter of fact, any day after tomorrow doesn't work for me either.

Best regards and good luck in your future endeavors,

Mila Radcliffe

She did 15 more minutes of meditation again and then continued her day as usually, like nothing happened. Today was the day her company organized annual blood donating day. Her grandfather started it after her mother had been in a need of blood while in the hospital, even though it didn't do much for her in the end, Robert realized the importance of blood donating. He saw it as an homage to her daughter and Mila continued his legacy.

When she was done with daily reports, she joined her coworkers in a conference room where blood donating was held. She was among the last ones, she greeted her colleagues first: "Hello everyone, you are doing an amazing thing, thank you." Then she greeted the medical staff before she filled in a standard form, they checked her hemoglobin level and then she proceeded to a quick doctor's check up. "Is everything alright, doctor?"

"It is, thank you for doing this again."

"Pleasure is all mine." Mila feed access to her biceps.

"Okay, let's check your blood pressure now." Doctor wrapped and inflatable cuff around her arm, she waited for a few seconds. "You are good to go. I just have one more question. I see in the system that you are a bone marrow donor to, have you ever donated?"

"Unfortunately, no. Nobody ever matched with me."

"Chances are 1:430, but even if you never get matched, just applying is a very noble thing. Well, that's all from me, you know the procedure."

It took less than 5 minutes for Mila to finish up the blood drawl, she thanked everyone again and left the conference room. The ones who donated blood didn't have to go back to work, especially if their job involved using physical strength, hers didn't and she was used to donating blood.

She rolled down her sleeve and continued to her office. Path leading there went through the hotel lobby, so she smiled and nodded at the front desk staff and tried to hurry in order not to disturb guests and visitors sitting there, but soon she stopped in her track when she heard someone calling her once and she knew exactly who he was.

"Mila," Henry approached her, confident steps, deep voice, arm firmly outstretched towards her.

If they were alone, she would've never accepted his hand, but she didn't want to make a scandal. She shook his hand for a second and she instantly started resenting herself for feeling the same electrical current coming through her like when she touched him the first time. "I think I made it clear that I didn't want to see you," she tried to be quiet enough so nobody else could her.

"Can we go somewhere more private, please?" Henry didn't pay much attention to her when they met, but now that he looked at her, she was beautiful. She was significantly shorter than him even on heels, he usually dated tall girls, but women's height wasn't something that was of utmost importance for him. Her large blue eyes had something worm in them even though her voice was ice cold. Since this was his best option, he could make it work, it wouldn't be so difficult. Maybe one day he would come to love her, now that Elaine would never be his again.

Mila looked him straight in the eye, his eyes looked tired and dark circles around his eyes gave out the fact that he didn't sleep in God knows how long. "Only because I don't need any kind of scandal here, let alone one caused by me. You can follow me to my office."

Henry followed silently, taking his time to analyze her appearance further. Her long dark brown curls bounced in the rhythm of her footsteps, she was on a skinnier side, but her ass didn't look skinny at all.

Mila pressed her ID card against a card reader and a door opened. "Please, go ahead," she held the door for him. They passed a few offices until they reached hers. When they entered, she gestured for him to have a seat on the opposite side of her desk, across from her chair. "Okay, go ahead. What do you want?"

"I need to apologize for my previous behavior first. I couldn't even grasp what you felt in that moment when you met me. You know, Elaine left me, about two weeks ago, we were out in a club and it was over in minutes. The person I though was the love of my life left me in about 15 minutes for her soulmate, after all the years we spent together, after I moved here for her. All of that didn't matter. That's when I saw how powerful that force is. I wish I could feel the same for you."

Mila looked at his blue eyes at first, noticing a little brown patch in one. In order to focus on what he was saying, she focused on a pile of papers in front of her. He sounded hurt and a part of him wanted to help him, to console him, but the part who wanted to kill him for even thinking about her as a consolation price won. "How stupid do you think I am? No, you don't. You wish your soulmate was Elaine and now that you can't have her anymore, you came to pick up your second prize. You miscalculated a bit, I learned to live without you and I'd rather be alone my whole life than feel like a silver medal you won, when all you've ever wanted was to win gold."

"That's not..."

"Let me stop you right there, I don't want you to waste your time anymore, nor do I want to waste mine." Mila stood up, she was the one who offered her hand now first.

Henry took it and shook it gently, he really thought that she would agree, he needed her to. He wanted to belong somewhere. "If you ever change your mind, you know how to find me."

"I won't and, please, if you ever run into me, just pretend that you didn't see me and that you don't know me, it will make things easier for me. Now, if you don't mind, I have a lot of work, you know your way out." She set back on the chair and gestured towards the door. "Goodbye, Mr. Cavill."

"Goodbye, Mila."

She waited until she heard a vague click of the second door before she threw a paper clip at the door, all of her pens followed. She slammed a drawer shut and then kicked a garbage can, feeling completely helpless. Then she lay on the floor in a fetal position, hoping the pain would go away and that her tears would dry soon.

#henry cavill #henry cavill fanfic #soulmates au

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theartofbeinganeldar · 5 years ago

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The Art of Being an Eldar: Legolas x Reader Chapter 2

Summary: You're a fantasy-loving, LARPing human from this world, who's the black sheep of society because of your obsession for the unreal and alienation of what's real. When you're in the middle of a LARP battle with some pretty phony boars, you fall out of a tree and bust your head. You wake up, alone, and are suddenly attacked by some very pissed-off, very real wargs. Without any idea of how you got there, you got dropped into Middle-Earth, with only bits and pieces of memories of Tolkien's masterpiece, though your recollection of everything else is perfectly clear. And of all places in Middle-Earth, you got dropped into Mirkwood, with some suspicious, potentially hostile, Woodland Elves...

Chapter No.: Chapter 1

Key: [Y/N]=Your Name [F/N]= Friend's Name [B/N]= Bro's Name [S/N]= Sis's Name [M/N]= Mom's Name [e/c]= eye color [h/c]= hair color [s/c]= skin color

Notes: Listen to Medieval Pagan Music, Runestones when reading this chapter.

Warnings: Fluff, angst, graphic depictions of gore and violence (Cuz of orc battles y'know?), more angst, slow burn, some light depression in the first few chapters, some amnesia about Middle-Earth because the Valar say you're not supposed to have foresight, hard-core language, feels, lots and lots of feels, mentions of NSFW content, maybe some eventual NSFW content, LGTBQ+ characters, Thranduil being a jackass at first because he's fabulous, Legolas being a hot edgy prince that nobody can handle, Kili being an innocent bean, Hobbits being smol innocent beans, except for Bilbo 'cause he's been through some tough shit, Bard being dad of the year, Thorin being one dumbass boi, awesome dragons, awesome Nazgul, awesome scenery, awesome stuff in general, Elrond isn't listened to by anybody, confused Aragorn is confused, Denethor's a bitch as always, Boromir lives, brace yourself for creepy as fuck Cream of Worm Tongue Grima Wormtongue, Gandalf. (yes these are all legit warnings don't judge me)

Pairings/Ships: Legolas x Reader, Legolas x you, Aragorn x Arwen, Faramir x Eowyn, Thranduil x Elvenqueen, Galadriel x Celery Celeborn, Boromir x OC, Thorin x OC, Fili x OC, etc. general LoTR standard shippings plus some of my own cuz I can't stand my boys being lonely

Word Count: I try to keep my chapters short, under 2000 words.

Rating: Teen (14+) for now

When I said I hated reality, I didn't mean I wanted to be ripped from it without my family.

How they'd healed you so efficiently was beyond your comprehension, and nobody came to visit you. You couldn't bring yourself to eat much of what they brought you. To think you'd finally gotten your wish, you'd finally, somehow gotten sucked into some alternate reality where fiction was fact and what you'd known and lived in for your entire life was nonexistent... It was amazing. Surreal.

But you couldn't stay here. Not without your family. Not without your mom, not without [B/N], not without [S/N]. [F/N]... You wished you could've at least said goodbye to him. Life without the only people you'd ever had seemed unreal, incomprehensible, and too nightmarish. Too... Alone. You couldn't lose them.

For hours, you waited, pacing the ten-by-ten cell furiously. You had to find some way to get out, some way to find whatever portal you'd triggered... A sound at the barred door made you freeze in place, whipping around like a meerkat. It was Blue-Eyes, and some of his guards, one of which was unlocking the door. "Are you letting me go?"

Blue-Eyes stared at you as if trying to figure out whether or not you were desperate or stupid. Finally, he shook his head, probably deciding it was most likely both in your case. Well, screw him. "My father wishes to see you."

You glanced to each of the guards that came to grip either of your arms. "Is that... Bad?"

Blue-Eyes smirked. "It depends on his mood."

You glared at him as the other two Elves ushered you out of the door, onto the precariously thin ledge just outside of the cell. "You're trying to freak me out, aren't you?"

Blue-Eyes didn't answer, but took up the rear of the procession. They lead you to a platform overlooking all of the mazelike bridge-sets of the dungeons, and opened a pair of elaborately crafted doors. You balked, your jaw fell, your eyes widened as far as they'd go, stunned by the view.

The building you'd thought was surrounded by trees? It was a palace-city, which stretched back from the front wall as far as you could see. And it was made entirely of trees. Bridges of wood, twisting trunks, curling pillars of wood holding up a vaultrf ceiling which opened up to the orange-gold canopy, and beyond, the cloudless blue sky. Huge, arched windows with stained glass of amber filled the front wall, framed in wood, every few dozen feet, letting in a golden light that made the entire place seem more surreal than it already was. Leaves fell too slowly here, as if afraid that touching the ground would destroy their fabulousness. Elves inhabited every floor, sailing gracefully around like gorgeous swans that glared down at the sudden ugly duckling in their midst.

You felt tiny.

"This is your home?" You breathed in amazement, going where the guards took you on autopilot as you drank in the magnificent sight. "It's bigger than the town I live in!"

"This is just a small portion of it," Blue-Eyes had a hint of pride in his voice. You glanced over your shoulder to see him taking in the view with a faint smile on his face. "This part is my father's palace. Only nobles and militia reside here."

"It's beautiful..." You surveyed the palace in awe. I'm here. I'm really here! This is where I'm supposed to be! "Do you all have different floors? Is it flameproof? What happens if there's a forest fire? Can you even get forest fires here?"

"Why would you like to know?" Blue-Eyes demanded sharply, all kindness gone just as suddenly as it'd arrived, replaced with obvious suspicion and disdain.

You sighed, and dropped the subject. You wouldn't be finding anything out about this place today. The guards lead you up a short flight of stairs, which stopped at a huge circular pavilion, lined with a different type of guard in silver armor and navy-blue masks covering their lower faces. They stood almost impossibly still, and each carried a deadly spear.

More stairs, curving upward from each side of the pavilion, lead to a massive throne of carved wood. A regal Elf lounged on it, holding a curled wooden staff. He wore silver robes lined on the inside with a deep crimson, and a crown of thin branches styled like an elk's antlers --or maybe a thornbush-- sat atop his head of snow-white hair. Piercing blue eyes watched you from underneath strangely dark (And thick.) brows, but his catlike face was drawn into an unreadable expression.

Blue-Eyes stepped before you and the guards, and put his right arm over his chest, fist resting over his heart, as he bowed at the waist. "My king, we have brought the prisoner."

Inwardly, you winced. What kind of father forced his son to call him 'my king'?

The Elvenking flicked his fingers toward the guards on either side of you. "Leave us."

As they left with barely a clink of armor, Blue-Eyes grabbed you roughly by the shoulder, forcing you to your knees. His grip was like iron. He leaned down to snarl in your ear, "Show respect. His majesty has shown you a great kindness in allowing you to live."

Aw, fuck. You forgot that these guys had healed you. If Lord Fabulous over there had decided that by even so much as breathing near his lands you didn't deserve for your wounds to be healed, you'd be dead right now. "O-oh..." You quickly fixed your position, and even bowed your head with an arm over your chest, like Blue-Eyes had done. "Sorry..."

"My son tells me he found you trying to escape from warg-bound orcs on our northern border," Elvenking drawled slowly. Wargs... Those big dogs... Why does that sound familiar? Were they in a book? Mythology? A game? You couldn't remember, and Elvenking didn't give you time to. "You were found near-death, and without any apparent recollection of how you came to be there. Is that correct?"

You weren't sure how to adress him. "Yes, sir. My lord. Your majesty. I'm sorry."

Elvenking continued. "Would you like to elaborate on what you do remember?"

His tone wasn't kind. It was "Tell me bitch or I will throw you off into the chasms below."

And there were lots of chasms.

"You won't believe me," You started, and risked a glance; Blue-Eyes and Elvenking watched you warily. You could easily say you were from this world, but you didn't know anything about it. You couldn't lie believably. And even if you could, Elves can sense lies. You figured you'd get some extra points if you were totally honest. "But I'll tell you anyway." So you started out with your explanation of coming from a place called Earth, and that you'd been having a battle against some pretty fake boars played by unconvincing actors in Live Action Roleplay, when you'd fallen out of a tree, banged yourself up, and knocked yourself out. You then proceeded to explain about the big dogs and the orcs.

Elvenking lifted his chin slightly for the sole purpose of glowering at you. "Tell me more of this... Earth." You told him all you could. About cars and trains and jets and phones, then on to TVs and movies, and the huge skyscrapers, and how modern slang was different from what it had been, and how where you came from, Elves and orcs and dragons were all part of a genre known as fantasy. You even tried, for a brief period of time, to explain the subject of eMail and social sites like Tumblr and Twitter, but you gave up at their odd looks as they tried to comprehend the concept. You told them about all seven continents, presidents, world leaders, endless wars, hunger, trashing the planet and all other shit that was wrong with Earth.

You could've been there for hours explaining it all. When you were finished, Elvenking regarded you like he'd just came to the conclusion that you just weren't normal. "It seems, [Y/N], that your world is poisoned."

"It is!" You agreed excitedly. "Nobody cares about it anymore! It's why I grew up to be so... Un-normal, by my world's standards."

"I see..." Elvenking blinked slowly. "Then you are, since you are a spawn of this Earth, equal poison to this world, are you not?"

All the blood drained from your face. "What?"

He looked to Blue-Eyes. "Kill them."

Blue-Eyes gripped you by the back of the head, and your hands flew to his wrist as he yanked your head back. With a flourish, he drew one of his ivory-handled knives and pressed it to your throat. "Wait!" You screamed, and Elvenking raised a hand.

"Last words?" Blue-Eyes sneered.

"I don't know where I am," You choked out quickly; the cool steel of the blade was digging into your neck, cutting a fine line. "I don't know how I got here, but usually when stuff like this happens in movies, there's always a portal. Let me find it-- send an escort if you want! Take me back to where you found me, and I'll find the portal and go home. You'll never see me again!"

Elvenking dropped his hand, and your heart jumped, expecting your head to go with it. "Do you really think that is wise? I sense no dishonesty from you, but you could very well be a spy from your world, which seems so intent on conquering and destroying peace. I will not let this world, much less my own land, fall prey to yours."

"I won't tell anyone about you, or this place, I promise! I don't even know where this is!" Tears of frustration pricked the corners of your eyes. "I'm not a damn spy! I don't even know how I got here! Give me a couple of days to find the portal. Then I'll leave. What if there was a way for you to know I'll keep my word? Like a blood-oath, or something!"

"And if asked where you had gone?" Blue-Eyes countered, cocking an eyebrow.

"I'll tell them I went to Narnia, dammit! They never take me seriously anyway!" Your eyes widened. "This isn't Narnia, is it? Narnia didn't have Elves!"

"No, this is not... Narnia." Elvenking replied. "And you will not know the name of this land. You have three days to find your portal. You will be accompanied by a small assembly of my best warriors. If you do not find the door to your world within the given three days... I will give the order to kill you."

You swallowed hard. The steel dragged across your throat painfully. "Th-that sounds fair." It didn't, but, you just rolled with it.

"Legolas, you will go with them," Elvenking said; something clicked in your mind. You knew that name... You knew that name. But... Why?

Blue-Eyes-- Legolas-- nodded and finally removed the blade from your throat. Lord Fabulous inclined his head once, and you vaguely thanked him, too concerned with how you knew Blue-Eyes's name. He kept a tight, painful grip on your arm, actually digging his fingers in until you were pretty sure he cut off most of your circulation.

When you reached your cell, he thrust you in roughly, making you stumble forward. You whipped around to glare at him. "Could you be careful, Blue-Eyes?"

He paused in locking the door. Confused, he brought his sapphire eyes to meet your [e/c] ones. "What did you just call me?"

"Blue-Eyes," You suddenly felt a little embarassed about picking a nickname for him. Shit, you'd never let that bother you before. He could screw off. "I didn't know your name until a few minutes ago, so... I just picked something to call you."

He raised an eyebrow incredulously. "And you chose to call me after my eyes." It wasn't a question; it was a statement.

You flushed a little, glancing to the side with only your eyes nervously, then back to him. "Uh... Yeah. That's pretty much it."

He rolled his eyes and walked away. Before you even realized what you were doing, you'd ran to the bars and grabbed hold of them, pressing your cheek up against them to watch him walk away. "Blue-Eyes!" He stopped, but didn't turn around. "Your name... Legolas. I think I've heard it before."

He turned his head slightly, like he might be interested, but your hopes fell through the floor when he just continued walking. You immediately wished you'd've said something to get his attention, so he'd come talk to you. Like, Hey, I'm really a spy for Earth, MWAHAHAHAHAHA.

Ok, maybe not that drastic...

But you did wish he'd stayed to talk to you. Even if he'd tried to kill you. Legolas... You slid down the bars, sitting on the floor. Your knees came up to your chest of their own accord. Legolas... What do your Elf eyes see? You knew that you knew his name, but where did you know it from?

They're taking...

Aw, damn. It was right on the tip of your brain. Lord Fabulous looked really familiar, too. He reminded you of Ronan the Accuser from Marvel. Why couldn't you remember? Was it a side-effect of being tossed to another reality? What else did you not remember...?

You sat there for hours, until one of the guards brought you some food. You picked at the meal, as a tune got stuck in your head that you couldn't quite place...

Home is behind...

The world ahead...

Here, the song fizzed out like a radio signal, then you got another bit of it...

All shall fade..

All shall...

...Fade...

~ominous time skip~

You, Blue-Eyes, and a team of Elvish warriors like the ones who'd helped you escape the dogs and orcs set out at dawn, which was way too early for someone used to getting up at noon most of the time. All the Elves showed off their glowy perfect selves by leaping gracefully to pebble to pebble like the regal shits they were, including Blue-Eyes.

Actually, scratch that. Blue-Eyes was the fucking king of being a show-off.

They moved fast, and you were surprisingly able to keep up with them. Not one of the Elves wanted to speak to you; they seemed to consider you an abomination.

You kinda seen what they were getting at, though. You were still in your bright white, blue, and black sci-fi Elf outfit from yesterday, complete with the latex ears and bright blue faux-hawk, which had become much less faux-hawk-y after sleep. You were covered in dried blood, dirt, and parts of your outfit were ripped. You'd tried to clean up as best as you could when you were woken up by using the water from the cup you'd been given to scrub your face and arms with the stunningly clean sheets on your cot.

In other words, you stuck out like a bright blue flower in a field of dark grass. You didn't know the way back to the river, so most of the Elves surrounded you discreetly while Blue-Eyes took the lead. Every one of them had a bow or sword or knife out and ready, so one wrong sniff and you were dead.

You traveled for about an hour before anyone spoke. It was Blue-Eyes, to your surprise. "Why is your hair blue?"

"Huh?" Of all possible questions, that one hadn't been expected. Though, that was kind of dumb of you, to just assume they wouldn't eventually wonder if everybody from your world had crazy hair colors.

"Your hair," Blue-Eyes specified, sounding condescending, like his hair was much better than yours because it was long and perfect and almost white. "Why is it blue?"

"Oh," You cleared your throat. "It's dye. My real color is [h/c]. Lots of people do it where I come from. You can dye it a natural color, or an unnatural color, like so. Some keep their natural color and just add streaks that aren't their natural colors. Some dye their full hair, like me, for the sole purpose of cosplay--uh, dressing up as made-up characters for events--and others dye it just for fun. Or to stand out, I guess. But I wouldn't advise it. It ruins your hair. I just don't care, though."

"Why would anyone want to do that?" One Elf asked in horror, then sneered at you. "I suppose those of your world simply do not appreciate the naturalities of the body."

You shrugged. You should see the LGTBQ+ community... But you didn't feel like explaining any of that to these people right now. Especially when they obviously looked down on stuff like that.

"And what character are you meant to be?" Blue-Eyes asked in a challenging tone.

You flushed. "... A sci-fi Elf."

"...Sci-Fi?" A different Elf asked. "What is that?"

"Science fiction," You specified. "Basically, I'm supposed to be an Elf from another planet. It seemed like a good idea at the time."

"Is that why you have pointed ears?" Blue-Eyes questioned, and you nodded.

"Yeah. They're latex-- a kind of rubber. Wait, do you even have rubber here?" You waved a hand. "Nevermind. They can come off pretty easily, though. Speaking of which, I'd better take them off before they cause damage..." You reached up to one of your ears, despite the looks the Elves gave you.

Blue-Eyes stopped for a minute, halting the whole group. He looked at you like you were crazy. "Whyever would you put something on your body that could cause damage?"

You blinked. "That is a very good question, Blue-Eyes, and one I don't exactly have an answer for. Almost everybody does it at some point." You felt for the flap of latex, but you couldn't find it. Hell, you couldn't even find the edge of the prosthetic. "Oh shit..." You breathed.

"What is it?" Legolas huffed, and turned around impatiently.

Your eyes widened; you couldn't let them think you were panicking, but, well, you were, and shortly after, you did. "I-I can't get it off."

Blue-Eyes's brow furrowed. "Will it cause permanent damage if they are not removed?"

"Maybe? Yes? My skin goes red and itchy and starts to swell up if I touch latex for too long, so, I'm gonna go with a definitely on this one. Just keep walking. I should have them off by the time we get to the river."

But you didn't. There was no flap, no edge of the latex. If it weren't for the fact that you did put latex ears on, you wouldn't have known you had latex ears on. A suspicion grew in your core, so you grabbed hold of the pointed tip, and pinched down with your nails hard and fast. "Ow!"

Every Elf turned to look at you as you pulled your hand away. Some blood was on the tips of your fingers. "Why, in the name of the Valar, would you hurt yourself?" Legolas sighed like a parent lecturing a child, but you were staring at your fingertips in shock. Valar...

"I'm an Elf..."

"I beg your pardon?" Apparently the mere thought of being the same race as you was too much for Blue-Eyes to handle. It was fucking offensive.

"I'm an Elf!" You shouted, and snatched your hand to your chest. "The ears won't come off! They bled and hurt when I pinched them! I'm a damn Elf! When I fell through that portal, I was a normal human! Now I'm an Elf! I don't know whether I should be freaking out or excited!"

Legolas rolled his eyes. "It won't be permanent. Obviously, here you're an Elf. There, you're not. When we get you through the portal, you'll be a human again."

"But..." I don't want to be human... Yet, you were also trying desperately to get back to your family, on pain of death and loss of cool fantasy land. If only you'd wake up to learn you were in some kind of damn coma...

You waved your hands. "Ok. Alright, fine. Is this where you found me?"

Legolas gestured to a particular rock. "The exact spot. Do you think you could find your way from here?"

You smirked; you'd always been good at knowing your way. "Please. I was born with an innate sense of direction. Now how the fuck do we get over this damn river?"

Legolas grinned. "You're an eldar now, aren't you? See if you can get across it yourself." Eldar... That had to mean an Elf of some sort, right?

You stared him down for a second, hands on your hips. He smirked cockily back, pure smugness on his expression. "Ok. Sure. What's life without risk?"

So you took a deep breath, and headed for the opposite bank.

You and your siblings had this special hiking trail in a park, and on this trail was a creek slash pond area. Several of them. You'd always cross the creek carefully, each step placed just so, and quietly, too, so that you could see the frogs-- it was a frog hunt without actually killing said frogs. The exercise gave you all good balance and a know-how for shit not that rock.

But this river was much different than the creek back home. It was clear, and clean, and strong as fuck, so one wrong move and you'd be whooshed away, with Blue-Eyes giving Lord Fabulous the excuse of "Oh they died in the river tragically oops..."

The rocks were unstable. The river swelled over them every so often to make them slippery. Your rubber boots were less than zero help. But you were an Elf now, right? So that had to make you unfairly agile. You took another deep inhale, then took what you hoped was a graceful leaping step, only for you to slip and nearly bust your ass. Elvish powers have to be learned. Noted.

When you finally got to the other side of the bank, you were stiff, and your heart was pounding. Behind you, the Elves sneered and jeered and all kinds of other "eers". You whipped around, and flipped them off. They looked somewhere between shocked, offended, and terrified. You realized they might not know the symbolism of it, and might think you were cursing them. When they reached you, Blue-Eyes was the first to demand what that was all about. "What was that all about?!"

You panicked under pressure. "U-uh... I-it's a minor insult where I come from. Very minor. We use it frequently as a joke among close friends. A friendly insult. Yeah. Sorry. Won't happen again." He totally didn't believe you. So you quickly changed the subject. "O-oh, uh, this way!"

Scenery seen at night was harder to recognize during the day, and vise versa, but you knew you hadn't gone too far up the river when you came across some massive paw prints and scrape marks from where you'd skidded down the bank. Another bonus clue was the scrap of bright blue fabric, from your skirt/tunic thing, hanging precariously from a branch.

It took you the better part of an hour to find the tree you'd woken up at. "Okay, this it it."

"Are you certain?" Blue-Eyes asked you.

"Wait." You laid down, and yep, everything was the same, except in daylight. Legolas frowned at you as you stood, probably ashamed to even breathe the same air as you. "Yeah, this is it."

Blue-Eyes ordered something in Elvish, jerking his head. The Elves immediately set about making camp. "So, in your world, you fell from the highest branches of an oak, yes?"

"Yep, breaking several things in the process."

"And you lost consciousness after you hit the forest floor?"

"Yep."

Legolas hummed and looked up into the canopy. "Then by all means... The portal should be where you laid."

You glanced down at your feet before bouncing up and down a little. "Nope. Nothing."

Legolas huffed. "You may have to try climbing this tree and falling into this spot."

A deranged laugh escaped your throat, which you quickly stifled. "I'm sorry, but are you crazy? What if I die? We don't have the same healing stuff as you guys unless you can pay for it up front, and I'm very poor. So is all of my family. We can't afford that shit. So if I die, what's the point in going back?"

Legolas glared at you. "I didn't mean from very high. Just high enough to hopefully send you through, but not high enough to kill you. Your healers will mend broken bones, will they not?"

You scoffed dejectedly. "Yeah, but for a pretty hefty bill..." You threw your hands up. "Whatever. I'll die anyway if I don't try. Might as well." With Legolas watching you carefully to make sure you didn't try to jump from tree to tree, you started to climb.

Was it really only yesterday that you'd been having a fun, standard LARPing day with your family and [F/N]? The real world seemed like fantasy, now. This felt real. This felt like where you should be. But if your family weren't here, you wouldn't be able to enjoy it. You'd always feel as if you abandoned them. You wondered, did time pass differently? Did it go faster there, and slower here? Or was it the other way around? Would you find the portal, and return to the real world to find your family long gone and the year a thousand into the future? Then you'd wish you'd never left this place. Or would you find not a moment had passed, and to them, it was still the terrifying moment of not knowing if you were dead or alive, to find you unharmed? Would you then be able to convince them to fall through, even on the chance that the portal could only be used a handful of times, and if it did work, would a millenia had passed here? Even Blue-Eyes would've aged by that point, however slightly.

Once you'd reached a suitable height, you braced yourself against the trunk. "How's this?"

Legolas nodded. "Fine. Jump when you're ready.”

You took a minute... Ah... Better get this over with. One does not simply... Damn, what was that meme? "Ok, ready when you are."

Legolas stepped back, and waited; you hesitated, then jumped, and you felt deja vu as you barreled toward the ground, landing flat on your back. The impact knocked the wind out of you, and you felt a painful snap in your right ribcage. You kept your eyes closed; you heard nothing aside from the birds in the trees. You hoped, then hoped some more, expecting at any moment to hear the frantic footfalls of your family rushing to help you...

"Well, I see I was entirely wrong on the matter," Blue-Eyes stated simply, and you frowned. Fuck...

"Ya think? I'm still seeing priss-ass Elves in a goddamn forest that isn't the one I fell in. Fuck you, Blue-Eyes, for having me break a rib for no good damned reason." You glared at him as you tried to sit up, barely making it halfway before Legolas helped you, albeit roughly.

"Watch your tongue," Blue-Eyes snapped. "If it were not for us, you would be dead."

You pursed your lips. "You're gonna kill me anyway just for breathing on your trees, so why didn't you just let me die?"

For a second, Legolas seemed to feel pity for you. "I am sorry. Truly, I am. Perhaps if we fail to locate your way home, I could convince my father to refrain from executing you."

You huffed, wincing as the action hurt your broken-on-some-level ribs. "Why? So I can live the rest of my suddenly immortal life in a dark cell, underground, just for existing? Hell no. I'd rather die."

"Perhaps you could have another use," Legolas offered, and you shook your head.

"Never in my life have I been considered useful." You eyed Blue-Eyes disdainfully. "Ever. By anybody. If you can find a place for somebody like me that doesn't involve imprisonment, fine. But I won't be able to live with myself if I can't find a way back to Earth. I need my family. They're all I ever had."

Legolas knelt beside you. "You... Seem to be very close with them. You love this..." He looked off into the trees, searching for the word. "...Life, so much, and have wished for it for so long, but you'd give it up, to be with them in a world that does not want you... You have a brave heart."

You took the compliment. "Thanks. Now let's find this damn portal, shall we? I've got a couple more ribs to bust."

Tag List: @tesserphantom @thedragonghostofmordor

@taurlel @hauntedsiriel

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fae-fucker · 6 years ago

Text

Zenith: Chapter 45-48

Chapter 45

Nor is floating in a super sci-fi space carriage over the last remaining “wealthy” city on Xen Ptera, which is apparently so garbage only a few people have roofs over their heads. She thinks about how much she loves her people and how she’s doing this for them, except she purposefully floats just out of reach of their poor-people hands and throws food and “med kits” at them so they’ll follow.

Darai is very confused by this, because Shinsay desperately need Nor to seem complex and intelligent. She compares her people to an [incidental space animal] she got from her father as a child.

“I fed it,” she explained. “Give a pet food, Darai, and it will do anything to stay by your side. Starve it or beat it, and it will begin to fear your very existence, only coming out of hiding in the moments when you have something to give and it to take.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

[...]

“The people of Xen Ptera are my responsibility now. But more than that, they are my soldiers, and I wish for them to follow me always. No matter how dark the path I choose to walk upon.”

Yes, this makes so much sense. First you let your people starve and get radiation poisoning, but then you throw scraps at their feet and obviously peasants are food-motivated like kittens and will absolutely do as you say.

Except this doesn’t make any fucking sense for many, many reasons.

1) Darai complains about the fact that these rations are used for scientists and soldiers. Which he’s right about. If Nor has an army and scientists, those people tend to be far more useful in, say, a war, than a bunch of mutated and starving peasants.

2) I dunno if Shinsay have read any history ever, but when large masses of people get hungry, they don’t just sit there, they turn on the few people in power who still have food and resources. These peasants would turn on Nor the moment someone else provided better food. I’m just saying that Nor’s neck accessory wouldn’t be a spiked collar but a guillotine.

3) Don’t you have that Zenith stuff? The stuff that can make people into brainwashed robots with a single drop? Release that shit into the atmosphere and save your food and “med kits” for the few actually crucial people who need it.

3.5) If you’re only going to use it on enemies to convert them, why bother with your people in the first place? Despite what Nor is claiming, her “love” for her people is token at best and her priority lies in revenge, not recovery.

4) Also it’s so transparent that they only wrote this to make Nor look smart, because they purposefully made Darai into an idiot who doesn’t understand basic concepts when he previously was written as an older, intelligent advisor.

Nor arrives at the old palace ruins and it’s all very sad and angsty, complete with special Backstory Flowers that used to Bloom but Don’t Anymore because the Environment got Too Tragic, and flashbacks to that time her hand and also her dad were crushed under rubble. We find out that the crowd gathered here are just “thousands” of people, and Nor refers to them as her “army.” Okay.

Nor gets stage fright when the crowd is silent and doesn’t instantly love her because she has the confidence of a highschooler asking someone out to prom, and decides to snap her golden hand off to prove to her people that she’s “their equal,” which works for some reason even though the narration acknowledges it as a lie.

Obviously starving people seeing this LITERALLY GOLDEN woman who just shat out a bunch of free food from her floating carriage will definitely 100% swallow her little speech about how they have to take revenge. Even the mothers holding up their starving infants! We all know people who are starving want revenge before a sandwich. The blood of my enemies? I call it vengeance ketchup.

She shows Zenith to the crowd which they totally understand what it is right away from afar and how it works and what it has to do with literally anything.

“Remember, Xen Pterrans, and never forget, that even the stars can bleed!”

The royal entourage pack up and Nor says she wants a crown forged for herself because “every queen needs one” and:

“I want to wear it while we feast on the galaxy’s bones.”

Cool.

Chapter 46

We’re in Lira’s POV while she’s doing what she does best: moping off on her own. I guess she’s not very special in that regard. She’s thinking about how she loves to fly because the sky has no limits and the ground is confusing. Aight.

The gang seems to have gotten off without any punishment for crashing into a village and are now staying at the very center of power of Adhira, this mountain palace called Rhymore. It’s very pretty and yadda yadda, I skipped 90% of the description because literally whomst careth.

One important detail to keep in mind is that we find out varillium, the glass-like substance that the Marauder is made of is, like M. Night Shyamalan’s movie starring Bruce Willis, unbreakable. You know, which is why they need those metal shields around the damn thing. Thanks guys, this makes total sense.

Lira looks into an “eyeglass” and sees literally all of Adhira like a tiny map. Either Shinsay are confused about what a telescope does, or they’re flat-earthers. And yeah, she literally sees cities, waterfalls, rainforests, deserts ... This is after we’ve established she’s in a mountainous area.

All the descriptions read like screensavers and are just as relevant to the story so I’ll just skip them.

Lira is ambushed by her twin brother Lon, who is the owner of that sarcastic soul we’ve heard so much about.

He was at least a head taller than her now, his pale blue arms rippling with muscle, spreading up into a thick neck and strong shoulders.

This description bothers me and I don’t know why.

The conversation quickly turns all mopey and Lon says Lira has abandoned her people and himself, to which she replies she was only protecting him from WHAT SHE’S BECOME (wake me up inside). We then get a random infodump about how the Adhiran queen is super great and loving and a perfect leader. Not perfect enough to abdicate the throne but I don’t think Shinsay thought that far. Monarchy good if monarchs good, obviously.

Lon is all “ur still my sister until the mountain falls uwu” and Lira is like “omg stop guilt-tripping meee” and we’re informed there’s gonna be a “peace festival” soon that celebrates the end of the war against Xen Ptera. How convenient that their ship would randomly malfunction right before this event. :)

Lira says she wants to tell him only the good stuff of what’s happened while she was away and says that she’s been using Moon Chew, which is Bad for Reasons, and she knows Lon uses it too but keeps it a secret from the queen aka their aunt. Lon asks about what “led” Lira to using it and I’m just baffled by the fact that we still don’t know what the fuck Moon Chew is or what it does, and why, if it’s something so terrible that one must be “led” to using it, they’re talking about it like it’s some unhealthy fast food their aunt frowns upon and not, say, a drug?

Anyway, Lira tells him of their adventures and it sounds way more interesting than anything we’ve read so far. Then we get this:

Lon always knew that Lira harbored a darkness in her soul. A little tug, a tiny whisper at the back of her mind, that led her to go above and beyond the pranks that Lon had always pulled while they were growing up here.

She’d fallen, not for a lover, but for the skies. For adventure.

She’d found a ship full of girls with their own affinity for darkness to mirror her own.

So I recently found out that there’s supposedly an “asexual” alien in the crew of the Marauder, and that member is apparently Lira. I think this idea is reinforced by the “fallen but not for a lover” line.

Framing her wanting to explore the world on her own and go her own way, comparing it to falling in love but not with another person but with a concept, as a darkness in her soul?

Not a good look.

Anyway, Lon decides after all this time that apparently Lira was always meant to fly and tells her that her aunt wants to see her.

This is plot?

Chapter 47

We’re in Valen’s POV. He wakes up and is in pain but not enough to avoid noticing that he’s in a fluffy bed and outside there is [insert generic description of pretty place here] and it’s so pretty he could never paint it, because he’s a painter and he can’t relate anything in his life to anything but painting.

The Adhiran queen is there and she’s very pretty. She asks him about the last thing he remembers, which is Nor, and it sends him into a ... flashback? Basically he starts freaking out that this isn’t real and they sedate him again and the last thing he sees is

[...] Androma Racella leaning forward from the shadows across the room, half of her face aglow as sunlight spilled across her skin like paint.

You know, because he’s a painter!

Chapter 48

We’re back with Lira, who starts the second chapter like she started the previous one, complaining about how being planetside is the worst. Yep, we get it. It’s the worst. Cuz she’s a pilot.

Painters be painting. Pilots be piloting. If your characters don’t constantly refer back to their one defining characteristic, how will be able to tell them apart?

Anywho, Lira finally gets to the queen.

Alara was beautiful in every sense of the word, inside and out. She had a lithe frame, perfectly proportioned, and no scales on her skin.

PERFECTLY PROPORTIONED

What in the everloving fuck does that even mean? :’) Probably just means she’s skinny.

And of course she has no scales, only evil people and/or “morally grey” people can have imperfections. How do we know someone is good unless they have flawless skin?

Lira had always admired Alara’s beauty, but it paled in comparison to the woman’s intelligence.

Shinsay, slapping us all with a big purple dildo: THIS IS FEMINISM.

“She’s absolutely good and perfect and INTELLIGENT because women don’t have to be pretty to be smart and we totes value things other than beauty, but let us constantly describe how absolutely fucking DICK-OUT-HOT this Generic Good Queen is, in case you ever doubted it.”

👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌

And, yeah, Nor is also described as hot, but like, evil hot. Sexualized and sexual and dangerous and GASP OMG SHE HAS A GOLD HAND. GGQ straight up glows, that’s how good she is.

Generic Good Queen addresses Lira as “Lirana” which, yeah, ok, and we get this:

“I’ve just had a rather unfortunate conversation with Valen Cortas, the poor, tortured soul, so spare me whatever dramatic greeting you must have prepared.”

You know what? Maybe Generic Good Queen ain’t so bad after all.

YOU TELL HER, GGQ.

#eff reads: zenith

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lovemesomerafael · 6 years ago

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EL AMOR TODO LO PUEDE Chapter 4: It’s Not What You Think

You can read earlier chapters here: Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3

The morning was hectic before anyone’s coffee had even kicked in, and it was obvious that Sergeant Voight was in a mood. His assistant was usually able to stay on his good side regardless of his mood, but today was an exception. He’d already thrown Laura out of his office and barked at her twice.

Jay Halstead bustled up the stairs into the bullpen. “Anybody seen Mouse?”

As it turned out, no one has seen the unit’s tech guru that morning. The team was just generally discussing where he might be when Voight came out of his office and took a stance near the whiteboard, arms crossed and legs wide, clearly agitated.

“Mouse won’t be comin’ in today. He’s been suspended. Indefinitely.”

Every member of the team reacted differently, but all reacted out loud. Mouse had a history, but he had been squeaky clean since joining the team, and the psychological wounds he had brought home from Afghanistan seemed to have less hold on him every day. And the unit needed him. Intelligence relied heavily on all the technology they used, and there didn’t seem to be anything Mouse couldn’t do. Besides all of that, flaky as he seemed at times, Mouse was just plain likeable. Halstead’s voice cut through the general clamor.

“Wait, what? What happened? How come I didn’t hear anything about this?”

“Last night, I got a call from Commander Fitzgerald over at Central Command,” Voight growled. “Apparently, they’ve been looking into data traffic coming out of this district. Something was off about the volume going out of here – we were shipping five times the data of any other district. So they started digging. It ain’t good. Apparently, somebody loaded some very nasty spyware into our system. It’s been sending out copies of everything we’ve done - every email, every report, everything - for the last three weeks. And here’s the thing. They were able to pinpoint the computer that uploaded it.” Voight walked across the room and slapped his hand down on Mouse’s desk. “This one.”

Halstead stood up from where he’d been sitting on his desk. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Are you telling me that you think Mouse did this? ‘Cuz there’s no way.”

“Hard to ignore the obvious, Jay.”

“Sarge, that’s insane. You know Mouse. There is no way this is him. So it’s his computer. That doesn’t mean anything. Anyone could’ve used it to upload that spyware.”

“Well, look,” Erin Lindsay said from her desk. “Maybe we’re asking the wrong question here. This spyware, it sends everything we do on our computers somewhere, right? So who’s getting this data?”

Voight’s lips twisted in frustration. “They’re still figuring that out.”

Halstead stepped closer to Voight, getting unwisely up in his face. “So we know squat, other than whose computer was used, and that’s enough to fire Mouse? That’s completely jacked, man. He’s been an absolute asset from the moment he got here, and he is completely loyal. You know that.”

“Watch it, Jay. He’s your friend, I get that. But computer guy, computer crime, spyware uploaded from his computer… I’m not taking chances.”

Laura agreed. “You know, I really gotta pile on with Jay here, Sergeant. Me and Mouse, we work pretty closely together. And I’ve never seen anything to suggest he’d do something like this.”

“Yeah, all right,” Voight said, a bit quieter now. “Well, until we know who did this, he stays gone.” He turned away and began to walk back to his office. Laura stood up, leaning on her desk toward him as he came toward her, her eyes flashing with irritation.

“Hey! Don’t pat me on the head! I got no dog in this fight – he’s not my best friend. But I do spend a lot of time with him. While you guys are out in the field, we’re here. All day, every day. I know this guy. I can see what he’s doing most of the time. And I am telling you, this is not him."

For a moment, everyone in the room held their breath.

“Everybody take a step back!” Voight shouted. “Somebody got into our computer system and they’ve been watching everything we do for the last three weeks. I am not gonna tolerate somebody spying on us in my house, and I am not gonna give the number one suspect a chance to cover his tracks! I need you all to be thinking like cops right now. Fitzgerald is gonna be here any minute for a briefing and I don’t want to hear any more about Mouse. Is that clear?”

**************

Commander Fitzgerald’s briefing was tense. “So what it looks like, at this point, is that the data was shuttled through a series of servers. We followed it to an offshore commercial cloud storage, and that’s where we lose it. We’re still working on picking the trail back up.”

Halstead stood in the back of the room, fuming. He kept his arms crossed and eyes closed, head tilted toward the ceiling. Since the Commander had begun ten minutes before, he’d let loose several disgusted noises and impatient sighs. Finally, he hit his limit. “This is ridiculous. All due respect, Commander, but this is exactly the kind of thing Mouse is great at. He’s like a bloodhound, and nobody knows our system like he does. He should be the one chasing this down.”

Voight’s voice was dangerously low. “Jay. I’m not gonna tell you again.”

Halstead said nothing, but the vein pulsing at his temple and his clenched jaw spoke volumes. He and Voight stared one another down.

Al Olinsky scratched his head, looking at the Commander. “So what do we think these guys were after with this? Inside information on an investigation? Information on C.I.s?”

“We don’t know at this point,” the Commander responded. “But we will. Before we dug out the spyware, we uploaded some dummy files. Fake leads in all your ongoing investigations, fake C.I.s., and a bunch of other stuff. All designed to make whoever it is want to act on it.”

“So all we need to do is sit back and wait for the bad guys to take the bait,” Olinsky finished for him.

“That’s the idea.”

Voight took the floor at that point. “Well, we ain’t just going to wait around. I want to know who’s spyin’ on us. I want all of you beating the bushes, talking to your C.I.s. Get out there and find out if anyone’s talking. Laura, I want you working with the tech lab, following that data. I want to know who sent it, and where it went.”

“I’ll do what I can.”

***************

As Laura sat scowling into one of the screens attached to Mouse’s computers and Adam Ruzek and Jay Halstead worked at their desks, Voight stormed into the bullpen. He stopped to hover over Laura like a vulture for the third time in an hour.

“Anything?”

“Well, Sergeant, I’ve been able to figure out how the spyware worked, and identify everything it copied. But as far as where it came from, so far, all I’ve been able to do is rule a few things out.”

“Great. So we know where it didn’t come from. I need to know where it did.”

“Yeah? Well, you know who could do this a lot faster?”

Voight crowded even further into her space, scowling in a way that had intimidated many hardened criminals. “Hey!”

“Sorry. But look, this is computer forensics and data tracking. Not my area. If you tell him I said this, I’ll deny it, but I just can’t do what Mouse can do.”

“Well, keep going. I want these guys. Plant a worm in our system, steal our data? Somebody’s gonna fry!”

Laura and Jay exchanged a look as Voight stormed off.

She raised her eyebrows. “He’s out for blood.”

“Yeah,” Halstead agreed. “Mouse’s blood. I’m starting to think this is about more than just somebody hacking our system.”

Ruzek walked over to Halstead’s desk. “You think this could be about Jin?

“Yeah, I do. Voight sure was quick to assume the tech guy had to be responsible. I’m not sure he’s seeing clearly on this.”

“That ain’t good. Look what happened to Jin.”

“Yeah…” Jay muttered.

Laura looked from one to the other. “Someone wanna clue me in?”

“Before your time,” Halstead told her. “Sheldon Jin. The tech guy before Mouse. He hacked Voight’s computer and helped a guy try to set him up. Ended up dead.”

**********

Laura took a breath, squared her shoulders, and knocked on the scarred door in front of her. She wasn’t sure about what she was doing, but she and Jay had decided it was the only way. She only hoped Mouse would agree and cooperate. When he opened the door, he looked as rough as she‘d ever seen him, which was saying something, given the shape he’d been in when they’d met.

“Hey. What… what’s goin’ on?”

“I need to know that you didn’t do this.”

He narrowed his eyes and his lip curled. “Really? You, too? I can’t believe this! What’d I ever do - Look, you know I wasn’t doing too great when Voight gave me that job. I owe him. I would –“

She spoke right over his tirade. “Because I think I believe you.”

He stopped mid-word.

“Look at me.” He turned his bright blue eyes on her and simply watched as she moved closer to him and looked into his face. “Did you plant that spyware?”

“No. I did not plant that spyware.”

For a few moments, they stood there in the doorway, Laura looking into Mouse’s eyes until she finally nodded, mostly to herself.

“OK,” she sighed. She reached into a pocket of her slacks, pulled out a flash drive, and held it out to him.

“What is this?”

“It’s what you think it is. Upload it and give me fifteen minutes to get back to the District. I’ll call you on your cell.”

Laura turned to go and took a few steps down the hallway.

“Hey, Laura…” She turned around. The sad hope in his eyes broke her heart. “You know this is a crime. You get caught, it’s not just your job. You could go to jail. Not to mention what Voight’ll do to you.”

“Yeah. I know. So please, please be who I think you are.” She gave him as much of a smile as she could manage, given the situation. “I’ll call you.”

*************

Once again, Laura found herself at Mouse’s desk. She fired up his computers and adjusted a Bluetooth in one ear, looking around to make sure she wasn’t being observed. The team was all out at a crime scene, but there were people everywhere in a working police station. She surreptitiously dialed a cell phone sitting on the desk.

“It’s me,” she whispered. “Got it loaded?”

Mouse, working on a much more complex computer setup in his living room, spoke into his own headset. “Yeah.”

“All right. What do you need?”

“Just get me into the system. I’ll take it from there.”

“Got it.” She clicked around for a while. “OK, you’re in.”

“Stand by. Let me know if anybody gets too close, cuz it’s gonna be obvious you’re not the one driving.”

*************

Half an hour later, Laura was still at Mouse’s computers, still on the phone with Mouse. She was looking intently at the screen, tracing something with her finger.

“Yeah, I see it. Not sure what I’m looking at, though.”

“That’s the actual code behind that email. See that section where the cursor is? That shouldn’t be there.”

“So you think this could be how the worm got in? Behind the email? In the code?”

”Could be... Let me figure out what this does…”

“What’s this little goober here? The thing that looks like a starfish.”

“I dunno yet. Maybe nothing.” He continued looking at the code for a minute, then got a shock as a wall of code began scrolling past his eyes. “Hey, what’d you do?”

“I clicked on it. Oh, man… are you seeing this?”

“What did I tell you about… Holy crap, Laura. That’s the worm.”

Laura made a disgusted noise. “Of course. It was just a junk email. He knew you’d be too smart to open any attachment. But what do you do with junk mail? You delete it, right? And that’s what triggered it. It was you that inserted the spyware, but not intentionally. All you did was delete a junk email.”

“You delete an email, it doesn’t show up anymore. Kinda like arson, where the accelerant burns up? If Central hadn’t found the worm in time, that email would’ve been over-written.

“That’s diabolical.”

“Well, I’m glad you approve.”

In their respective locations, they both smiled.

“Listen, Mouse, I got it from here. We got the IP address it came from. All I gotta do now is trace it. You get out. And get rid of that stick.”

“Roger that. You be careful.”

“I will.”

******************

Later, Laura sat at her own desk, talking rapidly and anxiously on the phone.

“It’s 4330 Northeast Cicero. You need me to text you directions?” She listened to the response.

“Yeah, you got it.” She began clicking keys on her keyboard at a furious pace. “By the way, Kevin… I can’t get a hold of Voight. He’s not answering his phone. You heard from him?”

Atwater’s voice came through the phone headset she wore. “Nah, I haven’t heard from him. Haven’t seen him since this morning.”

“OK. I’ll keep looking. Let me know when you got Baldwin.”

She clicked a button on her phone, thought for a moment, then clicked another few buttons, dialing the front desk.

“Hey, Sergeant Platt, I got the team rolling to pick up a suspect, and I’m trying to track down Voight. He checked in with you today?”

“Yeah, he was headed over to Mouse’s place. Said something about wrapping up the spyware thing.”

Laura’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. “Oh, no…”

She quickly recovered and said a hasty “Thanks, Sergeant” into her headset, then ripped the headset off. She jumped up from her desk, grabbing her purse from a bottom drawer and leaving the drawer hanging open as she tore across the bullpen to the back stairs.

“No, no, no, please, no …” she muttered breathlessly as she ran.

**********

Laura, in a squad car she was going to catch hell for comandeering, came to a screeching halt right in front of Mouse’s apartment building. She threw the door open, heading for the front door of the building at a dead run, then hurtled up the stairs toward Mouse’s apartment. To her dismay, the door was standing open. She rushed in, coming upon Voight, who held a gun on Mouse as he lay bleeding on the floor against a wall of the living room. Voight had obviously attacked him and thrown him there.

“No!” Laura screamed. “Sergeant, no! It wasn’t him!”

Heedless of the gun, she ran across the room to get down on the floor and check on Mouse. When she saw that he wasn’t seriously hurt, she remained in front of him and turned around toward Voight, holding one hand out as if to ward off a blow. She kept the other hand on Mouse’s chest.

“Sergeant, don’t do this,” she panted.

“Get out of the way, Laura. You don’t want to be part of this.”

“This is not Sheldon Jin!”

Voight looked at her strangely, but stopped talking.

“Sergeant, you’re looking at Mouse, but you’re seeing Jin. And it’s got you thinking crooked. Jin screwed you over, I get that, but Mouse didn’t do this! And I can prove it.”

“Move. I’m not gonna ask again.”

Laura was breathing hard and talking fast. “It’s somebody named Jack Baldwin. You put him in Stateville five years ago.”

“Baldwin?”

“I can prove it. I’ll show you. The footprints are there, it just took us a while to find ‘em. Trail leads straight back to Baldwin. The team’s picking him up right now. Sergeant, you want to be there. You know Halstead. This guy framed Mouse, and you know how he feels about that. I don’t know what he might do to him. Please. You need to be there.

Voight hesitated, slowly made a decision and lowered his gun.

“Yeah, all right. I’ll go get Baldwin. But I will deal with you back at the District. Both of you. I get back and you’re not there, you better keep runnin’.”

“We’ll be there. Go. I texted you the address and directions.”

Voight looked at them for a moment longer before turning and striding out the door. Laura relaxed and rolled from her crouch to sit on the floor next to Mouse. She swept his hair away from a bleeding wound on his forehead.

“You hurt bad?”

“I’ll live. Did you just get between me and a bullet?”

She laughed a little, looking uncomfortable. “Yeah, I guess I did. Not the smartest move I ever made…” She indicated his wound. “This looks pretty bad. You got a first aid kit?”

They helped eachother up from the floor and went into Mouse’s bathroom, where Laura had him sit on the edge of the sink while she stood in front of him, bandaging the wound.

“All right. That’s as good as I can do. Shouldn’t leave much of a scar.”

His expression was serious as he looked into her face. “Hey. Thank you. For believing me.”

Laura cocked her head and gave him a crooked smile. “You realize this means we’re friends now.”

Mouse smiled down at her, giving her a look that quite literally made her stop breathing.

“I can live with that.”

She was dumbstruck, and began to lean in toward him, unable to resist. She caught herself, shook her head a little, and began to babble. ”Right. Well. Let’s get back to the district.”

“Let me just change my shirt,” he said, indicating a smear of blood on the one he was wearing.

He headed out toward the bedroom. She followed him in a daze, walking directly into the door frame. She took a step back, squared her shoulders a little, took a step to the side and went out the door.

#law & order svu #law & order: special victims unit #rafael barba #raul esparza #chicago pd #chicago fire #chicago med #chicago pd mouse

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bellarosepope · 8 years ago

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11 Questions Tag

Thank you to the wonderful @jennamoreci for tagging me! I know, I’m slow. But it’s cuz of book stuff so....YOU CAN’T BE MAD :D

1) How many works in progress do you currently have?

Just one - Of Defender Descent! Which is more than enough for me to handle with work and life and everything else. Although, I’m also currently thought-dumping for a series idea I want to tackle after Of Defender Descent. But that probably doesn’t count?

2) Do you/would you write fan fiction?

Nope. I don’t find it desirable. My favorite thing about writing is creating things 100% on my own - my characters, the plot, etc.. And I can’t do that with fan fiction.

3) Do you prefer real books or e-books?

Probably real books just because I like having them to stack up on shelves and look at - they’re pretty, okay? But e-books are far more convenient.

4) When did you start writing?

This is kind of a tough question. Firstly, I have always loved writing. It was, by far, my favorite thing to do in school. I looked forward to “creative writing time”. But I never knew it was something I had a talent for. In my little mind, I thought everyone could come up with ideas and write them down and tell stories.

It wasn’t until my senior year of high school that I had my creative writing teacher keep me after class to tell me that I was talented and I should pursue writing as a career. He was adamant about it. So that’s when I knew I could write well, but I still didn’t think much of it as a career. Then I got a job in an office and it was SO BORING. I turned to writing a book for my creative outlet (yes, while I was supposed to be working. whatever). I realized then that I had a passion for writing and creating stories. It was easy for me. It felt natural and I LOVED it.

And so I attempted to write my first book then (19 years old - 3 ish years ago) but I had no idea what it took to write a book besides just the writing. And there’s a lot. So I kind of gave up for a while and pursued other writing ventures/ideas. But I kept going back to this specific idea I had. And I wanted to go for it but needed some guidance - I needed to research.

So I googled “how to write a book” and ended up on @jennamoreci ‘s youtube channel and binge watched her videos. They literally changed everything for me and I started taking steps toward my book. And it is now about 1/3 of the way written :D (thank you, Jenna!!)

5) Do you have someone you trust that you share your work with?

I have shared my work (really only the first chapter or so) with a few friends and family members. My best friend gets to read each chapter as I write it. I value her opinion and she’s very blunt/honest when it comes to criticism and feedback. But generally, I trust my close friends to read it :)

6) Where is your favorite place to write?

I sit on my floor on a pillow up against my couch, covered in blankets, of course. That’s my favorite place :)

7) Favorite childhood book?

Oh gosh...I didn’t read books for fun until I was like 13..so..? Probably the Harry Potter books. They’re the only “childhood” books I can remember reading and loving enough to remember lol

8) Writing for fun or writing for publication?

Why can’t writing for publication be fun? <--- this is Jenna’s answer. But I’m keeping it here cuz...accurate as fuck.

9) Pen and paper or computer?

easily the computer - I’m not a fan of hand cramps.

10) Have you ever taken any writing classes?

Not outside of stuff you have to take in school - except my creative writing class in high school. That was taken by choice.

11) What inspires you to write?

Writing. If that makes sense? The more I write the more I’m inspired to. Also, my dreams and my own imagination get me motivated.

I’m tagging @jamieanovels @shaelinwrites @elliewants2write @glorious74 @celstefani and whoever else wants to! Sorry if you’ve already been tagged!

#tag #i love writing #writing #am writing

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miss-pettigrew · 8 years ago

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(1)a BUNCH of long asks coming your way, i'm so sorry I just love discussing KS with other people so I run my keyboard down lol.... so I finally read your latest post on KS. Anyway, I thought it was mind blowing on the point that the current story is almost always being narrated by Bum, so perhaps all the images are in Bum's perspective--which makes complete sense to why Sangwoo is always 'yaoi' sized compared to poorlittle Bum. I threw my hands up in surrender to you after that paragraph

Firstly,here’s the rest of the asks:

To move onto my question, actual penetration seems to be the next step between Bum and Sangwoo in their 'physical relationship'. But part of me thinks that Sangwoo will never do it with Bum. Many times in the past chapters, Sangwoo has expressed dislike for homosexuals. Hell, he even dresses Bum as a country gal to (imo) remove any masculinity from Bum and sort of 'project' this image that Sangwoo is holding hostage a woman, not a man (imo again).

There was only one time (I think) during a sexual act when Bum and Sangwoo exposed their dicks to each other, which was that one BJ scene where Bum gets Sangwoo off and pulls out his own dick. Honestly I can't remember if that was accurate or not cuz it's very hard for me to read those earlier chapters (I get so nervous and disturbed omfg). But going back to that BJ scene, Bum is still dressed like a girl as well.

So for my question (finally) I know you said that Sangwoo will /most likely/ give Bum some sort of sexual reward after all this, but do you think that Sangwoo will some how 'feminine Bum' in order to justify their sexual acts? Perhaps slapping that bra onto Bum?? Another question that just came into my mind was this.. it's goes back to your point about how Sangwoo looks so much bigger and whatnot.

You've said that you're not a sensitive person in your post and I also agree with that for myself. I've seen a lot of things in the past and I don't get too affected by it all. I usually can shrug off things pretty easily. But what I can't shrug off is rereading those earlier chapters.

As I stated in my past question, I get deeply disturbed and really anxious even /thinking/ about the situation that Bum is going through (don't get me started with the arc where Sangwoo was acting kind to Bum--I was hyperventilating the entire time). Do you think that because the story is most likely viewed through Bum's eyes, that the anxiety and panic or any emotion anyone gets when reading these chapters is a mirror to Bum's?

It's probably an obvious answer but I'm curious to reading your response. And also, if you believe that it is a mirror, what about during the short time Ji Eun took control of the narration? Is there something different? Sorry again if these are stupidly long asks and that I spammed you with all of them, but you pose such good analysis that I feel like I wanna dive deep with you on it as well LOL... ANYWAY THAT'S IT I'M GONE NOW LOL.

Secondly - hehe, thank you! I really am enjoying this even if it is slightly embarrassing how much I think about all this stuff. It’s interesting because nowadays I don’t normally need to wait for anything - media wise (except videos games but that’s on me). Like, with Netflix, all the episodes come out at one time and there’s no time for speculation or analysis. Until YOI, I hadn’t waited on anything, so I found myself reading a lot of meta and analysis and I guess I figured this is the time to get involved and do my own.

Thirdly, this is a great ask, and there’s stuff in here I hadn’t really thought about and there stuff in here that I have so I’ll do my best with both of those.

So that next step question? It’s an interesting one, and one that I don’t have any final opinion on, but rather a few directions I could see where it could go. Because you’re right, Sangwoo is homophobic and that does manifest in the sexual encounters with Bum. And yet, he also just clearly doesn’t give a fuck as long as he’s getting something out of it. So it’s a very unique mindset to be in when it comes to sex. Because nothing outside of how Sangwoo thinks, feels or reacts matters. He’s not completely homophobic because society, as a whole, tends to be homophobic. But because he sees it as a... difference? weakness? something to take advantage of and look down on. Like for him, it’s just so weird that this little freak likes men wow he’s such a freak but that also this freak surprises me and will do anything for me and I’m into it.

So the panel that keeps coming to mine is the “have you even had sex yes” panel with the dildo. And that concerns me because, well for one, Bum has had sex - and I don’t think a single time has that sex been consensual - just rape. And he and SANGWOO have had sex? And I sort of talked about this before, but clearly Sangwoo doesn’t consider what they’ve as “sex” despite it definitely being yes. So maybe he’s just one of those penetration=sex or maybe what he and Bum are is completely outside of anything he would normally define. I’m not sure.

So, my concerns lie in how does Sangwoo expect Bum to participate in this sexual portion of the murder? If he involved Bum as anything more than shock value for Jieun or will he try to have him lose his supposed virginity? Eh, probably not but maybe. And I realize I’m not answering your actual question here so let me get to a point.

I, personally, hope that “penetrative sex” is not the next step in their sexual relationship. Now - or ever. Because Sangwoo will hurt Bum. There is no gosh darn way he knows how to sleep with other men. He’s probably never even heard of lube - women are supposed to be doing all the work for him here. Plus, prep and going slow, like we have literally just seen how little time or care he takes when sleeping with someone because with Jieun he sort of just gets right in there - at least according to my reading of their intercourse. Time is a funny thing when it comes to sex scenes though. But, to get to your point, penetrative sex sort of makes sense when it comes to Sangwoo and his idea of power and control and homophobia. He simply wants to Bum submitting to him. That’s really what any sort of sexual interaction with Bum requires, I think?

But you bring up a good, and interesting point. Bum has never been sexually naked in front of Sangwoo. And I think that’s on purpose. But not necessarily because Bum being naked would remind Sangwoo that he’s in fact, a man, but he had no problems messing around with his flat chest before. So the lack of boobs aren’t an issue. Instead, it might be more, he just doesn’t consider Bum’s pleasure a priority. He just assumes Bum’s gonna get all the pleasure he needs out of pleasing Sangwoo and that’s not really Sangwoo’s priority to solve.

So if he and Bum do have sex again post-Jieun (and I expect they will) it’s important to note that it’s not really a “reward” for Bum. But rather something Sangwoo will want to do because he feels close and intimate with Bum and wants to get his rocks off again, and Bum is expected to go along for the ride. And that’s the thesis of this. I’m so sorry how much I ramble. I guess, in short, the feminization won’t really... come into play here? Or rather it will but because submission is the key.

To your second question, I’ll put the thesis right up front.

AB-SO-FREAKING-LUTELY. Like, y’all, that’s the entire point of reading this story. And that’s why I started off my whole meta series over how GOOD Koogi is as a story-teller because she does a near flawless job of getting you into Bum’s head/mind without you having a single clue. Why were we all so upset at Sangwoo sleeping with Jieun? I even admitted if gave me the actual feeling of that time I was cheated on because for us, we had just been cheated on too, through Bum. Even though, taking even half a step back - um, they are not in a romantic, consensual, healthy relationship. Sangwoo can and will have sex with whomever we wants. But for Bum, not one whole chapter ago he made Sangwoo tell him what he and Jieun had done together. And for him, his assurance that Sangwoo had not slept with Jieun has been both betrayed and thrown right in his face, can we’re only getting a taste of that betrayal. Bum is breaking, and we are along with him.

I can’t decide if I think Bum knows what’s coming. If he’s going to have to help kill her. I have a feeling he doesn’t, especially now when the fact he’s watching Sangwoo sleep with her is all he’ll be able to process, and obsess, and destroy himself over.

Every step of the way, we are meant to feel a little what Bum feels. That’s good, psychological horror at its finest. All of our sane rational selves know that this story is horrific, and abusive and something none of us would want any real part of. But hip hip hooray this is fiction and the point of fiction is to explore parts of ourselves (and I mean this holistically, like us a species) in situations and relationships and terror that we hope to never find ourselves in. That’s why humans have told stories since the dawn of time (and to like, pass down history and shit but you get my point).

And as far as Jieun, I mentioned it briefly before, but Jieun is 10000000% a foil/mirror for Bum. Break down their roles in the narrative and they are the EXACT. SAME. PERSON. Both love(d) Sangwoo, they’re devoted to him. They WANT him. Both have consciously placed themselves right into Sangwoo’s hands. And like, think about that dinner scene. People are making such a fuss because Jieun is being “mean” to Bum. But she’s acting like literally anyone would. She’s acting like Bum would if the roles were reversed. Nevermind, she’s acting like Bum IS ACTING because they’re both jealous, and possessive and wanting Sangwoo’s attention and affection.

We got into her head because narratively, we’re basically still in Bum’s. No, Jieun and Bum are not the same person. But the distinction we’re meant to see, I theorize, will be the moment when Jieun finds out who Sangwoo really is. I seriously doubt she’ll react like Bum did. I imagine she’ll reject Sangwoo instead of getting on her knees and confessing love for him - like she even has the opportunity.

I admit to being a little bit disturbed by the fandom’s overall reaction to Jieun. But in the same note, I doubt most are stepping back to see her as a mirror to Bum because Bum doesn’t see that. He sees her as a threat to him and to his relationship with Sangwoo. So I get the defensiveness on the part of the fandom, especially since most of y’all seem to be pretty young and it’s hard for your brains to take a step back. Hope that doesn’t offend, but it’s true because I was a teenager once too and I know what it’s like. lol.

This was long, but it’s also sort of my brand. Hope this was good!

#killing stalking #killing stalking spoilers #killing stalking chapter 17 #this is v long #sorry not sorry #a-elocin

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