#main thing now but i guess i miss the continuity with my old self?

[orpheuscas]

anyway

[rendy-a]

If your interested i would like to request a self aware au where the player instead of possesses Ramshackle instead of Yuu

My first thought is that I don’t understand this request.  Possess the actual building of Ramshackle?  Then I thought it might actually be funny if the Player were stuck in the building Encanto-style.  Feel free to drop in a new request if this isn’t what you were looking for.  Until then, enjoy this silly idea.

The Dorm Magical

All the characters in Twisted Wonderland had an innate sense for when they were being observed by the Player.  It was a feeling so sublime that it was the only thing a character craved.  One day, they stopped receiving that feeling as they did lessons, went about the storyline and even engaged in event stories.  These were all the Player’s favorite times to grace them with their notice!  It was deeply disturbing to them (could you have quit playing the game?) until they noticed that feeling again within the walls of Ramshackle Dorm.  Now this unique dorm isn’t just the home to the odd students Grim and Yuu but also the only place left on campus to experience the notice of the Player. 

Nothing matters anymore unless you can do it in Ramshackle or take it to Ramshackle.  Riddle brings every perfect-scored test to casually hold up to the walls, hoping you’ll take notice.  A suspicious number of movies being filmed by the Film Club seem to use old houses as a setting.  If any odd floorboard squeaks or movements of doors happen, all the club members merely clap and declare that the Player is so good at ad-libbing. 

Epel bursts into the lounge of Ramshackle and Grim nearly chokes on a bite of tuna.  “Nya!  What’s the big idea barging in here like that?” he asks between coughs.  Epel holds up a spelldrive trophy enthusiastically, “We won the tournament!”  Yuu smiles at him indulgently, “Great job.”  Epel shoots him a puzzled look as though to say, ‘Why are you talking to me?’  Then he turns about the room, holding the trophy aloft until a beam of sunlight from a window seems to shift and hit the trophy perfectly.  Epel grins as though the Player had personally awarded him that trophy.  “Awe, shucks!” he beams while grinning like a fool.  Then, he suddenly seems to recollect somewhere he needs to be.  “I…I should probably get this trophy back now before Leona notices its missing.  See you later Player!”  He makes awkward eye contact with Grim, “and…I guess Yuu and Grim too…”

It’s not just students, so many classes seem to be held in Ramshackle dorm.  The same students that used to try to sweet talk teachers into holding class outside on sunny days are now suggesting they can concentrate so much better in the quiet Ramshackle dorm.  Staff are surprisingly fast to agree.  There is now a sign-up sheet in the faculty lounge to reserve a Ramshackle day.

“Turn to page 101 in your textbooks.  Today we are covering proper methods of distilling potions,” Crewel begins his lecture.  A hand raises, “Professor, couldn’t we learn this better in Ramshackle?”  Crewel lets out a long-suffering sigh, “There aren’t even potion making facilities in that dorm.”  Another hand raises, “But Trein got to have history there twice this week already.”  Crewel pauses for a moment considering that petty argument.  “Screw it,” he finally replies in an arrogant tone, “Grab your things.  We are moving this class to the kitchen of Ramshackle.”  A cheer erupts from the masses.

Rules had to be made preventing transfer to Ramshackle.  Crowly is very firm on this; if he can’t live there, no one else can either!  The few times in the main story where people stay over are the highlight of those student’s year.

Vil slides his hand gently down the banister of the staircase as he descends and lets out a satisfied sigh.  “Stop stroking my house,” Yuu retorts in an annoyed tone. “For the duration of the VDC training camp, it’s our house,” and continues to lightly run his fingertips along the wallpaper with a dreamy smile.

The guest room is the most coveted invitation on campus.  Students would gladly jump over any number of couches and tables for the honor of being trapped in the corner of the Ramshackle guest room.  Even Riddle is happy to cut class, dress up in his Halloween costume and stand idly by. 

Deep in the corner of the room, Sebek stands on two small squares of open space.  He paces a single step backwards and forwards.  He’s been trapped there for at least an hour, yet he still sounds at the peak of happiness as he exclaims, “THIS DECORATION REMINDS ME OF THE THORN FAIRY HERSELF!  WHAT A MAGNIFICENTLY APPOINTED ROOM!”  The door blows open slightly in a breeze and Sebek preens as though receiving an approving wave from the great Player themselves.  Ah, what a moment to be alive and trapped in a room.

[sufficientlylargen]

Merry Crit Miss

'Tis the night before Crit Miss, and all through your house, not a sound can be heard save the click of your mouse. You scroll through your dashboard with nary a care; you've no clue that Saint Nicholas soon will be there.

You reblog your 500th Goncharov post, and continue to scroll, completely engrossed. When, from up above, there arises such clatter that you leap from your bed to see what is the matter!

In your haste, you forget you were browsing your dash - your laptop is hurled 'cross the room in a flash! It lands on its corner; you're sure it's just broke - with a crunch and a flash the machine belches smoke.

The cloud makes you dizzy, your vision gets blurry, and you lurch through the door to escape in a hurry. You misjudge the door frame, trip, stub many toes, and fall face-first forwards to land on your nose.

The main room is dark but stars flash in your vision and you feel blood drip from the site of collision. Dazed and confused you sprawl out on the ground, when you suddenly hear an odd rapping sound.

It sounds like… A horse? Or some other hoof? It's prancing and pawing up there on your roof? Oh right! You remember that something had clattered! That's why you'd jumped up, why your laptop was shattered!

And now there's a scraping noise from near the flue - Is this some weird break-in? What should you do? You grope for a lightswitch and just as it's hit, a kindly voice booms "HO, HO, OH HOLY SHIT!"

In a twinkling you realize your awful mistake as the room fills with screams and the air starts to bake. The switch which you thought ought to turn on the light was instead that which makes the gas fireplace ignite!

And now you can see, by the light of the fire, the shape of a man wrapped in flames like a pyre! He's trying to open the grate to get out, but it's stuck - rusted shut through neglect, you've no doubt.

You take up a poker and rush to the grate, Prying and trying with all of your weight to force it apart! SNAP! It breaks from the wall! And you and the flaming man to the floor fall!

The grating is hot, and it burns at your skin as you work your way out of the heap that you're in. One last shove and you're free! You stand up, and look down at the stranger who's lying, too still, on the ground.

He's dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot, though a lot of it's now turned to ashes and soot. The stump of a pipe still protrudes from his teeth, While ashes encircle his head like a wreath;

The beard of his chin, once as white as the snow, is stained red with blood in the embers' dull glow, And his blankness of eye, and the twist of his head, Soon give you to know that this dude's super-dead.

With horror you notice, right in this man's chest A long metal rod is quite firmly impressed. The poker you'd grabbed when the grating was stuck! It went right through his sternum! Oh shit, you think, fuck!

In shock you lurch back, but your foot hits a snag - It's caught on the edge of late Santa's toy bag. You trip and expect to land flat on your back…

But instead you plunge into the toy-toting sack…

And that, I'm afraid, is the end of this tale, For my observational powers here fail. The toy-bag of Santa's a curious place Where infinite gifts drift in transfinite space

But without good Saint Nick there to tend to the mess What happens within it I only can guess. Perhaps you keep falling. Perhaps ground you hit. Perhaps you awaken some Thing in the pit.

The things that I do know: your house does burn down, And in its remains just one body is found. It's chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf, (now stabbed and flambéed by your since-vanished self).

A lot of deer droppings are seen the next day, But nobody sees a reindeer, or a sleigh. And so this poem closes, we've come to the end. Merry Crit Miss to all!

You are not seen again.

[maybelinefox]

2003 Lighthouse AU Chapter 1: First Meeting

This is inspired by @beebopurr 's Rise lighthouse au, and you should definitely go see theirs for yourself. I love their art! The first meeting in this chapter is taken almost directly from theirs as well as an ask they got. The rest is from me.

TW: mentions of guns and the use of them and an injury caused by one in this chapter and the next. Weapons (mostly guns) will be a continuing plot point that will eventually lead to the usage of one in the last chapter that will result in a major injury, but no death. If you don't want to see that, don't read. Minor swearing throughout the story as well.

Here it is on AO3:

Thank you @wendigomahana for beta reading!

Chapter one under cut!

I take a deep breath before stepping off my boat onto the pier. From a distance, the only thing I could see of this island was green. Now that I'm up close, I still only see green, aside from the giant-ass rock cliff the lighthouse is sitting on. I've never seen this many trees gathered in one place in my entire life.

I can't tell if it's gorgeous or intimidating.

I probably shouldn't do any exploring until I've studied a map of this place or something. Knowing me, I'd get lost in like ten minutes.

Once I reach the walkway leading off the pier, I look back up at the lighthouse to see a person walking out of it. He waves, and I wave back. Looking back down to the ground, I see the walkway leads to a path curving up onto the rock. I shove my hands back into my pockets as I follow the trail.

"You're a couple hours early," the man states as I reach the entrance to the cliff.

"I purposefully overestimated my arrival time in case the ocean tried to pull me back. Or in case I forgot how to sail."

He nods, breaking a smile. "Well, I s'pose that makes sense. You sail much?"

I shake my head. "Just got that boat a couple months back. Haven't been able drive one myself much lately, but I practically grew up on the water."

He chuckles and looks out towards the pier. "Certainly looks a lot better than my old dingy. Haven't used that thing in a few years 'cept for reef fishin. Hope it still works."

His shoulders move in a near silent chuckle as he turns towards the lighthouse.

"Already got all my stuff packed up. Friend a mine came and got the bigger things last week. Place should be cleaned out for ya, 'cept the bare essentials and furniture it came with. All of which 'sides the food is pretty old. Most of it's been here longer than me."

He gives me a tour of the place, which entirely consists of four and a half rooms. The main living area with a kitchenette, a bathroom, and a small storage closet all on the bottom floor, and then a curved set of stairs leading up to the bedroom. The stairs keep going up to the top of the lighthouse where the main workspace is, and then up to the light itself.

"And that's the whole building," he states with a shrug. "Not much, but they don't really expect one person to need more than this, I guess. Here, let me show you how all this works."

After about a half an hour of him going over all the rules and procedures and showing me what all the knobs and buttons do as well as how to work the phone and radio, we head back downstairs. Over the next hour or so he shows me a few chores that need to be done a certain way, and then goes over the rest of the chores that are pretty self-explanatory. Then, we find ourselves standing in the living room again.

"Well, I guess that's it," he starts as he turns to take one last look at the inside of the lighthouse. "Ya know, when I first got here, it only took me a couple months of boredom to become so done with this place I wanted nothing more than to leave it. Now…" he takes a deep, sentimental breath and shakes his head fondly. "Now I really think I'm gonna miss this."

"You can come back to see the place whenever you want," I tell him with a small smile. "Just keep in mind I took this job 'cause I'm a major introvert, so I'd like to be warned at least a few hours in advance, if ya could."

He chuckles. "I will certainly take that offer into consideration. And honestly, I may just take ya up on it within the next week or so. Got a feelin I'm gonna be homesick real soon. And this ain't even my home anymore."

"Where ya going?"

"Oh, I'm stayin with a friend a mine till I can find me a place. Gonna be doin nothin but house hunting for a bit now. Sure I'm ‘onna get bored with that pretty quick."

I smile. "Yeah, I can imagine."

He looks around one last time.

"Well, I s'pose I should get outta your hair now. Let you get yourself all comfortable and set up and all. Do ya need anything before I go?"

"What did you say your name was again, sir?"

He reaches his hand out for a handshake, and I take it.

"You can just call me Phil, little lady."

I shake his hand.

"It was nice meeting you, Phil."

"You as well, Ayla."

He turns to leave the building. Then, like he forgot something, he pauses and turns back to me, pointing towards something leaning against the wall next to the front door.

"Almost forgot, I'm leaving ya that rifle there, just in case."

"In case a what?"

He turns fully towards me now, eyebrows furrowed to show his seriousness.

"There's things out here. Don't know what they are, but they ain't human. Only seen one clearly once. Big green thing, walked on two legs, something wrong with its back. Now, I dunno what that thing was, but I sure as hell wouldn't let it get close enough to find out if I were you."

He walks towards the gun bag, unzipping it to show the rifle inside. A Marlin. Ruger-made.

"Ammo for it is on this shelf here right above it. I've shot at them with it a few times. They don't get much closer than the trees no more, but best to keep using this to teach them not to get closer. I got it all nice fer ya in it's bag, but it'd be smarter to keep it loaded and ready to grab at moment’s notice."

He gestures towards the door, hand still on the gun.

"Pretty sure I hit one a them last week. Not sure where, but I saw blood splatter on the ground the next morning. It's probably bled out somewhere, so hopefully that's one down."

He leaves the bag unzipped and walks back over to me.

"I've called people to deal with them. They got one a them, so they told me a few years back. But there's more, and those people come by every once in a while to try again. So, in case ya ain't feelin too safe, there’s no need to worry."

I nod, not sure whether to take this seriously or not. At least it's a nice gun.

"I'll keep that in mind."

He nods, satisfied, then turns back towards the door.

Standing near the edge of the cliff, I wave at Phil as he readies himself to pull away from the pier. At least we discovered the engine still runs, so he won't need to call someone to come get him.

Nice guy, but I got this job to be alone. Didn't want to have to wait a few more hours for someone to get here to tow his boat.

After I'm sure he's far from the island, I turn back towards the lighthouse. I'll get my stuff from my boat tomorrow. I've got all the essentials in my bag. For now, I'm exhausted from the trip and would rather just crash.

This lighthouse, like almost every other lighthouse in the country, is automated. Phil already did all the daily chores before I got here, saving the ones that needed demonstration for last so he could show me how to do them, so nothing to worry about until tomorrow.

The next week is pretty much just me getting the hang of things. The biggest of the chores is keeping the lens and windows in the tower clean so the light isn't any dimmer than it should be at night, as well as keeping an eye on all the electronics to make sure none of them are busted or wearing out or need replacement. Honestly, I'm already starting to understand what Phil meant by boredom. There's not much to do around here. I'm almost wishing I was living a few decades ago, when lighthouse keepers had way more to do without all the automated electronics. When they actually controlled the light and had to remain focused on their task. There's really nothing for me to focus on now.

I also haven't seen those "things" Phil was talking about. My first night, I thought I saw something moving around in the trees at the base of the rock, but I was so exhausted that night I wouldn't be surprised if I was delirious enough to think something moving in the wind was a monster. Or worse yet, maybe I was hallucinating. But after I got some sleep, everything was normal.

The second week begins just about the same. Chores about a third of the day at most, then finding ways to entertain myself for the rest of the time. I've begun researching hobbies that can be easily practiced on an island just a few miles from the mainland.

I get supplies delivered to me once a month. They take a list from me of essentials only, such as certain foods I like, what brand of toothpaste I prefer, etc., as well as anything anyone on the mainland wants to send me. If I want to order something online, I have to have it sent to someone I trust on the mainland, family or friend or whatever, and have them take it to the people loading the supply ship. Or just have them bring it to me themselves in their own boat. So basically, if I want a material hobby, like knitting or some other kind of crafty thing, I have to go through multiple channels just to get the supplies for it. So it'd be best to take up something I can do on the island with the bare essentials, just to avoid the hassle. 

By this time, I've set up a comfortable chair on the cliff behind the lighthouse, overlooking the water. I've spent the last couple nights sitting out on this chair for a while to watch the waves.

It's on one of these particular nights I'm looking out over the water and watching the lighthouse light gleam across the sky in the distance, thinking on maybe taking up fishing again, when I hear something thud against the rocks beneath me.

I sit up straight, listening to see if I can figure out what that was before I have to investigate.

Or if I even want to investigate.

Not long after the initial thud, I hear what sounds like a groan, followed by a whimper and some thrashing in the water.

Shit.

Quickly, I grab my lantern, (extra strength, battery powered, obviously), and rush back inside to grab my med kit. 

Something alive is down there, and probably hurt pretty bad by the sound of that thud.

I make my way down the path to the base of the lighthouse rock as quickly as I can before darting towards the water. Once I turn around the base to see the rocks beneath the lighthouse, I freeze.

There, leaning up against one of the larger rocks, is....

Something....

I can't tell what I'm looking at. The light from the lantern is barely hitting it, but I can see what looks like...green...scales? I can't tell, but it doesn't look like normal scale-less human skin. It's humanoid, but I'm not sure I'd call it human. And its back is...huge…

The second the light hits it, the creature whips its head towards me. I see what looks like brown eyes before they go completely white. They still look open, but there's some kind of...inner eyelid? I think? Covering them. Its head is a bit rounder than a human head normally is, and it looks naked, but there's something of a much lighter greenish color covering it in the front. And there's something wrapped around it, but I can’t really tell from here what it is.

Once it sees me, the creature quickly slides backwards to get away from me, but ends up trapped against the rock behind it. From the direction of the trail left by whatever it's trapped in, (I think it might be a fishing net?), it looks like it hit one of the smaller rocks closer to where I'm standing and pulled itself into an alcove created by the larger rocks further away. So it can't jump into the water and the cliff rock is too close to the rocks it's leaning against to be able to squeeze through.

It's trapped.

It seems to realize this after quickly turning to examine the rock it backed into, and whips its head back to me with wide, fearful, inner eyelid covered eyes. 

I step a bit closer, allowing the light to cover more of the creature. The opening of the fishing net it's trapped in seems to be hooked over its neck. The netting is ripped and wrapped around its left arm and back, trapping the arm against its chest. The rest is dangling off, trailing out into the water and around the rocks.

I take a deep breath and step closer, causing the creature to curl up defensively against the rock. I hold up my med kit.

"Hey," I say, trying to sound as calm and soothing as possible. "I'm not gonna hurt ya. I'm here to help, actually."

The creature turns its head slightly, towards the med kit. I can't see where it's looking with its eyes all white like that, but I can see something akin to recognition crossing its features before it seems to look back to me. It doesn't move, though.

I take another slow step closer. It still doesn't move. After a couple more steps, it suddenly decides to use another tactic to protect itself.

Unfurling itself, the creature crouches on its three available limbs and looks up at me with its teeth bared. The strangest, most menacing clicking noise I've ever heard escapes from its throat, and I immediately freeze in place.

When it sees that method had an effect, it takes what I can only assume by its still fearful face is something it believes to be a bold risk, and takes a step towards me.

Now I'm the one who doesn't move despite a terrifying, unknown creature advancing on me.

It snaps its teeth at me and clicks louder, stepping towards me again, but I can see that its resolve began waning when I didn't back away.

Making a bold move myself, I step towards it again.

It stops moving and flinches backwards a bit, causing a hiccup in the clicks.

"I want to help," I say again, holding up and pointing to the med kit. "This will help you feel better. I'm sure that net around you is painful."

It seems to understand some of my words, because it stops clicking and tilts its head as if it's listening. Now that there's more light on it, and in its current crouched position, I can clearly see what looked so strange about this creature's back.

It's got a shell. Like a turtle shell. That must be what's on its front, the plastron of the shell. And the sounds it was making just adds to that fact to tell me what's happening here, impossible as it may seem. 

This thing is quite literally a giant, humanoid turtle.

I'm suddenly reminded of the description Phil gave me of those monsters he was talking about, and I begin to wonder if maybe he truly wasn't crazy, or if I'm already going crazy myself.

After a moment, the turtle creature straightens back up just a bit, sitting back on its legs and raising its functioning arm up off the ground about an inch or so, resting its elbow on its knee. It stares at the box.

"...help...?" It says slowly, curiously, in a raspy voice that obviously hasn't been used much.

I feel my eyes widen a little in shock. I don't know what I was expecting when I spoke to it, but apparently I wasn't expecting it to speak back.

"Y-yes," I say, taking another slow step forwards. It doesn't move back, but its head slides down slightly, as if it's watching my feet move. "Yeah, I want to help. I'm gonna see if I can get that net off ya, then this box has stuff in it I can use to fix your wounds."

I speak slowly, because I don't know what it can and can't understand. Hearing myself talk, I weirdly begin wondering if maybe it understands perfectly, and just doesn't need to talk, hence the raspy voice. So perhaps me speaking slowly and trying to use simple words is only being condescending. I shove those thoughts out of my head in favor of focusing on the situation at hand, deciding that if proof arises that this turtle thing does understand perfect English, I'll immediately start speaking to it normally.

The creature watches my slow approach, though now it holds just as much curiosity in its gaze as fear.

Once I'm almost within reaching distance of it, it falls backwards and pushes itself up against the rock again.

"Can...get it....no help...." It says slowly, reaching up with its free hand to grab the net around its other arm.

"Don't do that," I crouch down next to it, but it jerks away from me.

"No help," it says again, more firmly this time.

"You could hurt yourself doing that," I say, reaching into my pocket to grab my knife. "Let me get it,"

"No."

The turtle pulls on the net.

I reach out and grab its hand.

Jumping in surprise, it lets go of the net and turns towards me. Then just as suddenly, it's eyes screw shut in pain and it hisses, free hand shooting up to grab its neck where the net is hooked.

I sigh, figuring what probably happened, and bring the knife out of my pocket, holding the lantern up to see better.

Its eyes open, then immediately squint in the light.

"Here, can you hold this right here?" I ask, holding the lantern a bit closer to its free hand.

It turns its head to see me better as its hand comes up to grab the lantern. Unfortunately, in doing so, it sees the knife.

It gasps as it flinches backwards, it's hand shooting into the water behind it to support it leaning away from me.

"Oh shit-" I blurt out in realization as it uses its hand to scoot into the adjacent rock a couple feet away.

"Wait," I stand back up, adjusting the med kit on my back, hoping it didn't touch the water when I was crouched. "I need it to cut away that net. It's not gonna come off by pulling at it. I promise I'm not trying to hurt you."

"Bad men use," it states fearfully, pointing towards the knife. "Bad men hurt us with sharp thing."

Ok, so it seems to be capable of full sentences, weakly formulated as they are.

I sigh, stepping closer only a little and holding my hands up as open as I can while holding the lantern and knife.

"I'm not the bad men. I want to help. Knives can be used for good things too."

Staring wide-eyed at me, it slowly brings its hand back towards the net, gripping it but not pulling.

"That hurt you, remember?" I say, pointing with my lantern hand at the net. "Don't pull on it. This can get it off of you without hurting."

The turtle shrinks in on itself a little, staring at the knife. Its gaze slowly shifts over to me, and after a few moments of staring, it slowly nods.

"Ok," it says quietly. "No hurting...."

"No hurting," I repeat, slowly taking the couple steps necessary to get to it.

I crouch down next to it again and hold out the lantern for it to grab.

"Can you hold this for me? It'll make it easier for me to take the net off."

The turtle slowly reaches up and gently takes hold of the lantern handle, fingers brushing mine. That's when I notice it only has three. And they are indeed covered in scales. Very smooth, soft, green scales.

I try not to think about how strange that felt as I let go of the lantern.

"Now, just keep it right there, ok? This hopefully won't take long."

The turtle nods, keeping its white eyes trained on me, but it feels like its actual eyes are glaring at the knife.

Slowly, so it can see everything that's happening, I move the knife to sit underneath the net, blade pointed up, and begin sawing away, using my other hand to anchor the net in place. It doesn't take long before the thickest part of it is cut, taking most of the tension off the turtle's neck.

The second that tension is gone, the turtle sighs in relief, leaning back a little like it's deflating as the stress leaves the muscles of its shoulders. It keeps watching, though.

I cut away a few more pieces of the netting still holding its arm in place, then slowly reach up to its neck as I put my knife away. The turtle tenses up again, not sure what I'm doing and once again fearful of my intentions.

"I wanna look and see what it did to your neck," I explain. "It hurt you, so I wanna make sure you're not bleeding."

It flinches slightly away from my hand, then looks down at the net now in the water and its newly freed arm. After a moment, it looks back up at me and slowly nods.

I slowly place the tips of my fingers on its face and turn its head towards me to give me a better view of its neck. I can feel its hidden eyes on me as I lean around it to see the wound better. Luckily, it doesn't look like it's bleeding. At least, not badly. However, the skin (scales?) there has been rubbed nearly raw and there seems to be a small opening where the net sliced into the flesh.

"Ok, that's not too bad," I say. "Let me see your arm."

I release its face and move a bit in front of it so I can see the arm more directly. It raises its left arm, far less hesitant than I expected, and allows me to hold it in my hands. There are a few scratches but nothing major, the realization of which has me letting out a breath of relief. The turtle tilts its head curiously at the sound, but doesn't say anything.

"Well," I start. "It doesn't look too bad. If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to get you inside to look at it in better lighting and to bandage you up. Of course, you don't have to if you don't want to, but it would make me feel better to know your wounds are covered. At least the neck one."

What I can only assume to be this hairless creature's brows furrow in confusion at my words.

"Inside?" It asks. "Where?"

I point up to the cliff, where the top of the lighthouse is visible from underneath.

"In there. That's where I live."

It follows my finger, and when its eyes land on the lighthouse, its jaw drops in a light gasp. Unexpectedly, the inner eyelids covering its eyes slide open, revealing my previous assumption of its eyes being brown to be correct. Its surprisingly human-like chocolate irises stare up at the lighthouse in wonder as I watch on.

"In there?" It asks in disbelief.

The more I hear its voice, the more I believe this creature is male. It sounds young, (which doesn't help), with a very soft and somewhat higher pitched voice, but the tone sounds to be more in the masculine area.

"Yeah, in there," I say, slowly standing. "Don't worry, I live alone."

I reach out my hand to help it (him?) up. He turns his head back towards me, and his eyes move to my hand once he sees it hovering in front of him. After a moment of staring, he looks back up at me.

"Can't go there."

Now it's my turn to tilt my head, but more in confusion.

"Why not?"

"Angry man lives there," he explains, looking back down at my hand. "Very loud. Bang stick hurts. Can't go there."

My eyes widen in realization.

Phil told me he kept the "big green thing(s)" away from the lighthouse by shooting at them. He said he hit one last week.

I quickly look the turtle over again, but he doesn't look like he's been shot anywhere. Not anywhere I can see in this lighting, at least.

"Here," I say, holding one hand closer to his right and reaching for the lantern with the other one. "Grab my hand with yours. I'm gonna help you stand up."

He glances between my face and my hand a couple times and waits for me to pull the lantern out of his hand before he slowly moves it towards mine. Gently, his three fingers slide into my five, and we both close our fingers around each other's palms.

I'm suddenly hit with the thought that this guy is probably very heavy. But luckily for me, his left arm is not too injured for him to push himself part of the way, mainly using my grip for stability as he gets himself up.

"That guy left almost two weeks ago," I say as he lets go to test if he can stand on his own. "I live there now, not him."

The turtle, now standing just about eye-level with me, turns to look at me in shock after he's determined he's quite stable on his own two feet.

"Angry man is gone?" he asks, sounding doubtful.

I nod. "It's only me. No one else."

He stares at me for a moment before full comprehension sets in. He then snaps his attention back to the lighthouse and a look I can only describe as pure joy and disbelief lights up his features.

He points up at the building above us.

"I can go in there?" he asks in a quiet voice, seemingly in awe of the concept.

I nod again, smiling. "You sure can. Just follow me."

I turn to lead the way around the rock back to the path. I hear his steps behind me, and a couple jumps in the water as well, as if he were a child jumping for joy at the thought of going into a lighthouse.

I begin to wonder if he is.

A child.

That would explain how young he sounds, and his minor speaking comprehension.

Oh damn. If he's a child, how big will he be as an adult?

All thoughts and worry leave my mind the second my foot steps onto dry land. I cringe at the squelch and the rushing feeling between my toes.

I hadn't really thought. I'd just run out the door. I didn't grab the wading boots. So now my sneakers and socks are soaked.

Ugh, I hate wet shoes.

The turtle doesn't seem to care about the sound of my shoes, however, as his focus remains transfixed on the lighthouse building the entire trip up to it.

Once we reach the door, I pull off my shoes and socks, leaving them outside beside the doorstep to dry, before opening the door and stepping inside to set the lantern down and dry my feet on the doormat. I turn towards the turtle and gesture for him to come inside.

"Come on in," I say as I leave the door to head to the bathroom.

When I come back out wearing dry pants and holding a towel for him, I find him standing at the door still, wide eyes taking in every detail of the living room.

I step towards him, gently grabbing his good arm to tug him inside. My measly pull doesn't move him even the slightest bit, but he gets the hint and steps forward. I close the door behind him and turn to put the towel over his shoulders. Or, I try to. The shell ends up taking most of the coverage.

He turns towards me at the feeling of something touching him, then looks down in surprise to see the towel. I walk in front of the turtle to pull the towel up tighter around his shoulders.

"You can use this to dry yourself off. Like this."

I rub a small part of the towel over his wet arm, then pull it away to show the now dry scales.

He blinks in surprise, then grabs the towel and begins rubbing it over his scales, trying to recreate the magic in other wet areas of his body. I smile at this as I head over to one of the stools at the kitchen counter, pulling it out and turning it towards him. Setting the med kit on the counter, I turn back to see he's already mostly dried himself off.

"Alright come sit here so I can patch you up," I tell him.

He looks away from the bottom of his foot he's currently wiping the towel on and up at me before glancing down at the stool. He uses the towel for one last scrub of his other foot before slowly making his way to the stool to sit down. I step around in front of him as he puts the towel back over his shoulders and hugs it to him as much as he can.

"I'm gonna need to see your arm and neck, bud," I tell him, motioning to the towel. He pouts, but takes it off and bunches it in his lap, hugging it to himself. I make a mental note to get him my warmest blanket after we're done here.

I spend the next few minutes cleaning and dressing his wounds. Mostly the one on his neck. There's only one on his arm bad enough to need to be covered. His neck wound is the most concerning, but so long as it stays clean and covered the scales will probably grow back.

"There," I say, finishing the last one. "That should be better."

He looks down at the bandage on his arm. He hadn't reacted well to the cleaning alcohol used on his wounds, especially when it hit the raw open spot on his neck. But with some gentle encouragement, he had allowed me to continue. I'm not sure if that means he trusts me, but at least he's not afraid of me anymore.

"Can I see the light now?" he asks in a very excited, childish voice.

I glance into his eyes to see them wide open, a hopeful gleam in his irises.

I can't help but smile at the childish enthusiasm.

"Sure, but you have to be careful. We don't want to break it. The light is very important for the ships going by in the water."

He nods enthusiastically, dropping the formerly precious towel as he stands.

On the way up through the bedroom, I grab him a blanket, and he happily wraps it around himself as he walks up the stairs.

The turtle is practically shaking with joy the entire time we're up in the light. He stays true to his promise to be careful, but he apparently took it as "don't touch anything". On multiple occasions, I can see his hands twitching towards some mechanism on the light out of curiosity, before he remembers jerks them away. So, I show him some areas I'm not too worried about him touching, just to help him get that out of his system.

When his hand first touches the cool metal at the base of the lamp, he seems to melt into the touch, entirely in awe of the giant metal beast in front of him. He watches the lamp turn, marveling at the sight.

"Why does it do that?"

"Do what?"

He slowly looks towards me and holds one finger up before moving it in circles, similar to how the lamp spins.

"Oh, the lamp spins to give sailors the impression the light is blinking. Or turning on and off. That way they won't mistake it for a star, and will know they need to go towards it."

"Cool...." He says in an impressed, breathy tone, as he looks back up at the lamp. Then he tilts his head, seemingly confused.

"But..." He thinks for a moment. "It can...blink...itself?" He glances at me, then turns back towards the light, almost shy now.

"Sorry..."

Ah. He's embarrassed by his question.

"That's a good question, actually," I start, and he turns back towards me, blinking in surprise, before a slight smile graces his features.

"Back before they could just screw in a lightbulb whenever the light went out, they used giant lanterns. Those aren't nearly as easy to turn on and off, and would have to have someone sitting by them all night in order to keep it up. So that's why they came up with the spinning thing. The lens magnified the lantern light, and that's what was spun. It moved around the lantern to create the blinking effect."

As I explain, I gesture to certain parts of the lamp that are still somewhat similar, though the whole thing is essentially a giant flashlight. The turtle watches with genuine interest as I answer what he believed to be a stupid question with an entire historical/scientific monologue.

"They did that for so long it became iconic, and what sailors specifically looked for. So some lighthouses, like this one, still spin the light around. Just for sentimental reasons, to be honest."

"Woah...." He says under his breath, genuinely impressed by the reasoning. "That was so smart...."

"It really was, huh?" I look around a moment before an idea comes to me. I head back downstairs to the office area and look around the walls until I find it. Stretching up, I carefully pull the paper off the wall, smiling down at it in my hands before heading back up.

He had turned and stood to watch me when he’d noticed me leaving, and observes me curiously as I ascend the stairs. I hold the paper out to him.

"Do you know what that is?" I ask him as he takes it. His "brows" furrow in concentration as he stares at it.

"A....old....lighthouse?" He asks, unsure. He looks up at me and tilts his head.

"Yep. It's the first lighthouse. Or what they believe is the first lighthouse."

His eyes widen in excitement, and he looks back down at the drawing.

"There's a few different designs of what they believe it looked like, but that's the most agreed upon. The thing is in ruins now, so there's no way to be sure."

He listens to my words before pointing at a few written on the page.

"Pa...pa-ras?" He tries to pronounce the word above the building on the paper.

Ok, so he can kind of read. Interesting.

I point to the letters of the word.

"'P' and 'h' together make an 'f' sound, and that's an 'o', pronounced just like that." I don't wanna move too fast and try to explain the accent it should be pronounced with, so I stick with the basics. That should get him to pronounce it almost exactly.

He stares for a second longer before trying again.

"Pha...ros?"

"Yes!" I say, and he smiles at the praise.

"Pharos was built in Alexandria, Egypt. They think about twenty-five hundred years ago or so. It's the first known lighthouse, so everyone who studies or works in lighthouses are called 'pharologists' in honor of the first one."

He looks back up from the paper and points at me.

"You?"

I chuckle. "Yes, that would make me a pharologist too, since I work in a lighthouse and have studied how they work."

He beams at this information. "Cool!"

He asks a few more questions about lighthouses and the mechanisms of the light itself, and I do my best to answer all of them. After about half an hour, he begins slowing down. I notice he looks at the bandage on his arm a few times. Then he goes silent for a bit, staring out the window at something in the trees and pulling the blanket tighter around himself. I look out too, trying to see if I can find what he's looking at, but I just see trees.

Just when I'm wondering if I should question him or just leave him to it, he turns to me.

"Are you a doctor?"

I blink a few times in surprise at the random question, before shaking my head.

"If you mean a medical doctor, no. I have some minor medical training, but nothing to the level of an actual doctor."

"But you can fix...uh...wounds?"

"If they're not bad enough to need a hospital, yes. Why?"

“Hos...pital…?”

“It’s a place where sick or hurt people go to get better. The real doctors are there.”

He stares at me for a moment, seeming to contemplate something. Then he looks back out the window.

"We need a doctor...." He says quietly, almost too low for me to hear.

This is the second time he's referenced there being more of him. Phil had spoken as if there were multiple, so I had automatically been thinking like there were. But now that I'm actually thinking about it, I begin to wonder if there's like a whole tribe of them, or if it's just a single family. And if he's a kid, then what do the adults look like? Would they be more wary of me than this one?

"Do you need me to go somewhere?" I ask, almost hoping he says they can bring the injured party here. If there are bigger and far more untrusting and protective adults out there, I'd rather not risk going into their territory.

He turns back to me.

"He hurt to move. Sleep all day. Hurt when he's awake. Not eat much anymore."

"So, you don't think he can come here?" I ask.

He looks down to think for a moment, then shakes his head.

"Can't move."

"Ok..." I cross my arms in contemplation. "Do you know what's wrong with him? How he got hurt?"

At that, the turtle looks back up at me, and upon seeing me his eyes widen in some kind of realization before he flinches backwards.

Oh, he's scared of me again. What did I do?

I back up a step, holding my hands out.

"Are you ok? I'm sorry if I-"

"Human…" he says, wrapping his arms and the blanket around himself. "Bang stick...."

Oh....

OH.

The one Phil shot is still alive.

"Where?" I ask.

He looks back at me, confused.

"Where did the bang stick hit him?" I ask again.

A different kind of realization passes over his features, and he moves the blanket to raise his left hand and points to a spot on his right arm. Just below the elbow. Then he moves his finger across his scales from one side of the outer arm to the other, drawing a line.

So the bullet grazed him, but left a sizeable enough gash. That gash probably became infected.

Damn. That infection’s probably been raging for over two weeks. I'm almost shocked the arm hasn't fallen off. Unless it's already spread up further. Cutting the arm off to save the body is probably out of the question now, as it's highly likely it's already reached organs. There's no way he'd be able to survive much longer without antibiotics.

Of which I'm not exactly in rich supply.

Also, these are turtles. They have a different form of healthcare in certain areas. I know a lot about turtles, but I'm trained in human medical health. I wouldn't be too confident I'm doing the right thing if you threw a heavily injured turtle in front of me.

"Is it swollen?" I ask. I know the answer, but I'm hoping he can tell me it's not as bad as I think.

He makes a curious sound, almost like a chirp, as he tilts his head.

"His arm," I gesture towards my arm, then hold my hand open around it to signify a bigger size. "Is it bigger than it should be?"

He nods and makes a similar gesture himself to show how much bigger.

Ok, not too much bigger, I suppose. But then again, I can't actually be sure until I see for myself.

"Ok, let me get some stuff."

This definitely can't wait until morning. If he's had an infection in his arm since it was shot, every second counts.

I grab up my med kit as well as any and every antibiotic, painkiller, and anti-inflammatory I can find and throw them in a separate bag along with a few bottles of water and some clean rags. Stopping to think for a moment, I decide to bring some strong sleeping pills too. Just in case surgery or something painful of the sort ends up needing to happen. On that note, I grab multiple sharp objects of differing sizes to throw in the second bag as well.

This is really gonna suck.

Leaving the storage closet, I find the turtle blanketless and standing in the living room, staring at the door.

I should really find a name for him. Or maybe ask him and see if he's already got a name.

"Hey," I start, walking up to him. "So, I can't believe I haven't already asked you, but do you...."

I trail off as I notice his attention has not turned to me, and he's still staring at the door. Following his gaze, I freeze when I realize what he's staring at.

The gun is still by the door.

I debate whether I should try to pull his attention away from it or go over and physically move it.

Sighing, I figure touching it would make things worse.

"It's not gonna hurt you," I say softly.

He slowly turns to me.

"It hurt Mikey."

Mikey.

Ok, so they do have names.

Interesting.

"That's because the guy holding it wanted to hurt him," I say. "It can't hurt anyone unless it's being held by someone who wants to use it to hurt people."

Slowly, I move towards it. I hadn't closed the bag, so it's still leaning against the wall halfway exposed. Reaching out, carefully, so he can see what I'm doing, I grab the zipper and zip up the bag so the rifle is no longer visible.

"Now, no one's holding it, so it won't shoot. It won't hurt you. And it's gonna stay here. I'm not intending on bringing it with us."

Unless....

I look back at him.

"Is where we're going dangerous?"

He tilts his head. "Why would it be?"

I think for a moment on how to explain, and settle on: "It's probably not dangerous for you, but is it dangerous for me?"

He stares for a moment, thinking, before shaking his head.

"I'll be with you. They'll have to let you in."

Ok, ominous, but I'll take it.

"Then it'll stay here."

I move away from the gun to open the door.

"Why bring it to danger? That would make the danger worse?"

He steps around the gun bag to get through the door, giving it a wide berth and staring at it the whole time like it might jump out at him.

"Well, while some people use those to hurt, others use them to protect," I explain, closing the door behind us. "If we were going somewhere dangerous for me, I would be able to use that to protect myself. But I trust you to have my back, so no worries."

I also feel if he had that kind of reaction to seeing it, his family may be just as bad or worse if I walk up carrying the thing that put Mikey into such a scary state. It may end up causing the danger to me, whereas if I didn't have it I would be perfectly safe.

He thinks on what I said for a long time, leading me from the lighthouse into the trees, before finally speaking.

"Why can it do both? Why protect from something that hurts with something that hurts? Isn't that what shields are for?"

"Well, remember how I used the knife to help you? It can hurt, but it can also be used to help."

He turns back to me, still seemingly confused, but connecting the dots.

I sigh.

"If whoever is trying to hurt you tries hard enough, you may need to hurt them back to get them to stop."

He stares at me for a moment before going back to his task of leading me through the forest.

He doesn't talk any more after that.

A while later, as we near some kind of grove-looking area with what appears to be a small cave hidden in a thick patch of trees, the turtle stops and turns to me, nearly swinging the lantern into my face with how quickly he spins.

"Is that why?"

"Is that why what?"

He opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out for a moment as he contemplates his question.

"Is....is that why he hurt us?"

"The angry man?"

He nods.

"Did he think we hurt him?"

I stare at him for a moment, opening my mouth to answer, but ultimately closing it as I try to find the right words. He watches, patiently, waiting to know if he and his family had done something wrong.

I take a deep breath.

"In a manner of speaking, yes. He thought you were going to hurt him, and he wanted to stop you before you could."

"But..." He looks back towards the grove.

"Mikey got too close. He did not hurt angry man. He just wanted to see what angry man was doing. He said angry man was tearing up the lighthouse and he want to see why. Then angry man used the bang stick. Mikey was just watching. He did not mean anything-"

I hold up my hand to stop him.

"Of course he didn't. But the angry man didn't understand. He thought something else was happening. He's the one that misunderstood. Mikey did nothing wrong."

He watches me as I talk, big brown eyes looking about ready to cry.

"What's your name, by the way? I'm sorry I haven't asked."

He sniffles a little, then rubs his eyes.

"D-Donny," he says. "Father called me Donny."

Uh oh.

That was past tense.

Wait, Phil did say one of them was caught a few years ago.

Shit. Are there a bunch of children out here without an adult?

Is there a mother nearby who doesn't talk much, if at all, so she never says names, and that’s why he only mentioned his father?

Is there another type of adult and offspring care system I'm unaware of happening here?

…am I in danger and Donny doesn't know?

I shake my head, just barely enough so Donny doesn't see.

"Ok, Donny," I say, hopefully in a soothing voice. "My name is Ayla."

A small smile appears.

"Hi Ayla."

I chuckle.

"Let's not think about the angry man right now. Mikey needs help, right?"

Donny nods quickly, turning back to the grove.

Masterpost Next

[lakes-writting-rambles]

#1-1 mlb x sdr2 crossover

words: 3425

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( Nagito pov )

'Hajime Hinata... it's a pretty name. And weirdly fits into the class, no one has a particularly "french name" huh..-' 

"Pleasure to meet you, Hajime" I offer my hand, he takes it, shakes it and soon after lets go. 

'I should probably stay away from him, he deserves a chance to fit in with the class, everyone hates me and will probably hate him by association.'

"Now, Hajime, how did you convince your parents to transfer here?" Chiaki says - I can't tell if she's excited, mad or curious, maybe a mix...? 

"Well, it did take some time but my main "argument" was that you were here and you could help me study or something similar." he says in a pretty normal tone, then he sighs and starts sounding sad/disappointed. "I guess they also let me come here so I could have "fEmInInE fRiEnDsHiPs" that could help "fix" me..." 

'what does he mean by that...?'

"I swear I'll punch them if they say shit like this again."

'woah, don't think i've ever seen Chiaki cuss before'

"At least they didn't..." Hajime pauses. He's confused for a second, then he looks at me "ah, nevermind ... I forgot you were here... sorry..." 

'... I got in the way of their conversation. I only bother people, I should apologize for staring, my lowly self is in no place to get involved with them.'

"Ah, no, don't apologize. I was probably intruding. You can continue, I'll mind my own business. Trash like me shouldn't overhear anything, my deepest apologies."

( Hajime pov ) 

"You're not trash... you seem nice just - this is just an awkward topic to talk about in front of someone i just met" i say trying not to sound rude.

'he'd probably hate me if he knew anyway, i'll talk to Chiaki during lunch break...' 

"It's okay, I get it, it seems personal." 

As Nagito says that 2 more people walk in, a short blond and a pink haired person. 16 people now, me included. Every site is taken.

Chiaki looks at the people who just arrived.

"Well talk about it during lunch, but Hajime you don't have to worry, no one here would judge." 

'is Chiaki serious? Last time I told someone I was trans it spread around and I was left behind even by my closest friend. I don't want to risk it so soon'

"Chiaki i told you what happened last time, i'm not sure if it's a good idea-"

"I swear, it's fine Hajime, there are other-"

"Chiaki, new student, sorry to interrupt, but you can talk during lunch" the redhead teacher says, she's nice. Nicer than my previous teachers at least. "Now, new student, do you mind coming here for a second? It'd be nice if you could introduce yourself to the rest of the class."

I follow her to the front of the classroom. Everyone's eyes are on me. 

"So, what's your name? And do you mind sharing your pronouns?"

'This is it, if I pass well enough there won't be any scandalous reactions... if i don't... let's not think about it...'

"Ah... okay. My name's Hajime Hinata, he/him... nice to meet you" My heart almost pops out of my chest as i wait for their reaction. 

"Nice to meet you Hajime" a girl with hair as red as a tomato says. A few other people join in. Saying things like "is your hair like that normally or did you do it on purpose?" or "You're probably as much of a lost case as pig barf" and "Woah you were talking to Chiaki, are you guys dating?".

'they're nice enough - anything is better than my old classmates i guess' 

"..." - Chiaki looks uncomfortable, maybe she feels bad for me? - "Guys let him breathe"

"Right-! Ibuki is sorry!"

"I don't really mind, I just think this is interrupting class, isn't it ... miss...?" I look at the teacher trying to figure out her name.

"Miss Bustier, and don't worry, first period can be used for you to start getting to know each other."

"Oh, if it's okay then..-"

Then, one person in the middle row gets up and extends their hand. 

"Byakuya Togami, they/them." - I grab their hand and shake it, their grasp is quite firm. 

"Pleasure to meet you."

"Me and Chiaki were class representatives last year, so it still feels like a duty to talk to new students."

"I see, well, thank you anyway."

'They/them huh... i guess Chiaki was right, i mean she normally is but, i don't know how the others feel about it and ... yeah, i'll just wait.'

We drop the handshake and they go back to their seats, next to the energetic person from earlier, who called themselves "Ibuki". 

'Should i go around introducing myself or...?'  - Chiaki notices me just standing there like an idiot and approaches.

"You know they don't bite, right?"

"Yeah, I'm just a bit nervous, that's all."

"Fair enough, I can go with you if you'd like." - She smiles softly.

"Sure"

She takes my hand and drags me to the person with pink hair seated next to Nagito.

"Hey man, I'm Kazuichi Soda, he/him." - the boy says with a grin - "don't flirt with Miss Sonia! I already have my eyes on her!" 

"Oh ... sure-"

"He's obsessed with Sonia and likes to play mechanic" Chiaki gives a short explanation. 

"Hey! I don't PLAY mechanic, i AM a mechanic!" Kazuichi complains. 

Chiaki is already taking me to the second table where we found a short blond person from earlier and a gray haired one with braids who I hadn't paid attention to. The blond was sitting on the corridor seat and the one with braided hair was near the window. 

"Hey, the name's Fuyuhiko Kuzuryuu, he/him" The blond says. 

"...Wait - Kuzuryuu-?" - 'Is he Natsumi's brother..?'  - "This might seem random, but do you have a sister?"

"Huh? I do, why does that matter?"

"Ah, nothing, I just used to study with your sister, we're friends, though, I don’t think she’d admit it."

"Weird, my sister never mentioned any one named Hajime, but she did mention -" He stops for a bit, thinks and lets out an "oh- wow i didn’t recognize you at all-”.

'i'm so fucking stupid - i can't keep my mouth shut even if my life depended on it.'

Trying to change the focus of the conversation I look at the one with braided hair.

"Peko Pekoyama, she/they." She responds, noticing I'm staring.

"Oh, nice meeting you guys, hope we can have a good school year" we walk away - 'i don't talk like that what the hell- Chiaki is gonna make fun of me in 3... 2... 1...'  

"What was that? You never talk like that" - Chiaki says chuckling.

"Haha, very funny. I was nervous - can you blame me?"

"Fair enough I guess..." She yawns and takes me to the next row, where I see another blond and a... person with hamsters-? Why do they have hamsters-?

The blond is the first to speak up. 

"Hello, I am Sonia Nevermind, she/her. And as the princess of Novoselic I must welcome you with all my might! I hope you feel comfortable here in our class!" 

Then the person with hamsters speaks up.

"Peasant! You shall feel welcomed here! For I, the great demon Gundham Tanaka, he/they, welcome you to the highest ranking class!" - 'I don't know what i was expecting but this wasn't it.'

"Thanks...!" I try smiling but this is awkward, luckily, Chiaki pulls me away before i could fuck up.

Next row, we're back to "our side" of the classroom. A Person with messy looking purple hair and someone with brown curly hair and a darker skin tone sit chatting.

"Hey hey, Mikan, Akane.." she uses her head to point at me. I don't know which is which, so I just awkwardly wave and whisper a "hi".

"O-oh hello Hajime, I-i'm Mikan Tsumiki, she/they." The one with messy hair says. 

"And I'm Akane Owari, she/her, nice to meetcha!" The one with curly hair says shortly after.

"Sorry girls, we only have a few more minutes and 5 more people to talk to, I'm sure he'd love to talk to you later though." - 'she sounds a bit mad, i guess she's mad about my parents only letting me come because it could maybe make me "go back", like hell that's happening...'

We turn around and I see "Ibuki" and the previous class rep.

"Oh oh! Hey Hajime! Ibuki's name is Ibuki! She's a She/Her but doesn't mind any other pronouns! Nice to meet you!"

"This is Ibuki Mioda, she really likes writing and playing songs. Though they don't really match her personality ... which, I guess would be the best fit..." Chiaki looks lost in thought, I should probably talk to them before going to the next rows.

Byakuya just gives me a nod.

"Nice meeting you both"

"Ibuki is glad she finally met Hajime! Chiaki talks about you a lot!" - I turn to look at Chiaki, she doesn't seem embarrassed, and looks like she's still thinking about Ibuki's song writing.

'Doesn't seem like she told them anything weird...'

"Wait, really-? ...Anyway we should get going for now, but we can talk more during lunch" I grab Chiaki's hand and slightly pull her to the seats by the back of the class, she snaps out of her thoughts and yawns. 

"I didn't say anything weird if you're wondering" 

"Yeah, i guessed it" 

We take a few steps in silence. When we get to the table, yet ANOTHER blond is there, alongside the tomato-like short haired one from earlier.

"Sorry about earlier, i'm Mahiru Koizumi, she/her." The redhead says with a comforting smile on her face.

'She has freckles, that's pretty.'

Then I turn to the blond, who seems to be irritated.

'Why do all blonds have such strong personalities-?'

"Soooo.... Chiaki, are you dating him? He looks like a creep, I bet he takes advantage of you while you sleep." - ' ... is she serious-?!'  - I look at Chiaki, who yawns.

"Hiyoko, I'm not dating Hajime, and he'd never do that."

"Seriously Hiyoko? Already pestering the new student?"

She starts tearing up and sniffling.

"... Whaaaaaaa!! Don't get mad at me..! I was only worried for Chiaki!" She continues crying. - 'God - where did she get that lung capacity - this is so loud-' 

No one in class seems to mind, seems like this is a common occurrence ... I'm not looking forward to that.

"..."

"It's okay, Hiyoko, just stop messing with him."

"Are you sure big sis Mahiru..?" - Mahiru looks at me and I reluctantly nod.

"Yeah, Hajime says it's fine."

In the blink of an eye her expression changes and she giggles. 

"I can't believe you fell for those fake tears, you're all such pushovers pfft."

Chiaki pouts and drags me to the final desk. There I see a tall muscly masc presenting a person with blue hair, not like that's their major feature tho - seriously how did they gain so much muscle mass? By their side, I see a short chubby person, they have brown hair and some sort of sidecut.

"I am NEKOMARU NIDAI! Mostly use he/him pronouns but I'm fine with anything. Please also introduce yourself loud and clear!!" - the muscly guy says.

"ah- i'm Hajime Hianta, he/him, pleasure to meet you"

"You look a bit scrawny, how much do you eat daily? Do you sleep well? What does your shit look like?"

"Wha-"

"Nekomaru... i think you're scaring Hajime '' - Chiaki says, yawning once again.

'Did she even sleep yesterday-?'

"Shit man- sorry, just want to make sure my classmates are in top shape!"

"I-it's okay"

"Aham, bonjour, monsieur Hajime" - the short person says. - "I hate to interrupt your conversation, but I'd like to introduce myself."

"Oh, i'm sorry-"

"I don't mind, my name's Teruteru Hanamura, he/him pronouns, but don't mind they/them. I'd like to get to know ya, clothes are optional~"

"Uhh- pleasure to meet you, i'll be keeping my clothes, thanks."

"What a shame"

"..." - 'well... this class… eccentric- to say the least' - "Uhh...- I think I heard from Chiaki that you cook? Do you have any favorite type of cooking?"

"Not really, why limit my possibilities? I cook a bit of everything'"

"Yeah! Teruteru is a great cook! His cooking is very nutricional too." - Nekomaru chimes in.

"I think you mean "chef". But, monsieur, If you'd like, I could bring you some of my cooking."

"Wouldn't it be too bothersome?"

"Nonsense! Why would I cook if not to satisfy people? I'd be throwing my hard work away if I didn't get my classmate to taste it. Either way, I intended on bringing food for everyone tomorrow."

"If you say so-" 

The bell rings. I turn around to see Miss Bustier, she leans on her desk and puts her clipboard. - "Class! Sit down please! You can chat with Hajime during break, let's focus on class for now, alright?"

"Such a shame, see you later, mon ami." - Teruteru says, grabbing his tablet.

I feel Chiaki pull on my sleeve.

"Hey hey, let's go" - she takes me back to our seats, I see Nagito looking at us.

I hadn't noticed this before, but his expression is almost unreadable, even if he has a calming vibe, kind of unsettling.

"Hope your tour went well, Hajime." - Nagito smiles. That calming smile again, I can't help but smile back.

"Yeah, it went pretty great, this class is ... eccentric" - not sure if that was the right thing to say, but now it's done.

"I guess you're right, hah" 

Lunch break finally arrives and I'm starving. I grab my bag and check for my lunch.

"Uhhm... Hajime, we serve food here." - Chiaki says, looking over my shoulders.

"Huh-? But i thought-" - 'well, that info would've been useful this morning'

"Yeah... you can eat the food you brought if you'd like, but it must be cold by now..."

"I guess so... You could've told me this sooner-"

"Well, I didn't know you'd transfer here."

"Touché-"

"I apologize for interrupting, but would you mind if I had lunch with you?" - Nagito says. - 'Damn, he's super quiet- what the hell-'  - "I understand if you think i'm too disgusting to be around-"

"Shut up, Nagito, of course you can have lunch with us..." - Chiaki pauses to yawn - "...we just have to talk about something private first, then we'll join you, okay?" 

Chiaki gives him one of her soft smiles, they're really comforting, I hope it reassures Nagito.

( Nagito pov )

'They're being polite, how wonderful of them. But trash should know its place, they're probably gonna ditch me'.  

"Hmmm... Hajime, i didn't want to say anything, but, you looked a bit pale while talking to the class" - i say - "not like trash like me can say anything, though". 

He becomes as pale as he was during introductions. - 'Of course, i fucked everything up again, typical me'.

( Chiaki pov ) 

"It's about the thing we need to talk about in private" - I say, Hajime seems to calm down a bit, he gets kinda jumpy, can't blame him, last time must've been awful if his color just drained on the spot. - "We really need to go if we wanna have lunch, Nagito, can you save us a table?" 

"Of course, Chiaki" - Nagito says, that same smile he always has on his face showing. I sometimes wonder why he smiles so much. He has self-deprecative tendencies so I doubt he's happy all the time. It would be insensitive to ask, though, so I just ignore those thoughts. 

'Hajime is kinda blunt when you know him well enough... I wonder how long it'll take for him to ask Nagito. 

"Want me to grab you guys something to eat as well?" 

"Just grab me an apple" - I respond - "I'm not really hungry, also, there's an event happening today in one of my favorite games, can't lose it".

"And you, Hajime?" - Nagito asks, he seems happy to meet Hajime.

"Ah- i can't ask you to buy me lunch- I didn't bring money and-"

"Don't worry about it, money's not an issue and it would be an honor to help out Chiaki's friend". 

"No, no, it's okay, I brought some food from home, not as tasty as it would've been earlier but...-"

"Hajime wants today's special, an apple and orange juice".

"Chiaki you can't just order Nagito around-"

"I'm not, '' he offered, “and I won't let you eat that cold tasteless food". 

"Yeah, Chiaki's not ordering me around or anything, and even if she was, it would be an honor" - Nagito keeps putting the class on a pedestal, or maybe he just thinks he's too lowly or something, I don’t know, I just don't like it. It’s a bit uncomfortable but it has gotten better recently, maybe it has something to do with Miss Bustier and her more… well, caring teaching, I guess…

I yawn. Both Hajime and Nagito look at me. - “Chiaki, when did you sleep last night? You slept as soon as I ended the call… right-?” - Hajime asked, not like I could hear him, tho- too sleepy…

‘Oh crap - I haven't talked to Hajime’. - “Hey hey, Nagito, Hajime and I will be right back.” - I grab  Hajime's hand and take him 

“Of course Chiaki! If any of you need anything from me I’ll be…” - he looks around for a bit - “...probably sitting in that table... on the corner, like usual - heh…” - he then proceeds to walk away heading towards the self-service part of the cafeteria. 

( Nagito pov )

‘I overstayed my welcome, didn’t I? Of course I did, who am I kidding? Certainly not myself.’ - as I walk away I turn around to see them one last time. They are walking side by side in a kind of awkward side hug. I feel a bit creepy and bothered staring like this so i just go towards the food section.

After grabbing everything, I head towards the table, sit and wait.

( Hajime pov ) 

As Chiaki takes me to whatever secluded place she's thinking of, i wonder if i’m being stupid worrying like this. I mean, Chiaki didn’t care and she knew me pre-transition… or well, whatever I've been able to pull off at this moment. 

“You know, Hajime…” - she speaks in an almost whisper - “I've said no one would judge and I mean it.” - she drops the hug - “You don’t have to come out or anything to anyone but don’t worry about mentioning it or i don’t know, joking about it. Gundham is an enby-trans guy, Ibuki is genderfluid, Byakuya is intersex and agender, Peko is a demigirl and… uhh… the list goes on, i guess…” 

“Oh-”

“Also, you outed yourself to Fuyuhiko and Peko, so…” - Chiaki yawns again. 

“Urg don’t remind me- he’s probably gonna talk to Natsumi about it too- and she’s gonna be all… well, Natsumi about it.”

“Oh?”

“She’s not gonna be transphobic or anything, I’m pretty sure, at least- but she’s for sure gonna start sayin’ some shit like ‘are you fucking serious Hajime?!?! Why didn’t you tell me, you fucking moron?????’ or something. And I just don't feel like dealing with that.”

“Wait if she’s not transphobic, why didn’t you tell her?”

“She still kind of talks to our old classmates - and not only that but i forgot too and just got anxious whenever i'm about to do it-”

“Fair, fair…”

“This chat… was a hell of a lot shorter than I expected- shouldn't we go talk to Nagito or something? I feel kinda bad for just essentially telling him to fuck off - i feel like he has low self-esteem and- yeah-”

“Mhm… Don’t worry, he understands. But I get what you mean, and yeah he has some… concerning tendencies. It’s gotten better since Miss Bustier started teaching us, tho-” 

( Nagito pov )

‘This is… kind of awkward… What should I look at..? There isn’t much to do…’ - I start fiddling with the napkin that I grabbed alongside our lunches. - 'I can't eat without them, that'd be rude... even trash like me knows basic ethics'.

Something tells me to look at the door, maybe intuition or anxiety, although it's probably just my luck - I can’t tell the difference at this point, and they seemed to be heading here.

‘When they said private chat i thought it would take longer… or maybe be an excuse to ditch me… But they aren’t that kind of people, I'm sure … please shut up, brain, this is very annoying to you.’

I get up, wave at them, and smile.

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

chp. 0 > chp. 1 pt 1 > chp. 1 pt 2 > chp. 1 pt 3

[ponds-of-ink]

FNAF Notre Dame AU Chapter 14: “The Judgment”

(AKA “The second half of Chapter 13, I guess”)

So this turned out to be shorter than I expected, but I hope this was still worth the wait. [And isn’t too rushed…]

Now, let’s see what went down after last chapter’s revelation… Hopefully, it won’t be too brutal?

-

Nevertheless, he slowly climbed back to his feet. “‘Agonia’,” he said with a breathless laugh, “surely you can understand my intentions! I was only trying to follow in your footsteps!”

Agonia only muttered under his breath. His fury remained intact.

Glitch’s ears drooped past his shoulders. “What else was I supposed to do?” he stammered out, carefully maneuvering away from his listener. “I had no idea what you looked like! You gave me no indication!”

Another round of indistict muttering. The rage was starting to no longer look tranquil.

Glitch’s foot bumped the knife handle. His ears twitched, but everything else focused on his opponent. “And, even if I did know, would anything I taught you really change?” he asked with a trembling smile. “Given your reputation, I think my lessons have only gotten more valuable. After all, you are a wretched, rotten beast— One that I made more useful.”

Agonia picked up one of the medical kits and threw it over the rabbit’s head. “The only thing you taught me is to ‘live’ in shadows and obey your every word!” he yelled, gnashing his teeth. “What good is such a lesson when the only thing to hide from is monsters like us!?”

Glitch ducked, taking the opportunity to snatch up the knife. He locked eyes with Agonia, then twirled the blade by the handle. “It aids you in fighting for your life,” he answered, inching closer with every syllable.

Agonia retreated in a similar manner. His body fought the urge to cower. His mind darted between tactics and self-admonishments. Yet he continued to back away. Still staring at the threat made crystal clear. A threat that now seemed like a twisted reflection of his old self the more he looked at it. The near-identical demented grin. The careful, yet carefree approach. The exact sensation of a mad “man” about to succeed in his schemes.. All of it was present in the rabbit Agonia once called his sole defender.

And yet, in that moment, Agonia did not feel distraught. He knew what happened when he fell into that sort of trap. All he had to do was spring it at the right time.

He backed into the first step, then fled up the rest of the staircase. Glitch followed close behind. They rushed into the main entrance of the castle, only halting to catch their “breaths”. The southern windows still cast a murky red glow upon the room. Muffled voices broke the silence, though their words were indistinct and distant. A sense of emptiness filled both the outside world and the main hall. A void Glitch  determined to fill with deathly cries.

He tightened his grip on the knife. His stride quickened. All he could see was a reddish blur as he charged towards the hunchbacked wretch. His knife slashed through the air. No sound of impact reached his rabbit ears. He twisted his body around, then lunged again. Another near-miss— Punctuated by a harsh tumble onto the floor. He gingerly rose from the floor to his knees. The only sound he registered was someone ascending the tower staircase.

“A..gonia…” the judge thought wearily as he stumbled to his feet. “He’s… going to cry for help.. That has to be what he’s planning.” He steadied himself, took a moment to slowly, then whipped his head around. “I will not stand for it,” he snarled as he charged towards the staircase. “If I am doomed to have authority over one soul alone, then ‘Afton’ will be that soul.” With this as his new drive, he bounded up the stairwell.

Agonia peered over the Princess’ Balcony. The fire was contained, yet still burned with fury. Roxanne and Cassie were nowhere to be found, as well as Vanessa and Gregory. Only the firefighters and a few brave volunteers remained on the premises. Whether it was to put out the fire or to save the mysterious bell ringer, Agonia could not tell. Regardless, the nightmare down below was nearing its end.

The nightmare high above, on the other hand…

Agonia shut his eyes. His body tensed.

The door on his left opened with a creak.

Glitch strolled to the railing, then placed his hand on the ghost’s shoulder. “You want to call out to them, don’t you?” he asked in a cold, steady tone.

Agonia nodded.

“So you want to repeat what happened at the Festival of Tomfoolery, ‘Mister Afton’?”

He shook his head.

Glitch clicked his tongue. “How many times must we go over this?” he questioned as he twirled the knife in his other hand. “You will not have recognition without replusion— Especially now that we know who you truly used to be. Why invite more calumny and consternation?”

“Because it would be better than staying here!” Agonia rasped before grasping the rabbit’s knife-wielding arm. As soon as he felt the wooden handle, he opened his eyes. His brows furrowed. “But if I am to stay here forever,” he continued slowly, shifting his gaze to the bell tower, “then there is one thing I must do first.”

“And what is that?” Glitch scoffed.

Agonia’s expression turned somber. His pupils stopped darting to and fro. “I must fulfill one of those lessons you’ve taught me,” he answered in a strange monotone.

“There have been many lessons I have taught you, onus meum,” Glitch remarked with a chuckle, trying in vain to pry his arm from his listener’s grasp. “Which one are you referring to?”

Agonia moved his hand from Glitch’s arm to his wrist. He pulled his master closer to him, then stared him dead in the eyes. “Impius non erit impunitus,” he said in a low, bitter tone. Without any other warning, he led them both to the repaired lantern.

“Agonia, let go!” Judge Glitch protested, pulling at his fist-clenched arm. “Let go of me this instant! William!”

Agonia stopped in front of the lantern. His hand slid off the judge’s wrist, but snatched the knife as it let go. He switched to the judge’s other wrist, restraining him once again. They moved to the railing, then climbed over it— One after the other.

Glitch peered over his shoulder. His code-created heart pounded. They were  practically dangling over the fiery abyss. One wrong move and... “Agonia,” he sputtered, his tone dancing between false warmth and despair. “You don’t want to hurt us both, do you?”

Agonia paused. He stared at the ever-flickering candle. His mind sifted through the decades he had gone through. All the murderous torment he inflicted on others. All the agonizing terrors he inflicted on souls both strange and familial. All the influencing he must have done to create the monster that corrupted the lingering threads of his humanity in return…

He spun the knife in his hand. With one quick movement, he stabbed the lantern straight through the center. His entire body weakened, as did Judge Glitch’s balance. They fell off the edge together— One screaming for mercy and the other practically unconscious. 

A few firefighters rushed to catch them, but all they could retrieve was the ghostly chill the specters left behind.

[iffylogic]

I should pick up A Realm Reborn again. Yes! I will do this.

I haven't talked about the game much and it's killing me, I know no one'll probably read this but I need to go off, I have so many thoughts

I was level 50 when I last left off, just about to battle a Big Fighty Boi the Garleans uncovered. It has very "season finale" feel to it.

(I cheated and have been watching an online playthrough about halfwayish into Heavensward, but I still want to continue properly!)

WOL

I have a pathological need to keep my characters thematically consistent, so Carmine's gone from conjurer to white mage and I can't make myself try anything new. XD (It's pathological because I don't really enjoy playing white mage therefore this is self-harm klhfvjasdjklfhjasd)

I'm thinking once I finish this msq I'll start a Fyo playthrough that I'll actually see through into the expansions. She's a lot more flexible. She's also a punchygun person so I guess pugilist/monk and then gunbreaker later 🤔 but she DOES dabble in magics! So who knows 💃🥋

I can't put a self-insert in there because Yda already exists oTL

(not in looks lol)

GAME THOUGH!

It's so pretty and big and hilarious. My favorite quest so far has been the white mage one where I have to go all over the world finding relics to pray at. I was underleveled at the time and hadn't explored enough, so I was seeing lots of new interesting areas (and new routes to and from old areas) while running like hell from superior enemies in a panic. Seriously loved it. XD

I'm a person who gets really excited when I see new things. I love new scenery, new characters, new everything. So this game's been a constant joy and I'm frequently beside myself. I play in the name of joyous wonder, dang it. And this game delivers it with gusto. ⭐

I actually really enjoy traveling in games like this, it was almost sad when I got the hang of aether teleporting. I mean I understand but yeah I like to hoof it lol. And I still can! And it's fun!

I'm very predictable because my favorite character so far is Admiral Merlwyb. Tall person with guns and I could listen to nautical metaphors from her all day.

not kidding about her voice - a specific banquet scene happened, I was freaking out for plot reasons, then she blurted out "Seven Hells!" and I was like "thank you, I feel a little better now" XD

Favorite main cast character is probably Tataru and I am incapable of explaining why, but I love all the scions so far. I'm betting we'll get more eventually, so that'll be fun :D

The Garleans are ridiculously one-dimensional villains so far and it's kind of amazing. RE5 Wesker is my fave game villain, I eat that cheese up. Out of curiosity, I googled it and even their capital city is going out of its way to look as evil as possible. 10/10, will go on vacation there next summer

Ascians are over the top too of course, but they have a cult vibe, therefore being over-the-top is just sort of expected

oh yeah

GRANT US SUCCOR IN OUR HOUR OF N E E E E D

I know all the voices get better in the expansions (most of the main cast I already like but I get why people say this), but I'm going to miss the background-character voice acting in Realm Reborn holy shit lol

The soundtrack's alright so far (I know that gets better later as well). Kinda wish they had more than one "troubling/suspicious thing is happening" track, though. Is... is that still going to be there by Endwalker? XD

I'm crazy for the bagpipe floating island music and all the Alexander tunes 💃🎵

oh and Revenant's Toll! Arriving there was amazing. At the time, I was (again) under-leveled and was going deeper and deeper into unwelcome territory, far from help and civilization, then suddenly I'm in the middle of this remote town with pumping adventurer music and the locals are like "hey, you made it this far! Welcome to a town made by badasses, for badasses" and I'm like 🤩

SOCIAL...NESS

I need more friends to play with, I'm too shy. (I lost ALL of my momentum wanting to be social after that hell-job last year. I never quite got my spark back. 😔)

So um... what's the best way to find more people? Friendly laid-back people?

I'm obviously "Iffy Logic" on there if you wanna add me! Unless you need to search by character, in which case look for Carmine Pentella? On.... Cactuar?

Unless I'm playing Fyo. I uh... I don't know what her last name is yet. In the story she's from, family names aren't a thing. errr...

Also I notice a lot of the game's story stuff you HAVE to play alone? That's... kinda messed up, isn't it? Especially non-dungeon/raid cutscenes. You play together and one person just sorta stands around awkwardly while the other watches the story, and reacting is weird because they can't see what's happening.

Like... it feels like I'm going to a friend's house to watch a show with a friend, but then we have to be in separate rooms when I get there. Seems unfortunate.

it'd help if I could make myself play dungeons with other people. I'm too afraid I'll mess up and get yelled at. oTL

PFFFF

If you read this far, I'm both impressed and very sorry

how did you get here without a machete and safari hat

[glapplebloom]

I did say I was going to convert this story into a Fanfic Format to speed up the process.

While outside a cloaked pony looked over the convention hall, the Comix Zone Convention was going full swing. There were panels from up and coming artists, vendors selling and trading rare collectables, and established people having a booth of their own to promote their stuff and sell autographs. It was a Comic Fan’s dream. 

But for Ocellus, her main event was going to happen in an hour. In Panel Room 2, Stygian will be hosting a Q&A there with the possibility of announcing his next book. The Young Changeling was obsessed with his stories even before the Changelings reformed. Of course, she was just a young bug at the time but as she got older she could appreciate them more now.

His third book, Me and My Shadow, really connected with Ocellus. Like him, she felt the struggle of wanting to do good but being told the opposite. To her credit, it was because the old Changeling Teachers were trying to reinforce their old way of life and not an internal shadow creature feeding on your self doubt. But still to overcome such a thing gave Ocellus hope for her fellow Changelings. 

And now she gets to be one of the first to hear what his next book is. Will it be his next novel? Maybe not, he is in a convention for comics after all. Maybe a comic series based on his novels. Or maybe... “Hey, you’re drooling,” Smolder told Ocellus. Snapping out of her cloud of thoughts, Ocellus realized it and felt embarrassed. “Sorry about that,” the Changeling said as she wiped the drool off her mouth.

“Don’t mention it,” Smolder replied, “it was nice to be the one stopping you from drooling.” When it gets close to Lunch period, specifically on Wednesday when Spike is there to make his Diamond and Ruby Chili, Smolder tends to drool anticipating the mixtures of gemstones, spices and beans. So Ocellus laughed when Smolder made that comment since she’s usually the one to point it out.

Ocellus continues, “I guess I was just too excited and couldn’t hide it.” “Were you about to lose control and thought you liked it?” chimed in Juliet Suter, who was going towards them alongside the rest of the group. “I wouldn’t say that, but in under an hour Stygian’s Panel will be up,” Ocellus responded, “And I won’t miss it for the world!”. 

The younger Spike was the next one to speak. “I think we’ll come along too. It's not like anyone else has plans during that time.” The others are in agreement. When the time comes, they’ll be heading to Panel Room 2 and hear what Stygian will announce. Unbeknown to them, this will be the last panel this year’s convention will have.

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

Converting this to a fanfic format has its pluses and minuses. Since it is mostly words, I can add dialogue that could help push the narrative that a comic has to do visually. It also allows me more freedom since I don’t have to worry about making new poses or get new resources for them. At the same time, I would need to put in more thought into the story to make it worth it. Can’t just put up the script that has just the dialogue and actions.

[lazaruspiss]

Justice League x RW/BY: Super Heroes and Huntsmen (Part Two)

dear god it opens with a quirky exposition dump/summary of the first part. ueghhh. its a little shorter at least. man i hate the sunken cost fallacy.

"classic superhero stuff right?" i think its better to just do the trope than it is to acknowledge the trope and then do it anyways without any twist or subversion. like, just going "its pretty funny how [x] always happens" and then doing [x] isnt like. anything. tropes are fine and you dont need to make any self aware jokes to try and get permission to do a trope. 2 full minutes of ruby summary. sigh.

they cant go a single scene without teenager level jokes, so since they dont have any teens theyre having black canary deliver those sweet sweet lines i guess. oh killer croc looks like shit huh. they really cant do anything but anime teens huh.

rw/by can do decent fight scenes, that was always where most of the appeal came from.

is batman dead. cmon itd be funny. let rw/by movie kill off batman itd be funny. then smth smth rw/by girls fight over nothing. this time the ptsd flashbacks are animated!

[left for a bit, came back with cookie dough and a cup of margarita mix]

barry going thru it or smth. why does black canary just have all the worst traits of team rw/by. whys the old man weiss calls for advice got color changing eyes and 3 personalities. cross dimension video call. why does diana have the worst makeup ive seen. oh i forgot that every weapon in rw/by is a weapon + a gun.

oh bruce is meow meow huh. pathetic dying man. the costumes are cool but why couldnt blake keep her ears smh. "a massive grimm attack!" before they even see the state of the alert. "grows tentacles to silence her" huh?? why tentacles??? oh for choking ok. also is canary usually airheaded comic relief orrr.....

man blake just looks like a huntress knockoff. and theyre really laying the flash angst on thick. flash villains are fun dont be mean guys. oh god weve hit the bruce/weiss junk. hopefully it stays footnote-y like the stuff in the first part.

fight scenes are cool if you like fight scenes. im not that big on them so. kinda bored. oh weiss ur the only bitch i missed from ur series. i dont think we really saw this group finish their fight but theyre done and joining a different one. its just fight scene after fight scene. on and theres the other group whose fight we dont get to see the end of. exposition of all of rw/by's big bads that could be involved. oh we're back to still image flashbacks.

the action scenes are. normal. the story is boring. team rw/by just gets more annoying the more i watch this. pep talk time for reasons. oh they even call it an awkward pep talk! i guess barry really is the main character of part 2. and he has trauma :). man he sounds like me talking about my dad.

id think the JL would have uh. more advanced training sims. than cardboard cutouts. more pep talk stuff. onto bruce n weiss again. daddy issues bonding time. heart attack? cy casually having mari electrocute him. killg%re reaches out to JL for something. barry continues to have ptsd.

movie i would like to sleep thru. 16 minutes left. then i am freed.

man this sure would be impactful if i cared about ruby. now back to fight scene. barry panic attack. fight scene. they went back to team rw/by's normal outfits and abilities for reasons. every once in a while i remember how rw/by didnt really cast voice actors and just used the employees and personalities that they had at rooster teeth.

the final fight strategy is all over the place. no explanation for where the dust is coming from. arent they still supposed to be on earth? oh cool they do the thing where they turn the villains against each other by having one monologue about how they used the other. problem solved?

[toooldforfandom-liveblogs]

RWBY V8E11 - Risk

My main question going into this episode is... why did Ironwood's Ultimatum ask the same thing of Penny as the hack (assuming the Vault is in Atlas Academy)? I mean, in-universe it makes sense, he doesn't know what's going on. But we know. I'm not sure what's the narrative purpose of duplicating Penny's orders. Is it to have both Penny and her hacked self agree in what they need to do? To make her "lose" to the virus only because she agrees, without compromising the possibility of her coming back? Hm.

Anyway, I have no idea what the episode's title could be about so let's do this!

I think not even Palpatine in Star Wars went this hard with the dramatic lighting after his mask came off.

I hadn't considered that the bomb would be the thing to push people to reconsider working under Ironwood but, well, of course. On the other hand these guys saw Ironwood murder a councilman in cold blood without it ever coming up again, so I feel I have a pretty good reason for not thinking "this, this is the thing that breaks their loyalty"

All the light is gone from Ironwood's eyes, I guess the bomb threat finally killed whatever was left of him.

I love how the Ace Ops went from being awesome during their introduction to the slow reveal of how much they actually suck.

Winter just saved Marrow's life and there's no way she didn't know what she's doing.

I'm laughing IRL at their expressions and the situation.

Oscar is reaaally sounding like Ozpin right now

And Ruby finally, finally, got to her breaking point.

There's never going to be enough time for the show to get really into whatever is going on with Nora and Ren but I love the potential.

This is the payoff I've been waiting for almost two volumes and I'm loving it. Give me all the drama.

Nora's VA is killing it. I think I've never heard that particular tone coming from Nora before.

Wait.

What?

Of all the things I expected this is not one of them.

I wish they showed what Ren is seeing with his semblance. But I guess he could always be not using it right now.

Oh no, Jaune made me laugh. I'm getting soft in my old age.

I can't tell if that was a good apology or not. He assumed responsibility for what he said, explained the reason and made it clear that he knows what he is apologizing for.

I wonder if Nora thinks Ren regrets the kiss, since he mentioned Robyn's rally and she very clearly reacted to it.

That tiny flinch from Nora is absolutely wonderful.

The one thing that is distracting me here is Ren's VA. But maybe it's the way Ren in general gets directed which usually works for his character but feels a teensy bit stilted here, in a "ah, an actor is reading these lines" versus "Ren is saying this" way.

Still loving this scene.

Nora backstory!

now I wonder if he can turn off his semblance

If I hadn't been pausing I'd be crying right now, but this definitely got me teary-eyed.

All aboard the murder ironwood train

The most subtle of weapons, a giant Final Fantasy sword.

With that camera angle, he's already gone.

Welp, never mind

On one hand this is a natural continuation of Qrow's character development. A small return into his bad habits before continuing to get better.

On the other hand, I'm just not invested in his storyline. It lost me when Clover got killed and now I just want the writers to speedrun this bit so Qrow can either return to the main group or go do something else away from the show.

Who could it be to cause that reaction? Maybe Winter and Marrow?

lol at Ruby's angst pose.

Oh. We're going right into this.

I 100% thought they had missed the silver eyes or maybe save it for the last episode or something.

Ruby's VA is making a herculean effort to make her sound gravely while still keeping her squeakiness. And it's working.

This is amazing. I never expected the show to acknowledge that Ruby is perfectly capable of doing the same speculation as the fandom once she had the info. And I love how she's speaking.

Also, I think I can hear the fandom's reductive perception of Ruby taking a big hit.

And now I can hear my heart breaking.

I hadn't realized how much I needed this scene. When was the last time they got to be sisters?

aaand, it's gone. It can only be Penny, right? The one remaining issue in the mansion.

aw, c'mon. I don't mind (I do) if she's fully hacked but the internal fighting is destroying me. Just get it over with.

Nuts and Dolts fans: "Not like this... not like this."

This is very tragic but I can't help but find her eyes funny.

Emerald is helping! She's helping!!

Big fan of Jaune's semblance interacting with others'

From an objective point of view, this tracks. She's making a choice while she still can.

From my point of view: AAAAA, why am I watching this.

I'm 99.9% sure that this is not going to happen just because a super powerful main character makes the story harder to write.

And, also, I'm not sure Ruby would be able to do it, even though earlier in the season they talked about how sometimes they have to make hard decisions that they don't necessarily like. They were just talking about being optimistic, there has to be reason for that.

Winter would kill Penny here but Ruby is not there yet, and I doubt she'll ever be. That's just not who she is. I feel she's going to take a risk (ohh, that's why) here but I'm not sure what the plan could be. They can't stop Penny forever.

This episode keeps surprising me with things that make sense and I hadn't even remotely considered before.

That was weirdly anti-climactic.

same Weiss, same

I think I love Emerald.

lol

Okay, now you're just overdoing it with the title drops.

I think this is my favorite episode of this season so far, I liked every single scene. Marrow finally got a spine, Winter is (or seems to be) finally doing something, Nora and Ren finally talked, Ruby finally got to open herself up and reconnect with her sister, Emerald finally acknowledged she's switching sides and Penny finally "dealt" with the virus. All those "finally" are payoffs from things that have been building up for whole seasons in some cases, and all of them worked (for me). If I had to choose, I think Nora and Ren are the highlight of the episode, with Ruby being a close second.

For the first time since Penny got hacked I feel hopeful that she's not going to straight up die or choose to die. I mean, I'm still leaning towards that being the case but the aura thing is making me reconsider my pessimism. It no longer feels inevitable. Which is probably for the worse, since now that there's hope it'll just crush me harder when the writers decide to go ahead with it anyway.

I think that's all for now so, until next time!

[adampage]

Things I Learned About Hangman Adam Page Today:

He recently bought a pair of caiman leather boots

He is a frugal son of a bitch but like for good reason bc you never know when your luck is gonna run out

His son keeps him up and his wife up all the time which means he only gets good rest in his hotel room when he has to be somewhere for a dynamite show

He is just as frustrated as we are at the fact that he wasn’t able to wrestle this whole time when he should’ve been a fighting champion

Either Renee put the cowprint idea in his head or she fucking guessed correctly (that little open mouthed gape/smile Hangy gave when she said it could be either but god fucking bless)

He used to have really bad diagnosed anxiety like the dude would go full-on sweat mode but wrestling helped him get over a lot of those issues. He still has bad social anxiety though

New setting for Hangman fics: treehouse in a cow pasture on his dad’s farm

The belt is super fucking heavy and Renee knows this which means she’s tried picking it up before when Mox was champ g!rl help me

He really adores the fan art and the videos and stuff that people make for him. He thinks that’s top tier level shit

Merle Haggard is one of his favorite old country singers

He had a small attack realising he was letting us down by not dishing out what romantic things he’s done for his wife like he said “what is wrong with me” and then said something like “sometimes the most romantic things are the little gestures, like waking up in the middle of the night and trying to give the baby the bottle for an hour” nice save cowboy you’re a fucking mess i love you

His self worth is really tied to the championship because Renee asked him who between Kenny and Bryan was the best in the world and he said it was a tough one but since neither has the championship he’d have to say himself and yowie wowie i am not prepared for those self esteem issues to bite him in the ass again but glad to know he feels good about himself for now

He has no clue who the person on the graphics team is that is writing his lower thirds but he’s tried to put snitches in the production truck to no avail. He treats this like a feud so something tells me he missed the lower third at Full Gear this year where it said “we’re proud of you - graphics team” and personally i think he needs to plant one of his former students on the team (since they ARE hiring)

He wanted to have a feud with Brodie and that’s why he gave us those little bits on BTE with him and when Brodie passed he felt it was a disservice to him to not continue going with it in the most organic way possible, and while he didn’t say this next part, I can only surmise that’s why him and the Dark Order continued to have segments with each other and became each other’s support after Brodie passed

He does not appreciate people coming up to him at the airport and in hotels. Please leave him alone. A hotel is like his front doorstep, he treats his hotel room like his home for the night and no he doesn’t want you trespassing on his front porch

He lied about not doing interviews anymore now that he’s champ

Link for the full interview in the source! Those were my own main takeaways but I’m sure I missed a few things. I just adore this man so much and I’m glad he did an interview with Renee, she always asks the questions I want to hear the answers to.

[hmspogue]

Outer Banks season 2 Official Trailer shot-by-shot rundown

A comprehensive post where I scream about analyze the entire trailer frame by frame for clues, theories, and plot. Just my own opinions and general tin foil-hatting

These are screenshots from Netflix’s trailer for Outer Banks season 2. I do not claim or own any of these.

note: this post is tagged as a long post if you wish to avoid having to scroll until your thumbs break.

“My old man used to tell me, ‘it’s best to never say you’ve hit rock bottom’.”

(Putting all of these shots together since they’re scenes we already know but-) Holy shit, okay let’s just....start off like this I guess, damn.

“'Trust me’, he said...”

Kiara looking back and forth between the boys like this really just feeds the headcanon I have that her form of grief this season is going to be her trying to hold it together for their sakes (and eventually just snapping).

JJ just looks fucking furious someone give these kids a hug? I already know this scene is going to ruin me.

“You can always go...”

JJ back working at the hotel. He looks literally so angry again in this scene I could see him self destructing at work and losing his job? (Please do not be isolating yourself you beautiful son of a bitch even though I know you’re going to).

Pope in the Twinkie (costuming wise they all are in warmer looking clothes for some of the shots, so just confirming it’s a little bit into the school year when this all takes place).

“Lower”

Big John was real big into pep talks, I see. (seriously can you imagine Big John having this conversation with like 8 year old John B after he fucking dropped his ice cream cone or some shit I shouldn’t be laughing).

I’m just-

These poor kids, I wanna know how the police all the way down in the Bahama’s knew about them?

Their calves....

“RUN!”

Are going to be so fucking jacked by the end of this season I stg.

Fuck you.

“The gold from the Royal Merchant....it’s here.”

For a while, I had thought that maybe they didn’t even make it to the Bahama’s at the front of the season and ended there (because everyone had been filming in there). But I guess they’re going to be making two trips.

If I were a bird from this POV I’d shit right on that house no questions asked.

oooooh ho hokay. Just so we’re clear. Ward Cameron not only get away with murder and about two dozen other felonies, but-

“Half a billion.”

HE STILL FINDS THE GOLD IN THE CRAIN HOUSE AND GETS TO KEEP IT?

Not the polo with the snap back, I just know this man has a playlist called Sad Boi Hours that is just Juice WRLD’s top 5 songs on Spotify and he tells his friends they wouldn’t know the underground artists he listens to.

Sh, you have lost screaming privileges. Go inside and take a nap maybe.

“John B, we are fugitives in a foreign country.”

So, previously, I was talking about how I was confused how they would still be trying to find him is everyone thought he was dead, but here the wanted poster clearly says “presumed lost at sea”. I think that will be interesting to see how the Pogues all interpret that. 

Especially because they already had a memorial for John B and everything, I wonder if there will be any part of the Pogues holding out hope that they both could still be out there OUCH.

I’m going to circle back to this, but it looks like John B and Sarah are going to get separated for a little while in this man hunt, I could see my idiot himbo son trying to sacrifice himself so Sarah can get away but in reality just....stranding her.

“Promise me you won’t do anything stupid?”

Oh, sweetie....

“Well, Sarah Cameron, I do stupid things all the time without realizing it.”

The volume of his self awareness is astronomical. sir, that is your whole character summed up in your own words.

GOD, IT’S ME AGAIN. PLEASE LET THEM LEAN INTO COMPLETE HIMBO JOHN B THIS SEASON I’LL DO ANYTHING-

nyyooooOOOOOOOOOOOOM-

“Hold on!”

The complete abject terror I would feel having John Booker Routledge driving get-away and then saying the words “Hold on” while reaching fro the gear shift? The english language fails me. 

Sarah, bestie, I’m so sorry.

I just wanna know-

what the plan or objective was in this situation. What was the reason for being this dramatic.

Rest in piss, bozo <3

“Ward’s still out there...”

Okay, same conversation they were having as before. I wonder what makes them decide they need to get back to the OBX for this tho.

“I can clear my name. This can all be over in one shot.”

It looks like Topper watching this but way more concerningly, correct me if I’m wrong but this 100% looks like....John B gets caught. And the DEATH PENALTY?! He did have a mug shot for the fliers in s1 and the one above but he was never brought in? Plus he just looks super dirty and dishevled in this one so I-

Jail break anyone?

I also still want to know if they’re going to go with a Topper redemption arc this season. like, does he know more than he should just from being around Rafe and his big fat mouth? Is he going to help out the Pogues even if it’s just for Sarah?

This shot just suddenly made me really sad. The thought of this all started because Big John left one last thing for his son to find, his literal life’s work. And when it all started, it was just a fun adventure John B and his best friends were going on together and having fun with. Then it all got dragged to absolute shit and turned into what it did, including the remaining 3 Pogues thinking that this treasure hunt took their two best friends away from them. And it’s nothing like Big John intended it to be.

Why my eyes wet?

Now we’re edging into what I was talking about earlier with John B and Sarah getting separated.

“If you think there is anything I wouldn’t do...”

Once again, John B is no where to be found. Also, just in case y’all didn’t already know or forgot Ward is an actual psychopath.

I believe this one of the new character, played by Jontavious Johnson (Stubbs). Based on the voice over it lowkey sounds like they’re implying Ward maybe hired Stubbs and Cleo to find and bring Sarah back. My theory would be I bet they do go to retrieve her, but she somehow convinces them that it would be more beneficial for them in the end to be on the Pogue’s side instead.

Miss Girl you gotta be keeping your head on a SWIVEL. Especially when you’re a FUGITIVE of the LAW-

“...you haven’t been paying attention.”

My guy, who are you clarifying this for?

It’s what you deserve for monologuing.

in all seriousness, the idea of them coming to face to face with Ward in Nassau after thinking they finally escaped him is genuinely terrifying.

“SARAH!”

It kind of looks like they’re either hiding their faces or covering their noses? I don’t know maybe it was from some tactic to get away from Ward.

What did I literally jsut say about yelling privileges, you unhinged mother fucker?

“I’m calling the shots now. I’m driving.”

The following progression of scenes made me actually snort-

“I can’t drive stick.”

PLEASE THE FINGER GUNS LAUNCHED ME INTO ORBIT I LOVE THEM, YOUR HONOR.

Alright, so now it looks like we’re in Charleston. This is the same scene with Heyward’s truck that got leaked from BTS (read: JJ and Kie shoulder touch).

One of the main things that stuck out to me in the following scenes which, you will see, is it lowkey looks like Pope is kind of heading up this part of the operation, or even going in alone? The following clips are just very Pope focused. 

I don’t know what it means, it’s just an observation.

“John B was not the only one that Ward double-crossed.”

LIMBRY-

Bro, we have been hearing about this woman for literal months and I just have....so many questions? 

Who the hell is she? How is she connected to Ward? Why is she in South Carolina instead of the OBX? How do the Pogues even learn about her and how to track her down? How is she meant to “help” them? GAH I JUST WANNA KNOOOW. I already know I don’t trust her though and no I will not be offering up supporting evidence.

Sir, that is my son please unhand him.

“I think you know what I want.”

.......no? But feel....free to explain yourself?

The print on the paper is the same one that’s on the ceiling tiles in the following scene. Obviously, with a key on it that most likely goes to the place a few shots from now.

Hell yeah, son, let’s get SLEUTHING.

“The treasure belongs to the Pogues.”

DAMN STRAIGHT.

Bestie’s I’m not going to lie, I stared at this frame for a solid 10 minuets and I have no idea what it says on there I’m sorry. Someone in the comments is welcome to enlighten us.

“We gotta find it first.”

I can’t tell if that’s just dirt or if he hurt his head? But he look GOOD right now for one thing. For another, same outfit as the one in the Twinkie from the beginning of the trailer.

Look at her. LooK AT HER! LOOK! AT! HER! I MISSED HER SO MUCH even in that damn smiley face top that continues to haunt my waking hours she is in it so much and it stresses me out for literally no good reason I’m sorry-

I could literally cry right now and I think that speaks volumes to how little we actually see him genuinely happy. Have I mentioned how much I love that red hat?

Also, probably not that important, but this is not from the same scene as the shots of Pope and Kiara were. This is from the next one-

“Woogity-woogity?”

“Give me some woogity, baby!”

Yeah, this pushed me over the fucking edge, the way that they’re actually happy and laughing? The fact that they kept woogity-woogity and made it A Thing? Yes.

I am, however, going to be intentionally ignoring what appears to be the very intentional stagingof having such an obvious space between where Kiara and Pope are sitting adn where JJ sits, even including the level they’re sitting on because I don’t have the emotional capacity to face those implications right now. Thank you for your time.

Yes yeeeeEEEEEESSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!

GIVE ME ALL OF THE SCENES OF THEM ACTUALLY GETTING TO BE TEENAGERS AND JUST BREATHE AND LAUGH AND HAVE A GOOD TIME AND NOT BE RUNNING FOR THEIR FUCKING LIVES!!!!!!!!!!!

before Rafe comes in and literally starts shooting because they can’t breathe for more than 7 seconds but we’ll....get to that.

They refer to Sarah as a Pogue this season or I burn Netflix to the ground. Your move, Jonas.

50 bucks says John B is driving the Twinkie again for the first time since being back.

I deadass think the Pogues JUST got Sarah and John B back and they’re just having the time of their life. Kie was in her smiley face outfit when Pope was in this one a few clips ago, and I still hold to the belief that that one still they released of JJ and Kie hopping over a fence is the Pogue reunion so-

Ward? I have no idea what he’s looking at behind the wall paper and I’ll be so honest I don’t care my eyes are only seeing Pogue content right now.

“This is a map of the whole island.”

This fit, when will John B learn how to operate buttons, stay tuned for season 5. Also my previous theory of this being their reunion outfits and stuff because Pope is in the back in the same jacket as before.

The plot thickens and so has JJ’s hair, Rudy drop the shampoo brand.

Please, dear God, tell me they’re back in the sex church. For @jiaaraa sake.

Kiara, your Madison is showing.

Okay, I really did try but all I can make out is Something to the tomb begin something something.

You’re welcome.

I am no expert but I do not believe boats operate on land.

John B looks like he is in the same outfit here that is in his mug shot we saw on the TV screen so I have a sneaking suspicion this is where he gets caught. 

“John B is back-”

Once again with the damn sexual tension that’s always between Barry and Rafe in every scene they do are we about to kiss right now?

“-it’s him or me.”

First of all, no.

Second of all, I’m just....so very confused about this time line this season. It kind of looks like Ward and Rafe follow and find Sarah and John B in Nassau (unless those scenes by the truck were actually back in the OBX). So did they....go to Nassau, then just come right back when they did? I’m just confused.

Put that thing back where it came from or so help me.

Literally when will you stop at this point I am begging you. 

This looks like the same scene the Pogues were, ya know, literally just having a good time at so fuck me, I guess.

Yeah, no, it’s going to be a no from me, I’m just going to pretend like I’m not seeing this and moving on.

I have simply no idea what is going on here or who that is on the bike but maybe JJ? Maybe Luke even? I think that’s JJ’s bike. 

The sewer scene. The SEWER SCENE-

For months sicne that tiktok leaked this damn scene has been genuinely all I could think about. So (obviously) it seems like they’re sending Kie down into the sewer to go do seomthing and things go horribly, horribly wrong. 

If you haven’t seen the tiktok, essentially all it was was JJ and Pope screaming and trying to lift up the man hole cover while Kie is begging for them to hurry from inside. I’m cheating a little bit as this isn’t a shot from the trailer but this picture was posted and it’s from the same scene.

I’ll just....leave this here. Back to the trailer shots.

Nice. Also, same shirt as mugshot.

Hey, um, what? 

Kiara’s car, she’s driving, I can’t tell who’s in the back seat or the front.

Holy God what is going on and how can I as an audience member put a stop to it?

So, same scene as we will see and was in the teaser but, for some reason, they’re all jumping off of a giant ass boat into the little life raft where it looks like JJ gets hurt later but don’t you worry we’re getting to that.

JJ AND KIARA WITH THE POGUE HANDSHAKE JJ AND KIARA WITH THE POGUE HANDSHAKE THEY BOTH LOOK SO DAMN GOOD AND THEIR LITTLE SMILES SPARE ME-

Cleo 🥵

I’m so excited to see her arc and what it brings this season you guys have no idea.

Please for the love of God be about to get Ward Cameron’s ass like he deserves literally punt him into jail right from Tanny Hill.

Sarah at My Druther’s with what looks like a bloody bandage on her side? Same outfit she’s wearing when they’re running from the police on the beach and she has the bandage there too so. Interesting. 

Topper hugging who I’m pretty sure is Sarah, being a general douche because he’s clearly looking at John B like 😏 

Clips like these serve to remind me just how many of my worldly posessions I would gladly give up to be able to punch Topper Thorton in the throat one time. 

I think this is Cleo jumping off the boat with Pope after John B and Sarah. 

Absolutely busting a lung at Pope’s form in this one.

John B and Sarah waiting in the life raft, still Cleo and Pope coming after them. The obvious next question is where are JJ and Kiara. The scene I’m sure you all have been waiting for is coming up and clearly takes place in the life raft as well.

So, I really think JJ and Kie get left for last, something horrible happens as they’re trying to jump (my head instantly goes to JJ maybe like pushing Kie out of the way and getting hit on the head instead or even just some accident). 

And, oh my GOD a scene of him falling off the boat after it happens and Kiara diving in after him immediately, having to desperatly try to stop him from sinkingand get to the life raft holy shit-

Girl CATCH HIM?????

Because why wouldn’t this be Rafe’s fault. Part of me wonders if this isn’t related to JJ being hurt.

I am going to try and unpack this as calmly as possible because behind my computer screen I am vibrating at a frequency that could shatter glass but respectfully.

WHAT IN THE FUCK IS TIAUEWFHLAILA

Okay, so scene wise, JJ’s hit his head somehow (probably while he was jumping with Kiara) it looks like and now they’re back on the raft. 

In my opinion, this is either:

A) JJ is in really, really bad condition after getting hurt in the jump and they’re not sure he’s going to make it. So this is a “Please stay with me, stay awake, please don’t die” hug OR

B) They very narrowly just avoided a deadly situation (my first thought is JJ hits his head while jumping, passes out in the water, maybe almost drowns but Kie and the others get him onto the life raft in time) and this is more of a “Oh my God, you’re okay, you’re safe now, we’re okay” hug. 

I honestly lean more to the second one based on the little bit of Sarah’s face we saw in the background. To me, it almost looked like she was smiling thru tears, which, fits way more with the second option than the first. 

Anyways. Moving on before I burst a lung again.

(also, before anyone comes at me, no, I’m not happy JJ is hurt, obviously.  

(Once again, arrest outfits). You can still see the bandage but it looks like Sarah’s limping now too so...good Lord give the girl a break maybe?

Everything in this trailer just went to shit so fast I think I have whip lash, can we go back to the Pogues hanging out and being happy now pkease I liked those scenes.

“I get it. You guys are scared.”

“No.”

She’s cute but, uh, hello sewer scene outfits. Seems like them planning to do whatever the hell they were going to do in the sewers but the boys are starting to get cold feet as maybe they should but hind sight is 20/20 I suppose.

“It’s kind of cute.”

“I’m not scared.”

“You should’ve just led with that.”

I will never be able to express how much I adore Pogue banter and general dumbassery and I have a feeling this season will not be lacking in either department

I high key don’t think these two are actually going to be there for this scene to go down but I’ll let it slide this time because-

They do be kinda cute.

It both feels like I’ve been waiting for this damn show for 3 years and also like I just watched season 1 last month explain that to me. 

Either way holy shit. I missed this dumb show and these dumb kids so much it physcially hurts and WE GET THEM BACK IN T-MINUS 16 DAYS.

Also. Where The Hell Is Wheezie Cameron And When Will She Have The Rights She Deserves.

[wingodex]

The Old Guard Speech Patterns Analysis

I made a post on the speech patterns of the main characters in The Old Guard, and a lot of people seemed interested in it, so I’ve cleaned up and clarified the rest of my notes. What I’ve looked at specifically here is mostly related to syntax, so grammar and sentence structure. I’ve vaguely looked at pragmatics, which has to do with how context contributes to meaning, and semantics, which deals with the meaning of words, phrases and sentences. I’ve also looked at sociolinguistics, which has to do with the effect of society on language, but I want to be upfront in saying that it’s not my personal area of interest so my knowledge is lacking there. On that same point, I have no formal linguistics training, I’m just into conlanging and everything I know about linguistics is self taught. For each of the characters I’ve talked about contraction usage, colloquialisms, phrases, verb and verb tense usage, ellipses, sentence composition, adjective and adverb frequency, discourse markers and fillers, profanity, vocabulary(ish), and questions.

You can also find all of this on ao3.

Couple of disclaimers to start: while this is obviously a great tool for fic writing, and can help you get a feel for the way that the characters speak in the movie, I’m asking non-Black writers to be very careful about the way you use some of this information when it comes to Nile. When Nile speaks, she uses a lot of colloquial/vernacular language, and while she doesn’t speak AAVE in the movie, her syntax does contain vernacular features. The history of transcribing colloquial language and vernacular dialects—African American/Black English in particular—is racist, classist and ableist. Your decision to write in colloquial language or to incorporate elements of Black English, rather than using Standard English, into Nile’s dialogue can potentially continue a tradition of racial othering if you’re not wary and conscious. Colloquial language in written form is often used to imply a lack of intelligence, a lack of education or a lower class. Be especially considerate of transcribing colloquial reductions like “wanna,” “gotta,” etc. Avoid eye-dialect at all cost, please, I am begging you. In general, the best way to transcribe dialects is through rhythm of prose, syntax, idioms/figures of speech and vocabulary. Even if you rely on those techniques for Nile, I’m still advising the utmost caution due to the complexity of syntax of AAVE and other dialects. For those unfamiliar with AAVE, I go into more detail about it here. If you do decide to use vernacular language for Nile, I’m going to insist you look into copula deletion/zero copula in AAVE outside of this post. It’s usage is very complex and specific. If you decide to use colloquial language for her to really take advantage of the intelligent way that she uses style-shifting in the movie then, at the very least, remember that the other characters (with the exception of Nicky) also use colloquial language frequently in the movie as well. If Nile is the only one in your fic using colloquial language, that’s a problem.

Most of the contextual analysis as it relates to sociolinguistics is based on my own speculation and interpretation of all the data I’ve collected. They contain my own personal biases and are influenced by my own experiences. If you have another interpretation of any of this, I’m absolutely interested in hearing it. Also, there is simply not enough data for any of my observations to be definitive, especially for Joe and Nicky. The two of them combined say around the same number of sentences as Booker, and he only says half as many sentences as Andy. There are literally verb tenses/aspects that not a single person uses in the whole movie. It’s also important to note that I am fallible, and while I do think most of this is accurate, I probably fucked up and missed something or miscounted! More than once! In some cases, I was only able to find one example of something and while I’ve included those observations, they are in no way indicative of a pattern, so don’t view them as strict rules.

I threw around a lot of jargon in this, and there wasn't really an easy way to avoid doing that while talking about most of this stuff. Descriptions are provided throughout the post. I've done my best to define all the more complex and lesser-known concepts, and to provide specific examples from the movie but feel free to reach out if you're unsure about any of it. Basic English grammar things that will be helpful to know to understand all of this post: parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, determiners, interjections), clauses (subject + predicate), tense–aspect–mood for verb conjugation (in English we have: past and non-past; perfective, imperfective, and progressive; and indicative, imperative, and subjunctive), phrase structure, auxiliary verbs, phrasal verbs, wh-movement (who, what, when, where, why, how) and sentence sequencing (in English it’s SVO, or subject-verb-object).

On ellipsis: for Andy, Nile and Booker (and Joe, a little bit), the types of ellipses I focused on were mostly the types that you only see in spoken colloquial English. For Nicky, I talked a lot more about further classification of ellipses that do sometimes apply to the other four, but aren’t as noticeable. 

For phrases, I mostly included idioms and expressions to avoid listing every single phrase in the movie. I generally avoided noun phrases (with a few exceptions), and I don't think I mention any adverb phrases. 

For my own purposes, I’ve decided to define fillers as discourse markers without lexical content that are used to indicate that the pause while speaking is only temporary. The rest of the discourse markers use standard classification.

Thank you to both @disregardandfelicity and @youknowthegirls for looking over this post for me!

Andy

Andy uses every contraction for auxiliary verbs and personal pronouns (e.g. I’m, you’ve, it’s, etc). I mean, she actually doesn't in the movie, but she comes so close that I feel confident in saying she would use all the others. The Wikipedia page for English Auxiliary Verbs has a great chart for contractions. Of the characters, she's literally the only one who does this with this level of consistency.

Her contraction usage isn't limited to personal pronouns. She uses contractions with demonstrative, interrogative, relative and indefinite pronouns. She also uses contractions with "there" and "where", and presumably with “when” and “how” although there are no examples of that in the movie. She uses contractions with negative modal verbs.

Andy uses both the simple future and the more colloquial going-to future construction at various points in the movie. She seems to have a preference for going-to future, and the only time she uses the simple future is in her dramatic opening monologue and when she’s trying to reassure Nile. Otherwise, she sticks to going-to construction.

Simple future: “Will this time be the one?”, “Me and those three men in there will keep you safe.”

Going-to future: “And you’re going to help us.”

Andy also typically uses the colloquialism “gonna” when using going-to future construction. When she uses “going to” instead, it’s during moments of sincerity. As mentioned, she also iconically uses them both in the same sentence.

"I knew this was gonna happen", "You think knowing is gonna make you sleep better at night?"

“You’re not a Marine anymore. They’re going to lock you up.”, “When we leave a footprint in the sand, in the snow, in the ether, you’re going to sweep it.”

“You’re going to protect us from those who want to put us in cages, and you’re gonna help us find those jobs that are best suited to us.”

Andy uses the verb “have” and the phrasal verb “have got” interchangeably, and with no real pattern. Important note: I am only referring to the verb “to have” in the present tense, not when "have" is used as an auxiliary. She doesn’t seem to use “have got” in the negative (i.e. “haven’t got” vs “don’t have”).

“We have to find Copley.”, “I have the new one.”

“You’ve got blood in your hair.” “He’s got Joe and Nicky.”

“We don’t have all the answers, but we do have purpose.”

Andy also uses the colloquialism “gotta” in sentences where she uses “have got” with the infinitive “to”. When she does this, she usually uses contracted have/has. Occasionally she drops the auxiliary.

"You’ve gotta feel it, Nile.”  "There's gotta be a price."

Andy drops the auxiliary when she says, "We gotta go" instead of “We’ve gotta go” and “Sometimes you gotta work with people you don’t wanna eat with” instead of “Sometimes you’ve gotta..”

Andy uses the colloquialism “wanna” in the place of “want to”.

“Well, sometimes you gotta work with people you don’t wanna eat with.” “You really wanna do this, kid?”

Andy incorrectly uses the object pronoun “me” like a true native English speaker

“Me and those three men in there will keep you safe.”

Andy seems to generally say “Yeah” but she says “Yes” when she really means it. She also says “Mm hmm.”

Andy uses several discourse markers throughout the movie. Discourse markers are words that are used to connect, organize and manage sentences while speaking. Andy uses discourse markers to start sentences, as responses, as interjections, etc. The discourse markers that Andy uses are:

Sentence openers: actually, so, come on, here, look, listen, now, oh, well, you know,

Sentence closers: I guess, maybe, right, 

Responses: yeah

Interjections: hey

Connection: to be honest

Andy doesn’t use any fillers. Instead, she pauses and repeats herself as needed.

“Remember what it... what it was like to feel unbreakable.”

Of all the characters, Andy uses the imperative mood the most (throughout the movie Andy tells someone to do something 35 times using this mood)

When Andy repeats herself for emphasis, she usually does it in pairs. The only exception is when she says “why?” three times to Booker in the scene with Copley

Andy uses ellipses, which is when words are omitted from a sentence and the sentence can still be understood. This isn’t particularly noteworthy in what it says about her speech patterns, as everyone uses elliptical construction. It’s just part of how speech works, how dialogue works and how writing works. It’s a feature of English, spoken and written, rather than an anomaly. I do feel it’s worth mentioning though, because I’m going to talk a lot about some specific kinds of ellipses (null subject, null auxiliary and zero copula) that are only found in colloquial and spoken language. For more about elliptical construction, see the Nicky section.

Andy uses noun and verb ellipses when she says, “I’ve been here before... over and over again, and each time the same question.” 

Andy uses answer ellipsis. That means that when she answers questions, she often speaks in sentence fragments rather than full sentences.

[Who’s gonna fly the plane?] “We don’t need a pilot” instead of “[Nobody is going to fly the plane.] We don’t need a pilot.”

Andy occasionally uses sentences with a truncated null subject (i.e. she doesn’t use subject pronouns), but not as frequently as the other characters. 

“Can’t wait” instead of “I can’t wait.”

Andy frequently uses null auxiliary construction and zero copula when asking questions that normally use subject-auxiliary inversion. This means that she will drop the leading auxiliary verb. For more information about zero copula, see Nile.  

Andy uses “You found Copley?” instead of “Have you found Copley?” and “Everyone still with me?” instead of “Is everyone still with me?”

When asking questions, Andy typically uses either the method described above or intonation if she can get away with it. However, she does still ask yes-no questions without dropping the auxiliary. Andy is also one of the only characters to use a disjunctive question. In contrast to the disjunctive (which is often condescending), Andy is also one of the only characters polite enough to use an indirect question.  

Intonation: “Joe and Nicky?”

Disjunctive: “You don’t speak Russian, do you?”

Indirect: “Would you like me to take one for you?”

Andy doesn’t use the subordinating conjunction “that” at any point in the movie.

“Last time I checked, you had to be American to be in the CIA” instead of “Last time that I checked...”

Andy says “What the...” when she’s confused.

Andy makes a humming sound when she’s pleased that’s transcribed as “Mmm!”. Interesting to note that every time she makes this sound, it’s in response to Nicky.

Profanity used by Andy: asshole, fuck, goddamn, motherfucker, shit, shitty

Phrases, idioms and expressions used by Andy: bend it to [your] will, broke [a promise], changes nothing, come on, do the same, enough of this, for all I care, get some sleep, go big or go home, going out for a bit, gotta go, last time I checked, let’s, next time, now and always, on board, play dead, set up, straight to [something], tie off, to be honest, welcome back, what [he] said, whatever it takes, work out

Unrelated to word count or time spent speaking, Andy says more sentences than any other character. She says more than twice as many sentences as Booker and four times as many sentences as Joe and Nicky. Nile says a little less than 2/3 as many sentences as Andy. 

Sentence composition**: 57% of Andy’s sentences are simple sentences, 31% are sentence fragments, 5% are compound sentences, 6% are complex sentences, and 1% are compound-complex sentences.

Languages spoken on-screen: English

Adjectives and adjective phrases appear in 13% of Andy’s sentences. Adverbs and adverb phrases appear in 9% of Andy’s sentences.

Andy is very consistent in her speech. She doesn’t style-shift much and almost exclusively speaks in a colloquial style of Standard American English. There are two exceptions to this: when she was talking to the tourists in Marrakesh, she was overly polite; and when she was dealing with Copley, she enunciated herself far more and was less likely to use contractions. When I say that Andy speaks Standard English, what I mean is that she speaks the dialect of English which has undergone the most regularization and standardization. It’s the one associated with public communication, the one that's used in commerce and government, and the one that has the most institutional support and sanction. Andy is very familiar and comfortable in this dialect, to the point where she even uses common grammar mistakes that native speakers do. Her speech is very casual. I would say that Andy has spent a significant amount of time recently in the United States or Canada, and I also suspect that English is the modern language that she is most comfortable in. I think that Andy has likely spent a lot of time speaking casually with other English native speakers and that her grasp of the language was formed without any kind of formal language training. Andy doesn’t use much descriptive language, and her sentences are typically short and clear. While I think Andy does read a little bit, it’s had very little impact on her speech patterns. I doubt she reads any kind of serious formal writing, or academic works. 

Nile

Nile uses every contraction for auxiliary verbs and personal pronouns (e.g. I’m, you’re, it’s, etc). She also uses them with other nouns and names. Nile is very deliberate about contraction usage. For the most part, in casual speech, she uses contractions, although she does use a lack of contractions to express disbelief or for emphasis. Nile also uses a lack of contractions to show condescension or disapproval. When she’s trying to be authoritative, she’s less likely to use contractions. When she wants to make sure she’s understood, she also doesn’t use contractions.

“I am not jumping from a plane!” “You do not listen to her, you listen to me.”

“We are looking for this man. He has killed many of our people and many of yours.”

Nile uses contractions with demonstrative, interrogative, relative and indefinite pronouns. She also uses contractions with "there", "where", “why” and “how.” She uses contractions with negative modal verbs.

Nile doesn’t use the contraction “y’all” in the movie. In fact, she specifically doesn’t use it.

“How are you all in my dreams?”

Nile uses both the simple future and the colloquial going-to future construction at various points in the movie. Like with contractions, Nile is less likely to use colloquialisms when she’s serious or trying to be authoritative. I think it’s especially poignant when she uses it to express bravery (with Booker). Nile always uses the colloquialism “gonna” when using going-to future construction. 

Simple future: “I’m the one who will walk out of there, one way or another.”

Going-to future: “People that are gonna worry.”

Nile uses the verb “have” and the phrasal verb “have got” interchangeably, however she has a very strong preference for “have got”

“You have my phone?”

“I got people that love me,” “You got a satellite link?”

Nile also uses the colloquialism “gotta” in sentences where she uses “have got” with the infinitive “to”. When she does this, she always uses null auxiliary construction (see below for more details).

“We gotta get out of here!”

Nile uses the colloquialism “wanna” in the place of “want to”.

“I just really wanna hear my mom’s voice one more time.”

Nile truncates “trying to” as “tryna”.

“I’m tryna save you, man!”

Nile truncates “out of” as “outta”

Nile uses a lot of discourse markers. She uses more discourse markers than any of the other characters, although Booker comes very close. Discourse markers are words that are used to connect, organise and manage sentences while speaking. Nile uses discourse markers to start sentences, as responses, as interjections, etc. The discourse markers that Nile uses are:

Sentence openers: so, well, wait, here, yeah, now

Sentence closers: or something, maybe, you know, okay, man

Interjections: come on, what, no way

Responses: yeah

Nile uses some fillers when speaking, however she doesn’t use them often. The fillers she uses are: uh, yeah

While Nile does occasionally use the imperative mood, she’s far more likely to give commands based on intonation alone, rather than syntax.

Intonation: “You do not listen to her, you listen to me,” “We gotta get out of here!”

Imperative: “Land this plane.”

Nile uses elliptical construction when speaking, which means that when words are omitted from a sentence, the sentence can still be understood.  Again, this in and of itself is not very noteworthy, see Nicky for more details. 

“South side of Chicago, a million different ways we could’ve went left.”

She also uses answer ellipsis, meaning that when answering questions, she speaks in sentence fragments.

Answer ellipsis: [You have someone?] “Just my family” instead of “[I have] just my family.”

Nile frequently uses null subject elliptical construction. When using null subject construction, she drops personal pronouns.

“Talked to Copley. Said he could fix it.” instead of “I talked to Copley. He said he could fix it.”

Nile’s use of ellipsis is mostly characterized by her usage of null auxiliary, which is when she drops auxiliary verbs from sentences. The way she does this is very distinct and she’s the only character who speaks like this. While the other characters who use null auxiliary construction do so in the specific context of asking questions, Nile’s usage is more complicated.

Like the others, Nile frequently uses null auxiliary construction and zero copula when asking questions that normally use subject-auxiliary inversion, but unlike the others, she also sometimes drops the auxiliary in wh- questions. For more on zero copula, see below.

"You gonna be okay?" "So, you good guys or bad guys?" 

“Where you taking me?”

Outside of asking questions, Nile also occasionally uses both null auxiliary construction and the zero copula. She is the only character who does this (Andy does this, but only with one specific word/phrase. Nile's usage is less restrictive). Zero copula is a linguistic phenomena where the subject is joined to the predicate without marking that relationship (i.e. there’s no verb). In English, the main copula is the verb “to be”, so zero copula in English describes situations where inflections of “to be” are omitted. When the characters use null auxiliary construction to omit the inflected forms of “to be” while asking questions, they are using the copula deletion. 

In the above example questions, all of them are examples of copula deletion as they are omitting inflections of the verb "to be"

When Nile says “I got people that love me”, she uses null auxiliary construction to omit the auxiliary “have”. Nile always drops the auxiliary “have” when using the “have got” form.

When Nile says “This the shit you into?” she’s actually using the zero copula twice. You’ll notice that she’s missing the leading “is” and in the dependent clause, she’s missing the “are (“Is this the shit you’re into?” in Standard English).

At one point in the movie, Nile includes a further truncated null subject, where she doesn’t use both the subject and the auxiliary verb. Joe does something similar in the present tense.

Nile says “Killed in action when I was eleven” instead of “He was killed in action when I was eleven.”

When asking questions, outside of wh- questions, Nile usually relies on intonation or dropping the auxiliary from subject-auxiliary inversion questions as described above. She does occasionally use inversion for yes/no questions without dropping the auxiliary. 

Intonation: “You have my phone?”

Indirect: “So... you’re even older than him.”

As the audience surrogate, Nile asks the most questions in the movie (she asks 69 questions LMAO)

Another way that Nile formalizes her speech is by inserting the subordinating conjunction “that” into sentences where they would normally be omitted.

“And that was a blank that you shot me with.” “But... you said that we were immortal.”

Nile says “Uh uh” to mean “no” or “don’t even think about it”

Phrases, idioms and expressions used by Nile: a little help, backed down, brains of [the] outfit, come on, follow the money, gave [them] up, honest-to-God, how the hell, what kind of [noun], killed in action, let’s go, move on, never hurts to, no way, one more time, one way or another, roger that, sit your ass down, some bullshit, son of a bitch, stay tight, steal away, went left, what’s up (greeting), 

Profanity used by Nile: ass, bitch, bullshit, damn, fuck, hell, shit

Sentence composition**: 60% of Nile’s sentences are simple sentences, 30% are sentence fragments, 3% are compound sentences, 6% are complex sentences and 1% are compound-complex sentences.

Adjectives and adjective phrases appear in 18% of Nile’s sentences. Adverbs appear in 4% of her sentences. Nile doesn’t use any adverb phrases.

Languages spoken on-screen: English, Pashto

Of all the characters, Nile’s use of English is the most deliberate. While the others are obviously fluent and capable in English, Nile’s use of style-shifting throughout the movie demonstrates a mastery of the language that the other characters simply don’t have. The way that she shifts between formal and colloquial language for emphasis, for clarity, to express disbelief or disapproval, to act authoritatively, to appear casual and friendly, and to invite others to engage with her, speaks to what she is capable of by her word and syntax choices. All of this is obviously enhanced by her tone, her cadence, her pitch, her volume and her speaking speed. 

When Nile speaks, she doesn’t speak in AAVE. That being said, her speech does contain vernacular features. The two elements of Nile’s syntax that are most noticeable are her use of the zero copula and her deletion of “have” in situations where it can be contracted (to clarify: using copula deletion is not necessarily an indicator of AAVE. When the other characters use the zero copula, they are not speaking AAVE. The subtle differences in the context of their usage of copula deletion is what makes Nile’s speech distinctly Black). Some of Nile’s word choices and noun phrases are also reflective of the typical speech of Black people, as pointed out to me by this anon. It’s very likely that Nile can speak AAVE, but doesn’t in the movie. She was raised by two Black parents in a very residentially segregated city, and while Nile didn’t specify the neighborhood she grew up in (you can make some guesses to the general area based on how she talks about it, but that’s not quite the same), Chicago’s South Side is predominantly Black, so the people she was around, the place she attended school and the church she went to were all likely predominantly Black as well. Due to the fact that Standard English is the language taught in public schools in the United States, Nile has obviously also developed a fluency in that dialect as well and can probably code switch between the two dialects. The fact that she doesn’t speak AAVE in the movie isn’t particularly unusual. Society is largely hostile towards Black people speaking AAVE, so language self-policing becomes a survival tool. Nile had also just spent an indefinite amount of time in the US military, which has its own style which has its own style of speaking as well which she would have been using. And then she basically got kidnapped by mostly white people, some of whom have noticeable accents, so having her speak AAVE would’ve been an odd character choice, but not totally implausible.

The way that Nile switches between formal and colloquial English is a type of code switching that I would honestly refer to more as style-shifting. Because she isn’t actually speaking AAVE, I can’t say how the dialect factors into her speech patterns. I think it’s possible that Nile’s ability to style-shift between formal and informal language could have been an ability that she developed as a result of needing to code switch between AAVE and Standard English in an educational environment. I do want to make it very clear however, that when I’m talking about Nile style-shifting, it has very little bearing on the vernacular features of her speech, but rather the colloquial features like contractions, verb choice, ellipsis and her use of phrasal verbs. It’s possible that she uses code switching in the same way, however we don’t have evidence of that in the movie.

Booker

Booker uses most contractions, but not all, and with much less consistency than Andy or deliberate purpose like Nile. He uses contractions for auxiliaries and their inflected forms for personal pronouns. When speaking casually, he uses contractions, but when he’s upset, he uses them far less consistently. He doesn’t use contractions with the past tense inflected form of have (i.e. “had”).

Booker uses contractions with demonstrative, interrogative, relative and indefinite pronouns. He also uses contractions with "there", "where" and “how. He uses contractions with negative modal verbs.

Booker uses both the simple future and the going-to future construction at various points in the movie. He doesn’t seem to have a preference either way.

Simple future: “They will get to learn your secret.”

Going-to future: “It’s gonna take time.”

Booker always uses the colloquialism “gonna” when using going-to future construction.

Booker doesn’t seem to use the phrasal verb “have got” but I could only find one instance of him using the verb “to have” in the present tense, so this isn’t definitive either way. If I had to take a guess, I’d say that, like Andy, he uses “to have” and “have got” interchangeably.

Even though Booker speaks less than Nile and Andy, he uses close to the same amount of discourse markers as them, meaning that they appear far more regularly in his speech. Discourse markers are words that are used to connect, organize and manage sentences while speaking. Booker uses discourse markers to start sentences, as responses, as interjections, etc. The discourse markers he uses are:

Sentence openers: come on, hey, oh, well, listen, I mean, ooh (expressing pleasure), yeah

Sentence closers: right, of course

Responses: yeah, alright

Interjections: hey, ow! (expressing victory)

Connections: by the way, tell you what

Of all the characters, Booker uses the most fillers when speaking. The fillers that he uses are: oh, uh, um, yeah 

Booker pauses and repeats himself as needed. He only does this when he’s upset. Otherwise, he seems to use fillers instead.

“Everyone you love is gonna... is gonna suffer and is gonna die."

When Booker repeats himself for emphasis, he always does it in pairs.

Booker often uses elliptical construction, and the most frequent type seems to be null auxiliary construction. He does use other types of ellipses though (For more about ellipsis, see Nicky). 

“Just because we keep living doesn’t mean we stop hurting.”

Booker uses answer ellipsis, but almost to the point of incomprehensibility. Dude just gives the bare minimum. That means that when he answers questions, he speaks in sentence fragments rather than full sentences.

Answer ellipsis: [You found Copley?] “Nothing, but dead ends” instead of “[I found] nothing but dead ends.”

Booker frequently uses sentences with a truncated null subject (i.e. he doesn’t use subject pronouns).

“Lost the plot after that” instead of “I lost the plot after that”

Booker frequently uses null auxiliary construction and zero copula when asking questions that normally use subject-auxiliary inversion. For more information about zero copula, see Nile.

Booker says “You good?” instead of “Are you good?” and “You have someone?” instead of “Do you have someone?”

When asking questions, Booker almost always uses either the method described above, or intonation. The only time Booker asks a question without dropping the auxiliary is when he says “Are you all right, boss?” to Andy in the cave. 

Intonation: “Oh, she gave it back?”

Booker doesn’t generally use the subordinating clause “that,” but he will sometimes.

“What I do know is she was alone for a long time before she found anyone like her.”

“And they will tell you... that you don’t love them.”

At two separate points in the movie, Booker references Elizabethan literature. “Misery loves company” is from Dr. Faustus by Marlowe and “That way madness lies” is from King Lear by Shakespeare

Phrases, expressions and idioms used by Booker: all in, by the way, calm down, change of clothes, come on, dead ends, give [her] time, give me your hand, how’s it going?, I’ll see you soon, in the open, leave no footprints, let’s go, lost the plot, moving out, misery loves company, reach out, stick to the plan, take time, tell you what, what’s going on, won’t hurt

Profanity used by Booker: shit, putain de merde

Sentence composition**: 59% of Booker’s sentences are simple sentences, 24% are sentence fragments, 3% are compound sentences, 9% are complex sentences, 1% are compound-complex sentences and 4% are not in English

Adjectives and adjective phrases appear in 16% of Booker’s sentences. Adverbs and adverb phrases appear in 8% of Booker’s sentences. 

Languages spoken on-screen: English, French, Italian

We know from Booker’s backstory that he’s French and he’s from Marseilles, and other people have spoken about how Booker’s native language would likely have been Occitan, although he speaks French as well. Like Andy, Joe and Nicky, English is not Booker’s native language, although he does speak it with a high degree of fluency. While there are aspects of Booker’s speech that are more related to him being a non-native English speaker, I wanted to talk about French first. It’s worth noting that French is the only Romance language that isn't a null subject language (and as far as I can tell, Occitan isn’t either). This means that when Booker uses null subject construction, that’s either something he picked up from another language or from being around people speaking colloquial English. The thing that stands out to me the most about Booker’s speech though, is actually the way he uses intonation (and to a certain extent, null auxiliary construction as well) when asking questions. While French can use subject-auxiliary inversion, for the most part, you just ask questions by intonation. In the French dub of the movie when Booker asks “You travel?” he says “T’as voyagé?” which in English directly translates to “You travelled?” or “You’ve travelled?” While I could get into semantics about verb tenses, do-support and modality, what I’m getting at here is that both “You travel?” and “T’as voyagé?” mean the same thing and are expressed in a form that feels semantically similar to me even if it’s not syntactically similar, in the same way that ending a question with the tag “right?” (which Booker uses a lot) feels the same as the tag “non?”

There are a couple of things that I think are interesting about Booker’s manner of speech. Booker primarily speaks in simple and fragmented sentences, which is pretty normal, but what’s different about him is the way that a lot of his speech is referential. What I mean is that Booker relies on a lot of common phrases, common clauses, clichés and quotations when he speaks. In a lot of ways, Booker speaks the way your typical action hero is supposed to. You get a sense of Booker engaging in a broader cultural and literary conversation. I don’t know how to explain this exactly, but when Booker speaks, you just know he reads and that he watches tv and movies. And not just that, but that he borrows and imitates aspects of what he reads. But besides the pragmatic element of Booker’s speech, all of the things that are notable about Booker’s speech are things that you also see in Andy, Joe and Nicky. Syntactically, there’s nothing about Booker’s speech that is distinctly unique to him, unlike the rest of the characters who all have their own little quirks. It’s almost like Booker is imitating the others, or borrowing someone else’s words. There is one notable exception, and that’s when Booker is talking to Nile in the cave. As the conversation goes on, you see this breakdown of Booker’s language as he attempts to tell his own story. Suddenly, a lot of the conventions established about Booker’s speech prior to this scene don’t apply. Obviously there are multiple explanations for this, ranging from English not being his first language to the fact that he was talking about something deeply personal and traumatizing to someone who was essentially a stranger. But what makes this scene stand out is the fact that in his next major scene, Booker is clearly on the verge of a full breakdown, but because he’s again relying on this established lexicon, you don’t see it reflected in his speech the same way that it is in the cave.

Joe

When Joe bothers with personal pronouns, he usually uses contractions with auxiliary verbs (e.g. I’m, she’s, it’s, etc). The exception to this is that Joe doesn’t use contractions with the past tense inflected auxiliary form of have (i.e. “had”).

Joe uses contractions with demonstrative, interrogative, relative and indefinite pronouns. He also uses contractions with "there". He uses contractions with negative modal verbs.

Joe only uses a future tense once in the entire film, and when he does, he uses going-to future construction. When he uses going-to future construction he uses the colloquialism “gonna"

“What are you gonna do?”

Joe doesn’t use the colloquial “have got” and always uses “to have”. 

“We have to find her”, “Well, now you have even more.”

This may be because Joe isn’t in the movie as much as the first three, or that he just genuinely doesn't use them often, but he uses considerably fewer discourse markers. Discourse markers are words that are used to connect, organize and manage sentences while speaking. Joe uses discourse markers to start sentences, and as interjections. The discourse markers that Joe uses are:

Sentence openers: oh, so, well, yeah

Interjections: hey, what

After Booker, Joe uses the second most amount of fillers. He uses more fillers when having a back-and-forth style conversation with someone than when he’s essentially monologuing. The fillers that Joe uses are: mmm, uh

Joe sometimes uses ellipses when speaking. Again, not super noteworthy, but I wanted to mention it nonetheless. 

“He’s the moon when I’m lost in darkness and warmth when I shiver in cold.”

Joe uses answer ellipsis in the movie, but he doesn’t actually speak in sentence fragments when he does this. While answer ellipsis is pretty standard in English, Joe’s commitment to saying more than was asked of him isn’t.

[So... you’re even older than him.] “Nicky and I met in the Crusades.” instead of “[Yes, we are.] Nicky and I met in the Crusades.”

Joe uses sentences with a null subject (i.e. he doesn’t use subject pronouns).

“Depends on the century.” “Fought thousands of battles side by side.”

Joe uses sentences which have both a null subject and uses copula deletion. See Nile for more details on zero copula.

“Very pissed off.” “Faster than the elevator.”

In the movie, Joe only really asks wh- questions. He does ask a few using intonation, although most of those questions act more like additional tags on a wh-question, rather than a question by itself. As such, it's unclear whether Joe uses null auxiliary construction or the zero copula when asking questions.

Intonation: "Bedhead?” “So we just leave her out in the open?”

When Joe repeats himself for emphasis, it’s usually in groups of three. 

Joe says “what” when he doesn’t hear something/doesn’t understand something

As previously mentioned, Joe uses some formal words like "thus" and the impersonal pronoun "one". Here are some other words to consider having Joe use unironically as well: alas, amidst, await, behest, ergo, hence, latter, much, nor, notwithstanding, promptly, quite, shall (modal), thence, thereupon, thoroughly, whereas, whom (used correctly of course), yield

Even though Joe speaks quite formally a lot of the time, he never uses the subordinating conjunction “that” when it can be omitted.

“The first immortal Andy found.”

Phrases, expressions and idioms used by Joe: all in, attention to detail, come on, I guess, out in the open, measure and reason, over a [time period], piece of shit, proved [their] case, side by side, way back

Profanity used by Joe: goddamnit, shit

Unrelated to word count or time spent speaking, Joe says the least amount of sentences out of the five main characters, although this doesn’t mean very much, considering Nicky says exactly one more sentence than him. 

Sentence composition**: 57% of Joe’s sentences are simple sentences, 21% are sentence fragments, 5% are compound sentences, 4% are complex sentences, 4% are compound complex sentences and 9% are not in English.

Adjectives and adjective phrases appear in 29% of Joe’s sentences. Adverbs and adverb phrases appear in 8% of Joe’s sentences.

Languages spoken on-screen: English, Italian

The best way to describe Joe’s manner of speaking is that it’s like he has two different styles. You get the sense that sometimes Joe just says whatever and sometimes he says something that he’s rehearsed in his head. Joe is a Maghrebi Muslim man from the Islamic Golden Age so he comes from a culture and time with a rich history of and respect for both written and spoken poetry, both impromptu and memorized. I think he carries that tradition quite well. When Joe is orating (van speech and Quynh backstory), his sentences are much more structured and he uses more formal language. He doesn't speak in sentence fragments, he doesn't use any colloquial language besides contractions and he doesn't use discourse markers or fillers like he does in the more casual back-and-forth conversations. If you look at Joe's sentence composition percentages, you'll notice that Joe has comparatively less sentence fragments than other characters and that’s purely because when he orates, it's in full sentences (minus poetic ellipsis, but that's allowed). That's why it seems to me as though Joe rehearses some of what he says in advance. I don’t know the extent to which he does that, but at the very least it seems like he’s sat down and thought “how would I explain Quynh to the new immortal?” or “What would I say to someone belittling my relationship with Nicky?” Even in the delivery of the line “Faster than the elevator” there is quite a long pause between him seeing that Nile jumped out a window and actually making the joke, as if he’s thinking about it first. The majority of the sentences Joe says are in the van speech and while telling Quynh’s backstory. In casual conversations, Nicky seems to take the lead more than Joe.

I’d also speculate that Joe is quite literate. Obviously there’s his own affinity for storytelling and oration, but his use of language hints at a larger vocabulary. You see him use a frequently neglected pronoun in English and a relatively formal adverb. He also uses adjectives like “grotesque” and “infantile”. He does end sentences while prepositions though, so he obviously does not give a fuck about John Dryden and Joshua Poole. That being said, I think the idea of rearranging Joe’s sentences so they don’t end in prepositions is funny and fits his whole vibe.

Joe uses null subject construction in English, and while that’s pretty common in everyday speech in English, it is worth noting that both Italian and Arabic are null subject languages. The way that Joe uses null construction in English is far more similar to Italian than Arabic, which requires a change in sentence sequencing but I still think it’s neat. The thing that Arabic brings to the table that I’m more intrigued by is the fact that it’s a zero copula language. It’s not a matter of copula deletion like AAVE, there straight up is not a copula in the present tense, so the lack of a verb (and specific sentence sequencing) is the copula in the present tense. When Joe drops both subject and verb in the present tense he is, in effect, simulating a similar situation due to the ambiguity of the sentences themselves where the only way you can correctly interpret the sentence is by understanding that the missing verb must be a copula. He gets rid of a subject pronoun as a shout out to Italian, I guess, but also because it would sound so silly if he didn’t. I don’t think Joe necessarily picked up this habit from Arabic, but I do think it’s a fun coincidence.

Nicky

Of all the characters, Nicky has the least consistent contraction usage for personal pronouns and auxiliaries (e.g. I’ve, you’re, it’s, etc). There are examples throughout the film of him using a contraction and then in the next scene he just doesn’t. Unlike with the other characters, who have a discernable pattern (Andy always uses contractions, Nile uses contractions for dramatic emphasis, Booker becomes more inconsistent with contractions when upset, Joe doesn’t use contractions in certain tenses), Nicky is totally random in his contraction usage.

My personal favourite example of this is: “She’s more alone than she has ever been in her entire life.”

Nicky uses contractions with demonstrative, interrogative, relative and indefinite pronouns, however this usage is just as inconsistent as with personal pronouns. He also uses contractions with "there.” He uses contractions with negative modal verbs.

Outside of contractions, Nicky doesn't seem to use colloquialisms in the movie.

Nicky doesn’t use the colloquial going-to future construction and relies on simple future construction

“You will not be able to give him what he wants”, “If it’s now Andromache’s, nothing you do will stop it.

Nicky doesn’t use the colloquial phrasal verb “have got” and instead uses “have”

“I have something for you”

Nicky only has a few discourse markers in the movie. Discourse markers are words that are used to connect, organise and manage sentences while speaking. Nicky uses discourse markers to start sentences, as interjections and as responses. The discourse markers that he uses are:

Sentence openers: so

Interjections: hey, wait, what

Responses: yeah

Nicky doesn’t use any fillers. Instead, he pauses and repeats himself as needed.

"I believe it's because we... we are meant to find each other"

In my other post, I mentioned that Nicky speaks in full sentences, and while that is mostly true, it’s a bit of an oversimplification. While that kind of a statement is fine for an overview post, I felt it would be disingenuous to leave it at that. Nicky speaks in sentence fragments just like everyone else. In fact, he speaks in sentence fragments more than Joe does. He uses ellipsis, but the way he does it is functionally different from the specific methods of null subject, null auxiliary and zero copula that I’ve talked about with the other characters. While the others are quite formulaic about their usage of ellipses, Nicky’s is far more nebulous because it’s very much dependent on context. 

Nicky uses answer ellipses, like the others.

[Bedhead?] “Nicely tousled.”

The next way that Nicky uses ellipses might better be described as anaphora. That means when he’s eliding words, the omitted words in the sentence can be found through the context of the sentence preceding it. 

The sentence “The only reason we haven’t... is that it’s not our time yet” is missing a past participle. The missing verb is found in the previous sentence: “Everything has to die, Mr. Merrick.”

In fact, almost all of Nicky’s use of sentence fragments and ellipses can most easily be characterized this way. If the sentence that Nicky says is incomplete in some way by itself, that’s usually because he’s referring to something either he, or someone else, has said. In some cases, it’s as if he’s continuing or adding additional information to the sentence preceding it.

“We killed each other.” “Many times.”

“It was a woman. A Black woman.”

Another way of characterizing some of his use of ellipses is to imagine he’s using answer ellipsis to a question nobody asked him. 

[What did you see?] “Dirt floor, clay walls.”

In one particular instance, Nicky says the noun phrase “A fine justification.” It’s already an example of anaphora, as it is referring back to Kozak’s “I believe this can change the world.” Nicky’s sentence bears some similarity to Joe’s “Faster than the elevator” as it’s also an example of a sentence which is missing both verb and subject, however when Joe uses this kind of construction, he only does so before an adjective phrase. One could extrapolate from this that Nicky uses null subject and zero copula construction with adjective phrases and Joe similarly uses it for noun phrases, but that’s just speculation.

The final way that we see Nicky use ellipsis is honestly the most baffling and I’m still not entirely sure how to best explain it. The sentence is “Spend eternity in a cage.” It is clearly not the imperative mood, it wouldn't make sense for Nicky to be telling Nile to spend eternity in a cage. Unlike the other examples of Nicky’s use of ellipsis, the preceding sentence (“That’s the reason we dread capture”) provides context but not specific form. Breaking it down from an English language perspective, the only thing that makes sense to me is that “spend” is actually the infinitive phrase “to spend” where the infinitive "to" has been elided and there is an implied “[We are afraid][to] spend eternity in a cage.” I want to be clear here: I understand this sentence. I know what Nicky is saying, I simply have no idea why I know what he's saying. I don't understand why this sentence works. For further theories, look at the section on sociolinguistics at the bottom.

Sometimes Nicky adds unnecessary pronouns to a sentence.

“But then, Andy and Quynh, they were accused of witchcraft themselves and they were trapped and caught.”

Nicky does use the subordinating conjunction “that” but there are also times when he doesn’t. The common Nicky pattern of *shrug*

“The only reason we haven’t... is that it’s not our time yet”

“As much as I like watching you sleep, I’m glad you’re awake.”

When Nicky asks questions, he doesn’t use any kind of null auxiliary construction or zero copula for subject-auxiliary inversion questions. Nicky is also the only other character (after Andy) polite enough to ask indirect questions, and he uses them when talking to people who kidnapped him, which is kind of a power move. Nicky doesn’t seem to use intonation much when asking questions either.

Subject auxiliary inversion (yes/no questions): “Are we too late?” “Are you sure?”

Indirect: “I don’t suppose it would be possible to get these chains off of us?”

Intonation: “Nile?”

Phrases, expressions and idioms used by Nicky: as much, cast off, do you know, get some rest, getting away, I suppose/don’t suppose, judge of character, love of my life, 

Sentence composition**: 47% of Nicky’s sentences are simple sentences, 24% are sentence fragments, 3% are compound sentences, 15% are complex sentences, 2% are compound complex and 9% are not in English.

Adjectives and adjective phrases appear in 23% of Nicky’s sentences. Adverbs appear in 6% of Nicky’s sentences. Nicky doesn’t use adverb phrases.

Languages: English, Italian, Nuer

Before I start this, I want to say that despite having a strong accent, I think Nicky is quite proficient in English. He knows the subtle differences between words like “unethical” and “immoral,” he’s aware of and capable of using expressions with irregular syntax and he uses sophisticated linguistic phenomena in English. He uses so many complex sentences it makes my head spin. Leaving all that aside, I think that Nicky probably translates from Italian into English while speaking. Like Nile, Nicky is very deliberate about his language but in a different way. While Nile uses style-shifting to accomplish a number of different things, Nicky is primarily concerned with clarity. I think that Nicky’s tendency towards more formal language is a kind of overcompensation to make sure that he’s being understood. Another thing worth noting is that I think Nicky has actively studied language before, in a class setting or by himself, and has at least some knowledge of linguistics (specifically syntax). At the very least, he is knowledgeable about both Italian and English syntax.

This theory is largely based around the idea of overcompensation. Nicky is primarily concerned with the clarity of speech and because of that, he doubles-down on grammar and structure. Italian is a null subject language so you actually see Nicky use null subject construction when he says “Sono qui” and “Dovremmo tonarci” but you don’t see anything similar in the way that he speaks English even though all the other characters frequently rely on truncated null subjects. He demonstrates a clear awareness of the standard language restrictions of English and how that compares to the restrictions of Italian. And not just that: there’s actually an example in the movie where Nicky adds an extra and unnecessary pronoun in English. In another sentence, Nicky could have used a contraction on two separate instances and deliberately only contracted one of them because the contractions were two different tenses. For the most part, this overcompensation makes it so Nicky’s speech—while unconventional—is still grammatically correct. That’s how you get things like Nicky saying, “The love of my life was of the people I’ve been taught to hate,” which isn’t how most native-speakers would intuitively phrase it themselves and as a result, a further layer of nuance is added by the use of the Present Perfect Continuous. Despite the fact that Nicky uses some unconventional phrasing in English, he doesn’t seem particularly bothered by it or concerned about it. He’s more than willing to experiment with his speech and seems very confident in it as well. That’s why I think he has some kind of formal language training with English, because he clearly understands the system that he’s working with but is less aware of some of the common ways of speaking. I seriously doubt that Joe and Nicky spend much time speaking to each other in English.

Another point that I think is worth mentioning: while Joe seems to thrive while orating and speaks relatively simply otherwise, Nicky is the exact opposite. Nicky’s language capabilities are on full display when he’s engaging in discourse, but when he’s telling Nile about Quynh, you see a lot more irregular syntax structure from him. It’s during this discussion that you hear the line “Spend eternity in a cage,” that I’ve struggled with above. The other possible explanation for the use of this unconventional sentence construction was actually given to me by @rhubarbdreams, who said that the sentence actually makes more sense syntactically in Italian, which has an impersonal imperative. In fact, in the Italian dub, that’s allegedly what it does (“per non passare l'eternità in una gabbia.”) Whether Nicky’s apparent tendency towards unconventional speech in this circumstance is a chronic tendency from overthinking while speaking English or a result of the specific topic they were discussing is up for personal interpretation, although I do think it’s interesting that Nicky was the one primarily leading conversation up until Joe took over specifically when they were recounting a story. I think this is especially interesting considering Nicky was apparently a priest, however this might just be a limitation to him in languages he doesn’t use as often. 

Bonus: Quynh

Quynh doesn’t have that many lines, so it’s not really possible to do any kind of meaningful analysis about her speech patterns (she says 16 sentences and 10 of those are screaming “no” or someone’s name). That being said, I do want to look at all the lines she presumably said in English (I’m ignoring Lykon’s death scene because if Lykon really did die in the 6th or 7th century, then they absolutely weren’t speaking Modern English, you know?)

So first we have the lines from the witch trials:

“I’ve never been burned alive before. What do you think it’s gonna be like?”

“Just you and me.”

Okay so obviously there’s some ambiguity over exactly when this happened, since Joe said 500 years in a box and TOGTH lists it happening around 1750. In the comics, Noriko fell overboard around 1590. I simply think the 1750 date is incorrect based on when people were being burned at the stake for witchcraft and heresy. I could talk more about that and my own headcanons about when it happened, but this is a post about linguistics, so what’s important to take from all this is that it probably took place at the earliest sometime in the late 15th century and, at the latest, the very beginning of the 17th century.

Taking all that into consideration, I can say almost certainly that all of Quynh’s lines are some kind of misremembered modern translation of what she actually said. She uses two contractions (I’ve and it’s) that were maybe in use, but likely uncommon. “It’s” was used, although you would be far more likely to see its counterpart “tis”, and contractions with “have” and “had” were only becoming common towards the end of the 16th century. There’s also the problem of the pronoun “you” and how singular “you” would not have been used in this informal context. And since “you” should be the singular “thou”, the archaic singular second-person conjugation of “do” would instead be correct. And finally: going-to future construction may have been used at the time (I can’t speak to the commonality of it), but I honestly can’t say with any certainty whether the colloquial “gonna” was in use. The first recorded use seems to be the 19th century. I’m sure there are other things that are anachronistic about the speech but I don’t know enough about Early Modern English morphology and syntax to speculate any more about it. 

So yeah, Andy and Quynh’s conversation is either Andy’s misremembering of it in Modern English, it was never in English in the first place like the other scene, or just Hollywood movie magic for the viewers (I would love to see someone attempt to translate it back into Early Modern English though, I’m just saying).

“It’s nice to finally meet you.”

The one line that I feel has legitimate value in the analysis of Quynh’s speech patterns in English is the final one that she says to Booker. She’s using ME, obviously, with its contractions and singular “you.” She’s also using a modified idiom, “Nice to meet you”, which is interesting because that absolutely wouldn’t have been used when she went under water considering the word “nice” was derogatory at the time. All of this implies to me that Quynh has definitely spent time on land before she finds Booker. Also she split the infinitive ("to meet"). I don't know what that says about her speech, but I sure am looking at it.

Fun Quynh fact: of the 6 times that Andy’s full name is used in the movie, half of them are said by Quynh

**A note on sentence composition: I intentionally didn't go into detail about sentence composition outside of brief mentions. If any of you are curious about it, you can ask. I'm more than willing to discuss sentence clause structure, but I didn't want this to become even longer and more convoluted than it already is. Part of why I’m reluctant to give it any weight here is because of how lenient I was with what was considered a sentence fragment vs. a simple sentence, as the characters are speaking colloquial English. A movie isn’t formal writing and to evaluate dialogue by that same metric is silly. Also, I considered interjections sentence fragments to start and then realized halfway through that that was a bad idea and they should have had their own separate section, but at that point I was in too deep, and didn’t want to go back and do it all again. In the same way, there are sentences that I considered compound or complex sentences, but that “technically” aren’t because a lot of characters drop pronominal subjects and like. Officially you can’t have null subject clauses in English, because that’s not how the language works on paper (imperative mood aside). Or they elided part of the sentence so that technically it's not a clause. But people don’t actually care about stuff like that when they talk. Also I may have messed up a few times, because complex sentences are hard and sometimes I get phrases and clauses confused. It can be difficult to tell when there’s a lot happening, you know? (this is about Nicky. Sir, why do you talk like that) 

If you’re a fanfic writer, I’m going to advise that you take the part about sentence composition with a grain of salt or ignore it entirely, unless you’re already familiar with sentence clause structure in English. It will not be helpful to you for writing character dialogue until you’ve actually put in the work to understand it and practice. As mentioned, I still mess it up sometimes if a sentence has too many phrases. Basically, if you think too hard about it, I guarantee it’ll stress you out.

[harrywritingsbyme]

Do you think you could write a piece about Harry and y/n having sex but she’s like really short and Harry is like throwing her around and just manhandling her and fucking destroying her guts but also make kinda fluffy pls😔👉👈

Welcome Home

Anonymous Said: Hi I’ve discovered this blog recently and can I please just take a moment to say Wow... you’re writing is amazing and your ideas and concepts are brilliant. I’m not sure if your taking requests or concepts but here’s an idea. SNL pilot Harry like with the grey hair and all coming home to his wife who misses him dearly after awhile followed by you know what. And if you could include size kink (I really liked that concept)

A/N: I’m so sorry it’s so late guys! Since I’ve been writing for a year now, I figured that I’d give an ‘Au’ a try. When I got this request, I was completely floored. Like holy shit, sexy ass older pilot!Harry, and small!Y/n. All of this is perfection and I love this so much! Enjoy🙃

4.7k words

Harry loved his job. He considered himself to be pretty lucky to have the ability to travel the world and see places he’d only dreamt of growing up. Even though he wasn’t in those places for an extended amount of time, simply being there was more than enough for Harry and it made him want to go back and explore. If he was lucky, he’d have multiple flights to the same place or longer layover in these But what Harry loved most about his job was the fact that he got to do it all with the love of his life. 

When you two first met, Harry’d been a pilot for some years and you were just hired for your job as a flight attendant. You knew that it wasn’t the most glamorous profession int the world, but you wanted to dip your toes into the pool of world travel, and this was the route you were taking to start. Before your first flight you’d asked around about the pilots for your flight and you were met with the same response each time. Everyone said that Harry was one of the nicest people in the world and was pretty good looking too, but his copilot was the person you were advised to try your best to avoid. Luckily, you only had to interact with Harry. Both you and Harry hated to say it and be all cliché, but from the moment you two laid eyes on and interacted with each other you both were hooked. Even though the both of you could’ve really used the entirety of your breaks to get some sleep, you and Harry couldn’t stop talking to each other. From that point on, the two of you became inseparable. During layovers that were more than just a couple hours and Harry had some spare time outside of his duties as pilot, the two of you would spend time together. You two were so caught up in each other and being together that you’d swap flights and breaks with the other flight attendants so that you and Harry could be together. And Harry did the same. He’d always put in a word with the people who made the schedules to ensure that he was flying the flights you were on or he’d try to get you on his flights. 

After constantly being on flights together and even running into each other during your times off, you and Harry were pretty convinced that you two should give a relationship a try. Even though there was a significant risk involved with starting a relationship with someone who was pretty much your boss and/or employee, you and Harry were willing to take that risk. And you two never looked back. In fact, disclosing you guys’ relationship made things way easier for you and Harry; you two were almost always on the same flights together. Now, you two are happily married and traveling the world together about 99% of the time. You both absolutely hated when the 1% times came around. You two became so used to being on the same flights that when you weren’t, you and Harry were a bit sad and even a little homesick believe it or not. This time unfortunately was Harry’s turn to fly without you. There wasn’t a moment on his trip that Harry didn’t miss you. He was focused on his job but he was still thinking about you. He was constantly wondering about what you were doing at home. When he took his break he just laid there and the cuddles and kisses he’d get if you were there with him. He also missed listening to your passenger horror stories and pushing you to just keep going. And on top of all that, Harry missed all the times you two would try to quietly go at it in the bathroom or crew resting area depending on whether or not you two were the only ones on break. Even though he was able to talk to you during his layover, he was counting the days and eventually hours until he came back home to you. As soon as he landed on the tarmac at the airport, Harry was on a mission to get home. After following all the necessary after flight procedure and filling out all of the necessary paperwork, Harry threw his bag into his car and sped home to you.

Surprisingly, Harry was able to get home and not get a ticket. He quickly pulls into the driveway and carries himself and his bag into the house. When he walks through the front door, Harry could immediately feel your presence. He could feel your warmth radiating through the entire house. All he had to do now as find you. Before checking upstairs, he makes his way around the main level of the house to look for you. As he exits the kitchen and makes his way down the hall, Harry could hear your soft hums getting louder and louder. When he reaches the laundry room, he sees you standing at the folding in the corner. Simply seeing you bought a big smile to his face. He then wastes no time coming over to you and wrapping his arms around your smaller body. 

“Honey I’m home.” Harry happily coos in your ear before pressing a soft kiss below it. When he does this, you turn around in his arms to get a better look at him. 

“Welcome home.” You whisper back to him, lifting yourself up onto your tips of your toes to bring your lips to his. As soon as your lips connect, the both of you release sighs of content. You two were back together. It doesn’t take long for Harry’s arms to tighten around your body and hoist you up onto the table behind you. The kiss lasts a little longer before you pull away from his lips. 

“How was your long haul without me?” You hum, sliding your hands up the lapels of his jacket.

“It was hell.” Harry says pointedly. 

“It couldn’t have been that bad.”

“Was thinking about you the whole time.” Harry frowns a little at you to emphasize his point. 

“I missed you too baby.” You coo softly to him. You then reach up and pull the captains hat off of his head, sitting it down next to you before pushing your hands through his greying curls. When you two first met, he had some grey hairs here and there. But now they had taken over just about all of his head; and you were very into it. “Any annoying kids or weird old ladies?” You ask him. 

 “For the kids, I wouldn’t know. I like to stay in the front of the plane or the crew area.” Harry begins truthfully. “But as for the old ladies, they always want to break off a piece of this.” He continues smugly.

“Why would they want you? Do they wanna swap arthritis creams or something?” You joke with a laugh, watching his face fall in the process. 

“I will have you know that I’m considered a silver fox. And you know it.” Harry defends, slightly tilting his head up away from you. When he says this all you could do was pucker your lips and bite the inside of them because what he said was in fact true. You just couldn’t let him know that. “Now what’d you get into while I was gone?” Harry asks curiously with a smirk from his previous victory. 

“Did some stuff around the house and I did a little missing you retail therapy.” You reply happily. 

“So I take it that the credit card bill this month is gonna be a little higher than normal?” Harry asks suspiciously. 

“Just a little.” You whisper trying to undermine your shopping spree. 

“A little?” Harry asks you again, already knowing that you’re undermining how much you actually spent. 

“Mhm.” You mumble, nodding your head sweetly in the process. 

“You’re too cute and pretty for your own good.” Harry chuckles and shakes his head down at you. 

“You love it though.” You hum happily up at him, wrapping your arms around his neck. 

“I do.” Harry sighs contently. This is what he missed. He missed being in your arms and just loving on you. He loved seeing your smile and feeing your small arms wrap around him. “I actually bought you a couple things.” Harry whispers, tightening his grip around your back. 

“Is it more skimpy lingerie?” You question him, making sure to spread a wide smirk across your face. Instead of readily replying to you, Harry simply unwraps one of his arms from around your back and he brings it up to the front of your dress. Since the front of your dress was loosely wrapped around your body to keep it closed, Harry as able to simply pluck back the top a little to get a good look at your body beneath the fabric. 

“Well I guess this is my cue to stop buying the lingerie, since you’re not even wearing it.” Harry points out, looking down into your dress to find your bare, supple breasts resting on your chest. It took a lot of self control for Harry in that moment to not stick his hand down your dress to take your plushy flesh into his hand.

“Well I thought it was for our sexy times or when I send you pictures while you’re on a trip and on your break or stuck in a hotel room without me.” You explain to him. You even throw in a little pout; you wanted to keep your fancy and very pretty lingerie flow going. “But I am wearing one of the pairs of  panties you picked up in Italy if you wanna see how some of your purchases look on me.” You whisper lowly to him. You then use your arms that are hooked around his neck to pull his head down closer to yours. Harry was already a bit hard from finally being home with you. Now he was getting even harder from your words. 

“Is it bad that I’ve only been home for 20 minuets and I’m already thinking about completely ravishing you?” Harry mumbles against your pillow soft lips. “Just so pretty baby.” Harry grumbles frustratedly before bringing his mouth the rest of the way to yours while pulling you closer to the edge of the table. He couldn’t believe that he, a man who turned 40 a couple months prior, was getting all riled up and turned on the same way he did 20 plus years ago. That was just the age defying effect you had on him. 

“No, not at all.” You begin as you pull away from the short lived yet beyond passionate kiss, slowly bringing your left hand up the back of his neck to his hair. “In fact, every time I see you in your head to toe pilots get up, I’m always fighting the strong urge to fall to my knees and take your cock down my throat.” You bluntly continue, your voice filled with a very nonchalant and teasing tone. 

When this statement left your mouth, Harry was a little bit taken aback. But at the same time he wasn’t. After slowly building up your friendship that in no time blossomed into a more romantic relationship together, Harry was able to slowly show you the ropes so to speak and teach you just about everything you knew when it came to the bedroom and a happy and healthy relationship. When you two progressed to the more intimate stage of your budding relationship, you were pretty inexperienced. You didn’t know your way around the bedroom at all. You we’re still a virgin and you didn’t even know the ins and outs of making out with someone. All you knew was that this smart, extremely kind, absolutely gorgeous, and just overall stunning human being, older man who just so happened to be the pilot on your flight had taken a strong interest in you. And luckily for you, your lack of experience was the least of his concerns. It was like you hit the jackpot with him. Fast forward to now when you two are a married couple, you’ve taken all of the tips and tricks he’s taught over time and you’re running with it. Harry wasn’t the only who had the ability to do things to your body that would make your toes to curl, your entire body to go numb, and cause your mind to deem it all indescribable. You also had the ability to turn Harry into a pleasured, borderline incoherent, and moaning mess; something that most women in his past who were his age or slightly older weren’t even able to do. So it wasn’t a complete surprise that those words came from your mouth.

“Who knew that my pretty little wife had such a filthy mouth.” Harry gasps with a condescending tone.

“Well I’m not a prudish old man like you.” You simply reply. This was the button in Harry that you loved to push. 

“I don’t know where you’re getting that from but I’m far from prudish and I’m definitely not an old man.” Harry says matter of factly. “If I remember it correctly, I made you wear vibrating panties for the entirety of an 18 hour flight.” Harry recalls, making his point against being called prudish. 

“Everyone uses those. Especially older men.” You smugly whisper back, pushing even harder on this button of his. 

Harry knew exactly what you were doing. He knew that you were pushing his button so that he’d unleash everything he had built up over the course of his trip into you. It didn’t take much for him to realize that you wanted him to really make up for not being with you for almost a week. The both of you were itching to feel and be around each other again. After you and Harry made it past the learning and teaching phase of you guys’ sex life, the two of you acquired a constant hunger for one another. When you and Harry had some time off, the sex would be nonstop. Whether it was cockwarming or full on sex where you’re riding his cock or he was slamming himself deep into your pussy, you and Harry were always looking for ways to be around each other like this. And it was exactly the same when you two were on the job. Even though you two didn’t have the freedom to go at it whenever you wanted, you and Harry still found ways to be with each other. For some reason, seeing each other dressed in your uniforms was a bit of a turn on. It didn’t help that the both of you were borderline thrill seekers and loved the rush that came along with trying to be quiet as you both were experiencing some of the best pleasure you’d ever felt.

“Well do all older men pound and shove their cocks into their girlfriends, and now wives tight little cunts over and over again until she’s begging and crying for him to slow down and let them cum? Because if not, I’ve got countless stories about me doing that to you in the cramped bathroom on a flight, in restaurant bathrooms, dressing rooms, upstairs, on the couch, the kitchen counter, right here on this table, and many other places.” Even though you acted confident and enjoyed battling Harry for dominance, you were able to easily fall into a more submissive role. The way he’s calmly able to say the filthiest things made your body quake and your panties become even more soaked than they already were. You were never going to be able to forget about all of those times. How and why would you ever forget the times where he’s hoisted you up against a door or a wall, or pushed you down against the counter, tightly wrapped a hand around your mouth to keep you quiet, and deliciously slammed his cock up into you? If you focused in on those memories, you could remember and almost feel him inside you.

That’s what you wanted right now. You wanted him to pound into you so hard that you’d a sore, moaning mess and you wanted to make up for the time you two weren’t together. This was the first time in a good while that you weren’t scheduled for a flight with Harry and you really missed him. And his cock. So if you had to push one of his buttons to really get what you both wanted, you were going to do it. 

“Well I think you guys can do that,” You begin, pausing to run your hands down from his neck and across the expanse of his broad shoulders. “I just think that you may need a little help if you know what I mean.” You finish. When you say this, Harry knows exactly what you were implying and he wasn’t having any of it. 

“You and this pretty little body of yours is gonna get it.” Harry growls before yanking you up from the table and pulling you into his body. He quietly marches you both up the stairs and to your shared bedroom. When he reaches the foot of the bed, he releases his once tight grip on your body and drops you down onto the bed. He continues to go about everything silently, shoving his jacket off of his shoulders and working on his tie and shirt.

“You look really hot in that uniform just so you know.” You admire from the bed below him. You watch him chuckle at your statement as he shrugs his shirt and undone tie off his body. You were really turned on right now. Like the sight of his bare, toned and tattooed chest and arms was a sight you could stare at forever. Add onto that the fact that he was mad and taking control over you and you were setup to be a complete mess. And your panties could definitely attest to that. You were completely drenched and dying to feel him against and inside you. 

“You don’t have to butter me up baby.” Harry begins as he undoes his shoes. “M’still gonna take care of you and that smart mouth of yours.” Harry guarantees, shoving his shoes and socks off his feet and standing back up to work on his pants. “Gonna make sure you know what I can do to you.” Harry finishes, finally undoing his belt and shoving his pants along with his boxers down his legs. When you see his thick and very hard cock, you couldn’t stop a moan or two from escaping your mouth. “I take it someone needs my cock.” Harry chuckles at your desperation for his cock. He planned on showing you just how much you needed him. He then comes closer to the edge of the bed and in one swift motion, Harry pulls you up from your lying position and flips you onto your front. He masterfully undoes the tie on the back of your dress and he flips you back onto your back. He tugs at the fabric, opening your dress and exposing your partially naked body to him. He takes a moment to admire your body and all he could do is bite his lip. He couldn’t believe that he managed to be away from this for nearly an entire week. 

Harry quickly snaps out of his trance when he feels his cock twitch slightly and he leans down to scoop you up into his arms. When he does this, Harry keeps you low in his grip so that you’d be right against his cock. He keeps one arm securely around your body and pulls your arms from the dress. Once it’s completely off of you, he drops it into the pile of his clothes and drops you back onto the bed. Before crawling up and on top of you, Harry uses your claves to push you a little higher up onto the bed and to flip you back onto your stomach. When he does this, you really know you’re in for it. Whenever you were in this position Harry really made sure to slam into you and make you scream. When he crawls up and is on top of you from behind, he wastes no time in ripping the barely there panties off your body. For the first time in what felt like forever, Harry didn’t snap the delicate undergarment in half. Once they’re out of the way, Harry has complete access to your body.

“Gonna be a good girl and take daddy’s cock?” Harry asks, squeezing the flesh of your ass before raising it up just to crash it back down.

“Mhm.” You whimper, really feeling the sting from the sudden slap.

“Use your words.” Harry demands, raising his hand back up to deliver another slap to your backside. 

“Yes daddy.” You cry out to him, this time feeling not only the sting of his slaps but also feeling of your juices dripping onto the sheets.

“Good girl.” Harry hums at your response. He then straddles your thighs, wanting to keep you in place when he pushes into you. He lifts himself up so that he’s hovering over you, and he grips onto his cock to give himself a good squeeze, resulting in him letting out a loud grumble behind you (that went straight to your clit). He tightly grips onto the flesh of one of your cheeks and he pulls your ass apart to get a better view of you. When he sees your puckered hole, Harry gets a little idea. In the process of lining himself up with your entrance, Harry uses his cock to put a little pressure on your tighter hole. When he does this, words begin to pour out of your mouth. 

“M’too tight daddy.” You rush out to him, trying to stop his actions. Harry knew that you were too tight for him at the moment, but he just liked to work you up a little and hear you beg.

“Don’t worry baby. When were done, daddy’s gonna get you nice and ready for his cock.” He promises, lowering his cock from your second hole down to the first. When you feel his thick head nudging at your entrance, your moans got louder. You needed him to be inside you already. 

“Want your big cock daddy.” You beg. You try to move back against him but he’s practically sitting on your thighs, which is pinning you to the bed. 

“Whats the magic word?” Harry teases.

“Please daddy?” And with that, Harry is finally sinking his cock into you. When you feel his cock stretching you to fit all of him, your mind goes blank. All you could come up with was strings of loud moans and feeling good. You felt full agains which was all you really wanted. As he continues to sheath his cock with your walls, Harry’s hand leaves his shaft and goes right to your other cheek. He pulls your ass completely apart and watches as his cock disappears into you.

“That’s it, take this cock sweetheart.” Harry pants in amazement. He was still in awe at how a small woman like you was able to take every last inch of his manhood. Once he’s fully inside, Harry’s eyes trail up your body to find you resting your cheek against the sheets with your mouth wide open. Thats what he wanted to see. Keeping his hands on your ass, Harry lifts himself up so that he’s hovering over you and goes straight into slamming in and out of your tight and very wet pussy. As he does this, your entire body quakes at the amazing sensation of him fucking you. Feeling him pound into your stomach as he called you his sweet girl and his pretty little wife was beyond extraordinary. You could feel the familiar tight and warm knot beginning to form in the pit of your stomach already.

As Harry fucks into you, he’s beyond turned on. The way you’re pinned below him as he shoves his cock deep into you along with you pitifully whimpering, moaning, and crying at how good he felt was really doing things to Harry. He never wanted to be away from you ever again. He wanted to feel you every single day.

After fucking into you from behind for a good while and feeling the tight burning sensation forming in the pit of his stomach as well, Harry figures that he’s going to cum soon and he wants to watch your face twist as he does. He then proceeds to stop thrusting all together and pull out of you, which causes you to grumble, resulting in you receiving a hard “shut up” slap to your ass. He then gets lifts himself off of you and flips tugs you onto your back. He knocks your legs apart and gets in between them before slamming his cock back into you.

“Like this baby. Like it when daddy takes control of this tight little cunt of yours?” He pants, continuing to slam his his cock into you. You were too caught up in how good he was making you feel that you couldn’t even form a worded response. All you could do was thrash your head against the bed in agreement. When he sees this, a very wide smirk rises to his face. This is exactly what he missed and wanted to see. You taking all of his cock while you’re quivering and barely holding on. As he continues, Harry can feel the warmth from the pit of his stomach spreading to his entire body, signifying to him that his release was getting extremely close. Judging by the way your once tight grip on the sheets has gone loose, your pitiful whimpers, and the way you’re tightening up around him you’re feeling the exact same way. To make you cum around his cock, with him following right behind you Harry only has to do two things. First, he brings his palm to your lower stomach and presses it into you; putting pressure on the warm knot that was about to explode and allowing him to feel his cock moving inside you. He then comes down, bringing his mouth to your ear to whisper one thing into your ear. “Not too bad for an old man right?” Harry hums patronizingly into your ear. He wanted you to eat your words. And you were. His words, the pressure from his hand, and his cock causes you to burst at the seams around him. You let out a mixture of gasps and whimpers as you completely let go around Harry’s cock. When he feels your walls contracting around him, Harry lets go as well. He releases every last drop of the sexual frustration he’d been carrying around all week; and it felt so good. He loved painting your walls with his cum.

Once the both of you are done and it’s safe to pull out, Harry’s slowly pulls his sopping wet cock from your cunt and collapses onto the bed next to you. 

“Harry, I can’t feel my legs.” You whimper after a couple minuets of silence. 

“M’surprised you’re not used to it by now.” Harry hums smugly. Once he says this, a temporary lull fell over you two. You and Harry were very anxious to go at it again, but you two were holding off to see who would initiate round two. 

“Did you take something before you came in the house?” You whisper over to him, deciding that you needed to be the one to initiate round two.

“Do I need to come over there and shove my cock down that pretty throat of yours for you to get the point?” Harry chuckles at your persistence. 

“Only if you want to.” You whisper sweetly. 

“Oh I want to, and don’t you doubt that.” Harry says matter of factly. 

“Well can we cuddle first? Haven’t cuddled since the night before you left.”

“Anything you want.” Harry coos before moving closer to your limp body. 

Masterlist

[sparklingchan]

Ruby Eyes|| Seo Changbin (Stray Kids)

Pairing : Reader(fem.) X Changbin

Word count : 7.3k+ 

Warnings : Mention of an accident, cuss words, divorce, a single kiss.

Genre : Romance, Soulmate AU, fluff, angst, best friends to lovers.

Description: Seo Changbin has done everything in his capacity to remove and replace you, yet fate seems to have different plans for the both of you.

A/N : Hello everyone ahhh I know it’s been so long y’all. So many things have been going on including exams and internships and I just didn’t have the patience to write :(( This one shot was written as a part of a collab event by wonderful, dear Ro! 

I hope y’all like it!

"So, how's it being back, y/n?"

Your dad looks older now than he did the last time you saw him - probably two years ago, when you were leaving the country.

You missed him, really. You missed his warmth and his wisdom and how he was a sharp contrast to your mother, more calm and composed. Sometimes you wonder how your mother had even managed to get your custody after their divorce.

"Okay, I guess." You lie.

You didn't want your father to know how your feelings are all over the place, ranging from sadness to anger and longingness.

It's a weird thing to be experiencing such a cocktail of emotions when you'd convinced yourself these feelings had disappeared the day you left the old neighborhood, seven years ago. You had not felt any attachment towards the new neighborhood that you and your mother then went on to live for the next two years before you moved abroad for your studies. Yet you feel nostalgic now, as your father drives you through your old old neighborhood.

"How's mom?" He asks, taking a left to a road all too familiar to you, "Is she still going to therapy?"

You nod, "She's getting better, I think. The new country seems to have changed her. The therapy is helping too. She has many friends there now. "

At first when you were offered a job at one of the biggest publishing companies in the world, you were ecstatic. But everything soon died down when you found out you were posted at a branch in the country you'd left behind. It was your mother who'd convinced you to take it.

"I know you don't like being back, y/n." Your dad smiles sadly when he pulls over infront of your old house.The house that contains years of secrets, tears, lies and whispered confessions in front of the mirror stands in front of you, as grand and pretty as ever. It looks different but similar enough to make you tear up a tad bit.

"But I'm glad you're here. I really am." He says, "I renovated the house a little when you told me you were moving back. I hope it's okay."

You smile at the old man, wrapping your arms around him, "Thanks, dad. I missed you. I'm glad you're here, too."

He pecks your forehead, "I missed you, too, love."

Moving in doesn't take a lot of time since your dad had already set up everything. You just had to get some of your stuff and you were ready to kick start your stay.

That evening, your father leaves after making you promise to call him if anything happens at all and when the front door closes, you find yourself in the company of your old room.

You lie on your bed, eyes fixed on the ceiling as you hum an old tune to yourself. And without meaning to, you find yourself thinking about him; The man you hadn't seen or talked to for a whole seven years. The man who'd tried his best to stay in touch with you yet gave up when you didn't reciprocate the same.

A horrific realization then dawns on you,

He'd obviously replaced you now.

The familiar clouds of grief loom over you, threatening to engulf you any moment now.

No. Not now, please.

Getting up from your bed immediately, you shake your head as you make your way to the mirror- the mirror that had encountered more honest tears and smiles and words than any human ever had. You stare at your reflection as tears escapes your eyes, the bright red iris of your right eye staring back at you when you rub your tears off.

You shiver.

"Shit, I forgot to wear the contacts."

Quickly grabbing your lenses from your bag, you put them on, concealing the scary blood red color of your right eye. You take two long strides across the room and pulling your favorite black hoodie over your head, you walk out of the door.

By the time you manage to leave the house, it's already 10:30 in the evening. A quiet calmness has fallen over the town, as the shops and restaurants near the market square slowly start closing up. Your feet are as if on autopilot, taking you to that one place you know would still be open; Yang's Café.

And rightly so, the smell of freshly brewed coffee reaches your nostrils when you walk through their main door, past the group of chatty teenagers waiting outside. This place hasn't changed much, you realize, the brown and golden hues of the place and the vintage coffee cups collection in the far corner of the Cafe are still the same. The only difference is that you're no longer here with your best friend right after school, you are here all alone on an evening too quiet for your liking.

"Y/n? Is that you?"

When you turn around to face the owner of the voice, you are stunned.

"Jeongin?"

Jeongin's family has owned this Cafe for three generations now, from his great-grandparents, his grandparents, his parents and soon enough it'll pass down to him. As a kid, you remember often playing with Jeongin at the park and teaming up with him during quiz competition. He was always sweet and always smiley.

But the handsome young man that stands in front of you doesn't resemble the Jeongin you once used to know, not even a little bit.

"What..what happened to you!" You exclaim, taking his face in your hands, "Where are the braces! And the specs and wow, would you look at the blue hair!"

Jeongin can only let out a few giggles as you continue squishing his face and complaining how big he's grown in only over seven years.

The customers give you weird stares but only the heavens above know how genuinely happy you are to see Jeongin, albeit the fact you almost couldn't recognize him there for a second.

"What have you done to my child?" You mutter when you've finally calmed down and Jeongin takes you to your seat.

"I have a mother, y/n, thank you very much," he laughs, taking a seat opposite to yours, loosening the Barista apron around his torso, "And I missed you too."

You attempt to pinch his cheeks but he is quick to dodge.

"So how have you been?" He asks through giggly breaths.

You sigh, "I'm good... I feel weird being back here, honestly but I think I'll get used to it soon. What about you?"

"I've been good. Graduated a few months back, now I'm working here full time." He ushers over a waiter, "What would you like, y/n?"

You don't even think for a second while responding, "An iced Americano, please."

The waiter notes your order and walks away before Jeongin pinches your arm teasingly.

"Ouch. What?"

"Old habits die hard, huh? You always used to drink an iced coffee whenever we hung out here. I am glad to see nothing much has changed," Jeongin laughs, "You and Changbin, too!"

That one name sends your entire mind into a frenzy. Changbin. Seo Changbin. The love of your life. The man who you wouldn't even go to school without, the man who had saved you from a terrible accident, also the man who probably no longer even remembers you.

And you realise, despite everything, your heart yearns for him, still- for you wouldn't be in so much pain at the mention of his name otherwise.

Jeongin seems to have noticed your discomfort because he immediately changes the topic, "Anyway, you have to try our new chocolate cake. It's heavenly, I'm telling you."

Your reason to leave the neighborhood wasn't a secret, really. It was public knowledge that your mother had blamed Changbin for the fatal accident you almost had.

You're grateful for what Jeongin does, and try your best to engage in conversations about the neighborhood and old gossip you'd missed out on. Yet all you want to do is drive out of the damn Cafe and find changbin.

"Y/n?"

Or maybe, Changbin will find you.

Behind Jeongin, you see the blurry image of a man that had once caused you great misery yet you had never felt as happy as when you were with him.

"Hi..hi, Changbin." You stammer as you see the said man walk towards your table.

The seven years have as if done some magic on him, because the Changbin that walks towards you in no way resembles your high school best friend.

With thick buff arms, new ear piercings and silver jewelry gracing his wrists and fingers, you have a hard time actually accepting the fact that Seo Changbin is really there, in front of you.

"Been long, huh?" He grins, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes and somewhere in the depths of your conscience, you realize it might have been your fault. You'd done everything in your capacity to break apart from this friendship, ignoring his calls, changing your number, even going as far as blocking him on all social media.

So, did you really expect him to welcome you back with open arms when you had caused him so much pain?

Jeongin brings an extra chair for Changbin to sit on and soon, the three of you are talking, maybe not like the old, happy days but it's still better than nothing. Changbin looks at you everytime you throw your head back and laugh, your eyes squeezing shut as his heart clenches in his chest.

You are really back home.

"So what have you been doing? I told you guys about me." Jeongin says, stealing a bite off of Changbin's cheesecake.

"Oh..you know," Changbin giggles, the tip of his ears turning a light pink shade.

You raise your eye brows in confusion.

"Been busy with the wedding and all."

Your heart drops. "Wedding? W-whose wedding?" You try to laugh it off but it's very evident from the way you're gripping your glass of iced Americano that it has affected you. A lot more than you actually thought.

"I'm getting married, y/n," Changbin smiles, "I'm so glad you could be around for the wedding."

*

Your grief stricken self has not gotten up from the bed since last night and you're thankful to Jeongin for finally checking up on you or else you would have gone deeper into the spiral hole of despair.

"Are you really going to be like this, y/n?"

You hate being miserable on the very second day of your stay. You hate depending on Jeongin. But you can barely move without bursting out into tears,so it seems as though there's no better idea than have someone take care of you at the moment.

"I'm sorry, Jeongin. " You manage to speak when he places a bag full of snacks and drinks on the dining table, "And thanks."

Jeongin chuckles, "Don't thank me, just yet. Guess who wants to meet up with you?"

Your eyes widen for a split second as you sit up on the couch, "Who?!"

No, he wouldn't, would he?

"It's not the person you think, y/n. Calm down." He laughs, "It's Bang Chan. Your senior, you remember?"

Oh, yes, the infamous Bang Chan. Shy smiles, dimples, curly hair, angelic eyes. Yeah, you remember the school's heartthrob. Very clearly.

"I was talking to him this morning and he said he'd be very glad to catch up with you again." Jeongin settles beside you, "It's not a date, y/n. He's an old friend. It wouldn't hurt, would it? You can't possibly sit here all day long crying about him."

You open your mouth to argue, but only air slips out and you realise you don't have anything to defend your miserable state with. You knew this was coming; when you cut off all ties with Seo Changbin, you knew this was coming.

Jeongin is right; you need to go out and meet new people.

You roll your eyes before pinching Jeongin's cheeks, "Fine. Give him my number."

He responds by pulling your cheeks as well.

*

The first day of work is weirdly gut wrenching.

You hadn't expected yourself to be this nervous but here you are, muttering under your breath as you make way towards the office.

"You'll be okay, y/n," you breathe in, "You've worked hard for this." And breathe out.

A few more minutes of self pep talking and you see all your hard work and expectations go down the drain as you feel a few droplets of rain fall onto your head. You look up and the dark, heavy clouds greet you.

Bloody brilliant.

You see the office goers around you jog quickly to the nearest shelter but you're short on luck today as your gaze falls on your watch and you realize you don't have enough time to wait for the rain to pass.

So you grab your office bag, cover your head with that and make a run for it.

The sole of your high heel shoes dig into your feet and a throbbing pain shoots through your body, as you wince. Note to yourself - never wear heels to office again.

You also secretly pray to the gods that your contact lens don't get washed off. Turning up at your new office on the first day with a blood red iris doesn't feel too fun, really.

"Do you need a lift?"

You had been so busy running to your office that you don't notice when a black car drives toward you and the driver rolls down the window, offering you a smile.

Seo Changbin.

Your heart skips a few beats.

"Y/n, do you need a lift?"

You blink back to reality when he clicks his fingers in front of you, "I-I mean if that's okay with you."

Changbin smiles, pointing to the passenger's seat, "Come on in."

When you're comfortably seated in his car, using his spare towel to wipe off the water from your face and hair, his questions start-

"So.." He steps on the break when the traffic light turns red, "How have you been?"

You look at the digital clock displayed on the cars' LED, and sigh. You're late to work and you're stuck in traffic with the one man you'd rather not be stuck in traffic with. Brilliant.

"Good." Your eyes are focused on the cars outside the window, "You?"

There's a moment of silence before he speaks again, "Fine."

Fine? Just Fine? Shouldn't he be over the clouds, now that the wedding is finally around the corner?

"Okay.."

"Actually, I meant to ask you earlier, y/n." He turns to you, a gentle smile playing at his lips, "I am throwing a party this weekend. I'd love it if you could come by. And I could introduce you to her."

You sink back into your seat, biting your lip, wondering if you want to ever know who her is. Your peace of mind is more important than meeting your ex crush's fiance, right? And if you do end up going to the party, whom would you hang out with? It's not like you know any of his rich friends and cousins and there's no way you'd hang out with Changbin and the said fiance.

You are about to respectfully reject the invitation when a sudden, seemingly good idea pops into your head.

Bang Chan.

You nod, shrugging, "Okay. I'll be there."

You clasp your hands together as he continues driving and you look out the window, unable to suppress the bubbling excitement.

"Great, then." He replies, suspiciously.

*

The evening of the party finally arrives, much to your dismay, you find yourself seated next to Chan. He's just the same as the guy in your memory; a gentleman.

"You look pretty, y/n." He had greeted you as he held the car door open for you, "I'm glad we could meet up."

His words turn your cheeks into a darker shade of red but your heart doesn't beat quite as furiously as you'd expect it to.

Muttering a small thank you, you seat comfortably in the car while Chan drives towards Changbin's family's old Farmhouse on the outskirts of the city. You've been there before - during summer holidays, he would take you there with his family. That place was only filled with happy memories of sunshine, swimming pools, watermelon juice and bonfires.

You swallow the grief that comes along with these memories.

"Are we here already?" Chan pulls over in a familiar driveway not even ten minutes later, jogging up to your door and clicking it open, like the gentleman he is.

"Yeah, we're here." Chan smiles, "Very less traffic tonight."

You guys walk through the huge metallic gate, making your way through the main door of the house.

"Uh..." People are crowded mostly around the front door and in the front yard, so you and Chan have to push and squeeze your way into the Farmhouse. You hate the feeling of sweaty bodies pressing against you (or holding Chan's hand for stability) but desperate situations call for desperate measures.

"I hate it here." You mutter when you later find yourself by the pool side, swirling the drink that you don't even plan on drinking and looking at all the flushed faces having the time of their lives.

Thankfully, Chan happens to be on the same boat as you.

"I'm sorry I dragged you here, Chan. We could have just gone for a movie."

Chan giggles, "Hey, it's alright. I don't mind, I'm glad I could spend some time with you after so many years."

His eyes shine and dimples deepen.

You whisper, "Yeah, me too."

Chan is a handsome man, good at all kinds of sport, good at arts, very smart and intelligent yet there's a part of you that knows you'd never be able to reciprocate his flirtatious words. It's sad, really, but that's just how life is.

"Wow, those two seem to be having the time of their lives." Chan chuckles, pointing at someone behind you.

It's quite dark outside, the only source of light being a few decorative fairylights hung at random places haphazardly.

Hiding behind a huge, tall bush, you see a couple, kissing each other like it were the last day on the planet.

The guy's hands roam all over the woman's body and the woman is so loud that even you could hear her sighs and moans. When she pulls away to catch her breath for a second, Chan asks you, "You know her?"

"Nope. I don't know either of them."

You look away; what kind of creep looks at a happy couple like that? (Not a creep, just a lonely and touch starved person)

"Should we check out the dinner table?" Chan suggests and you agree with a nod, "I hope there's no crowd there."

As expected, there actually isn't a crowd there - there's only Changbin, sitting and nibbling on a pizza slice while scrolling through the phone.

The moment your eyes land on him, your feet as if stop on their own and your heart bangs furiously against your chest.

He's breathtakingly gorgeous.

By the time you debate in your head whether or not you want to sit there and fill your stomach, Chan has already made his way to Changbin.

"Hey, Bin!" He greets him with a smile.

Changbin looks at Chan with an unamused smile, the same one from your high school days, when these two were named the biggest rivals on campus. You wonder if somewhere deep in his heart, Changbin had still not let go of that rivalry.

"Hey, Changbin." You manage to whisper before sitting beside Chan.

He looks almost angry.

"You should have the pizza. It's good." He mutters, turning to pass you a slice of pizza on a plate, "Help yourself, Chan."

Yup, there it is. The Seo Changbin that would kill to be on top. You feel worse about dragging Chan here now when neither of you were having a good time.

"Thanks, mate. " Chan replies.

Your ears ring with the sound of approaching footsteps, and when a pretty girl comes walking in and takes Changbin in her arms, your heart stings. Like a fresh wound.

"Y/n.." Chan whispers to you as you watch the two collide in a loving embrace, Changbin smiling at her and running his fingers through her hair.

Your heart hurts at how happy and content he looks.

You could have had that, a part of you thinks, if you weren't such a coward, it would have been you instead of her.

"Y/n," Chan calls you again.

"What?" Your tone is harsher than you intended, "What happened?"

You think Chan is about to give you the whole it-is-time-to-move-on talk but he doesn't, instead he points at the girl and whispers,

"It's her. The girl we saw earlier."

The rest of the night is blurry to you, all conversations, all gazes, all thoughts just feel ....like an awkward dream.

"We have to tell Changbin."

You're sitting at Yang's Cafe at 1 am the same night, watching Jeongin's brother guide his staff to clean the place up.

"I agree." Chan says, biting the inside of his cheeks.

While you, on the other hand, are completely zoned out, staring at the glass of water placed in front of you and watching the droplets on its surface race each other.

"Y/n, what do you think?" Jeongin asks when you don't take part in their discussions.

You sigh, "I don't know. I really don't. As much as it troubles me that Changbin is being cheated on, I don't want to get involved in their personal relationship. "

"Let's not tell anyone for now, then. But someday in the future, before that goddamn wedding, we have to tell him. He deserves to know." Chan agrees.

You purse your lips and close your eyes.

Chan is right.

Changbin deserves to know the truth.

*

"So, how's it being back in town, y/n?"

"It feels good. Weird, but good." You smile at your old teacher, "How have you been, Miss Oh?"

Your teacher adds sugar to the cup of tea in her hands and then looks at you, smiling - the same old smile, except with more wrinkles now, "I've been good. I'm retiring next year so I'm glad I could see you before that, huh?"

You nod your head, "I'm glad too. The school hasn't changed much, unlike what I had expected."

Other than the addition of some new labs and libraries, and the change in color of the walls, everything was still the same. No place in this old school building feels foreign to you.

"Ugh, these administration people I tell you, y/n, they're cheap idiots. They won't spend a single penny on infrastructure unless it's absolutely necessary." She complains as you giggle in response,

"They've always been like that."

Miss Oh gulps some tea from her cup, "Anyway, y/n, I have a class now. I would have loved to stay and chat, really, but I'm afraid that might get me in to trouble."

"No issues, Miss Oh. Go ahead. I'll just roam around the school a little more though, if that's okay."

After Miss Oh leaves, you step out of her cabin and walk the familiar corridors, reminiscent of the memories you have here. Studying a few minutes before tests, bunking classes, running to class when you're late, hanging out with your friends- these corridors have seen you grow in love, in friendship, in life. There's absolutely nothing that could ever replace these memories.

Mindlessly, you wander around the third floor, walking toward the end of the corridor before stopping in front of an old door, way too familiar to not try and push open.

While a part of you tells you it might not be a good idea to go into that room again, there's also a part of you that thinks it's a bloody brilliant idea.

Pushing the door open, you walk into the old dusty room, sighing in relief when you see a particular set of letters still carved on the wall.

CB and YN were here.

You finally let your tears run free, as you crouch down to touch the letters.

Your heart aches at how much you miss Changbin being an important part of your life and how much you miss being his top priority. And your heart aches for Changbin, who is so in love with his fiancé and has no idea he's being cheated on.

You almost want to leave this town and go back to your mother, away from this terrible mess. Yet you don't find it in yourself to act on those thoughts.

Maybe, it is your fear of abandoning him once again that stops you. Or, maybe it is simply the unconditional love you harbor for him.

* Surprisingly, Yang's Cafe is near empty that afternoon.

"Did something happen, y/n? You look really worried." Changbin has his arms crossed over his chest, looking at you with a tense frown.

"Um..it's kind of complicated." You sigh. For a second, you see the genuine concern and innocence on his face, and you wonder if it is worth telling him the truth at all because it would kill you to see him lose his smile but then, his engagement band shines on his ring finger and your stomach turns unpleasantly.

He has to know. From you. In person.

"Changbin, that day at your party...I saw something. " You whisper, "Something I shouldn't have. I should have turned a blind eye really but I can't. My conscience won't allow it. I'm sorry, Bin."

"Y/n, it's okay, just tell me," he reaches over and wraps his fingers around yours, soft and gentle, "You're scaring me."

"Changbin, your fiance is cheating on you. I-I saw her kissing another man that night. Chan saw it too." You feel sick even having to say this to him, "I think you should confront her."

He sucks in a deep breathe, his face completely void of any emotions as he extracts his hands from yours.

"I know." Is all he says.

His eyes drill into yours, as if accusing you of a crime. He looks angry. Just how he looked the day you brought Chan to his party.

"Why are you still marrying her then?" You question.

He sits up straight, "Y/n, I wish I could explain. But I can't. I'm sorry. And please, stay out of this, okay?"

"Why? Why should I stay out of it?" Your voice threatens to break, "I cannot watch my best friend marry a woman who's not loyal. You deserve better than this, Bin."

A sarcastic chuckle leaves Changbin's lips as he taps his foot against the floor, "Let me correct you, y/n. You were my best friend. Seven years ago. You're not anymore."

Your heart shatters.

A part of you knows you deserve this after ghosting him for seven long years. You were the center of each other's world at one point of time.How could you have been so selfish to ever think that your absence and lack of communication wouldn't hurt him?

"Changbin, I'm sorry for everything I did okay. B-but I never stopped thinking or worrying about you. Even for one second. And I still do."

Changbin pushes his chair back and stands up while you stay frozen in your seat.

"It doesn't seem like that though. "

"What do you even mean!"

"Chan. I mean Chan, y/n." He grabs his phone and purse, "Goodbye, y/n. I hope Chan turns out to be a better friend than I ever did." With that, the love of your life walks out of Yang's Cafe.

And for once, he doesn't even look back.

* "Y/n, don't let go of my hand!"

Changbin is panting heavily, his voice shaking with fear as he desperately tries to hold onto you.

He should have known it would be a bad idea to play badminton near the infamous cliff in your town yet when you had showed him your innocent smile and pleading eyes that day, he just couldn't say no.

Your sweaty hands clutch his, legs dangling over the edge of the cliff. Your free hand grabs the rough surface of the rocky cliff to keep yourself from falling.

You want to cry; but you're too traumatized to even let out more than a few terrified grunts. "Y/n," he yells, "I'm going to try and pull you up one more time, okay?."

You don't even remember how you had ended up in this situation; one second you were happily giggling, playing badminton with Changbin and in the next second, you found yourself hanging by the cliff, praying for your dear life.

With all the energy he has left, he tries to pull you up onto the surface.

"Y/n, you have to free the other hand. Let go of that rock." He pants.

You shake your head vigorously, you know you would not survive if you let go of the rock, you'd fall thousands of feet below into absolute nothingness.

"Y/n, please listen to me." Changbin pleads, now crying, "Please. I'll catch you, I promise. I'll not let you die. Just..please."

Changbin sounds like he's about to give up and in all honesty, you couldn't blame him really. Everytime your eyes fall on what's beneath you, a part of you loses hope.

"Please, come on, y/n," he's still pulling at your free hand, while his right hand awaits desperately to grab the other hand. A mixture or sweat and tears grace his face, making him shine under the bright afternoon sun. Your heart aches at the mere thought of never seeing him again- your friend, your childhood crush, your partner in everything.

Well, here goes nothing then.

You suck in a deep breath and let go the Rock, immediately reaching for Changbin. He is quick to grab both of your arms and in one swift movement, he pulls you up onto the surface.

You fall onto his chest, "Y-you saved me."

Changbin let's out a sob mixed with a relieved giggle, pulling you into his arms.

Your eyes feel heavy, as darkness slowly begins to engulf your vision.

"Oh God, I am so sorry this happened, y/n. It's all my fault." He cries, rubbing your back softly, "I'm so sorry. I thought I was going to lose you, oh God. Fuck!"

You want to tell him that it was never his fault, and that you wouldn't even be alive if not for him but your body betrays you and your body goes limp against his.

*

"I'm not leaving this neighborhood."

Your hands rest angrily on your waist as your mom frantically walks from your closet to where the suitcase is spread open on your bed, shifting all your clothes. She dumps them inside the suitcase, not bothering to fold them even.

"You will do as I say! That Seo Changbin tried to push you off of a cliff and heaven knows what he might do next!" Your mom yells back.

You sit at the edge of your bed, trying to keep yourself calm, "Mom, I told you it was an accident. I fell because I was going after the shuttlecock and didn't notice the cliff. Moreover, why would my best friend want try to kill me!"

Your mom let's out a sarcastic laugh, closing the suitcase roughly. She looks at you with eyes full of contempt and a part of you knows that there's no point in trying to convince her. Her mind is already made. Yet you refuse to go down without a fight.

"You're just sixteen, sweetie. You don't know anything about the cruel world, " your mother sighs, "Rich people are not friends with anyone. Changbin may be nice to you but he only sees you as a pathetic poor girl."

"Mom, we're not even poor!"

"Yes, I know. But those filthy rich businessmen consider everyone below their economic status poor. His family probably doesn't like him being friends with you which is why they asked him to get rid of you."

You think of Mrs. Seo's face in your head, always smiling and always welcoming. You remember Changbin's sister and how she'd promised to let you borrow her dress for this year's winter prom. And you think about Changbin- his face, his smile, his passion for music and his protectiveness towards you. Why would these people ever want to hurt you?

"Mom, you're being ridiculous right now! Do you even hear yourself!" You stand up from the bed, now beyond frustrated.

She walks upto you and grabs your arm tightly, nails digging into your skin as you whimper slightly. "You will listen to me. I am your mother and you will listen to me. " she growls, "Pack the rest of your stuff. We're leaving tomorrow."

When she finally walks out your bedroom, your first instinct is to dress yourself in your black hoodie and track pants, and quietly slip out of the back window of your room.

The cold air nips at your skin, goosebumps slowly appearing on your arms and legs but you're too preoccupied to pay too much heed to it.

You reach Changbin's house and like always, walk up to the backyard and climb upto his room through the emergency staircase.

When Changbin hears knocks on his window, he quickly removes his headphones, "y/n?"

He walks upto the window and let's you in, his heart more at peace now than it's ever been the entire day. The guilt from the accident you had earlier was clawing at his conscience.

His room is mostly dark except for his table lamp. You notice the lyrics notebook lying on the table, open with some scribbles and random phrases on the pages.

"How are you feeling?"

You sit at the edge of his bed, cross legged while he kneels on the floor to get to your level. His hands find yours naturally.

"Fine," you swallow the tears that have been accumulating since you left the house, "Changbin, I- we're leaving tomorrow."

Changbin is taken aback; his heart shattering into billions of pieces at your words.

"Leaving? What do you mean Leaving?" his voice trembles.

You lick your dry lips and tell him everything your mom had told you earlier. When his face twists bitterly, a part of you wishes you'd held your tongue yet a bigger part of you wants Changbin to know the truth now; you didn't want him sending you off with lies in his mind and the fear of him finding out some years later just killed you inside.

"I'm so sorry, Changbin. Mom's just not been okay after the divorce." Your voice breaks when Changbin refuses to look at you, "I know she's speaking bullshit. But there's absolutely nothing I can do to change her mind, I've tried I swear. I'm sorry, Changbin."

When Changbin finally does look at you, even in the dim lit room, you see the tears glistening on his face, mirroring the ones that roll down your cheeks. "Why are you sorry, y/n? I don't blame your mom." He mutters, "It was partly my fault. I should have taken more care, I-"

You cup his cheek, "Shh. Bin, are we really going to spend my last night here crying and blaming ourselves? We might never see each other again."

The words sink deep into his soul, and he nods. He wills his tears back in as he grabs your hand tighter.

"Okay. What do you wanna do?"

You smile a little, "You're not gonna like it though. "

"Stargazing it is then." He giggles a little as the both of you make your way to balcony attached to his room.

It is quiet outside, unlike the noise in your head and you feel the calmness spreading to you when you look up at the stars.

Changbin brings a picnic mat from inside and spreads it out on the floor, along with two pillows and a blanket.

"We'll stay in touch, yeah? If you ever need anything, I'll be right here." He reassures you, lying beside you, hands behind his head.

You smile yet you cannot bring yourself to promise him the same because you know your mother would do everything in her power to push the two of you apart, even to the point of physically hurting Changbin. You would never want that so you'd rather distance yourself and let Changbin forget about you. And maybe, just maybe fate would be a little nicer to you and decide to bring you into his life again. Many years later.

He presses a soft kiss to your head, "You'll always be my best friend, y/n. I don't care how far we are."

It takes everything in your being to not repeat the words.

*

"Changbin, come on we're getting you to the hospital this instant, okay?" Mrs. Seo is furious next morning, running from room to room, looking through the list of doctors she'd saved just in case of emergency.

When she looks at her son, sitting on the sofa with one of his eye irises turning a glowing red, she is reassured that this is an emergency.

"How did this even happen, mom? I swear I didn't try to do anything funny with my eye." He murmurs, scared, "It feels so itchy, gosh!"

Mrs.Seo looks at him with concern just when the doctor picks the call, "Oh, hello Dr.Lee! Thank god you picked up!"

After his mom walks out of his room, Changbin quickly types you a text,

Binnie: Hey. Did you leave already?

Y/nnie: No not yet. We've stopped at the doctor's.

Changbin's eyes widen in alarm.

Binnie: What why?

You look at your face in the decorative mirror at the doctor's waiting room, one of your irises burning into a bright shade of ruby.

Y/nnie: Mom's running a cold.

You close the messenger app before he even replies, deciding to change your number and deleting all your old contacts as soon as you move into your new house. And as much as it hurt you, this one text turned out to be the last time Changbin and you ever talked.

*

It has been raining all day, which means you were stuck in your goddamn house with nothing to do but cry about Changbin and your lost friendship and your broken heart.

After you manage to get some food into your body during dinner time, you crawl back to your room and look into the mirror as you comb your hair and moisturize your skin.

(Self care is important, y'all)

Your red iris stares back at you, taunting your mistakes and calling you a coward.

If only you had still tried to keep in touch with him, if only that stupid accident wouldn't have happened in the first place, if only.

Suddenly, a knock on your balcony door makes you jump in your place.

Shit. Is it a burglar?

You grab the closest thing that could be classified as a weapon - which happens to be an umbrella.

The knocking continues.

"Y/n, it's Changbin." He yells, "Can I please talk to you?"

You freeze in your spot.

Why in the world is he here? Does he have anything worse to say? Is he here to invite you to his wedding? But why would he sneak in through the balcony when he can easily ring the main door bell.

"Y/n, are you in there?"

You quickly walk upto the door and slide it open, revealing Changbin, completely drenched in the rain. His wet hair stuck to his face and "Shit. What the- God, come inside!"

He obeys and tiptoes inside your room, a guilty expression plastered on his face.

You guide him directly to the bathroom and offer him a towel.

"What are you even doing here, Bin?" You lean against the door frame, hands crossed over your chest.

He is drying his hair with the towel when he looks up at you as if to answer your question but he stops. His mouth hangs open as his eyes remain glued to your face.

And that's when you realize why he looks so surprised.

"Shit- fuck." You turn around immediately, "my lenses," you mutter to yourself.

But before you can even walk upto your dressing table, Changbin has caught your wrist and spun you around, pulling you closer to his body.

"Your eye." He let's out a shaky breath.

"Yes, I know. Please don't freak out. It's always been like this after -"

"After the accident." He finishes your sentence, "I know."

Your mouth runs dry as his face draws in closer, "What do you mean you know? What do you know?"

He let's go of your wrist and takes a step back, turning around so that his back faces you.

And when he turns to look at you again, you swear you could have passed out there and then.

"Y-you have it too." You whisper, weak in the knees, "You have a red iris too."

Changbin gives you a small smile, "Yes, y/n."

"But why? What does this mean?" You say, "Is it a symptom of some chronic illness?"

"It's a soul mark."

"What's a soul mark?"

"It's a mark that exists on the bodies of soulmates."

You feel a pang in your chest; like someone was squeezing your heart out of your chest.

"Right," You fall back onto the bed, dazed with the sudden piece of information, "And how do you know all this?"

Changbin kneels down in front of you, hands finding yours. He looks more relaxed than he did since the first day you come back to town.

It almost feels like you had been given back your old friend.

"I've been doing my research, y/n. After you left, this is all I've been doing." He says, "This is also the reason why I had gotten engaged. By that time, I had given up on finding a soulmate. So I just settled for whatever I got. I didn't even feel bad when I found out my fiance was not in love with me. For the world, we might look like a happy couple, but truly, it was just a marriage of convenience for our parents' business."

You bite your lips wondering how to respond to these words. He'd laid bare his heart in front of you, something you never thought he'd do ever again.

"What now?" You say, tired.

He intertwines your fingers, "Also, I'm sorry for yesterday. I shouldn't have said all that."

You nod, "It's alright. I know you didn't mean it. And for the record, I and Chan have nothing going on."

"And for the record, I also broke off my engagement."

Your eyes widen as a gasp leaves your lips, "What? Why?"

"Because when I told my parents that I do not love my fiancé, and that I have only ever loved you, they said my happiness was more important than their business."

When you don't reply to his words, he looks worried, "Hey, you don't have to feel burdened to like me back and all okay? Literally, if you want me to leave you alone, I will. I understand-"

You pull him by the nape and place the softest, gentlest, most sincere kiss on his lips.

"I feel the same way, dumbass." You sigh as you pull him into your arms.

He muzzles his face in the crook of your neck, playing with your hair from behind, "So what now?"

"Let's start with a date." You say, "Let's take it slow."

Changbin wraps his arms tighter around you, kissing your cheek, "As you wish, my love. "

[rarephloxes]

@lucienvanserraweek, free day!

I’m so happy to announce that this is a collab with my dear friend @ratabrasileira!!! Go show the beautiful drawing she did some love!!

rating: G

words: 2.2k

Elain searches the woods for flowers and finds more than she ever expected. Sleeping Beauty Au

❦ ❦ ❦ ❦ ❦ ❦ ❦ ❦ ❦ ❦ ❦ ❦ ❦ ❦ ❦ ❦ ❦ ❦ ❦ ❦

Elain left the cottage barefooted, the soft cushion of the grass comfortable and well known to her feet. The familiar and gratifying feeling of calm earth beneath her, steady and grounding, more than enough reason to forego any sort of shoes.

Roses, Feyre had chanted, the dreamy look in her sister’s eyes persisting ever since her chance encounter with a newcomer guard at the town square, the prettiest ones you can find, please?

Elain had not the courage to tell her younger sister that she had picked fresh flowers just the day before, funny-shaped pink blooms Elain found at the lip of the stream near the border.

So, she had picked her basket - the one Nesta had gifted her on her last birthday, handmade by her older sister herself; a beautiful, intricate thing done with the hard-earned love of the hardest Archeron - and left, a spring to her step and a tune brimming in her throat.

The woods, the townspeople said, were older than the village by unaccounted years, and therefore filled with deep, wondrous and dangerous magic.

Elain, as well as her sisters, was orphaned too soon. A wasting sickness that had scourged their village had taken away both of her parents, one after the other, leaving only a nearly of age Nesta, a doe-eyed Elain, and a tear-stained Feyre.

Many years had passed since, the nebulous, all-consuming pain of the absence of their parents soothed by time. Despite her grieving, it never escaped Elain’s thoughts how lucky she was to have such wonderful people in her life: her kind neighbors; the quaint, energized people of the village, who never missed a chance for celebration; the old grouch at the square who made wooden figures just as her father once had; Feyre’s laugh, her creativity and Nesta’s attentive strength.

The woods, magical and mysterious, were a source of peace in Elain’s little life, too. A balm made of soft sunlight, fresh, perfumed breeze, and the singing quietness of wildlife.

She walked, shawl hanging on her elbows to ward off the slightest of spring chills. Elain sang to her heart’s content, a lively lyric dancing on her tongue and bouncing on the leaves of the tallest of trees, her heart soaring with each note she presented to her loved woodland.

With Feyre’s wishes in mind, Elain followed a path towards a grove, the humidity at her destination perfect for the birth of deep pink roses which best complimented Feyre’s complexion.

She crossed the sturdy old bridge that allowed passage over the river, her cottage’s mill no longer audible from where she stood.

“Hello, Mister,” Elain greeted the white, wild bunny, its twitching mustache smelling the air twice before hurrying on fast jumps towards her, a cupped palm of berries awaiting the animal’s eager mouth, allowing her to scratch its head “You’re rather famished this morning, aren’t you?” she asked. The bunny agreed with what seemed like and affirmative ear twitch before her furry friend scampered away to a nearby bush.

Then, singing about poets and kings, Elain continued her path through the meandering trees, her basket filling with dark, juicy berries - a few of them already staining her lips red - and multicolored flowers.

A bold, red little bird landed on Elain’s extended finger and enchantingly sung with her. Its melodic chirping lacing and harmonizing to the girl’s sweet voice, their impromptu duet accompanied by the rustling leaves and the gurgling stream.

How wonderful Elain felt, surrounded by nature, connecting to the air around her as if it had birthed her itself, offering it her voice. Respectfully reaping the charming flora, she found on her way, breathing their scent, befriending the forest animals, and spinning on the tip of her toes on the soft soil.

As she stopped dancing, her skirts still swishing around her calves from the last of her twirls, Elain noticed a magnificent shrub of the blooms she had braved the woods for, jewel-bright pink petals shining under sunbeams, as if the tress had organized themselves to create a spot of light for such earthly beauty.

Right then, the strangest of things happened.

With her heart jumping to her throat, beating frenetically against her ribs, Elain noticed a beautiful horse. Saddled, with a gleaming chestnut coat, dark eyes downcast, calmly munching on the grass near its hooves.

It wasn’t unheard of, horses in the woods, wild or otherwise, they were not far from the main road, but that was not what made Elain’s skin prickle with alertness.

A well-taken care horse as such must have a rider nearby.

“Samson,” called a male voice “There’s not much left to go.” The horse shuffled his legs, huffing before turning its nose away, back onto the moss.

“There will be carrots,” the voice tried again, with a tone of simulated indifference.

Caught like a fish on a hook, the horse’s great neck snapped up, looking at its rider, as if expecting the vegetable all at once. Stoic as the pair of them seemed, Elain had the impression Samson was kindly spoiled.

Elain, who could hear the rich sound of the stranger’s voice, had not yet distinguished his form in the shade beyond the grove she entered, but following the stallion’s gaze she finally sighted him.

Oh, but what a beautiful man he was.

Stranger was tall and broad-shouldered, with an old, silvery scar marking the side of his face, slitting his brow and narrowly missing his eye - which seemed to be a disconcerting shade of brown. He had the most vibrant shade of red hair she has ever seen, dark like autumn leaves and silky like water.

He was the most beautiful human she has ever seen.

Stranger, however, had yet to notice her.

And as handsome as he was, Elain was clever enough to realize that a quick, silent escape was the safest option.

Slowly, she walked one step back.

The crunch of the branch beneath her foot echoed loudly, too loudly to be confounded by an innocuous wildlife sound.

Elain couldn't raise her eyes to look at him, attention glued to the sword holstered at his hip.

“Be not afraid, lady. I’ll take my leave in a moment,” Stranger said in a placating tone, palms deliberately upraised for her benefit.

The woods turned to music at the exact moment their eyes met.

A world-altering spark of recognition lighted in her mind.

A stranger in the woods, merry music, dancing fireflies, and singing birds, trees being led by the wind as if women in a ballroom, her vision spinning, and her body lighting up like fireworks. A hand on her waist, a choreography her body must have been made for performing, such ease it was to allow it to guide her away.

Dreams, she remembered, wonderful dreams which always kept her under her covers for a moment too long, always ending way too soon, leaving longing as a dent in her pillow.

Now he was right in front of her.

“I know you,” she whispered, words slipping through her lips like birds escaping a cage, her hands shaking.

He was dressed in well-made traveling clothes, dark pants, finely done knee-length boots she had only ever glanced upon whenever wealthier people crossed the town to check on their local businesses, but those deftly dressed gentlemen couldn’t have looked better than the man even with the priciest of fineries. Elain resisted the urge to press her hands to her cheeks, heated and pink from noticing Stranger only wore a thin, unruffled poet’s shirt, - his cape and hat using the nearby trees as hangers - its open laces revealing golden skin and wisps of red hair.

Elain had never felt self-conscious of her looks or clothes, the townspeople dressing similarly to her (even if Elain herself had one of the best sewing hands in their village). Her current outfit was a simple corset with boning made out of prepped hedgehog spikes, the plain fabric embellished with neat seams and picturesque figures Elain had stitched herself; a brown, light skirt - easy to wash and easier to hide soil stains - and, what now she deemed absurd due to the grime on her nails, no slippers.

“And I, you,” he answered as in a daze, hands falling limply at his sides.

“Do you hear it?” Elain made her voice firm, lifting he chin but with her knees slightly bent, ready to run.

“Yes, my lady,” he took a step, then two, until a stretch of his arm would land his hand on her shoulder.

But he didn’t move to touch her.

Elain swallowed, the breeze cooling her body, eyes downcast, legs now motionless and nearly failing her.

“Why won’t you let me see your eyes, my lady?” She couldn’t be sure, for she knew him not, but there was pleading in his tone.

“I’m afraid, my lord, that if I look at you, I’ll awake and leave this dream,” she whispered, surprised, but not fearful, of her words. “And you’ll fly away from my grasp,”

Suddenly shy of her newly found boldness, she turned her back to him.

“I’m-" She started, voice small.

“No, please.” Elain saw a shadow over her shoulder but wouldn’t dare to guess. “Forgive me for my requests, my lady, you need not give me anything, I-”

He sounded... embarrassed.

She found it endearing.

The song of the woods shifted to a village rhythm she knew well.

“Dance with me,” he called.

A gasp fell freely from her mouth, the ghost of a touch on her hand.

Slowly, she turned back to face him and realized her mistake.

His eyes were not brown, but a vibrant russet shade, complimenting his hair better. Elain had heard only the continent bred humans with the most varied and colorful bodies.

“I forgive you,” she mouthed, her throat no longer functional.

There were callouses on his palms if from holding reins or sword fighting, she couldn’t determine, but they were so gentle against her skin she barely put any mind to it.

A blast of sound surrounded them, as if the song recognized their meeting, rejoicing in their movements, magnifying their volume to ensconce the pair of them in a cloud of magic. Elain allowed her stranger to spin and lead her in the dance of her dreams.

She couldn’t help to laugh and smile and giggle as they swayed in impossibly rehearsed arrangements, his wide, carefree, delighted grin pouring sunshine into her chest.

Time turned to a growing bloom, following the natural, slow, unpreoccupied pace of life. A hundred dances thrummed with them while the small pointer of the square clock circled once.

At that time, the resounding, deep clang of the church’s bell chiming twelve times broke through the magic steering the couple.

Elain ceased her steps, the pang of reality downing on her face, awareness washing the enchanted fog in her mind.

She let go of Stranger’s hand, the melodies dimming to a quiet hum, tempting her as a distance siren song,

“I must go,” she told him, yet unable to move.

“So soon?” he asked earnestly, arms lovingly tightening around her waist, not caging, only a gentle embrace.

“Oh, please, I must have my leave. Your lordship certainly has somewhere to be. I don’t even know what to call you-“ she babbled in a rush.

Stranger pressed his nose to the sliver of skin above her neck line, as if he couldn’t help himself, as if she were a saint and he a devotee. Elain lost the breath in her lungs, head lulling back, her words cutting themselves short.

“It’s yours,” his lips brushed the slope of her neck, “My name, my heart, my soul. It’s all yours. I’m Luc-“

Hurriedly, Elain lifted his head and pressed her pointer and middle finger to his mouth, “You must not tell me your name,”

“I heard your voice,” he admitted, a portrait of hope in his face, gently grasping her wrist “I deviated from the road to look for the angel whose song I was lucky to listen. But the singing stopped, as it was never there in the first place,”

“The woods have a mind of their own” she whispered to herself, eyes roaming around as if searching.

“I found you once I let Samson rest for a moment,” he continued, uninterrupted, as though afraid she would vanish in a poof of light.

“Please, my lady. Can’t you see? One is never to deny a gift from the Gods,”

“Are you a believer, Stranger?”

“Now, I am,” he said, his gaze unfaltering, “Will you allow me to reveal my name to your Ladyship?”

“I’m no lady,” she said, taking her hand from the warmth of his, regretting it immediately, “I must have my leave,” How would she explain her tardiness to Nesta? Oh, how reckless she was acting.

“At least allow me to take you to your home, my lady,”

Elain knew deep in her gut as clearly as she knew the color of the sky and the name of her favorite flowers that he would never hurt her.

But her oldest sister warning echoed in her conscience, coiling its limbs around her, refraining her voice.

The universe, it seemed, understood her decision.

Samson let out a loud neigh, attracting her love’s attention for just long enough.

“I’ll see you in my dreams,” she promised as he turned around to watch his horse.

And ran away, deep into the woods.

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Thank you so much for reading! Reblogs, likes and comments make my day.

Special thanks to @moononastring and @silvergriff for hosting this awesome event, @separatist-apologist for being the kindest and most considerate beta reader I could ever hope for.

I’m building a tag list! If you want to keep up with my writing, let me know :))

I may or may not continue this? I really want to mesh this with a bunch of other ideas I have on my notes!!