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mymoodwriting · 4 years

Text

The Choice Is Yours

F!Reader x Vampire!Yuta

Genre: Vampire Dystopia

Warning: Kidnapping, Fear, Running, Betrayal, Blood

Words: 2.2K

Chapters:

Prompt: Good behavior goes a long way when a new world order is established within hours and humans wind up at the bottom of the food chain. As luck would have it you were claimed by a vampire named Yuta, so you’re saved in a sense. Many would say you’re in a rather unique situation, and despite its perks it wasn’t really something you asked for.

“Y/n… wake up.”

Jinwoo’s voice pulled you from your sleep. The world around was still dark, but sunlight was certainly on the rise. You ate with the others by the fire and helped pack up. You felt much better, and you certainly looked better too. The journey continued, and you noticed how close to the mountains you were now, which meant the harder part was growing closer. Although, despite being better, you couldn’t keep up with everyone’s usual pacce, so you were at the back of the group. At least you weren’t alone.

“Are you sure I can’t convince you to get on my back?”

“I can walk on my own. I’ve been freeloading with you all long enough.”

“You couldn’t help that.”

“Perhaps, but thank you, really, I don’t think I can say it enough. It would have been much easier for you all to leave me behind.”

“Then what would be the point of fighting if we’re not going to help each other out.”

“Can I ask… how did you… escape all this? Or were you rescued?”

“I’m a little embarrassed to say, but I was rescued.”

“How’s that embarrassing? I was rescued.”

“Just cause… you’d think I was strong or something considering I’m a leader in this resistance.”

“You had to learn somehow. What did you do before?”

“I wound up working as labor, on a farm. It was a small one, so easier to attack. In a way I got lucky too.”

“Do you really think… can we win?”

“I think anything’s possible, but we need to know our enemy.”

“You seem to know that fire works.”

“Fire can kill anything, but if we knew more about their weakness, then perhaps it’d be easier to fight.”

“There might be a way to learn.”

“What do you mean?”

“The house I was in, there’s these books, written by vampires, that talk about all kinds of things. They have books on humans, but also on vampires, surely those could tell us about their weaknesses.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It’s a little difficult to read but I can understand a good amount.”

“I guess we have our next target. You know the house right?”

“Yeah. Human servants, and honestly not the many halfbreeds, and the only vampire around is the owner of the house. The only other problem might be security. There’s an electric fence around the perimeter, it’s pretty high up.”

“Then we go under.”

“Under?”

“The house is surrounded by trees isn’t it?”

“Yeah…”

“Most houses like that have underground tunnels and hidden passageways. We could probably find one.”

“Oh… I never thought about that…”

Around noon the group stopped to get some rest and eat. You were never one for the great outdoors, but you found yourself enjoying it. Kinda interesting seeing how quiet the world really was. You couldn’t help but wonder if it’s always been this peaceful, or a recent development. Regardless, it was beautiful.

“You good?”

“Hm?” You looked up to see Minhyuk. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

“We’ll be moving in a bit, so be ready.”

“Okay, thanks.”

When you were done eating you started packing your things, looking around for Jinwoo. You were ready to get back to it, but then you started feeling dizzy. You thought maybe you got up too fast, but leaning against a tree didn’t help. The dizziness suddenly changed and you screamed, falling to your knees. Your head was on fire, your vision blurring, others had gathered around you but you couldn’t make anyone out. The pain became too much, and you fell into darkness.

♥♥♥♥♥

Yuta took in a soft breath as he came to, groggily taking in his surroundings. He recognized the room, knowing he was back at Taeyong’s house. He wasn’t alone though, Xiaojun was occupying a bed next to him, and YangYang was on his phone in the other.

“What happened?”

YangYang looked over. “You’re awake, how do you feel?”

“Sore… you?”

“I’m okay, just on bed rest, you are too.”

“Figured. Where’s y/n?”

“About that…”

“Where is she?!”

“Gone.”

“What do you mean gone?!”

“She wasn’t in the limo.” Taeyong said as he entered with others in tow. “You should be thanking YangYang, not yelling at him.”

“What happened!”

“What do you remember?”

“Um… the limo… it crashed…”

“It got blown off the road. We heard the explosion and rushed over. Since YangYang wasn’t wasted, he managed to get out and then get you two before the limo went up in flames.”

“But… how?”

“Humans.” YangYang added. “They attacked us. When I regained consciousness I could see them pouring gasoline all over the limo, and I noticed they had gotten y/n out. They took her.”

“Yuat…” Sicheng began. “She’s most likely dead.”

“No… no she-”

“She’s human and she was in the accident with you. I can’t even imagine the kind of injuries she sustained.”

“But-”

“Those who took her, I doubt they have the means to heal her. I’m sorry but-”

“We don’t know that!”

Yuta couldn’t accept that, not when guilt was eating him alive. He hadn’t completely lost consciousness in the crash, he couldn’t really move, but he could hear you crying out for him. Despite the pain, and everything that’s happened, you still called for him, and he couldn’t do anything for you.

“She’s alive… she has to be…”

“It’s very unlikely.” Johnny said. “Yuta-”

“She’s alive! I can prove it!”

“Huh?”

“There’s a tracker on her, I activated it when I took off her collar. I was gonna take it off when we got back home, but never had the chance.”

“That doesn’t… if anything, we can find the body.”

“No, she’s alive.”

“Yuta-”

“Here.” Taeyong handed over his phone. “Let’s see what happens.”

Vampires certainly had a lot of sophisticated technology, well beyond human standards, that they kept to themselves. Trackers were common as part of the collars most humans wore nowadays, and through an application they could look up anyone, since the collars would identify the human and attach that information to the signal. All one had to do was look up the name or use the ID number.

Of course, removing the collar would deactivate the tracking function, unless the option to physically insert the tracker in the human was made. That’s what Yuta did, seeing that the collar was troublesome for you, but also wanting to make sure he could still find you if something happened. He wasn’t happy about being right over that, but grateful nonetheless he had made the choice. It took a moment, but then he locked onto your signal, showing the others.

“See, she’s alive.”

“That location is for somewhere out in the woods.” Sicheng said. “That could just be her body.”

“It’s not! Look, I’ll activate the secondary function and get vitals.”

“Yuta-”

Yuta didn’t listen of course, just needing to know you were okay. Even if one wanted, the collars could also adjust, usually tighten a bit, to get information on the human’s vitals, like heart rate and stuff like that. The small tracker chip could do that as well, although Yuta didn’t think of the consequences in that situation, such as the fact the chip itself had to further attach itself to the human in order to get vital readings, and that could be painful. It was a small price to pay, and if you were dead, it wouldn’t matter anyway. When the vitals finally came around, Yuta could feel himself relaxing in relief.

“She’s alive… vitals are steady… she’s okay…”

“How is that possible.” Johnny took the phone. “She was in a car accident.”

“It doesn’t matter, we have to go get her.” Yuta got up. “Now.”

“Hold on.” Sicheng held him back. “You still need to rest and recover.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not.”

“Let go.”

“Yuta, please.”

“Alright calm down.” Taeyong interrupted. “I’ll have my scouts retrieve them while you rest, is that fine with you, Yuta?”

“You’ll get her back?”

“Of course. If she’s fine, and we have her location, I don’t see why not. Besides, she’s with a resistance group, perhaps she can be useful in capturing some rough humans. You have to stay though.”

“But-”

“Xiaojun hasn’t even woken up yet and you’re worried about a human!” YangYang hissed. “What’s wrong with you.”

“He hasn’t…” Yuta looked over at Xiaojun. “He’s okay, right?”

“His injuries were a bit more severe.” Johnny explained. “He’ll recover, it’s just gonna take a while. It’s not unusual that he hasn’t woken up yet, but he’s healing, so that’s good.”

“Has he eaten?”

“Given that you’re outta commission for the time being, Taeyong provided, and he ate, so he’ll be alright.”

“I’ll be off then.” Taeyong took back his phone. “You stay in bed, or I swear.”

“I’ll stay…”

“Good.”

♥♥♥♥♥

“Y/n…”

You slowly came too, your eyes adjusting to the sky, and then to Jinwoo. He was next to you, examining your injuries, relieved to see you were waking up.

“Are you okay?”

“I… I think so…” You slowly sat up. “What happened?”

“You started screaming and then passed out.”

“Am… am I still hurt cause of the accident?”

“You shouldn’t be. Vampire blood can heal all kinds of internal and external injuries. It shouldn’t be brain damage. Do you feel okay?”

“I mean… just a little woozy, but I’m fine… I feel fine.”

“Jinwoo is she-”

Minhyuk came over, glad to see you were awake, but his eyes were drawn to something else. He approached and looked at your neck.

“What’s that…”

“Huh?” Jinwoo pulled you close, seeing a light red flashing under your skin. “Shit…”

“What… what is it?”

“Y/n… you have a tracker on you.”

“A what? No, no that’s not possible! I don’t have a collar! I-”

“Breathe, just breathe okay, we’ll figure this out.”

“No…”

“We can-”

“You have to go…” You wiped away the tears on your face. “You all need to go, now.”

“We’re not just gonna-”

“You have to! They’ll find me, but… but they can’t find you. Please, you need to leave me behind…”

“Y/n-”

‘“I can’t put the rest of you in danger! I won’t… please…”

“Fuck.” Jinwoo took a moment. “Tell the others we’re compromised, we need to cover our tracks and move quickly. Go!”

“I’m sorry…”

“Sh, you didn’t know…”

You knew your little sense of freedom was gone, and you didn’t know how to take that. Whatever you had, you gave back to the group, you didn’t want to have anything they could track down. Despite your wishes Jinwoo stayed with you for quite a while. You didn’t pay much attention to him though, just trying to enjoy the outdoors. Eventually you noticed Jinwoo with a bag and he was setting down some kinda wire.

“What… what is that?”

“Fireworks.”

“Fireworks… how do you… why?”

“Vampires… and halfbreeds, they have heightened senses, fireworks are loud to us, imagine how bad it is for them. When they go off, it’ll disorient the bloodsuckers, making it easier to get away.”

“Smart…”

“Y/n, we can try to-”

“It’s in my neck Jinwoo… it’s too dangerous to try…”

“I’m sorry…”

“I wouldn’t be alive if not for you, there’s nothing to apologize for.”

“You wouldn’t have been in danger if not for us.”

“I think saving me makes up for it.”

“So we’re even.”

“Pretty much.”

“Still… I’m sorry.”

“You should go… I won’t say anything, not like I knew much of anything to begin with.”

“I don’t wanna sound awful or anything, but… do what you have to do to survive, no one will fault you for that. Here.” Jinwoo handed you a trigger. “When you see the bastards, activate the fireworks, it’ll be kinda fun to see them squirm.”

“Thanks. Be safe.”

“You too.”

Jinwoo headed off, looking back one last time, before disappearing. When you felt he was really gone, you let the tears flow properly. The peaceful outdoors suddenly became very scary as loneliness settled in. Hours passed, you grew hungry, but you stayed in the shade of a tree, waiting for the inevitable. The first sign of trouble was when you heard a ruffling in a bush somewhere nearby. You jumped to your feet, finger on the trigger, just ready. The last thing you would do is help Jinwoo and the others, that you were sure of.

Just as you feared, a halfbreed came into view and you set off the fireworks. No one got too close to you, everyone else falling to the ground in agony. Despite it all, you were terrified, and you couldn’t but want to run, so you did. It was stupid, there was no escaped, but in the moment you just wanted to pretend, as if getting away was actually possible. It wasn’t until the fireworks settled that one of the halfbreeds tackled you to the ground, pinning you down. You were certain something was broken because of the pain you felt, and you couldn’t even begin to imagine the bruises you’d get.

“Sorry about that, but you did run.” You managed to see Taeyong approaching you, squatting down. “Also can’t expect my scouts to go easy on you either, been a while since they’ve hunted down a human.”

“I guess they had their fun.”

“Hm, I suppose so. Let’s get you back home.”

#yuta #nakamoto yuta #nct #nct 127 #taeyong #winwin #yangyang #xiaojun #johnny #lee taeyong #dong sicheng #liu yangyang #xiao de jun #seo youngho #nct u #wayv #nct au #nct scenarios #nct angst

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scripttorture · 4 years

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Do you have advice on portraying mental disorders to the public in a way that makes sense? How does one portray multiple disorders at once while making it clear they’re the result of torture? Do you usually name them in the story? I can portray disorders + symptoms that come with mental health problems resulting from torture, but I feel like I’m battling public ignorance before even getting to debunking myths about torture. I have the information, but I don’t know how to portray it organically.

I can tell you what I do, but I think that whether that will work for you or not partly depends on how you approach writing.

If what I say doesn’t fit with your writing style that isn’t a failing and it doesn’t mean you’re ‘doing it wrong’. I don’t think there is one sure fire way to write a complex topic well. And honestly the fact that you’re putting in the time to research and practice is probably more important then any advice I have to give.

I don’t always name mental health problems in my stories. I appreciate that some people think you always should. Usually because they say if you name a disorder the readers can’t deny it or pretend it’s something else.

I have a friend in one of my writing groups. He’s writing a wonderful adventure story with a Deaf protagonist. He repeatedly describes the character as Deaf and all of her communication is in sign language.

He has still had feedback from people six chapters into the story saying they did not realise the character was Deaf.

Here’s my take away from this: While it is important to try your best with anything you portray it is also important to accept that some people just Will Not Get It despite your best efforts.

Shout out to the person who thought I was discussing trans people when I spoke about historical pre-pubertal eunuchs.

Start by thinking about who you’re writing for. What does your ideal reader look like? Whose feedback do you hope for?

Because I think there’s a big difference in how we approach the story/conversation when we’re expecting to talk to people with experience vs people without.

Most of the time I’m writing for trauma survivors. I hope I’m writing stories that other people will enjoy. But I accept in the writing that a lot of people without experience of these things might not… quite connect the dots.

It sounds like you want to write for people who aren’t survivors. To educate. That is just as valid and valuable. It’s a very different approach though.

When I think about naming a mental health problem I think about how that name fits into the story. The main character in my current story is about 11-13. She’s spent a fair amount of time with two adult survivors. But I’m not sure if she has the knowledge or vocabulary to label what she’s seeing and I’m not sure if anyone else would say it to her.

So I put those mental health problems in to the way these characters behave and the way their daughter talks to her friend about her parents.

That approach may not work if the majority of your intended audience have no knowledge about mental health.

And for me in this story that’s part of the point. I expect that a lot of readers will be taken aback when they find out what these characters have lived through and realise that what they’ve seen up to now are symptoms not ‘quirky character flaws’. I expect that to prompt some thought and questioning*.

Linking these illnesses to torture was easy in this particular set of stories because the readers will (eventually) see the characters before and after torture. The change happens in front of them.

Generally I think that’s a good way of establishing the link: explicitly showing the character before and after trauma and highlighting the changes. That can be directly as part of the story, but it can also be done through other characters talking about the past (which can help establish relationships and characters) and by having the survivors themselves reminisce about ‘before’.

It’s also important to remember that you can show symptoms developing without showing torture itself. There’s nothing wrong with choosing to show quiet moments with the character in a cell, even if we’re told they’re cliché. Use every moment that you can make powerful.

There’s also nothing wrong with jumping around in the time line and telling a story in a non-linear fashion. My general point here is that there are a lot of ways you can bring up the character’s past and how they’ve changed.

You can also have a character explicitly state that these symptoms are expected, normal responses to a horrendous situation. Any characters who are doctors, mental health professionals or some types of social workers would be good fits for that. Depending on how you structure the story religious figures (who may be involved in anti-torture work or helping survivors) could work.

If there are other survivor characters then having a discussion between them about what it changed could be a good organic way to bring that up while bringing the characters closer together.

Circling back to writing mental health problems- I do think sometimes a lack of an explicit label can help communicate the experience. I think sometimes people get so caught up on the diagnosis and what they think it means that they don’t engage with anything that goes against that preconceived notion. But… whenever you don’t make something explicit in the text you’re leaving it up to the reader to decide how to interpret it. You’re taking a risk to trust this stranger who picked up your story.

I get the feeling the main thing here is writing it all organically and the fear of messing up.

That’s understandable. Any writing already asks that we juggle. Adding in torture and mental health problems and committing to doing them well adds a lot more implements into the air.

And I guarantee that practice will help. It always does.

Personally I’ve been writing mental health problems for so long that a lot of it has become instinctual. It’s an ingrained part of how I write (for better or worse). Making symptoms an organic part of the character is about making them a part of every aspect of a character’s life.

Which sounds harder then it is. It’s about thinking things through and filtering them through the character’s personality/motivations.

Because as much as we can hope to get a message across primarily we are telling stories. And everything needs to serve that.

Let’s have some examples. I’m going to use two characters from two different stories, Kibwe and Ilāra. Kibwe made a full physical recover from torture. Ilāra ended up with a single below knee amputation. And while there is some overlap in the symptoms I chose for them they’re very different people.

Kibwe’s long term symptoms are memory loss, intrusive memories, hypervigilance and chronic pain and I’m toying with the idea of adding in inaccurate memories as well.

His memory problems are an integral part of his character arc and motivation through the stories he’s in. Despite knowing intellectually that they are a normal response to trauma Kibwe sees them as a personal failing. They made it impossible for him to bring charges and that fed into feelings of guilt and self-blame.

Which is what drives him to stand up for other people.

Every heroic action he takes in the story, every time he puts himself between someone else and harm, is coming out of his own experience of memory loss and possibly inaccurate memories. It’s all because trying to do the sensible thing and report what happened to the police left him feeling useless, powerless.

His intrusive memories feed into this as well. They serve as constant reminders that strengthen his resolve.

In the parts of the story from his perspective all of these memory problems and the effect they have are obvious and there inclusion is natural. Because they colour every single thing he does.

In the parts of the story that are from other perspectives it’s less obvious what the problem is but there is still clearly A Problem.

His intrusive memories are pauses in the middle of doing or saying something. They’re the moments when he screws his eyes shut and breathes deep and has to ask the other characters to repeat themselves. They’re the way he flinches at ordinary things and the way he flies off the handle anytime someone brings beer into his workplace.

His chronic pain is in the days when he can’t do his job. When his hands shake and he snaps. When he takes his frustrations out with the wrong words to the wrong people. And in the distant, awkward way he tries to make amends afterwards.

Internally he barely acknowledges his hypervigilance. But externally he always positions himself so that he can clearly see anyone else in the room. He can always see the exits. He twitches, he turns his head a lot to keep other people in view. And if he can’t see everyone, can’t see a way out then his speech starts to get biting, his anger leaks through.

In contrast Ilāra is very very aware of their own hypervigilance.

They track the people around them and the terrain and rationalise it as sensible. As a precaution. As keeping themselves and others safe. So a portion of any part of the narrative from their perspective is about that: Ilāra's internal paranoid risk assessments.

They also have learning difficulties, which are more obvious from outside perspectives. Because Ilāra has a proud streak; they’re not stupid, they can get by just fine. They’re just letting their friends/found-family help out because it makes them happy. Ilāra does not actually need help.

Contrast with the perspectives of the other characters who are very aware that Ilāra can’t manage a budget. Without help they really can’t manage their own money well enough to keep themselves fed, housed and clothed. Because they never learnt how.

And again this comes up organically because it’s a big part of Ilāra's relationships. There’s a strange push-pull: Ilāra's hypervigilance internally rationalised as protecting these few valued people and those same people stepping in to do the things Ilāra can’t.

They also experience chronic pain. Though I’m unsure whether this is primarily because of torture or because they lost a limb. And in a way the distinction doesn’t matter. Regardless of the cause it is there.

They’re actually a lot better at dealing with it then Kibwe, because they’re much better at lying, acting and disguising their own distress.

Ilāra's other symptoms are less immediately obvious in the narrative but again, they underpin everything.

Ilāra struggles to relate to people, to really value them as people and they are incredibly socially isolated. Their entire social circle is essentially their family and their work colleagues and there is a lot of overlap in that Venn diagram.

They don’t know how to honestly relate to other people. They play parts, putting on masks to get by.

And this comes into the story with every interaction they have. It’s the contrast between their attempts at calculation around outsiders (and how often they’re rejected/dismissed) and their incredibly intense attachment to this small circle of people.

I’m not sure what the end point of Ilāra's character arc is yet. But one of the things that keeps coming up is the question of who they are away from this small circle of valued people. And whether they can value their own life when they can’t ‘protect’ the people they love.

Writing all of this out has made me realise something: it’s a lot easier to bring up symptoms organically when those symptoms become an intrinsic part of the character.

And that can be difficult to grasp at the first attempt. Or the tenth. Or the hundredth.

We are taught to assume health, be it mental or physical. That people have two legs and functional pancreases and don’t relive violent attacks every time they smell beer.

Part of writing these things organically (for me anyway) is breaking that internal image. It’s… building a mind that’s a different shape.

For both of these characters their symptoms are tied to important parts of the long term plot as well as their everyday experience.

Kibwe would be a different person without his memory problems. They inform what he values, how he acts and the ethical lines he draws for himself. His intrusive memories impact his daily life and so does his chronic pain and hypervigilance. And this in turn impacts his relationships with the other characters, some of whom are more forgiving/understanding of his ‘moods’ then others.

Ilāra is driven by their isolation and struggle to connect to others. It leads to them putting incredible weight and value on the few relationships they do have. And that drives them to act, to take risks. Fundamentally they fear loss and however calculating and cunning they can be that fear makes them do some idiotic things. Things that effect the plot and every other character.

Hypervigilance and learning difficulties are their everyday experience. The tension they feel in crowds. The way they assess unfamiliar environments. The way they’ll hand over their pay check to a daughter-figure with a joke and tell themselves that she’s just fussing. The way they’ll get up in the middle of the night and count every item of food in the house.

Writing mental health problems in an understandable way is like writing any other disability. It’s making it part of the character without it being the whole of the character. It’s recognising how any condition limits a character and having a clear view of when those limits are internal (ie the condition itself) versus external (societal, behavioural expectations, other people etc.)

Including these things naturally means constructing scenes that are working at multiple levels. If symptoms impact how the characters relate to each other then they fit naturally into any important relationship moments. If symptoms impact the character’s everyday life then it’s natural for the character to consider them before taking an important action.

When symptoms are related to a character’s long term motivation then it doesn’t feel jarring that they’d come up over and over again. In the same way that bringing up a character’s big-brother figure feels right when you’ve established they have an important, character defining bond.

It takes practice. Writing is work and it takes a lot of skill to make it look effortless.

Right now I think the most important thing to take away is this: keep trying. Write and write and write. Don’t let the fear of getting things wrong stop you from getting better.

I hope that helps. :)

Available on Wordpress.

Disclaimer

*Yes I expect a lot from my readers.

#writing advice #tw torture #writing survivors #writing torture #writing recovery #writing symptoms #choosing symptoms #mental health #mental illness in fiction #disability

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beneaththetangles · 3 years

Text

Review: The Stranger by the Shore (Movie)

Good Morning, Good Evening, Good Afternoon! Josh here! You know, I’ve been an anime fan for a little over 20 years now, and over the course of those 20+ years, I’ve watched shows or movies where I’ve said to myself, “I really don’t think I’m the target demographic for this one.” When I heard the premise of The Stranger by the Shore, I originally thought, “Meh, this just looks like one for specific fans of this genre. Probably not for me.” But this past Sunday, I saw Twitter go crazy over this movie, heaping prodigious praise for this rather short film, so I figured “Meh, why not? I need to watch something to wash the tastes of Girlfriend, Girlfriend out of my mouth” and checked it out.

Three viewings later, and I can honestly say that I was, in fact, exactly in the target audience for this one. Why? Because it’s about love. And after watching the farce of Girlfriend, Girlfriend, I kinda needed to be reminded what pure, genuine love looks like, and how this particular kind of love has many challenges both internal and external.

So what makes this movie so good? Let’s get into it. I’m Josh, the Cajun Samurai, and this is my review of The Stranger by the Shore...and interestingly enough, this is my very first review of an LGBTQ+ anime!

Okay guys, time to be a bit serious here. I know, it’s weird coming from me, but don’t worry, it won’t last long. I am duty-bound to let you guys know that this movie is rated “TV-14” on Funimation’s website, and honestly, were I in charge of the rating scale, I would probably rate it a little more mature as it does feature talk about sex and features characters engaging in intimacy. While nothing is seen, much is implied. If you decide to watch this film, but are put off by this sort of thing, it starts at 47:00, and ends at 49:30 if you’re streaming on Funimation’s website. Okay, end of disclaimer. Let’s get into it.

The Stranger By The Shore is based off a manga series by Kanna Kii. It begins with Shun, a writer living in Hokkaido with his aunt after running away from home. Why would he run away? Simple. Shun is gay and would not enter into an arranged marriage with his childhood friend. His parents were naturally upset over this revelation (How dare you not marry the bride we picked out for you?! And how dare you have other preferences for who you love?!) and so Shun hot-footed out of there to his aunt’s house to work on his book.

One night, Shun sees a young man making like Otis Redding and sitting on the dock of the bay watching the tide roll away. Shun’s aunt explains that the boy, named Mio, is now an orphan after having recently lost his mother (his father died earlier). Shun decides that he wants to try and befriend the boy, but Mio is having none of it, misinterpreting Shun’s advances as pity over the loss of his mother. However, this misunderstanding is quickly cleared up and Mio apologizes, saying that he was actually glad and didn’t mind if Shun was trying to flirt with him. After a day of unsuccessful fishing and a delightful dinner of curry, Mio reveals that he’s being sent to an orphanage on the mainland of Japan, and would only be able to communicate with Shun by phone once he arrives. Shun is pretty down about this.

Time passes and Shun’s cousin is moving out to live with her girlfriend, leaving an open spot at the house. Who could possibly fill it? Why, it’s Mio of course. Our boy is now 20 years old and is able to make his own decisions in life, including but not limited to love. Mio is fully ready to start up a relationship with Shun, not caring what society thinks, but Shun, having been on the receiving end of rumors and teasing about his sexuality, tries to get Mio to think twice about his decision, not wanting him to be ostracized as he was. This results in a couple awkward moments where Mio really wants to take their “relationship” to the next level, but Shun dragging his feet, just barely able to say “I love you” to Mio.

Oh, and if that weren’t enough, later on, Shun’s former fiancé, Sakuraku, comes to the village with some news: His father is gravely ill and wants to see his son before he punches his ticket on the Midnight Train to Georgia. Naturally, Shun is not too excited to see the parents who shunned him, nor is he excited to see the woman who he was once engaged to (albeit through an arrangement). Mio meanwhile is showing some signs of jealousy and a little insecurity at this new arrival. Is this new girl going to take Shun away from him? Will Shun actually go back to the girl that he left at the alter? Find out next time on DragonBall Z!

So yeah guys, I really and truly like this one. As I mentioned, I’ve watched it three times so far since it came out. The first time I watched it on my own just to see what all the commotion was about. Then I watched it a second time to take screencaps and offer up Twitter commentary as I typically do, and the third time…well…it was because the movie is just that freaking good.

It’s awesome just viewing a romance play out over time and watching two people deal with their respective issues to find one another. That’s part of what drew me to shows like Toradora, Kare Kano, Yuri on Ice, Wotakoi: Love is Hard for an Otaku, and Horimiya. Watching a romance from the very beginning and see it work itself through to its inevitable conclusion is beautiful, and that’s what you get with this one.

I also love the fact that this just isn’t a typical high school romance story. Yes, I know how ironic that sounds after the last sentence where I praised a bunch of high school based shows, but still… sometimes you just want a story with two mature adults instead of two crazy kids who are probably operating more on hormones than true love…even though there are times when Mio, young lad that he is, REALLY wants to make his relationship with Shun more physical, bless his heart.

Another thing that I really loved about this story are the differences in how Shun and Mio see the world with regard to their sexuality. While Shun sees their relationship through a somewhat wary lens, and doesn’t want Mio to be hurt like he was, Mio is much more of a free spirit, not allowing anyone or anything deny him from what he really wants. Part of me feels like the differences between these two are because of the times they grew up in. Shun is older than Mio, and no doubt grew up in a time where being LGBTQ+ was something to be scorned, mocked and bullied for. Mio, being a more modern and in some ways a more mature young man, understands what he’s in for and yet has no problem with it because he knows he loves Shun and in his mind, that’s all that matters.

One other thing that I find refreshing with this movie is that it doesn’t have any complex or mystical story lines. While I enjoy movies like Weathering With You and Your Name, sometimes those movies can just be too complex for their own good, adding mystical elements to a story that can at times clouds the waters. In fact, there are two moments where the characters seemingly pass out at different times during the movie after highly stressful situations, and I couldn’t help but think, “Okay, here comes the magical mystical stuff…these two are the reincarnation of some long lost, Feudal Era star crossed lovers that are bound by fate by the red string of something-or-other and they have to find the mystical key of the twilight or something…” But to my great surprise, these dorks were just TIRED. No magical journey, no mission they have to accomplish, just…tired. That is surprising. The Stranger by the Shore pretty much makes the characters the standout elements. These guys don’t have mystical powers, there’s no legend they have to figure out in order to save the world, there’s no time travel or dimension portals… it’s just a love story like any other.

Speaking of things that aren’t a big deal… I feel the need to address the elephant in the room. Yes, the intimate scene between Shun and Mio. Honestly… it’s a non-issue, as it should be. It’s two characters that are of age sharing an intimate moment with each other and they just so happen to be two males. It happens in loads of different anime and it’s not a big deal. Honestly, I found the way the moment was executed to be very realistic, gentle and tastefully done. If you avoid BL anime entirely, (and no judgement whatsoever–it’s not for everyone; watch whatever makes you happy) I suggest you check out our recent articles examining yuri and yaoi anime and see if those give you some food for thought, and maybe make you more likely to try out The Stranger by the Shore. Yup, I’m a true southern gentlemen–offering up Food for Thought. You always offer food to your company, thought or otherwise. Now go and get your grub on.

If I could find any faults with this movie, it’s probably that it’s too short and doesn’t give the characters enough developmental time. There’s just so much more I wanted to know about these adorable dorks: What was Shun’s life before the arranged marriage? How did he end up becoming a writer? What was Mio’s father like? How was Mio’s time in the orphanage? At just under an hour including credits, it feels like this movie could’ve explored so much more and expanded this beautiful world it created. This movie does a great job giving us endearing and lovable characters, but not enough time to fall even deeper in love with them.

Also, as a somewhat unrelated complaint, Funimation, please do the streaming anime community a favor. Please, please, PLEASE fix your video player! It’s just a mess! Sometimes the volume bar would be stuck on the screen long after I adjusted it, thereby ruining any screen captures I wanted to get. Also, please add closed captioning to the English dub video. It’s really a drag that the hearing impaired can’t enjoy the writing in the dub like everyone else, and it also sucks when bloggers like myself don’t have the text at the bottom of screen captures for context of a particular scene. You are partially owned by Sony Pictures… you can do better than this! But, I digress…

Speaking of Funimation, this movie was dubbed and released by Funimation Entertainment with director David Wald in the director’s chair. Honestly this was quite a shock to me as I would’ve expected Sentai Filmworks to put out a title like this, as they have never been shy to license and dub anime with LGBTQ+ themes. Yes, Funimation has put out a few here and there, the most famous being Yuri on Ice, but in my eyes, Sentai has always been THAT company to go to for movies and anime series like this. In fact, Hi Dive, Sentai’s streaming service, has an entire section devoted exclusively to LGBTQ+ anime and movies. Funimation? Not so much. But I digress.

Director Wald does an amazing job with this production, getting outstanding performances out of Josh Grelle (Shun) and Justin Briner (Mio). These two are just AMAZING in their roles, and captured these characters perfectly. Just try not to think about that when watching the English dub of Dr. Stone, as these two guys also play the bodyguard brothers Kinro and Ginro respectively. Speaking of Dr. Stone, listen closely and you’ll hear Senku Ishigami (Aaron Dismuke) as one of Shun’s classmates in a flashback.

So where does that leave us? Simple. This movie ranks a prodigious 9/10 for me. A must see. The Stranger by the Shore features a story that’s simple yet beautiful, adorably awkward and engaging characters, and acting that is just top notch in the English dub. The only thing that you may find a problem with is that there isn’t more of it. By the time the ending credits roll, you’ll want more of this one. Trust me.

Yes, I know that the story of two guys starting a romantic relationship might not be in everyone’s wheelhouse and the intimate moments might be something that gives you pause, but honestly, wherever you fall in the sexual identity debate or however you feel about it on a religious level, I can’t stress enough that you owe it to yourself to give this movie a chance. Because, at the end of the day, A has much to say about love and acceptance, things we ALL know a thing or two about and long for—gay, straight or otherwise.

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The Stranger by the Shore can be streamed through Funimation.

#Anime #Anime Reviews #Anime Movies #The Stranger by the Shore #Umiibe no Etranger #Yaoi #LGBTQ #Articles #Author: Josh #Author: The Cajun Samurai

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babysprouseisart · 4 years

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Honestly more things are pointing to a permanent separation for SH. No indications of any reconciliation sadly. And it makes it even harder without the confirmation. I guess when they start to get papped with their new SOs will be the day that it is confirmed they are done. And I hope it is soon. This push and pull with them is exhausting

Good day, anon, and welcome to hell. Screams for help will not save you, alas, because when it comes to a topic in which I am 99, 9% sure, I have no equals. I'm sorry you probably got the wrong address, but it's too late. I am merciless and bloodthirsty with anyone who tries to contradict my faith, tries to correct my point of view and convince me of their own, although I did not give it a reason. Because it's my fucking blog where I for x-billionth time has already expressed my exact points and agreed with some people which think and proved the exact opposite to all that you are saying. So be prepared to be slowly but surely tortured by my long ass post.

So, let's start with what I said about my blog: only good vibes here. I am not interested/concerned about other opposite/negative feedings. I just don't want to make a big deal about it. Here, in my blog, we support Lili Pauline Reinhart and Cole Mitchell Sprouse in any case as couple as well as individuals.

This means that under no circumstances do we talk about them, their relationships, their projects, their family, or their decisions in a negative way. Yes, we may disagree with something they do, where they do it, and how they do it (what they post, what they like/don't like, write or repost, who they meet, with whom they decide to be, live and communicate with, what they archive/unarchive, and so on), but we do not have the right to judge them or decide how to act. We also can't control it and it's none of our business.

I repent if I once made the appearance of a person condemning one of them or their family for their actions and possible causes of the separation, it was only my objective external disagreement, points and thoughts aloud, nothing more rude, involved and inappropriate. And I think with many of my words said earlier (or the words of those I follow and reblog their posts) about the behavior of family/friends of Lili, Cole, and so on, people with brains and common sense could agree. Remember this, or write it on your forehead, so that the next time you write to me, you will see these words.

Moving on, taking into account all of the above, I would like to tell you that it probably won't be enough for one blog to explain to you point by point all my beliefs and points of view on this subject, to prove to you that every fucking word you say is illogical shit and the most real nonsense. It feels like you're an alien who fell from another planet and decided to crawl into our hole with your impressions of a newborn baby who doesn't understand much about the world and its creators. Although in this case, I'm more of the opinion that you are a little asshole, in which the vein of hatred is boiling and you like to come to this and some other blogs to tell us your agenda although we have no idea where you have such rash thoughts, perhaps you have an extra chromosome? Dude, treat your paranoia.

Further, given that I don't have much time and desire to describe all my points of view point by point, which, unlike your random set of words, really makes sense for hundreds or even thousands of people who have the gray matter to be able to think, I will attach my long - standing post, indicating all the facts at that time proving the opposite to yours. Although, I will try to supplement everything else as much as I can.

While, we all ( I hope) already realized and accepted that for many reasons, during this quarantine, Lili and Cole had some problems, were distant and ended up apart for a certain period of time, immediately after the end point of the explosion and informing us of all these public actions on social media (I hope you understand), then after a few weeks, they were already confidently moving towards resolution and recovery and that's why:

https://babysprousehart.tumblr.com/post/618026656780648448/hello-i-hope-this-doesnt-come-off-negatively

This was written long before, but still has many valid points and I just want to widen some of them.

Take a sit and follow me word by word.

I shall start my addition of evidence, based on all the guesses and great opinions of others, as well as hints from the Lili and Cole themselves. I would like to start with a significant event and the day when Lili posted a photo from the Antelope Valley on April 28th, well, or 27th, depending on where you are.

Perhaps we lose some missing pieces in this puzzle and forget about something that was done earlier, but I just want to start counting from this moment.

A few facts about this photo/photos:

1) It was posted exactly 3 years later from their famous photoshoot, when very, very, very many people, mostly in media, began to suspect that there is something between them in a romantic way. It was exactly in the same place, exactly with the same style, exactly in a similar image (waving curly hair, light flying dress, black and white effect) and even without a capture. The picture marked the anniversary and is very important for the two of them. An undeniable fact, beat me.

2) That photo was definitely taken by Cole. Why?

Here are a couple more facts in addition to the first:

They have the quality of captured on professional camera.

You can see, that Lili did not tag the photographer and said jokingly that the photo was taken by Milo, why would she lie, or hide that it was anyone else, because clearly she just hid that because it was Cole.

You may have noticed that Austin, when asked who took the photo, whether she took it and whether she is a good photographer, says no and her reaction with a grin and laugh is priceless. She also didn't tag nor the photographer, neither Lili in her photos from there.

You can watch the vlog in the Colleen blog and see there are very similar figures to Cole, Lili and Milo walking along the valley, because, duh, they were there.

You can view her post, where you can see Cole from the back (notice his dark clothing, the same as on one of his post in the profile, which he has already deleted, as well as his position from which the photo of Lili was supposedly taken and it is just in the same place).

You can observe his style of photography and how similar the theme is to the photos from 2017.

You can see the same poppy behind his ear in one of the past stories.

You may have noticed that the photo of Lili is processed with the same effect as several photos in Cole's profile, and I can tell you as an amateur photo editor that it is very identical.

Question: why arrange such a significant photoshoot with your ex after a few weeks of separation? Why is Cole smiling in a photo (black and white one with a mustache and black clothes) probably taken there? Why is everything so secretive if they broke up? Why even post a photo that your ex-boyfriend definitely took? How can you calmly go to this place, which reminds you of your joint travels with your former lover? Therefore, this photo and later another one from there were the first iron arguments in confirming the improvement of things.

I would like to continue with another ironclad proof.

Lili in early may very fiercely, after a few weeks of Cole's statements about slander and threats, which she did not respond to so clearly at the time, defended Cole and pointed out the private relationship and literally said that people should stop it and even though should hurt and bully her, but not him.

Question: did she defend her ex so publicly? Would Lili talk about a private relationship if that was the way her past relationship was most often? Would she have written anything at all if she didn't care about him and didn't feel something towards him? I don't think so, so it's gibberish to say so (about the break up) when it's the second unquestionable argument.

Next, we need to talk about the general activity of Cole and Lili in social media. I just want to list some observations, in different order, but it seems like everything we have now:

If earlier it was visible in the posts of Lili that it was clearly a show off, then over time and after the published photos, she began to behave more sincerely and tenderly, began to publish Milo less, began to say that there was only the two of them less, has stopped showing how good she is without certain someone, as if for Cole showing that she could cope without him, which was visible in the posts and stories, she began to talk more about improving her mental health as a result of training, spoke about how later she was feeling better and that she was grateful for those who were with her and difficult times and in light moments, that you just need to live and enjoy.

Additionally, I can say how she shone with each photo, and it was a natural glow of happiness and settling down. She no longer sang sad songs or posted sad songs, on the contrary, posted sexy, funny and relaxed ones. She appeared more in photos taken by paparazzi. She posted sexy, energetic, romantic movies, funny cartoons, watched funny clips, was excited about her project, laughed, danced with her dog, played with a dog with macaroni, cosplayed Willy Wonka (we all have a feeling it’s Cole’s thing, no?), playing with sand, puzzles, posted funny memes in story, which unfortunately coolly accepted as the opposite, posted a poem with a typo and funny answered to a fan who corrected it, told more about poems and attached a photo with a fragment of a poem about love from her upcoming book. She liked some photos from the anniversary of the last episode of the series, where we remember there was a hot scene of her and Cole's character, she liked a Bughead drawing. Yesterday, she actually posted one of the sexiest videos that will not be posted, being single and lonely, we saw that she actually spent more personal time with Cole (I am not saying they weren’t doing t back then), which was investigated thanks to many amazing people here, and even if they don't live together yet, they are more likely to meet and have met with each other, and more hints on sexy times (because, come one, maybe Milo was the one who left a hickey on her neck, huh?), which is undeniable, just compare the fact that she is no longer in the old rental, and he is not in Kj's house, she then posted a photo from some place, which is very similar to where Cole shot a video with Jimmy Fallon.

He also began to be more active in social networks, exactly after she started posting photos of the Antelope Valley, he posted a series of photos of the kissing couple, even if it was a gay drawings, they were filled with love, there was a photo of him with cattle with the sarcastic caption, then the photo about porn bots, with funny ask to leave him alone and saying it’s not allowed to be horny on quarantine, again a photo of himself with heart eyes that I talked about above, he posted a very funny video recently. There were more photos from the paparazzi after some time when Lili's usually flashed, and then it stopped, then his humorous photo in the washing machine appeared, which she probably had taken, and why so I explained in the attached post, he posted a photo from the walk, which was also probably taken with her, because again, she had a similar location, then he jokingly called Tommy ‘the’ muse, maybe roasting fans, but he didn’t use ‘my’, so, indicating he still has his own muse, then we saw him at that damn party, which caused people's panic, although he is an ordinary person and has the right to relax, and by the way at this party he was very happy and frisky, but nothing bad or shameful happened and he is innocent, then we even saw Cole, after Lili, delete many of the photos, although he had also unarchived some of them several times, as she had, which means that he did not delete them completely, but just removed many of them, leaving the most tender photo after or before the kiss at the famous moment when Lili wanted a toast and eggs at 1 am, or many photos reflecting her body, which also marks not a bad phenomenon, but a simple trolling from them. Proof of this trolling and unarchiving is on the vastness of other blogs and on Twitter, thanks to that girl's video.

The way their condition and activity on social networks have changed is very noticeable and is also third undeniable fact of denial of the break up. You can compare photos of Cole taken by Alex, where he is clearly very sad and depressed, because it was taken somewhere in the interval of their real breakup. And compare this with his smiling and playful state during the interview with Jimmy, where he also sparkled with happiness and fun, constantly smiling and seemed to be aroused about something (or someone). I think even a newcomer will notice a change in their mood and attitude. You will see the difference. And this does not happen when going through the break up after 4 years of deeply imbued with love relationships. Please understand, damn it.

I have listed alas not everything that speaks so vividly about things going in the right positive direction and is evidence that everything is getting better again, there will be only more I assure you and you will kiss my ass, as Cole said.

Execution cannot be pardoned.

You have one attempt to put a comma and decide your fate, but I think you’ll fail because you are a total sucker anyway.

Bye!

#cole sprouse #lili reinhart #sprousehart #sprousehart positivity #sh positivity #bughead #only good vibes here #positivity #anon hate #anon ask #ask #cole and lili #relationship #break up #not a break up #shut up dumbass

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surveys-at-your-service · 3 years

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Survey #369

“so close, no matter how far / couldn’t be much more from the heart / forever trusting who we are / and nothing else matters”

What are three emotions you experience regularly? Sadness, shame, and stress. Is there someone right now whom you really wish would care for you? -___- Does your job allow visible tattoos? I don’t have a job, but quite honestly, I probably wouldn't take a job that didn't. I just love tattoos a lot and plan on having many, and ignorance and old-fashioned bullshit isn't gonna stop me. Do you know anyone that’s transgender? Yes. Do you think dress codes are unfair? In some places, like schools, yes. Are in a relationship? Tell me about it. I'm not. How is your road rage? I don't have road rage. By god does my sister, though. Favorite cosmetic brands? I don't wear makeup nearly enough to have a preference. The beach or the pool? The pool. I hate the feeling of sand, plus the salty wind and heat. Manga or anime? Anime. Favorites for manga? I've never read any. It's tempting to read Deadman Wonderland since it continues off the very short anime, but I just don't want to. Manga isn't my style. Favorites for anime? Fullmetal Alchemist (including Brotherhood), Ginga Densetsu Weed, and Deadman Wonderland. Favorite academic subject? English. A card game that you’re good at? I'm not exceptionally good at any. Do you eat breakfast? Pretty much always. A popular book you haven’t read yet? To Kill A Mockingbird, to name one I feel like everyone had to read in school. Do you like sweaters? I'm an oversized hoodie person, really. I don't like the look of zippers. Do you like sushi? Never tried it, never will. Do you wear prescription glasses? Yes. I badly need a new pair, because I can't see for shit. Generally, are you more likely to blame others or yourself for problems you experience? Myself. What is one thing about your life that you don’t ever see changing, even if you might wish it would? I have a feeling I'll always have some degree of social anxiety. I'm sure there are other things just not coming to me. At what point in your life have you been the most social or had the most friendships? And at which point have you been the least social? I had the most friends in my childhood years, probably. Or high school when I actually had a friend group. I'm sure I was most social as a kid in elementary school, not dealing with my social anxiety. I've been the least social like... now, honestly. I go essentially nowhere and have very few friends. Do you prefer to have a few close friends or a bunch of random acquaintances? Which would describe what you have now? I want close friends. I have like... two or so close friends and a handful of acquaintances. I don't know which I have "more" of when you consider the actual level of friendship/"quality" I guess. Do you journal? Generally, what do you write about? Do you find it helpful to get your thoughts out that way, or do you prefer another form of self-expression? I don't actually journal, but you could consider these surveys my "journal." I guess it's kinda why I do them so frequently? Like it lets me get stuff that's going on out, so I find it kinda therapeutic versus keeping all my thoughts jumbled up in my head. Have you ever been somewhere and REALLY didn't like a food that you were expected to eat? How did you deal with this? Are you someone who is likely to suck it up and be polite or refuse and save your taste buds? To start off, I am VERY bad at sucking it up and eating something I don't like. My gag reflex is very strong, and I'm also extremely sensitive to textures I don't like, so my reactions are just very involuntary. I can try to subdue my expression when I dislike something, buuut that's extremely difficult. But anyway, yes, I've been to places where I definitely disliked the food, especially this one occasion where we went to a local Southern cooking restaurant that literally ASSUMED you want the staple foods and sweet tea, none of which I enjoy. While everyone else was eating, I just very awkwardly sat there doing nothing and pretty much panicking over looking rude. Thank god, Ashley's father-in-law noticed and called over the waiter for me to actually order something, the way it should be. I was very thankful but still felt bad. What is one way in which you compare yourself to others? In this comparison, do you regard yourself as better or worse off than the people to whom you usually do the comparing? I am very bad and comparing successes with others, but only in ways that demeans me. Like I look at others and am just like, "Why aren't I there yet?" It always leads to anger and disgust of myself. What is something you’ve been particularly grateful for lately? I've thought a lot lately about how thankful I am to have my mom. She does so very much for me, and I don't think I could absolutely ever repay her in full. I wish I could. She's a damn superhero. What kind of change or opportunity would be the biggest help in your life right now? I was initially going to say getting a job, but thinking about it, getting to my goal weight might be an even greater help. It would help my leg pain, not having to carry as much around, I'm sure my hyperhidrosis wouldn't be as bad (I hope), and it would MASSIVELY affect my happiness. Like I cannot tell you how negatively my weight has damaged my self-esteem, confidence, and peace with myself. Is there one emotion that you experience more often than any other? Is there an emotion you rarely ever experience? I'd say I experience stress more than anything. I'm always thinking of something that's causing a ruckus in my life. A rare emotion for me is uhhhh jealousy, even though I've dealt with it more lately. What is one illness you are afraid of having? Do you know anyone who has faced this illness? The disease that I think scares me more than any is Alzheimer's/dementia. I just... cannot possibly imagine. How do you tend to behave when you’re sick? What kinds of things do you like people to do for you, if anything, to help you feel better? I'm very mopey and tired, and I can be a bit more irritable. I really, really appreciate help with things like chores when I'm not feeling well. When was the last time you did something you were proud of? Were other people proud of you as well? Does it matter to you whether or not other people care about your accomplishments, or is your own satisfaction enough? It's a very small thing, but I weaned down from having two cans of soda a day to just one. Mom is proud of me for it, which I appreciate a lot. Admittedly, it does kinda matter to me that those who know it's a big deal to me see and care about my accomplishments. I'm bad about needing external validation. What is your least favorite thing about the season you’re currently experiencing? Are you okay with most types of weather, or are you only happy under certain conditions? Ugh, the heat. Spring and summer are miserable to me because I veeery much love the chilly weather and no damn humidity. Have you made any changes to your style or “look” lately? How often do you change your appearance, hairstyle, fashion, etc? Or is it a pretty constant thing? No; my style is pretty constant. What was the last thing you felt hopeful about? Do you think there’s a good chance of whatever-it-is working out in your favor, or not so much? Getting a job at the tattoo parlor. I'm fearful that they won't be open to the position I'd like, so I'm trying to not get my hopes up too high. We'll find out in two days. Have you ever “recovered” from anything? What does “recovery” mean or look like to you? Yes, a traumatic breakup. I'd say recovery is just healing as much as possible from something, be it physical or emotional. What are some ways your childhood differed from those of others around you? Do you think this difference was harmful or advantageous in the long run? My dad was an alcoholic, if that qualifies. That definitely isn't a *normal* thing for someone's childhood. I think it was harmful, honestly, especially because I've had more than a few nightmares about my dad drunk. When was the last time you did something out in nature? Do you notice a dip in your mood when you don’t get enough of the Great Outdoors? Oh jeez... Probably not since Sara and I went catfishing with my dad. I wandered around with her some as she ventured for toads, haha. I don't really notice a dip in my mood, just because I'm so used to being indoors. I do prefer getting some time with nature, it's just hard and uncomfortable with how easy I sweat, and my knees sure do cuss me the fuck out in the form of a billion cracks if I walk much (by my standards...). What did you dream about last night? I had two dreams, but I only remember one, in which a giant green tree python was eating me backwards so I was conscious through it all. No hard feelings, I still want one as a pet, haha. They're GORGEOUS snakes and no, absolutely cannot eat you even if it tried its damnedest. What were your childhood dreams? To be a paleontologist, then a vet. What are your dreams now? If we're talking career-wise, to be a nature and wildlife photographer that gets to travel a lot. What are some Halloween costumes you would like to wear in the future? I've mentioned that #1 on my list is Ms. Oogie Boogie, then uhhhh... wow, I'm surprised I'm blanking, because I know there are lots I've thought of. Were you born with hair on your head? Yes. Would you rather have a home birth or hospital birth? I'm not having kids, but holy mother of fuck I'd have my baby at a hospital with a goddamn epidural. I do NOT know how some people can do it naturally, bigass props to them. Do you currently live in the house you grew up in? No. If not, what do you miss about it?^ It was just in general a nice house, the best one we've lived in. We had a pretty big yard too, so lots of room to play around as kids. What’s your favorite type of yogurt? I'm not a big yogurt person, really. What were your high school’s team colors? Red and white. Who were your best friends in high school? Hannia, Girt, Maria, Megan, Dennis, Dakota... What would be the best surprise you could receive right now? A tarantula. *puppy eyes emoji* Were there any subjects in school that were really easy for you? If so, what? English courses were very easy for me, and I was pretty good with science. Did you ever skip a grade or get held back a grade? Not like, a whole grade, but I surpassed Writing I in my last college endeavor and started out in Writing II instead. What’s your favorite rock band? Oh brother, you can't ask me this. Who’s your favorite country singer? I consistently like Tim McGraw a bit. How many drawers does your dresser have? My dresser is unnecessarily big. There's like five or six. Have you ever taken a picture at the perfect moment? Yes. One of my favorite pictures I've taken was at Ashley's gender reveal for Emerson; even she didn't know. When her husband pulled the fog thing and it was pink, her expression was just priceless. Was your first car used or new? I haven't had my first personal car. How did you discover your favorite band? By going through my mom's CDs when I was getting into rock music. Ozzy was the first truly metal and not rock band that I ventured into. What was the last big decision you made? BIG decision... I don't know. Probably dropping out of college. What is your favorite thing to go shopping for? I love window shopping for pets online, haha. What was the last thing you changed your mind about? A political stance. Who was the last friend you saw, and what did you do together? Oh yikes, it's been more than a while... It may have been Girt? In which case we probably watched TV or played board games together. Who tends to show up in your dreams? Do you ever wonder if you appear in anyone else’s dreams? Jason just loves to show up in my dreams more than anyone else. I don't really wonder that, no. What is something you wish you could say to someone who is no longer in your life, or something you wish they could know? I wish I could tell Bryar (Jason's friend I got in a fight with) I misunderstood something he said to me ("martyr" has two different definitions, and I somehow didn't know the modern one at the time) that made me seem like an absolute, attention-seeking bitch. It's so fucking embarrassing to look back on, because I agreed with him because I thought he meant it as I would die for my beliefs, which is true. What worries you most about your future? Whether or not I'll ever be in the physical shape I want to be in again. Or if I'll have a stable job. What is something you do to feel better when you’re scared? Find distractions, like funny YouTube videos. I also engage in deep breathing and grounding methods. What is the strangest book you have ever read? How did you find out about it? Oh my god, in elementary school, we read a book where everything a boy touched turned to chocolate. Weird book. Do you prefer to watch movies or tv alone or with other people? Is there anything you refuse to watch alone? Other people, definitely. I like having someone to talk to and comment on what we're watching. There's nothing I won't watch alone. What was the subject of the last video you watched? It was a let's play.

#survey #surveys #questions #lyrics: ''nothing else matters'' by metallica

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pxrxllel · 3 years

Text

inner child trauma (11/12/20)

Today was filled with epiphanies, and I’m a mix of excited, at peace, and anxious about all the answers they’re providing.

Yesterday I watched a webinar on self-love and self-sabotaging in the context of romantic relationships, and here were some of the key points:

Who did you crave love and approval from the most as a child?

Your relationship with your parents and your needs being met/unmet subconsciously create emotional patterns that you take into your adult relationships. Therefore, your relationships are a reflection of how your needs were met by your parents.

When you have a wounded inner child, you are fixated on ensuring the outcome that you expect. The energy you take into the relationship is based on fear and control.

You’re trying to protect your wounded Inner Child by controlling the outcome, to avoid being hurt again.

I’ve taken the attachment styles quiz and for the most part, I come out as being anxious. I know I definitely tend to take on the role of the mother/therapist/fixer upper in my relationships (which has usually ended up with me becoming avoidant after a while due to resentment), but I’ve also had some where I didn’t feel the need to and I became clingy instead. So maybe that’s me yoyo-ing between the two, which I think the webinar described as being disorganised.

I’m keenly aware that I have a rich history of needing external validation, because approval was never received from my parents. I was never emotionally applauded for anything I did - in fact, my parents nitpicked me to the point where I was made to feel innately wrong. It’s hard to not be angry about it, but it’s even worse to hold that against them because it won’t help me make progress. A large part of the validation was being called fat and ugly, which may be why I’ve been so reliant on compliments about my appearance all throughout my life, and even still since I’ve become objectively attractive. My father and some extended family always framed it as not being pretty enough to attract boys, which I’ve previously established as the key reason why I clung onto compliments and relationships and used sexual attention from men as a metric for self-worth. I’m just also starting to realise that perhaps it’s why I took sexual rejection from my previous relationship so personally - I was still unconvinced that he was attracted to me and the rejection only confirmed that I wasn’t desirable in that way (or that’s how my mind attributed it anyway).

I think I made that realisation about my dependence on external validation in 2018/19. Since then, I’ve actively worked to disempower that, and I’ve largely been successful. I hardly ever use my appearance or compliments as a success metric anymore. I don’t fish for compliments or check for likes half as much as I used to. And it’s sort of been a self-fulfilling prophecy; the less I cared, the more they came and I genuinely feel OK about myself. I believe people now when they say nice things about me.

The point about fear and control is really interesting to me because looking back, I definitely was trying to be the ‘perfect’ girlfriend and looked for verbal validation (in the form of compliments, how much it seemed like he was into me) that I was doing a good job. I used to be so sensitive to any changes in the temperature of the relationship, and would melt down easily and take it personally if his demeanour cooled down even in the slightest. When I felt him slipping, I would hastily try to overcompensate out of fear for losing him, which I now know is a recipe for backfire. It’s also interesting because I’ve realised that I’m modelling ‘perfect girlfriend’ after my mother. My mother is a voice of reason/wisdom, emotional support cushion, physical support cushion, service-oriented, problem solver, domestic goddess, and all around superstar. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with those things, and not necessarily wrong for me to aspire to those things, but maybe it’s wrong for me to uphold that as the be all and end all of girlfriend material and then get annoyed when it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.

Speaking of mirroring, it’s really interesting how accurate it is... a bit too much that it’s creepy. I never heeded it much before, and especially not when my therapist brought it up as something to flag, but I’ve come to the realisation that mine and Jarek’s relationship almost exactly mirrors my parents’ marriage. The long distance thing, and the fact that I feel like my parents aren’t each other’s soulmates. They care about each other a lot obviously, but I feel like my mom relies on my dad for practical reasons (kids and money - she’s much more comfortable playing the role of a mother than a wife) and my dad relies on her for emotional support and all the reasons listed above. Don’t get me wrong, they clearly enjoy each other’s company and get along, but I don’t think they have the X factor that I observe in other couples and what I think I look for. They don’t really have the natural, seamless, deep, almost magical affinity that I’ve been so lucky to experience a handful of times in my life. They don’t naturally understand each other. I think perhaps pragmatic marriages are more common or accepted in Asian cultures and worldviews, but for those of us that grew up in Western cultures, we see the romanticised version of these things and can’t help but want for more. It’s also interesting because I’ve always wondered what it would have been like if my parents weren’t in a long distance marriage/what it’ll be like when they retire and move in together. I always thought that maybe they would get sick of each other and argue more, but I can’t say for sure (plus, they’ve mellowed out a lot as they’ve aged).

This relates to me and Jarek because I feel like our dynamic is really similar. I care about him so deeply and the way that it manifests is that I treat him the same way my mom treats my dad. I’m definitely more of a mom/therapist to him than I’d like to be - I’m sick of taking on the role of the fixer, although I think it’s neat to help people become self-aware of certain things or issues affecting them, I don’t really want to be the one holding their hand through their journey. And I think maybe the reason why I’m so stubborn about this relationship is that he represents what my dad is to my mom: Material security, stability, a comfortable life, America, all the boxes ticked. Even if he doesn’t understand me, and even if he doesn’t absolutely light me on fire, I’ve been accepting of it because I see how it works with my parents. And with them I know it can work, if I stay committed to the path. And I’ll be rewarded with my needs for security and safety and permanence met, which were not present for me emotionally as child - see how I’ve looped back to the beginning of this piece? And that’s also why I guess I feel so stable in this relationship: I know it well, I know how it goes and how it can end up, and I’m not grasping at fear or control to try to maintain the outcome because I already know what the outcome is.

Jarek himself has a lot of childhood trauma too and his level of anxious attachment is far more severe than mine (I think I’m secure in some ways, too, esp ever since I actively worked on myself). His parents have a loveless marriage and he’s been emotionally neglected and felt unsafe in his family his whole life, so that’s something for him to work on and I honestly am not sure if we would be able to have a functional relationship if we were both still stuck in our ways.

I really truly think that because of this fixing issue I have, deep down I believe that until that’s cured, I can only be loved at arm’s length. Because if I get too close, I become too suffocating and overwhelming to be around because my fear kicks in and I start becoming controlling. So it would make sense then that the relationships I get tired of are the long distance ones and then everyone I do get (properly) close to in real life are the people I scare away with my intensity. This pattern makes total sense when taken into consideration with my childhood and how my parents are with each other.

I would like to ask my mom these questions:

Do you think you and dad understand each other?

Why do you love him?

How do you think your marriage would be different if you weren’t long distance?

Have you ever wanted more from the marriage?

I’m quite proud of myself for coming to these conclusions without therapy, and I have a strong gut feeling I’m not wrong with any of these as it makes complete logical sense. And while it’s so good to have some clarity, context, explanations, and answers about all this, it doesn’t necessarily inform my next steps (although it can provide a guide). Knowing about these subconscious patterns and my emotional makeup means I can check myself according to my personal goals, but it doesn’t provide a template for my decision-making. I think that’s something I need to chew on more, as to where to go from here. I still need to figure out what I really want and what’s best for me and will make me happy. It’s hard because I don’t have a healthy relationship to look at and view as a model, so I don’t know what it should be like apart from relying on my gut and perceptions.

However, I accept that although the answers may be not what I want and I may have to make some tough decisions, it’s ultimately the right thing to do for my own wellbeing and happiness, and that of everyone else as well.

#Talking To The Moon #wounded inner child #life #marriage #relationships

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shibalen · 4 years

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1/2! Hi! could I have a male romantic hq matchup if thats ok? w a dark box + a jewellery box pls! I'm 5'5, she/her w long dark brown hair w the front half of my right side dyed white, green eyes + tan skin! I'm super bubbly, loud, naturally v flirty + my love language is physical touch! I LOVE working out + I'm a HUGE foodie. I'm stubborn + impulsive, luv rain/storms, coffee + PDA. I'm emotional, confident, bold, giggly, energetic + observant! I ramble but I'm a gd listener + v playful!

2/2 im v playful + luv teasing! I'm spontaneous, optimistic, passionate + ambitious but I tend to overwork myself. I'm empathetic + love comforting others, it takes a lot to make me super angry too! I'm pretty straight forward - I try my best to be upfront about my feelings! I LOVE autumn/winter, cooking, BOBA + outdoors (but also love cosy nights at home) I really value honesty + loyalty. my ideal type is someone tall, protective + doesn't mind physical touch! (I also luv late night adventures)

Sorry I ran out of characters but I just wanted to say thank you so much in advance! I literally had notifications on so I didn't miss your matchups being open lmao <3 a nickname incase u need it is Ains btw!

♡︎ matchup for @hvnlydmn

hello, dear! aww, i'm so happy you think my matchups are something worth not missing. thank you for requesting, hopefully you enjoy this!

haikyuu: i match you with . . .

osamu miya !!

• under that calm exterior Osamu is competitive and has a small wild streak in him. you would do good in bringing out that side of him more often with your extroverted nature !!

• he finds your boldness and passion endearing and will help you keep your feet grounded in cases your impulsive tendancies might cause trouble for you.

• while your external demeanours differ, you hold the same core values which is incredibly important. like you, Osamu prefers being honest and will understand your point of view even though he might have a different opinion.

• that being said, you're both extremely patient and heated arguments take place only once in a blue moon. even then you manage to work out your differences quite fast.

• maybe it's because of your profile pic but i get the feeling you were a fan of Atsumu first, being part of the cheering squad in high school.

• you had no problem approaching either of the twins despite their popularity. they liked your confidence and energy so quickly accepted you.

• at first you wanted Osamu to help you get closer to Atsumu, but oops, along the way you two ended up falling for the other instead ! your personalities complimented each other, plus you had lots of common interests !

• i love how your first impression dynamic is the fun ray of sunshine x the quiet chill one even though y'all can be equally chaotic and observant ♡︎

• Osamu puts action over words and likes showing you his affection through small, casual touches as you go about your day. locking your fingers, putting his arm around your waist or shoulders, caresses of your cheek/head/hands.

• also, giving you massages after a tough day !! it's sweet and intimate while you can talk about anything and everything, or say nothing at all ♡( ◡‿◡ )

• insists being the one to brew you coffee. he knows his coffee is the best and it's what you deserve.

• playful teasing 23/7 (including snack breaks) just saying. having a brother like Atsumu has had its effects.

• Atsumu and you sometimes gang up and lovingly bully him. don't worry though, even against the two of you Samu can stand his ground (or be petty and give you a cold shoulder to tease you even more).

• though if someone else starts crossing the line while they're teasing you, Osamu will lowkey throw hands. he won't make a scene but anyone with the guts to brother you should be prepared to face pain the consequences.

• your dates often consist of visiting new restaurants/food booths, home-cooked dinner dates or picnics + hiking. sometimes he'll join working out with you.

❦︎ darkbox, timeskip

• it started with the little things: missed calls, skipped dinners, forgotten good-mornings. with Osamu busy with the restaurant and you having your hands full with your own job, your schedules only seemed to drift further apart.

• but then the words you exchanged irl became less frequent and finally the physical touch between you faded nearly into nonexistence because you hardly even saw each other.

• it was like a ticking time bomb. Osamu and you were aware of it but neither of you knew how to stop it.

• though you talked through messages and calls it just wasn't the same. stressed and worried, you did your best to remain calm, however this only made things worse.

• to you, it felt as though Osamu didn't care about your relationship anymore since he always looked and sounded the same, ever so nonchalant. yet in truth he was trying his hardest to look composed so you wouldn't worry.

• in the end, you both saw it best to take a 'break' until your careers became stable again. the saddest part: you did it for the other though neither of you wanted to.

• to forget your depression you became more involved in your work than before, up to the point of overworking yourself.

• meanwhile, Osamu, too, drowned himself in exhaustion. no matter how stoic he appeared it was clear he was all but focused. he kept wondering if you were okay, eating properly, getting enough sleep, or even if you wanted to start seeing someone else.

• worries if you'd rather have broken up with him for good because he wasn't good enough.

• thank goodness Atsumu, being the better and smarter twin™, called his brother out on his bs. too bad Osamu was a stubborn bastard and took forever to realise he loved you too much to be taking some 'pause' from you.

• his blood ran cold and his heart dropped to his stomach, however, when you weren't answering any calls or texts for days. you always answered him after a day at most.

• gosh, he was so anxious something had happened to you that he cancelled everything to rush to your place.

• it turned out you were taking a a week off from the world after too much work and getting sick. all well and good but the boy almost stumbled to his knees from the relief.

• instead, being himself, he just went: "stupid. ya really have a talent for getting yourself into situations like these."

• but thankfully you knew what he meant and how to comfort him. obviously you both fessed up that despite the problems you didn't want to be apart from each other again.

• from that incident onwards you agreed to always openly talk about your feelings. even if it meant being a little selfish, you knew the other would always be there for you ♡︎

𑁍 jewellery box

— favourite memory with you:

after a loss at an important game, you were the one to cheer him up. it was mid-autumn so the nature was filled with colours. you invited him out to rake leaves and jump into the heaps. Osamu thought it was ridiculous at first but couldn't help but smile at your sweet attempts to help him. you weren't together yet back then but it was definitely the moment he realised he felt something stronger for you than friendship ♡︎

— favourite activity to do together:

cooking and taste-testing! it's just so domestic. he gets to cook and spend quality time with you—what could be better? also, image standing in front of a stove, just cooking, when he comes up to you from behind, quietly wraps his arms around your waist and nuzzles your neck.

— favourite place to kiss you:

your forehead and neck. he jokes you're too short for him to reach your lips when he actually just loves the intimacy of it, same with your neck.

— favourite nicknames to call you by:

short-stack, plum, Ains. just your own nickname or something silly/teasing. he doesn't think having a nickname is that important.

— favourite thing about you:

how empathetic and understanding you are. many have gotten the wrong impression of him of being aloof before, so he loves you for caring to look further than meets the eye. not only with him but everyone else as well.

runner up: Kotarō Bokuto

this is my first time writing the extra additions so feedback is warmly welcome. remember to take care ♡︎

#matchups #anime matchups #haikyuu #ains #len's matches

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cetaceans-pls · 4 years

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Fandom: Batman - All Media Types Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne

What are two good men meant to do when faced with an epidemic within a pandemic?

Bruce and Dick take to the steppes and ride across Inner Mongolia, bringing justice, mare's milk, and help in their wake.

Or, how Bruce and Dick try to show mutual care and respect in spite of: terrible communication skills; a global health crisis; a regional health crisis; tetchy horses; eyebrow gel; and coal-mining, set in endless, glorious Inner Mongolia.

I have never not been a horse girl, and that’s the extent of my justification for writing this. Pls enjoy, and if you hit me up with a good prompt I might once again end up with 15 tabs wide open in my quest to figure out what a cool Mongolian lady might be named ;9

Usually, Bruce is happy to delegate external work to external workers. He’s a one-man force for justice, full of vim and spite, but he’s also stuffed to the brim with barely-healed bones and a chronic shortage of sleep. Staking a claim to Gotham is so important exactly because it’s the only claim he can actually defend, and so he does it whole-heartedly. That’s the purpose of the Justice League, after all. It’s only by the grace of some god that he isn’t a meta-human, or he’d have the whole world under his sharp purview.

Bruce has toppled his fair share of terrible dictators, and looking at them is a little like looking in a mirror sometimes, so if there is a God maybe she’s got the right of it.

The thing with all the superpowers that make up the League is that while it’s brilliant in times of intergalactic or even international trouble, when a pandemic’s up and about, the Flash being able to run through every city on Earth in under a minute means that he’s potentially the world’s most super spreader, and Superman evacuating buildings needs to make damn sure he sanitises between rescues. Wonder Woman’s all lasso nowadays, because happily divine products are extremely anti-viral, but right now the things that make the strong strong also make them oddly, sharply weak.

They’re living in interesting times, all right.

So when a call comes through that there’s been a horrifying spike in pneumonia-like symptoms in children in Inner Mongolia, everyone's a little… stressed. Flyers are already up and about delivering things that need delivering, anyone with anything approaching healing powers have been dispatched to hotspots, and Bruce is pretty sure the last time he had a full night’s sleep was sometime in January. Here lies yet another problem with an uncertain cause, one that can’t be defeated with a punch or a meeting, and they’re already strung out to capacity.

When needs must, Bruce tries to rise to the occasion. He’s had pneumonia dozens of times before, he speaks Mandarin and Mongolian, and he’s the only one who has and knows how to run a one-man research lab in the middle of a field mission. He’s been trialling a bunch of vaccines on himself too, and he’s still up and kicking, so obviously he’s the best choice.

There’s the opposite of sound agreement during the League conference call.

“You tried how many what-nows?” somebody’s shouting, but Bruce hopes they know him well enough by now to know that when they’re on the BatZoom he blocks all their videos.

“Vaccines. Who else would I try them on? A sample size of one isn’t encouraging, but barring reinfection I do seem to have produced the antibodies, so obviously I am the best choice.”

There’s more raucous shouting that he ignores, but he doesn’t hang up because he knows that everyone on this call also likely had their last full night’s sleep in January.

“Hang on, B, we’re not letting you go into the wilds of Inner Mongolia to identify a new, potentially lethal disease by yourself.” That’s Clark, because he’s the only one who can be cajoling and gently condescending all at once. “I’ll admit the numbers are alarming, but the WHO are going to look into it-”

“Superman, if any organisation could manage the current health crisis, you wouldn’t be up to your shoulders in parts assembling ventilators in Brazil. This is just a courtesy call, not a debate. I’ll be departing ASAP with my equipment once I finish collating the health data.”

They all start arguing again, all at once, and they all make valid points. Bruce doesn’t actually know what he is and isn’t immune to at this point, and if it’s something new then that’s even more of an issue. By virtue of his relative uselessness, though, Bruce is the one in the best position to run recon for an extended period, as well as the one most likely to be able to self-quarantine without leaving thousands to die by his absence. Gotham’s in a good place, because the Bat coming after irresponsible citizens and lawmakers alike and Bruce Wayne coming after unfair labour practices are about 5000 times more effective than the federal government, so he can step up. He should step up.

He will step up.

So it’s a no-brainer.

All the voices shut out all of a sudden, which means one of the administrators has put everyone on mute. He didn’t do it, and Clark would likely sooner eat a bright red Super boot than be that rude to people, which leaves them only with the worrisome woman.

“All right, Batman, we’ll respect your wishes. I have informed Nightwing of your plans, as he’s requested that I share your more exotic missions with him. I’m sure he would love to discuss the situation with you.” Lord, her smug smile is excruciatingly evident in her tone.

Bruce mutes his own mic to groan long and loud and hard, and tries to will away the near-Pavlovian headache that tends to manifest when he finds himself saddled with one of his children for an awful case.

He unmutes his mic.

“Noted. Thank you for your concern, Wonder Woman. Batman over and out.”

If Dick has to travel up from Bludhaven, there’s a chance Bruce can be off and away before he gets here. That’s fine; a quick getaway is a skill he’s honed over a great many years. He just needs the time-lapse of the distribution of the illness to finish getting mapped against urban areas in the computer, and he can go-

The lights suddenly dim, down to the faint yellow that indicates that the main power and generators 2 through to 5 have been cut off, with just 6 up to keep the computer and general equipment working.

Generator 6 is not linked to the hangar doors, though, so there’s….that.

The desire to scream is almost overwhelming. He knows Diana keeps in contact with more people than his soft human mind can even comprehend, but to even recruit Alfred to her devilish ways…

Bruce groans again, and irritatedly starts packing the equipment he’ll need as he waits for the arrival of (one of) his prodigal son(s).

The lights come back on to full just as Dick launches himself over the handrail and down a 30-foot drop, because dramatics, if not genes, run in this entire damn family. He’s not even dressed as Nightwing, just as a devastating young man. This many years on, Bruce’s heart still stutters in that instant before Dick hits the ground, because what if this is the time he doesn’t stick the landing?

The Graysons’ terrible death sure did hit them both differently.

“Hey, B,” and it’s just Dick whole and complete, smiling brightly.

“Where’s your mask?” Bruce asks brusquely.

Dick looks startled, before he looks down at his jeans and sweatshirt. “I was going for a more casual look?”

Bruce rolls his eyes. “Not that mask.”

The implication lands, and Dick rolls his eyes like a late echo. “Already off and away in Alfred’s washer, ‘course. Not like I took the crowded way over, anyways. Roads are empty as all hell, and rooftops even emptier. But Bruce, don’t try to irritate me to distraction.” Dick wags his finger at him.

It’s a little sweet, because Dick clearly had been distracted before he’d pulled himself back into focus.

“What’s this I hear from Wonder Woman that you’re running off to Mongolia to try and miracle-cure a mystery sickness?”

Bruce is already hauling up the last rucksack he needs for the trip, though he doesn’t bother to pull up the cowl. “Likely exactly what Diana told you. She was wrong about my needing you or your support, though. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

Bruce brushes by him and heads towards the fully-loaded BatWing, banking on being enough of an unpleasant son-of-a-bitch that Dick sighs and gives up on him and goes home where an at least marginally better known disease is running rampant. It’s a technique that’s worked before, enough to have Dick rage at him and storm off and avoid him, and it’s unpleasant every time, but needs just really must sometimes.

The thing about Dick, though, specifically Dick more so than every other person Bruce has had the pleasure and displeasure to have ever met, is his unbelievable knack of having an endless capacity to forgive Bruce without taking any of his shit.

So Dick will be upset and he might leave, but he always finds it within himself to come back, and when he does, he always lets Bruce know all the places where he failed, and inadvertently explains all the ways Bruce could be just a little bit better. He will forgive and it damn well seems like he even forgets all these little injustices, and it’s maddening.

The concept of endangering one of the world’s best men on a dodgy medical mission out in the steppes? A goddamn laughable concept. Bruce would be delighted to bear a spot of wrath when he comes back instead.

Sometimes, though, the full arc of Dick’s mood after being brushed off goes from anger to acceptance so quickly that Bruce doesn’t get enough time to go off and do the damn-fool thing he’s about to do. Sometimes, like tonight, Bruce sweeps past Dick dramatically, and gets pulled up short by Dick grabbing the back of his cape and tugging.

He comes to a not-very-graceful halt, choked a little around the neck, and looks over his shoulder at Dick with tremendous affront. “Dick, what are you doing?”

Dick just smiles sharply, clearly out through the other side of the angry cycle. “I’m ignoring you being a complete asshole out of some misguided sense of heroism, B, and I’m letting you know that I know you’re trying to get me so annoyed I just leave you. Alfred’s got me full-up with good cheer, and I’m in a good mood, so you’re just shit out of luck.” His voice softens, goes a little sad and round in the edges. “Let me help, Bruce. None of us want you out there alone. You would never let any of us take a case like this alone, so just give in. Okay?”

Bruce knows there are ways out of this. Dick in his infinite trustingness would not expect a sedative dart to the neck, and Bruce could always fall back on his standard operating procedure from years long past and nuke this tentative moment by doubling down on how he doesn’t need anyone and how he doesn’t answer to Dick, who is still little more than a child. There’re a dozen ways Bruce could disentangle himself from this, and they both know this.

Dick still chooses to trust and believe, the way he inevitably always does, and Bruce is short on 3 months’ worth of sleep. All he wants is to take care of the people he needs to take care of.

Plus, vaccine trial #8 is giving him the sweats, and he feels uncharacteristically desperate to just… relent.

“Get your stuff and get in the Wing. I’m not waiting.”

Of course Dick takes so much longer than is reasonable to grab gear from his room, and of course Bruce sits in the Wing with the engine idling, like all beleaguered parents waiting in their vehicles worldwide.

With a final hurrah from Alfred who appears with enough packed food to have them camping in luxury for a week, they are finally, finally off.

Air traffic’s the quietest it’s been in decades. There’s something surreal about not needing to push the Wing to her upper height limits to stay invisible, instead cruising along like some, ah, passenger plane. They see geese, which is the highlight of their trip, before they finally go up and up and up to evade any hot nonsense Eastern Europe or Russia may be in the mood to throw at them.

At least, that’s Dick’s explanation of their trajectory, after Bruce wakes up from a drugged-scone-induced nap (courtesy of the enormously traitorous Alfred) just in time for them to discuss where to land. Still groggy but decidedly better rested than he was 6 hours ago, Bruce licks the cottonmouth out and intrepidly takes a sip of what he’s hoping isn’t knock-out tea as he looks at the map Dick’s pulled up on the windscreen.

Poison pastry or no, Bruce accepts that the reason why he’d actually stayed asleep is because his eldest is by far the best, most trustworthy driver in the family. It’s been so long since he’s been in a situation where Dick drove that he had forgotten that absolute fact.

“The most cases registered of an unconfirmed respiratory illness is in the capital, but accounting for population density, the pandemic, and the usual rates of pneumonia, it’s not where we need to focus on.” Bruce pulls up a map of the region, and the capital of Inner Mongolia lights up in glowing orange, ‘Hohhot’ written in Papyrus because Tim cannot be trusted with software updates.

At least it’s not Wing-dings.

“We should split up,” Bruce continues after glaring a touch too long at the hideous writing. “You try to get a read on how things are in the hospitals in Hohhot, and I’ll head out into the steppes to touch base with the more rural communities.”

He doesn’t sound excited with the plan, because he already knows he’s not getting away with it.

Dick doesn’t even have the decency to pretend to agree and defer, laughing instead as he starts plotting the course for a landing on a patch of grassland exactly like any other patch of grassland a ways’ way away from the bright city lights. “Yep, B, I definitely broke 15 different traffic laws to get to the Manor in time to stop you from going solo, just to let you ride off into the desert like the lone ranger.” There’s a gentle beep to warn them of some military surveillance equipment in their vicinity, and Dick smoothly drops the Wing into a pretty banked turn that takes them away with a gentleness that wouldn’t have turned even the most hungover tummy. “I took a look at your maps while you were out, and I figure if this thing’s worse for kids and we don’t know where to start, we should just go be pretend doctors and make a circuit of all the little community schools.”

“That’s a good idea.”

That has Dick turning in the pilot’s seat to look at Bruce, clearly shocked. “Wait, what were you planning on doing?”

“Break into the peoples’ homes at night and take samples from as many children I could get. If I get caught, I would be in costume, and therefore very likely to be mistaken as a nightmare, or potentially a demon.”

There’s peace and quiet for a few moments, and then Dick’s laughing again. It’s an insulting delight.

“Bruce!” Dick pleads, struggling for breath. “ Please say psyche. You cannot have seriously been planning to give every kid in Inner Mongolia nightmares while you steal blood from them!”

Time was short, and what Bruce had was the Batman costume and the general ability to be misconstrued as a demonic entity at first glance. “I would have needed more than just blood samples, to be thorough.”

The ground spreads out endlessly below them, the sky endlessly above. The grass is blown gently out of the way as the Wing drops into a perfect vertical landing, which is amazing considering Dick is actively wheezing at this point. “Wait till Alfie hears that this was your great plan.” The landing gear hits ground, and they have now made contact with gorgeous, gorgeous Inner Mongolia. “Seems pretty, uhm, intense even for you, B.”

Neither of them move to get up and get out; they’re both just slumped in the admittedly comfortable pilot seats of the Wing, looking out at the rolling hills and more stars than Gotham’s ever, ever seen.

“It’s been an intense time.”

Dick’s laughter softens, peters out as they just keep on sitting and looking out. The swaying grass and endless blank horizon is hugely different to the chaos and stale fear that’s blanketed Gotham and much of the world the past few months, and it’s such a helpless pleasure to not need to think about all of that, right now.

Eventually, Dick gets up and squeezes Bruce’s shoulder. “We’re still hours away from sunrise, B. C’mon, let’s get some sleep, we can start fresh and early.”

Bruce touches the hand on his shoulder, doesn’t dislodge it and doesn’t squeeze it. Just a touch on a touch. “You go first. I’ll be along in a minute.”

Dick relents and wishes him a good night. Bruce just sits there and stares and stares and stares.

Bruce is woken up by the smell of fresh coffee, and it’s a gentler wake-up call than an emergency klaxon or Alfred running down the steps shouting “Master Bruce!” on the 4 occasions they have prevented the apocalypse since February. It’s as disorientating as a slap to his face, and he blinks to a still starry sky as Dick comes up from behind him bearing gifts.

The thermos breathes out steam like a caffeinated dragon, and Bruce is also bestowed with a breakfast sandwich. Double-egg, buttered English muffin, and it’s a touch of classic Alfred magic that it tastes and feels this good after 12 hours and a blitz in the Wing’s ‘microwave’ that’s really a radiation vent for the nuclear engine.

He makes a happy little sound, and it’s echoed by Dick with his bowl of cereal and milk, matching mug of coffee wedged between folded calf and thigh. “Alfred packed like 8 types of cereal, and there’re like boxes and boxes of all sorts of food.” With his unencumbered leg, Dick prods Bruce’s arm with a socked foot. “Have you been up to no good again? This is classic stress cooking Alfred.”

It really is. Bruce knows with the force of religious fervour that if he digs around, he will find white chocolate and raspberry cookies. “It’s been a busy time with the League.” And the world. “I told him he didn’t need to worry.”

Dick snorts as he gulps down the disgusting dregs of cereal milk. “He worries when you worry and you’re always worrying so he’s always worried. It’s a cycle of whole-ass adults not knowing how to tell each other when you’re freaking out.” Dick prods his side again. “It’s sweet, but you also seriously need to keep him and us more updated, y’know.” The prodding escalates. “You can’t keep doing these things to yourself by yourself, B.”

Bruce catches an ankle, squeezes it lightly, and puts it aside. “It’s my job.”

Dick, when he snorts, can get awfully loud exclusively because when he decides to be undignified he goes extremely all out. Bruce’s ears might be ringing , and Dick doesn’t even look apologetic. “You don’t have a job, B, you’re a billionaire bachelor man. Everything you do in your life is an extracurricular activity. Batmanning, the Justice League, picking up orphans left and right, none of it’s your responsibility.” The long leg retracts, Dick now curled up like a half-measure spider, sipping his coffee like he hasn’t said anything insane at all. “So, y’know, just take it easy, let the rest of us carry our own weight.”

It’s madness. Bruce has been shot and been less shocked. Bruce has been proposed to by aliens on intergalactic missions and been less taken aback. “Dick, what do you mean , it isn’t my responsibility?” It’s been nothing less than an absolute honour, a literal privilege, to have been able to raise Dick, to give his children a home. Can one’s reason for living really be called an extra-curricular activity?

It’s the whole curricular, surely.

An alert pings! on the dashboard, and Dick doesn’t bother with a response for a point he feels he’s made plenty clear. “That’s our queue, big guy. The school by here opens in 3 hours, and it serves the entire district so we need to get there early if we want to get our cover story straight.”

“There’s a herdsman I made arrangements with already, 2 miles out form here. He’ll have horses ready for us.” Bruce polishes off the last of his breakfast and coffee, and neatly puts aside what Dick thinks he should and shouldn’t do for a more thorough look-over later. “How’s your Mongolian?”

“Horrible, I’m sure no Damian,” Dick says cheerfully. “But my Mandarin’s not too bad. You wanna be the local guide and I can be the cool doctor from a big city?”

It’s as good an idea as any; Bruce hadn’t exactly been worried about cover stories with his night terror plans. He gets to his feet, and tries to avoid brushing crumbs to the floor. “We’re going to need actual disguises.”

In a terrifying show of skill and disdain for normal human conduct, Dick just vaults over the back of his chair, cereal bowl in one hand and empty mug in the crook of an elbow. “I’ve heard the stories, B. Time to whip out the beard-wig?”

Walking like a much more reasonable person towards the kit he’d brought with him, Bruce rolls his eyes. “Beards prevent the correct application of a face mask, Dick.” He presses a button, and a 57-piece sfx makeup collection tailored for (literally) every occasion pops out of a locked chest. “And it’s culturally uncommon to have full beards here, so I’ll just make do.”

Dick doesn’t need much of a disguise; he’s a little ambiguous-looking at the best of times, and the force of his personality is such that generally people’s impression of him are just soft floppy hair and a killer smile.

Bruce, meanwhile, would need a full face of prosthetics just to stay under the radar. What he has is fake tan and eyebrow gel and dark brown contact lenses, but he’s done more with less, so.

At least by the time they reach the herder’s campsite and are welcomed by a smiling man built so strong and compactly that even with his affected stoop Bruce towers over him, Dick’s gotten used enough to the patched-together look to stop bursting into laughter every time Bruce turns to look at him.

Gantulga bullies them into his home for some tea when they arrive, provides a wonderful opportunity for Bruce to relearn the sounds he’s forgotten in his Mongolian, and cheerfully accepts that Bruce is an oddball guide originally from a nomadic tribe close to the Mongolian-Russian border, who found himself here of all places because he fell in love with a woman from Hohhot.

“It’s the same for me,” the man had said, grinning widely when his wife lightly smacks his shoulder. “And the land here knows no borders. Thank you for coming to look after our children.”

Dick is left out of the loop, because a shared language is a terribly powerful bond against present and conceptual oppressors, and Bruce tells Gantulga with as much seriousness as he can that, “It is my job to take care of you.”

They leave just a little past dawn on two horses, with two more carrying their equipment, and Gantulga waves them off with well wishes for both them and his horses before he returns to his herd and his work and his family. As the testy gelding picks a gait that means the wooden saddle will eventually physically castrate him, Bruce sets their course for the little wooden school building set close to the blossom of summer tents of nomadic herders, and thinks about the duty of care he imposes on himself.

In the fresh air, with his son whipping about on a stallion that has taken a liking to a kindred spirit, Bruce figures that for all his usual angst, protecting people that need protecting isn’t a burden that will ever get heavy enough to put down.

They ride.

Arriving at the school unannounced would ordinarily be a big problem, but these are unusual times. With some official-looking documents printed on the Wing and Dick’s ability to charm absolutely anything breathing, the stressed-out headmaster gives them his blessing to collect samples from all the children. The reach of a global pandemic has struggled to get out this far away from dense cities, but whatever’s in the air right now is doing a number on his kids and it’s clear the man needs a nap and a solution.

They can’t exactly provide him with either right now, but part of the reason the horses’ saddles are so heavy is because Bruce has brought along all the equipment and medication that he thought even had a chance of helping. Dropping cutting-edge miniaturised air filters in Inner Mongolia is a big risk given a government that’s infamous for loathing external intervention, but the equipment is designed to look cheap as all hell and break down irretrievably if a remote kill switch is tripped, so Batman’s covered his bases as best he can.

Even if he couldn’t, it wouldn’t exactly be the first or even the hundredth time he goes against the wishes of the authorities. If push came to shove and tomorrow he had to do a fly-by in a helicopter dropping nebulizers for 100,000 people, then that’s what he would do.

He’s startled out of his thoughts by Dick gently tapping him on the back. “C’mon, B, let’s get the kit set up. Kids are gonna be coming in soon, you don’t want to scare ‘em with your brooding.”

The little classroom doesn’t have an electrical outlet, and has no furniture that suits anybody over 5’5, but Dick still looks like he belongs in his neatly-pressed white coat and nitrile gloves. The plan is simple: get as many samples as possible. Dick’s already looking picture-perfect as a doctor literally anybody would trust, energetic and dependable.

Bruce is prepping the ‘gift bags’ full of therapeutic medication, bits of tech, and hyper-nutritious candy, ready to be given out to every patient. “Even fully dressed up I have never managed to scare a child, so I’m not worried,” he says, drawing wonky teddy bears and butterflies on the plastic wrapping with a BatSharpie. Honestly, Dick’s plan is genius. When he had been determined to go in as nightmare fuel, he had just planned to leave the care boxes at the front door with some official-looking stamp from the government and hope that people wouldn’t throw it away. Instead all the children who come to them get to go away with chocolate ration bars that only barely can’t resuscitate the dead and air filtration systems that NASA would fight bears for.

The testing equipment they left on the ship, because while it isn’t hard to look under-funded and hard-done-by when all you have on you is some cotton swabs and bits of tack, the PCR machine running on solar power would stand out significantly more. Dick’s disinfecting the ever-loving hell out of the chairs and tables when he hears Bruce’s response, and he’s quick to flash a smile. “It’s your BDE, I guess. It’s kinda amazing that it was switched on so strong even when I first saw you.”

Unwilling to admit that he has no idea what in the hell a BDE is, Bruce does a furtive Google search while pretending to go through the school registration list. It’s a strange revelation.

“What does the size of a dick have to do with anything?” He’s trying to sound normal while he wonders if he’d done anything inappropriate that night at the circus to deserve this.

“Close, B, but not quite. I meant Big Dad Energy.” In the distance, the sound of horses’ hooves comes closer and closer, heralding the arrival of the children. It’s almost time to start, and Dick takes a seat by his stash of needles. “It’s weird to think ‘bout it now, but I know that when kids see Batman they see somebody who’ll take care of them no matter what.”

There’s a slam! as the front door to the little wooden schoolhouse swings open, and the excited chatter of children filters through. Dick, however, is not done dealing body blows to the state of Bruce’s head, even if he sounds absent-minded as he does it. “I think I saw it too, that first time, even out of uniform. Funny, huh?”

The door to the classroom is pulled open by the harried headmaster while a gaggle of children stare curiously at them, and Bruce goes straight to one knee to address them at face level about what’ll be happening today. He doesn’t get to ask what’s so funny about Dick saying the single most inhumanly complimentary thing Bruce has ever heard, nor does he get to ask if Dick still sees the same thing now.

It’s yet another thing to ponder over later; for now, he just tells the children that he is Bat-Erdene (of course), and that he will help the doctor help them.

Getting stuck with a needle and losing a bit of blood is a novel experience for many of the kids, so Bruce lets them hold his hand while Dick does quick, neat work, and takes special care to wince or go ‘Ow!’ dramatically whenever a child squeezes him hard.

It ends up with the children (and Dick) laughing at him, and telling him kindly that Bat(-Erdene) is not a strong man but that’s all right because he gives them treats.

By the time they’re herded outside to have lunch along with the kids, they have 25 samples, and Dick has no less than 3 kids sitting on his lap as they draw horses and people in the dirt, babbling at each other in mutually-unintelligible languages through thin barriers of surgical masks.

Going by just temperature, nobody here has a fever, but half the kids complained furtively to Bat-Erdene that they cough a lot a lot in the early mornings, and their parents worry because something unpleasant is spreading across the world and what if it has spread to them?

It’s a lot to think about, but the absence of any signs of infection is… encouraging. Somewhat. There’s a lot that he can do if it’s an environmental hazard, after all.

For example,

“Doctor! That’s dangerous!”

Dick has the gall to just wink at him as he walks around on his hands, a horde of children screaming and laughing as they hang on to his fluttering legs. In the near distance, the loud, tired sigh of the headmaster is a feeling that Bruce can very deeply relate to.

The headmaster and five separate sets of parents offer them dinner and lodging for the night, and they beg off all of them with the excuse that they needed to ride hard to get to the next little school which is over a day’s riding away. They nevertheless are sent on their way with bottles and bottles of mare’s milk and a gentle lecture on how to brush down their horses properly, the whole school wishing them a safe journey as they disappear into the endless rolling hills that lie between them and their next destination.

Once they’re far away enough that a quick scan reveals them to be sufficiently isolated in the twilight, Bruce and Dick abruptly drop the mannerisms and postures that marked the Doctor and Bat-Erdene, with Dick unbuttoning the high collar of his jacket and Bruce coming out of his slouch. Camp is another hour’s ride away, where the BatWing will be waiting and the horses can be settled down for the night. So far, so successful, and Bruce is willing to admit to himself if to no one else that having company for this mission has made it actually, genuinely pleasant.

Dick breaks the silence first when he whistles at the moon rising from the open horizon, massive and solitary and quietly terrifying. “You don’t get a view like that in Gotham, do you?”

It is, indeed, a hell of a sight. With grasslands stretching out every which way, there’s nothing for the human eye to use for scale and context. It’s just this giant glowing thing that could be a mile or an eternity away, rising like a lamp under the blanket of night.

At the crest of a gentle hill they draw to a stop to let the sight sink in, two men and their four horses and this one mission. Dick looks over at Bruce, all aglow with a healthy tan developed after an afternoon’s worth of running after children while shouting in cheerful broken Mongolian, and he looks more like the embodiment of hope than any superhuman Bruce has ever met. “I’m glad you let me talk you into taking me along, B.”

The words are the wrong way around! Bruce is the one who’s glad that on the worst day of Dick’s life, he looked at Bruce and saw someone worth believing in! That just yesterday he looked into the depths of Bruce’s obstinacy and still decided to help!

Those words are old and awkward and heavy, though, so Bruce just slumps in his astonishingly uncomfortable saddle and tries not to smile too obviously. “There’s no one I’d rather have with me here, Dick,” he says quietly.

And then, less quietly because this is urgent and an ever-present danger for every parent with more than one child, “Don’t tell the others.”

Dick rolls his eyes, and nudges his horse into a quick trot. “I know, B, can’t let your favorite find out you just said that.”

He’s off, rolling into a hard full-out gallop as the pack horses clatter and bang after him with their lighter saddle bags, a wild thing into the moonlight, leaving Bruce to ponder over yet another mystery: who the hell is meant to be his favourite, and though he fundamentally does not have one, why would Dick assume it wasn’t him?

The mystery respiratory sickness had better be easier to uncover than whatever has Dick feeling like this, because Bruce is only one man and he’s not even a good one.

By the fourth school they get to, tales of their exploits have spread ahead of them on the wings of traveling herdsmen. This school’s in a proper town, with half a dozen summer gers dotting the grasslands just past the little road that has a grocery store and the one post office. There’s even a bit of a welcoming committee, kids on horseback racing out to meet them the minute they come within view.

Dick and their pack horses are pretty happy with the attention, breaking into little races, sprinting off this way and that while Bruce’s decidedly more stand-offish horse ignores all the cheer to keep stolidly plodding towards town. He spots yet more people on horseback, adults this time in bright dress, and rides up to meet them and introduce himself as the ‘local guide’.

Some of the faces even look familiar, which means that even with them both going at maximum speed, a bunch of people casually outraced them to get here and apparently organised this warm, warm welcome.

There’s a fearsome woman who stands on the ground but somehow manages to look about three times as imposing as the men on their horses around her, and at first sight Bruce’s brain registers matriarch as loudly as a scream in the ear. He’s willing to put money on ‘headmistress’, given the look of awe and trepidation of the younger horsemen around her, and makes haste to greet her.

Her name is Narantsetseg, tall and proud as the sunflower she’s named after, enduring like the fields and fields of the stuff that they’ve ridden through to get here, and she tells him that while he and the Doctor are greatly welcomed to their little town, they would need to do a little more than just test the children.

Bruce doesn’t let the unease show on his face, but he does move back slightly to maintain a sightline on Dick, who’s glancing over with false casualness. Is she connected to the government in some way, and she knows that they’ve been falsifying their credentials? Luckily, looking gruff and unmoved is his specialty as far as expressions go, and he just asks her to explain.

At an imperious wave of her hand the wall of horses part, and there is a line of red-cheeked young women in all their finery. As one, they all surreptitiously sneak a glance at Dick who is a juggling three water bottles while going at a fast trot, much to the delight of the children.

“We have heard that the Doctor is single, and in need of a wife,” Narantsetseg tells him. “You won’t find better women anywhere else, and none harder working.”

Somebody in the back pipes up, and his face is vaguely familiar to Bruce. “The Doctor doesn’t speak Mongolian, but he’s good with children! Askaa took a needle and he didn’t even cry afterwards!”

There’s a lot of impressed murmuring, and Bruce is left to wonder how badly dear Askaa usually takes to getting jabs, and how his father got to this town so quickly.

“I cannot speak for the Doctor,” he tells them, trying to barter for peace. “He’s from the city; I don’t know what he wants in his women. You know how these city-types are.”

Askaa’s father will not be stopped, though, and Bruce wants to smack him. “He also helped fix the engine of my truck, along with you, Bat-Erdene. His doctor hands got dirty, and he didn’t even mind! And he’s strong .” The man is really hitting his stride, and sounds alarmingly starry-eyed. “He lifted two of my sheep without blinking.”

The impressed murmuring gets louder, and while Bruce agrees with the sentiment (Dick is, indeed, a very good boy), he’s less fond of how much attention they’re getting. “I would be happy to translate for all of you, but he is on his doctoring mission and he can’t stay around for long-”

He’s cut off by a sharp scream that has him spinning around and dropping into a ready crouch, just in time to see a girl get unseated when her horse startles at a rabbit leaping out of its burrow. It’s not a long way to the ground, and Bruce already sees her righting herself to take the fall well, but that’s not what happens.

What happens is: Dick leaps off his stallion onto her horse in the blink of an eye, holding on to the bucking horse by thigh strength alone as he pivots in the saddle till he’s sticking out at a right angle, catching the girl by her waist in a brilliant show of skill and instinctive heroism.

The timing is wild; the chatter amongst the adults is at a fever-pitch, with some outright cheering and applauding, and Bruce is pretty sure that any hope of keeping a low profile here is now extremely low.

Narantsetseg steps towards Bruce, and a hush falls over the assembled adults. She touches him on the arm, expression serious and serene. “Bat-Erdene,” she calls him.

“Yes?” he answers helplessly.

“Let the Doctor know that I am a widow, and that I would be happy to welcome him into my home.”

And that is that on that.

The days progress in much the same chaotic, fond way; sometimes the distance they have to cross takes days by horse, and they can’t just use the Wing to zip around the whole time because the horses tend to spook if they had to fly for more than just a couple of hours. Fortunately, between the fresh air, ceaseless good company, and the frighteningly invigorating experience of being on a semi-wild horse that on a whim can and will try to kill you, time out in the steppes gives them plenty of opportunities to work out what they know so far.

Over 200 samples taken from a huge transect stretching from just outside of Hohhot to the actual literal godforsaken Gobi desert, and the picture’s become somewhat clearer. Two weeks in and they find that the bulk of the worst cases are focused in the Ordos desert, over a hundred miles away from where they first touched down. By this point both Dick and Bruce have ridden the most they ever have in their lives, their thighs might well have been cast from steel, and the sensation of a non-aching groin is a distant, distant dream.

Dick can literally snipe a rabbit from horseback with his stallion going at full gallop; he swears that he can do it while standing on the saddle, and for one crazed moment Bruce was extremely tempted to let Dick try. Common sense that sounds like Alfred stays his stupid tongue, but there’s plenty to be impressed with by the way Dick is on a horse and on a mission.

It doesn’t really remind Bruce of days long gone when it was just him and Alfred and the first Robin, because Dick isn’t a child anymore, has just grown better and better with time and it drives home again and again that whatever Bruce’s doubts about everything he has ever done in his entire life, Dick did become a spectacular adult and Bruce got the pleasure of being there and seeing it happen.

They’re riding towards the Wing now, with the last batch of another 15 samples from the last schoolhouse in Bruce’s saddlebag and another dozen bottles of mare’s milk clickety-clacketing on Black Thunder, their small pack horse who has never met a man he would not bite. His name is courtesy of the first time the small black horse had bitten Bruce’s knee, going for it so hard that Bruce’s pained cursing had thundered across the plains. Black Thunder is a blight on what would otherwise have been a very pleasant series of rides, and is the only one they have officially named because Bruce’s horse responds to ‘horse’, Dick’s responds to ‘baby’, and their other pack horse would sweetly come trotting up to them at ‘the nice one’.

Bruce is maneuvering closer to Dick to share the latest update on the air composition breakdown from all 200 odd filters, but he has to hold the data pad high up in the air when Black Thunder comes by for fear of losing yet another piece of him to the cursed thing. Fortunately, instead of almost-murder the terrible beast appears to just want some head scratches from Dick this time.

“B, if you keep scowling at him of course lil B’s gonna feel antagonised,” Dick tells him jovially as he leans down to pet the demon.

If Bruce had tried a similar move he would have lost all his fingers and maybe even a few toes, but he’s got too much dignity to do more than be a bit huffy about it. “I know a crazed villain when I see one, Dick,” is all he will say on that , thank you very much. “As I was saying, the sickness is pretty constrained to just the Ordos. Your bacterial and viral cultures didn’t yield any results, so I cross-referenced the early instances of respiratory distress against any recent human activity in the area; a new supermassive coal mine opened up just before the first cases started cropping up, and it’s our most likely culprit.”

Dick lets go of Black Thunder despite the sad little whinny, and pulls out a notepad from his breast pocket. His police training means that no amount of technology Bruce throws at him can stop Dick from writing down his thoughts, but fortunately Dick’s handwriting and concept of ‘helpful notes’ are literally illegible and indecipherable to anyone except for him, so it doesn’t leave much of a paper trail. The bigger question is how he manages to write at all while horseback-riding, but Bruce is a man who's learned how to accept miracles at face value.

“This area’s rich as hell in coal, what makes you think this specific mine’s the problem?” The fwip-fwip-fwip of pages on a spiral-bound notebook match the pace of his horse’s trot. “The filters haven’t logged a dangerously high level of carbon monoxide or coal waste products, and there’s been no record of increased smog.” He winces. “And B, you know I’m not exactly a Tim-level lab tech. Maybe you can re-do the cultures to double-check.”

“I would stake my life on the work you’ve done,” Bruce says sharply, as he’s found himself more and more wont to do every time Dick says anything that even slightly indicates that he regards himself as lacking in some wildly incorrect way. “Also, Oracle did some digging into this new company. It’s half a dozen shell companies away from Lex Corp, so it’s questionable that they’re actually mining coal, and even more questionable that they’re doing it with a care for the people living here.”

Aerosolised mystery kryptonite is clogging the air, potentially, and Bruce is so thankful that his general predisposition for lone-working and paranoia meant that it isn’t Superman or Kara who came zooming by to help in the area. He already wants to slap a mask on Dick and tell him to breathe less, and Dick’s absolutely built to last through worse things. They would need to do more testing to know for sure, but the air filters they’ve been handing out like candy are designed to extract any particulate matter so there’s hope yet that the things will help.

Pick up of the equipments' just become a lot more important though, if they have hundreds of traps out catching idle Kryptonite. Maybe this will be the perfect occasion for a ghoulish Bat to just burst into and out of gers, hmm.

In the distance, the shielding rolls off of the Wing because they’ve breached her perimeter and been recognised as themselves, glinting in the sunset as night overtakes day with startling quickness out here in the desert. In what has become tradition by now, Dick takes the last couple hundred yards at a dead gallop, Baby becoming a blur of glossy brown, and Bruce compels Horse to run after him, because at this point in their adventure few things ring as fundamentally true in the head as the sheer exhilarating joy of being a man on a horse with all six legs off the ground.

It’s a time for thoughts to rapidly arrange themselves, and by the time they come up to a halt right by the ship, Dick’s got his notebook tucked away and a look of sublime thoughtfulness on his face. “What’s the relationship like between Wayne Enterprise and the Chinese government, B?”

Bruce dismounts as soon as Horse comes to a halt, because he’ll never stop feeling faintly apologetic for being so heavy a man on so small a beast, and he’s just left to look up at Dick with the moon at his back. “You know I’ve always had a problem with authoritarian figures,” Bruce says with a bitchy little grin. The steppes encourage a type of wildness in him that’s very different to the stoops and cornices of Gotham; he feels a lot more teeth than shadow here.

Dick’s at home here in the grasslands the way he’s at home on the trapeze and at the Manor and at Bludhaven PD, along with the dozen little niches he’s sprouted roots in and made better. Dick’s always been all teeth, and it’s only usually a smile. “What do you say, up for a bit of breaking and entering, Mister Bat-Erdene?”

Bruce is already heading for the open loading bay, excited to get the sand out of his hair and cold cream on his thighs and Batman on him. “Thought you’d never ask, Doctor.”

The thigh guards barely fit now on Bruce, and the fabric stretching across Nightwing’s legs are pulled so taut over new muscle that it looks even more, ah, provocative than usual.

Bruce tries to convince Dick to wear Bruce’s larger under armour instead, but Dick ignores him as he takes a dozen pictures of his new-and-improved legs to share on the family group chat.

They leave the horses at their campsite, and over the duration of the flight to the facility, Bruce forcibly ignores no less than 15 pictures from both Jason and Damian doing squats with increasingly heavy weights in an effort to not be shown up.

Everyone comes together and admits that Cass probably takes it, when there’s a short video of her having Alfred on one shoulder and Steph on the other going down and coming back up without breaking into even the littlest bit of sweat.

It’s a weird but exceedingly pleasant reminder of the home to look forward to once they wrap up here, and it takes more will than it should’ve to not just send a bunch of missiles screaming into the accursed mine run by the accursed men. Instead, they land well before the perimeter alarms, and run over the plan.

“We’re going to verify what it is they’re mining, and then reconvene and plan our next step.” This is exclusively a recon mission, despite his personal feelings. Bruce doesn’t have the jurisdiction to wreck merry hell here, and if there is some important mineral vein down there, even if they shut down this mine they would just have to deal with another one. He can’t even just buy up all the land, because losing land to foreign entities isn’t the Done thing in these parts, and Bruce just has to unfortunately admit that his hands are extremely tied here.

Dick doesn’t seem so eager to go along with the plan. “If we just leave it as is, what’s going to stop them from ramping up production and taking out more kids, B? No, I say we just shut things down right here, right now.”

All teeth.

Bruce tries not to lose his stupid temper, but it’s hard going. “If we blow up the mine now, what stops them from coming back? What stops them from bringing in mercenaries and weapons and making the area a war zone to protect whatever it is they’re mining?” He scowls, but tries to keep his voice even. “Not doing anything means short-term losses and long-term gains. You need to listen to me, Nightwing.”

It’s not a popular opinion. Dick has got a scowl that looks out of place on his face, a snarl to the edge of a lip. “No, B, you need to listen to me . With everything else that’s going on in the world right now, no one’s got any resources to spare to check this place out. The only thing capping production is going to be Luthor’s goodwill, and there’s nothing good about that.”

They glare at each other, on the cusp of a fight, before Nightwing exhales and holds both hands up in a plea for some calm. “Look, I know I’m not exactly the genius strategist type or like, even in the top half of most-skilled-Bat-associates, but I’ve got a plan and can you just listen to it before you shoot me down and insult me?”

The kryptonite’s gone to Dick’s brain, that’s the only explanation. “There’s no ‘top half’, Nightwing,” Bruce says, voice rougher than he means it to be but it’s been gnawing at the back of his brain for weeks and weeks now that Dick somehow thinks he’s lesser. “You’re not less smart, you’re not less capable, you’re not less skilled; you are the one I trust the most.” It’s just tonnes of trust in Dick for all things, ranging from driving the BatWing responsibly to being the final word on decisions that need making while Bruce is indisposed.

Dick just smiles, but he doesn’t look particularly happy. “You say all these things to make a man feel good ‘bout himself, B, but if you trust me so much why the hell won’t you listen to what I have to say?”

Ah.

It comes with unpleasant clarity, squatting in a rock outcropping with the shadow of the mining facility looming in the distance, that if Dick has doubts in himself, how much of a hand did Bruce have in putting them there and letting the rot propagate?

He swallows, and chokes back that sense of perpetual righteousness that comes part and parcel with the cowl. It's one thing to be a controlling asshole in the League when he's the only unpowered human in a room of well-meaning dumbasses who could destroy the world if they woke up in a Mood one morning.

It’s another to be a controlling asshole to his son, who is twice the man he’ll ever be, whose primary character trait is a fundamental goodness that would put Superman to shame.

Dick’s not perfect, but he is damn, damn good, and Bruce won’t lose out to just listen.

He’s been doing a lot of that as Bat-Erdene and neither he nor the children of Inner Mongolia have been led astray, so out in the prairie maybe he can afford to put his money where his mouth is and more aggressively demonstrate how much he believes in Dick.

So Bruce leans back a little, makes an effort to lower his hackles, and breathes deeply.

“I’m sorry,” he says and he means it for many, many things. “I’m listening.”

The plan is chaotic and flashy and buck-fucking-wild, which Bruce has come to realise is quite the done thing with a mission with Dick at the helm. Nightwing can go undercover with the best of them, but given an endless arsenal of makeshift weapons, Bruce would go for a needle, Jason would go for a hammer, and Dick would set fire to the barrel of firecrackers and laugh in the aftermath.

This is that. Late on a mid-pandemic night, the mine is empty of all but the barest security team on the surface. Sneaking past them and down the shaft into where the green veins glow like a ghastly dream isn’t particularly difficult, nor is planting the special bomb charges they’ve cobbled together from BatWing parts. This deep underground his communicator struggles to keep a line to Dick who’s working in the main office, but an emergency would be accompanied by dramatic explosions so things are going to plan, probably.

He sets up the 4th charge at the east side of the mineshaft, and starts making his way back up. He would feel a lot better about this if they had more charges, or just more resources in general, but on a shoestring budget Dick sure knows how to make a little plan look like a big one.

They’ve taken out as much from the energy cell of the Wing that they can while still having enough juice to get them home, and when life only gives you four radioactive bombs, you make do. They’re lucky to have caught on Luthor so quick; the mine’s still new enough and small enough to make a two-man operation feasible, but if they hadn’t caught wind of this when they did…

It doesn’t bear thinking about, so he puts it aside and scales the steep sides of the mine. With the black earth all around he’s more spectral than usual, so thoroughly a shadow that he even gets the drop on Dick when he climbs into the office, face smudged with dirt.

“Jesus, B, you look 175% more wraith-like than usual,” Dick says, hands flying across the keyboard. Trying to leave a fake digital trail of corporate espionage and malpractice stretching over several months over the course of a night is a steep ask, but it’s the same with the bombs and Bruce’s darkened eyebrows and ambiguous twang.

They only need the look of the thing to hold out just enough.

“I’ve planted the charges. Ready when you are.”

With a dramatic flourish Dick signs off on the final incriminating e-mail, and sends it off with a dramatic slam of the enter key. “All the guards have been sent off, and there's nobody here except for you and me. Give it to me straight, big guy; on a scale of 1 to 10, how likely is this gonna work out for us?”

Bruce pulls out the remote detonator he’d cobbled together using a spare burner phone and the gate key fob for the Manor, and hands it to Dick to do the honours. “Wherever we land on the scale, we can work with it.” It’s like the idea of a doctor-y masquerade; sometimes being out and loud is the best way to stay hidden, and it’s somehow a new lesson for this old Bat. “It’s a crazy plan, but it’s a good one.”

Dick beams at him, and even in the full Nightwing get-out, it’s easy to tell he’s genuinely pleased. “Then let’s go go go before we let this place blow baby, blow!”

Sometimes Dick opens his mouth and what comes out is a ghost of a leer, a popped collar, and gelled-back hair, a Cool Guy caricature who’s so earnest he goes from Cool to Uncool and then right back to Cool just by sheer force of personality.

Bruce can’t help snorting in slight amusement; by a deep pit in the ground, who’ll judge him?

They get back to the Wing, get the engines running nice and warm, and from a perch high up in the air, they watch things go ka-boom!

An explosive(!) story spreads at a speed significantly greater than one plane, two men, and four horses, and by the time they’ve done their final round of checks and have arrived at Gantulga’s ger to return his horses, even the herdsman is keen to let them in on the news.

At this point they’ve turned down dinner every single time they’ve been offered it, so when Gantulga insists that he wants to celebrate their safe return with some roast lamb and arkhi , the alcoholic version of thin, clear liquid cheese, they can't and don't want to say no. They sit around the fireplace, the air filter humming happily in the background as they all tuck into a spectacular dinner, while the man shares the news.

“I’m sure you have already heard, but a big coal mine in Muu-us exploded a few days ago. Natural gas accumulation, apparently, but my friend who lives there said the new mine was built on land it shouldn’t have been built on, so…” Gantulga shrugs, as though the outcome is obvious. Maybe it is. Mongolian spirits couldn’t be fans of Luthor if he was pumping out particles that were killing their children, after all.

Bruce nods politely, knocking back the liquor and telling himself that he enjoys the taste of powerful rancid yoghurt. “We were already heading back here, but we heard about it. Did anyone get hurt?”

Gantulga shakes his head. “No, no locals were hurt. Apparently the company in charge of it was a big foreign one, and the government found radiation there so now there’s a big international fight because the foreigners were secretly mining for things they shouldn't have.” The man cackles as he grabs a piece of lamb, peruses it and finds it to be of above-average quality, and drops it in his wife’s plate. “Good riddance to them. We have enough problems without outsiders interfering, eh, Bat-Erdene?”

“We certainly do have a lot of problems, but now at least there’s one less,” Bruce concedes diplomatically.

Most of the way through the meal, little Idree coughs a little, and as one all four adults turn to look at the toddler in alarm. Gantulga’s wife gently rubs her back, frowning lightly. “She has been a lot better since you and the Doctor came to see her,” Zayaa says, then looks a little surprised when Dick asks for Idree in pretty good Mongolian.

While Dick looks over the girl, listening to her breathing with the stethoscope that has had pride of place around his neck these past few weeks, Gantulga looks at Bruce with some surprise. “The Doctor speaks our language now?”

Dick tells Zayaa in atrocious grammar but a passable accent that the girl appears to have just choked on a little chunk of vegetable, calming down the tiny toddler with hands that have looked after many a younger brother and Mongolian child.

Gantulga grins at Bruce, smacks him heartily on the back. “Looks like the Doctor has learned the right words!”

Bruce doesn’t get a chance to reply, because Dick has turned and is beaming a million-watt smile directly into Gantulga’s face. “Of course,” Dick says, looking as at home in this warm, warm ger in the plains as he does in his police officer's uniform, as he does in a tux at the Manor, as he does leaping off a building to apprehend a bad man. He reaches over, and smacks Bruce even harder on the back. “I had a good, good teacher.”

And that, well beyond the alcohol and the company and the wellness of thousands of children and the thorn they’ve shoved right into Lex’s side, is what goes straight to Bruce’s head, and he goes bright bright red much to the absolute delight of absolutely everyone.

Dick raises his glass of arkhi, a shit-eating grin on his face. “To good health and Bat-Erdene!”

Bruce can’t have that, so he raises his glass and says with resolute calmness,

“To good health and better children.”

And that’s that on that, thank you very much.

---

T/N: I think a lot about what it’s like for Dick to grow up and gradually feel outclassed by increasingly outlandishly overpowered younger siblings and father figure, missing how the world runs less on existential angst and violence, and more on the willingness to be kind in the face of a lot of unkindness.

#nightwing #batman #bruce wayne #dick grayson #inner mongolia #god trying to figure out a viable solution to a conflict i created was so hard #saved by a fuckin breakfast mcmuffin #how many times did i mention dick's laugh or smile #u ain't discreet i say to myself #next up is batman vs something supernatural #fists up bruce wayne picks a fight with a cryptid and will NOT be stopped #hope everyone is taking care of themselves in these dank days!!#whale writing

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kpoptrashmx · 4 years

Text

A Misunderstanding: Lee Minho Soulmate Au Pt.3

Hey guys, I know it’s been a while since I posted for this series and I would like to apologize for that. In the past couple of years, I have had things happening in my life for the good and the worse which has affected my overall health. Because of that, I was never in the right headspace to continue this series. But every now and then, I’ll get notification that people have read my series which makes me happy. Now, that everything is okay with me, I have decided to continue writing and finishing up this series. There will be another part to this with an epilogue in the end so do look out for that! But for now, do enjoy the continuation of this series, part 3 of A Misunderstanding!

PS: It’s been a while since I’ve written so that quality might be bad...

PSS: If you have any questions or requests do leave them in my box, I’ll be sure to read and write them because I have nothing else to do during quarantine now

But anyways, do enjoy reading!

- Iman

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Genre: Romance, Soulmate Au, Themes of Hanahaki Disease, Slight Angst

Pairing: Lee Minho (Stray Kids) x Reader

Word Count: 3195 words

Description: Y/N and Minho have been best friends for their entire life and have bonded as soulmates but there is one problem within this fantasy. Minho has been blinded and tricked by a fellow classmate by making him believe that he is her soulmate. A replica of Y/N and Minho’s soulmate bond has been tattooed on her body in spite of stealing him away from his original lover to fulfill her needs and crush on him. Now, if Y/N doesn’t find a way to bring Minho back to reality and become an official couple before the end of their high school careers, she will have to suffer from internal and external pain for the rest of her life because of the separation from her one and only. Will Y/N be able to make her best friend and her soulmate realize that she’s the one for him before it’s all too late? Or will she have to suffer the life-long consequences?

Prologue / Part 1 / Part 2

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Minho’s POV

“Minho have you heard of soulmates? My grandma told me that two people who have the same mark on their body and fall in love with each other when they get older!” “That’s cool! I wonder if we have a mark or the same mark!” I remember hearing Y/N talk about the concept of soulmates when we were younger and it always intrigued me. After my mark was visible on the side of my torso, I always walked around town pulling up people’s sleeves and taking a quick glance at their arms to find a mark that was somewhat similar or identical to my own, however I couldn’t find anyone with any marks with birds flying and a bouquet of flowers so I started to lose faith and hope in the whole idea of soulmates. When senior year came along, I found Seoyun, my soulmate. I was ecstatic to finally find my soulmate after 17 years of finding them, but it affected my friendship with Y/N so badly I have caused her so much damage and pain. All this time, I was blinded by a girl who wanted me for my popularity and skills rather than falling in love with a gain who knew me inside and out and was always there for me no matter the time of day or the place I was at. However, I only realised my mistakes after seeing my best friend suffering alone at the hospital with a chance of either dying or losing all emotions due to her diagnosis of Hanahaki Disease. In order to find out more about my mistake and to learn in-depth, I decided to go back to the countryside quickly to visit my grandparents and the local shaman to talk about this issue.

An hour bus ride back to Gimpo from Seoul is enough time for me to read the book Jennie gave me when we saw each other in the hospital. She told me to read it in order to understand what soulmates are and the consequences of soulmate rejections. I remember seeing this book in my parents’ house because of their special bond. My mother and father consequently are soulmates and they found out about their faith in college and got married a few years after the whole incident. When I get back, I want to talk to both of them about their experiences with the whole concept of soulmates. Anyways here we go, hopefully by the end of this, I can understand fully about this concept Y/N dearly loved ever since she was a child, fix my mistakes and make it up to her no matter what it takes.

Gimpo Station, Gimpo Station. We will be arriving at Gimpo Station shortly.

Well, that’s my station, hopefully both my grandparents and parents are home so that I can talk to all of them. I need to do this quickly before something bad happens to Y/N while I’m out. I make my way to my small house where I used to grow up in in the countryside, a lot of memories flash through my mind especially my memories with Y/N. The playground reminded me of the times where I would play at the swings with Y/N and push her from behind, I still here her scream “Push me higher! I want to touch the skies'' in my head. Makes me chuckle knowing that sometimes she’d lose her grip and fall on her face. Damn… she means a lot to me but I’m so lost, confused and blinded. I walk through the gates of my house and open the doors, a familiar smell of the house hits my nostril and brings me back to my childhood days, “Eomma, I’m home!” I reunited with my parents after 3 years of not seeing them because of my studies in Seoul and my dancing career under JYP Entertainment. Brief hugs and kisses are given but after all of that commotion, I pull both my grandparents and parents into the living so that we could talk about my problems and issues back in Seoul. “Eomma, Appa, I wanted to ask you about relationships and soulmate bonds in specific... Can you tell me about your story about how you met, how you got together. Also can you explain why this whole soulmate thing is really important and why people who are bonded should be other and not with other people?”

“I see that you're having problems with Y/N and Seoyun, and you’re unsure who your real soulmate is. Don’t worry my child, we’ll help you find your true identity and loved one. I hope you have time on your hands because there’s a lot to talk about. So, sit down and pay attention to what we have to say.”

After hours sitting down with my parents and finally understanding the concept of soulmates with their expertise, I have come to a conclusion that I have in fact messed up and caused great pain to the person that has been by my side since we were young and always supported my dreams. I don’t know if she’ll ever forgive me for the pain and agony I have caused her but, I’ll do anything to make sure things are cleared between the both of us. I need to fix what I have caused and end things with Seoyun even if it means certain consequences. Before I take my leave back to Seoul, my parents give me their last advice and hand me a good luck charm hoping that I can mend things before things are too late.

“Minho, my baby, you need to know that the hanahaki disease may or may not take Y/N’s life after this considering the stage she’s currently in right now. It may hurt you and cause you pain after this as there were mishaps along the way that require consequences so do keep that in mind, but remember we’ll always be by your side and will help if you need anything from here onwards, okay?” My parents say while bringing me into a warm hug for support. I thank them and make my way out of the house and back to Seoul where I need to make things right with the girl I love.

Y/N’s POV

Bright lights start coming into view and hushed noises start surrounding me as I wake up.

“Hey babe, you’re finally awake. How are you feeling right now? Feeling better?” Jennie comes up to me from the chair across the room with a bottle of water in hand. I nod my head to her last question as my throat feels too dry to give a reply. “Here take this and drink up”

As I drink up the water she offers me, so many things start going around in my head. Am I okay? What’s going to happen to me after this? Is everything going to be alright? Am I even breathing properly?

“Where is Minho?” I ask Jennie.

She looked at me unsure of what to say which made me think he’s probably with Seoyun right now doing whatever. The thought of them together makes me so agitated that I started to cough out more flower petals in the process. Jennie looks at me frightened and runs out of the room in search of a nurse. As she leaves, I come to a decision that I can’t live like this anymore and decide to go through with the removal surgery regardless of the consequences that come with it. I look at the clock beside me and hope for whatever faith has in mind for my future.

Minho’s POV

After arriving in Seoul after a long bus ride, I start making my way to Seoyun’s house to break things off with her and start fixing things with the girl I was supposed to be with a long time ago. Along the way, I start to think of ways to make it up to Y/N and how to apologize to her for all of the troubles and pain I have caused her. Seeing Seoyun’s house in the distance, I dash up to her front step hoping to end things quickly and make my way to the hospital. I knock on the door and wait a bit for her to come down. While standing outside, I hear her come down quickly and hear a slight tud.

“Jagi what are you doing here? It’s late” Seoyun opens the door abruptly while looking slightly disheveled. I look at her up and down in confusion. While I am suspicious of her previous activities, I make my way into her home and sit on the couch telling her that we have to talk which makes her a bit uneasy.

“Seoyun, just tell me the truth, are you really my soulmate?” I ask while I look up at her while she’s fixing her hair and shirt. “Of course, I am. Why are you asking that so suddenly? Why are we even talking about this right now? Can we talk about this tomorrow morning, I need to sleep babe” She answers back. While I look at her I can tell she doesn’t feel comfortable and looks as if she wants me out of the house. Her uneasiness raises some suspicion in me and makes me think she’s hiding something from me.

“Why do you seem so uneasy and why do you want to talk about this tomorrow morning and not right now?” I ask her while taking some steps towards her. As she’s about to answer me, I hear a low voice talking in the background, “Babe, are you still talking to him? Are you not coming back upstairs?” I look around to see a head pop up at the staircase. Tensions start rising between the three of us and the puzzle pieces start coming together.

Seoyun looks back at me and the figure at the staircase and seems to come to a realization that things have gone wrong. I look back at Seoyun in anger and start asking her who that man was and what was going on right now. She looks back at me in fear and has nothing to say to the situation that unfolded. While she’s flabbergasted at the situation, I look back at the man and start approaching him to find out what was going on. “Who are you and what are you doing in my girlfriend’s house?” I ask him. He looks back at me, “I was going to ask the same thing”. We both look back at Seoyun hoping to get an answer to our questions and that’s when the truth starts coming out for the first time from her.

“Okay stop, Minho, you’re not my soulmate. I was just using you because I wanted the fame and wanted to have more status at school. Also, I was jealous of the bond you had with Y/N so I wanted to take that away from you and have it all to myself. I didn’t know how to do it but I found that pretending to be your soulmate was the way to have my plans to go the way I wanted them too.” Seoyun confesses with no remorse on her face. She looks at the man beside me with love in her eyes and quickly glances back at me “But now, since I found my true soulmate, I don’t need you anymore”. Her final sentences create so much emotion in my body that I didn’t know how to react. The man beside me could tell that things were settling in my mind and I was going to take action for her faults, so he reacted by holding me back before things went down.

“I can’t believe you did this to me and Y/N! Because of your selfiness, she’s in the hospital hurt and suffering because of you and your selfish gain. You have a soulmate now and you know the consequences that come with it if you reject him. If you rejected him, he would be in the hospital right now contemplating whether he wanted his emotions removed, but no, you found a way to use me and find your true soulmate. But guess what? That’s what Y/N is going through right now because of your bullshit! You hurt me and Y/N, I hope you understand the problems you’ve caused!” I start screaming at her while thrashing around in the man’s grip. I look back at the man holding me to see some pain and regret in his eyes for the things his soulmate has done to two innocent people who were minding their own businesses.

I jump out of the man’s hold and start making my way out of the house. Before I leave, I look back and say, “Seoyun, I hope you understand what you’ve done and let’s say things that you had in your plan will be crumbling down when I see you in school again.” With that, I walk out of the house and start making my way to the hospital to start fixing things with Y/N. I take out my phone and start looking through my contact list. “Chan, I’m on the way to the hospital. I broke up with Seoyun and found out the truth behind my relationship with her. Now, I need to fix my friendship with Y/N before it’s all too late.”

Y/N’s POV

Jennie manages to find a nurse who comes to help calm down my coughing fit and keep things in place for the time being. After she helps with my coughing fit, she starts to check my vitals to make sure everything is okay and to see if my condition is stable after what has happened. I looked at the nurse and asked her to bring my doctor in as I needed to talk to him about my decision. The nurse nods at my request and makes her way out of the room to find my doctor. After a while, the doctor makes their way into the room and takes a seat at the edge of my bed.

“You called me in Y/N to discuss something?” The doctor asks. I look back up at him and say that I wanted to go through with the removal surgery. “Alright then, I’ll get the documents ready and we will go through with the surgery.” He touched my lower leg as a way of an understanding and support and made his way out of the room. I lay back on my bed and contemplate whether I have made the right choice.

I heard a door swing open. I look up to see Chan and Jennie standing at the door catching their breaths.

“Y/N please don't go through with the surgery please. It’s not worth it”. Chan and Jennie saying hoping to persuade me out of the decision I just made. “I can’t guys. I just told the doctors I wanted to go through with it. Plus, Minho is with Seoyun, I don’t have the power and strength to keep this up anymore. I need to get rid of the flowers in my chest even if it means no more romantic feelings.” I say as I look at the room around me too scared to look at them in the eyes. “Y/N, Minho’s on the way to the hospital. You don’t have to do this. He said that he called it quits with Seoyun and wants to fix his friendship and build a relationship with you. He knows how much he fucked up and how blinded he was to not see that the love of his life was helping and aiding him the whole time and was right in front of him. He knows the whole soulmate thing by heart now and wants to make things right for you and him.” Chan says to me while making his way towards the bed. He takes my hand in his and looks me in the eyes and says, “Don’t go through with this surgery Y/N because now it will hurt the both of you.”

I take my hand away from his grip and look at the both of them.

“Sorry guys what’s done is done. I am going through this no matter what.”

Minho’s POV

After making it to the hospital, I get on the lift and make my way to Y/N floor. As the elevator doors open, I see a stretcher being taken away from a familiar room, and realize who was on that stretcher. “Y/N don’t please! I’ve come to make amends” I shout from the lift. As I shout, I see the doctors and nurse look back from the stretcher and point in my direction to show Y/N that someone was here for them. I see her head pop out from the strecther and lay right back down on it. I start running towards them and ask the doctors to give us a moment. The doctors agreed and walked away to allow us to settle some things.

“Y/N I know I fucked up and I know I caused you so much pain without even realizing it, but I want things to work between us and restore the things we were supposed to do together as soulmates. I just broke up with Seoyun and found out the truth from her. I know you might not forgive but please give me another chance so I can make it up to you. Please call off the surgery and let’s fix things together.” I begged while holding onto the handles of the stretcher. I feel a few tears running down my face as I try to hold in my sobs. I could help but feel like an asshole as I hurt the person that loved me more than anyone, and to see her goes through this surgery pains me even more. While sch thoughts are going through my mind, I feel a hand on my face wiping my tears away. I open my eyes to see Y/N with her arm out with a slight smile on her face.

Before I could say anything to her, she spoke up. “Even after all the times we’ve been through together and even having those connecting thoughts or even finishing each other sentences, this took you a while to understand which makes me question if you’re really my soulmates.” She says while touching my face. She lets out a small giggle which warms my heart.

I take her hand in mind and I look straight into her eyes, “Y/N I know I’m in the wrong but I want to make things work between us even if it means damaging my health for you. We can make things work out and I finally understand that you’re the one for me. I’m sorry for what I’ve done. Please forgive me and call this surgery off. I’ll nurse and help you back into good health and fix things between us first, and you can decide our future together after that.”

#stray kids #lee minho #lee know x reader #a misunderstanding ff #lee minho x reader #bang chan #pt3 #kpop imagines #kpop scenarios #stray kids imagines #stray kids scenarios #blackpink jennie #soulmate a #hanahaki disease

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